tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post6601670314223307436..comments2023-10-26T22:06:11.166+11:00Comments on Metamagician3000: Huffington Post on enhancement and transhumanismRussell Blackfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-75898900087418607502007-02-03T16:14:00.000+11:002007-02-03T16:14:00.000+11:00LOL, although what's a good capital-L Libertarian ...LOL, although what's a good capital-L Libertarian to <i>do</i>? *shrug*<br /><br />I'm not just being facetious; if you're a committed Libertarian who is not actually inclined to fanaticism, I guess you need another layer of theory about how to live in a mixed economy without being fanatical and becoming bitter. I'm sure Nozick has some reasonable comments about this somewhere.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-48310862308356285922007-02-03T11:54:00.000+11:002007-02-03T11:54:00.000+11:00Did you hear the one about the libertarian who rel...Did you hear the one about <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32825">the libertarian who reluctantly called the fire department</a>?<br /><br />Several months ago, I crossed paths with a friend from college days, and we sat down for a Chinese-food lunch. Over the General Tso's Chicken, I happened to mention something about the Wikipedia article on transhumanism.<br /><br />"Oh, dear," my friend said — the only people he could imagine editing that article were the MIT Extropians. These people had a bit of a legacy: back in 1997, the Extropians had sent a mailing to the incoming freshman class which, among other things, questioned whether women and minorities had the intellectual acumen to succeed at MIT. In riposte, the school humor magazine — <i><a href="http://web.mit.edu/voodoo/www/">Voo Doo</a></i> — distributed a pamphlet when the freshmen arrived on campus. Purportedly from the "MIT Entropians", <a href="http://web.mit.edu/voodoo/www/entropians.pdf">the pamphlet</a> asserted, "The average woman and 'underrepresented' minority at MIT is exactly as unintelligent, unintellectual, and unambitious as everybody else here."<br /><br />So, I suppose a few extreme claims were still around at the grass-roots level, at least in the late 1990s.Blake Staceyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13977394981287067289noreply@blogger.com