[ExI] the myth of the US "liberal media"

[Jeff Davis]

2011/7/14 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> ... I am
> inclined to think that transhumanism / anti-transhumanism is going to be the
> real political divide of the future...

> ... I am inclined to keep an open mind,
> including for theories which are, or have become, quite out of the
> mainstream.
>  ... I think we may be too quick in believing that
> contemporary States are an insuperable paradigm
> ... I like the freshness, creativity and
> lateral thinking exhibited by the solutions envisaged by libertarians in the
> "anarco-capitalist" sense.

Masterful post.  Dispose of the nation state?  "Take my wife,
...please."  It's a lumbering anachronism -- not my wife -- chock full
of inefficiencies arising from the cobbling together of disparate,
incompatible, unavoidably fractious, often actively hostile
subpopulations with  leadership and control of power held by an
inherently despotic and socially distant political elite.

So shall we start over again?  Back to the drawing board?  Clean slate?

By all friggin' means.

Years ago,... many years ago, ...when I was taking the first steps
toward what would later become my transhumanist worldview, I
encountered "Here Comes Immortality" by Jerome Touchille.  JT was a
Randian disciple and one of the founders in the early 70's of the
Libertarian "thing".  These days HCI would be almost mainstream, and
"behind the curve" for those of a transhumanist bent.

One of the ideas presented in HCI -- an idea which has not yet
manifested -- is of an alternative social/governance structure: a kind
of corporate mediated tribalism resulting in a diverse array of
corporate mini-states.

Now, "corporate" and "state" put together has some negative historical
baggage, ie fascism.  Let's just get beyond that.  I'm talking "nice"
corporate,... "corporate with a human face".  (If how to make
corporate "nice" rather than rapacious seems problematic, then just go
back to corporate first principles and make "nice" the key to
profitability.

Essentially, under corporate guidance -- which is to say run as a
business, rather than a
gun-to-the-taxpayer's-head-concentration-camp-er-"nation" --
like-minded folks -- there's the tribalism -- are offered the
corporate "product": a turn key community where they can live safely
and efficiently in accordance with their mutually-held values, and
free-from the discord of diversity (ie living with and putting up with
discordant beliefs, values, practices, etc.)

As innovative as this is, Touchille added another novelty: to avoid
the siting problem -- the problem of the old bad govts having a
monopoly on available land.  These communities would be built at sea,
floating communities.  An obvious advantage to such a system is
(1)voluntarism: the "citizen" chooses a community (ie his "country")
which meets his needs (matches his meme set/values), and (2)
efficiency (I will leave it to others to enumerate the list of
efficiencies arising from this form of governance.)

A more modern variant of this idea is of course communities sited
outside the terrestrial gravity well.

                 ***********************************

I'm gonna leave it there.  I would love to hear what other notions any
of you might have.  Kelly?  Including the impact of the singularity
and the possible "retirement" of the meat-based way of life.

Once again, I am totally jazzed.

Best, Jeff Davis

"When I am working on a problem I never think
  about beauty. I only think about how to solve
    the problem. But when I have finished, if the
     solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
                 - Buckminster Fuller