Re: Dyson (Was: Paths to Uploading)

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
08 Jan 1999 11:11:06 +0100

Terry Donaghe <tdonaghe@yahoo.com> writes:

> First, I know very little about Mr. Dyson...
>
> I skimmed that Wired article, and perhaps I'm wrong, but I got the
> distinct impression that Mr. Dyson is not very interested in
> capitalism, and maybe that he is enamoured with communism or at least
> collectivism.
>
> Is this old news?

I would call Dyson a bit of an european-style humanist, perhaps a transHumanist so to say. That makes him somewhere left of Lenin to some of our list members, I suppose :-)

Actually, in _Imagined Worlds_ he has a chapter about technological failures that clearly shows that he really understands the importance of spontaneous orders and the failures of the control mentality. His view seems to be closer to "small is beautiful, and can conquer the universe". He cares about people rather than institutions.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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