On Popularization (was Re: [extropy-chat] Alice's Dilemma)

[JDP]

BillK wrote:

> On Sat Feb 21, 2004 01:35 pm JDP wrote:
> 
>> Sorry, but I don't think this is a good article. Introductions to such
>> big topics are interesting, because the author has to go to the basics
>> and provide his own perspective. But I found no original nor personal
>> element here, nor even a particularly rigorous thinking.
>>
> 
> I think you are being rather too harsh here. Don't take this article out
> of context. Joao did not write this for extropians. He is speaking to an
> intelligent readership (of Futures magazine) who have not really thought
> very much about the Singularity. So he has to try and break the news to
> them very gently, with plenty of references for further research.
> 
> Did you notice that the very next article after his was entitled -
> 'Integrated 1000-year planning'? As though the world is going to go
> along in much the same fashion for the next thousand years! That is the
> mind-set that articles like this have to try and break through.

Okay.

But let me make a general point. Writing an introduction to such a thing 
is a challenge, and it should be taken as such, trying to be rigorous, 
and seeing if you really believe the stuff yourself and why, instead of 
rehashing general elements on autopilot.

Popularization can be extremely fruitful if it is rigorous. The Selfish 
Gene by Richard Dawkins was written as popularization. It's often more 
challenging to do a "basic introduction" than to write on some very 
focused, technical issue.

Of course, not everyone is Dawkins. But not everyone needs to write 
introductions, either. When someone hears about something for the first 
time, the quality of the introduction he reads first can have a big 
impact on the interest he will have. Think education: would you tell 
your child rehashed stuff on autopilot about important things because he 
doesn't know anything anyway?

I have found that every time I talk with someone about some 
transhumanist-related issue, I try to find new ideas and metaphors 
unique to our dialogue, and to take seriously whatever she will tell me, 
finding something interesting and challenging in it even if it sounds 
like the same silly objection you've heard 200 times before.

I use it as an opportunity to think, instead of getting bored at 
restating things in ways already old to me. And it has much more impact, 
too, because the person feels that the thinking is original and alive, 
not borrowed or ossified. So it's more useful to us both.

Try to think new and better every time. Don't let "the Singularity" 
become like a familiar little plastic castle in your extropian mental 
playground. It's idiotic, whatever your audience.

Jacques