Unfortunately, we are not actually descended from neanderthals as far as I
am aware; it seems consensus is that homo neandertalus and homo sapiens are
seperate offshoots from a common ancestor (homo heidelbergensis, in this
link: http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth1602/pcSapiens.html).
Neanderthals were an evolutionary cul-de-sac, kind of like Commodore Amigas.
Also, swapping to TransErectus could be problematic...
Emlyn
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky [mailto:sentience@pobox.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, 24 July 2001 8:01
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Transneanderthalism (was: Extropian bodies)
>
>
> I'd consider myself a transneanderthal but not yet a
> postneanderthal. The
> particular class of transneanderthal I currently belong to is
> "human", but
> I hope to eventually belong to a more extreme class of
> transneanderthal
> sentience. Even if I hope to someday be a postneanderthal,
> though, I have
> no intention of ever ceasing to be a transneanderthal.
> Indeed, being a
> transneanderthal is precisely what separates us from the apes
> and defines
> our identity as sentient beings. I can only see augmentations as
> continuing to improve and increase the transneanderthal status I so
> value. Some may still be mourning the loss of our
> neanderthality, but now
> that we have abandoned it I see no way out but forward. We are all
> transneanderthals now and cannot help but become even more extreme
> transneanderthals in the future.
>
> -- -- -- -- --
> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
> Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:55 MDT