[extropy-chat] Transhumanist Community

Wed Dec 7 10:27:49 UTC 2005

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 06:29:39AM +0100, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote:

> Brandon,
> there have been many attempts to create transhumanist web boards and
> move the discussion there from the mailing lists, but there has been a

That would not be a good idea. Both media cater to their individual
communities. Gateways web2mail and back can be easily built. Mailman already
archives posts in a web-visible archive. Full-text searches are trivial
with swish-e or half a dozen of similiar packages. Mail is push, web
is poll. Email can both thread and serialize, web is typically nonlinear.
Email has mature spam blocking, web forums are only starting to catch up.
Email is self-archiving, and is creates multiple local copies.
Web forum is a single point of failure, and typically not globally 
visible. Web forums typically have lousy search engines, too.

> lot of inertia and after a while we always went back to mailing lists.
> For example the WTA forum is (login required):
> http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/forums/
> but apparently participants prefer to use the email list wta-talk.
> I understand this, as also for me email is more immediate and

Realtime quality of mailing lists is just one tiny aspect of it. 

> convenient. I see something interesting in my inbox, read it, reply
> immediately is I wish. Since I use gmail I am also able to find old
> posts by searching my mail.

There are free desktop search engines which index and search local
mail in realtime, regardless of operating system (Beagle, Spotlight,
Copernicus, Google desktop search, etc).

> Or perhaps we are just too used to email.
> I am involved in some new thing that will be a mix of mailing list,
> blogging system, web board, tagged repository, etc., something very
> web2.0 - but I realize that to make people use something instead than
> mailing lists, this something has to be much better and easier to use
> than a list.

Do not start developing before you understand the problem set fully.
It is very easy to produce a subset of features that is inferior to both
media.

If this is going to be a serious effort we should hash out the details
first, whether on-list, or off-list.

> G.
> 
> On 12/7/05, Brandon Reinhart <transcend at extropica.com> wrote:
> >
> > I am speaking as a relatively new transhumanist. Those of you who are long
> > standing, highly active members of this community should not be offended by
> > my comments. I do not intend to indict or insult.
> >
> > -
> >
> > It seems to me that transhumanist community is in a sorry state. When I look
> > at sites that are well known to transhumanists, I see very low rates of
> > participation and conversion.
> >
> > Some thoughts on possible changes, improvements, and mistakes:
> >
> > 1. Favoring email lists instead of open forums.
> >
> > As far as I can tell, neither the WTA nor the Extropy Institute have public
> > web forums. Instead, the two organizations rely on majordomo style email
> > lists to facilitate communication. In my opinion this is a mistake.
> >
> > First, forums are more easily accessible than email lists. Any forum with a
> > modern thread view and search facility provides a simple UI for quickly
> > reading up on the latest discussion. If a reader wants to convert to
> > participant, they are probably more familiar with the account creation and
> > activation process of the major forum kits than majordomo, which is a
> > relatively aged piece of software.
> >
> > Second, forums are potentially less "hostile" than email discussion lists.
> > The email discussion list pushes data to the reader. Busy lists push so much
> > discussion as to be unusable in real-time. Users have to be fairly
> > interface-savvy in order to either A) filter the list into a separate folder
> > in their email client or B) request the server send a digest. I suspect that
> > the rapid-push nature of email lists could even alienate certain users in
> > the "unwanted email == spam" environment we live in today. While it is
> > probably reasonable to assume that most transhumanists are highly
> > computer-literate, it is no reason to make quality transhumanist discussion
> > only comfortably accessible to the class of individuals who are
> > computer-literate.
> >
> > Certainly, forums take more work to maintain, generally, than email lists.
> > The lowered barrier to accessibility means a somewhat lower signal-to-noise
> > ratio. Forums have to be monitored and abusive users have to be silenced.
> > Nonetheless, forums are very familiar to most web users, even at very low
> > levels of computer-literacy.
> >
> > Computer literacy is not, in my opinion, a prerequisite to being
> > transhumanist. After all, we extropians believe that art, music, and culture
> > is an integral part to creating a Nice Place To Live and many artists aren't
> > necessarily going to understand how to interact with majordomo, etc.
> >
> > 2. Not having any community at all.
> >
> > I'm _amazed_ that the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence has
> > no forum what-so-ever. SIAI interests do maintain the SL4 mailing list but
> > it is clearly intended for highly technical discussion, not general
> > evangelism or community building. The SIAI seems to greatly desire an
> > increased audience for the "singularity is AI dammit!" meme, Yudkowsky's
> > philosophies in FAI and AGI construction, etc. Get a forum! Let people
> > respond! Get someone to answer those posts and actively engage your readers.
> > It isn't the only, final, or even necessarily the best path to getting that
> > audience, but it is a relatively simple start.
> >
> > 3. Utilize blog style focused content delivery and then direct conversation
> > to your forum.
> >
> > A front page with a blog structure is a great way to constantly push new
> > events in your organization. The organization must seem to be alive in order
> > to attract ongoing attention. If your front page hasn't been updated in
> > three months, people will stop visiting. On the other hand, if you update
> > with interesting (even if trivial) news about your organizations efforts,
> > people will return to learn and discuss.
> >
> > In my opinion, the blog should be the initial page (with direction to "who
> > we are" type of inquiries on a side panel menu). A few sites that do have
> > blogs have a static main page and a "read our blog" type of link buried
> > somewhere. This doesn't seem to be very effective.
> >
> > And yeah, I'm not walking the walk here either. Extropica is a potentially
> > cool name for a transhumanist-evangelist site, but I have neglected it.
> >
> > 4. Not pushing people to community in an intuitive way.
> >
> > I just popped open the ExI site in my browser. In the center of the page I
> > see something interesting: The Proactionary Principle. What is this? I want
> > to read about it. It's compelling content. I click on it and see a draft of
> > something interesting! Posted for public comment, awesome! But at the
> > bottom: "please submit your comments to Extropy Board of Directors."
> >
> > What? No!
> >
> > There should be a link to a public forum saying "comment and discuss this
> > and other ExI projects in our forums." Push those readers to the
> > conversation. We are talking about smart people. They want to talk about
> > what they just read. Or maybe just read what other people think. If they
> > post, you've more or less guaranteed they will return to your organization's
> > site and check the responses to their post.
> >
> > 5. Asking for the email address, before providing interesting information.
> >
> > I think that organizational updates sent by email are not as effective as
> > posting those updates on the main site, perhaps with a forum to seed a
> > discussion. SIAI has a "Free eBulletin" but an examination of the site's
> > front page reveals no way to get this information without giving them my
> > email address.
> >
> > Get with the 90s! I know few people who will give out their email address to
> > an automated form when it isn't required (i.e.: not buying something online
> > or performing security validation). It seems to me that the information
> > regarding what conferences you're sending so-and-so to and what research
> > papers whats-his-name is working on are critical donation engines and that
> > information would always be as easily available as possible.
> >
> > This emphasis on forums and community is only important because we are
> > currently a very issue and subject based community with relatively few
> > participants. A forum for an organization like the Red Cross wouldn't really
> > make sense, as they are extremely well established and aren't a small
> > community organization. They have much more effective funding-mechanisms in
> > place.
> >
> > CONVERSELY,
> >
> > - People need to participate more. If I pop open the imminst.org forums, I
> > see a very low post-to-view ratio in a lot of the forums. People are reading
> > the threads, but not responding. Maybe part of this comes from the
> > complexity of transhuman subjects. People don't want to look like idiots.
> > But we need people posting their questions so they can get answers, so there
> > can be a much wider ranging dialog than exists currently.
> >
> > - People need to write more. There are a thousand interesting core concepts
> > out there that have barely been scratched. When I read a series of articles,
> > I generally see the same names popping up over and over. The Max Mores, the
> > Kurzweils, the Anissimovs, etc. I cannot possibly believe that there are
> > only a handful of people doing interesting thinking about transhumanist
> > issues.
> >
> > I suspect that many will disagree with me, but I see the need for more
> > arm-chair transhumanist evangelists. I think there is a need for people who
> > can translate the concepts behind FAI and cryonics (etc) in a language that
> > is not hostile, heavy handed, or nerdy.
> >
> > - People need to avoid meaningless dogma:
> > http://www.singinst.org/interviews/nanomag-05.html
> > What's with pressing the need to differentiate between the Kurzweil
> > "singularity" and the Vinge "singularity"? It's counterproductive. Make up a
> > new word or something! Its okay to let "singularity" go. We can steal a new
> > word. If the media or public, as a result of Kurzweil's book and evangelism,
> > ultimately latch onto a non-Vinge definition of singularity, that's fine.
> > Celebrate that one of the critically interesting transhumanist memes is
> > getting greater attention.
> >
> > Of course there will always be some meaningful internal conflict:
> > http://www.sl4.org/archive/0206/4104.html
> > And that kind of exchange should happen.
> >
> > Anyway, I'm mostly a lurker, but I thought I'd post my thoughts. Gotta think
> > about ways to encourage people to learn about the singularity and get
> > involved. I'm really in the "we have to push to make this happen" camp not
> > the "singularity is an inevitable result of market forces" camp. I don't
> > even know if those two camps really exist, or are just the result of
> > miscommunication among individuals.
> >
> > Brandon Reinhart
> > transcend at extropica.com
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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