FW: Extropian Principles: BE Definition

Crosby_M (CrosbyM@po1.cpi.bls.gov)
Mon, 3 Mar 1997 15:50:18 -0500


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From: Crosby_M
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 1997 6:46 PM
To: 'extropians'
Subject: Extropian Principles: BE Definition

On Thursday, February 27, 1997 7:00 PM, Max More wrote:
<Boundless Expansion puts some off before they even read it. They seem
to take it to imply that we want to pave over the universe. That one
will probably become "Boundless Improvement".>

I must confess to being one who occasionally fussed about Boundless
Expansion _if_ it meant 'pave it over', if it meant assuming
everything in the cosmos was simply raw materials to be converted to
our own mechanisms. I don't think this attitude was ever implied by
the Principles themselves, but could be derived from some other
sources. Anyway, if someone saw this ('pave it over') as an
Extropians attitude and didn't like it, Boundless Improvement might
still be interpreted as 'remake everything in our own image'.

If you want "extropianism for moderates" then maybe the term to use
here is Boundless Exploration. Exploration *might* not have the
imperialistic connotations of the other two terms; also, it preserves
the acronym :-)

Mark Crosby