Transumanar

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 blog

Wikipedia page

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.

SL-Trans

See the image in other sizes.

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.