Re: virus: change in the church

Eric Boyd (6ceb3@qlink.queensu.ca)
Tue, 22 Jun 1999 21:01:45 -0400

Hi,

Sodom <sodom@ma.ultranet.com> writes:
<<
Love the idea of a Manifesto, but we will need some heavy weights to do battle with those that aren't' real happy with our manifesto - I nominate Joe Dees and everyone's favorite, The Hermit.
>>

hahahaha. Seriously, though, long before we need to defend it, we need to write it. I for one have only the faintest idea what it should contain, and no idea at all of how it should read. I guess the first major decision is 'length'. How long are we looking at? (the communist manifesto is about 15,000 words -- I don't think we need that many!)

<<
We are still on the one Saint, our hero Charles Darwin, right? A few times it has been brought up but then the list floods with nominees. I for one, am a big Bertrand Russell fan, so he is my first choice. I would vote for a fictional person if we could come up with a good one that illustrates our principles well. Perhaps we should add 3 or 5 at a whack, and have a little nominating and voting setup.
>>

Bertrand Russell. Excellent. I'd be willing to be the "voting booth" if we want to develop our saints... is there widespread desire out there for more saints?

<<
Yea, me too. I think I would like to see our world end (humans that is) by becoming the next species. By becoming more that what we are now. But if we return to the water and swim with the dolphins 50,000,000 years from now, that is ok too.
>>

Hmmm. Some kind of transhumanist goal?

I've thought about it a little more, and I guess the goal dictated by Virus would be for us to further evolve along "meme-substrate" lines... bigger brains, more technology, etc. Where does that end? Assuming we confine it to one planet, it ends with a borg like collective. And the borg... the borg are extropian, but are they Virian?

<<
(e) Common memes and their roots: It would be nice to illustrate some of the common memes that most of us are infected with and show where they started and how they were spread. Examples if you will.
>>

Excellent idea. I was thinking it would be a good idea to have an entire memetic workup on the UT meme. You know, talk about it's biological origins, it's memetic status, it's damage to humanity in the modern setting, etc.

ERiC