From: Jane Kurtz (jkurtz@globaldialog.com)
Date: Tue Feb 09 1999 - 21:51:01 MST
One area to discuss transhumanism (more?) might be in the science fiction
community. This certainly should not be the only avenue, but it might be
productive. Can you think of any sf writers who've attempted to portray
transhumans? How about Heinlein?
I am very new to this list and transhumanism, but I think it's fascinating
and inspiring.
jane
-----Original Message-----
From: Anders Sandberg [SMTP:asa@nada.kth.se]
Sent: Saturday, February 06, 1999 2:53 PM
To: extropians@extropy.com
Subject: Advertising Transhumanism (Was: primative transhumans viewing the
superbowl)
Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net> writes:
> like big tobacco, transhumanism may suffer from an image problem:
> one that i do not fully comprehend myself, but some people i talk to
> seem to have a built in resistance to many of our ideas. if in the
future
> we ever wanted to advertise ourselves, i am at a loss on how we would
> do so. maybe we wouldnt want to? i found out about extropians
> thru the article in skeptical inquirer and ideas futures. spike
This is an interesting question. How do you advertise a set of ideas,
a lifestyle, a philosophy? How do you exploit and avoid the
psychological triggers people have? And for what purpose?
As I see it, what we want is
1. Get transhumanism accepted as a valid point of view (and not just
escapism, wishful thinking or part of another movement). Without this,
nobody will listen.
2. Get transhumanist ideas debated in society. Not necessarily
accepted, but made part of the overall discourse.
3. Help make implementations of these ideas legal, desirable and done.
Where would advertising be useful? It is more about spreading a view,
a simple good/bad meme than presenting a rational argument. I think it
can be used to "initiate" these points: an advertisement promoting
transhumanism in general to make people aware there is something out
there; an advertisement forcing the viewers to ask a question; an
advertisement for a transhuman project. But they are/should not be the
end of it, just an attention-grabber to make people think and look up
the hypertexted debating site or something similar - we don't need
people who become transhumanists because it is cool or is PC, we want
people who reason.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
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