Tag Archives: extropians

"Big Blue" rebuttal: No transhumanists here

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IBM researcher defends Second Life, World of Warcraft, against Parallelnormal blog posts.

from Mark:

High-profile virtual worlders are trying to correct what they see as misrepresentations by Parallelnormal of their recent meetings and events.

One of them, Second Lifer “Dale Innis,” writes a comment blasting my comparison of real and virtual versions of New England, and my description of a conference about the convergence of reality with virtual reality.

“(You) drastically misread your sources about the WoW conference and the Extropia sims, and you seem to do the same thing in many places where Second Life is involved,” Innis writes.

Innis in real life (RL) is IBM researcher David M. Chess.

IBM has built inworld stores for big box retailers.

Chess is working to develop autonomic technologies, which are self-aware and can fix themselves.

Chess, speaking for himself, and not IBM, denies that Extropia and the World of Warcraft conference “are in fact about transhumanism.”

Yet the WoW conference was organized by a transhumanist, and one who views the world’s major religions as an obstacle to the advancement of his own beliefs.

And extropians, by their own definition, are transhumanists, real or imagined.

Sci-Fi cover for a real-life agenda?

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A Second Life transhumanist, despite her sim’s ties to movement leaders and government agencies, insists it’s all “science fiction.”

Fishers of pre-posthumans? Second Lifers drop a line in the Extropia sim. (Image: From the Extropia Core website)

by Mark Baard

One of the founders of Extropia said this week denied she is propagating any ideology through the online sim.

Extropia founder and blogger “Galatea Gynoid,” as she’s known in Second Life, this week posted a rebuttal to “certain people” (see excerpt, below) who see more to the sim than an evolving work of pure fiction.

Extropia is an area within Second Life where people, via their 3D avatars, gather to discuss transhumanism, science and science fiction.

Gynoid says she started Extropia so that she and like-minded Second Lifers might enjoy an alternative to the depressing, dystopian sims they found elsewhere in the metaverse.

But Gynoid, by trying to have it both ways, may be trying to duck criticism from those who see the transhumanist agenda at work in Extropia.

By co-hosting events with real life (RL) transhumanists and U.S. government agencies, for example, it is clear that Extropia is more than fiction. It is also a meeting place for believers.

Extropia co-hosted a NASA “future forum” on May 14. And in two weeks, the sim will host a technology and religion conference meant to “re-cast our understanding of ‘humanity’ in the Third Millennium.”

Why “Extropia”? | Extropia Core
There are certain people out there who are insisting you need to subscribe to a particular ideology to be welcome here. The funny thing is, the majority of the Board of Directors wouldnt [sic] be allowed in Extropia if what they said is true. I myself, the founder and owner of the sims, would not be allowed in Extropia if what they said was true. Its utterly, patently ridiculous.