From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Sat Jan 25 2003 - 15:13:47 MST
This is true in and of itself when considering individuals. However, one has
to consider communities and the way in which open information exchanges
grow, spread memes and spawn concrete real world actions. (Either by
spurring people to action, or by recruiting people who have the right
mindset to go out and do something rather than or in addition to yapping).
For ever person that goes out and does something concrete, there are a
hundred followers. The only real, useful way in which most of us
(comparatively poor, lacking relevant skills) can encourage an increase in
the amount of useful work is by growing the communities. Look after the
headcount, and the leaders and activists look after themselves.
I'm actually hoping that the ongoing growth and increasing sophistication of
the WTA communities and online properties will spur ExI into some similar
growth patterns. But we shall see.
As you might guess, my goal for this coming year is to make an effort to
corral some of the many diverse transhumanist and transhumanist-flavored
online communities and static information generators into more productive
cross-talk; it's a necessary efficiency increase that needs to happen
earlier rather than later. 1000 people in 10 100-person groups is far less
effective than greater cross-linkage in a single community of 1000. I think
that this a more valuable use of my skills than, say, striking out on my own
or allying to one subcommmunity to promote growth and meme-propagation.
Finally, yes, there needs to be more doing. All too many people throughout
the transhumanist community are way too complacant about the future. You
don't do, it won't happen. It doesn't matter how cool your view of the
future is -- if that view remains a niche, it won't happen. So get off your
collective behinds and do something to make it happen. If you're at a loss
as to what to do, then help to grow the community: introduce transhumanism
to someone new today.
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Robert J. Bradbury
> Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 12:34 PM
> To: Extropy List
> Subject: Talking vs. doing
>
>
>
> I've had a couple of off list exchanges over the last day
> or so that have in some ways enlightened me and in some
> ways depressed me.
>
> As some of you know, I sometimes go into "rant mode", in
> part to get people to sit up and do some self-examination.
> You can label this message semi-rant mode.
>
> I'm on the board of the Extropy Institute. I'm one of the
> more frequent contributers to the list (because I have
> more free time than most of the other board members).
>
> As I've explained to some people off-list recently I'm
> always *forcing* myself to face extropic priorities.
> How can I call myself an "extropian" or consider myself
> to be a responsible board member if I do not do that
> as often as I can look at myself in the mirror?
>
> So how do I set up my extropic priorities?
> Aging, malnutrition/starvation (perhaps poverty), AIDS, Malaria,
> perhaps murderous tyrants, ...
>
> I take them in a very rigid line of what destroys the most
> concentrated information (e.g. human lives) each year. (This is
> not guaranteed to be the best approach -- one could take an approach
> that tries to save the greatest number of future lives which might
> result in a much different weighting.) But it *is* an approach
> that I can look at, put some numbers on and evaluate the
> extropic "return-on-investment" that I may be receiving.
>
> In my (perfect) world we would be allocating resources
> to defeat these problems on a pro rata basis -- to the
> extent of the problem so should be the resources devoted
> to solving them. I realize that is an idealistic perspective
> but it forces one to examine "How close does my "personal"
> allocation of resources come to an optimal allocation that
> I would like to see for solving the problems?".
>
> I am forced into a conclusion that the ExI mailing list
> is pretty far from that ideal. In large part because many
> of the conversations do not focus on a couple of key questions.
> (1) Will my making these comments make any real difference?
> (2) Will the comments produce some "activity" that results
> in progress on the "extropic" scale (either the one I've defined
> for myself or your own personal scale)?
>
> If you do not answer those questions before you hit the reply
> key, then I don't think you can legitimately consider oneself
> an extropian. You don't have to answer the questions affirmatively
> but one does need to engage in some self-examination as to one is
> adding "signal" to the list or whether one is producing nothing but
> noise. And then adding "signal" is perhaps not enough -- is that
> signal going to produce concrete changes in reality? If it doesn't
> produce concrete changes in reality (presumably of an extropic nature)
> then *why* the f*** are you wasting your time posting to this list
> if for any other reason to listen to oneself go mumble mumble mumble?
>
> The question is "Do you merely want to be right?" or "Do you want
> to see reality (really) change?". If you want to see reality (really)
> change it is probably not going to be by debates & postings to the
> extropian list -- it is going to be by getting away from the extropian
> list and discovering avenues that produce real action.
>
> My 2 cents, semi-rant mode off.
>
> Robert
>
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