[ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists

[Amara Graps]

Bryan Bishop kanzure at gmail.com :
On Friday 29 February 2008, estropico wrote:
>  Italy (like any other country) is unique. Part of its "uniqueness" is
>  the presence of the Vatican and the power of catholic institutions.

>What power? Money? They certainly don't have supercomputers, they don't
>have massive research institutions, they don't have neurofarms, the
>only power they have is lots of listeners and a widely distributed
>mental program. What does this power have to do with transhumanism?

Bryan, see my comment here:
http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/storm-over-rome-physicists-against-pope-ratzinger/#comment-91952

and my previous post(s)
http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2008-February/040996.html

regarding a saga involving the Pope. Here is one example of his role in
the Italian government; A very well-qualified (for once) scientist was
nominated to head the CNR, and some number of Vatican sympathizers in
the Italian Parliament hung up his nomination due to his signing a
letter objecting to the Pope making a speech at the inaugural events at
Rome La Sapienza University.

If you look at the laws passed in the Italian Parliament in the last
5 years, you will find a few significant anti-transhumanism
laws passed, due to the influence of the Church.

And, you are aware of the Vatican Observatory, aren't you?
http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo/R1024/VO.html

Their main observatory (the Pope 'scope) is a significant piece of
instrumentation on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. The Vatican astronomers
are world-class scientists, and I note that one of them is finishing
an important position in the largest body of planetary scientists
in the world (http://dps.aas.org/)  (Consolmagno, see:
http://members.aas.org/directory/public_directory_member_details.cfm?ID=13174)

Amara

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Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado