From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Apr 29 1998 - 14:24:24 MDT
"den Otter" <otter@globalxs.nl> writes:
> Btw, it might be a good idea to accept that transhumanism, just like
> cryonics for example, is for the enlightened few. Of course some
> preaching (in order to win souls) to the outside world is great, and
> even necessary to keep the membership steady, but it may also
> be a good idea to "turn inwards", and make things more worthwile for
> the people you already have. Transhuman institutions like ExI
> (or one specially created for this purpose) could offer more tangible
> benefits to their members, or rather the members to eachother.
Memetic r and K strategies; either you try to have a lot of offspring
(spread the memes widely) or you try to have few offspring but make
sure they thrive ("turn invards").
As I see it we want as many people as possible to think about or use
transhumanist ideas, but there is no real need to have lots of people
in our institutions. However, at present more people would be useful,
since we are yet to reach the critical mass needed to make our
institutions work really smoothly and offer truly useful services to
the members (far too many of us are busy with careers of various
kinds, making our ability to work for transhuman goals rather spotty).
> For example, now everyone has to more or less figure out for himself
> what he can do to fully use today's technological potential. That is
> hardly efficient. It would be good to have an easy-to-use, frequently
> updated database where the best of all fields is registered, described
> and recommended. From this database a program could be made
> that members can take to become more efficient (like, dare I say it,
> scientology has, only based on more enlightened principles). If
> you can effectively make people "healthy, wealthy and wise" (and
> immortal while you're at it) there should be a reasonable rise in
> membership. A good product sells itself.
A very good idea. How to make this work is another matter - this is
exactly the kind of thing you need a critical mass to get off the
ground.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:00 MST