SNOWCRASHING INTO THE DIAMOND AGE 2 (PART 2-B): An essay by Extropia DaSilva.
Continued from PART 2-A
Is the latter peril really a bad thing? Such a declaration would appear to stand in contrast to the dream of a life free from toil. This vision can be traced back at least 23 centuries, to a time when Aristotle wrote, in ‘The Politics’, ‘we can imagine managers not needing subordinates and masters not needing slaves…if every machine could work by itself…by intelligent anticipation’. And here it is again, this time from a quote in ‘Time’ magazine, 1966: ‘By 2000, the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the US will, in effect, be independently wealthy. How to use leisure meaningfully will be a major problem’.
SNOWCRASHING INTO THE DIAMOND AGE 2 (PART 2-A): An essay by Extropia DaSilva.
IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID.
The ability to replicate the means of production themselves from cheaply available elements is what underlies most of the utopian expectations of a society with molecular nanotechnology. One commentator on an online forum asked ‘why the hell would anyone pay for something nano makes with no effort?’. Second Life, though, suggests such an argument holds no water. After all, this is a world whose content is built from resources instantly available wherever you happen to be at negligible cost, and which can be duplicated with no effort. But most reporting on Second Life does not describe a world where products are given away free. Instead, it’s all about the money. ‘None-existant’ objects being bought and sold for real cash, land barons earning fortunes from virtual property. Also, Gwyneth Llewelyn wrote about the socio-political beliefs that SL residents subsribe to (‘Anarcho-syndicalists, ‘Anarcho-capitalists’, ‘libertarian/neoliberalists’). Of these groups, only the first ‘idealise a SL where money, land and prim limits are unnecessary’. I don’t know how many residents consider themselves to be anarcho-syndicalists, but common sense dictates that the group believing money is unnecessary are in a minority compared to the many groups who consider it necessary, for the simple reason that the latter are many and the former is one.
Five Points for European (and World?) Transhumanism
The transhumanist movement faced with “political” issues.
In response to a some concerns recently raised in the framework of Associazione Italiana Transumanisti’s mailing list with respect to the positions within the transhumanist movement on a number of important issues, I came up with five points that I believe should denote the “party line” of this organisation, and that I would like to share here with a broader public.
1) The struggle for access to technologies cannot be ignored in favour of some eschatological vision of eternal solutions to all conflicts. I am referring here to access to both future, possibile technologies and already existing technologies; both at a social and at an international level; and especially to technologies that are crucial to individual and collective survival and self-determination (in fact, transhumanists are among those most likely to struggle everywhere for their own access, as well as that of their biological and spiritual children and of their communties however defined, against prohibitionisms and monopolies of all sorts).
2) It is not reasonable to expect that it be generally accepted that the amount of currency units an individual or an entity is credited with in the databases of financial institutions is a universal and “divine” sign implying an exclusivity (or priority) right in the access to technologies, so that those not profiting from such advantage should peacefully surrender to their lot.
3) Fundamental research and its technological and educational infrastructure are essential for our future. More importantly, to the kind of future we would like to live in, and to the values we promote. Now, the investments required by fundamental research cannot be adequately sustained by the mere funds possibly devoted to it by business organisations. In fact, it is disputable that the market can sustain breakthrough-oriented, high-risk, long-term research at all, let alone research the returns of which appear to be radically unpredictable.
4) No compromises are really acceptable with regard to freedom of research and to the freedom of biological and reproductive self-determination, especially in view of ideas aimed at the globalisation of absolute and universal values of a more or less overtly metaphysical foundation.
5) Technological developments cannot, and above all should not, be taken for granted. Specific technological achievements can never be presumed to self-produce irrespective of the legal framework, societal investments, and dominant cultural values, and are rather to be considered as the goal of a deliberate, political will able to establish the pre-requisites for their flourishing. Even supposed virtous circles, positive feedbacks and recursive technologies require bootstrapping and the maintenance of a compatible environment along their entire life cycles. Discussions on what to do best with future technologies and and how to “regulate” them are fine, but often sound too much like the proverbial cavemen fighting over the spoils of a mammuth they have not taken down yet in the first place. A continuing acceleration in the pace of techno-scientific progress, or any flavour of Singularity, are certainly a legitimate hope and a distinct possibility, but in no way a guaranteed outcome, especially with regard to the issues which are the most relevant for actual people, namely the “when?” and the “where?”. To opine otherwise involves tranforming transhumanism in a tea club, gathering people just in order to applaud politely from the side what is supposed to take place anyway, or in the kind of cults where no action whatever is prescribed, faith and contemplation being all they are about. Worse, it risks to induce some transhumanists to concentrate on a debate with neoluddites on how best to “govern” what for the better and the worse both sides consider, with a naive extrapolation of trends actually jeopardised from many angles, as largely inevitable developments; and desist from any initiative aimed at actually conquering the destiny envisioned by its leading thinkers and precursors.
Transhumanism, religion and Raelians
A blogger calls the attention of his readers upon an ”infamous excerpt from a prominent transhumanist’s [yours truly] evangelistic speech about transhumanism”, and concludes that ”the actions of some transhumanists are pseudo-religious”. The source of such wisdom is the very illuminated Wesley J. Smith, in a post of January 1, 2007 titled Give Me That New Transhumanist Religion.
Smith quoted me as:
”I want our ideas to reach as many people as possible, in a clear and understandable way. Why? Because our worldview can give a sense of meaning of life, a vision of our place in the universe, peace and happiness. This has been the historic function of the world’s great religions and monolithic ideologies that, on the other hand, are now finally beginning to show some fatigue and soon will be completely unable to persuade people more and more culturally sophisticated and used to the scientific worldview. We should not forget that these are still a minority, but the trend is clear....
We cannot deny that the great world’s religions have managed, and quite well, to reach the masses. Religions’ success is due to the fact that they offer an answer to the nightmare of death. Yes, your loved one are dead, and sooner or later you will also die, but you will meet again in heaven. This is a *very* powerful meme as the penetration of religion demonstrates. With the coming of a secular worldview based on science, it seems impossible to continue taking religion seriously. But is it really so? Perhaps not. I am very interested in the current experimental activities to create ‘transhumanist religions’, based on science, but still able to offer hope in ‘another life’ even for those who are already dead”.
I wrote these words in my Considerations on the development of the transhumanist movement, posted on December 31, 2006. After a year full of vicious flame wars on all transhumanist lists and technoprogressive blogs, I would still write each and every word in the passage quoted.
By the way, thanks to Mike and Natasha for having supported me on Smith’s blog. In his own comments Smith said ”*Of course* you believe in religion. That is what transhumanism is. It seeks to find transcendence and Truth through scientific means. As such, it isn’t really about science. It is about the very human desire to find meaning and purpose. In this regard, transhumanism is a denomination of Scientism, which is merely religion masking as science”.
And I replied ”if religion is defined as “seeking to find transcendence and truth, meaning and purpose”, then I am ready and willing to accept the label “religious”. And as you say, I want to find it through scientific means, or at least through means compatible with the scientific method and worldview. If I don’t *find* it, I want to *build* it following the best examples in the history of our species and our civilization. Science and engineering have taken us from caves to where we are now, and there is no reason to think that this process should stop here”.
I have spent a lot of time in 2007 defending this radical, cosmic interpretation of transhumanism against its opponents. Sometimes transhumanism looks like religion. So what the fuck? Religion is not always bad, it can be good. Actually it can be _very_ good. Take a look for example at the websites of the Society for Universal Immortalism, or the Mormon Transhumanist Association. I think in 2008 I will spend much less time debating with often intolerant opponents, and much more time exploring the interface between transhumanism and religion with like-minded friends.
Ah yes, the Raelians. Smith & friends attacked me for saying that ”the Raelian message is very similar to the transhumanist one”. Actually after my original post I received many hate letters not only from outraged ultra-rationalist atheists, but also from outraged Raelians, so perhaps it was not so Rael-friendly. But, the Raelian message _is_ very similar to the transhumanist one. I subscribe to the technology news list rael-science. The signature on list message includes: ”“Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism, through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and new technologies. There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history, it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations. On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease, death and the sweat of labour”. This _is_ transhumanism, even if uncaveated and worded in a form too triumphantly propagandistic for my taste. Of course the “UFO layer” of Raelianism has nothing to do with transhumanism, and actually not much to do with the rest of the Raelian message either, so I have always wondered why it is there and suspect it is some kind of clever marketing technique.
Facebook, the pub and the Singularity
Take a look at this anti-progress hate piece: “Why on God’s earth would I need a computer to connect with the people around me? Why should my relationships be mediated through the imagination of a bunch of supergeeks in California? What was wrong with the pub?” My answer: nothing is wrong with the pub, but what is wrong with Facebook? If you don’t like, why don’t you stay in the pub?
The author must be one of those people full of hate against more imaginative and successful people, especially “Silicon Valley venture capitalists”. In the order, he rants against Facebook ("59 million suckers"), PayPal, Peter Thiel, futurists, virtual worlds, the internet ("it promises a certain sort of freedom in human relations and in business, freedom from pesky national laws, national boundaries and suchlike” - horrible isn’t it), life-extension technologies, Aubrey de Grey, and the Singularity. The author quotes “The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. There are several technologies ... heading in this direction ... Artificial Intelligence ... direct brain-computer interfaces ... genetic engineering ... different technologies which, if they reached a threshold level of sophistication, would enable the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence”, and concludes that “Thiel is trying to destroy the real world, which he also calls “nature”, and install a virtual world in its place”. Of course, every new technology is a weapon used by the CIA and the multinationals against us little people.
So many stupid luddite clichés concentrated in one article. At the same time I quite agree with a conclusion: “Why would I want to waste my time on Facebook when I still haven’t read Keats’ Endymion? And when there are seeds to be sown in my own back yard? I don’t want to retreat from nature, I want to reconnect with it”. Fine! Read Keats and sow the seeds in your back yard if this is what you want to do, and don’t complain if others spend time on Facebook, or advancing technology, if that is what they want to do. It is called freedom.
The danger of a completely unaccountable power elite - an existential threat for humanity?
We have been discussing existential threats that threaten humanity, such as asteroids, rogue nanoids, diseases. However have we been ignoring the deeply corrupting of concentration of wealth? Has a very small elite of human beings become so rich they risk endangering the rest of humanity - especially of an approaching “singularity” keeps giving this elite ever more advanced means to project their will on the rest of humanity? Do we need to look at such extreme concentration of power and take steps to reduce the disparities, in order to protect us from these unaccountable, inherently self-serving, antidemocratic power elites?
Today I have written the lifeboat foundation with an urgent request to add a wholly new class of existential risk to humanity.
Lifeboat foundation lists an extensive list of socalled existentiial risks. These risks are all real dangers to the majority of humanity in the future. If we include those risks of that category I’d also include another risk, which seems to be completely ignored.
I’d add the dangers posed by of an elite of ultra-rich humans. Such an elite of humanity may very well decide to use robotics, nanotechnology, limited AI, nonlethal and lethal weapons, mind control and their already obscene affluence to consolidate their power over the world and simply exclude the rest of humanity. And personally I would regard that possibility as a bigger risk to the majority of humanity than any of the above risks listed. Is this an imagined risk? I think not. The track record of “the powerful” (other than governments) has been ghastly - even in recent history. I do not allege that such an elite will be a unified conspiracy dead set on making life miserable for the less fortunate of society - but even without resorting to projecting a conspiracy on these people, it’s quite clear what’s happening in the more affluent societies, such as the US - the elite uses already abuses political processes to deconstruct common national resources, reduce taxes for the privileged, enacts more draconian legal infrastructure, a morbidly skewed justice system and bizarre legal penalties. And the list goes on, a consistent pattern of the aflluent leveraging hidden costs to those with less economic power. Recent examples are in health care, the environment, global warming, security (enclaves), quality of food.
At some point in the next decades an ever increasing number of useful economic activity can be arguably done by machines. The humans left unemployed by such economic shifts could be left useless, excluded (especially in right-wing countries that have yet to accept welfare as a part of civilized society) and ultimately disallowed to reproduce, or similarly treated to reduce their imprint on the world. Retraining such huge numbers in the timespan is a ludicrous proposal and at best can serve to aggravate the situation - if a human being is left redundant in this new polarized economy he can easily be scapegoated, because “he should be flexible and retrain”. Again, this can be regarded as leveraging off the societal costs of automation off on society, where the rich (the corporate sector) keeps all benefits to themselves.
These elites will use means at their disposal (ad they clearly have a track record of doing already) to curtail space, resources, food, energy or opportunity to those they regard as useless, using whatever definition they themselves dictate. One look at how the rich and corporations have been treating the third world is a clear indicator of the inherent ruthlessness in people who are left unaccountable by the majorities. They can do as they please and have been doing so. And this trend is worsening.
Power begets power. People with power want more power, at the exclusion of all others. Te biggest risk to people living today is an terminal state of exclusion of the vast majority of humanity. The rich may act contrary to democratic principles, may do so with “us” being unable to do anything about it. They may decide the world is overpopulated (which is clearly is) and decide the unproductive and disowned are the biggest problem.
I urge the lifeboat foundation to start regarding the grossly inequitable disparities between obscene wealth in the hands of some and dehumanizing poverty in most others as one of the greatest existential threats to humanity - and to assertively act to oppose this ongoing degenerative process in todays world and economies. To refrain from acknowledging this risk would be negligent, cowardly and inconsistent.
Most poignantly, I urge all who read this to consider if he or she is part of this elite or has a fair chance of being part of it. This is an issue that clearly transcends ideological dualities such as right and left, socialist or globalist, progressive or conservative. When considering the dangers of an elite granted such clearly outrageous power and superiority over the rest of society, when technology will allow them to abuse any near-singularity advances, is extremely naive. If you consider this issue whether or not it is an existential danger I ask everyone - did you recently meet any of the 5% of humanity that ownes 75% of all things on this planet? Do you know any of those people? Do you think you have any chance of ever being part of this global power elite?
SL banking ban: hot comments
I use two different blogs (Transumanar and metaxlr8) respectively for philosophy and metaverse technology-business, but sometimes an issue touches on both, so I am just posting this to both blogs. The fact: On the heels of banking scandals in the virtual world Second Life, its publisher Linden Lab announced Tuesday that it is effectively banning in-world banks.
Linden Lab’s justification: “Some may argue that Residents who deposit L$ with these “banks” must know they’re assuming a big risk – the high interest rates promised aren’t guaranteed, and the banks aren’t overseen by Linden Lab or anyone else. That may be true. But for all of the other reasons we’ve set out above, we can’t let this activity continue”. The comments of readers show mixed reactions, some in favor and some against.
My own reaction is also mixed. I run an IT and VR consulting and development company, and have often realized that many potential clients are scared of the bad press about Second Life and the frequent “scandals”, especially gambling, unregulated banking with Ponzi scams and such, and pornography. These things do not have the clean, crisp, mainstream and businesslike image that most firms and institutions wish to have. For this reason I was not too unhappy when the gambling ban was announced, am not too unhappy now after the announcement of the banking ban, and will not be too unhappy when the sex ban will be announced in a few months (wanna bet?). These bans permit me telling my clients that Second Life has outgrown its juvenile extremes and is on its way to becoming a mature, serious and sedate mainstream business platform in a black suit and a striped tie. These bans will actually help me making more money.
But due to philosophical and political considerations, I am _very_ unhappy with the turn things are taking. When I deposited some money in the BNT Bank run by my good friend IntLibber Brautigan, I was perfectly aware that the bank did not have an applicable license from a governing regulatory authority, that IntLibber & Co. could just run away with my money, and that I could lose my money due to poor business decisions of BNT management. I invested my money in BNT because no, I don’t have to justify it to you or to anyone. I invested my money in BNT because it was MY FUCKING DECISION TO MAKE with MY FUCKING MONEY. Period.
Of course Linden Lab claim that they made this decision to protect their users: “These “banks” have brought unique and substantial risks to Second Life, and we feel it’s our duty to step in. Offering unsustainably high interest rates, they are in most cases doomed to collapse – leaving upset “depositors” with nothing to show for their investments”.
But as a user, and as a citizen, I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IN A NANNY STATE that protects me from things I don’t want to be protected from. I say ENOUGH, in both First and Second Life. What is next? Sex banned in Second Life because it scares teens? (BS: it would not have scared me when I was a teen, or you). Or sex banned in First Life because it can be a health risk? I am afraid that if this trends continue people will be"allowed" to have sex only in the presence of a qualified nurse. One word: ENOUGH.
Of course the real reason for the banking ban in SL is another: “The legal and regulatory framework of these non-chartered, unregistered banks is unclear… we will not apply this policy to companies who submit a registration statement, charter, or other applicable license from a governing regulatory authority”. Of course, Linden Lab is introducing the banking ban for fear of regulatory pressure from US authorities. And as the harsh logic of the business world goes, it is probably a sound decision, necessary for the survival of the company.
What can we, metaverse users, do to protect ourselves from excessive regulation? We already live under nanny states in RL, and can certainly do without nanny states in the metaverse. The answer is, I think, very simple: open standards, interoperability, technology diversification, platform diversification, and geographic diversification. We need alternative technologies and platforms - the banking ban in SL makes me even more interested in open standard, open source, non proprietary systems like OpenSim, and we need service providers in other, less fundamentalist and overprotective countries. I look forward to a metaverse operated by a network of interconnected and globally distributed service providers, and based on open standards and open code (well, like the Web).
I only wonder what we can do to protect ourselves from excessive regulation and nanny states in real life.
More and more SL-Transhumanists
Some curious people are beginning to show up at the SL-Transhumanists office hours in Second Life. I think after with relaunch of an active transhumanist presence Second Life will be a really effective outreach tool.
Yesterday there was another group meeting at Extropia Core. Some 20 people came even if the meeting had not been announced on the available channels. Next meetings should be announced one day before, with a reminder a few hours before, on the Second Life group, the Facebook group, the Second Life event board, the transhumanist mailing lists, the Extropia Core news and event boards, and the blogs. I will now begin to contact all the topguns who have agreed giving a talk and try to organize an event schedule for the next few months. This group must be a mercurial ever-changing and evolving community of adventurous souls.
K writes on the SL-Transhumanists blog: “Right now us transhumanists come together in a medium that, a generation ago, could hardly be defined in adequate words. Second Life, again something often met with outright hostility, denial, ridicule or blank stares. The purpose is to use a novel platform to discuss a message, spread a frame of thinking to those interested in listening and taking part in the greater discussion. Change is coming, faster and faster, as those dark icy waters ascend along the slopes of the here and now. We don’t know where this all will head, and we don’t know if we are capable of impressing the world in time that pretty soon childhood is over”. A good manifesto for transhumanist outreach in Second Life.
The Physical World as a Virtual Reality
An interesting speculation: This paper explores the idea that the universe is a virtual reality created by information processing, and relates this strange idea to the findings of modern physics about the physical world. The virtual reality concept is familiar to us from online worlds, but our world as a virtual reality is usually a subject for science fiction rather than science. Yet logically the world could be an information simulation running on a multi-dimensional space-time screen. Indeed, if the essence of the universe is information, matter, charge, energy and movement could be aspects of information, and the many conservation laws could be a single law of information conservation. If the universe were a virtual reality, its creation at the big bang would no longer be paradoxical, as every virtual system must be booted up. It is suggested that whether the world is an objective reality or a virtual reality is a matter for science to resolve. Modern information science can suggest how core physical properties like space, time, light, matter and movement could derive from information processing. Such an approach could reconcile relativity and quantum theories, with the former being how information processing creates space-time, and the latter how it creates energy and matter.
Google Docs 2 blog
I just found out a very cool feature of Google Docs - publish to blog
SL-Transhumanists office hours
One of the most interesting new initiatives of the SL-Transhumanists group in Second Life is to hold regular office hours. Description: Have you ever wondered what transhumanism is all about? Are you a transhumanist, extropian, singularitan, technoprogressive, or just interested in how technology will influence our future? Come join us for a Q&A. Next office hour is later today at 1-12 PST.
In the picture, Khannea is trying to convert a lost soul at one of the first office hours. I had to leave before the end so I don’t know how it went, but I assume the lost soul knelt before The One in tiplerian contemplation of the majesty of Jupiter Brains, and accepted The Robot God as personal savior. May the Eschaton upload his immortal mindfile to the meta Heaven.
New website of the Society for Universal Immortalism
The Society for Universal Immortalism has a new website with a very nice header image. I wish a superlative (this is becoming one of my favorite words) 2008 to all Society members and this year I will try to contribute more.
The Society for Universal Immortalism is a progressive religion that holds rationality, reason, and the scientific method as central tenets of its faith. Universal Immortalists reject supernatural and mystical forces as solutions to the problems that face us. I am a member if the Society, and wish to thank the other members for their stimulating ideas. In particular, I am indebted to R. Michael Perry for the beautiful declaration in his book ”Forever for All”: “To that end, we dedicate ourselves to finding a way one day to bring back all persons who have ever lived, so they can join in our eternal adventure”. This is a very strong idea, which may permit a full reconciliation between the scientific and religious worldviews. Universal immortalists do not propose any specific engineering approach to resurrection, but consider it as an objective that future technology may be able to achieve, someday, based on future scientific advances.
I see Universal Immortalism as Transhumanism “plus something”. This “something” is the resurrection idea: finding a way one day to bring back all persons who have ever lived. Even if Universal Immortalism is scientific speculation (we hope to resurrect the dead using “future magic” based on science and engineering), the resurrection idea is hard to swallow even for many transhumanists. For me, Universal Immortalism is perfectly compatible with transhumanism, and constitutes its logical endpoint. The engineering challenge will be huge of course, but so was the development of agriculture. Universal Immortalists not only hope to find a way one day to bring back all persons who have ever lived, but also intend to be there to make it happen. That is why, at this moment, being a current cryonics suspension member is a requirement to become a member of the Society for Universal Immortalism.
See the full text of The Beliefs of the Society for Universal Immortalism.
Universal Immortalism is an extension of ideas on mind uploading (the concept of downloading the entire contents of the mind into a computer is frequently referred to as mind uploading) - a possible way to bring back all persons who have ever lived may be, once technology has advanced enough, “copying them to the future” by mind uploading performed on a mind that existed in the past.
Besides mind uploading technology, this would require time travel or a technology able to extract information with very high resolution from the past. Time travel seems to introduce logical paradoxes (you go back in time and kill your grandfather before your father was conceived - then you were not born, and cannot go back in time to kill your grandfather). But this “grandfather paradox” goes away, for example, in Everett’s interpretation of quantum physics, and there is no paradox involved in extracting information with very high resolution from the past. So while of course I realize that engineering resurrection will be a huge scientific and technical challenge, I consider it as a possibility that future scientists and engineers may be able to achieve.
SL-Transhumanists
I will keep updated this page with some information and links on SL-Transhumanists, the new group for transhumanists in Second Life.
Translook - dedicated SL-Transhumanists website
SL-Transhumanists mailing list on Google Groups
SL-Transhumanists Facebook group
This background and links page
Second Life meeting place: SL-Transhumanists at Extropia Core
Bakckground:
About 20 transhumanists met in Second Life on December 30, 2007 and agreed on a plan to relaunch and energize the transhumanist community in Second Life (and hopefully also in RL). Some very well known transhumanists were there, for example Natasha Vita-More, Riccardo Campa, Eugen Leitl (no known personal website, but you know who he is), Dave Pearce, and many others who I may have forgotten (sorry!). Extropia DaSilva (read her last essay) and transhumanist community builder in the metaverse Khannea Suntzu were there, and also the digital persons Sophrosyne Stenvaag and Galatea Gynoid, two of the main animators of the Extropia Core community where the meeting took place.
One of the first decisions was to use Extropia Core as transhumanist central meeting point in Second Life. My extropian parcel is of course available (I will assign it to the transhumanist group, see below), and we can reserve other meeting spaces in the forthcoming expansion of Extropia Core (the plan is to expand it to a block of many contiguous sims in 2008). Another decision emerged from the realization that we have far too many transhumanist large and small groups, subgroups, currents and factions in Second Life. Since we feel that we should not reproduce the fragmentation of transhumanism in RL (ask a question to two transhumanists and you get two different answers, including the question “what is transhumanism") also in the metaverse, we created the new group “SL-Transhumanists” in SL (join it in Second Life) as a replacement for all other groups. I have shared the parcel at Extropia Core with the group.
Join also the new mailing list SL-Transhumanists on Google Groups. All meeting chat logs and announcements will be posted to the mailing list, and often also to the Extropia Core website. We plan several talks (Charlie Stross, Aubrey De Gray, Dave Pearce, Natasha Vita-More, yours truly presenting a new not-so-secret project that will be announced soon), and regular office hours to introduce all interested avatars and their “primaries” to transhumanism.
I extracted this image from a picture of my DNA Flower sculpture in Second Life, done by the SL artist Cheen Pitney for transhumanists in Second Life. When I commissioned Cheen I asked him for colors going from red/pink (biology) to blue/grey (technology). The symbolism: rising techno-DNA, rising sun in the background, done in SL. So I offered the image as a SL-Transhumanists group logo. The DNA Flower sculpture has been at many transhumanist meeting places in Second Life, and now has been placed at the SL-Transhumanists @ Extropia Core meeting place.
Unlike other land options, Extropia is a place where residents are encouraged to work and play together, and to govern their own affairs to the greatest extent possible.
Critical mass is a problem in Second Life: most sims run by small groups are always empty except when a scheduled event is taking place. I hope joining forces with a larger team of motivated people with compatible interests can help solving the empty sim problem: with a critical mass and many different groups organizing talks and events, on this sim (and the others that will follow) there will be always something to do.
These are two screenshots of the SL-Transhumanists area @ extropia core.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!
I extracted this image from a picture of my DNA Flower sculpture in Second Life, done by the SL artist Cheen Pitney for transhumanists in Second Life. When I commissioned Cheen I asked him for colors going from red/pink (biology) to blue/grey (technology). The symbolism: rising techno-DNA, rising sun in the background, done in SL. So I wish to offer the image as a candidate logo to the new SL-Transhumanists group in Second Life (see Transhumanist renaissance in Second Life). The DNA Flower sculpture has been at many transhumanist meeting places in Second Life, and now has been placed at the SL-Transhumanists @ Extropia Core meeting place.
Join the group in Second Life to participate in a 2008 (and beyond) full of interesting transhumanist talks and events. Join also the new mailing list SL-Transhumanists on Google Groups and the new Facebook group SL-Transhumanists.
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
About
World Transhumanist Association
Associazione Italiana Transumanisti
Transumanar is a transhumanist blog - online magazine on science, technology, politics and culture, edited by Giulio Prisco. See About (English) and Introduzione (Italiano).
Transumanar e' un blog - rivista online transumanista di scienza, tecnologia, politica e cultura, curato da Giulio Prisco. Vedi Introduzione (Italiano) e About (English).
SL-Transhumanists, a group for transhumanists in Second Life
metaXLR8 - acceleration in the metaverse
Most recent entries
- First Scientific Conference in World of Warcraft
- Digital Civilizations and their challenges
- Lincoln Cannon of the Mormon Transhumanist Association in Second Life, March 30
- Test Your Techno Tolerance!
- David Pearce in Second Life on Utopian Neuroscience, March 23
- Thank you, Sir Arthur
- Religion, Spirituality and the Avatar
- Next interesting events in Second Life
- Today: Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg on Morphological Freedom in Second Life
- We The Poopers?
- Review of Stefano Vaj’s Biopolitica
- Translook: new SL-Transhumanists website
- More on Digital Persons, Immersionism vs. Augmentationism
- The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists
- ORANGE EXPLORES SL CULTURE!
Categories
Monthly Archives
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- Complete Archives
- Category Archives