[ExI] and speaking of exponential singularities...

[Stefano Vaj]

On 19 July 2011 00:20, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> There's also the quite incredible gullibility/stupidity of people who devote
> their lives to hokum that a child could show was concocted by a scammer (as
> with $cientology), since the fraudulence of the thing is a matter of fairly
> recent historical record.

The main reason why I consider Scientology an archetype of what could
go wrong for a philosophical movement, including (why not?) organised
transhumanism, has little to do with the frankly embarassing thinness
of their creed, but rather with the dead end they find themselves in.

Originally, Dianetics and Scientology may well have been both a
practical joke and a way to make a decent living for their founder.
But now? You are recruited, your personal life and estate is swallowed
by the organisation, you climb the ladder, and find other people whose
life and estate to swallow in a sort of social Ponzi scheme where
there is no Ponzi actually becoming rich. In fact, the entire
structure does not appear to serve any other purpose than its own
survival.

Compare that to the catholic church, who managed to upset (in this
case some would say "corrupt") the worldview, value system and
structure of an entire society for ages, and to maintain its influence
on all aspects of life for almost two thousand years, even where and
when its direct grip on people is eventually loosening.

*This* is the way to go, as far as activism is concerned. :-)

Not that of recruiting people to raise funds to pay a living for
people raising funds to pay a living to people raising funds to pay a
living...

-- 
Stefano Vaj