On Sat, 11 Sep 1999, J. R. Molloy wrote:
> The US has successfully kept secrets from the public before (and not just
> about assassinations) as have a few other military industrial complexes.
Yes, but the laws today make it harder to do that.
>
> No, really, if the White House (America's, Russia's, or anyone's) or the
> military gave serious consideration to these matters, would they try to
> flatten the spike, subvert the tsunami, or devise an action plan to deal
> with it (see for example, the bibliography: "Surfing the First and Second
> Waves in 2025" http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap10/v3c10-7.htm
It can't be stopped without putting us back into the dark ages. You should consider reading the section in Ben Bova's "Immortality" book on why increased longevity *must* arrive. He does a very good job with this (in contrast to the biology part that is only so-so). Also, review the references in my recent "Cybercommunist Manifesto" post. Open knowledge & open source "force" the singularity upon us. Why? Because the benefits are so huge and you can't control everyone who would like to have the technology *without* having the technology.
>
> Since the military sits on the bleeding edge of technology, I don't see a
> more likely suspect for developing and directing a total war/tidal wave.
Funding - yes; making some devices we might prefer didn't exist with it - perhaps; but directing it, no. Technologies with primarily military applications could be classified top secret and stay that way, but technologies with dual use will either leak out of the lab or the public will demand access to them.
> So, I think extropians should collaborate on a multi-media presentation
> to educate leaders about the coming spike, while we have time to do it.
Now this is actually a good idea. I'm not sure we could do a multi-media presentation at this point if you mean film, because film is still expensive to edit. However, it is clear that there is enough depth on the list to produce a mass-market educational book. Max could do a chapter on philosophy, Greg a chapter on law & government, I could do one on longevity, Anders & I on SIs, perhaps Eliezer could contribute on AI, Damien could do one on the Singularity, Natasha on Art or perhaps self-bio-engineering, maybe a couple of our European folks could contribute a chapter on political evolution (since we are illiterate about that in the U.S. :-)).
Do we have any other "experts" in relative fields or people who would want to focus on an area?
If we then worked hard at getting the book translated into various areas we might actually have an international springboard. There is enough time between now and Extro5 to have this out by then.
How about:
"The Extropian Manifesto: An Exploration of Trans/posthumanist Ideas"
Robert