[extropy-chat] ENOUGH already

[Dirk Bruere]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin Hanson" <rhanson at gmu.edu>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 7:33 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already


> On 12/22/2003, Charlie Stross wrote:
> >I submit that, at this stage, *fiction* is a very effective propaganda
> >tool for our corner. Fiction provides a vehicle for actual concrete
> >scenarios that will allow the people we want to reach (the vast majority
> >who've never heard of the concepts we trade in, either for or against) to
> >visualize what we're talking about. And it's very important to establish
> >our position in fiction before the Frankenstein archetype gets pinned on
> >us. ...
> >Damien's working on this right now. Ken MacLeod (who some of you might
> >remember from this list in the early nineties) also writes about
> >transhumanism, from a somewhat more skeptical but overall positive
> >viewpoint. My own through-the-singularity novel is due out in mid-2005
> >from Ace. ...
>
> I have mixed feelings about the role of science fiction here.  If we were
> sure no one else would look at these topics, we should certainly be glad
> that at least science fiction looked at them.  But I constantly run into
> academics whose reason for ignoring these issues is because "that's
science
> fiction."  Now perhaps they would still say that if there were not actual
> science fiction novels about these topics.  But it does seem that the fact
> that some scenario is popular in science fiction is often taken as a
reason
> not to consider it in "serious" discussions about the future.
>
> Science fiction authors are well aware of the may biases that are
> introduced into their future scenarios due to the need to have an
> entertaining story.  Academia has its own biases, but my guess is that
they
> are not as bad.


http://www.theconsensus.org/uk/essentia/why/index.html
'Of course, this all seems like science fiction. And it is, until it
happens. If you are middle aged then there are other things that you will
remember being science fiction. The list, in no particular order and far
from exhaustive, includes cloning, test tube babies, acid rain, the
Internet, global warming, Plutonium smuggling, genetically engineered
children, personal computers, aberrant weather patterns, the hole in the
ozone layer, the current mass extinction of life, the collapse of Communism
and the kind of terrorism that was once found only in comic books and James
Bond films. '

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org