[extropy-chat] Transhumanist Jokebook

[Anders Sandberg]

At TV06 I accepted the offer to edit the "Transhumanist Joke Book" for
TV07 (surprise, persuasion and drink can do that to you). One can often
judge the memetic health of a movement by its sense of humour. Does it
have one? Is it just directed outwards? Is it creative? Let's demonstrate
our cognitive flexibility!

The idea as I see it is to collect good transhumanist humour - be it jokes
from and about transhumanism and transhumanist subjects, poking fun at
bioconservatives and human stupidity, great postings, cartoons, maybe also
TH filk, poetry and short stories. I'm aiming at TH specific jokes rather
than general tech or sf jokes, although there is going to be some overlap
of course. There are extropian lightbulb joke lists going back to 1992,
but I'm pretty sure there are much more recent and fresh ideas around.
What about transhumanist drinking songs? (for alcohol, nootropics, liquid
nitrogen during suspensions and who knows what else) Can we use MRI and
testing to find the optimal transhumanist joke?

Practically I will likely start compiling for real sometime in spring, but
I would appreciate submissions and suggestions. To help me sort it all,
please email me with THUMOUR in the subject line. At the very least the
joke book would be a website, but if I get enough interesting material who
knows what media it may end up in. Maybe even clay tablets - I have heard
that they are the next big thing.


"The goal of transhumanism is to make gods that can pun."

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University