Re: Rebuilding the Extropy FAQ

From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Wed Dec 06 2000 - 17:33:47 MST


Dan Fabulich wrote,
> We endorse spontaneous order (which is
> really a series of physically entropic processes) and, if we need to
> bother, preventing universal heat death.

Since it's spontaneous, it obviously doesn't require any endorsement.
What's really at issue here is accurately identifying human social trends
which are extropic (life affirming) and separating them from trends
accurately identified as entropic (tending to stasis).

> No, this misses the point that transhuman fascists, for example, are
> in no way extropic, not even by virtue of the fact that they support
> transhumanism.

You're talking about transhumanists who refer to themselves as "fascists"?
This boggles my bogosity meter. How can an admitted fascist (a usually
derogatory characterization) claim to support transhumanism? It seems to
me such an individual would experience a severe case of cognitive
dissonance, no? Or else the claim is just plain bogus.

> If you must nitpick, I suppose they're more entropic than luddites,
> but that's really not saying very much.

No, not saying much at all, in light of how you've described their other
attributes. Fascistic luddites... sounds like a profile for self-hating
losers.

> Transhumanism without a commitment to extropy is just transhumanism.
> This can turn into an extropic society, or it can turn out in a
> dystopic socialist nightmare.

Okay, I think I'm getting it now. Evidently transhumanists can go backward
as well as forward, they can revert to primordial primitivism and/or
progress toward their socialist dystopian future. Either way, your
explanation of them makes them seem irrelevant via their own imcompetence.
Unless of course they have some means for brainwashing a large population
and enslaving them to their twisted ideology. You didn't have that
scenario in mind, I trust.

> Consider, for example, the Nazis, <dum dum dum, discussion ends> many
> of whom would self-identify as transhuman fascists. In a possible
> Nazi future, the Aryan technocratic elite would live forever, and the
> rest of us would be enslaved or crushed. But just because the Aryan
> elite would use High Tech to live forever doesn't mean that a Nazi
> future would be anything close to extropic. And they'd hardly mind
> that. As far as they're concerned, extropy is dumb.

(Sigh) Now we've got these transhumans who are willing to identify
themselves not only as fascists, but also as nazis... So, how can they
expect any rational beings to take them seriously? Don't intelligent
people know that socialism doesn't work because it fails to provide
adequate incentives to produce the materials needed for prosperity? Don't
enough folks understand that nationalism means war? Doesn't the word
fascist elicit negative reactions from educated people? How can combining
all these dreadful failures of human thought into a "transhuman" (I use
the quotes because the word no longer means what it used to) community, do
more than supply the rest of the world with an easier way of targeting
them for extinction?

I thought I had done my homework on this, Dan. Now it seems you're
informing me that transhumanists are somewhat lower on the evolutionary
scale than scum-sucking trolls. Well, at least I never told anyone that I
was a transhumanist.

Stay hungry,

--J. R.
3M TA3

"It is enough that the people know there was an election.
The people who cast the votes decide nothing.
The people who count the votes decide everything." --Joseph Stalin



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