Max,
Certainly professional teleconferencing is expensive and a poor substitute for the experience of actually being there. However, images, video, audio, and text could be routed over the Internet in real time relatively inexpensively. For example, panel discussions could have questions posed in an IRC styled medium and replies send through Real Audio. (Unfortunately, this is not an area I have enough knowledge in to give detailed specifics. It will be interesting to hear what William John and others have to say.)
I do agree covering Extro 4 electronically might prove difficult to implement on any large scale, but I think selective coverage would have symbolic value.
Ed
-----Original Message-----
From: Max More [mailto:maxmore@globalpac.com] Sent: Friday, October 16, 1998 12:00 AM To: extropians@extropy.com Cc: Edward.Sona@pobox.com; maxmore@globalpac.com Subject: Re: EXTRO 4 planning--feedback please
At 11:29 PM 10/14/98 -0500, Ed Sona wrote:
>
>Certainly geography is and will be an issue. Why not incorporate
>teleconferencing or other technologies and make Extro 4 a worldwide event
>with its hub in a physical location?
The expense may pose difficulties for this idea. If someone has experience with teleconferencing and wants to look into this for the event, I'm open to the idea. I'm not sure how well teleconferencing works for a large event, rather than for a small roundtable meeting. Perhaps it would best to set up teleconferencing for a limited part of the event, maybe in a place apart from the talks room.
If one of you knows about how to set this up and what it would cost, and what equipment would be needed at the distal end, please let me know.
The current level of technology certainly doesn't make teleconferencing a good substitute for actually being there. Previous EXTROs have drawn transhumanists from all over Europe and as far away as Australia. Marinating in extropian company for a few days is an experience that's hard to beat!
Max
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