[ExI] [Hplus-talk] Working toward an Optimal Future

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Magnus Ulstein <magnus.ulstein at gmail.com> -----

Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 15:44:41 +0200
From: Magnus Ulstein <magnus.ulstein at gmail.com>
To: hplus-talk at list.humanityplus.org
Subject: [Hplus-talk] Working toward an Optimal Future
Message-ID: <CAGSNXr3SuJj8q7UiSERGCq3n7xeCCq4emJkDmY36Y_4Aix0Eag at mail.gmail.com>

If you are on this mailing list, chances are you’ve given at least some
thought into how you would prefer the future to turn out. And chances are
reality isn’t quite living up to your expectations. So the question we have
to ask ourselves is: What can we do about it? How can we nudge
transhumanity on to a path that leads to a more optimal future? And just as
importantly: what does a more optimal future even mean?

So, what can we do about it? Well, there are maybe a few thousand of you
who receive this email. That’s probably enough of a community to do
something. And elsewhere on the internet, net communities like LessWrong
and the Lifeboat Foundation are working to prevent some pretty nasty
futures. In another corner of the internet, environmentalists and
socialists are discussing how to prevent a corporation controlled future
from two very different angles. Environmentalist movements oppose genetic
modification in general, thinking only of terminator seeds and genetic
diversity while transhumanist movements support genetic modification in
general, thinking about the end of hereditary disease and a new generation
of transhumans.

As I see it, the main problem we have is simply this: those of us who think
seriously about the future aren’t talking to each other. At least not
enough. There are millions of people out there working towards a brighter
future, and we aren’t coordinating. And because we lock ourselves in
different mailing lists, on different web forums, we miss out on the ideas
that could be born from our interaction.

We have a lot we can learn from each other. Imagine the Green movement
combining with the Maker movement to produce 3d printers using recycled
plastic. Imagine transhumanist socialism, based on raising everyone up
rather than forcing everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Imagine
open sourced cybernetic implants.  Who knows what good ideas could emerge
if we could just talk together.

Some colleagues and myself have put together a website where all futurists
and people who care about the future (but do not identify themselves as
futurist) can discuss the relevant topics and hopefully find novel
solutions through combining ideas that one wouldn’t normally think to
combine.

Hence this mail. Humanity+ is perhaps one of the largest and best
established future interested groups out there, and frankly I’m not sure
we’d be able to pull it off without you. Your participation in this grand
experiment would help us make a more Optimal Future for everyone. In
return, we can offer a refreshing change of perspective and a look at the
bigger picture on where we are headed.

I hope to see you there.

http://optimalfuture.org/

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----- End forwarded message -----
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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