Re: Censorship

From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Wed May 29 2002 - 10:18:19 MDT


On Wednesday, May 29, 2002, at 08:52 am, Aragorn wrote:

> This is most startling!
> Do you have any examples or urls to share?

Sadly, yes. A Google search reveals the websites that seem to think
Extropians are racists, or somehow connected to eugenics, white
supremacy or other such groups.

The worst example of this confusion were the Extropians@MIT, which
caused a big stir by sending racist literature to new students using a
stolen address list after their material was excluded from the welcome
packets as being racist. They had their own mailing lists, websites,
newsletter, chat forums, and printed literature.... all under our name!
There were many online and printed articles attacking the "racist
Extropians" and fighting the "racist Extropian movement" that was trying
to push their way onto campus. As far as anybody could tell, they were
us.

--
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
________________________________________
<http://www.sidewalksandwich.com/bios/neoprofit.htm>
"I am an extropian. I believe in eugenics,...."
________________________________________
<http://www.wcotc.com/euvolution/links.htm> is a eugenics groups that 
lists extropy.org on their list of related links.
________________________________________
<http://home.thegrid.net/~india-eugenics/links.html> lists "Eugenics" 
and "Transhumanist" sites as if they are related topics.  Their list 
includes extropy.org.
________________________________________
<http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/TranshumPolitics.htm>
"The Politics of Transhumanism by James J. Hughes, PhD"
"few women involved in the extropian subculture, and there have been 
women who left the list citing the dominant adolescent, hyper-masculine 
style of argumentation."
"Occasional examples of transhumanists with fascist leanings appeared in 
the 1990s on the extropian lists and associated with the milieu"
"it was revealed that a website, Xenith.com, that had joined a 
Transhuman webring was filled with neo-Nazi propaganda, white 
nationalist essays and links, and  racialist eugenics."
________________________________________
<http://www.geniebusters.org/33_postnazi.html>
"I am an admirer of Nazi Germany as a model of transhumanism."
"the Third Reich is the only model we have of a Transhumanist state"
"my revisionist views were posted to the Extropian list in December of 
1996, and are a matter of public record."
"As I said on the Extropian list a few years ago, I don't want to be 
part of the Transhumanist Master Race, nor do I want to be the New 
Extropian Man."
________________________________________
<http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/activity/o/observer/www/1-1/articles/
ad1.html>
"MIT Extropians Anger Many by Anna Dirks"
"In recent weeks, a group of students known as the Extropians touched 
off a heated campus debate, when they sent an unapproved mailing to all 
the incoming freshmen in the class of 2001."
"Among the Extropians' assertions cited as inappropriate by the
administration were statements that "The average woman and 
'under-represented' minority at MIT is less intelligent, less 
intellectual and less ambitious"
________________________________________
<http://www-tech.mit.edu/V117/N30/anders.30c.html>
"Extropians Take Their Cue from Bigotry; Column by Anders Hove; Opinion 
Editor"
"The average woman at MIT is less intelligent and ambitious than
the average man at MIT. The average 'underrepresented' minority at MIT is
less intelligent and ambitious than the average non-Œunderrepresented'
minority.  So say the MIT Extropians on their World Wide Web site
http://mit.edu/extropians/"
________________________________________
<http://web.mit.edu/institvte/WWW/v4n27.html>
" The document begins with a few short paragraphs on Extropianism (part 
of which is the idea that the mind should be uploaded onto computers), 
onto which are tacked several pages of very shoddy polemic about the 
inferiority of women and underrepresented minorities.  Mailings to 
incoming freshmen automatically represent MIT, and this clearly isn't 
the forum for the Extropians' bile."
"read their page, http://mit.edu/extropians/. You probably won't enjoy 
it, but the first step in dealing with it appropriately is understanding 
why it's there and where it comes from.  Though much of it is just 
bigotry,"
________________________________________
<http://www-tech.mit.edu/V117/N30/brown.30c.html>
"Extropians' Poorly-Made Case Won't Win Any Converts; Guest column by 
Jeremy H. Brown"
"a message that can inspire knee-jerk calls of misogynism, racism, and 
long-winded boorishness."
________________________________________
<http://web.mit.edu/bho/www/memes.html>
"It's funny, i can always tell, by reading their writings, that someone 
is an objectivist/libertarian/extropian/etc."
[and the very next paragraph is]
"Why does Europe hate Israel?" [...]  "latent anti-semitism"
________________________________________
<http://members.lycos.co.uk/spiritmind/synergise/bookmark.htm>
categorizes the Extropian Principles under "spiritual, conspiracy and 
holistic thought"
________________________________________
<http://www.totse.com/en/fringe/fringe_science/extrprin.html>
categorizes extropians with new age pseudoscience
  ________________________________________


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