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At 10:28 PM 12/25/2006, Brent wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>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”.
</font></blockquote><br>
I commented on this several times on this list and no seemed to
care.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>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?</font></blockquote><br>
It is ridiculous to force people to agree on diverse topics through one
signal political viewpoint. It simply will not work. The problems
stemmed from a robust socialist overtake of WTA and a robust libertarian
centralist attempt to speak for ExI. Both were unable to value
transhumanism over their political stance.<br><br>
What we keeps pushing for was a more futurist political viewpoint that
works on solving problems rather than forcing any one political view as
the flawless means for solving problems. I had hoped that we could
stretch our imaginations and develop a new political viewpoint based on
the tools and methods of practicing futurists and develop a political
outlook that was novel and based on the new technologies that were
developed and being developed. We were extropians after all and
this is what I had hoped for and frankly expected. But my dream was
diminished by hard-nosed political dogmatists who would not work with
me. In fact, they did their best to smear me and my
reputation.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>
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!</font></blockquote><br>
No you are not. Many of us have cried. <br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>
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!</font></blockquote><br>
Then take action.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>
I think Extropians and Transhumanists are (or should be) the
leaders of society. </font></blockquote><br>
Yes.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>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. </font></blockquote><br>
Tell Max this. <br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>
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?</font></blockquote><br>
Yes.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>
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?
</font></blockquote><br>
No.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>
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?</font></blockquote><br>
Develop a fluid interconnected, immersive network of people who are
working on projects that are extropic and connect the dots. <br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>
So there will be sections that read, "While some<br>
Extropians blah blah blah, others maintain that ...".<br>
>>> <br>
<br>
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”?
</font></blockquote><br>
Not much. Just who is writing the Wikipedia entries on
transhumanism and related pages? Looks like about 4 people control
it. Just look at the pseudonyms and the writing styles. <br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>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”?</font></blockquote><br>
Extropy as a transhumanist philosophy lives on. It cannot
"close its doors." Only an edifice can do that and as such
cannot deter the continued growth of extropy or extropian transhumanists
("ETs"). Only ETs can develop the means to continue on
growing, innovating and developing. Maybe this is what Max and the
rest of us would have liked but didn't want to expect it because it seems
that too many people want to talk about changed but not get their hands
dirty.<br><br>
I had hoped that some of you would have taken the lead and carried parts
of the planks for a while. You all have ample opportunity,
especially when the leadership of WTA was so damaging to ExI. But when I
saw that you all allowed Wikipedia to manipulate transhumanism through
the voice of a handful of people who are not extropians, it was clear to
me that you simply did not want to get your hands dirty and expected Max
or the reset of us to do it for you.<br><br>
This is precisely why "we" did not want to expect anything from
"others." <br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<dl>
<dd><font size=2><a href="http://www.natasha.cc/">Natasha
</a><a href="http://www.natasha.cc/">Vita-More</a>
<dd>Design Media Artist - Futurist
<dd>PhD Candidate,
<a href="http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/researchcover/rcp.asp?pagetype=G&page=273">
Planetary Collegium </a>
<dd>Proactionary Principle Core Group,
<a href="http://www.extropy.org/">Extropy
</a><a href="http://www.extropy.org/">Institute</a>
<dd>Member, <a href="http://www.profuturists.com/">Association of
Professional Futurists</a>
<dd>Founder, <a href="http://www.transhumanist.biz/">Transhumanist Arts
& Culture</a> <br><br>
</font>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><i>If you draw a circle in the
sand and study only what's inside the circle, then that is a
closed-system perspective. If you study what is inside the circle and
everything outside the circle, then that is an open system perspective. -
</i>Buckminster Fuller<br>
<br><br></font>
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