Re: Extropianism certainly does have a history already!

Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:10:44 -0700 (PDT)

On Sat, 9 Oct 1999, Natasha Vita-More wrote:

> At 04:41 PM 10/8/99 PDT, John wrote:
>
> >I was very surprised to see Eliezer say "what history?" And then Anders
> >reply "it hasn't begun yet". While certainly extropianism has not yet
> >found its place in the annals of history and still has much to do there
> > can be no doubt that it does have a history.
>
> Transhumanism and extropian transhumanism do have a history and that
> history is still being written.

I interpreted the statements a little differently due to the singularity. All history we know of to date will pale in comparison to what happens when the singularity hits because the rate of change will be so much more rapid. I noticed recently that people have started refering to business developments & personal rates of change in terms of "Internet Time". Internet time is going be *slow* compared to "singularity time".

I believe Eric D. commented on this at Extro4 when answering a question someone asked. The gist of his comment was that exponential growth curves look very flat at the beginning (on non-log scales). So "history" in terms of "rate of occurence of significant developments", history really hasn't begun yet. While we look at the development of extropianism/transhumansim now as a significant event (and a d*** hard one to accomplish), looking at it in retrospect from post-singularity time, it will be as significant as what Al Capone had for breakfast on the day he died.

Robert