den Otter wrote:
>
> --Right now, there are hardly any projects (that I'm aware of) that
> deal with the practical side of facing the future. Ideally, there
> would be a transhuman network that could at least partially survive
> a collapse of society. I know, it sounds paranoid, but when your
> goal is immortality, and you live on earth, you *better* be "paranoid".
> Also a >H network of this kind would have many useful spinoffs such
> as suspension facilities and community forming. One thing that would
> certainly be needed is a radio network: in case of some disaster
> the net would be one of the first things to go.
This is an extremely good and valid idea. however, the practicalities of communicating effectively over intercontinental distances make such a network reasonably expensive, and also, if the balloon really DOES go up, you'd want to be careful that you aren't targetted by surviving military elements zeroing in on your signals.
> --If you want a "clean" image *and* the practical "survivalist" stuff,
> you need to create separate organizations. There are already several
> educational organizations (WTA, ExI, WFS etc) but none that deal
> specifically with the practical side of transhumanism: how can we
> maximalize our chances to survive and flourish in the twilight of
> humanity and beyond? Such an organization would most likely be
> low-profile, since others do the message-spreading, and would
> mostly draw members from within the transhuman community. Touchy
> but practical (or just interesting) issues would be handled on
> a separate list.
Well, this is also a practical idea. But you're advocating a survivalist, apocalyptic group, with all that entails.
> The problem is, if we were to chat on this list so that it is
> acceptable and understandable to most people, the discussions
> would be, um, rather lame. I've said it before, and I'll say it
> again: what we need is a private list, where one can speak freely.
> Censorship is bad for any conversation...
Isn't this a private list? It's not a newsgroup. I'm not a member of the Extropy Institute, mainly because I can't afford it. What would happen to me? Would I be excluded? I would suspect that if someone who strongly disagreed with the issues discussed here came along they'd just get bored and unsubscribe. It's not like we're all columnists in a newspaper...
Dwayne
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