From: James (james@lab6.com)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 12:21:07 MDT
On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 12:22:29PM +0200, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote:
> If I were 20 again I would probably be dreaming of making someday a very,
> very direct contribution to the development of ultratechnologies to take us
> much closer to posthumanity. Something like leading the development of the
> first conscious AI, or leading the development of a super ultra MRI at 1
> nanometer resolution that permits uploading consciousness.
> At a certain point most of us realize that they will never have the skill,
> or the time, or simply that they will never be at the right place at the
> right moment to play this kind of role. At the same time we can all do
> things to facilitate the task of those few lucky persons who are or will be
> in such a position.
As it happens, I am 20 right now, and have been following this list for
a few years, and into the ultratechnology thing for somewhat longer. I
am not a big-E Extropian, but I very much admire the pursuit of extropy.
This list and all the peripheral transhumanist literature have been a
big influence in choosing a career, and as someone (Damien B, I believe)
suggested in the what-can-I-do thread, I'm going to be a mathematics
teacher.
I would be proud to work in materials science or molecular biology, or
any other field with direct high-tech applications, but maths is what I
like and it's what I'm best at. Pure mathematics research is as much as
I'm capable of in the short term future, and I don't see it contributing
much to anything besides a few intellectual bragging rights. Aside from
the fact that I would very much enjoy teaching, the best contribution I
can hope to make to the extropian "cause" (if you'll excuse the cult
language) is education: an educated mind possesses more extropy than an
uneducated one. Besides the innumerable benefits of having more smart
people around, there's a chance that a few of the thousands of
impressionable young minds I'll be in contact with will go on to become
the superstar researcher that I'm not willing or able to be.
-- James james@lab6.com http://james.lab6.com
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