[extropy-chat] RE: Transhumanist Community

[Brandon Reinhart]

That is absolutely true. My activism bit has only recently been flipped.
This is rare for me. I have never been an activist before. I despise
American political dualism (no party represents my interests) and issues
based activism never appealed to me.

I registered extropica.com a year ago to build a transhumanist blog and
forum, but have not had the time. I now have the time and this project will
move forward. It will only have value if I can write compelling content for
it and compelling transhumanist content is dependent on my issues education
level, so for the most part I've spent a lot of time since registering the
domain reading.

I have set up community forums in the past, primarily related to MMO gaming
hobbyist groups, and I've had a lot of success with them. When I see how a
small community of 40 guild members can post hundreds of emails in a week
discussing game related strategy, I wonder why the same isn't possible for a
transhumanist group that not only includes more individuals, but could
include a lot more.

I am busy (working at a game development startup as senior technical
designer), but not so busy that I don't spend an hour a night consuming
information on the web and at some point that will turn from consuming
content to writing new content.

I apologize if my post sounded particularly harsh toward the SIAI, it was
not intended to be. I used that site as an example because I've recently
been reading and re-reading a lot of the articles there. I'm also in the
process of developing a personal "donations fitness curve" to figure out
where my money should go in what priority and I wanted easy access to
information regarding how my money would be used (I'm not rich, donations
would be small, but I can be a skeptic and so I want to be sure I'm
supporting the right groups.) The SIAI has some of the best information out
there and I greatly respect it.

Clearly, we don't need another organization. We need some other kind of
content or communication method. A stronger blogspace might be one way of
raising awareness.

And that's the core of my post. Not forums. Forums were a suggestion. I want
to find ways to raise awareness. For me, it has to be a low cost, don't give
up the day job thing, that taps my creative writing, design, or programming
abilities. It should not have taken me so long to become aware of the
transhumanist movement. There are supporters out there who don't know they
are supporters yet.

Brandon


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tyler Emerson
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 5:36 AM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Transhumanist Community

Brandon Reinhart wrote:
> 
> 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:

Suggestions are welcomed, sure, but they have greater weight when the
suggester says what *they* are doing, and what they have done.

Simon Cooper: "He who says it, does it."

~~
Tyler Emerson | Executive Director
The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Box 50182 | Palo Alto, CA 94303 | T-F: 866.667.2524
emerson at singinst.org | http://www.singinst.org

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