[extropy-chat] Transhumanist Community

Wed Dec 7 05:29:39 UTC 2005

Brandon,
there have been many attempts to create transhumanist web boards and
move the discussion there from the mailing lists, but there has been a
lot of inertia and after a while we always went back to mailing lists.
For example the WTA forum is (login required):
http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/forums/
but apparently participants prefer to use the email list wta-talk.
I understand this, as also for me email is more immediate and
convenient. I see something interesting in my inbox, read it, reply
immediately is I wish. Since I use gmail I am also able to find old
posts by searching my mail.
Or perhaps we are just too used to email.
I am involved in some new thing that will be a mix of mailing list,
blogging system, web board, tagged repository, etc., something very
web2.0 - but I realize that to make people use something instead than
mailing lists, this something has to be much better and easier to use
than a list.
G.

On 12/7/05, Brandon Reinhart <transcend at extropica.com> wrote:
>
> I am speaking as a relatively new transhumanist. Those of you who are long
> standing, highly active members of this community should not be offended by
> my comments. I do not intend to indict or insult.
>
> -
>
> It seems to me that transhumanist community is in a sorry state. When I look
> at sites that are well known to transhumanists, I see very low rates of
> participation and conversion.
>
> Some thoughts on possible changes, improvements, and mistakes:
>
> 1. Favoring email lists instead of open forums.
>
> As far as I can tell, neither the WTA nor the Extropy Institute have public
> web forums. Instead, the two organizations rely on majordomo style email
> lists to facilitate communication. In my opinion this is a mistake.
>
> First, forums are more easily accessible than email lists. Any forum with a
> modern thread view and search facility provides a simple UI for quickly
> reading up on the latest discussion. If a reader wants to convert to
> participant, they are probably more familiar with the account creation and
> activation process of the major forum kits than majordomo, which is a
> relatively aged piece of software.
>
> Second, forums are potentially less "hostile" than email discussion lists.
> The email discussion list pushes data to the reader. Busy lists push so much
> discussion as to be unusable in real-time. Users have to be fairly
> interface-savvy in order to either A) filter the list into a separate folder
> in their email client or B) request the server send a digest. I suspect that
> the rapid-push nature of email lists could even alienate certain users in
> the "unwanted email == spam" environment we live in today. While it is
> probably reasonable to assume that most transhumanists are highly
> computer-literate, it is no reason to make quality transhumanist discussion
> only comfortably accessible to the class of individuals who are
> computer-literate.
>
> Certainly, forums take more work to maintain, generally, than email lists.
> The lowered barrier to accessibility means a somewhat lower signal-to-noise
> ratio. Forums have to be monitored and abusive users have to be silenced.
> Nonetheless, forums are very familiar to most web users, even at very low
> levels of computer-literacy.
>
> Computer literacy is not, in my opinion, a prerequisite to being
> transhumanist. After all, we extropians believe that art, music, and culture
> is an integral part to creating a Nice Place To Live and many artists aren't
> necessarily going to understand how to interact with majordomo, etc.
>
> 2. Not having any community at all.
>
> I'm _amazed_ that the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence has
> no forum what-so-ever. SIAI interests do maintain the SL4 mailing list but
> it is clearly intended for highly technical discussion, not general
> evangelism or community building. The SIAI seems to greatly desire an
> increased audience for the "singularity is AI dammit!" meme, Yudkowsky's
> philosophies in FAI and AGI construction, etc. Get a forum! Let people
> respond! Get someone to answer those posts and actively engage your readers.
> It isn't the only, final, or even necessarily the best path to getting that
> audience, but it is a relatively simple start.
>
> 3. Utilize blog style focused content delivery and then direct conversation
> to your forum.
>
> A front page with a blog structure is a great way to constantly push new
> events in your organization. The organization must seem to be alive in order
> to attract ongoing attention. If your front page hasn't been updated in
> three months, people will stop visiting. On the other hand, if you update
> with interesting (even if trivial) news about your organizations efforts,
> people will return to learn and discuss.
>
> In my opinion, the blog should be the initial page (with direction to "who
> we are" type of inquiries on a side panel menu). A few sites that do have
> blogs have a static main page and a "read our blog" type of link buried
> somewhere. This doesn't seem to be very effective.
>
> And yeah, I'm not walking the walk here either. Extropica is a potentially
> cool name for a transhumanist-evangelist site, but I have neglected it.
>
> 4. Not pushing people to community in an intuitive way.
>
> I just popped open the ExI site in my browser. In the center of the page I
> see something interesting: The Proactionary Principle. What is this? I want
> to read about it. It's compelling content. I click on it and see a draft of
> something interesting! Posted for public comment, awesome! But at the
> bottom: "please submit your comments to Extropy Board of Directors."
>
> What? No!
>
> There should be a link to a public forum saying "comment and discuss this
> and other ExI projects in our forums." Push those readers to the
> conversation. We are talking about smart people. They want to talk about
> what they just read. Or maybe just read what other people think. If they
> post, you've more or less guaranteed they will return to your organization's
> site and check the responses to their post.
>
> 5. Asking for the email address, before providing interesting information.
>
> I think that organizational updates sent by email are not as effective as
> posting those updates on the main site, perhaps with a forum to seed a
> discussion. SIAI has a "Free eBulletin" but an examination of the site's
> front page reveals no way to get this information without giving them my
> email address.
>
> Get with the 90s! I know few people who will give out their email address to
> an automated form when it isn't required (i.e.: not buying something online
> or performing security validation). It seems to me that the information
> regarding what conferences you're sending so-and-so to and what research
> papers whats-his-name is working on are critical donation engines and that
> information would always be as easily available as possible.
>
> This emphasis on forums and community is only important because we are
> currently a very issue and subject based community with relatively few
> participants. A forum for an organization like the Red Cross wouldn't really
> make sense, as they are extremely well established and aren't a small
> community organization. They have much more effective funding-mechanisms in
> place.
>
> CONVERSELY,
>
> - People need to participate more. If I pop open the imminst.org forums, I
> see a very low post-to-view ratio in a lot of the forums. People are reading
> the threads, but not responding. Maybe part of this comes from the
> complexity of transhuman subjects. People don't want to look like idiots.
> But we need people posting their questions so they can get answers, so there
> can be a much wider ranging dialog than exists currently.
>
> - People need to write more. There are a thousand interesting core concepts
> out there that have barely been scratched. When I read a series of articles,
> I generally see the same names popping up over and over. The Max Mores, the
> Kurzweils, the Anissimovs, etc. I cannot possibly believe that there are
> only a handful of people doing interesting thinking about transhumanist
> issues.
>
> I suspect that many will disagree with me, but I see the need for more
> arm-chair transhumanist evangelists. I think there is a need for people who
> can translate the concepts behind FAI and cryonics (etc) in a language that
> is not hostile, heavy handed, or nerdy.
>
> - People need to avoid meaningless dogma:
> http://www.singinst.org/interviews/nanomag-05.html
> What's with pressing the need to differentiate between the Kurzweil
> "singularity" and the Vinge "singularity"? It's counterproductive. Make up a
> new word or something! Its okay to let "singularity" go. We can steal a new
> word. If the media or public, as a result of Kurzweil's book and evangelism,
> ultimately latch onto a non-Vinge definition of singularity, that's fine.
> Celebrate that one of the critically interesting transhumanist memes is
> getting greater attention.
>
> Of course there will always be some meaningful internal conflict:
> http://www.sl4.org/archive/0206/4104.html
> And that kind of exchange should happen.
>
> Anyway, I'm mostly a lurker, but I thought I'd post my thoughts. Gotta think
> about ways to encourage people to learn about the singularity and get
> involved. I'm really in the "we have to push to make this happen" camp not
> the "singularity is an inevitable result of market forces" camp. I don't
> even know if those two camps really exist, or are just the result of
> miscommunication among individuals.
>
> Brandon Reinhart
> transcend at extropica.com
>
>
>
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