[extropy-chat] Raelians

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Thanks Natasha for your interesting comments. I tend to agree with
Eliezer that the Raelian are just the visible tip of the flying-saucer
iceberg. Probably the flying-saucer movement is as fragmented as the
transhumanist movement and there are hundreds of other flying-saucer
sects, much less successful.
Yet, the numbers remain: 60.000 against about 300, millions against
thousands of bucks. Yes we are much cooler intellectually but then why
people don't join this or that transhumanist movement instead of
joining the Raelians.
I think, the Raelians imitate conventional religion by providing
fast-food for thought, standardized and already packaged. Perhaps this
provides a solution to a deep need: a nice MacHeaven to consume in a
few minutes and move on. On the contrary, we want people to cook good
meals fro themselves and exchange recipies for tasty and healthy meals
on our lists. Perhaps we should think of something halfway between
like a neighborhood steak and salad house.
I like what you say on transhumanism disappearing into the texture of
mainstream culture and society, but disgree on "an assumption that we
must be successful *now* might not be worth the sweat and tears". A
steamy political confrontation is beginning to take shape, see the UN
debate, bill 71 in California, Fukuyama's paper, the reactions to the
death of Christopher Reeve, etc., all these signs indicate that "they"
are sharpening their knives. I expect the confrontation to become real
dirty in five years and "their" victory now may set things back for
decades.
G.

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 11:03:58 -0400, natashavita at earthlink.net
<natashavita at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> Giulio wrote:
> 
> > Then I think that:
> > The Raelians have 60.000 paying members worldwide and a lot of money.
> > All transhumanist associations together have perhaps 300 paying members.
> > I wonder what conclusions we should make.
> 
> Thank you for posting this Giulio.
> 
> The reasonable assumption is that the Raelians are doing something better
> to obtain members than transhumanists groups.  But assumptions can be
> misleading. First we need to take a look at what constitute the two groups.
> 
> The Raelians are a type of religious group, and religious groups tend to
> have a higher degree of membership than intellectual organizations.
> Second, the Raelians are not split into varied smaller groups that want to
> create new names and independent groups and/or compete against each other.
> 
> Let me take this point a step further: There is one Raelian group which
> functions as a spiraling network aimed at developing a type of fantastic
> reality. Transhumanism is devoted to developing solutions to problems by
> fostering change through rationale, critical thinking, and pro-active steps.
> 
> Further, transhumanism is split into a variety of beliefs that have
> separated themselves from the transhumanist core. Rather than forming
> different departments of one group, individuals have created their own
> organizations, logos and statements.  At the beginning it was just ExI and
> Foresight who worked to share membership and ideas.  Later, WTA, IAC, etc.
> came along and developed their own memberships rather than joining ExI and
> Foresight.  Herein, the central core of the philosophy splintered off and
> became diffused rather than embodied into a core movement.
> 
> If transhumanist organizations worked together, rather than apart, then we
> would probably have a population in the thousands.  I would like to see
> this happen and have encouraged it for years.  I still think we could get a
> hell of a lot more accomplished by working together.
> 
> On another point there is the assumption that quantity is better than
> quality.  I think that the transhumanist community has an amazing high
> quality of people.  I think that each principle, from each separate
> organization, has many impressive and essential qualities that are
> immensely beneficial to transhumanism.
> 
> Lastly, an assumption that we must be successful *now* might not be worth
> the sweat and tears.  I have spent 20 years in the field of transhumans and
> transhumanism and I have seen a slow but steady progression forward.  While
> it was enormously frustrating in the 1980s and 1990s to not see ideas
> realized, I have come to believe that we are maturing and becoming part of
> the mainstream just a little ahead of society now, and we must move outside
> the "group" mentality and function within our specific areas of expertise
> and do what we can independently of any one group to impress on the world
> our ideas.
> 
> Being radical and introducing new concepts is exciting, but actually seeing
> the concepts forming within society is rewarding.  Perhaps what we may have
> to forfeit is getting our personal imprint on the ideas, but who cares in
> the long run?  We are here to move the world forward, carefully yet
> pro-active.
> 
> My best to all,
> 
> Natasha Vita-More