[extropy-chat] Group Hug

[Zero Powers]

From: "Brett Paatsch" <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au>
Sent: Saturday, June 12, 2004 7:00 AM


> I suspect your sole question in that post ("why can't we (sic) keep our
> eyes on the prize") may have been rhetorical. Yet if your dismay and
> disheartenment is genuine perhaps it was not.
>
> If so, I suggest you examine your premises.
>
> First, I suggest you consider in what sense there is a "we".
>
> Perhaps consider the tragedy of the commons. If virtual communities
> are easy to join and organisations are easy, relatively to attain
positions
> of ostensible authority in then they are also easily corrupted and
hijacked
> by people with egos (I don't say that pejoratively - we (I mean living
> people) all have egos) and low personal investment.  Perhaps when the
> cost of of entry are so low it is easy for the brands to be debased.
> Perhaps you have some illusions about the elite nature of the folk that
> frequent the same places you do. Perhaps.
>
> Second, I suggest you consider in what sense there is "a prize". And how
> even if "we" could be operationalised, "we" in your terms would go after
> that prize.   Can you get consensus in your view from the folks you see
> as the "we" on even the "highest priorities"?R (R = Rhetorical). Note
> priorities are plural not singular - like "the prize".
>
> I don't have time to engage in this discussion too deeply, in fact, I'm
> probably done with it now. You can take or leave my comments as
> you see fit.
>
> Group Hug? - Isn't that what litters of baby rabbits would do in the
> face of fierce adult rabbit-politics and a universe that wasn't explicitly
> configured for their comfort?R
>
> If so, perhaps its the ones that don't need the group hug as much that
> are the fiercer rabbits, and don't really give a damn for rabbit politics
> they just grow to see it as funny, and perhaps even to wonder if maybe
> they are slightly foxy, like the politicing older-rabbits seem to be with
> each other, because after all the stakes are very high when one is a
> rabbit.

This is not my fight at all.  Although I am an intermittent lurker/poster to
this list, I am not and have never been a member of ExI or WTA or any other
TH organization.  I am however fascinated by the accelerating advance of
technology and the probability that in the fairly near future humans will be
able, with the application of copious amounts of advanced technology, to
ameliorate the last few inconveniences we have yet to conquer (specifically
including sickness, aging and death).  That's why I poke my nose in here
from time to time.

OK, it's not my fight, so why am I butting in?  You all know as well as I do
that, with the possible exception of Wired magazine, the mainstream press
(and therefore the mainstream of public opinion) views TH movements,
organizations and enthusiasts unfavorably (you know, cults, kooks, spoiled
"rich" kids with nothing better to do, etc.)

So my two cents: The airing of your "dirty laundry" on such publicly
accessible lists as ExI chat; the public finger pointing, accusations and
infighting of TH leaders and such as has taken place on this list over the
past week or so, only lends fuel to the fire and amunition to those who see
TH organizations as sophomoric clubs of clueless (fill in your own
derogatory epithet).

My recommendation: There are enough adversaries to the shared goals of TH
organizations that these organizations have good reason for unity and
cooperation (if not social identity), rather than among-group competition
and public venting of within-group conflicts.  It all seems very much like
Apache and Commanche warring against each other while Europe is landing.

Zero