Billy Brown wrote:
> Robin Hanson wrote:
> > The related thing that most strikes me is the unfortunate
> > lack of paper-length contributions on the topics which
> > frequently appear on this list.
> <snip>
> > I think you can infer some things about a topic from
> > the length of contributions made on it. If you only
> > ever see short contributions on a topic, you might
> > reasonably infer that people don't really take it that
> > seriously. Either they don't care enough about it to
> > take the next step, or the topic doesn't withstand
> > careful scrutiny; those people who tried to write
> > longer analyses realized it's all bunk and gave up.
>
> Part of the problem is the nature of the topics we discuss. Honestly, how
> many of us are qualified to write a rigorous analysis of a topic that spans
> half a dozen disciplines?
Yes, even if we founded a School of Transhuman Studies on a campus somewhere, there would still be a large number of people who are merely fans/advocates who would not at that point be students, faculty, or researchers actively involved. Better yet, why has there not been an establishment of formal classes in transhuman studies over the internet? I would love to participate in such courses, but I think it would be up to established faculty like Robin Hanson, Max More, Alex Chislenko, and others to create such a curriculum. If you guys want to start the School of Transhuman Studies, I will provide whatever start up space that is needed on the servers of my company (we are launching an e-commerce ISP, to go online in a few months), unless you want to put it under the ExI site.
Mike Lorrey