[extropy-chat] Re: [wta-talk] Group Hug

Reason reason at longevitymeme.org
Sat Jun 12 19:03:09 UTC 2004


--> Giu1i0 Pri5c0

> Time of the broken disk (I must have said this hundred of times): SO WHAT?
> As Fabio (Estropico) was among the first to make explicit a couple of
> years ago, the Central Transhumanist Meme (CTM) in itself is
> compatible with both the socialist and libertarian worldviews. Why
> don't we just leave it at that and focus more on the CTM itself?

The libertarian viewpoint is that transhumanist progress thrives on freedom.
Freedom tends to be minimalized in socialist states - everything from
personal choice through to research choice through to commercialization is
harder or subject to whims of groups with a strong vested interest in
preserving the status quo.

The pragmatic libertarian viewpoint would be that we should co-opt/work with
the system (if it speeds things up, which is not usually the case) in order
to attain the goals of a) new frontiers, and b) radical life extension.
These allow time and space for libertarian societies to form as a practical
matter of course, but we're a bit stuck (and all too soon dead) without
them.

--> Harvey Newstrom

> > We have several transhumanist groups, each with its own specific
> > flavour. The main differences are political (the socialist vs.
> > libertarian struggle).
>
> The main differences between transhumanist groups is whether they are
> socialist vs. libertarian?  That is the primary struggle between groups
> like ExI and WTA?  When did this occur???  What the hell are you
> talking about???

This is a common perception, and it's one that I subscribe to. The current
leadership of the WTA is pro-socialist and virulently anti-libertarian. That
is the organizational bias despite the public stance of non-alignment.

My reading of the Extropy Principles (
http://www.extropy.org/principles.htm ) is that they require a libertarian
system of governance: right there under "open society" is a long description
of the desirable traits of a minarchist or otherwise distributed governance
system. So from this, and many other statements and actions, I conclude that
the current leadership of ExI is biased towards libertarianism despite the
public stance of non-alignment.

This is all fine and well. There's nothing wrong with people being people
and being aligned. Of course, I'd prefer a world in which it was ok and
accepted to post some sort of standard organizational/leadership bias
statement on your website - it would save a whole bunch of time.

Looking at the claim that basic conflict between transhumanist groups
relates to socialist versus libertarian modes of thought, I'd probably
agree. Transhumanism has strong roots in personal freedom - the freedom to
change as you will, to be different, to find your own unique way through the
future, enabled by technology as a generator of ever greater numbers of
choices. Socialism in practice is a form of governance very hostile to this
vision of the future - if you're not with the (central) plan, you're out,
where "out" is usually something fairly unpleasant.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme





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