> The core values of Extropian thinking, while radical compared to
> mainstream modes of thought, are hardly incomprehensible. With out
> explicit references to uploading or iniversal assembers, I think the
> Extropian principles are rooted in very accessible ideas. Even so your
> teacher or anyone else scoffs the first time encounter Extropian ideals.
A good strategy when presenting transhumanism is to be light on the
uploading, space colonization and nanotech from the beginning; that
just makes people think it is some kind of new age (many people seem
to have the heuristic that anything optimistic but non-mainstream, not
obviously political is new age). But if you instead present our core
ideas (the human condition can be improved through rational means in a
life-affirming way) combined with some convincing evidence for this
position and that it has positive results, then people will begin to
listen. And in time even accept the more far-out ideas when they are
ready (or even better, do as my office-mate and ignore them and
concentrate on the immediately useful aspects of transhumanism; he has
pointed out that discussions about uploading might even be memetically
unhealthy for us).
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y