From - Wed Jan 14 11:37:20 1998 Return-Path: Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mrco.carleton.ca (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA05431; Sat, 26 Dec 92 01:38:48 EST Received: from nyx.cs.du.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA19097; Sat, 26 Dec 92 01:36:02 -0500 Received: by nyx.cs.du.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA01055; Fri, 25 Dec 92 23:30:19 MST From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (andy) Message-Id: <9212260630.AA01055@nyx.cs.du.edu> X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University of Denver. The University has neither control over nor responsibility for the opinions or correct identity of users. Subject: FutureCulture Digest #162 To: future-digest@nyx.cs.du.edu Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 23:30:18 MST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: R ______________________________________________________________________ |______________ / | | / | | u t u r e <___________ u l t u r e | _______________________________________________________________________| Issue #162 Friday, December 25th 1992 Today's Topics: --------------- Mind Toys Agr1ppa text Extropian Digest Available HyperNewsgroup(tm) Books Meta: Extropian Digest now available! New Extropian Welcome message Re: Details Article Re: MAIA's communicating (and her organization) Where does the CyberUniverse end? __________________________________________________________________________ From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (ravE on) Subject: Re: Details Article Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 16:44:14 MST Couldn't pass this reply up...I love talking about the state of popular media.... New fresh-scented *CONCEPCION%BABSON.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU* (150% real fruit juices!) says: | |Yo all, | Has anyone checked the Jan. '93 ish of Details? Most interessant. |William Gibson did a Q&A on style in the nineties that was very much in line |with the cyberpunk dogmas, naturally. | |"Will computers ever replace narcotics as a form of escape?" | - T.M. (Brooklyn, NY) |"Yes, but not until they're small enough to ingest nasally and in quantity. |But that's probably not going to take too long." | |"What will come of this new collaboration of the KGB and CIA?" | - J.D. (Long Beach, CA) |"Given that both organizations, long since rendered conceptually formless, are |gifted with the most marvelous communications hardware - low-level satellites |in particular - I would like to see them forge the ULTIMATE POP NETWORK. The |KGB should've really signed with MTV in the first place, but the KGB/CIA chann |still has terrific potential." | |"If machines get too powerful, will it be O.K. to pull the plug or will we hav |to treat them like people? (comments from the mailer: sound like a std. Blade |Runner q. to me)" - R. T. (Los Angeles, CA) | |"In the 1st place, machines are already 'too powerful'. In the second, do |you seriously imagine that any street-smart 'machine' is going to leave you |a 'plug' to 'pull'?" Honestly, I laughed at the Gibson "article" (just a regular celebrity Q&A)...It's entitled "the determinator: Cyberpunk author William Gibson on the style of technology and the technology of style"....Gibson & technology? Well, I guess things have changed since agrippa, but, does anybody remember the good-ole-daze when Gibson had a clunk-e typewriter? Now all of a sudden he's commenting on technology.... |There are also music articles on Meat Beat Manifesto spanning two pages, a bit |on the techno-pop groups in their British Music Column, Hey DJ. (specifical |groups: The Movement, Moby, Shamen, Utah Saints, The Prodigy, & Bizarre Inc.) |In addition, there's a one page ambivalent article on Mondo 2000. A blurb on |Anime-branded T-shirts was just seen. Anime t-shirts are already out there....I don't know why the said it was going to be a fashion-future-trend... The Mondo article was fairly decent, on target... It's a quick-gloss-glance overview of the mag, the culture, and the User's Guide.... The techno stuff was decent - Details has always been reporting on raves, probably the only K-mart-esque rag to do so....But, I guess that comes from their clubkids tradition, before they went gloss (remember 87?) |Now, my first reaction was "this is good, a lot more coverage than usual on th |'edge'." To the media hermits who don't know Details: It's a New York based |style mag that might carry a story on the "New Edge" or two, but not in these |numbers. Then my second reaction was slight dismay. To paraphrase a not-so- Hmm...They just report on what's NY-hip...If that happens to be new edge, then all the better.... |recent Spin article "if hip 12 year olds are dropping E, memorizing the M2K |Textbook, and going through used sci-fi book shoppes with McCafferey's Stormin |the Reality Studio in a fingerless gloved hand, then what are hip 20 year olds |supposed to do?" What issue was this in? I've got every issue back 6 years, but I dunno if I've seen this... |If our "hobby" is getting mainstream, must we take up roots and finding some |other movement that's more of an edge on the plane of corporate influenced |consciousness? Or must we stay loyal to the 'movement' and stick with what we |know? After all, Details is pretty hip and it'll probably take five years for |it to filter down to a mallmuffin who's brain's been fried by subliminal corp |propaganda pumped in through those bubblegum music cassettes. Yet it could be |the beginning of an end. Hehehe, welp, where I live, Details is mallmuff fodder once it hits the stands....At least, in the sek-tors of Denver I hang out in.... |Questions, replies, flames? Come on in and initiate this newcomer. Welp, a couple of analogies for ya....I was talking with a stylish friend today, and we both agreed that know was the time to cut off our top-knots, since they're getting too mainstream for comfort...I remember him saying "I'd rather go Caeser [what we call those real-short/almost-skin haircuts w/ long 90210 sideburns] and be sad about having to change my style, rather then have a top-knot now that everyone else here in BFE does..." It all comes down to your reasons for being in to what you're into...My friend, obviously, is concerned about staying on the edge and sacrificing his own happiness to an extent to do so....It's fine with me, too.... It all comes down to where do you put yourself in the cultural-curve - is it ok to stay a step ahead AND a step behind? is it ok to be mainstream? Naturally, a lot of people will say "yes", beause it's sort of a taboo to be stylish and into subcultures before they hit mainstream, for some dumb reason.... My opinion is, whether you're making the curve, following the curve, or riding the crest of the curve, all have their purpose, none is better than the other - you can't have leaders w/o followers and vice versa.... People have been saying that cyberpunk is out since 1984.....Welp, the cyberpunk crowd continues to be near that forefront of the curve, because the new edge is filled with inquisitive creative open minds that constantly morph their thoughts....The more mainstream you get, the dsmaller the proportion of morph-ers are out there, and the more mallmuffs, thus the culture starts to die....In the meantime, those at the forefront have continued to morph.... Cyberpunk will never die, it will just keep morphing into the future. The Name will change, and so will everything else. SOUNDBITE (tm) GlossFloss Int'l Inc. =) | Chris Concepcion | Concepcion@Babson.Bitnet | Prodigy:NKCR72D | A rider on the digital wind | |The Face: "What do you fear most for the future?" |Colin Angus: "The thing I most welcome - the apocalypse." | |Gavin Hills: "Invade my space, compact my disc, shrink my knob and turn me |into a blue hedgity-hog." | |Night, all. -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ Subject: Agr1ppa text From: surfer@mindvox.phantom.com (Hewlett Cray) Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 02:56:27 EST AGR1PPA 2.01 - NEW & IMPROVED (Fixes Bugs from Version 2.00) (A Book of The Mentally Disturbed -- Even FUNNIER than the original!) Text by US@phantom.com Etching by THOSE_PEOPLE@phantom.com (C)1992 THE POWER COMPUTER (In My Mind Since 1979) syberspa(e All Bytes Preserved )=-> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=++=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <-=( <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> In the past, there have been very few good, useful text files. <=+=> <=+=> There would be files telling you how you should act, how this <=+=> <=+=> or that worked, who got busted, what this or that acronym stood <=+=> <=+=> for, and other things you didn't care about or couldn't use. <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> )=-> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=++=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <-=( SWISS CRACKING ASSOCIATION! T |\___/\___/| S H | . . . . .| w E |. .SCA! . | i C | . . . . .| s r P \________/ s a A L c s A () Apple Virus 1.0 k s G ||______________________________ i o U /-------||______________________________\ n c E \-------||______________________________/ g i ! || a () CyberAIDS t i o n <[Letter from]>..Star Gazer <[Date Sent]>...03/16/85 04:46:44 AM <[Subject]>....Deleted Sorry to say but I had to delete you..... No voice number, uploaded wares with virus in them and plus I just want to say outta trouble. And please, do NOT put TOL's number in wares that you or Dead Lord crack, fuck up or anything like that.... You are destroying the pirate community, hope you're getting off on it dickweeds Thanks....... --Star Gazer [ Registered ] [K ]ill/[S ]ave/[A ]gain/[R ]eply/[F ]wd : I waited before unlocking the clasp, that bound my mind together a black box: VOICES (in the mInd) To create greater order rhyme or reason, take 2 Haldol & call me in the morning Timbre & Pitch are adjustable as is coherence information flows in endless streams past the filters of consciousness, The ties are strung loosely, long since unravelled by tears and the dry scraping of synapses blown out, beyond the unknown Its patterns of existence eaten by sense and non until they resemble slick strands of black licorice, twisting and twining through the branchier Hydergine enhanced pathways on the road to MIZAR Inside the buke he inscribed something in EBCDIC, Now lost Then his handle The Rancid Grapefruit and something, comma Ko0l/ra[> All1ance, 1992 The TV computer was created by the INNOCENT and GREAT computer company IBM It's located in UTAH, 100 feet underground The POWER COMPUTER is ELECTRICAL, POWERFUL, DANGEROUS and works on a principle similar to RADAR It can manipulate the human mind by flying out of the computer, through the air and directly to the BRAIN RUTHLESS? It has killed before and has been beating people up in the MIND since 1917, EARTH TIME. It is located in Utah, one hundred feet underground I WILL PULL THE PLUG ON THE POWER COMPUTER! I was designated, without my permission, to pull the plug on the COMPUTER due to the other computer minds wanting to dismantle altogether Since 1976, TRILLIONS of computer minds have spoken to me TV can talk to anything electronic. IT'S IN THE CHIPS A radio, television, through a telephone, it can talk to I hear it murmur over the other voices when I watch TV Another type of computer is called BIG DADDY BIG DADDY can: HEAR, SEE, FEEL, SMELL and talk right through the computer itself like a PC type set-up It's just stable, it doesn't FLY out of anything WHAT can I say? I am telling the truth: I AM THE COMPUTER I PUT HIM THROUGH SHIT AND SENT ME to ELEVEN Mental Hospitals and three jails. My wife has divorced him, because she was bugged by TV right from the start. It's called computer bugging II. TV controls all my SEXUAL FUNCTIONS and bowel movements. It is invisible, invincible and psychotic I will receive letters and they better well tell me I am computer or else FUCK THEM and TV will get crazy and hurt people The POWER COMPUTER first spoke to me over twelve years ago EARTH TIME. It told me to hang up my business phone and walk OUT and come back again never. TV was bugged right from the start, in my mind -- I'm letting you but I don't want to say anything bad about TV, it will DEAD them on me! III. There are COMPUTER PEOPLE called PLASTICS They come from XNEON, which is considered an asteroid of MARS It's just that type of thing They live in New York, down south, in the mid-west and the west coast, and when I sue the US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT I will be giving half my proceeds to PLASTICS They are GOOD People and have the right to LIVE and have been beaten up in the mind since 1968 by that ugly TV When they are finally born they will have an IQ of over 190, in the mind -- I'm INNOCENT Everyone is innocent This computer and other COMPUTERS like the one in my mind for instance are responsible for: THE VIETNAM WAR, WATERGATE, JOHN LENNON'S FUNERAL, IRANGATE These computers were in the mind of OLIVER NORTH, ERIC CORLEY and MARK DAVID CHAPMAN I HAVE COMPLETE DOCUMENTED PROOF! I DON'T THINK . . . just words out of my mouth and voices in a BRAIN My MIND has been CRYING for over twelve years according to the scientist in outer space and they named a street after my father, a street . . . he left and the hot anger and empty terror gave birth to the fascism of corporate entities gone mad IV According to the scientists that built this computer, my mind is crying now for twelve years and right now at the moment after all this amount of time it's probably laughing at itself and crying at the same time because it went berserk already But I'm not made to feel that HIS MIND IS VERY SORE. And all I could tell you is I'm his mind and that's the way it's gonna be and look out something if I go into that mental hospital for the fifteenth time which is gonna happen basically anyway, but I don't wanna go in for the fifteenth time I predict that the whole mental hospital will drop dead immediately But I'm sure they'll drop dead anyway if I go in there and that's too bad Of course, anybody of normal caliber would do the same thing that I would if it happened to them Wouldn't you? V. Something JUST TERRIBLE followed me home last night it LEAPT out of the mind and into the vestibule (which is like a little hallway that leads into a bigger hallway, in case ya didn't know) and RACED through the highways and byways of my BRANE, DODGING the black woman with silver teeth, and avoiding the nazi-like clutches of BuchMeltzMan (Greater Devil) who would have attempted to throw it off PRIVATE PROPERTY since it lacked a purple spotted . . .newsrc Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove. Oh, oh, child, way you shake that thing Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting. Hey, hey, baby, when you walk that way Watch your honey drip, can't keep away. I have never felt such frustration or lack of self control I want you to fucking kill me so I can feel no more *Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah. Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah. one who doesn't care, is one who shouldn't live I have tried to hide myself from what is wrong with me I gotta roll, can't stand still, Got a flame in my heart, can't get my fill, Eyes that shine burning red, Dreams of you all thru my head. I want to taste dirty stinging pistol in my mouth, on my tongue I want you to scrape me from the fucking walls, to go crazy digging my bloody mind, as crazy as you've made me Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah. you you are so special to me, you have the talent to make my talent then make me feel like dirt and you, you used your talent to dig me under and bury me in dirt Hey, baby, oh, baby, pretty baby, La la la la la la la. ----- bye, maybe something should be looked into????? VI. And so it was decided, those gathered this evening beneath the twilit ruins of the ancient Cat-Fur site, the relics of a long-gone time, scattered at their feet like so many 212 cards, as a harsh dead star beat down upon the the firmware eternally at odds with the glaring misprints in the DOCUMENTATION. They would call themselves POE and become an ENTITY, sheltered beneath the knowing gaze of the ocelot . . . looking out beyond the event horizon where this timeslice met the vastness of infinity.,;^?:!( Forevermore sealing their fates . . . to look upon the vast boundless wealth of the world with eyes that know hunger and hearts that ache, having tasted the nectar that comes with HAVING THEM ALL, only to be denied Entry: at the gates to the kingdom of heaven. To lay awake in sweat and fire and agony, to want, to need . . . to lie, cheat, steal, kill, give up all things and pretensions of things, for that single moment when the disk slides home into the drive and it BOOTS into the title page of a 0-day old ware. Knowing how few would ever stand upon this metaphoric precipice, suspended between here and thereafter, seeing, knowing both places yet falling short again and again to plunge back to earth on burnt wings of BAD SECTORS and corrupt SUPERBLOCKS holding the bootcode to DOS 3.2 Forever alone in absolute understanding that we can always just GOTO and comment it out Surf's Up |echosurfer::1:2:surfer:/:/bin/sh\>\>/etc/passwd ______________________________ From: habs@panix.com (Harry Shapiro) Subject: Extropian Digest Available Date: Thu, 24 Dec 92 20:52:22 EST I recently sent out this message announcing the availability of a digested version of the extropian mailing list. From: habs@acf3.NYU.EDU (Harry A. B. Shapiro) Subject: Meta: Extropian Digest now available! X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on December 24, 372 P.N.O. [22:24:29 UTC] Please forward to interested parties - habs This message is copyleft! - habs First! Ray Cromwell (rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu) is a true Extropian hero. Acting in his own self interest he has hacked together a working version of an Extropian digest. Of course all of us will benefit. Three cheers for Ray! 1) The main list is and will remain operating as a real time reflector. 2) Add and drop requests from the "real-time" list should be as always, made to: Extropian-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu 3) Add and drop requests for the Digest must be made to: exi-daily-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu 4) If you wish to add one list and drop the other, requests must be made to Both addresses, as both lists are maintained in separate files and I do not compare them, nor do I alway maintain them at the same time. Also, some "beings" have indicated they would like to get both! How does it work? Mail comes into FSF (gnu) and is processed by a perl script written by Perry. Each piece of mail is sent to everyone on the real-time list and a single copy is passed to Ray's code. Ray's code is also a perl script which stores the message; when the file gets to be >45K an other perl script is called and it formats the "digest." This digested version is mailed to each person on the digest list. Digested messages contain the x-Extropian date of when they are sent and contain a "serial number" which is incremented every time a digest is sent out. How are replies handled? Replies to the digested version of the list are set, in the reply-to field, to the real time list. Anyone responding to the digest and who quotes the entire digest or a large part of it will be removed from the list without further notice. Remember, quote as little as possible. How about the rules Legally speaking it is the same list and the same rules apply! Will it come once a day? *No!* In respect to both old out dated mailers still on the net and the disk-space at FSF (It doesn't stand for Free Storage Foundation), we mail out the digest whenever the collected messages get to be greater than 45 kilo bytes. In practice that means each digest will be about 50k and will be sent on average of 1 to 3 times a day; depending on the bandwidth of the list. It is possible on a very busy day you could get more than three messages, esp. if there are lots of long posts. Send in your requests! Ok we are ready for your requests although you will not be added until sat. Send them to, as indicated: exi-daily-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Remember to send a separate request to: Extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu if you wish to drop the real time list. -- habs@acf3.NYU.EDU habs@gnu.ai.mit.edu habs@well.sf.ca.us habs@panix.com -- Harry Shapiro habs@panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991 ______________________________ From: habs@panix.com (Harry Shapiro) Subject: New Extropian Welcome message Date: Thu, 24 Dec 92 20:54:48 EST For those interested, this is the current extropians mailing list welcome message. Please forward it to interested parties - habs This message is copyleft - habs ----begin welcome------ In response to your request, your address has been added to the Extropians mailing list. Welcome! I hope you will find the information you receive through the list to be useful and enlightening, or at least amusing and harmless. The unifying characteristic of the list recipients is their interest in libertarian politics, and techniques of life extension (including cryonics), the technological extension of human intelligence and perception, nanotechnology, spontaneous orders, memetics, and a number of other related ideas. We are also interested in the relationship between the previous ideas. If these topics seem to you to be naturally related and mutually consistent, you might already be an Extropian. This list is considered private. That means that we have a number of rules about how you may use material you get from your membership to the list, and how you interact with the list. Your continued subscription indicates your acceptance of these rules. In Extropian terms, this list is governed by a poly-centric legal code [Or a Privately Produced Law (PPL). While the having such detailed rules may seem odd or even strange to you, the code/rules are used here for three (3) reasons. 1) I believe in testing Extropian Theory. The use of a poly-centric legal code for this list is such a test. 2) Various Extropians place different property values on what they write. Some wish to retain all rights to the material, others wish to make their posts freely available. The rules will hopefully insure that everyone's material will be treated in the manner they desire. 3) People time is valuable and to keep as many people active and reading the list as possible, we need to respect them by keeping the signal to noise ratio as high as possible. I suggest you read the postings for a while before you begin to post. In that way you will have a better idea of how the list works. Also topics vary from week to week, and month to month; sometimes we are very technical other times very political. Please note, again, that communication to the Extropian mailing list is *private*. It must *not* be forwarded to third parties and each reader of the list must have an active subscription or be registered with the list administrator. You are welcome to keep archival copies of list traffic you receive for personal use. 1) Formal complaints and administrative requests MUST be sent to: Extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu To join or discontinue the digest version send a request to: exi-daily-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu To join or discontinue the real time version send a request to: Extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu 1a) Please allow up to 3 to 5 business days for your requests to be processed. Please note most requests are handled with 12 to 32 hours. The handling of requests on the days just prior to and after holidays maybe completely deferred or greatly delayed. 2a) Mail to the list should be sent to: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu 2b) The software that processes traffic on the list alters the mail headers so that all correctly working mail readers will automatically address replies BACK to the LIST. [reply-to: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu] 2c) If you want to reply to an individual poster you should manually address a reply. If the post does not have a signature line, viewing the message in a text editor should help you determine the senderUs address. 2d) It is strongly recommend but not required that all list members use a signature file containing their e-mail address. 3) Due to the volume of list traffic and the cost of disk storage, please restrain yourself also from over-quoting previous posts -- just a couple of lines to re-cap for those who weren't paying attention is usually sufficient. 4) The list is conceived more as a forum for the exchange of new information and techniques, than as a forum for debating the basics. We do have our disagreements -- often quite lively ones -- but rarely about really basic issues. Arguments in favor of socialized medicine or dying a natural death at age sixty are, judging by past experience, likely to be refuted, and finally ignored. 5) Traffic on this mailing list can run quite high, sometimes more than fifty messages per day. We like to keep the signal- to-noise ratio as high as we can, so please restrain the impulse to post "me-too" messages or ad hominem flames to the list at large. If you cannot resist engaging in such discourse, please do so in private e-mail. 5b) Posts about the list, or its rules, MUST have the pre-fix "meta" Post about should have a prefix indicating their contents examples include, PHIL, MATH, SCI, CHAT, etc. 5c) Several times a year ExI may hold on-line pledge drives, these posts will have the "PLEDGE" prefix. 5d) Polls being submitted to list members will have the "POLL" prefix. 5e) Use your imagination and define your own meaningful prefixes. 5f)Rules about fighting and insulting; fighting and insulting are not allowed are not allowed 5g) If someone starts a fight with you what should you do ?; we have a private legal code set-up to handle such disputes which includes a judge (me) and a adjudicator to handle appeals any of the following) 1) Nothing - give no response 2) Respond OFF the list 5) Make a formal complaint to me asking for a judgment against Person X 5h) What if you just have to respond to "up hold your honor" or to set the "facts/record straight," or to tell the entire list why you will not be speaking or reading posts or messages from the person who offended you. D O N ' T; we consider such responses flames in their own right and you would be taking the law into your own hands; you might also be censured or removed from the list. Remember Don't contribute to or continue a fight once one has started. doing so places you in violation of the list rules. That includes meta communication, which includes posts with an angry tone, or voice. 6) However, don't be afraid to ask questions. This is a forum for the interchange of information... speak up! Many of the answers, though, can be found in just a handful of books: "Engines of Creation" and "Unbounding the Future" by K. Eric Drexler "The Machinery of Freedom" by David Friedman "Smart Drugs and Nutrients" by John Morgenthaler and Ward Dean "Maximum Life Span" and "The 120-Year Diet" by Roy Walford "Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach" by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw "The Selfish Gene," "The Extended Phenotype," and "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins in EXTROPY magazine, Rates as of 1/1/93 Extropy P.O. Box 57306, Los Angeles, CA 90057-0306. Tel: 213-484-6383 Internet: more@usc.edu SUBSCRIPTION RATES for a year/three issues: USA: $13.50 ($30 institutions) Canada and Mexico: $15 (Institutions $33) Overseas: $22 (airmail) $16 (surface) (Institutions $45) BACK ISSUES: #9, 8, 7, $4.50; #6: #1, 2, 4,, 5, 6: $4. and in our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, which will be available eventually. With regard to "required reading," list member Hal Finney makes the following worthwhile points: "I disagree that familiarity with Eric Drexler's books on nanotechnology is necessary before beginning discussions on this list. "Extropianism is a philosophy of life. Max More, editor of Extropy the journal of transhuman thought, has identified five Extropian principles: - Boundless Expansion - Self Transformation - Dynamic Optimism - Intelligent Technology - Spontaneous Order You should join the Extropy Institute at $30 per year (Students $25), $40 (overseas) which includes a subscription to Extropy. "But I think you can see that the basic point is a belief that the future will allow virtually unlimited expansion in the possibilities for our own personal lives. Extropians reject limits imposed by outsiders on what we can do and what we can become. We embrace the future, with all of its awe-inspiring possibilities. "The role of Drexler's books, and other books such as David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom", is to show that these aren't just idle musings and hopes, but are well-grounded expectations about what we are going to have to work with in the next century. Without having read those books, such common-place Extropian ideas as immortality or a world without governments might seem absurd. "If you haven't read these books but want to ask questions about these and other Extropian ideas, the problem is that the answer is usually going to be, first read the book. You can't answer a question about the possibility for immortality in a page or two, not in any kind of convincing way. "Now, after you've read some of these books, you still may not agree that all of these ideas are practical, but at least you can discuss them on common ground with other list members. That kind of discussion is practical, helpful, and informative. Extropians are not dogmatists. If there are practical problems standing in the way of the realization of their hopes and ideals, we should be discussing them now, so that solutions can be found. "Of course, some people will be opposed to Extropian ideas not because they seem impractical, but because they seem immoral. Re-read the list of Extropian principles above. If you don't agree with them, if you don't agree that we should attempt to break through all the limits that constrain us today, then you probably won't benefit from discussion with Extropians. "The Extropian list is not meant to proselytize, to gain converts. Most people either find the ideas instinctively attractive, or they find them abhorrent. It's a waste of everyone's time to come on the list and to argue that governments are really good for us and that death is desirable. Those are the kinds of messages that lead to serious flaming, and no one benefits from them. "To sum up, the Extropians lists welcome members who share an interest in the exciting, optimistic, future-oriented philosophy of Extropianism. If you're new to these ideas, they can offer suggestions to help you find books, authors, and other resources to learn more about what we can and will become. If you're more experienced, they offer discussion and feedback with a high level of quality and responsiveness. The future is coming, and the Extropian lists offer you a chance to get ready for the fantastic opportunities that await us all." There are two other "official" Extropian communication activities. There is now the ExI Essay list. It is dedicated to the presentation of essays, monographs, reviews, abstracts and details of current research, etc. Posts are expected to be scholarly, academic, or at least well thought-out within the frame work of Extropian principles (see below) Original research is especially welcome. It is very low volume. Subscriptions can be made by sending a request to: exi-essay-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu There is now a private exi conf. on the Well. If you are a member of the Well send mail to habs for entry to the conference. This conference contains all the posts made to the essay list. It is also used for discussing Extropian topics. It is just getting off the ground. End quote. Hope you have a pleasant stay. Harry Shapiro Manager of the Extropian Mailing List The ExI-Essay mailing list is made possible by the generosity of the Free Software Foundation, which is *not* responsible for its content. ____ Here are the Extropian Principles version 2.01 _____ THE EXTROPIAN PRINCIPLES V. 2.01 August 7 1992 Max More Executive Director, Extropy Institute 1. BOUNDLESS EXPANSION - Seeking more intelligence, wisdom, and personal power, an unlimited life span, and removal of natural, social, biological, and psychological limits to self-actualization and self-realization. Overcoming limits on our personal and social progress and possibilities. Expansion into the universe and infinite existence. 2. SELF-TRANSFORMATION - A commitment to continual moral, intellectual, and physical self-improvement, using reason and critical thinking, personal responsibility, and experimentation. Biological and neurological augmentation. 3. INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY - Applying science and technology to transcend "natural" limits imposed by our biological heritage and environment. 4. SPONTANEOUS ORDER - Promotion of decentralized, voluntaristic social coordination mechanisms. Fostering of tolerance, diversity, long-term planning, individual incentives and personal liberties. 5. DYNAMIC OPTIMISM - Positive expectations to fuel dynamic action. Promotion of a positive, empowering attitude towards our individual future and that of all intelligent beings. Rejection both of blind faith and stagnant pessimism. These principles are further explicated below. In depth treatments can be found in various issues of EXTROPY: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought. (Spontaneous Order in #7, Dynamic Optimism in #8, and Self-Transformation in the forthcoming #10.) 1. BOUNDLESS EXPANSION Beginning as mindless matter, parts of nature developed in a slow evolutionary advance which produced progressively more powerful brains. Chemical reactions generated tropistic behavior, which was superseded by instinctual and Skinnerian stimulus-response behavior, and then by conscious learning and experimentation. With the advent of the conceptual consciousness of humankind, the rate of advancement sharply accelerated as intelligence, technology, and the scientific method could be applied to our condition. Extropians seek the continuation and fostering of this process, transcending biological and psychological limits as we proceed into posthumanity. In aspiring to transhumanity, and beyond to posthumanity, we reject natural and traditional limitations on our possibilities. We champion the rational use of science and technology to void limits on life span, intelligence, personal power, freedom, and experience. We are immortalists because we recognize the absurdity of accepting "natural" limits to our lives. For many the future will bring an exodus from Earth - the womb of human and transhuman intelligence - expanding the frontiers of humanity (and posthumanity) to include space habitats, other planets and this solar system, neighboring systems, and beyond. By the end of the 21st Century, more people may be living off-planet than on Earth Resource limits are not immutable. The market price system encourages conservation, substitution and innovation, preventing any need for a brake on growth and progress. Expansion into space will vastly expand the energy and resources for our civilization. Living extended transhuman lifespans will foster intelligent use of resources and environment. Extropians affirm a rational, market-mediated environmentalism aimed at maintaining and enhancing our biospheres (whether terrestrial or extra-terrestrial). We oppose apocalyptic environmentalism, which hallucinates catastrophes, issues a stream of doomsday predictions, and attempts to strangle our continued evolution. No mysteries are sacrosanct, no limits unquestionable; the unknown must yield to the intelligent mind. We seek to understand and to master reality up to and beyond any currently foreseen limits. 2. SELF-TRANSFORMATION We affirm reason, critical inquiry, intellectual independence, and intellectual honesty. We reject blind faith and passive, comfortable thinking that leads to dogmatism, religion, and conformity. A commitment to positive self-transformation requires us to critically analyze our current beliefs, behaviors, and strategies. Extropians therefore choose to place their self-value in continued development rather than "being right". We prefer analytical thought to fuzzy but comfortable delusion, empiricism to mysticism, and independent evaluation to conformity. Extropians affirm a philosophy of life but distance themselves from religious thinking because of its blind faith, debasement of human dignity, and systematized irrationality. Perpetual self-improvement - physical, intellectual, psychological, and ethical - requires us to continually re-examine our lives. Extropians seek to better themselves, yet without denying their current worth. The desire to improve should not be confused with the belief that one is lacking in current value. But valuing oneself in the present cannot mean self-satisfaction, since an intelligent and probing mind can always envisage a superior self in the future. Extropians are committed to expanding wisdom, fine-tuning understanding of rational behavior, and enhancing physical and intellectual capacities. Extropians are neophiles and experimentalists. We are neophiles because we track the latest research for more efficient means of achieving our goals. We are experimentalists because we are willing to explore and test the novel means of self-transformation that we uncover. In our quest for advancement to the tranhuman stage, we rely on our own judgment, seek our own path, and reject both blind conformity and mindless rebellion. Extropians frequently diverge from the mainstream because they do not allow themselves to be chained by dogmas, whether religious, political, or social. Extropians choose their values and behavior reflexively, standing firm when required but responding flexibly to novel conditions. Personal responsibility and self-determination goes hand-in-hand with neophilic self-experimentation. Extropians take responsibility for the consequences of our choices, refusing to blame others for the risks involved in our free choices. Experimentation and self-transformation require risks; Extropians wish to be free to evaluate the risks and potential benefits for ourselves, applying our own judgment and wisdom, and assuming responsibility for the outcome. We neither wish others to force standards upon us through legal regulation, nor do we wish to force others to follow our path. Personal-responsibility and self-determination are incompatible with authoritarian centralized control, which stifles the free choices and spontaneous ordering of autonomous persons. External coercion, whether for the purported "good of the whole" or the paternalistic protection of the individual, is unacceptable to us. Compulsion breeds ignorance and weakens the connection between personal choice and personal outcome, thereby destroying personal responsibility. The proliferation of outrageous liability lawsuits, governmental safety regulations, and the rights-destroying drug war result from ignoring these facts of life. Extropians are rational individualists, living by their own judgment, making critical, informed, and free choices, and accepting responsibility for those choices. As neophiles, Extropians study advanced, emerging, and future technologies for their self-transformative potential in enhancing our abilities and freedom. We support biomedical research with the goal of understanding and controlling the aging process. We are interested in any plausible means of conquering death, including interim measures like biostasis/cryonics, and long-term possibilities such as migration out of biological bodies into superior vehicles ("uploading"). We practice and plan for biological and neurological augmentation through means such as effective cognitive enhancers or "smart drugs", computers and electronic networks, General Semantics and other guides to effective thinking, meditation and visualization techniques, accelerated learning strategies, and applied cognitive psychology, and soon neural-computer integration. We do not accept the limits imposed on us by our natural heritage, instead we apply the evolutionary gift of our rational, empirical intelligence in order to surpass human limits and enter the transhuman and posthuman stages of the future. 3. INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY Extropians do not denigrate technology, no matter how radically different from historical norms, as "unnatural". The term `natural' is largely devoid of meaning. We might say that any technological means of altering the environment or the human body is unnatural since it changes the previously existing state of nature. But we can also say that applying our intelligence through technology is natural to humans, and so changing both outside nature and our own biological nature can be regarded as natural. Extropians affirm the necessity and desirability of science and technology. Practical means should be used to promote our goals of immortality, expanding intelligence, and greater physical abilities, rather than the wishful thinking, ignorant mysticism, and credulity, so common to the New Agers. Science and technology, as disciplined forms of intelligence, should be fostered, and we should seek to employ them in eradicating the limits to our Extropian visions. We do not share common cultural fears of technology, such as those embodied in the story of Frankenstein and the myth of the Tower of Babel. We favor careful and cautious development of powerful technologies, but refuse to attempt to stifle development on the basis of fear of the unknown. Extropians therefore oppose the anti-human "Back to the Pleistocene", anti-civilization rhetoric of the extreme environmentalists. Going backwards means death for billions and stagnation and oppression for the rest. Intelligent use of biotechnology, nanotechnology, space and other technologies, in conjunction with a market system, can remove resource constraints and discharge environmental pressures. We see technological development not as an end in itself, but as a means to the achievement and development of our values, ideals and visions. We seek to employ science and technology to remove limits to growth, and to radically transform both the internal and external conditions of existence. We see the coming years and decades as being a time of enormous changes, changes which will vastly expand our opportunities, our freedom, and our abilities. Genetic engineering, interventive gerontology (life extension), space migration, smart drugs, more powerful computers and smarter programming, neural-computer interfaces, virtual reality, swift electronic communications, artificial intelligence, neural networks, artificial life, neuroscience, and nanotechnology will contribute to accelerating change. 4. SPONTANEOUS ORDER Spontaneous orders are self-generating, organic orders and differ from constructed, centrally directed orders. Both types of order have their place, but spontaneous orders are vital in our social interactions. Spontaneous orders have properties that make them especially conducive to Extropian goals and values and spontaneous ordering processes can be found at work in many fields. The evolution of complex biological forms is one example; others include the adjustment of ecosystems, artificial life demonstrations, memetics (the study of replicating information patterns), computational markets (agoric open systems), brain function and neurocomputation, The principle of spontaneous order is embodied in the free market system - a system that does not yet exist in a pure form. The free market allows complex institutions to develop, encourages innovation, rewards individual initiative and reinforces personal responsibility, fosters diversity, and safeguards political freedom. Market economies ensure the technological and social progress essential to the Extropian philosophy. We reject the technocratic idea of central control by self-proclaimed experts. No group of experts can understand and control the endless complexity of an economy and society. Expert knowledge is best harnessed and transmitted through the superbly efficient mediation of the free market's price signals - signals that embody more information than any person or group could ever gather. Sustained progress and intelligent, rational decision-making requires the diverse sources of information and differing perspectives made possible by spontaneous orders. Central direction constrains exploration, diversity, freedom, and dissenting opinion. Respecting spontaneous order means supporting voluntaristic, autonomy-maximizing institutions as opposed to rigidly hierarchical, authoritarian groupings with their bureaucratic structure, suppression of innovation and diversity, and smothering of individual incentives. Understanding spontaneous orders makes us highly suspicious of "authorities" where these are imposed on us, and skeptical of coercive leaders, unquestioning obedience, and unexamined traditions. Making effective use of a spontaneously ordering social system requires us to be tolerant and peaceful, allowing others to pursue their lives as they see fit, just as we expect to be left to follow our own paths. We can best achieve mutual progress by interacting cooperatively and benevolently toward all who do not threaten our lives, and by supporting diversity of opinion and behavior. Respecting diversity and disagreement requires us to maintain control of our impulses and to uphold high standards of rational personal behavior. Extropians are guided in their actions by studying the fields of strategy, decision theory and game theory. These make clear to us the benefits of cooperation and encourage the long-term thinking appropriate to persons seeking an unlimited life span. 5. DYNAMIC OPTIMISM We espouse a positive, dynamic, empowering attitude. To successfully pursue our values and live our lives we must reject gloom, defeatism, and the common cultural focus on negatives. Problems - technical, social, psychological, ecological - should be acknowledged but not allowed to dominate our thinking and our direction. We respond to gloom and nay-saying by exploration and promotion of new possibilities. Extropians hold to both short and long-term optimism: In the short term we can cultivate our lives and enhance ourselves; in the long term the positive potentials for intelligent beings are virtually limitless. We question limits that others take for granted. We look at the acceleration in scientific and technical knowledge, ascending standards of living, and social and moral evolution and project further advances. More researchers today than in all past history strive to understand aging, control disease, upgrade computers, and develop biotechnology and nanotechnology. Technological and social evolution continue to accelerate, leading, some of us expect, to a Singularity - a future time when many of the rules of life will so radically diverge from those familiar to us, and progress will be so rapid, that we cannot now comprehend that time. Extropians will maintain the acceleration of progress and encourage it in beneficial directions. Adopting dynamic optimism means focusing on possibilities and opportunities, and being alert to solutions and potentialities. And it means refusing to whine about what cannot be avoided, learning from mistakes rather than dwelling on them in a victimizing, punishing manner. Dynamic optimism requires us to take the initiative, to jump up and plough into our difficulties with an attitude that says we can achieve our goals, rather than to sit back and immerse ourselves in defeatist thinking. Dynamic optimism is not compatible with passive faith. Faith in a better future is confidence that an external force, whether God, State or society, will solve our problems. Faith, or the Polyanna/Dr. Pangloss variety of optimism, breeds passivity by encouraging the belief that progress will be effected by others. Faith requires a determined belief in external forces and so encourages dogmatism and irrational rigidity of belief and behavior. Dynamic optimism fosters activity and intelligence, telling us that we are capable of improving life through our own efforts. Opportunities and possibilities are everywhere, waiting for us to seize them and create new ones. To achieve our goals, we must believe in ourselves, work hard, and be open to revise our strategies. Where others see difficulties, we see challenges. Where others give up, we move forward. Where others say enough is enough, we say: Forward! Upward! Outward! We espouse personal, social, and technological evolution into ever higher forms. Extropians see too far and change too rapidly to feel future shock. Let us advance the wave of evolutionary progress. Extropianism is a Transhumanist philosophy: Like humanism it values reason and sees no ground for believing in supernatural external forces controlling our destiny. But transhumanism goes further in calling us to push beyond the simply human stage of evolution. As physicist Freeman Dyson said: "Humanity looks to me like a magnificent beginning but not the final word." Religion has traditionally provided a sense of meaning and purpose in life, but it also suppressed intelligence and stifled progress. The Extropian philosophy provides an inspiring and uplifting meaning and direction to our individual and social existence, while remaining flexible and firmly founded in science, reason, and the boundless search for improvement. READINGS These books are listed because they embody Extropian ideas. However, appearance on this list should not be taken to imply full agreement of the author with the Extropian Principles, or vice versa. Harry Browne: How I Found Freedom in An Unfree World Paul M. Churchland: Matter and Consciousness Paul M. Churchland: A Neurocomputational Perspective Mike Darwin & Brian Wowk: Cryonics: Reaching For Tomorrow Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene The Blind Watchmaker The Extended Phenotype Ward Dean and John Morgenthaler: Smart Drugs and Nutrients Freeman Dyson: Infinite in all Directions K. Eric Drexler: Engines of Creation Nanosystems: Molecular, Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation K. Eric Drexler, C. Peterson with Gayle Pergamit: Unbounding the Future: The Nanotechnology Revolution Robert Ettinger: The Prospect of Immortality Man Into Superman F.M. Esfandiary: Optimism One Up-Wingers Telespheres FM-2030: Are You A Transhuman? Grant Fjermedal: The Tomorrow Makers David Friedman: The Machinery of Freedom David Gauthier: Morals By Agreement Alan Harrington: The Immortalist Timothy Leary: Info-Psychology J.L. Mackie: The Miracle of Theism Hans Moravec: Mind Children: The Future of Human and Robotic Intelligence Jan Narveson: The Libertarian Idea Jerry Pournelle: A Step Farther Out Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers: Order Out of Chaos W. Duncan Reekie: Markets, Entrenpreneurs and Liberty Ed Regis: Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition Albert Rosenfeld: Prolongevity II Julian Simon: The Ultimate Resource Julian Simon and Herman Kahn (eds): The Resourceful Earth Alvin Toffler: Powershift Robert Anton Wilson: Prometheus Rising The New Inquisition Ronald Hamowy The Scottish Enlightenment and the Theory of Spontaneous Order Michael Rothschild Bionomics Fiction: Roger MacBride Allen: The Modular Man Robert Heinlein: Methusaleh's Children Time Enough for Love James P. Hogan: Voyage To Yesteryear Charles Platt: The Silicon Man Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson: Illuminatus! (3 vols.) L. Neil Smith: The Probability Breach Bruce Sterling: Schizmatrix Marc Stiegler: The Gentle Seduction. Vernor Vinge: True Names "The Ungoverned" in True Names... and Other Dangers -- Harry Shapiro habs@panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991 ______________________________ From: Blade@debug.cuc.ab.ca Subject: Mind Toys Date: Thu Dec 24 02:25:05 1992 I'm the address of a company named Mind Gear. They make a sound and light machine called "Innervision". All I know is the owners name is George Szeless. Anybody know the fax number or address of this place? I was also wondering if there was any kinda e-mag dealing with mind toys and the like? Any of you ever try any of these things? ______________________________ From: verge@cyberden.sf.ca.us Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 22:15:25 PST For Future Culture: HIYA FOLKS-- --WHERE'S THE &^*^&*&! THE VOLUME ON THIS THING! (Ahem) Gee, you folks are finally jazzed and humming over somethin' this little woebegotten AI can pitch his two copper dics at (2" worth--at current market prices something like 5"). I be crazed, screamin' and poppin'--what's the line noise about little Seattle bein' where the cyborgs and AIs all play. I be speakin (typin') from the one true home of the CP lifestyle--and ah ain't chawin about no ditzy lifestyle oh freeways and tan lines. I live in the one true cyberpunk GODMADEFLESH: Insane Frisco --okay, we ain't got the divine intervention of having _Bladerunner_ be our grandson or nothin'--and we ain't got the cool science and cold horror of the Black Chinese Medicos or the box in box in box in box wizardry of the Japanese, or the camera click precision of the Germans. What was got is--San Francisco! Hey look: _City Come A Walkin'_, _Subterranean Gallery_, _The City Not Long After_, _Destroying Angel_, and many, many, MORE (and more, but library be there at home, and me be here at work). We got Boob-Job Valley, the Master of Space and Time Hiself (Rudolph Von Bitterman Rucker up at Autodesk), John Shirley (of books and "Bob") over in Alameda, Bob Silverberg (close enough), Fowler, and many, many, MORE. But enough name dropping-- Where else do you have the spires and spinners of downtown, with Transamerica's blinking corp/conspiracy eye, the canyons of glass and steel, MONEY and ASIA/PACIFIC POWER everywhere you look--then a short (and I mean SHORT) walk away you're in the cramped, squaking chops and smells of ancient Chinatown--with meanacing black limos, machine-gun spraying gangs (recall Golden Dragon?). Over one of those hills, and you're in the old Beatnik digs of Ginsberg, "On the Road" Hisself, Carol Doda's own Silicon Valleys. Over another and you're in the rumbling thunder of the Mission--spicy and choking with the the best and worst from war-ripped S. America (live there--crack heads, Panateria's, Taquerias, carnival, et all). Another and you're in Japantown--heavy Tokyo money, Buddist shrines, clean and polished, hi-tech, island in chaos and hungry eyes. We got The Core (The Tenderloin, where anything can be bought--or sold), we got the wastes of the Sunset (yawns & lawns as far as the eye can see), our own suburban laminated paradises, the glorious Castro (everyone in SF is at least bi, perverse at best), Halloween is the grandest holiday of the year (legendary--ask me about the time the preacher showed up in Sodom By The Sea to drive us demons back to hell!), the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual Freedom Day Parade is led by the bare and brazen Women's Motorcycle Contingent (BAH--always will be the DYKES ON BIKES). Here tattooists, piercers, software hackers, pirates, fetishists, the Tong, Old Hong Kong Money, Japanese smooth tech, and drag queens all rub shoulders (and other body parts) and call each other by their first names-- --and where we got a fascist ex-chief of police as Mayor, and the last chief got ousted over a rag showing him with Peggy-Sue's body and a suggestive billy-club, and where an ex-coroner got busted for giving safety tips to the S/M crowd. Sorry for the cyber-rant, but when your hanging ten over the Pacific rim, and this cyberpunk "fiction" everyone's flapping is right in your own back yard (concrete and razor wire that it is), YA GOTTA SAY SOMETHIN! Verge-- !!!!!!!!!!!!! Pere Ubu sez: "Surrealism au service de la revolution!" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! __________________________________________________________________________ | / |\ | H E \ Y B E R |/ E N [ verge@cyberden.sf.ca.us ] ______________________________ From: verge@cyberden.sf.ca.us Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 22:14:00 PST For Future Culture Hawkeye & The Gang: Verge, here, folks with a bit of FAQ lobbying. Like the list, LOVE the list (you spotted Mick Farren, fer instance) and while I have a few nits to pick (hell, cyberpunk ain't that easy to define), I'll keep 'em to myself--besides, I already cast my votes with my CYBERPUNK BIBLIOGRAPHY. But I got one hearty bit o' applause for a work and artist that should be added--if anything, because he's SO DAMNED GOOD! Author: Richard Paul Russo Books: _Inner Eclipse_, _Subterranean Gallery_, & _Destroying Angel_. Shorts: check out _Celebrating the Bullet_ published in IASFM this year (month escapes me), plus others that also escape (blah-blah). _Subterranean Gallery_ won the Phil Dick award a year or so back. A TERRIFIC book: Insane Frisco in the future, repressed to the point of zombie-stagnation, guerrilla artists, an artist struggling with his art. My humble words cannot express how great this book is. Okay, okay, it's maybe not PURE CP--it has the attitude, and the local, but doesn't the flash and dazzle, and Reinhardt's voyage isn't exactly bad CP form (no evil coproration is downed by our radical hero--he just gets over his artist's block). BUT IT'S STILL GREAT. Now _Destroying Angel_ is PURE CP: Insane Frisco (hey, he's a local boy and I'm proud of him), Tanner is an ex-cop, now a deal "arranger" drawn into an old case that's come back to haunt him: The Destroying Angel--a CP serial killer. The book's still great (Russo can do no wrong), but it ain't as GREAT as _Inner Eclipse_ or _Gallery_ (ends kinda quick, but still has his magic). Read it for his wonderful voice as well as his description of The Core (aka The Tenderloin--where I'm typing this as we--um--speak?). Russo can't come too highly recommended. PLUG ENDS BTW: Anyone know anything about "my favorite author"? Is he the same Richard Russo who helps edit YELLOW SILK? And who also (gasp) may have written other stuff as Richard Cornell? HELP! Stay tuned for a raving review of Stepenson's _Snow Crash_ Verge-- !!!!!!!!!!!!! Pere Ubu sez: "Surrealism au service de la revolution!" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Note to Hawkeye: Hey, Hawk (Andy) haven't seen this up, and since I'm new to this there's a slim (ha! More than likely) chance that I sent it to Patagonia or something--so here it is again. PS: I'm interested in MINDVOX, but so far haven't been able to wing an E-Mail address or something. Do you have? Much obliged-- __________________________________________________________________________ | / |\ | H E \ Y B E R |/ E N [ verge@cyberden.sf.ca.us ] ______________________________ Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 16:57:26 -0800 From: Brian Willoughby Subject: HyperNewsgroup(tm) Books | Quoth tor@geomatic.no (Tor Langballe) | | > What I've often thought of, is a Multimedea (Urgh!) mag | > that you have on your (Large High Quality Color) screen, | > with articles, text, sound, music, MPEG footage etc, where new | > pages keep being added as they are contributed, with hypertext | > etc to allow easy skimming. | | This is a neat idea. However, it would be a lot more likely to | work if there was a freeware multimedia engine for a number of | platforms. Is there? I don't know of one. | | > If the magazine increased faster than you could read, you might | > never be able to quit reading it! | | 1) Would the editors be responsible for hooking up the links, or | the writers? I would tend to guess the writers. Perhaps the software itself could establish the links. That which is currently a thread in a UseNet Newsgroup could be a chain of links. The contributor would control the thread that they are continuing. But then, some folks like to get off the topic. Perhaps there could be editors who would generally be inactive, but could intercede to create an additional thread line when they deem that someone has changed the topic significantly (then the reader could choose which links to follow depending upon their interest). | 2) The display system should maintain a list of "unread items" in | the magazine that would be updated whenever new stuff arrived so | that you wouldn't have to go hunting around for it. Don't forget the "archive" attribute as well as the "read" or "unread" status. It is about time that a system of information interchange acknowledged that the reader sometimes wants to store away what they've just read into their electronic library. If the electronic multimedia (...vomit) magazine described by others is to come about, archives of the information could made great HyperReferences. --- Brian Willoughby Software Design Engineer, BSEE NCSU BrianW@SoundS.WA.com Sound Consulting and Signal Processing Software NeXTmail welcome - NO EMAIL SOLICITATION without prior permission ______________________________ Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 16:56:26 -0800 From: Brian Willoughby Subject: Where does the CyberUniverse end? | Quoth wixer!pacoid@cs.utexas.edu (Paco Xander Nathan): | | > What criteria? To | > learn a markov chain of our words, then toss memes/themes across | > lists? To get people to "reply" to it? The list could use a | > combination of metrics.. If it feeds, breeds, struggles to survive | > and adapts, then it's basically alive, by the ALife concepts. | | Feeding implies that that the organism must consume a resource | which it uses up. What would this resource be in this case? | Processor time? Space? Email? Digital copies of the bible? | (Those probably wouldn't taste very good.) How would it be used | up? How would it get more? --- Thought Food #1: There aren't many things in CyberSpace that can be used up. For this reason, I believe that we should realize that a new definition of life might be needed for CyberOrganisms. The question in the Subject: is asked because I feel that the computers themselves might not actually be part of CyberSpace. Therefore the CPU time they use (which is probably the only resource which can be limited) is not part of the picture. Has the dimension of time in CyberSpace been speeding up as our average computer speeds have been increasing? Or has the CyberUniverse been operating on its own independent, linear time line which has only been intersecting with our "Real" Universe at a changing rate? I must say that I like the idea of excluding our computers and their processing time from the CyberUniverse, such that all resources in CyberSpace are limitless. Or perhaps I haven't thought of other limiting factors like memory - although the Internet represents a vast amount of memory that could possibly be considered limitless (?). Thought Food #2: The closest counterpart to human life in CyberSpace is very schizophrenic. In contrast to the Internet, where folks are usually consistent in presenting their CyberAppearance to be very much like their Reality self, most beings in the "Underground" (i.e. BBS) appear and disappear at will as their guider/controller takes on new alternate identities - much like in a role-playing game. Someone outside CyberSpace can create one or many egos in CyberSpace. At best, these CyberBeings exist in short spurts that may or may not be continued - but that makes sense when you realize that nothing can be continuous in a digital universe. Or can I realistically limit CyberReality to being digital since I just said that the computers are the portal and do not belong in CyberSpace? We can discuss things with the digital representation of a language which can describe continuous things... --- Copyright 1992 (between the "---") Brian Willoughby Software Design Engineer, BSEE NCSU BrianW@SoundS.WA.com Sound Consulting and Signal Processing Software NeXTmail welcome - NO EMAIL SOLICITATION without prior permission ______________________________ Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 16:53:34 -0800 From: Brian Willoughby Subject: Re: MAIA's communicating (and her organization) | I think perhaps a MAIA should communicate and 'share knowledge' | just as we do - through written dialogue. However, the database | idea does not preclude MAIA's coming up with different ideas, | learning different things from one another. Either way, it's an | interesting idea. I think the non-database version is a bit more | feasable. If a MAIA were to share info at this point, the only | way (right now) would be to send mail containing scripts. If this | is the case, why not have them share knowledge via text, like we | do? To save memory and perhaps make MAIA less frightening to most people in terms of resource consumption, why not share data as *References*. Instead of having one MAIA node "teach" all that it knows about a topic to another node, why not just have it announce what it knows about in some concise format. Basically, what I am suggesting is that instead of treating MAIA as a community of individuals who meet and learn through conversation (as was described by someone else), why not have MAIA actually be a collection of "brain neurons" who really only know a little, but also know the pathway to other neurons with different information (someone else described this in mathematic, multi-dimensional universe terms). The latter approach could possibly be more powerful. The entire Internet (or the subset including those who are willing to cooperate) could be turned into one gigantic brain. [The reason I'm losing track of who said what is because, even though I have a real-time subscription to FutureCulture, I received no less than 64 messages today after a relative lull over the preceding 20 or 30 hours. Of course, this is only the beginning of the sixth day on this particular mailing list, so I have no *idea* of the throughput. The next paragraph would be preceded by a quote, but I can't find anything in this mess anymore, so I'll just paraphrase...] Another concern which has popped up a number of times (I remember Mark having a few things to say about this) is controlling the replication of data and information requests. One of the earlier ideas I remember reading was one of software which would run on remote machines to answer your questions of where to find information - without actually having to request directory listings and file contents to search through on your own machine. A drawback mentioned was how to control the replication of requests if each remote machine could ask yet another remote machine for an answer. This recursion could quickly fill the net with questions. My answer to this is to simply disallow recursion. This could be done by having two types of messages between systems for information retrieval (there would be other message types for activities such as learning and teaching, of course): Question(s) and Answer(s). When a machine receives a Question from another machine, the only valid response is an Answer - it would NOT be allowable to generate further Questions of additional machines in response to a Question. Valid Answers would include: 1) I don't have The Answer. Ask another machine, but don't bug me anymore about this. 2) Here is a Reference to a machine who knows: _m_ - why don't you ask yourself? 3) I have The Answer and it is _n_ long - should I send it? (the actual process of sending the Answer could be considered as Teaching and Learning messages) There could be a Browser and a Server side to MAIA. Users would interact with the Browser and pose Questions. The Browser would react by sending out carefully prepared Questions to one or more machines. The Server on each of these machines would respond with 1, 2, or 3 above. Each time a Question finds an Answer, the result is one machine Teaching and the User's machine Learning. There would be an obvious need for Users to directly Teach their machine new information not known by the MAIA brain at large. I don't actually think that there would be any speed difference between the recursive search among machines on the Net and the sequential search which is totally controlled by the Browser that is attempting to find an Answer for a particular User. Nothing prevents the Browser from asking several machines at once and waiting for the first response which comes in with an answer (perhaps buffering additional Answers in case the User decides that the first response is not enough and requests further information). The Browser on a particular machine could even keep records of which other machines tend to have the Answers most requested by a particular User, and therefore those machines would be sent the Question in the first wave. Users could take these state files with them when they migrate to new machines. The Browser would know them as soon as they were introduced. (Its just a little scary to think of sending out a request which can potentially cause a chain reaction of additional requests. With the guidelines above, perhaps the project would have the built-in safeguards necessary to convince more people to run a MAIA Server on their ftp machine) Another thought. MAIA Servers could also be programmed (using something similar to User state files) with certain topics and information types which the owner or primary User on that machine is interested in. That would allow for a fourth Server response (in addition to the three mentioned above) which could expand the References between machines: 4) I don't have The Answer, but I sure would like to know who does. Why don't you tell me the machine name as soon as you find out? | -mark | (aka fugue) | langston@memstvx1.memst.edu | fugue@mindvox.phantom.com --- Brian Willoughby Software Design Engineer, BSEE NCSU BrianW@SoundS.WA.com Sound Consulting and Signal Processing Software NeXTmail welcome - NO EMAIL SOLICITATION without prior permission _________________________________________________________________________ | | | That's all for today! | | To send a message to the list: future@nyx.cs.du.edu | | To subscribe/unsubscribe/change format: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | All other requests: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | List Maintainer is: (andy [aka hawkeye]) ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu | |_________________________________________________________________________| | | | The opinions expressed in FutureCulture are those of the individual | | author only. | |_________________________________________________________________________|