[ExI] Is the ExI email list slowly dying out? And if so, what can be done to reverse such an outcome?

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat


>...The 90s were an optimistic decade, you felt in the air that good things
could happen and were about to happen. Space, bio/nanotech, the then young
internet, virtual reality, new political systems... Now we live in a
pessimistic and defeatist culture, and this shows here and elsewhere.
Recovering the optimistic outlook of the early Extropians list is, I
believe, what today's list (and world) need.

>...Or perhaps it is just that we are all getting old and grumpy.

_______________________________________________


So tragically true is this, but being the iconoclast misfit, I reversed the
usual order by starting out as a grumpy young man and getting more
congenial, open-minded, light-hearted and generally more hip as the years
progressed.  Friends and neighbors are so puzzled by this.

It helps to be into astronomy of course: oh what a time to be living for
those of us who follow that, what a marvelous time.  Any prole can just go
online and learn all kindsa cool stuff we have wondered about since we were
kids, all of it freeeeee free free as a bird, just go in there and start
searching around the internet and all this cool science and math and
technology and all the cool yakkity yak and bla bla and you can even get
excellent high-quality nekkid photos FREEEEEE along with all that cool free
science education.

Not only that: aaaaanyone can have all this stuff.  Anyone, no matter where
you live, even with very limited public bandwidth, the best stuff doesn't
require much bandwidth.  Everyone everywhere with a cheap Chromebook anyone
can get practically free at Goodwill can get to it and learn up on any
science, any technology, any life skill, heeeeheheheheheeee what a time it
is.

I still have not heard a good explanation for how one can justify pessimism
in our times.  We lived to see it.  This is a dream world, certainly my
dream world.  This is what we envisioned back in the 80s, ja?  We dreamed
that someday we could just tap in a few keystrokes and have all the
high-quality science stuff right there in our own home, only better than we
envisioned in some important ways: the monitors are bigger and higher
resolution than I realized they could be, and the scientific quality is
eeeexcellent compared to even 20 yrs ago.

Conclusion: we are living the dream.

Please grumpy bears among us, do explain how you can justify your attitude?

spike