I have read some of your mailing list and would like to add a few comments for
discussion:
Are you (we?) getting too diffuse? I tend to be an evolutionary hardliner
(Blessed be the name of St. Dawkins) and it seems to me that the
Extropian part of the strain may be diluting the message.
(I admit ignorance of most of it, though).
Can't a meme-comple gain by being "tighter"? I guess what I'm saying is that
I feel the evolutionary part of the message is less culture-bound. It's a
fact (Creationists notwithstanding).
In my incomplete understanding, Extropians seem awfully millenial, just like
fundamentalists: "Just get enough computers and spaceships, load yourself up
into silicon, and death will vanish and everything will be allright." Rather
like the Rapture. Also, a lesson of evolution is that death is a Good Thing.
This may even apply to minds.
Book to add:
Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Dennett
(I will have several more when I can get good references)
-David Craig (da6d@beauty1.phy.olemiss.edu)