Re: extropian memes in business week

Stan Kretler (skretler@infinitefaculty.com)
Mon, 20 Sep 1999 00:54:49 -0700

"Carol Tilley" <tilley@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> From: Stan Kretler
>> The changes that I see taking place towards the end of this century,
>> ...seem
>> nothing other than the logical, historically predicitable, outcome of
>> the renaissance and the enlightenment...
>> ...Science improves, and eventually turns its eye
>> towards the brain, towards artificial brains, and so on. This seems
>> totally obvious, and was predicted years ago.
>
>> I guess my general question would be: What's the big deal? I get the
>> sense that a lot of what I read here is just cheerleading for the
>> inevitable. I don't mean to say that it's not very cool stuff being
>> celebrated. But it's just the train we're on, little more.
>
>> > We should be in the mainstream *while* maintaining our daring
>> > and original character.
>
>> Another way to ask my question would be: what is it that's
>> daring here?

>
> Obviously there is something daring here

Hm. I seem to have asked an unanswerable question.....

>...or why would you
> have come...feeling the way you do?

How is it that I feel, other than curious?

How would my curiosity mean there's something daring?

> Perhaps it is in
> knowing that not *every* pc (that your words have been
> routed to) lies in front of just one more black hole.

No pc is connected to a black hole, if you ask me.....

>
> And how is all this "inevitable?" The diemaker dies
> and no one has bothered to learn hir art because of the
> inevitableness of it all.

Durkheim and Weber explain this best. Worth reading. And some would say Nietzsche has the deepest explanation.

Nothing's *literally* inevitable of course. I just meant that history took a turn a few centuries ago, and nothing we do is going to change it much. There are too many diemakers now for the loss of a few to make a difference. An asteroid can always strike the earth. But baring that, technology progresses, and that's that.

> Dontcha ever wonder if you're
> just another one of those black holes?

Always.

Again, sorry for any illegal questions.

Cheers,
Stan