Natasha

The World's Smallest Futurist Quiz

Yale University, 2003  WTA Seminar
TransVision USA CONFERENCE
 Yale University, New Haven CT, USA 
June 27-29, 2003  

Reading list for Natasha Vita-More's QUIZ Course for WTA Seminar
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1.  Book:  Create/Recreate: The 3rd Millennial Culture
(Order Now!  For the Yale University QUIZ course, 
you will receive a 20% discount and 2-day shipping.)



To order click here.

2.  Essay:  Transhuman - a Brief History
3.  Essay:  Culture in the Making
4.  Essay:  An Evolution
5.  Essay:  Primo, The New Human (Body Design)
6.  Essay:  Defeat the Retros and Take Back the Future!
7.  Principles:  Extropy Institute's "Extropian Principles"

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2.  Essay:  Transhuman - a Brief History

The transhuman marks the beginning of our evolution from human as we merge with machines. Put simply, humans are biological animals. The transhuman is at a transitional stage of merging with technologies resulting in a shedding a biological exclusivity. It is a self-directed evolution brought about by the desire to live longer, healthier and more intelligently. The transhuman is a self-directed evolution—evolution that has bypassed Darwin and the selfish gene toward the designing and engineering of our own future, enabling us more control of our own lives. The coalescing of science, technology and creativity will challenge what was once the accepted idea of life and death.

Transhuman ideas originated in diverse cultures. We can find traces of transhumanist thought in our earliest inventions and discoveries. From marking the surface of prehistoric cave walls over 17,000 years ago to transmitting signals across the light years of space, ingenuity has illustrated humans’ use of technology. Our desire for extending life and immortality, mirroring our own image in omnipotent reflections, pushing beyond our limitations—has catapulted our species toward an accelerated evolution from human to transhuman.

The transhuman history is comprised of events that have transformed our species. These events are the result of innovations generated through transhuman creativity. In every aspect of our being—each inch—each thought—creativity is in action. It is the fire behind our passions. It is the fuel igniting our will. No matter how diminutive or how colossal an idea, it is in the creative impulse that has accelerated our evolution.

Evolution happens on many fronts. It is not just our biology that mutates and evolves, it is also our psychology that undergoes transformation.

For the first time in history transhumans are actively researching and developing the skills to end death. It is not an immortalist’s pipe dream—nor a mirage, but an objective to be attained, and perhaps in our lifetime. Those of us who actively call ourselves transhuman do so with a commitment to extending and improving life. The commitment to extending life is a litmus test for transhumanity. If we do not overcome death, we have no future.

Our evolution has been a cumulative process. Footprints across time have left traces of our reach beyond ourselves for something better. From the earliest plebeian cultures to the advanced complexities of social systems the future has been unfolding. Today we are on the threshold of the present evolution—the transhuman.

First cell divides: Terrestrial Life 4 billion years ago

Artifacts as ritual 28,000 BC

TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

Tools as Technology/fire 1,000,000 — 2,000,000 BC

CREATIVITY AUGMENTUM (21st Century and beyond)

*Human behavioral residue such as anger, fear, envy, or resentment, will no longer interfere with the creative process.  
The Creativity Augmentum will be a time when our creativity is enhanced by technological augmentations.

Natasha Vita-More

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3.  Essay:  Culture in the Making

CULTURE In the Making

Naked behinds and childish laughter began to fade as we each chose diverse and separate interests, given our genetic codes. Scene after scene of our lives varies as we change and grow.

I have witnessed the cusp of the beat and pop cultures, missed the yuppies, but on time for cyberculture. I’ve been termed a baby boomer and product of the media while rubbing shoulders with new agers. I’ve balanced between the cyberculture and my own individualism while embracing transhumanity.

Retrospectively, the 1960s set the spin and redirected culture into new realms of ecological concern—population, pollution, consumption, the gene pool. William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder talked Buddhism, Marshall McLuhan envisioned a global village, and Lumino-kinetic art was getting under way. The Free Speech Movement started the trend of student activism and Viet Nam flashed blood red before our eyes. The first heart transplant, the IUD for birth control, clomiphene to increase fertility, and a draft treaty to stop the spread of nuclear weapons is approved by the UN General Assembly. During these years of political turmoil and the threat of nuclear holocaust around the world, a very few people began espousing optimism.

Experiments in Art & Technology, founded by Swedish engineer Billy Kluner and artist Robert Rauschenberg created programs where artists and scientists could explore ideas together, Nine Evenings featured works between John Cage and Buckminster Fuller, Art & Technology project paired 28 well-known artists with industrial/scientific facilities to produce/perform their work, and the Center for Advanced Visual Studies program opened at MIT.

The ’70s disco mania and pop culture absorbed the media through its pores and advertising became an art form. Back to nature and homemade houses beckoned the tired radicals of the decade before. Alternative lifestyles sprang up and Telluride and Big Sur became havens. It was an era of mind stretching and introspection while remnants of the negs and doomsayers prevailed. As if alien to it all, a very few people were thinking about enhancing and extending life and biological technological interfacing.

The first microprocessor (the chip) was introduced by Intel, and push-through tab on soft drinks makes life easier. The personal computer (Altair 8800) surfaces with 256 bytes of memory, Pioneer 10 is launched to leave the solar system and Genentech, the genetic engineering company goes commercial.

In the ’80s video beckoned the film elite and computer science became the buzz. The heat of the night gave way to science fiction enthusiasts looking for intelligence in the universe while physicists look for missing mass and a cosmic string—a long skinny bit of leftover energy from the Big Bang. An undercurrent of a new culture was in the midst, but it wasn’t quite fashionable or recognizable, yet. It was a slowly simmering consciousness opening up to a positive view of the future. This culture—this transhuman culture—was a sure sign that there is creative intelligence right here on earth.

The cultural landscape that nourishes creativity is a hospitable one. People have a tendency to flock to the watering holes of stimulation and excitement—gyrating the center of vital action. Like McLuhan, Leary and More and FM-2030 in California, Marvin Minksy and Stewart Brand at MIT, Pam Lifton-Zoline and friends in Telluride, Drexler and extropians in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, international conferences, and the Internet, each one of these creative environments has offered and will offer alternative lifestyles, challenges, and opportunities to be pioneering locals.

As we marvel on the cusp of the 21st century, the specific geographical locations are vastly spreading beyond any one epicenter. Transhumanity is spreading. It’s spreading everywhere.

The transhuman culture has emerged out of notions of optimism, life extension, space exploration, new technologies and a critical view of the future—the ideas that had once been simmering have begun expanding and spreading seemingly at once, like sprouts on a freshly cultivated garden.

But is transhumanity a small oasis in a world of ceaseless problems? What about overpopulation, the collapse of governments, religious wars, bigotry, terrorism, disease and strife? How does the transhuman culture deal with the rest of the world? These are questions that have been asked for decades. And, for decades people have been trying to solve them.

Problem solving is best done across specializations rather than in a vacuum. Working toward understanding world issues and resolving them is not a light task. We need to invest more time and effort in designing ways to deal with human and transhuman affairs. Developing formats that welcome diverse and creative thinking to overcome difficult issues seems to be the goal of a number of future oriented organizations. Extropy Institute sponsors forums, conferences and on-line debates. Transhumanist Arts encourages and produces arts and sciences collaborative projects. The Foresight Institute offers an annual Feynman Prize and has developed the Web Enhancement Project known as Crit.

Specifically, technologies such as molecular nanotechnology will provide clean and efficient production of most any commodity and we will also be able to clean up the mess created by today’s crude production methods. The total mass of resources used per person has been decreasing because of a shift from material goods to information. Birth control methods are reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies while infertility research is improving the pregnancies that are wanted. Genetic engineering is addressing the structure of DNA in understanding what causes disease and aging. Mass telecommunications and the Internet are continuing to open up conversations between disparate groups of people.

Camilla Paglia, public thinker and radical essayist, questioned intellectual life in America in her provoking book Vamps and Tramps, claiming there isn’t one. Not only is there intellectual life in America, a survey of the globe will surely prove that there is indeed an intellectual climate permeating the planet, and most definitely within the transhuman community.

The 3rd Millennial Culture is in the making. We have responsibilities and concerns and the wisdom to deal with them. How we use technology and science, and what type of content we lend to our arts is not a flimsy affair. We must be conscientious and sensible, as well as daring and inventive. We must consider who we are in a world where the machine is becoming smarter and smarter, where the impossible is now quite possible, and think of it also as an extended haiku.

Natasha Vita-More

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4.  Essay:  Transhuman - An Evolution

T.S. Eliot wrote about the risks of the human journey in becoming illuminated as a "process by which the human is Transhumanised" in his play "The Cocktail Party" (The Complete Poems and Plays 1909 - 1950, published by Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New York).

The actual concept of transhuman as an evolutionary transition was first expressed by FM-2030. His trilogy, Up-Wingers, Telespheres and Optimism One (1973) constitutes the beginnings of the transhumanist philosophy, as well as his contributing final chapter in Woman, Year 2000 (1972)

Ideas about humanity and evolution were explored by Julian Huxley in his writings on evolutionary humanism in the book Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (1942) and Teilhard de Chardin in The Future of Man (1959). In 1966, FM-2030 (formerly, F.M. Esfandiary) outlined an evolutionary transhuman future while teaching "New Concepts of the Human" at the New School for Social Research, New York City. Abraham Maslow referred to transhumans in Toward a Psychology of Being, (1968), Robert Ettinger also referred to transhumans in Man into Superman (1972), I authored the Transhuman Arts Statement (TransArt) (1982) as an art theory and outlined the emerging transhuman culture, and by Damien Broderick in The Judas Mandala (1982).

In the Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedia Dictionary (1966), "transhuman" is defined as meaning "surpassing; transcending; beyond". In the Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (1983), "transhuman" is defined as meaning "superhuman," and "transhumanize," meaning "to elevate or transform to something beyond what is human". Yet, these are not a complete and contemporary meanings. Today, we refer to "transhuman" as meaning an evolutionary transition from being biologically human toward our merger with technology.

FM later defined transhuman as "a new kind of being crystallizing from the monumental breakthroughs of the late twentieth century. ... the earliest manifestations of a new evolutionary being." Later, he authored the book Are You A Transhuman? (1989).

Transhumanism has a slightly different beginning. Julian Huxley’s book written in 1956, New Bottles For New Wine, contains the essay "TRANSHUMANISM" which sets out to explain how humans must establish a better environment for themselves. He also alludes to a new species that the human might eventually become. The difference in Huxley’s transhumanism and Max More’s transhumanism is that Huxley states "man remaining man but transcending himself." Transhumanism as defined by Max More explains the overcoming of human limits and the transformation from being human to becoming posthuman. Although Huxley had a vision of a possible future for humanity, he single-tracked the future when he saw man remaining man.

How did the memetic spreading of transhumanity begin? What started as futurist ideas taught by FM at the New School eventually became evolving ideas held by thousands of individuals linking across the Internet. The cyberculture became the most fertile breeding ground for people interested in exploring new tools. Extropy Institute spearheaded extropian transhuman influence academically, in print and throughout the Internet. The Extro Conferences, meetings, parties, on-line debates, and documentaries have continued to get the idea of the transhuman to the public.

While the scientific community embraced the new concepts in human evolution, the art community focused on exploring new tool of electronics to enhance our senses and develop alternative realities. Soon evolutionary memes such as extropy, nanotechnology, biotech, A-Life, AI, SI, VR, transhuman, automorph, extreme-life, avatar, singularity, and thoughts of new types of sexuality and genders arose. Like meme spores infiltrating culture with words well known in the scientific world, artists have been exploring the ideas of evolution and giving them the art of life.

Natasha Vita-More

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5.  Essay:  Primo, The New Human (Body Design)

Primo –R A D I C A L body design

Outline

1. Redesigning Skin

A. Smart Skin ("sS")

1. Skin for Survival

1. Skin for Enhancement

1. Primitive
2. Radical

1. sS
2. AiS

1. TIMELINE

1. Biological Evolution

(aa) Survival

2. Technological Evolution

(aa) Enhancement

3. Communications Evolution

1. Role of Texture
2. Role of Sensation
3. Role of Function
4. Role of Design

II. Designing Primo

1. Beauty and Biotechnology

1. AiS - Engineering Style

2. Intelligence and Touch

1. AiS - Intelligence Receptors

III. Survival of Primos

1. Squaring the Curve of Design

1. Memetic Design

(a) Serious Fiction

2. Memetic Aesthetics

(a) Cultural Sensory Symbol

3. Memetic Advertisement

(a) Familiar, Helpful and Sense of Humor

The smart skin of the future combines the historical evolutionary role of survival from the earliest of human ancestors, the Australopithecus, to our future Posthuman whose survival will be conditioned to a far different world than we realize today. The architecture of this transition is both biological, as our genes shape our lives, and technological, as we merge and mingle more and more with the technology around us. It is also self-directed, as our intellectual capacity and our need to problem solve, progress, and survive lies at the forefront of our nature—our human nature. The smart skin of the future will be a multi-functional design coalescing safety and survival, sensation and texture, beauty and elegance, fluidity and mobility, and terraced layers of what we know as the "self". The smart skin of the future will function as an exterior protection and interior utility; it will combine artificial and natural design options; fuzzy membrane, both natural and synthetic; a sensorial surface; and ultimately square the curve of design.

The largest human organ, covering 99.9% of our bodies—the first organ to be engineered —the premiere organ to be cloned, is known as skin. Skin, the cultural symbol of health and vitality or disease and decay, protects our inner organs and communicates with the outside world. Each goosebump, spring blush, summer sweat, or winter shiver communicates our emotions to the world. Skin represents the character of culture by displaying human strength. Skin stands up to brushing, cut and tear. Skin’s ability to adapt to environmental change while acting as our bodies’ temperature regulator shows its flexibility and resourcefulness. Skin tells us when we are ill by presenting abrasions, sores, flaking and blemish. It reminds us to cool down or heat up, and its pigment masks the body from perilous ultraviolet sunrays. It acts like a safeguard in preventing excessive loss of corporeal moisture. It allows us to reach yet another mile, a higher jump and faster pace by expanding its pores and breathing with us. Skin reflects our inner nature and outward appeal by appearing fresh, clean, and smooth to the touch.

How did skin become so very wise? Skin emerged as a sheath-like covering for animals, amphibians, mammals and other life forms. The central role of skin has been to stretch across our bone and muscular system to protect it from outside toxins and to regulate temperature. Early on, skin may have been covered with hair, resembling fur-like coats. As we evolved into Homo erectus, skin began developing more pores and growing less and less hair. Skin has also become manufactured by engineering cell cultures to mesh fabrics. This homegrown skin resembles original skin in many ways. While artificial skin looks and feels like "real" skin, what about Smart Skin ("sS")? Imagine skin that regulates according to the brain’s directions; changes colors according to the mind’s moods; alters textures according to the body’s emotions; or changes structure according to the individual need. The applications of artificial intelligence in the engineering of biotechnology will affect how human senses are perceived and how senses, as well as organs, can be augmented. One of these organs is our human skin.

Once again, skin is at the helm of the pioneering human design for improving life. If we sketched a timeline of events in the evolution of biological change, it would surly illustrate parallels of the technological and cultural advances toward an engineering of Artificial Intelligent Skin (AiS) and the advancement in the design of communications, transportation, values and ideals, ingenuity and discovery.

First cell divides: Terrestrial Life 4 billion years ago

From the biped to the human, we have gained more pores for sweating and less follicles for growing hair. Our skin has mutated into a variety of shades and tones, from absorption of melanin for ultraviolet light protection, to a minimum of melanin for colder climates.

The evolution of sweat glands and skin pigmentation suggests that early humans had few sweat glands causing our ancestors, perhaps the Homo ergaster of 1.7 million years ago, to evolve with a better cooling system. In that the humans with more sweat glands could forage better in the sun, the better chance of having healthy offspring. "A million years of natural selection later, each human has about 2 million sweat glands spread across his or her body." Simultaneously, due to the mobility of our ancestors, melanization took place which increased the thickness of melanocytes in the epidermis and caused the skin to darken to protect the skin from radiation. "Scientists long assumed that humans evolved melanin, the main determinant of skin color, to absorb or disperse ultraviolet light." Over these millions of years our genes stumbled upon unpredicted changes that effected the human body with an intended design purpose—to adapt to the world and to survive.

In these next decades we will see the emerging of the transhuman (the transition from being biological human beings to the altered biological and genetic makeup of the posthuman) who will engage more readily with technology, smart computers, nanotechnology and robotics—all to protect and extend life.

The engineering of skin and our DNA will affect the human species. While transhumans are considered humans who have adaptive and augmented body parts that are not developed through natural selection of biological mutation, they will be still Homo sapiens and share the same genetic coding for skin, however modified and improved.

Tools as Technology/fire 1,000,000 — 2,000,000 BC

Growing skin occurred around the 1950s where tissue cultures were grown as a form of biological investigation. Tissue banks were set up to store all the animal and human cell lines that had been established. Later, in the 1970s property rights became court issues and the idea about who owns our bodies, or cells and our tissues were debated. Privatizing and commercializing our cells and tissues were discussed and enacted.

Radical body design "Primo 3M+" is a model design primed with Smart Skin ("sS"), Artificial Intelligent Skin ("AiS") and nanoskin which vanguards several heavy-duty practical design purposes through mobility, communication and intellection. The digitized model structure is composed of assembled massive molecular cytes or cells connected together to form the outer fabric of the body.

Smart skin (sS) of the future combines intelligence and touch. It will be engineered to repair, remake, and replace itself. It will contain nanobots throughout the epidermal and dermis to communicate with the brain to determine texture and tone of its surface. It will transmit sensory data to the brain on an ongoing basis.

Artificial intelligent skin (AiS) will learn how and when to renew itself, alert the outside world of the disposition of the person; give specific degrees of the body’s temperature from moment to moment; reflect symbols, images, colors and textures across its contours. It will be able to relate the percentages of toxins in the environment and exact radiation effect of the sun.

COMMUNICATION EVOLUTION —

Artifacts as ritual 28,000 BC

The familiar phrase "beauty and brawn" refers to individuals who are both attractive and strong. The phrase "beauty and biotechnology" appropriately reflects an engineering profile. Matching the brains and the agility of external and internal beauty and also emphasizing the agility of a reliable human transporter, "beauty and biotechnology" is quite 21^st century phrase for skin.

Stepping back a moment, skin has, historically, been a major part of our communication with the outside world and also with our internal communication network—our central nervous system and out brains. Inasmuch, skin has had four basic roles:

Role of texture: The skin’s texture helps us determine the character and characteristics of the things we touch.

Role of sensation: The sensations we feel through the nerve endings in our skin help us to recognize pain and pleasure.

Role of function: The function of skin is to protect our bodies from the external environment and to help keep moisture within our bodies.

Role of design: Skin has evolved to cover the body efficiently while providing the largest number of pores possible to regulate body temperature and also reduce the amount of hair follicles to provide a more streamlined surface. Skin also communicates effectively with our central nervous system to perform mental tasks. Lastly, skin is used to sexually allure a potential partner.

Our ancestors used their bodies as templates for communication and expression. Vivid colors and symbols were painted to communicate tribal attitudes. Scaring, marking and piercing it to illustrate ritual. We still use our skin as a calling card for ritual and romance. When considering how skin embodies our selves, our unique personage, we have strong and distinctive views about our own space and boundaries.

Where is the definitive line of one’s self, one’s own skin, and where does it reside when we are communicating electronically and virtually? When we say, "Meet you in the ether," we mean that we will be communicating via email. But in what skin? Is it factually or symbolically an electronic algorithmic code? Today we experience the transference of one’s "self" into new and varied realities such as virtual reality and other simulated environments. The future disappearing of the boundaries, the outline of oneself in real time begs the question: What happens to our ability to communicate through blush, goosebump, sweat and shiver when a copy of our bodies is communicating with others? There are a number of possibilities. First, the familiar art of filmmaking using heightened images with close-ups that exaggerate facial pores, scars, blemish, contour and sheen. Second, simulated environments will have little difficulty replicating human emotions and senses. Even telepresence may be more vivid than vivid. Further, with retinal display imaging, we may be able to see the very receptor on a nerve ending as it sends a signal through the central nervous system to the brain at the slightest brush against the nap of one’s neck. We may experience second hand how the tissues perform when a toxic substance tries to enter the skin’s surface and penetrate the epidermis.

While one of skin’s major functions is to protect the body from the toxins in the environment from entering the body, we could be the protectors of our own skin by participating in simulated environments and letting our human skin take a break while our virtual copies take the wheel and steer the course through new terrain.

But where does the beauty and biotechnology come in? As the outer symbol of beauty, skin represents softness, smoothness, and the peaches and cream of youthfulness. It is skin that tells the observer, however subliminal and far about our secrets and whispers, the nature of a person’s health. When we observe smooth untarnished skin, we assume that the person is blemish fee. If we notice dark spots, marks, scars, discoloration, we think that the person has suffered some physical or emotional bad fortune. Therefore, the skin is the utmost symbol of beauty if beauty reflects the truth of our health, which I believe it does.

The symbol of beauty may take on a new meaning when biotechnology eliminates the outer marks of skin’s damage and decay. Will may hide our imperfections through an engineered outer sheath or choose to boldly enhance our skin to reflect disease inside, if we are confident or brash enough. Alternatively, we could design our skin to reveal, only when necessary, the hints of disease and aging and then hide them away for a synthetic outer veneer that displays an illusion of good health and nature.

There is an upside and a downside to the redesigning of the human body. For example, skin has been an obvious mirror of our spirit, so how will we recognize or judge another person’s true person, true health or true nature? Certainly, if we are able to redo our skins, we will also be able to manifest a smarter, sharper and more reliable signs through simultaneously improving our brain mental acumen. These are but a few of the many choices that await us in the radical redesigning of our bodies.

The word "skin" is multi-faceted. It means naked, stripped, hurt, sexy, naughty, swindled and even reflects life and death. "Show me some skin!" "I skinned my knee." "He skinned the rabbit." "By the skin of my teeth." "He skinned me – took all my money." "She gets under my skin." "Show me some skin." "They hide to save their skins."

Memetic engineering takes words and gives them cultural spin. Today we think of skin as naked or sexy. At the turn of the 19^th Century, skin related to the hunter’s hide. Today, downloading skins for programs which change the appearance of the software. Tomorrow skin might mean multi-functional personas. "Which skin is she in? Virtual, symbiotic, cybernetic, or real time?"

Creativity and the innovations of design possess limitless possibilities not just by and through materials, but also by societal needs. The search for new materials relieves worn out ideas, methods and mechanics. In architecture, new ways of erecting structures, generating flooring, wall coverings, building materials and weathering techniques have changed what we think we can accomplish in architectural style, and in sustainable design. In materials fabrication, engineers are developing "man-made" substances that are as hard as diamond, as soft as satin, and as strong as any metal we have available today. The fashion business has been exceedingly innovative with new wearable fabrics that look stylish and comfortable but are built with materials that we would never consider fashionable or possible yesterday.

Who will be the Designers? Artists, Biotechnologists, Genetic Engineers, Nanotechnology Architects, Artificial Intelligence Programmers, to name a few.

Artists and other designers can apply current and emerging biosciences to sculpt human bodies into customized individual objects of design. An example of radical design for human skin is expressed in Primo as highlighted by multiple functions: solar protected skin, with tone and texture changeability; biosensors that externally stimulate atmospheric tensions; active integument management system to keep outer surface totally smooth and wrinkle free (unless you choose wrinkles for effect); and to maintain maximal suppleness and instant response to sudden demands for stretch and twist.

Herein, a central questions remains, "Can style be engineered?" While draw a comparison between taxes and death and engineering, taxes and disease are design problems that can be resolved. If radical body designs consider a heightened mixture of sense information ("sensorial mix") to assure better sensory capability, or performance, and if the body designs function with expertise in rhythmic patterns or in concert with the physique, and there is unnoticeable lines between the technology used and the human body, or seamless fusion of body and technology, then the design becomes a work of art, if not state of the art. Adding to this equation is the balanced design work of mental logic and emotional passion, it further becomes a "Primo equilibrium."

Color control for instant blending in or standing out. Optional silicon carbide sheath enables you to become almost invisible. ActiveSkin makes clothing unnecessary and allows you to display written or pictorial messages to convey mood.

Today's scientific technologies of gene therapy, genetic engineering, artificial chromosomes, computational implants and psychopharmacology are beginning to shape human bodies and psychology. Lead articles in recent issues of Scientific American, "Your Bionic Future", Fall 1999 and Popular Science, "Body of the Future", October 1999 are timely. As a Pre-millennial challenge and a new renaissance, artists are both the artists of sensory experiences and the aesthetic designers of radical human body designs.

I call the future potential of the senses a Sensorial Mix. Artistic judgment and know-how of engineering design platforms must take precedence to avoid sensorial "noise" or visual low bandwidth graffiti.

An example of how the skin could be enhanced through AiS is in the sense of touch. Imagine biosensors externally augmented running pulsating neuro fiber optics through the fingers simulating atmospheric tension. Smart electronic systems soft, soothing and thermosensitive. Polymer coated to record surface temperature maps and kinetic data on individual motor functions. Also used as a hot-badge, touch-sense will facilitate contact with others.

The above scenarios exemplifies layout ideas for genetically engineering our senses, and the architecture for sorting through the avalanche of new types of data we receive from and what we input into our environments.

Intelligent Agents and nanobots working with AiS enhanced senses could patiently sift through loads of superfluous information and spurious data while finding nuggets of interesting and stimulating information and provide such data to our brains.

There is an analogy between computer programming and social programming and we must be vigilant not to be swayed by advertisements on how to "be." Authenticity is an honest relationship with one’s self and one’s emotions. Genuine emotions stem from first hand exploration of a full range of senses. Ultimately, there is a difference between programmed senses and the gut feelings that one has about character and intentions. In the field of AI and neural network design, there are those who believe emotions from senses can be programmed by mimicking humans, while others find that first hand experience is the key factor for genuine AI. It seems to me that general AI must meet top down IA to produce an true AI.

More powerful, better suspended, more flexible, its body offering extended performance and modern style. The expansive interior provides advanced metabrain and enhanced senses. Our nano-engineered spinal communication system runs under the guidance of networked AI with a wide range of optional features.

 Survival of the Primos

Simply adding new gadgetry to our bodies will not make us modern nor evolved. As we grow more chameleon-like and change our characteristics and the characteristics of our environments, we will still have to learn about life from our own experiences.

The enhancing and augmenting of human senses has been and will be the leading edge of collaborative innovations in both the arts and the sciences and will produce a definitive shift in culture.

Compare:

Natasha Vita-More

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6.  Essay:  Defeat the Retros and Take Back the Future!

DEFEAT THE RETROS AND TAKE BACK OUR FUTURE!

Whose world wins?

How do we decrease dangers of a global uproar against superlongevity and superintelligence?

Culture thinkers and acts in cyclic ways. People swarm toward clues making superclusters around senseless plots, telling us we are good-to-go. People create intellectual poverty by swarming too quickly, leaving rationale behind. Connecting the dots of multidisciplinary networks can advance our own collaboration and cooperation and diminish backward movements that contradict and undercut our cultural currency.

Translated into a more linear thinking pattern:

People are likely to support biotechnology if its application advances the human condition. Consumers are likely to advocate these aims if the quality of their lives improve. However, skepticism among the global populace continues to climb. International skepticism is promoted by backward movements which contradict their own rationale as they attempt to undercut our extropic cultural worth.

Multidisciplinary networks and futurist organizations can defeat the retros and defend public attention of positive biotechnology and machine intelligence. The success of this will depend upon public awareness and understanding, recognition by retros that progress can be ethical, and confidence in transhumanist policies.

More simply:

People are likely to support biotechnology if it improves their quality of life. However, retro movements promote fear of innovations and block progress. Futurists, extropian, and other transhumanist organizations can defeat the retros and promote positive public attitudes toward biotechnology and machine intelligence by showing how progress can be ethical and beneficial.

And yet:

Retro movements are attempting to promote fear of innovation and block progress. But people are likely to support biotechnology and machine intelligence if it improves their quality of life. Transhumanists and other futurists can defeat the retros and promote positive public attitudes toward these vital advances by showing how progress can be both ethical and beneficial.

1. Who are the worlds? – varied world views about the meaning of life
2. What re retro movements?
3. How does biotechnology improve the quality of life?
4. Who are transhumanists and who are futurists?
5. How can we promote positive public attitudes toward vital advances
6. How is progress ethical and beneficial?
7. What is cultural currency?

1. Who are the Retros? What are their world views?
1. The backward movements

 

1. Retro-Fundamentalists – Religions Designed to Curb progress

 

Freedom of thought will best be promoted by that gradual enlightening of the human understanding which follows the progress of science. I have therefore always avoided writing about religion and have confined myself to science.

Charles Darwin, 1880

1920 in opposition to Liberalism and secularism

Secular – Worldly rather than spiritual

 

1. Islam

The Islamic fundamentalist believe his religion sanctions the killing of any non-Muslim for either refusing to convert or refusing to be subject to Islamic rule.

Islamic fundamentalism may only survive in countries like Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and other fanatical religious societies for a few more decades, but its days are certainly numbered in Iran. In practical terms, Islamic government has proved that it has no real solutions to Islamic society's problems. In other words, it has demonstrated that the only solution to the people's needs and the management of a vast government machinery and bureaucracy in a modern age is the adoption of secularism, democracy and freedom under the banner of law and equal opportunity for all regardless of their gender, religious and political believes.


2. Religious Right

Recently Pat Robertson stated that he has prostrate cancer. He then asked everyone to pray for him. What does this mean? It means that although Mr. Robertson uses technology to spread his religious beliefs while claiming to communicate with his God, he is not inclined to get a message to his God without the help of millions of other people.

3. Mysticism and New Age Spirituality

Transference of religious importance onto the idea of spirituality.

4. Hindu

Religious fundamentalists normally have a political agenda – and the media are used to further this agenda. The meticulous, systematic uses of the media by Hindu nationalist forces in India, the, as much as by Pat Robertson and others of his type in the USA, backed by the technologies of marketing have played a key role in their dominance in the public domain. The family and community as much as the nation are targets for the fundamentalist. The fundamentalist message is simple, straightforward, literal and promises an important value-added extra - it guarantees all believers the promise of salvation. Fundamentalists do not have time for Irony, or subscribe to diversity.

5. Muslim

Muslim and Islam are not synonymous with Arab and middle East

Indonesia is, after all, the largest Muslim country with a population of nearly two hundred million, which alone outnumbers Arab Muslim populations. Similarly Pakistan and Bangladesh between them account for around another hundred million or so Muslims.

Female sexuality must be constrained, controlled and punished in Muslim religious right practices. Muslim religious right (like Christian and Hindu religious right groups) have been reconstructing patriarchal control over women and their sexuality.

6. Jewish
   
   The fundamentalist wing of the Jewish religion, while certainly not representative of Judaism as a whole, is influential in Israel, and is the ideological basis of the settler movement in the West Bank and Gaza (except for "Greater Jerusalem" where many secular Jews have moved because of cheap, subsidized housing) The following quote show the racism inherent in this world-view and why its influence should be opposed by all rational people.

"The Talmud states that...two contrary types of souls exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from the Satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness." "

2. Hegemony and Neo-Imperialists

"The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations."

Thursday, 2 January, 2003, BBC News World Edition, states "Iraq accuses US of 'imperialist plot'"


Broadly, the extension of rule or influence by one government, nation, or society over another. Ancient imperialism reached its climax under the Roman Empire, but it was an important force elsewhere, e.g., the Middle East, N Africa, and central Asia. In the West, imperialism was reborn with the emergence of the modern nation-state and the age of exploration and discovery. European COLONIZATION of the Western Hemisphere and Africa from the 15th to 17th cent. was followed in the 18th cent. by attempts to regulate the trade of colonies in the interests of the mother country. Later, the growth of manufacturing after the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION introduced a new form of imperialism, as industrial nations scrambled for raw materials and new markets for manufactured products. The inequities of the system produced a growing opposition by the end of the 19th cent., when Marxists argued that imperialism was the ultimate state of capitalism. After WORLD WAR I, anti-imperialist feeling grew rapidly, and since WORLD WAR II most of the countries once subject to Western control have achieved independence.

Contemporary debate centers on neo-imperialism, with many less-developed countries contending that their economic development is largely determined by the developed countries through unfair trading practices, control over capital, and the power of MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS."

Last week, on February 15^th, Three million men, women and children crowded into the streets and piazzas of Italy's capital to make a statement about neo-imperalistism and their voice against the war with Iraq.

1. The Accidental Neo-Imperialists

As the United States enters the new year facing crises -- and the potential for war -- in Iraq and North Korea simultaneously, an obvious question presents itself: Did our current administration bring all this trouble on itself?

.In a recent meeting at The Post, my colleague David Broder asked a senior administration official why Bush had come to embrace "an almost imperial role" for the United States. The answer was long, eloquent, and revealing. "A few years ago, there were great debates about what would be the threats of the post-Cold War world, would it be the rise of another great power, would it be humanitarian needs or ethnic conflicts," the official said. "And I think we now know: The threats are terrorism and national states with weapons of mass destruction and the possible union of those two forces."

"It's pretty clear that the United States is the single most powerful country in international relations for a very long time. . . . [It]is the only state capable of dealing with that kind of chaotic environment and providing some kind of order. I think there is an understanding that that is America's responsibility, just like it was America standing between Nazi Germany and a takeover of all of Europe. No, we don't have to do it alone. But the United States has to lead that."

2. 1898 Anti-Imperialist League

On June 15, 1898, the Anti-imperialist league formed to fight U.S. annexation of the Philippines, citing a variety of reasons ranging from the economic to the legal to the racial to the moral. It included among its members such notables as Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, William James, David Starr Jordan, and Samuel Gompers with George S. Boutwell, former secretary of the Treasury and Massachusetts, as its president. Following the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the league began to decline and eventually disappeared.

Today, in 2003, there are many types of anti-neo-imperialist networks.

3. Business?

What remains to be said about the business of technology in the summer of 2002? It's been over two years since the dot-com revolution rolled out the window and plunged Nasdaq down over a third of its value in March-April 2000. We speak now of the bubble bursting. Mark Leibovich points out that this view is the opposite of the pathetic fallacy: to speak of an event which was executed by humans as though it lay in the provinces of nature. Liebovich identifies five prominent CEOs who were inflating the tech bubble in the last years of the 20th century. He also considers how these five men went about picking the gum off their faces.

The title of his book, The New Imperialists , Leibovich, a writer for the Washington Post, draws an apt comparison between the men who have built effective monopolies in the computer age. The premise of his book is to uncover what, if not poverty, has produced the roiling ambition which characterizes technological entrepreneurs today. Something you might want to know about the men who "virtually rule your world."

These are case studies. The subjects are Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle), Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com), John Chambers (Cisco), Bill Gates (...) and Steve Case (chairman of AOL/TimeWarner). Leibovich's idea is that the men "became...'brands' unto themselves" with personas sculpted by public relations departments.

Leibovich offers a carefully considered, sophisticated, detailed account not only of how these men achieved what they have, but also how they confront their current situations as masters of a virtual universe. He spends much of the book describing his one-on-one meetings with the moguls, detailing the economic climate at the time, the nature of the office (of the five, only Case seems to go for a room with a view), physical appearance, verbal ticks and mannerisms.

3. Environmental Fundamentalists.

The language of environmentalism is frequently apocalyptic: "human existence," "the earth," perhaps "life itself," are at risk.

The truth is more prosaic, but raises more profound questions. The human species is nowhere near threatening life on earth, of course - most biomass is bacterial, and no foreseeable human activities of any kind would be capable of threatening that highly adaptive life system. It is similarly highly unlikely that humans as a species are threatened. Because of our intelligence, we are a highly adaptive generalist species, and such species do well in periods of rapid or unpredictable environmental change. Even if oceanic or atmospheric systems shift to different metastable states, it is still highly probable that homo sapiens will be wandering the globe.

So what is at stake? Economic, social and political stability. Human systems tend to evolve to fit current conditions, and thus changes in those conditions will cause instabilities in coupled human systems. For example, many river use regimes assume stabile high flow rates. If these flows are disrupted, so are dependent agricultural and settlement patterns. Another example is the migration of much human activity to coastlines. If the level of the sea rises or storms increase in severity as a result of global climate change, these population centers will clearly suffer. If environmental perturbations are relatively small, adaptation is possible. The concern is that the environmental changes will be large enough to cause discontinuities in economic, social or political systems.

If stability of current human systems is the concern, then efforts to achieve sustainable development are not just idealistic and environmentally correct. They are, in a fundamental way, efforts to preserve existing human systems as they now are - in other words, they privilege the present over what has been and what might be.

… describes which social systems are relevant for the emergence of environmental problems and how these social systems are influenced by global environmental change. The category system applied comprises the following areas: knowledge and experience, preferences and goals, production and services, consumption and population, economics, politics and environmental processes. The analysis of causes shows that for all environmental problems production and service factors occur to the respondents. This cause category is mentioned at least once in all models. Individual and social consumption behavior, as well as man-made environmental processes leading directly to the respective environmental problem, are cited as causes by most of the respondents. Preferences and goals, such as consumption orientation or convenience, were considered to be responsible for our environmental problems by 61% of the respondents. In contrast, a causal relationship between environmental problems and a lack of knowledge, or political or economic boundary conditions, is mentioned much less often. There are, however, considerable differences here between the respective environmental problems.

Rewrite part of this: …describes which social systems are relevant for the emergence of environmental problems and how these social systems are influenced by global environmental change. The category system applied comprises the following areas: knowledge and experience, preferences and goals, production and services, consumption and population, economics, politics and environmental processes. The analysis of causes shows that for all environmental problems production and service factors occur to the respondents. This cause category is mentioned at least once in all models. Individual and social consumption behavior, as well as man-made environmental processes leading directly to the respective environmental problem, are cited as causes by most of the respondents. Preferences and goals, such as consumption orientation or convenience, were considered to be responsible for our environmental problems by 61% of the respondents. In contrast, a causal relationship between environmental problems and a lack of knowledge, or political or economic boundary conditions, is mentioned much less often. There are, however, considerable differences here between the respective environmental problems.

4. BioConservatives

"Not a great start if you're a Transhumanist -- or any other type of rational humanist, for that matter. And it gets worse. Kass's Chairman's Vision hints at what influences his beliefs. "We must avoid runaway scientism and the utopian project to remake humankind in our own image," Leon Kass writes. Kass sees our quest for longevity as destroying what makes us human. But that's based on his opinion of what it means to be part of the species. Our current quest for longer life is a continuation of our maturity, from a brutish Stone Age existence with 18-year lifespans to a future of expanded health, vitality, wisdom and knowledge.

This very weekend there is a conference being held in Newport Beach, California produced by Time magazine. "The future of Life." "Through five-minute flash commentaries, some of the biggest thinkers across a variety of disciplines, will tell us what is known about life, what this knowledge means to us, to business, to education, religious beliefs, and public policy, and how our lives will change. We'll also learn what keeps the big thinkers up at night. These insights will raise questions, trigger debates, and help set the atmosphere for the rest of the program."

Philip Bereano, professor of Technical Communication and a founding member of the Council for Responsible Genetics, was even more critical about the current and future situation in the United States. Within the American discussion the issues are modification, patents, factory-like production of organs, and uniformity versus diversification. Although there is a powerful opposition from the side of the religious fundamentalists, and ninety percent of the people in the United States declares itself to be against the cloning of human beings, there is little public debate on cloning. Bereano held that in general the American public debate around science and technology is fragmented or non-existent. "We do not have a public debate on any technology, like you do in Europe." Despite high stakes and public dislike "the united front of science, technology and business just goes on." Bereano thought it to be typical for the lack of debate in the United States that the National Bio-ethical Commission did not come out with a common point of view and only on pragmatic grounds pleaded for a moratorium on the cloning of human beings.

Bereano analyzed that there is strong resentment against government regulation and the belief in free enterprise and technological progress is dominant. As a result of this and the fact that there is no legal prohibition in force "it is perfectly possible that tomorrow you will read in the newspaper that a human being has been cloned in the US." An important effect of the new biotechnology on American culture is, according to Bereano, "genetic essentialism". This is the reductionist approach, which posits that genetic makeup determines the essence of a human and that the person's life is largely a playing out of a genetic script, minimizing environmental and cultural influences. The discussion on the cloning of people is not only about the production of replicas but about, via cloning, the makings of better human beings or better body parts. Thus, a website has recently appeared on which a business offers the ova from top models for sale. "Eugenetics, that's what it's all about," said Bereano.

In Europe, opposition to biotechnology is grounded in politics and economics. The BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) incidents have resulted in a lack of confidence in government. Furthermore, there is insufficient proactive education from industry, professionals, leaders, and consumers. The lack of proactive education has created an information vacuum that opposition groups have filled. A strong anti-American sentiment and trade barriers also contribute to opposition. Some Europeans simply want to slow progress so that they can catch up with biotechnology. Some of the social and cultural reasons for opposition in Europe include negative and sensational media coverage; concerns over risk; lack of perceived benefits; support of small farms for food security, open space, and culture; connections to nature and the strength of the green movement; and general opposition to any processed or foreign foods.

In the United States, acceptance of biotechnology will be dependent on the following: awareness and understanding of this technology, recognition by the public that benefits are ethically acceptable, confidence in government, and trust in information. One way to increase acceptance is through education. When developing an educational campaign, it is important to highlight the following:

Biotechnology promotes agricultural sustainability by reducing inputs, such as pesticides, fuel, and water. As a result, the land becomes more productive. Food biotechnology can help reduce world hunger by increasing productivity and reducing losses. Biotechnology will soon deliver a host of nutrition and food safety benefits. Independent scientists and government agencies have determined the products of biotechnology are as safe or safer than traditional foods.

5. Retros Against the Future

1. Neo Luddites:

The global, organized neo-Luddite movement was born on New York City’s tony upper East Side, of all places. That’s when a group called the International Forum on Globalization held a "Teach-In on Technology and Globalization" at Hunter College.

Those of us who believe that markets and technology offer the best hope for reducing human poverty and misery -- and for increasing human opportunity and flourishing -- would do well to examine the basic premises of the neo-Luddite movement and engage its underlying fallacies. Because it drew together so many of the intellectual architects of the neo-Luddite movement, the IFG Teach-In provides a perfect occasion for such an exercise.

"This is the big wrestling match of the 21st century," declared Rifkin. For once, the man who predicted in 1979 that the world was entering a "new age of scarcity" in which we would run out of resources such as oil and timber, and who in 1995 predicted that technological innovation would soon cause massive unemployment, is indisputably correct. The hopeful future of humanity freed from disease, disability, hunger, ignorance, poverty, and inequity depends on beating back the forces of neo-Luddite reaction that were assembled so successfully at the International Forum on Globalization’s Teach-In. The struggle for that future begins now.

 

Along with ExI's other projects, the EXTRO conference generates and communicates positive ideas and helps protect our future against the numerous individuals and groups seeking to hold us back. This includes fundamentalists and anti-biotech activists, the extreme environmentalists who want to reverse economic and technological progress, the postmodernists with their attack on science and reason, and the growing wave of Luddites (making their claims in several recent books). The anti-progress message of these groups is fed by lack of knowledge in much of the public.

 

2. Romantic Rebellion:

During the Romantic Period (the early part of the nineteenth century) in England, the values of the pastoral ideal and individualism were seen by many of the great literary figures of the time to be in peril as a result of the industrial revolution and the creation of the urban consumer society. The ensuing Romantic Rebellion, fought in print and in the streets, will be followed in this course from its beginning 200 years ago up to the present, and beyond. Partial reading list: Kirkpatrick Sale, Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution: Lessons for the Computer Age; Aldous Huxely, Brave New World; Mary Shelly, Frankenstein; Cervantes, Don Quixote; Thomas Pynchon, "Is It Okay To Be a Luddite?"; Bill Joy, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us"; Byron, Childe Harold (excerpts). Films: "Frankenstein" and John Lithgo's "Don Quixote".

What her book documents is how persistent and pervasive the Luddite spirit has remained in Western culture, casting a shadow that stretches from Wordsworth and the Romantic poets through the agrarian literary movement of the Depression-era American South to the back-to-the-land communes of the 1960s.

Sometimes the spirit is expressed in nostalgia for a simpler time, as in Wordsworth's verse. Sometimes it "rages against the machine," as in the poetry of William Blake and the novels of D.H. Lawrence. And sometimes it triggers the establishment of alternative living experiments, as with people sharing the ideas of Emerson and the transcendentalists, or a whole school of aesthetics, as in the 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement of John Ruskin and William Morris.

"What it represents is not just a rejection of the mechanical in life, but a reaffirmation of what it means to be human. We have been on this Earth for thousands of years. We've been mechanized for less than 200. Obviously we don't owe our survival as a species to technology. It is the qualities of imagination, and creativity, and our shared humanity that have kept us from extinction. And those are the qualities we hunger for today," Nicol Fox says.

 

To the technolaters, of course, the fighting phrase here is "gone back." Even setting aside the superstitions of "inevitable technological progress," however, there is one last important objection for neo-Luddism to encounter. It is the conviction, widespread among people of goodwill, that only global development and the newest technology can deal with urgent social problems. The challenge to neo-Luddite thinking is clear: Can better health care, more food, social liberation, and increased political stability be obtained through local, grassroots development with modest capital and smaller, not larger, technology?

3. Retro Organizations

 

1. Turning Point Project – Ad Campaign in New York Times

A non-profit organization formed in 1999 "to design and produce a series of educational advertisements concerning the major issues of the new millennium."


Nearly 100 participating organization of the Turning Point Project favor alternatives to the recent practices and policies concerning genetic engineering, economic globalization, industrial agriculture, extinction crisis and megtechology.

2. Foundation for Economic Trends

The Foundation for Economic Trends was established "to insure that a responsible set of local, state, and federal regulations are established to regulate the commercialization of biotechnology."

"The activities of the Foundation on Economic Trends (Foundation) are centered around the environmental, economic, and ethical concerns raised by the development and commercialization of emerging technologies."

The Foundation for Economic Trends opposes certain forms of genetic engineering research and development, including those used for some kinds of pharmaceuticals and any involving farming or agriculture, warfare or the manipulation of hereditary traits that could be passed on to children."

Where do we want biotech to take us?

What are the greatest and most sever degree of ramification?

There will be cost prohibition for a great many people?

Genetic engineering isolating less desirable genes with more desirable genes?

Who has control of specific genes that cause well-known diseases?

 

3. Council for Responsible Genetics

Genetic Bill of Rights "A manipulation of human genes creates new threats to the health of individuals and their offspring, and endangers human rights, privacy and dignity…." 2000.

"The Council for Responsible Genetics, the nation’s oldest organization working on the implications of new genetic technologies, issued a statement today calling for a ban on certain experimental manipulations and commercialization of human eggs and embryos. The bans are to apply whether or not the embryos are to be implanted and irrespective of the sources of funding, whether public or private. In view of current congressional debates, the Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG) considers that this step must be taken in order to stem the trend in commercialized life."

4. GreenPeace

The central issues of Greenpeace are:

• Uncertainty and lack of information and study about genetically modified organisms.
• Allergic reactions to genetically modified foods.
• Pesticides in genetically modified foods.
• "Organic" gives a false sense of security. It means the content of the soil, not the seed.
• No labels on foods that are genetically modified which could cause problems for

individuals who have allergies.

• Greenpeace does not have a position on genetic modifications on humans.
• Greenpeace has no opposition to fetal cell tissue transplants.
• Greenpeace has no position on cloning.

1. Cultural Incentives

From a company's standpoint, the primary benefits of interaction with universities are commercial in nature, typically accessing world-class scientists or facilities to solve a problem, obtain information, or secure a strong intellectual property position - all with a profit motivation. One issue these differences raise is whether faculty researchers and their students are sufficiently aware of the different cultural and legal expectations that companies attach to contractual obligations and intellectual property agreements, as opposed to those normally held by Federal research sponsors. Another issue is whether there should be faculty incentives to engage in technology transfer activities with industry and what impact such incentives might have on the culture of the University. For instance, should the University change its reward systems for promotion and tenure to reflect the institution's commitment to transfer expertise, research results, and technology to private industry as a form of public service? Should faculty business activities be included in promotion discussions as evidence of the societal importance of their entrepreneurial contributions? What are the pluses and minuses associated with granting sabbaticals or unpaid leaves for faculty entrepreneurs involved in commercial development of their research results? What impact are such relationships having on the faculty member's professional allegiance to the University of California. How far should the University go in sharing costs of industry sponsored research or allowing industry to buy faculty time from teaching to promote collaborations with industry or involvement in entrepreneurial ventures?

1. Take Back Our Future!

Incentives for Cultural Progress

 

1. Stealth Moves

There is a book I keep by my bedside titled Medicine Woman. I know this book is a fictional – a type of fairytale, but I refer to it because it simply makes sense. I’d like to tell you about it. Years ago, when I was in undergraduate school, I completed my bachelors degree based on Navajo mysticism and religion interpreted in fine art. I lived with a Medicine Man and his wife and children on the Navajo reservation near the Grand Canyon. When I read Medicine Woman, I knew it was fictional because of my first hand experiences which allowed me to witness no magic, no hocus pocus, not altered states and no level of magic. The only seemingly supernatural experiences I had were ones I witnessed from the canyon lands, the night sky, and my own personal experiences which were nothing short of enlightening.

Medicine Woman is a tale about how to win back a particular woven basket that is symbolic of human values. The basket was stolen by a coyote person who symbolizes backward movements the stifle and rob us of progress. The idea here is the taking something back, whether it be an idea, a value or a basket, is our right and how we do it is our choice.

 

2. Tipping Points
1. Graffiti Example

New York subway covered with graffiti. Money was invested to clean it up. Over time, less and less graffiti was made. Excellent example of how people are affected by their environments.

Revere was also a maven, one who accumulates knowledge and then tells others. After the Boston Tea Party, he quickly emerged as a link among revolutionary groups, an unofficial clearinghouse for anti-British forces. He was the logical one to go to if you were the stable boy who overheard British officers on April 18, 1775 discussing how there would be hell to pay the following afternoon. When Revere set out for Lexington, he would have known just whose door to knock on in order to spread the word. William Dawes? He was an ordinary man with the normal social circle. He probably did not know whose door to knock on. Word of mouth epidemics are the work of connectors and mavens.

How does one turn around a destructive social epidemic once it has reached its tipping point? Remember New York City in the Eighties? As Gladwell tells it, "Every one of the 6,000 cars on the Transit Authority fleet, with the exception of the Midtown shuttle, was covered with graffiti. In winter, the cars were cold; in summer, there was no air conditioning. Fare-beating was so commonplace that the Transit Authority lost $150 million annually. From 15,000 to 20,000 felonies were committed on the trains every year."

If you want to "tip" an epidemic, employ connectors and mavens to deliver the message; make sure the content is sticky enough to be remembered; don't underestimate the power of people in groups, and remember that little things make a big difference. ?

People, who are trying to make a difference in the world, or in their neighborhood, will find, at the very least, some thought provoking ideas in this book. In only a few lines Gladwell summarizes a very big view of what he thinks is

possible—"In the end, Tipping Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action. Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push—in just the right place—it can be tipped."

1. Tipping Point strategies:

Learn the background behind the simulation – including systems thinking and the theory behind the Tipping Point. See the specifics of the computer simulation, by demonstration and sample runs.

Break out into teams to discuss and devise a simulated organizational change strategy. Come back together as the larger group to try out each team's strategy on the computer simulation. Return to team discussion to ground the concepts in terms of specific application to their organization and their change effort. Report out to the larger group the ways that the teams felt that concepts can be applied in their implementation plans.

The workshop brings out participants' expertise and experience. The simulation is a focal point for discussion and dialogue. The friendly competition aspect gets people to talk about

organizational change. People learn from each other. The discussion brings out otherwise hidden assumptions about how change happens. Team members learn about each other's ideas and together create a larger common idea of how change can be fostered in an organization. The simulation incorporates interactions between factors that can affect change and implements long term as well as short term impacts. This gives unexpected results which encourages participants to think "outside the box".

First, of course, be aware of the ideology that lies behind different stakeholder positions; although unconscious, it is a primary reason for the highly adversarial posturing that characterizes much environmental debate. While these dialogs may be superficially factual and scientific in tone, much of the underlying philosophical ground is defined by strongly held belief systems which rational discourse will not affect. Second, understand your own mental models and how you will be perceived by those you interact with.

But most importantly, perhaps - eschew ideology. There is already too much of it, and ideologies have been a cause of much of the unhappiness and misery of the century passing - Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot. Ideology in the environmental arena turns honest disagreement into demonization of those who disagree with us; it turns communication into denunciation.

Granted, ideologies are psychologically addictive and, in the tradition of European Romanticism, allow us to stand, heroic, against an evil world. But they grossly oversimplify the complexities of modern life, and make collaborations and progress impossible. An environmentally constrained, increasingly complex world calls for wisdom, for accommodation, for multiculturalism without complete relativism, for building on the goodwill and hopes of the center, rather than surrendering to the extremes and ideologues. In short, it calls on all of us, whatever our predilections, to grow up. That may be the most difficult task of all.

Imagine it is the year 2030 and we are looking back on our accomplishments of the past three decades. How should our time be best remembered? How about: Cancer reduced to a minor health problem that is easily curable; Billions of people enjoying lives enhanced by connection to a rich global cultural network; nanotechnology solving the environmental damage of past centuries; Art forms barely imaginable today enriching the lives of a population made more creative through new technologies and new ideas; or, the dream of true artificial intelligence realized, adding a new richness to the human landscape never before known.

Each of the above "future headlines" is fun, but also raises issues implicating our basic values. The swift progress of technology and both the promise and peril it presents are serious concerns; the basic question of whether we will continue to progress or turn away in fear needs our earnest attention and ability to solve problems.

Extropy Institute's 2004 Summit "Vital Progress" has acquired some of the general ideas of Progress Action, which I started several years ago, but do to a very serious illness, had to put the project on back burner. Pro-Act's purpose was serves as a conduit of information and exchange for those working to counter the many biases against advanced technologies that are growing in our culture and the policies of our governments. Recent years have revealed a growing feeling of fear around the world which is a source of danger to the very value of progress itself. Questions are raised about the development of life-transforming technologies and the spread of freedom, creativity and enterprise in our society, but too often now the only answers offered are based on a pessimistic rejection of progress.  Extropy Institute is a resource to build networks among people who acknowledge the challenges before us, but who face those challenges with an optimistic commitment to improving the human condition.

If we take action now, we can have a major impact on how the world views efforts to prolong and improve life, advance the world's knowledge about positive technologies, improve the environment, promote space travel, and address fundamental issues in education, the environment and the quality of life for the vast majority of humanity that still lives in hunger, fear and ignorance. As Buckminster Fuller said, it is a matter of distribution not content. By distributing knowledge effectively, we can encourage others to ask the right questions and find reliable information about these and other issues.

Many of us have been discussing these concerns for years. Now we have an organization designed to work with you in taking action for progress. Now is the time to take a to stand to make sure the public gets all the facts, not just the ones that alarm them. Rather than stand by and listen to voices counseling fear and retreat dominate the public stage, we plan to push progress. We hope you'll join us at Extropy Institute  in our endeavors for sharing information and resources among people knowledgeable about the technologies and trends that will effect our future and concerned that progress continue toward a brighter future.

Natasha Vita-More

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