[extropy-chat] Suggestion to +H groups: Diversify.

[Chris Phoenix]

Two years ago, Mike Treder and I realized that there was a need for an 
organization like CRN.  So we created one.

We're often asked whether we're competing with Foresight, or were 
frustrated with Foresight, etc.  No!  It has nothing to do with 
Foresight.  The tasks to be accomplished are simply far too big for any 
single organization.  (Or any two; if someone else wants to start a 
nano-preparation organization, PLEASE do!)

We are very different from Foresight.  We don't have members.  We don't 
hold conferences.  We focus on somewhat different things.  We have 
different styles of publishing.  Is this because we think we're better? 
  No!  It's because diversity is good, and styles are different, and we 
do what we're best at.

We don't even work with Foresight very much.  We work with people who 
are also involved in Foresight.  (Drexler's on our Board of Advisors.) 
But the two organizations don't try to do joint projects, or coordinate 
activities.  This is not due to any failure.  It's just that there's so 
much to do that we can be more efficient by picking our separate 
favorite things to work on than by spending time dividing up the space.

And so we never fight.  We don't owe each other anything.  We give each 
other free publicity when we feel like it.  We don't compete for members 
or funding.  If we did something that Foresight actually disliked or 
disapproved of, I assume they'd tell us so; and vice versa; and we might 
agree or not; and either way would be fine.

There's a paradox in economics: if you have one beach and two ice cream 
vendors, with each person walking to the nearest one, the sytem is most 
efficient if the vendors stand at the 1/4 and 3/4 points.  But they'll 
tend to edge closer to each other, jockying for market share, until they 
stand side by side in the middle and everyone has to walk farther to get 
ice cream.

When we started CRN, we did not have a strategy of being different from 
Foresight.  We simply invented ourselves from scratch, and the 
possibilities were so wide that we ended up quite different.  But I 
think it's worked out very well.

So when I see organizations in a space as unexplored as transhumanism 
jockying for control of a single FAQ or a joint policy or a political 
stance, I have to wonder whether they're falling into the pattern of the 
ice cream vendors.  Perhaps less collaboration and more diversity would 
help break some of the logjams.  In organization-space, territory is not 
a zero-sum game.  And sometimes it's best for organizations basically to 
ignore each other--even while cooperation can happen at the level of 
people or projects within those organizations.

I realize that this appears to be the opposite of Mike Treder's "group 
hug" advice.  I don't see any irony or contradiction in that.  It may be 
an example of the diversity/freedom I'm advocating: Mike has close ties 
with the WTA, and I have none at all, and neither of us consulted the 
other before writing our advice.  Just use what works.

Chris

-- 
Chris Phoenix                                  cphoenix at CRNano.org
Director of Research
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology          http://CRNano.org