From: Hagbard Celine (hagbard@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Fri Sep 12 1997 - 04:21:57 MDT
Holly Pearson wrote:
> I have been a subscriber to Extropy since issue #4. Despite a
> tendency towards callousness and an almost blind faith that the free-market
> will fix everything, I have continued to tap in to the extropian culture
> becuase despite the lopsidded nature of many extropians viewpoints, there
> is amazing cogitation going on here. I would be a fool not to utilize
> that.
So using people is not so bad after all...
>
> BUT:
>
> Extropianism has as its basic tenet the goal of surpassing all limits
> to our freedom. But as extropians rush to shed the tryannies of
> government, authority, death and taxes they rush to embrace the blind tyranny
> of evolution and the free-market. You have accepted the slavery of
> natural selection and market pressures to get ajob. the extropian tyrannical
> maxim is: Evolve or die!
If natural selection is as tyrannical as government, authority, death
and taxes, and as adverse to freedom, why would any extropian
transhumanist rush to embrace it?
You have done very little homework on this one.
Have you ever encountered, in you two-year sojourn through extropian
culture, the term "autoevolution?"
Perhaps not.
While I cannot speak for extropians in general, my personal transhuman
goals tend to eviscerate biological fundamentalism. I don't want to be a
slave to natural selection any more than you do. What do you think about
autoevolution? Why cannnot humanity, with enough information and
technology, eventually control and/or guide its own evolution apart from
natural selection? I'd appreciate a cogent argument.
> Please witness the following posts made in
> the last 24 hours:
>
> Andrea Gallagher:
>
> I worry about the people who are completely excluded in participating
> in our economy by drug laws, sub-standard education, and welfare traps.
> Fix those problems and I bet we could handle your hard cases.
>
> Me: Who said the solution is geting these people back to work? I want
> to eliminate mandatory work altogether. Prosperity w/o drudgery is my
> goal! Pass the joint!
Wait, now. You like RAW's RICH economy, but you don't like putting
people out of work with robotics? Are you trying to be inscrutable on
purpose? I read _Schroedinger's Cat_ and _Right Where You are Sitting
Now_ and in each discussion of the RICH economy, RAW allowed for people
to design themselves out of their jobs via machinery. What do you really
want -- people working as per status quo, or people not working as per
RAW's suggested plan?
> QueenMuse:
>
> The "LIVNGRY" you speak of has "enabled" the corfters for JUST long
> enough to destroy their livelihood! As with Native Americans, it also sets
> up a system where the government has
> control, a hand out, and the power to provide - and the populace is
> "disenfranchised" - or "dis-empowered". I do have compassion for these
> people, and it is sadly disturbing, becauseas your post suggests, the
> problem nor the solution is simple to solve.
> But facts show: we provide for people in need, we also rob them of
> theirdignity!! It is a humanitarian's nightmare.
>
> Me: All I can say here is its all nonsense. You are saying people
> must work work work! How puritan of you! Yes, I did see the movie
> transpotting. Those people have no incentive to better themselves.
You may remember this bit from the movie you cite, yet apparently missed
the point of:
[From Trainspotting]
> RENTON (voice-over)
>
> I chose not to choose life: I chose something else.
> And the reasons? There are no reasons.
> Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?
Notice the past tense of the infinitive "to choose."
> Lee Daniel Crocker:
>
> If one lacks the necessary tools to survive in that culture ( and by
> your description they will) then Evolution will be as unkind today as it
> is on our homeless little brothers in the streets..
>
> Me: Wouldn;t be nice just for once to not have to worry about
> constantly updating your skills just to survive? What a bitch. Escape the
> blind laws of evolution. I want my MTV and Liesure!!!
"You're money and you don't even know it!" (Another gratuitous movie
reference).
Extropy is definitely in your future. :-)
Everyone has the thorn in their flesh. You've made yours clear. Why not
spend your time productively by suggesting ways to overcome "the blind
laws of evolution" instead of lambasting people for citing them?
"You've got these claws; you've got these fangs . . . You're looking at
the claws, you're looking at the fangs . . ."
Welcome to the list, Holly.
> Lee Daniel Crocker: Evolution is not "kind" or "unkind"; it is
> nothing more than a mathematical consequence of a certain set of initial
> conditions: replication, mutation, competition. Far better to understand and
> make use of an existing effectthan to try to fight it. You might as
> well try fighting pi.
>
> Me: What a defeatist attitude for an extropian. Fuck Pi! If I have
> to struggle for billions of years with String Theory or wormhole physics
> to beat pi, I will!
At this point you have sunk to irrationality. You can say "Fuck pi,"
with no afterthought. Yet you refuse to consider the fact that
evolution's laws are not necessarily immutable. Let's try to start from
a common ground, then:
"We, however, want to be those who we are -- the new, the unique, the
incomparable, those who give themselves their own law, those who create
themselves!"
--Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Gay Science"
>
> Accept *NO* Limits!!
Which limits do you think I accept?
>
> Regards,
>
> Holly Pearson
Boat Drinks,
Hagbard
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