In a message dated 09/05/1999 3:54:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, GBurch1@aol.com writes:
> Thus, perhaps by the middle
> of the next century, we might see multiple enclaves developing in
cyberspace,
>
> in ocean or island habitats on earth and in one or more habitats off
earth,
> while at the same time many people in the old "mainstream" societies will
> have come to realize that the direction of successful segments of those
> societies has become more or less "extropian".
>
> Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness
Guide
> http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
> "Civilization is protest against nature;
> progress requires us to take control of evolution."
> -- Thomas Huxley
By the way-like your website, G.B. I tend to be a nano/extro pessimist. I believe eveything that has been proposed by TransHumanists & Extropians is logically possible. I do suspect (rightly or wrongly) that the futures envisoned in literature by the Bears/Egans/Sterling/Gibson and company are quite likely to occur. I suspect also, that where most of you say decades; I say centuries (milenia) for the really big changes to happen-such as the Singularity. For those such as I, we focus either on whats close by technically; or cast our immaginations into the deep futures that may occur with cosmology. Perhaps to universe governed by intelligence instead of randomness.
Spud