From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sun Sep 02 2001 - 10:07:39 MDT
Charlie Stross wrote:
>
> I suspect it goes back to the seed effect of the extropian principles, Max
> More's original declaration, and group-think within the original extropian
> cadre -- who are, to be fair, Americans and largely drawn from (a) hard-SF
> readers and (b) the technology venture culture of Northern California.
I must say that I came by ExI by rather different means, albiet I did
find the group on the internet. I was doing a web search in 1994 or so
for a friend, of websites on Rome, as he wanted to take a vacation there
and wanted to find places to stay, visit, etc. Upon typing "Rome" into
the search engine, the top of the list was the "Romana Machado World
Headquarters". Turns out that Romana was an early extrope, a programmer
at Apple, etc. and although the extropians list wasn't available to
non-members at the time, the transhumanist email list was, and
eventually I did join ExI and the list.
Prior to that point, I had never gone to an SF convention, though I'd
read a goodly amount of SF as a teenager, nor was I into comic books at
all. Heinlein and Rand were some heavy philosophical influences for me
though, despite Rand's terrible literary style.
Fanboy? No, nor a faaan, but I did find Niven's "Falling Angels"
entertaining. I still have never been to an SF convention (or a comic
book con, or other sort). Extro-5 is the first non-industrial convention
I've ever been to. I tend to not be a 'joiner', or a follower.
I suppose the closest indictable offense is that I came from the
technology venture culture of Seattle, but I am not native to that area,
nor have I lived there for 6 years, and I was generally an outsider
while I was there.
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