Re: Dissing of extropy in "Sleeping With ET"?

From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Mon Sep 04 2000 - 07:35:02 MDT


In a message dated 8/28/00 9:52:20 AM Central Daylight Time, allsop@fc.hp.com
writes:

> I noticed in the review of "Seeping With Extra-Terrestrials:
> The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety" by Wendy Kaminer at the
> Amazon.com page for this <URL:
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067944243X/extropyinstitute/>
> has the following comment:
>
> > but Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials is not merely an assault on
> > religion--Kaminer also attacks purveyors of junk science, the
> > influence of the recovered-memory movement on both feminism and the
> > American court system, and the "cyberspacy" claims made by boosters
> > of technological progress.
>
> I take this comment against '"cyberspacy" claims made by
> boosters of technological progress.' to indicate this book isn't to
> hot on extropianism? I plan on getting and reading the book some time
> to see what it has to say about this, but I wonder if any of you know
> what is contained on this topic in this book and if any of you had any
> thoughts or comments.

I read the book when it first came out, as I'm a big fan of Wendy Kaminer.
She's very much a personal essayist and broad synthesist, rather than a
rigorous analyst of culture, so she tends to take on big "chunks" of
subjects, rather than narrow, discrete topics. In that section of the book
(I just glanced through it again), she deals with the invasion of "New Age"
BS into the Net, the shallowness and indefensible generality of some early
pronouncements about the impact of the Web on "human consciousness", the
negative effects of "quick take" politcal commentary one finds on the Net
and, generally the dark side of fast-media, hyper-connected discourse, as
contrasted with the deliberateness of traditional literary forms.

I recommend this book and Kaminer's work generally as a humorous, critical
and skeptical viewpoint on contemporary culture. Her over-all theme of the
lack of critical thinking in the public sphere is well worth the time.

       Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
      Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
      http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
                                           ICQ # 61112550
        "We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
        enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
       question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
                                          -- Desmond Morris



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