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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Lee Corbin,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><<<<<o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Brent writes (Hi Brent! It's been a while
since I've seen<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>you on the list---welcome back and all.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Thanks! Yes, I’ve been hiding for the last year
or so working on, incorporating, developing, filing for patents and so on with
what I’m thinking of calling the “canonizer”.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>You may have already guessed, yes I intend it to be a wiki
with the goal of handling (i.e. canonizing) POV. One that resolves many
of the troubling issues with wikipedia, and so much more (around the order of
enabling extropians to finally lead and save the world). The more I think
about this, the more It is my POV that this will be the “next big
thing” to vastly surpass all next big things to date. Once I got
started on this this year, every month or so I have been waking up my wife
around 3:00 am as I jump out of bed with uncontrollable manacle laughter
rambling on about ever greater things like how the canonizer will be able to
duplicate Google’s context “Google adds” but they won’t
be able to duplicate the reputable “canonized adds” with validating
canonized satisfaction scores which all advertiser will now have to pay the
canonizer to get if they want any kind of advertisement with any respect.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Obviously this is all only my POV, so take it all as
such. I would love to know where all your POV is different!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The idea of creating something like this has been stewing
around in my head for over 10 years now but with my primitive thinking I just
wasn’t able to recognize a few of the possibilities till this year.
I’ve been expecting someone else to create something like this all this
time, but haven’t seen anything like it yet. When Jimmy Wales, with
the help of Extropians like Lee Crocker and others, created Wikipedia, I was
happy to finally see someone getting close – but I recognized instantly that
there was going to be terrible “edit wars” and a necessary general
rejection of POV with such a system. And sure enough, despite
Jimmy’s claims that “Disputes are characterized in Wikipedia; they
are not re-enacted." look at the history of any controversial issue on Wikipedia
and you see lots of people wasting enormous amounts of time fighting
“edit wars” and re-enacting the same old same old over and over
again – just as we all have been doing forever in our meaningless and
lonely one sided POV “debates”. Sure, some progress is slowly
possible through extreme amounts of effort. And we occasionally get
extreme disruptions in the “hurd” thinking with THE single POV on
various topics. But the majority view (i.e. the view that has the most
vocal and active participants and ability to aggressively fight edit wars) is
really the only view that gets adequate representation. Politicians so
long for a location to express their “POV” Yet Politicians
hate Wikipedia, precisely because they are aware of all this, and it is so draining
on their resources in their futile attempts to fight all these wars and so
on. Many ultimately just give up, figuring it isn’t worth the
extreme effort with any POV in wikipedia.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I started to finally realize the true power of a POV wiki
towards the end of 2005 and during 2006 as my heart broke while I witnessed the
shattering of what the World Transhumanist Association is and could be as a
significant set of members split (or were forced) out over differing POV.
Some are attempting to form a World Transhumanist Society and attempting to get
everyone to “abandon that (WTA) sinking ship before it goes down”.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>A group of us Mormons, mostly here in SLC, <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Utah</st1:place></st1:State> are trying to start up the
“Mormon Transhumanist Association” (see transifurism.org) with some
amount of success so far. But boy, if you think plain old Extropians and
Transhumanists have organization shattering differing POV, try working with a
group of people like this!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Many others, like Dirk Bruere, have attempted to organize
extropians and transhumanists so that they can accomplish something useful
together but have also failed miserably, commenting: “I came to the
conclusion long ago that the only thing Transhumanists can agree on is
Transhumanism.” And all this is to say nothing of the painful and
destructive tiffs between “extropians” and
“transhumanists” and so on ad nausium. Even on this extropy
list, we go over so many issues over and over again, never making any
quantifiable progress, so much so that many people leave in frustration.
Traditional Wikis don’t seem to be helping at all do they?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>And what are we to take from the demoralizing and heart
wrenching “Extropy Institute is closing its doors and opening a window
for a proactive future.”???? I bet I’m not the only one that
has cried a huge bucket of tears over this!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This door and window saying obviously comes from the
primitive idea that “When God closes a door; some where he opens a
window”. How can any Extropian use such a primitive, the world is
getting harder and on its way down, aphorism? In my POV, when
technology closes a door, one should start looking around, because there is a
lot more than a hard to get to “window” that is inevitably just
opening up. I don’t know about you, but I see a lot of potential
supper powerful turbo rocket sleds and more just coming into view as that door
closes. They are just sitting their waiting for the first group of people
that aren’t chained down by their primitive boxed in thinking to
recognize them, get on, take off, and make an ever more huge profit while
changing the world for the better!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I think Extropians and Transhumanists are (or should be) the
leaders of society. They are the ones way out in front of everything, and
definitely not thinking like everyone else. They recognize the problems
with all the herd or “flock” POV. The problem is, the only
way to accomplish anything, and to “lead” everyone is to organize
and work together. Any person alone can’t really accomplish much
– though many individual Extropians like Max More, and Raymond
Kurzweil… have made Herculean accomplishments all by themselves.
But we can’t all be this great on our own and in the past the only really
effective organization structure where people can work together was a simple
hierarchy. And of course in any hierarchy there is only room for one POV
– and that is the POV of your superior. All you can find at the
ultimate top is some supposed “God”? And any Extropian
can’t tolerate or function within any such hierarchical structure, as a
member of a “flock” or whatever, even if they have the chance of
being given ultimate power in the top position. They turn such down, and
rightly so, as they recognize how immoral, secretive, paranoid, and evil any
such hierarchical organization is or ultimately becomes right?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>So, are we Extropians to be left on the sidelines as we
scoff at the terrible leaders perched atop of the world’s dominant
hierarchical immoral secretive fear mongering organizations as they blindly
ridicule technology and lead everyone to hell in a handbasket? I think
not. I believe all that Extropians need is the right kind of tools that
bridles differing POV and uses it to justly drive everyone forward in a very
powerful way. The greater the diversity the better! Leaderless or
networked managed organizations definitely aren’t as simple and easy as
hierarchical ones – but I think – given the right tools and
sophisticated voting, grouping and communicating systems, they will be able to
blow hierarchical organizations away and outperform them every time. And
I think the necessary prerequisites to creating such tools are finally in
place. All that is required is the right vision and a little bit of
mashing up of things. So do any of you think we could do this like I do?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>(IMNHO) watch out, all you secretive, immoral primitive
hierarchical leaders. All your dastardly doings are passed. For the
canonizer with its banner all bravely unfurled, is about to hurl down its
little brother empowered gauntlet to thee!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><<<<o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>So there will be sections that read, "While some<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Extropians blah blah blah, others maintain that ...".<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Exactly, but how many extropians, and which
extropians??? And can anyone really do any kind of justice writing some
other’s POV in a “sympathetic” way? Certainly not with
any meaningful and important passion! And how often does the media (or
wiki contributor?) give way to much attention to some obscure and unjust POV
and so on… ad nausium in the name of getting “both sides of
the story”? Getting any kind of qualitative measure of how
“justified” or accepted any POV is is near impossible today.
Especially if you only want to know how accepted it is only by a set of people
YOU chose to respect and so on. Everyone claims “global
warming” is “accepted science”. But does anyone really
know, quantitatively, just how “accepted” and by who, it truly
is???<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>All our primitive upbringing has conditioned all of us to
only tolerate one POV. And THAT is our only problem, in my
POV. Everyone seems to think there can only be one true POV tolerated and
all others deserve to be cast down to hell or “abandoned before they
sink.” I say enough! There is room for everyone to get all
that they want! If we are all willing to work TOGETHER for all of it I
believe we will be able to achieve all of it.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I’ve got a very crude prototype of the canonizer running
at test.canonizer.com. Please don’t expect too much, as this is
what I am developing on right now on a very small machine in my basement, and
it is often down or crashing as I develop things. It doesn’t YET
“canonize” any of the POV, but it does have wiki functionality with
the added ability to handle POV structure on any topic. I hope this is
enough of a proof of concept so some others can see the power I believe such a
thing can have.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I soon hope to have the ability so that when a Mormon
teenager goes to the canonizer seeking information about a POV topic such as
God, they will be able to select a Mormon canonizer and find the state of the
art of exponentially growing information about what Mormons believe about God
filtered and sorted near the top according to their desires. (Can you
sense the we’ll no longer be held back by a moribund prophet wearing
scriptural blinders tone in this?) Of course they will be tempted to also
change their canonizer to an Atheist or Extropian one, right! Isn’t
that what we all need right now instead of all the absurd splitting up and
isolation / abandonment by everyone? I say the more POV the better!
Screw “sympathetic POV”! I want to see the good passionate
stuff in a quantifiably measurable way. And I want all of it together in
a just and equitable system that drives us all forward instead of ripping us
apart.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The primitive idea seems to be that some “God”
or even worse some “Big Brother” at the top of some hierarchy is
going to get and do in everyone. But is that really what the future
holds? What is it that really matters? Is it only what some guy at
the top wants? Or is it what everyone at the bottom wants that really
matters? I’m really liking the “little brother” idea
that seems so enmeshed in YouTube, the internet and all.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Does anyone know what all the teenagers and entrepreneurial
20 something people in Iraqi want? Should we care what all the ayatollahs
and military leaders at the top of the hierarchies want to impose on them? Why
are they the only ones anyone ever asks??? Has anyone ever tried to ask
the teenagers in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>
in any usefully quantitative way what they want?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>When you think about it, POV, and the accurate
representation and quantification of such is everything important today
isn’t it? As everything else become a free commodity, knowing POV
will become of infinite value right? Would anyone ever go to wikipedia to
find out information about any POV topic like God? And when Robert
Bradbury asks: what is the "best path from where we are now to where
we might like to be?" or when scientists are seeking to know
quantitatively whether global warming is truly accepted science or not.
When 10,000 very opinionated scientists want to know which of any very
expensive (such that we can only afford to do one at a time) experiments we
should do first and so on… Where can we go too easily, rapidly, naturally
and quantitatively find which way to go?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Who should those of us who aren’t as swift and smart
as some of you follow and how can we know and recognize the primitive ones
leading us down yet another rat whole as soon as possible as will be ever more
required in today’s ever more dramatically changing world?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>What is the gospel according to you?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Everyone wants to know!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>canonizer.com<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I’m hoping some of you might be interested enough to
help out with some POV wiki development work. I’m just some
quixotic second rate programmer that can’t really do anything on my
own. And I’d sure like to know all of your POV on the power of a
wiki that can justly and quantitatively handle all POV and whether or not
something like this could indeed turn things around and maybe even “save
the world”?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Brent Allsop<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>P.S. I’m sorry this was such a long post.
As I am discovering there seems to be no end to the power of all this stuff and
I’ve only briefly touched on some of what I’ve obviously only
started to discover. If you too find yourself jumping out of bed with
uncontrollable maniacal laughter about ever more fantastic possibilities at
3:00 am once you start really thinking about this like I have been. Well,
brothers and sisters, all I can say is welcome to the heavenly future for all
as we finally rapidly head into the singularity!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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