As Bookends to the 20th Century, 2 Views of Technology's Promise
By Ashley Dunn
February 5, 1997
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/surf/020597surf.html
(Note, the URL may change.)
Begin excerpt
The impact of technology is not easily wrapped in a single bundle. Even as
Marinetti was careening down the streets of Milan, Marxists were gathering
strength elsewhere to bring down the oppressive system of the factory. As
Baudrillard and Virilio warn of imminent doom, the CyberUtopians and
Extropians hail the technological leaps that they hope will push mankind to
another level of development.
End excerpt
The February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM contains an article
which uses the word "extropic":
The Best of All Possible Worlds
by John Perry Barlow
Begin quote (see box page 71)
I imagine an intraspecies nervous system, made of glass and microwaves,
spreading to connect all the minds who wish to be connected to it, extracting
from those minds the extropic value of a new-world economy so subtle in its
expenditure of the planetary cupboard that we may actually be able to
survive here indefinitely and not merely for the five or six generations I
grew up thinking were all we could hope to squeeze from the leavings that
remained.
End quote