[extropy-chat] Re: [wta-talk] [wta-politics] Max More's article on Democracy and Transhumanism

[Don Dartfield]

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Socialism has never been disastrous for those who lived well within its
> precepts, it has been disastrous only for those who did not fit well in,
> under, and around its system. Successfully engineering a 'transhuman
> socialist' would do nothing to make socialism successful, because
> socialisms negative externalities always fall on those who are not
> inherently socialist. Unless you forcibly convert everyone into
> transhuman socialists, then it is a supremely dumb idea, so the point is
> moot.

I don't think anybody is currently inherently completely socialist or
communist.  Everybody ultimately has far more self-interest than
other-interest.  But there are people who wish they had more concern for
others or for society in general, and if those people changed themselves
to better fit their ideals, the societies they formed would probably be
much more successful than they have been in the past.  In the past, even
people with strong religious motivation to succeed at communal living
arrangments have ultimately failed -- the early Christian communal
societies, for instance, or the religious colonies of the 19th century
like the Oneida Perfectionists or the Mormons practicing their United 
Order.  Ultimately all of these experiments failed, but perhaps if those 
societies' members had been able to avail themselves of the technology to 
modify their nature, they would have been able to succeed.

(Of course, if they had access to that technology, they might be better
off just ridding themselves of their peculiar religious sentiments instead
of indulging them -- but obviously that's a matter of personal freedom. ;)