[ExI] Going beyond EP

[Samantha Atkins]

On May 29, 2007, at 4:21 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:

>
> --- Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> In the end, the will to
>> survive, or even the will to see the world survive,
>> is just an axiom of EP,
>> without any deeper justification.
>
> This is precisely the line of reasoning that led me
> and my fellows Ascensionists to conclude that the
> world would benefit from a transhuman religion that
> held the status of being alive as the most holy and
> sacred gift imaginable. The only thing holier than a
> human life is more than one human life.

It was once an axiom of EP.  But we big brained apes have to find  
deeper justification and meaning than that.  It is what we do.    But  
where does this "holy" and "sacred" come from?  It is just high  
emotional strutting about, isn't it?  Either we are dedicated to the  
best outcomes we can conceive of or we are not.    It is not clear the  
emotional strutting help with seeing clearly what those outcomes might  
be or with dedicating our energy to bringing them into existence.     
The particular flavor of religious strutting about imho clouds the  
mind and distorts vision.

>
>
> Thus elevating survival and the love of life from an
> axiom of EP to divine truth and sacred duty stripped
> of all superfluous dogma.

The very notion of "divine truth"  and "sacred duty" reeks of  
superfluous dogma.


> In this way the
> counterproductive entropic aspects of EP can be
> overcome, while giving hope for the continued
> survival, thriving, and extropic optimization of
> humanity. In the words of one of our enlightened
> sisters Marie Tobias, "Life for the sake of life, in
> the name of life, for the good
> of life."
>

<cough>  I am glad I got out.

- samantha