From: Dirk Bruere (dirk.bruere@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 07 2006 - 06:37:58 MST
On 3/7/06, David Picon Alvarez <eleuteri@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
> So, in order to protect us from accusations of cultishness we should pitch
> our deal to the new age crowd in a way that emphasizes spirituality? In
I did not say that.
The reason for pitching to the NewAge crowd are the same as for pitching to
the Chinese government ie people's opinions matter and the more we have on
our side the better.
other words, we should actually become a cult, driven by an initiated elite
> which creates a message in which they themselves do not believe and snares
> another segment of the population with this message to their own ends?
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
Doesn't quite sound right to me, sorry.
Obviously not, since you have your own justifications for following this
particular road.
Most people, however, do not. And pitching the Singularity as a cute
technical solution in AI leading to the extinction or transformation
(whichever...) of Humanity is not going to be a vote winner.
Or do you prefer the elitist-cult approach where only technogeeks get to
decide what happens?
Transhumanism is in the process of becoming a major political issue. It will
probably be *the* major political issue this century. To win a political
argument requires more than a definitive set of equations pitched at the
99th percentile of the population. For one, it needs multiple strategies
aimed at differing segments of the population. What sells here won't sell to
Joe Public.
Dirk
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