From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Mon Jun 09 2003 - 06:04:05 MDT
Patrick stated:
<<Pardon me for interjecting,
The bench scientists are probably lurking, waiting in hope (& desperation) to
unearth the occasional posts about science & technology amongst all the
political ranting.
The ideological stuff is rather off-putting & seems besides the point.
Patrick>>
I disagree because I continuously post articles from Science Daily, Nature,
Space.com, and the Physics Pre-Print Archives; and the like, and get little
response, except from the few regulars. You would think that some lurking
scientist would add their two centavos in on purely, technical, basis; since that is
their bailiwick. My conclusion is the vast majority of these people are not
drawn to this list for a variety of reasons. Most of which are not germane to
politics or polemics.
Most scientists, from what I have gathered, are not impressed by the
life-extention message, the singularity viewpoint, or the space travel focus. This is
applicable to other groups, like the old L-5-ers, Life Extentioners, or most
flavors or Transhumanism. The primary reason may be more prosaic then battles
about US foreign policy, or gun control, or environmentalism.
My guess is that, is primarily, these scientists are a hardworking lot, who
spend a lot of time on what they love about their work, who are frequently (if
they are academics) forced to publish or perish, have their own personal life
issues with family, friends, and work.
What would draw the most attention or interest to our group, our list, our
ideas; is,
I believe, money. We are all opportunistic in an economic and anthropological
way, and scientists are no different. Scientists like goodies, no less then a
machinist or a gynecologist does. To garner the kind of response from
scientists that I would enjoy would take a boodle of cash.
For example, (grinning) remember the Monkees? The Guitarist, Mike Nesmith,
who later sold the idea of music videos to CBS, which went on to found MTV, is a
bit of a science buff. Supposedly (recalling from an old Wired Magazine
article) Nesmith has hired scientists like Nobel Prize winner, Murray Gell-Man, and
several other lights of science to lecture and inform him of their
specialties in science. Nesmith's mother was also the inventor of liquid paper :-) and
so Nesmith funds these scientists for a personal lecture(s). Well, you might
see my point, even if you disagree with my premise. Extropianism and
Transhumanism will require major funds to promote itself and attract more than the
passionate few, such as ourselves.
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