From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 06 2000 - 15:23:55 MST
J. R. Molloy wrote:
> Dan Fabulich wrote,
>
> > Extropy doesn't mean negentropy. Extropy is a normative term; entropy
> > is a physical variable.
>
> Okay, extropy means "the extent of a system's intelligence, information,
> order, vitality, and capacity for improvement."
> http://extropy.org/extprn3.htm
Entropy SYMBOLIZES heat death, chaos, homogeneity, things running down
until they break, etc. But it's only a physical variable. No
extropian actually opposes the increase of physical entropy. We
oppose the increase of entropic ideas, of things running down until
they break, of homogeneity. We endorse spontaneous order (which is
really a series of physically entropic processes) and, if we need to
bother, preventing universal heat death.
> > But, more generally, adopting transhumanism generally tends to provoke
> > rather strong views about what society should look like. While
> > extropians envision society with increasing extropy, there are a heck
> > of a lot of transhumans who are technocratic, socialist, fascist,
> > liberal democrats, conserative republicans, etc. (This is not name
> > calling; most of those who are, for example, transhuman fascists
> > self-identify that way.) Calling these views extropic is misleading
> > at best.
>
> If "extropians envision society with increasing extropy" it seems to me
> that view can include transhumanism. Rather than misleading, I think that
> calling the views of transhumanists extropic helps to establish some
> common ground, and it also helps to update whatever paradigms attach to
> old, established ideologies such as you list. In simplistic terms (I like
> reductionism), entropy correlates to death and dying; while extropy
> corresponds to life and living. Extropians can define extropy any way we
> want to, obviously. I just think it's more extropic to include
> transhumanism than to exclude it. Personally, I find both transhumanism
> and extropianism to be more extropic than anything else except dhyana (a
> Sanskrit word roughly translated as meditation).
No, this misses the point that transhuman fascists, for example, are
in no way extropic, not even by virtue of the fact that they support
transhumanism.
If you must nitpick, I suppose they're more entropic than luddites,
but that's really not saying very much.
Transhumanism without a commitment to extropy is just transhumanism.
This can turn into an extropic society, or it can turn out in a
dystopic socialist nightmare.
Consider, for example, the Nazis, <dum dum dum, discussion ends> many
of whom would self-identify as transhuman fascists. In a possible
Nazi future, the Aryan technocratic elite would live forever, and the
rest of us would be enslaved or crushed. But just because the Aryan
elite would use High Tech to live forever doesn't mean that a Nazi
future would be anything close to extropic. And they'd hardly mind
that. As far as they're concerned, extropy is dumb.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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