On the subject of the recent posting of GK Uploaded, and subsequent suspension of posting abilities, the usual Ben vs. Eliezer spat aside, There is a good reason why GK and friends are asked to lurk. Well, three reasons.

First is called "rehashing the basics". If you'll reread GK's post, quite a few things are apparent, one, that GK is probably sl3 or lower, that his understanding of  the concept of self augmentation and transcension shaky at best.(did he really say droids?) 

Secondly, (and I may be alone in this) but people who us the concept of the Singularity to "Glorify God" really annoy me. They imply that there is some intelligence greater than all this, that catches our souls after we die, etc etc, but for some bizarre twisted reason, doesn't interfere with the way the world is run, and allows us to continue to kill each other, hurt, be raised in horrific conditions, and be maleducated.

Thirdly.

>I personally believe all the people who were tragically killed
>on 9/11 ARE immortal; their current state, *right now*, is the
>stuff of Religion (or Philosophy) rather than Science. 

Besides making an incredible claim without any facts to back it up, the poster makes division between philosophy and science. In effect, he is claiming that there are objects in the universe which cannot be understood by rational means, and some 'extra' faculty must then make up for it. 
This is an extraordinarily crippling claim, and I've never heard anyone give any detailed reasons why this would be so without resorting to "god sez so".

Personally, I think GK is free to stay, but not post for a while, until he gets a feel for the kinds of statements you can make without extensive supporting evidence. If he can make a detailed case for areas where rationality fails, and how this will affect the singularity, fine. But if he's just going to continue itching to flash his faith on SL4, I think he should probably find a mailinglist more amenable to that topic. 

If GK is still reading the List, and I hope he is, I'd like to say a few things.

First of all, welcome to SL4 :-) "And our pens fall swift and mercilessly" SL4 is an unusual place as there is very little leeway in the way of posting quality. You're either doing it right, or annoying 200 people. I think you should stick around and lurk for a while. When I first discovered Sl4, I was not prepared to post. I was seeing everything through the filter of my previous research, and unused to the standards of the list. My first few posts were a little shaky.

But SL4 is the only place on the web for some kinds of discussion. Sometimes it's a little tribal, and our little part of the net gets kind of unfriendly, but the basic point is that everybody is here to talk about things they can't talk about anywhere else... Most people here are fundamentally good people. The big reason for moderation, is that SL4 can't be a battleground. It's a refuge, and if we constantly have to defend the same subjects over and over again, it becomes nothing more than delayed IRC. And then it isn't much of a refuge. Or very much of a friendly place. This way we can assume everybody is on the same page, and lower our automatic defenses a little bit. Not that logical rigour is relaxed!. Some of the most complicated ideas and concepts and jokes get posted here. Only on SL4 do you need to understand the Banach-Tarsky Paradox of dissection to get a joke.(sometimes)

And finally, if you're just itching to talk about faith in a trashumanist forum, try Extropians, they tend to be a little more friendly to that sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, they'll still argue, puncture and hang you out to dry, but at least they allow it. 
And if you want to, finally, You can email me. I'm always willing to go hand to hand on subjects like that, and generally I have more patience than we can allow SL4 moderation to have. But that's my perogative. 

I'm not entirely sure why I responded to this particular moderator kick, I've seen many come and go. I just felt that sometimes they deserved to be explored and wondered at, instead of always silently heaved off the side of the plateau that is SL4. 

hm. Back to Work!



Justin Corwin
outlawpoet@hell.com

"It's failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community"
                ~Oscar Wilde