[ExI] The Extro List- Past/Future

[Stefano Vaj]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been rereading Accelerando, which thoroughly mines the
> Extropian list of the early 90s for ideas.  There actually were not
> more than a couple of dozen ideas over a 6 year period of time, so one
> every three months would do it.

Why, at least something was generated beyond the reinforcement of a
very minoritarian subculture amongst its participants... :-)

Seriously, a concern has been repeatedly raised about the real
usefulness of spending time on mailing lists which are almost
exclusively read by transhumanists, thus concentrating on preaching to
the choir, hair-splitting, or debates which do not directly concern
our supposedly shared transhumanist agenda.

Now, writing (a) novel(s) is certainly a good way of making an actual,
productive use of such exchanges. Echoing the ideas debated therein in
blogs, in external, special interest fora, in articles would also be
one, and so would be actively engaging in recruiting more people, and
more diverse people, for those lists

My wonder is how many of us really keep a balance between chatting
here in order to understand better what a shared position on X or Y
might be - or at least where we have to agree to disagree - and doing
some *actual* work for one's own ideas, elsewhere.

-- 
Stefano Vaj