I've just finished a week of diving in Cozumel, my second extended dive trip since I got a basic SCUBA certification in May of 1998. Diving is technologically-oriented play and it exemplifies the use of intelligent technology to break through traditional human limits. As I've become more and more adept at the basic knowledge and sensory-motor skills involved in diving, I've been struck by how much SCUBA diving exemplifies extropian values: To do it well, you have to overcome primitive fears, learn and use the biological science and physics of compressed nitrogen metabolism, air consumption and buoyancy control, understand and use the technology of regulators, buoyancy compensators and pressure and depth instrumentation, learn the important social conventions of a dive group's mutual safety responsibilities and master the new three-dimensional kinetic environment of the aquanaut. On top of all that, you get to play with cool toys that are currently undergoing an influx of new high technology: Heads-up in-mask instrument displays, intelligent dive computers, and mixed-gas and rebreather technologies moving into the range of consumer use that extend depth and dive times. And the reward for all this? As close as you'll come to zero-g short of free fall and access to a completely new and beautiful biosphere!!!!
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
"Civilization is protest against nature;
progress requires us to take control of evolution."
-- Thomas Huxley