From: Gary Miller (garymiller@starband.net)
Date: Sat Jan 25 2003 - 18:43:57 MST
Robert J. Bradbury said:
>>So how do I set up my extropic priorities?
>> Aging, malnutrition/starvation (perhaps poverty), AIDS, Malaria,
>> perhaps murderous tyrants, ...
This would be something great to have in a Wiki. All of the
participents extropic priorities and how they are choosing to persue and
act upon them in the coming year.
This not only gives newcomers an illustration as to what's important to
other Extropians but it gives them an idea on how to apply Extropian
principles in their lives!
I think the mailing list is a great way to diseminate ideas. Many of
the ideas provide hope for a better world tomorrow. But only a small
percent offer the individual a chance to participate. What the Wiki
could provide is a list of ways that Extropian principles could be acted
upon.
The difference between talkers and doers is often having the knowledge
to know where/how to start doing!
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]
On Behalf Of Robert J. Bradbury
Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 3:34 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Feb 02 2003 - 21:26:03 MST