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Once again, I am asking that we put on our thinking caps. Time is
running out and we need to reevaluate and analyze what we stand for
behind the philosophy of Extropy.<br><br>
I have heard comments about Extropy Institute becoming too involved with
transhumanism and too far away from the central philosophy of
extropy. What we need to keep in mind is that the philosophy of
extropy is the original philosophy of transhumanism. Certainly I
understand many comments from varied perspectives that transhumanism has
become watered down. Perhaps we can rectify this by bringing
Extropy more strongly into the society of the future.<br><br>
As president of Extropy Institute, I have worked hard for quite some time
to protect ExI from outlandish political positioning, bad press from
early days of cult references, and being a small group of crazed
futurists. We know that we were here early on -- before our ideas
hit the mainstream. I have tried to keep ExI in that spiralling
movement forward into the future in deference to ExI and its
members. Thanks to highly-visual people like Ray Kurzweil, he
has taken us along with him. But dealing with the many backhanded
treatment of ExI and its members has been quite difficult. Instead
of getting the support of early members, they turned on me because I
wanted to realize a world-wide vision for our future, rather than a small
clique. It has drained me, I must admit. What I want to do
now, is to recapture EXTROPY for our future, both within transhumanism
and outside of transhumanism.<br><br>
Our Vice President, Greg Burch, said recently that our vision is beyond
transhumanism. I agreed. Our vision, the vision of Extropy is
far and wide, and no cultural movement should or can limit its
meaning. But that vision needs guidance and support.
Repeating and reiterating my words, he also said that we need a new
political viewpoint -- one that far outreaches what we have known in the
past - on that is more futuristic for a society that will find its place
in the future and help others along into that future. We have
always been visionaries - we need to re-ignite our mental engines and put
our heads together and let go off stigmas, the past, what was and find
ourselves again as the brain-trust that we are.<br><br>
First we need to reestablish this email list as a solid, intelligent,
creative and inspiring email list. No more fights. No more
wasted bandwidth. I am expecting all list members to think about
the quality of their posts before sending them to the list.<br><br>
Second, I am going to encourage top list posters to get back on the list
- those that are reading the list but too busy with their own lives and
businesses to post frequently. We need to hear from them!<br><br>
Third, I want to thank list posters who have been here for many, many
years, who are our top posters - Damien, Eli, John Clark, Max, Hal (Mike
when you are not on a soapbox), Sam, Amara, Gina - and the rest of you -
you know who you are. You give this list quality and a reason for
subscribing.<br><br>
Fourth, we may reinvent this list within the next week - or create
something else to tie into the list that will encourage high quality
posting about the future technologies, problematic issues in the world
stifling the future as we want to see it realized, and how support
extropy.<br><br>
More later -<br><br>
Natasha<br><br>
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<br><br><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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<dd><font size=2><a href="http://www.natasha.cc/">Natasha
</a><a href="http://www.natasha.cc/">Vita-More</a>
<dd>Cultural Strategist, Designer
<dd>Studies of the Future, University of Houston
<dd>President, <a href="http://www.extropy.org/">Extropy Institute</a>
<dd>Founder, <a href="http://www.transhumanist.biz/">Transhumanist Arts
& Culture</a> <br><br>
</font>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><i>Knowledge is the most
democratic source of power.</i> Alvin Toffler
<dd><i>Random acts of kindness... </i>Anne Herbet<br><br></font>
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