[extropy-chat] Dr. James Hughes responds to Harvey Newstrom

[Harvey Newstrom]

On Wednesday, June 9, 2004, at 11:13 am, Natasha Vita-More wrote:

> At 10:49 PM 6/8/04 -0700, starman2100 at cableone.net wrote:
>
> Harvey repeatedly tried to get us to disavow the Transhumanist FAQ 
> because Natasha was annoyed it didn't in her view
> give enough credit to Max and herself. Then she put up her own 
> "Transhumanist FAQ" which barely even mentions the WTA
> in passing. We repeatedly debated and voted down disavowing our 
> Transhumanist FAQ.

I never did this.  The only objections from ExI concerning the FAQ were 
the unflattering things that it said about the purpose of ExI, which 
ExI has long disputed.  I felt, as Liaison for WTA to other 
transhumanist groups, that WTA should stop publishing descriptions of 
our affiliates that those affiliates dispute.  The other complains may 
have been made in the past, but I was not involved or aware of them.

The main dispute of the FAQ names was that WTA objected to the Extropy 
Institute publishing their own transhumanist FAQ, claiming that it 
intruded upon the memespace for WTA.  This was the real heated battle 
that I remember.  The concept that their could only be one 
transhumanist FAQ was promoted by WTA against other groups.

The final official decision by the WTA Board was that the WTA never has 
had a FAQ and has never endorsed any FAQ!  The Transhumannist FAQ 
currently promoted by Nick was originally copied mostly from public 
domain submissions from ExI members to the Extropians list and >H 
Transhumanist list before WTA was formed, and thus WTA had no specific 
interests in or claims to this FAQ.  Nick grabbed these public postings 
and edited them together, but never claimed to have written the FAQ 
bearing his name.  (They would not agree to take the WTA logo off of 
it, or remove the "Published by the World Transhumanist Association" 
from its cover, however!)

--
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
<HarveyNewstrom.com>