From: Devon White (devon@mail.thegreatwork.com)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 11:58:41 MDT
>
>Transhumanism and extropianism, to the average person, seem pretty
>weird. So long as that's the case, the media is going to cover them
>as oddities. So I don't think you can make major media
>transhumanism-friendly. You'd be better off trying to make
>transhumanism / extropianism more media-friendly.
I agree entirely. There's a lot of vocabulary and concepts that people need to understand in order to grok the benefits that transhuman and extropic thinking bring. In order to do that i think the benefits need to be trumpeted first. There needs to be some PR for intelligence. Then the interest in learning the facts will follow.
To this end, i already have some media interests that are reaching a fairly wide audience and have a multi-media network that is launching nationally within the next two months.
All of these channels are based on building towards a transhuman friendly future. So, this list adn transhumanism in general has at least channel that is only 1 degree of separation from reaching a new, bigger and more "mainstream" audience.
All that needs to happen in order to begin broadcasting transhuman ideas is for you to submit them. I can get them in print in a newspaper (soon to be newspapers) and online (soon to be in print) with a magazine. Additionally there will be other mediums available in the near future.
The point is: We want to promote the ideas that are being discussed on this list. We want to promote the thinkers that are putting this information out.
>
>How would you do that?
>
>1) Get rid of jargony, science-fictiony words like "transhuman",
>"extropy", "singularity", and so on.
>
>2) Increase focus on short-term issues, research goals, and
>possibilities.
>
>3) Avoid making extreme, alarming, or incomprehensible pronouncements
>on the future.
>
>4) Recruit respected, high-profile scientists to the organizations (or
>at least their periphery)
>
>5) Align yourself with mainstream movements and organizations like the
>reproductive rights movement, patient organizations lobbying for stem
>cell research, and more mainstream think tanks.
>
>Some will say that these sorts of steps would water down or even
>completely destroy the value of these institutions. If there really
>is a technological singularity in the near future, or if molecular
>manufacturing is about to become a reality, or if unfriendly AIs are a
>clear and present danger, then there may be no point to creating a
>more mainstream image.
Again i agree. This is very much the direction we are heading. What we need is content.
>
>On the other hand, a more mainstream image can be more effective in
>the present, and the further away those eschatological technologies
>are, the greater the value of mainstreaming.
>
>Perhaps what's necessary here is a new entity - one that focuses on
>more mainstream issues and concerns while keeping the longer term
>implications in mind.
For anyone interested in contributing to the wider promotion of extropic ideas please feel free to email me offlist as well as on.
Best,
Devon
The Evolution Is Being Broadcast
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