Re: Cryonics/Nanotech Skepticism

J. Maxwell Legg (income@ihug.co.nz)
Fri, 14 Aug 1998 23:54:04 +1200

Today I learnt some new words from classical greek. They are "ducation", "enter" "erospace", "cience", and last but not least "echnology". I learnt these word forms from the website of ASTEC. I did so only after Robin Hanson's misattribution to what doug bailey wrote. Initially the typo seemed to me to have been a hidden move. It may turn out not to be so. I understand this and offer the following for its spoof value only.

Thanks.

Robin Hanson wrote:

> doug bailey wrote:
> >... The more dramatic the implications of a echnology are,
> >he more heated (and irrational) skeptics an be.

EARLIER TODAY:

"The above phrase seems to be from an ancient greek occult system." I thought to myself.

Indeed there is even a "College of echnology" on Infoseek. Pardon my ignorance.

"But, is this like an 'ethnology'?". Hanson rarely makes deliberate mistakes and on such a precise subject matter, or so I thought.

On further inspection the hard "c" [as in ekus; meaning "out of us"] and the "human: h", "knowledge: no", "study:logy" [as in ec'h`no'logy] could, at a stretch, turn out to be an occult greek code word for that little something that you and I don't know anything about. Coded to look like a typo.

But in the meantime, I had to find out just what 'echnology' is all about. Well my guess, from reading the rest of Hanson's reply, was that echnology is a scholarly plateau of surmising of what may become a new Technology. [N.B. here the first letter "T" has been added to a the greek root combinatoric "ec+h+no+logy".]

Extropy could be, I considered, a first rate 'echnology' [which I took to be a science in "all likelihood" and will, when proven, become an accepted technology.]

Am I making any sense and would anyone like to hear more?

ciao,
j.