>H Dilettantism (Was: Strengths and weakneses in transh)
N.Bostrom@lse.ac.uk
Mon, 19 Aug 96 21:32:33 GMT
I my opinion Cheer Leader Anders missed out one of our most
serious vices in his list (posted on the >H mailing list)
over the weakneses of the transhumanist movement:
Dilettantism.
Robin Hanson has complained about this recently. There are
so many people who think they know something:they make very
strong claims -and in many cases they don't even have a
first degree in the subject!
I realise that when it comes to fields that are not covered
by the academic curriculum, one has to relax one's standards
somewhat. But this does not mean that we should tolerate
ignorance or that we should lower our aims. To the contrary,
we should work towards the degree of discipline and
responsibility that characterise the top 20% of the academic
community. We certainly have a long way to go, but if we do
enough progress we can hope that the academic establishment
will take over when we have carried it through half way.
People in other "movements", especially our opponents, are
often worse than we are. So what.
Niklas Bostrom n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk