<HTML><BODY STYLE="font:10pt verdana; border:none;"><DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt Arial">----- Original Message -----</DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt Arial; COLOR: black"><B>From:</B> Adrian Tymes</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt Arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, June 10, 2004 6:01 PM</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt Arial"><B>To:</B> ExI chat list</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt Arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [extropy-chat] How are we going to do this?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <P>--- Michael Howell <vanmojo@msn.com> wrote:<BR>> I've got a question, I've seen numerous<BR>> scenarios about amazing possibilities the future<BR>> holds for expanding human potential: Intelligence<BR>> Amplification, Uploading, Immortality, etc.. But<BR>> how are we actually going to DO this.<BR><BR>Good question, and exploring that is one of the main<BR>reasons I joined this list.<BR><BR>> It seems to me<BR>> that there are two main obstacles:<BR>> <BR>> 1) Financial: The above technologies are<BR>> going to be expensive. Unless you volunteer to be a<BR>> lab rat, you're going to have to consider how to<BR>> acquire the money.<BR><BR>One way I've found is through developing the<BR>technology itself. Baby steps, anyway, short enough<BR>to get funding through traditional mechanisms (grants,<BR>business financing, et al) but with enough serious<BR>substance to advance whichever field you're working<BR>in.<BR><BR>There are a few speculative jackpot scenarios I've<BR>heard of, the nearest to practicality involving the<BR>private, cheap access to space that's now being<BR>developed.<BR></P> <P> I wasn't talking about the difficulty of developing the technology, merely of buying it.</P> <P><BR>> 2) Social: If you haven't noticed, society<BR>> is pretty hostile to transhumanism. We're going to<BR>> have a problem if the Luddite/Theocratic trend get's<BR>> worse.<BR><BR>As I posted recently, a large part of this actually<BR>relates back to an aspect of the financial - only<BR>instead of you (or us) getting the money, it's these<BR>other people not experiencing the benefits. Once you<BR>can give, for free or little $, a drug that defeats<BR>aging, very few people will refuse to take it on moral<BR>principles. When only the rich can get it, people may<BR>see that as unfair, and believe (falsely) that their<BR>only path to remedying that unfairness is to deprive<BR>the rich of the drug (or, equivalently, of their<BR>lives). When no one can get it, people may think<BR>(again, falsely) that the people developing it are<BR>sucking up resources that could be better spent<BR>elsewhere, or think that the research is likely to<BR>produce things that would materially detriment<BR>society.</P> <P> The problem I see is not that they see it as unfair but that the hole idea of pushing back boundaries on human potential; be they intellectual, physical, or in the realm of human lifespan, is wrong. For centuries, as Max More pointed out, humans have had to accept certain limitations to the point of glorifying them( you shouldn't play God, don't tamper with nature, do you really want to live forever?). <BR><BR>It seems the solution here largely involved cluing<BR>people in as to how they can participate in, and<BR>benefit from, these technological advances without<BR>having to already be a hyperintelligent billionaire.<BR>This is a process commonly referred to as "education",<BR>although it is not the only thing people mean by that<BR>word.</P> <P> Robert Anton Wilson said that the only real way to change human behavior on a large scale is to introduce a new technology. My BEST hope currently is that the Singularity will introduce such a technology, probably in the realm of intelligence amplificaition.<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>extropy-chat mailing list<BR>extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<BR>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat<BR></P></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>