Talk:Extropianism

Meliorism?

Should contain link or reference to meliorist/meliorism?

I've removed it. --Loremaster (talk) 01:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but what does it mean?

I can read through this article and follow the external links and I still don't know exactly what Extropianism or extropy mean. Can someone come up with a concise one-sentence definiton?

The first paragraph should have something like:

"Extropianism, also referred to as extropy, is a philosophical viewpoint within transhumanism, describing a conscious, pro-active self-directed approach to human evolution and progress. It is defined by a set of principles blah blah blah ..."

I'm only guessing in this case. I think that's what it is, but I don't know. There needs to be something like that though. Take a look at Humanism, Progressivism or Socialism. They all manage to give a concise definition right from the beginning. The rest of the article then fleshes out that definition.--?Puck^talk? 12:19, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

- Yeah, I've got to agree here. This article reads like the authors head is slowly disappearing up one of his orifices. How can this be cleaned up in well-written and clear english, while explaining key terms along the way? AdamSebWolf 00:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I redid the first paragraph, I'm not an extropianist and I think it's clear now. It is typical for some wikipedia articles to suffer in clarity as long as it's an "autobiography" of ones own movements or beliefs. EverGreg 13:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

What It Means

I understand Extropianism to describe a fulfillment of the human condition anticipated by transhumanism; a consummating consilience of a rich history of transhuman work and thought, rather than a splintered sect within that tradition. When I call myself an extropian, I am not evangelizing for a transhuman denomination, I am not advancing a doctrine; rather, I mean that I Am Part of Making the Posthuman Condition Happen, Right Now. I am careful to say "a" fulfillment rather than "the" fulfillment, because beyond the extropians there will be stages of evolution that we cannot yet imagine; regardless of how intimidating one's endowment in the frontal lobe.

Responsible futurists understand that We Just Can't Know how transhumanism will actually play out. We can, however, express an abiding confidence in the fact that it will play, indeed is playing out, and within that merry happenstance we are committed to Being Ever Present; maintaining engaged minds, productive imaginations, and transcendent hopes aligned with the best case scenarios for human longevity and evolution.

An important difference between transhuman theory and extropian practice, as I understand it, is the active commitment to Being There and Making It Happen. Personally, I do not believe we are merely theorizing as earlier transhumanists, of necessity, were resource-bound to do. Forty years ago, when F.M. Esfandiary introduced the idea of transitional humans, even those who agreed with him rightly suspected that they would not survive quite long enough to make the transition. As extropians, we expect to be part of the transhuman migration and are in one sense self-selecting guinea pigs saying "pick me" for the implants, the neuroprosthetics, the gangly first-generation meat-machine interfaces that the average risk-averse human would actually eschew in favor of death.

Accordingly, one might suggest that we would be well advised to A.) begin with Max More's own definition and B.) incorporate PuckSmith's laudable petition for clarity. One suggestion:

"Extropianism, also referred to as extropy, is an evolving framework of values and standards for continuously improving the human condition. Extropianism describes a pragmatic consilience of transhumanist thought guided by a conscious, pro-active, self-directed approach to human evolution and progress."

--metavalent 05:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Extropy Institute closing doors

http://www.extropy.com/future.htm

NEXT STEPS - Extropy Institute is closing its doors and opening a window for a proactive future.

Dear Members of Extropy Institute and new core group network,

This letter is an announcement of the events taking place at Extropy Institute as a result of its Strategic Plan 2006. A copy of the Plan is included for your review. The Plan identifies some factors that ExI's Board has considered in assessing the future of ExI and the best possible course of action to take for ExI, its members, and other stakeholders.

The Past. ExI was formed in 1990 by Max More and Tom Bell with a mission to bring great minds together to incubate ideas about emerging technologies, life extension and the future. ExI's goals were to (1) develop an elegant, focused philosophy for transhumanism-the philosophy of "Extropy"; (2) encourage discussions and debates on improving the human condition; and (2) develop a culture for activists, energized and devoted to bringing these ideas to the public. The initiatives which realized these goals are (1) Extropy: the Journal of Transhumanist Thought; Principles of Extropy; Extro Conferences 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5; public forums such as the famed "extropians" and "extropy-chat" email lists; public presentations in the news, radio, televised documentaries, talk shows, and films; and the VP Summit of 2004 addressing the backlash from conservatives against technological advancements.

The Present. ExI deems its mission as essentially completed. With this said, and in respect for Extropy Institute's legacy of achievement, the Board voted and has unanimously agreed to close Extropy Institute's doors.

Extropy Institute's website is being memorialized by turning it into a reference "Library of Transhumanism, Extropy, and the Future," -the beginnings, currents, and future of Transhumanism.

On behalf of our members, I would like to thank Max for authoring the philosophy of Extropy1 and for his many efforts in working with others to steer the philosophical development of transhumanism, which is truly treasured by so many people in so many places.

The Future. As you will see by reviewing the Strategic Plan, the Proactionary Principle stands first and foremost as the concept with the most potential for being of great service to humanity and transhumanity as we go forward. The Proactionary Principle (ProP) can help society by bridging the growing gap between conservative views and progress-oriented views, and educating society about the future. Meeting these two challenges by providing an active course of action can be of tremendous benefit to us all.

In respect for the philosophy of Extropy and the Principles of Extropy, the Board of Extropy Institute believes that Extropy Institute has served its mission and achieved its goals and, in practicing the Principles of Extropy, our next step is to focus on developing worldwide awareness of the ProP and a network for proactive futures.

With my most sincere thanks for your support,

Natasha Vita-More Extropy Institute, President

--Loremaster 12:28, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm moving this to talk for now as it smells of original research:--Eloquence* 22:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms of the Extropy Institute

Many participants in the Transhumanist community criticize various members of the community as self-promoters who spend too much time attempting to claim credit for achievements or coining a term rather than making legitimate progress towards the goals and objectives of Transhumanism. For instance, note that the Transhumanism article on Wikipedia spends as much time discussing the history of Transhumanism and assigning credit for various achievements to various people as it does describing the actual philosophy and objectives of Transhumanism. It is felt by many Bioconservatives, and more moderate Transhumanists, that this is a heavy restriction which holds the movement back from attaining its objectives as efficiently as it would prefer. Though Transhumanists assert that this is something to be countered, Bioconservatives generally feel that it is endemic and inherent to a movement which, so they believe, is based entirely upon self-aggrandizement.

Should contain link or reference to meliorist/meliorism

seems to me that given this is a similar subject some reference would be in order, though i'm not confident enough of the respective definitions to do this myself JavaByte 19:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

suggest merge

with Extropy as these two articles seem to be about the same thing. Xme (talk) 19:15, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

the mailing list

The Extropy Institute's email list was launched in 1991 ....

Not exactly. When Perry Metzger (not Max or Tom) started "extropians", the Institute did not yet exist, if I remember right; the list was conceived for fans of the magazine. —Tamfang (talk) 06:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Please change redirect

I think that "extropism" should redirect to that specific section under the extropianism article, instead of just redirecting to the beginning of that article (I typed this: [[1]], to no avail). I tried to change it myself but didn't realize that only administrators have this power. Thanks. Shanoman (talk) 03:33, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

External links modified

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Extropy magazine source

The original text of the 17 issues of Extropy magazine edited by Max More are available at this GitHub repository. A 233.5 MB OCR'd PDF is available there behind a Git LFS command after cloning the repository ($ git lfs fetch). I think this would be useful background reading for identifying notable authors involved with defining Extropianism via Extropy such as J. Storrs Hall (6 articles), Nick Szabo (4), Hal Finney (2), Hans Moravec (2), Gregory Benford (2), and Ralph Merkle (2) (article list here). Baltakatei 06:47, 28 August 2024 (UTC)