From: Michael Nielsen (mnielsen@tangelo.phys.unm.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 16 1998 - 11:47:43 MDT
On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Eugene Leitl wrote:
> Michael Nielsen writes:
> [...]
> > handled right, give those women greater opportunity to increase their
> > extropy.
>
> If "increasing your extropy" means the same as Doing the Right Thing(tm),
> ok.
No, that's not what I'm talking about, although that's also, by
definition, a Good Thing (tm :-).
Which is the higher extropy state? A woman virtually enslaved to her
husband as a drudge in, say, Iran, or an author writing popular
non-fiction in New Zealand?
Ability-wise, those two people may be very similar. However, due to a few
cultural differences -- differences that have only recently come into
being, and are still rather tenuous -- their personal extropy may be
considerably different.
For that reason, I'm not at all averse to people discussing these issues
on this list. In the here and now, removing unfair discrimination is one
way of increasing the world's collective extropy.
> I just hope we all realize the specialization of human genders
> becomes an atavism in a drastically changed environment of
> post/trans/whateverhumanity.
I'm talking mainly about the present, which will hopefully lay the
groundwork for such a state of affairs in the future.
> Even if the things material mutate into
> degenerated mindstuff, I hope at least the virtual realm will be
> inhabited by many memetically diverse species, radiating from us-founders.
Yup.
> > > and is this of any (more) relevance to the list than the permanent
> > > gun(ho)/anti-gun debate?
> >
> > Well, of course it's relevant to the list. Discrimination on the
>
> As a libertarian I have nothing against weaponry, it's just the amount of
> discussion bandwidth allotted to it that's obviously out of proportions. YMMV.
Except for the "As a libertarian" part, my mileage doesn't vary.
> > basis of gender or sexuality (or anything else) which results in people
> > being "kept down" _unfairly_ certainly minimizes their extropy. I'll
>
> Of course there are also very vocal lobbys using every opportunity to
> promote their case. Dunno what it does to their mana/karma/extropy.
>
> > agree that the gun debate is rather beside-the-point, though.
>
> Yup. Let's tag the subject with GUNS, or move it off-list,
> altogether.
I wouldn't be averse to automoderation which added the tag "GUNS" to any
post which contained the string "gun", to allow easy filtering, for those
so inclined.
> Er. Did I already told you about that shiny new AK-47
> {scream fading off into pink noise}
No, did I mention to you that I'm just finishing 12 months working at Los
Alamos? And there's this big red button right over
NO CARRIER
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