Michael Lorrey wrote:
>
> dalec@socrates.berkeley.edu wrote:
>
> > Okay. I have a few quibbles here and there, but the main question, the
> > question I keep returning to, is this: What makes the organization you
> > are outlining here *extropian* rather than just fairly conventionally
> > American libertarian? Your claim seems to be that the best preparation
> > for the technological future extropians anticipate is to spread as widely
> > as possible a respect for rights and liberty in their libertarian
> > formulations. This is arguable, and I wouldn't mind seeing the arguments
> > so long as they didn't veer too much into Basics. But the thing that is
> > most relevant to the topic at hand is that the organization you are
> > outlining would be pretty indistinguishable from a libertarian
> > organization and I can't see why it wouldn't represent an unecessary
> > duplication of services. Is there a uniquely *extropian* agenda and space
> > of activism that remains to be filled, one that might actually deserve the
> > moniker "the extropian *movement*"? Best, Dale
>
> I understand, and I can see what you mean. Its always good to start with a
> more narrow focus, I guess I just wanted to make sure that this concept was
> considered the backbone, that which is in need of little debate or waste of
> bandwidth. Based on this, we should engage in legal cases where clear issues
> of infringement of rights to use technology are infringed. I agree that while
> what I originally was proposing just sounded like Libertarian Party II, we
> need to put a more narrow focus on to emphasisze the technological aspects.
>
> I think that the present cloning thing we should really rally about, as its
> really becoming a flash point. Things are getting WAY out of hand. If we had
> a program with "Harry & Betty Smith" as the subjects, two ordinary people who
> can't have healthy kids unless they clone, produced and put on one of the tv
> news programs or some such, we could start to score points. Maybe get a couple
> of religious nuts to say some really embarrassing things to illustrate who the
> radicals really are.
--
The future has arrived; it's just not evenly distributed.
-William Gibson
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