On 11/11/06, James Annan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > http://www.extropy.org/
hmmm... > TBH it looks like a bit of a kooky sect. But I think you can take the > interesting parts of their POV without the full-on loopiness. Minsky. Kurzweil. brrrr.... Don't get me started. (sigh, too late.) Loopy indeed, but not easily dismissed. Their cure may be worse than the disease. See http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html for a contrary argument that takes the possible dangers of autonomous artifacts seriously. For historical reasons, Minsky is often mentioned in the same breath as John McCarthy (a disservice to McCarthy in my opinion). Still, I think McCarthy's cross-that-bridge-when-we-get-to-it optimistic futurism is to be distingushed from the Minskyite lunacy that our purpose in the world is to replace ourselves with more reliable inorganic mechanisms. That's an important context for the "proactionary principle" http://www.extropy.org/proactionaryprinciple.htm that the extropians advocate in opposition to the "precautionary principle". It's important to watch out for loopholes into which "transhumanism" might try to slip in without proper consideration by us run-of-the-mill humans. It's the "according to available science" part that seems to me spectacularly fraught with peril; artificial intelligence people think AI is a science, and economists think economics is a science. I think both are to a consderable extent ideologies rather than sciences. I think climatology is a science. Others believe that it is to a considerable extent an ideology. And then there is string theory. This is really a big issue. Everyone wants to defer to science but nobody has a general methodology for distinguishing between science and ideology. That all said, I think the proactionary principle is worth looking at. mt --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
