>>> Maybe there should be various factions (like the extropians)
I've just read, with an increasing smile on my face, *ThiGMOO,* by Eugene
Byrne (London: Earthlight, 1999).
A global `Marxist extropian' revolution is fomented by several hundred
`erams' - `Electronic Replication of a Mind-set', also Latin for `I was'.
Built in a British university Museum of Mind, but evicted from there, the
sims take over a secret corporate mega-computer in Islamic revolutionary
desert nation Dilmun, renaming their nano-AI LENIN (Limitless Engine of
Nanotechnological INtelligence'.
>>> under the transhumanist banner (maybe we need "social posthumans"
Told (unreliably) by eram Myles Burnham, gentleman pornographer. Principals include insistently reactionary Sir John Westgate, head of the History Dept, Univ. of Wessex, Dr Katharine Beckford, Curator of the Museum, eram revolutionary Harry Dillon, last human Trotskyite socialist Derek Pilbeam and his monstrously fat and gluttonous Russian bride Tatiana, various erams of diverse eras, and Xena-like game figure Ninja Princess Yolanda. Etc.
The opening is misleadingly coarse, broad Benny Hill humour. Things slowly improve. In fact, the technology at the start - cheap humanoid sexbots roaming the streets (too advanced), Myles losing control of his speech processor (insufficiently advanced) - are inconsistent with what develops, quite amusingly. Well, extropians might not be amused.
Damien Broderick