[ExI] transhumanism as a philosophy

[Damien Broderick]

On 6/22/2010 12:01 PM, Giulio Prisco wrote:

> Damien's "accusation" is not an accusation, but a statement of fact.
>
> It is a fact that Max has not been as publicly and visibly active as
> he used to be. It is a fact that the Extropy Institute has been closed
> down for a long time now. It is a fact that the old issues of
> "Extropy: A Journal of Transhumanist Thought" cannot be found online.
...
> It is a fact that others have taken advantage of the perceived absence
> of Max and the Extropy Institute, and promoted their favorite
> interpretation of transhumanism as_the_  interpretation of
> transhumanism.

Yes, I reviewed what I'd written and felt that none of these facts 
deserved to be called an accusation. However, someone commented to me 
offlist that Natasha was probably upset because I'd used the word 
"conspiracy," when I wrote: "Hence, it hardly seems necessary to invoke 
a conspiracy to explain why the active and visible representatives of 
transhumanism get more attention--and have more sway, assuming they do."

That was shorthand for Natasha's comment concerning:

"...WTA's ardent thrust for pushing Extropy out and Bostrom/Hughes in. 
It was indeed obvious and even successful on many fronts because people 
are easily influenced, especially when a campaign is established and as 
with WTA's front and their control of
Wikipedia."

So some people established a pro-Bostrom/Hughes campaign, using WTA as 
one front among many, and controlling Wikipedia. All this might well be 
true, but isn't "conspiracy" a suitable word to summarize such activity? 
Perhaps I ought to have used Natasha's word "campaign." (Still--what 
shadowy forces were behind this campaign? Just wondering--I don't feel I 
have a dog in this event.)

Damien Broderick