[extropy-chat] Extropy, Political Viewpoint and the Future of ExI's List

[Samantha Atkins]

On Oct 3, 2005, at 5:33 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote:

> Once again, I am asking that we put on our thinking caps.  Time is  
> running out and we need to reevaluate and analyze what we stand for  
> behind the philosophy of Extropy.
>
> I have heard comments about Extropy Institute becoming too involved  
> with transhumanism and too far away from the central philosophy of  
> extropy.  What we need to keep in mind is that the philosophy of  
> extropy is the original philosophy of transhumanism.  Certainly I  
> understand many comments from varied perspectives that  
> transhumanism has become watered down.  Perhaps we can rectify this  
> by bringing Extropy more strongly into the society of the future.
>
> As president of Extropy Institute, I have worked hard for quite  
> some time to protect ExI from outlandish political positioning, bad  
> press from early days of cult references, and being a small group  
> of crazed futurists.  We know that we were here early on -- before  
> our ideas hit the mainstream.  I have tried to keep ExI in that  
> spiralling movement forward into the future in deference to ExI and  
> its members.  Thanks to highly-visual people like Ray Kurzweil,  he  
> has taken us along with him.  But dealing with the many backhanded  
> treatment of ExI and its members has been quite difficult.  Instead  
> of getting the support of early members, they turned on me because  
> I wanted to realize a world-wide vision for our future, rather than  
> a small clique.  It has drained me, I must admit.  What I want to  
> do now, is to recapture EXTROPY for our future, both within  
> transhumanism and outside of transhumanism.
>

Hey, I am a "crazed futurist" and I believe you are too!  The cutting  
edge is never "mainstream".  That is not its nature.   To attempt to  
make it so merely dulls the edge and removes its original importance  
and compromises its message.   In order to become a real memetic  
force the memetic message needs to be fully developed, powerful,  
inspiring and unique relative to dominant mainstream voices.   
Attempting to be more mainstream per se is suicidal to fully  
developing an authentic and unique voice that changes the mainstream  
by inspiring rather than by attempting to blend in.

Exactly what are you calling "outlandish political positioning"?   
Such words can be deeply troubling to many here and who were once  
here and are sorely missed.

- samantha