ahhh extropians, a breath of fresh air.
I've been watching this list for a few weeks now and have read most
of the writings on extropy.com and feel sufficiently knowledgable about
this paradigm to engage in intelligent discourse with this list.
But oh, there is so much I wish to say, and get feedback on it simply
would not be fitting to put it all in one post and expect you to read
it all at once. And I feel that before getting started, I owe this list
an introduction to myself, where I'm coming from and how I came
to find the list.
Please bear with me on this somewhat lengthy and admittedly self
absorbed tour of myself.
My childhood was one of poverty and constant struggle to simply
survive, rather animalistic, if you will. I say this not in search
of sympathy (ugh!) but simply as a description of where I am from.
I feel neither pride nor shame for this fact for it has in great part
shaped who I am and given me an ability to find riches in the simplest
of things and enjoy everything that life has to offer. I need no
material to find happiness. I travel light and live as slave to noone,
not money, for I know very well how to do without that, not authority,
for I have no regard for authoritarians, and definately not to any
paradigm, religion or group, for I am singular and believe nothing,
except maybe possibility, for reality is rife with that.
I live my life by the tenet -
A good person needs no laws to tell them to be good,
and a bad person will just break the laws anyway.
I think I fall well within the first half of that statement.
At the young age of fourteen, I discovered LSD and would not be
satisfied to simply open the doors of perception, but rather promptly
proceeded to kick down every door which stood in the way of my
realizations and plunder the knowledge which awaited behind each one
be it joyous, revalatory, or horrifying. Though I no longer feel the need
to use hallucinogens in this manner as I have gained all that I can from
them (for now) my intense interest in retrospection and lack of fear of
what I find within, has led me to a knowledge of myself at a level which
i believe (haha, already a contradiction, there will be many more in my
writings) very few people achieve in a lifetime.
Around this same time, I became very immersed in the punk rock lifesyle
and ideaology, finding myself to be contrary to everything I could find
in society and full of anger for what I saw as an oppressive and
repressive society, hell bent on forcing conformity and complacency
through media manipulation of the mass conciusness, a machine which
viewed me as raw material with which to construct another cog to do it's
bidding. Nope, I wasn't biting. For a length of several years I saw it as
my mission to disassemble this system the only way I could from my powerless
perspective - waste myself, if I could damage myself sufficiently that
they would no longer see any use for me, and encourage other to do the same,
then I was doing my part to take the system apart at the component level.
So I dropped out after my third year in tenth grade and proceeded to
cause mischief, mayhem and self destruction to an almost disgusting
extreme.
I realize now that these attempts were greatly misconceived, but boy
what time it was.
Seven years ago, against all that I believed, I almost joined the Navy,
for the all the wrong reasons - a fealing of nihilistic desperation, not
knowing where my life was going or why, lost and powerless and hungry
and having no skill with which to trade for livelihood. My familiy surely
would have disapproved of this decision, so I kept it a secret for as long
as I could. The ASVAB tests concluded that I would be best suited to a
military vocation of Intelligence, I was going to be a spy for the
government which I detested so much. My secret was let out of the bag when
the recuiting officer called my house to get me in the office and sign my
life away. My older brother answered the phone (I was out), and when I
returned home he sat me down and convinced me to try just one other path in
life before joining the military, if that failed he would leave me to my
decision. After a little searching, I decided to go to a vocationial school
for computer programming, and so began a fascinating career in computer
technology and my love of the internet. Even though, I was determined not
to fall into some dull, dreary, workaday existence of flourescent lights,
cubicles and capitalistic drive for material wealth. I was in it for the
experiences and the knowledge. (Ok, i enjoy blowing wads of cash on
indulgences such as good food and liquor, a fun night out with friends, but
I hold those memmories in higher value than the money I spend on them.
All of my material belongings are purely functional, I own nothing simply
for the sake of owning it). And my quest for interesting experiences has
led me through myriad contracts with companies such as Electronic Arts,
Larry Flynt Publications and Virtuality to name a few.
Today, I would consider myself more of a contrarian than anything, as I
find (unarmed) conflict to be one of the most creative forces in my
experience and am always seeking a balance with the extremes.
Of course I can't express fully who I am in this email, but I think that
is sufficient.
Thank you for taking the time to get to know me, I hope to know all of you
better in time, and may we have many a heated discussion.
Nate
Keep an eye out for my future posts:
- Why I'll never be a "true" extropian
- A thesis on the paradox of nothing
and
- There is no box
P.S.
Something I thought you extropians might be interested in...
I'm sure many of you are aware of the new development from
ICANN regarding the seven new domain name suffixes -
.aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .musuem, .name and .pro
Well, it occurred to me that the mere existance of these
has a great potential to cause a bull market the likes of which
noone has ever dreamed possible as they will undoubtedly
result in a massive number of computer sales and new
companies which is almost certain to cause growth in every
aspect of the market. This coupled with the current (but temporary)
bear market makes this possibly the best moment in history
to invest in the stock market. But don't take my word for it.
I'm just a market watcher, not a player.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:22 MDT