[extropy-chat] Luddite Leadership: The New Atlantis

[kevinfreels at hotmail.com]

Tit for tat. Maybe it is time for me to build my own website to counter
theirs.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrian Tymes" <wingcat at pacbell.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Luddite Leadership: The New Atlantis


> --- Greg Burch <gregburch at gregburch.net> wrote:
> > http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/2/keiper.htm
> >
> > that shows a very good grasp of the possibilities of
> > Drexlerian nanotechnology.  What's important here is
> > not what the article is (other, similarly clued-in
> > articles are becoming common outside the narrow
> > confines of transhumania), but WHERE it is.  "The
> > New Atlantis" has clearly been formed as a rallying
> > point for the anti-progress party, and that they are
> > zeroing in on Drextech should give us all cause for
> > concern.
>
> Actually, I find it most refreshing that even our
> enemies have such a good field guide to the facts.
> It's biased in the opinions it offers in addition to
> the facts, true, but it means we can argue the facts
> rather than made-up hysteria.
>
> > Another article in the first issue deals with
> > transhumanism square-on, calling it "extinctionism"
> > because it posits progress beyond the human:
> >
> > http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/1/rubin.htm
> >
> > This article discusses Moravec and Kurzweil and will
> > set the teeth of a transhumanist on edge, but again,
> > what's important is that the discussion is happening
> > in a forum designed to define policy.
>
> I snickered as I read it.  I did not see a single
> argument made there that has not been made, and
> thoroughly countered, elsewhere.  For instance, the
> sharp discontinuity between human and uploaded mind:
> there have been ways proposed to utterly eliminate
> that discontinuity.
>
> If this is the best our enemies - and I use the term
> deliberately, even if the immediate battle is for
> hearts and minds rather than lives - can muster, as it
> seems it may be, we have little to worry about.  (We
> can't slack off, of course, but this is a level of
> opposition we can handle.)
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