From: Natasha Vita-More (natasha@natasha.cc)
Date: Thu May 22 2003 - 13:32:50 MDT
At 03:03 PM 5/22/03 +0200, Anders wrote:
>On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 05:06:50PM +0100, Steve Davies wrote:
> >
> > Optimistic libertarians (classical liberals/libertarians)
> > Optimistic authoritarians (socialists/social democrats)
> > Pessimistic libertarians (most Anglo-Saxon conservatives)
> > Pessimistic authoritarians ("Throne and Altar"/conservative revolutionaries
> > of the German and French type)
>
>Your version of libertarians/authoritarians seems to mirror
>Postrel's stasists and dynamists well too.
Yes. My main concern and, in fact, dislike of the libertarian agenda is
not how smart it is but how practical it is. Sure most well read people
arrive at a libertarian awakening but there is an element missing that has
kept me at a distance. That element is bitter sweet - smart people lacking
in social interaction. I'd like to see a more compassionate libertarian
interface that wasn't so Randian in nature. Inasmuch, it seems to me that a
future oriented political agenda would pertain to the current issues - even
the ones we like to ignore because they are beneath us - rather than so
dramatic a belief about how things ought to be. It isn't productive or
promising to be staunch in any one 20th Century political sphere. A more
apt agenda would be one that is workable and global. This is why I tend to
imprint on catalytic schemas such as the ones produced by Bucky Fuller. I'd
like to know of someone who is thinking more futuristically when discussing
political models.
> > Anders' model is better because by separating out the attitude to
> > technology and science it enables you to locate some groups who
> > otherwise pose problems such as fascists.
>
>Real political views are far more complex than can be expressed in
>a few dimensions; we are essentially projecting down a
>high-dimensional space (that might even have a weird metric) into
>2D or 3D. Different projections reveal different properties and
>make them separable, a good projection shows the most salient
>differences clearly (similar to a principal component
>decomposition).
>Natasha:
> > It's David Nolan's "Worlds Smallest Political Quiz" (1969). It
> > doesn't work well because its 10 questions require quantifying by
> > people who take the test.
>
>Yes, I saw that the original quiz contained issues that have since
>then changed party valence, like abortion and gun control. And even
>then, judging attitudes is always messy. I think the benefit of the
>quiz is that it shows the difference between different approaches,
>and that is often a good wake up call for people.
True.
> > At ExI, we are working on a "Worlds Smallest Futurist Quiz, and
> > I'm working on a version for my talk at the TransVision
> > Conference. For this, I was planning on solicitating Ander's
> > keen mind :-)
>
>I would be delighted! After all, there are different kinds of
>futures and futurists too. However, that sounds somewhat different
>from the inherently political quiz I suggested in this thread.
Great. The "somewhat different" is true but not irrelevant.
> >I'm not sure just how to does this for a futurists' quiz, but at
> >least I've got the first 2 questions. The night before last, my
> >mother, Max and I tossed around a few ideas and this was provoking
> >because of the differences between an 85 year old and baby
> >boomers. We focused on biotechnological questions and my mother
> >proved to be extropic in her thinking here. But not everywhere!
> >I think that to design a balanced quiz, it would require either a
> >person who is very sharp or a team of people from diverse
> >backgrounds to test the questions.
>
>I think we need to think about what the quiz should reveal or be
>used for. One approach is to show the assumptions about the
>speed/size of future changes and one's valence to it (e.g. Bill Joy
>is close to our idea of the size and speed, but not that it is a
>good thing, while many conservative thinkers are negative but do
>not believe any real change is on the horizon). Another approach is
>to look at how radical changes are conceivable within different
>areas, and how well these can be integrated into coherent world
>models of the future.
Sure. Today, I plan on working on a mock up. I'll send it as soon as I
have it written down.
> > I'm just a beginner with this sort of thing, so I don't have
> >enough experience to know right now. With a futurist quiz, the
> >design issue would be to help people rate their own ability to
> >accept change and to adjust to change. Its pretty obvious that not
> >everyone is futurist thinking in all areas. Politics and religion
> >are probably the most backward areas for futurism.
>
>This seems like a third approach: to see how people react to change
>individually rather than how they perceive it. One could factor it
>along how much change people expect and how they expect to cope
>with it, which would likely reveal the distinction between
>optimists/pessimists and future-aimed and past-aimed people.
Yes.
>In many ways I think quizes are less revealing than the chart
>itself.
Yes again. I'll post my draft later this evening.
BTY, I had planned to email you privately today, but discussing this openly
is fine. I look forward to a collaborative exchange. Max is in the wing
as well and I welcome anyone else who wants to help me out with this.
Best,
Natasha
Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute
http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture
http://www.transhuman.org
http://www.extropic-art.com
http://www.transhumanist.biz
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