From: Arjen Kamphuis (mountain@knoware.nl)
Date: Thu Nov 20 1997 - 17:19:03 MST
Dear fellow listmembers,
Before I begin my composite reply to various listmembers I feel I have to
apologoze to Tom for posting his correspondence with Berrie to the list.
Tom, I you feel I have betrayed your trust by posting off-list
correspondence I most humbly ask your pardon. I felt it was important to
give a complete overview of the discussion to date. Being involved in the
whole discussion myself I could not have been as objective had I refrained
from quoting your mail. I can only hope you appreciate my attempt to
objectively present the discussion to the best of my abilities. You have
gone trough a lot of trouble in working on this problem with us and for
that we owe you much respect and grattitude. Please let this not stand in
the way of future cooperation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
And now for our regular program, some responses:
Max More <maxmore@primenet.com> wrote:
>> >you. Correct me if I'm wrong.
>
>Okay: You're off by several orders of magnitude. I have made numerous
>appearances on television,
//snip//
>I have explained
>extropian ideas in the media in Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain,
>Austria, Holland, England, and other countries.
I have no hard statistics about meme-speading in Europe, just my own
Ex-perience (dangerous word?) of the last months. I travel a fair amount
for work (I'm in switserland at the moment) and in all these months I've
talked (in person and on the web) to a lot of people, none of them had ever
heard of ExI or Transhumanism. It could be that I talk to the wrong people
but I can't get over the feeling that the spreading of our memes still has
a long way to go. Only the cryonics-meme is somewhat known, although is it
generally not taken very seriously at this moment.
I'll try to get hold of a recording of you Dutch TV appearance (looking
forward!).
>Natasha wrote:
>>>possibly there's someone out there with a
>>>brilliant idea that will solve this.
>>
>>Discuss it with Max. Discuss it in a reasonable manner. Do not go into the
>>discussion with preconceived notions. Do go into the discussion with
>>flexibility.
Just so everybody is clear on this: Max was CC'd on the first mail so we
feel he was informed, we truly feel we have been discussing the matter
openly and contructively and hope you do to.
>"E. Shaun Russell" <e_shaun@uniserve.com> wrote (in reply to Natascha)
> Seconded.
//snip//
>flourishing organization that has been active for a decade. Even if
>~Excedo's intentions for the name have been misunderstood, few can argue
>against the similarities in both name and intended ideals.
AS I said before, many ideals are indeed shared. Naming remains a point of
discussion:
Damien Sullivan <phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>Actually I don't associate Excedo with ExI at all. The only connection
>is "Ex-". Is ExI going to try trademarking the use of "Ex-" with
>transhumanism? (No "Ex-human institute"?)
>
>-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Broderick seems to have a more general problems with the letter X ;-)
I've also received several off-list mails from listmembers telling me to
stick with 'Excedo'. So it seems there is no consensus on this right now.
I'll not reveal their more specific content, I've learned my lesson on that.
>For ~Excedo, one of the problems that could be encountered is
>one of having to explain to all interested parties that there is truly *no*
>association between Extropy and ~Excedo;
But there is an association: our shared memes.
>Perhaps more importantly is the
>potential drawback for ExI. If ~Excedo generates *any* non-extropic ideas
>whatsoever (and no-one knows as of yet how extropic ~Excedo's views are),
You are all invited to visit our website (still under construction) at:
http://www.dse.nl/~excedo (warning: it's mostly in Dutch ;-)
And see for yourself. Both Max and Natascha are mentioned as is Anders
Sandberg. We try not to take credit for anything we didn't make/think-up
ourselves but anyone who feels wronged should: let us know. Any and all
constructive comments are welcome.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>E. Shaun Russell Poet, Musician, Atheist, Extropic Artist
>=============================>Transhumanities editor for Homo Excelsior
>Explanation spoils perfection. http://www.excelsior.org
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry to make a big thing out of it but if is 'Excedo' is such a big
problem, why is the above URl not confusing? No-one has given any answer to
this repeatedly asked question, I'm really curious.
Tom Morrow <phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu>
>Berrie and I have had cordial, but thus far inconclusive, discussions. He
>and his friends evince good intentions, so I remain optimistic that we can
>work out a suitable compromise. Those of you new to this issue should keep
>in mind that you may lack essential details; this is a complicated issue
>(and should have remained, at least for now, a private one). I do not
>have the time or inclination to educate everyone about what constitutes
>the law, custom, and just plain old common courtesy in matters of
>labelling, but I do hope that this email has clarified things a bit.
Again: I am most sorry if you feel that Berrie or me betrayed your trust in
us and we will make sure this never happens again. I am however curious why
you feel this discussion should have remained private.
If we all continue to work on this problem with your kind of attitude we
will certainly find a suitable solution and get back to building things we
believe in.
>Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> wrote:
>there is no possible infringement here.
>
>Arjen, the "solution" to your problem is simple: you have
>every right to use the name, there is no reasonable chance
>of confusion, Tom is completely out of line, and any
>trademark infringement suit would be laughed out of court
>before it began.
We won't let it go that far I think ;-)
I don't know if Tom is 'completely' out of line, but I'm glad you feel (as
we do) that the chance of confusion is very small.
I'm certain that we'll work this out, we have every intention of doing so
and I believe this goes for most everybody.
Respectfully,
Arjen
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Arjen Kamphuis | Learn as if you will live forever.
mountain@knoware.nl | Live as though you will die tomorrow.
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