Re: UFO Raël and the definition privilege

From: Natasha Vita-More (natasha@natasha.cc)
Date: Sat Mar 31 2001 - 16:35:48 MST


At 11:40 PM 3/31/01 +0200, Mikael Johansson wrote:

>Some friends and I bumped into the UFO Raël cult today, and discussed a bit
>with one of their representatives -- mainly because of their list of
>political opinions. The point is that most of you _WILL_ find this list
>rather familiar -- I recognized myself all to well in it: (snip)

I was approached two times recently. First by a journalist writing about
the Rael cult and seemed to think that they are transhumanists. The second
approach was by a Swedish journalist asking for references of transhumans
in Sweden.

Rather than blindly giving out names of extropians or other transhumanists,
as a practice I try to do some due diligence on the person/group contacting
me. This second contact, again, had a Raelina undertone.

>Can we afford that they are visible and we are not?<

We are visible, and becoming more visible yearly.

Raelians have recently received press because of their interests in
cloning, etc. Being a religious organization (a cult) makes them appear to
be more of an organization than a group of individuals who share
philosophical and ideological views.

By the way, if extropians are not visible in Sweden, then let's find out
why.

>Can we afford that they are visible?<

We certainly can afford to be cautious. We can also afford to continue
responsibly discussing extropian/transhumanist ideas and providing reliable
information to the public. This is our best defense - actively providing
reasonable, reliable information.

Natasha

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
Book - Create/Recreate: The 3rd Millennial Culture
Transhumanist - Extropic Arts Center - http://www.Extropic-Art.com
Transhuman Culture InfoMark - http://www.Transhuman.org
m e t a C U L T U R E - Business on Culture



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