[extropy-chat] ENOUGH already

[Matus]

David said:
> 
> At 08:32 AM 12/25/2003 -0500, Matus wrote:
> 
> >You can debate about the specific ways a war might be carried out,
and
> >can surely figure some to be anti-extropic, but to absolutely assert
> >that *any* war is automatically anti-extropic is egregious.
> 
> There are certainly ways a war could be conducted that are more
> humane or effective or cheaper than the ways government does, beyond
> what Vinge discusses in "The Ungoverned" and what we've observed
> here, as when the ethics and effectiveness of political assassination
> was discussed.
> 
> As interesting as that conversation might be, it is apt to draw a bit
more
> attention than discussing M-brains. I've been reading the new
free-arms
> list, where a few proto-extropians have banded, and there's a sad
> awareness that GS-11 Brother is watching.
> 

To make this a more directly extropic conversation then, lets attempt to
define extropy.  Charlie asserts that how many people are alive (or were
killed) is a measurement of extropy.  Of course this is part of it, but
surely there is more to extropy than merely being alive.  We need
information, we need technology, we need science, and scientists.  I do
not think it would be accurate to merely associate extropy with freedom
any more than merely extropy with lives, since some freedoms I would
certainly value are probably not extropian (as my examples of cocaine
addicts or stoners) and some intelligent living beings my choose to
abandon intelligence and reason, and thus are not extropian.  

On the Extropy Institute principles page we see: 

Extropy -  The extent of a living or organizational system's
intelligence, functional order, vitality, and capacity and drive for
improvement

Extropic - Actions, qualities, or outcomes that embody or further
extropy

So for an action (I'll drop 'war' out of the discussion and just leave
it as an action) to be extropic it must result in a net increase in one
or many of the above criteria.  But what if one part increases, and
another decreases?  E.g. There are more intelligent people alive, but
they have no capacity for improvement (strict oppressive statism), or
conversely, what if there are fewer intelligent people around, but they
had a much greater capacity for improvement, is that extropic?

All the people in the universe, if they never have any capacity for
improvement, can not be considered more extropic than even *one* person
who has that capacity for improvement.  

I will defer to Charlie then, is what is extropic merely how many people
are alive?  Or are there other variables to consider?  How do we
prioritize these variables?  I doubt that you meant only the number of
living beings was the sole criteria for judging something extropic, you
were getting your point across, but the difficulty is in actually
defining our ethical principles here in cases where one must choose
between different variables, all of which we may dearly value.  

Michael