From: "dwayne " <dwayne@morphine.neuron.net>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 6:42 PM
Subject: Re: Clueless Bio Futurists
> [ Charset ISO-8859-1 unsupported, converting... ]
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > > Looks like procedings from a conference I attended last year.
> > > > They're not clueless, given that you reject a singularity
> > > > and anticipate human expansion will follow a sigmoid curve.
> > > > While we all agree the sigmoid is unlikely until we bump
> > > > the limits of nature, others disagree. A lot genuinely
> > > > believe we'll knock ourselves off soon.
> > >
> > > Yeah, I'm one of them. 30 years, I'd say.
> > >
> > > Dwayne
> > >
> >
> > You've got the conch shell, Dwayne. I'd like to hear your reasoning.
>
> The entire history of the human race.
We've survived it so far :-)
>
> you're kidding, right? You really think we will survive the mucking about
that is being
> done now?
>
Maybe not exactly you and me. I'd say we are in for the classic chinese
"interesting times", no doubt about it. But extinction? That's a tough one.
> I understand people here are a *bit* biased in favour of tech, but look at
the monkeys
> pushing the buttons and tell me we are all safe.
>
You know, we haven't even killed ourselves with nukes yet, nor even a really
very large proportion of our population. Or with bioweapons. That's either a
damned miracle, or some hint that our crazy world has some kinds of checks
and balances built in somewhere. Or a bit of both.
> > I don't think you are alone in this idea, although I am yet to be
convinced
> > of it's validity. If I keep seeing documentaries about Easter Island,
> > though, I might start having nightmares...
>
> Well, basically, I think some bio-weapon will get loose and do us in, or
something will
> stuff up the biosphere and take us out.
>
Well, ok, that's not an unusual position to support. Leaving aside realism,
I'm not sure how useful it is to go down that path; just not very
constructive. But, that's a personal choice.
> My current long-term plans involve somewhere remote and defensible,
ostensibly because I
> like the bush and want to set up an eco-village/community thing, but I'm
also aware that
> such a device would be mighty useful at some point in the future, at least
until I can
> afford an asteroid stocked with supermodel DNA and a clone factory.
>
> I'm less pessimistic about some funky physics prac taking out this end of
the universe,
> but the biologicals are just WAY yoo fuzzy for me to feel comfortable
with. We are
> tinkering with incredibly complex systems, without understanding what we
are tinkering
> with, let alone what the effects of our tinkering will be.
Well, heading for the hills wont save you if you are right. Getting off
planet is a decent idea... I think a lot of us support getting offworld and
establishing something of humanity elsewhere, as a racial backup plan.
Emlyn
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