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  <channel>
    <title>Radical Cyborgs's topics - tribe.net</title>
    <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/threads/rss</link>
    <description>Tribe.net. Local Connections</description>
    <item>
      <title>Sacramento comic creators make it to TOP 10 in Worldwide Competition!</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/14b5e7de-2005-4d52-bf83-892e69794ba0</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Hi, all.  This is Ben Schwartz, a Sacramento comic store owner and small press comic publisher with ECV Press.  I am also a co-writer with Hai-Na-Nu Saulque on our new project Hank Houston.  We entered a worldwide competition to  find the best new comic for Platinum Studios to produce and we have made it to the TOP 10.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;From this point forward the winner will be determined by your votes.  We need your support and help to spread the word!  Please take a look at our website where you will find, concept sketches, alien designs, pin-ups, daily webcomics and a link to give us your vote!  Give us a vote and tell your friends.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;www.hankhouston.com
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Thank you in advance for all of your support and help in taking Hank Houston to the TOP!
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Ben Schwartz&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 0 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:27:33 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/14b5e7de-2005-4d52-bf83-892e69794ba0</guid>
      <dc:creator>ECV Press</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2008-08-17T22:27:33Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>who actually wants to be a cyborg?</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/f0f2f7f7-1f45-4c28-a9fb-c8cf879cf514</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Hi there,
&lt;br/&gt;I'm actually doing some research which is looking at the increasingly blurred boundaries between humans and machines/technology and I need to know what people think about this area. Firstly I need to find out what definitions people adhere to such as what exactly is a cyborg. Can the definition only be extended to those that have artificial elements inserted into their body or should it be more relaxed and include all those that blur the boundaries by using wearable computers and the like? Also I would love to hear from anyone that wants to or is actually  taking steps to become a cyborg.
&lt;br/&gt;It would be fantastic if you could help me out on this one,
&lt;br/&gt;thanks in advance,
&lt;br/&gt;Sarah&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 7 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jun 2006 03:59:04 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/f0f2f7f7-1f45-4c28-a9fb-c8cf879cf514</guid>
      <dc:creator>sarah</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2006-06-27T03:59:04Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>What cybernetic enhancement / device do you need?</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/876af6fa-5ebc-463d-9392-982d4a5c554f</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;I bring from cyberpunk tribe this question: "What cybernetic enhancement/wearable device do you want?"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I think it would be very interesting to talk about it with radical cyborg folks and to listen your answers to that question.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;My answer was: 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;"We are not free in this human society because we need to eat, to drink and to sleep. And even in a ideal techno-utopic society, it would be impossible to be free because we die. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;If we want to be free, before thinking of other possibilities, we would have to remove those needs. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Think of alga, maybe you think it ’s a lower being, and it is in some ways, but it doesn ’t need to kill to live. Alga gets its energy directly from sun. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;What kind of device would we need to insert inside of our human bodies to be a kind of intelligent seaweed?"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Jaffa sent a interesting comment:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;“very cool thought strand there Nexus... 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I'm not sure that it's just because of material needs that we aren't free. I'm not free to travel the world if I don't have money to pay the airlines. I'm not free to walk into any house I want because of social norms and laws. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;However, I think you're right that the urgency to do many things, and the necessity of having to do anything would diminish a lot if we weren't constantly fighting just to stay alive. It would also reduce the ability some people to coerce or threaten other people into doing things out of fear... but it wouldn't remove that ability. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;however there are other human needs such as avoidance of boredom (entertainment), social relationships, ability to inhabit space, etc. We would still need to preserve our freedom to do these things even with the bodily changes you recommend.” &lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 18 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 06 Apr 2004 13:25:21 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/876af6fa-5ebc-463d-9392-982d4a5c554f</guid>
      <dc:creator>rizomas</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-04-06T13:25:21Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Bjork...cyborg?</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/2106c329-3948-4299-91da-8a258c48c362</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Anybody see bjork's "All is Full of Love Video"? Crazy cyborg-sex...sooooo sweet!&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 2 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 03:12:24 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/2106c329-3948-4299-91da-8a258c48c362</guid>
      <dc:creator />
      <dc:date>2005-02-07T03:12:24Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Borging it up?</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/55a48634-0809-4e02-80b9-69b231ca107f</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Just curious, what happened to this tribe?
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Close to 200 members and no activity? O_o
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;(I screw robots)&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 7 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2005 21:09:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/55a48634-0809-4e02-80b9-69b231ca107f</guid>
      <dc:creator />
      <dc:date>2005-04-05T21:09:25Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Web of Dreams deserves your participation</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/0f80a4fa-1087-414f-a347-783ae6893dec</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Sacred geometry, universal energy, IBVA experiments linked with real time video, the opportunity to study yourself and others in a lucid REM state with state of the art equipment, recorded experiences, thousands of lights, music and more create “The Web Of Dreams”! An Interactive art piece symbolizing the connection of all things and how what you choose affects everything. It is designed to generate life-changing breakthroughs! 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Allow yourself while in the Web to work through your fear and be inspired to make new empowering choices that create more hope for your future! Those who choose to be wrapped and suspended in the Web may discover that resistance creates the persistence of fear but acceptance allows for the disappearance of fear. Shed your fixed beliefs and ways of being while inside the Web and step into a new world of increased hope and possibility! 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The web will offer up personal truths, it will offer up hope and dreams, it will offer a true reflection of how what you choose (hope or fear) affects the outcome of your future in a clear representation in the present moment. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;“The Web of Dreams” will be placed 1300 ft from the man at 1:30. We will be doing IBVA EXPEREMENTS ALL WEEK. This will give us a chance to look at what is going on in the brain as someone is experiencing what ever they might be experiencing, Think of the possabilities. If this intrest you at all I encourage you to look at our web site and find out more about what we are creating on the playa this year. please if you are interested RESPOND TO THIS POST. LET ME KNOW YOU ARE INTERESTED. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;We got a late start on this idea but we know, with some help from the community, we can still pull it off (no fear only hope). We have most everything we need but if the opportunity to assist others in breaking through their fear and gaining more hope and possibility inspires you we invite you to become a part of the “Web Team” and help in anyway you can. We are looking for people to fill volunteer shifts, donate money (we still need over $1,000) or any supplies we still need please contact me on Tribe or directly: 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;CLAYTON AND TERRY ALLRED 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;801-523-7094 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;For more info on the “Web Of Dreams” or to donate few dollars today(every little bit will help)by Pay Pal check out the web site at: webofdreams.home.comcast.net/ 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I truly look forward to the most amazing experience on the Playa with you and may all of your fears serve you in the end to achieve all your hopes! 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Love, 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Clayton 
&lt;br/&gt;posted by: &lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 1 reply
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 08 Aug 2006 09:33:42 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/0f80a4fa-1087-414f-a347-783ae6893dec</guid>
      <dc:creator>CLAYTON</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2006-08-08T09:33:42Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>when should we get cybernetic enhancements?</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/dc1d5c10-d19d-4e8f-b0b4-f1afdbd00027</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;So, judging from the popularity of the last thread, there's no doubt that the desire to be enhanced is there.  The only thing is, what sort of time scale are you looking at?  If you look at all the current technological devices that they impant in bodies at the moment (i'm tinking specifically of medical applications) they actually seem to impede human function rather than enhance it. Is this not just proof that you can never improve on the physciality of nature or is it just proof that technology isn't there yet?&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 1 reply
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 05 Jul 2006 04:37:58 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/dc1d5c10-d19d-4e8f-b0b4-f1afdbd00027</guid>
      <dc:creator>sarah</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2006-07-05T04:37:58Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Urgent!!! Please help</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7abe9ae1-f46a-4dd1-b821-4a8ff344307a</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I am posting this everywhere I can, Please help us. 
&lt;br/&gt;There are thousands of good people who could potentially lose their lives very soon. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Since the release of the information on the Sujiatun concentration camp in China, which is reported to do live organ harvesting on Falun Gong practicioners. More people have been stepping forward to reveal information. Recently, a veteran military doctor in the region of Shenyang said that the Sujiatun Concentration camp is just one of 36 such camps. Another camp in Jilin Province referred to as 672-S is said to hold over 120,000 people. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;According to the Integrated Committee's announcement, transplant hospitals in China are now telling patients to "come in quickly" to get transplants. Patients are told that matching organs can be found at this time in as short as one or two days. The hospitals are also reported to say that, "it will be difficult after this batch of organs is used up."
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;We fear that there is going to be a mass execution to “hide the evidence” and get rid of witnesses. PLEASE HELP us, Falun Gong practitioners around the world are requesting an international investigation while there is still time.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;This is the US petition, please sign it. It can save someone’s life.
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.fofg.org/act/act_petition.php?pid=1
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;you can also help by going here:
&lt;br/&gt;http://publicpetition.unvcc.com/UN/index.php
&lt;br/&gt;this is an easy, fill in the blank letter that with a click is automatically
&lt;br/&gt;sent to the senators and representatives of your choice
&lt;br/&gt;And it would also greatly help us if you would please pass this information on.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Thank you,
&lt;br/&gt;Joshua
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;You can learn more about this at:
&lt;br/&gt;The Epoch Times 
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html
&lt;br/&gt;Amnesty International
&lt;br/&gt;http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/chn-summary-eng
&lt;br/&gt;Falun Dafa Information Center
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.faluninfo.net/why/index.asp
&lt;br/&gt;or, you can ask me any questions you have by sending me a message.&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 0 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 11 Apr 2006 05:16:24 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7abe9ae1-f46a-4dd1-b821-4a8ff344307a</guid>
      <dc:creator>mentalfreedomne1</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2006-04-11T05:16:24Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/176fc29c-3a1a-45f3-879f-20a06bd59666</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Hi 
&lt;br/&gt;Just found out that GITS2 is to be released in the UK in Feb 06.  Has anyone seen it?&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 5 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 08 Dec 2005 18:40:02 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/176fc29c-3a1a-45f3-879f-20a06bd59666</guid>
      <dc:creator />
      <dc:date>2005-12-08T18:40:02Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>For Non Biocentric Transhumanists</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/39995b80-3255-467d-a9ee-68c0f638be22</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Please no biotech, genome obsessed transhumanists.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;tribes.tribe.net/androidtheory&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 4 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Jan 2006 22:36:44 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/39995b80-3255-467d-a9ee-68c0f638be22</guid>
      <dc:creator>hexbodhi</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2006-01-05T22:36:44Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Add yourself to frappr.com/transhumanists</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/29be335f-f847-4c9c-b496-3f0b05ce3c2e</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Frappr is a photo/Google maps mash-up that allows us to see where people are in our global community. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Take a second and add yourself: http://www.frappr.com/transhumanists
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Its amazing where there appear to be a critical mass of transhumanists, with nothing happening on the ground (f-t-f) yet. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;--------------------------------------------
&lt;br/&gt;James Hughes Ph.D.
&lt;br/&gt;Executive Director
&lt;br/&gt;World Transhumanist Assoc.   Inst. for Ethics &amp;amp; Emerging Tech.
&lt;br/&gt;http://transhumanism.org     http://ieet.org
&lt;br/&gt;director@transhumanism.org   director@ieet.org
&lt;br/&gt;Editor, Journal of Evolution and Technology
&lt;br/&gt;http://jetpress.org
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Mailing Address: Box 128, Willington CT 06279 USA 
&lt;br/&gt;(office) 860-297-2376&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 0 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 16 Nov 2005 13:56:44 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/29be335f-f847-4c9c-b496-3f0b05ce3c2e</guid>
      <dc:creator>jhughes</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2005-11-16T13:56:44Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>igargoyle.com - cyborg and wearable computing news</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/ae1f6d61-ae87-4ece-8e3b-9bd588d48d66</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;hey guys, just found this tribe! nice.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;i run http://igargoyle.com/ which has news on cyborgs, cyberpunks, wearable computing, and robotics. check it out!
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;i'm also looking for other writers. let me know if you're interested.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;nym&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 2 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 27 Oct 2005 16:28:55 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/ae1f6d61-ae87-4ece-8e3b-9bd588d48d66</guid>
      <dc:creator>nymlet</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2005-10-27T16:28:55Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Call for Proposals: Enhancement &amp;amp; Rights, May 26-28, 2006, Stanford CA USA</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/fad0ac2f-28b1-4623-997f-d36f008d8197</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;"Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;May 26-28, 2006
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Stanford University Law School, Stanford, California
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://ieet.org/HEHR/
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Organized by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies http://ieet.org
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Co-Sponsors*: Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;*Sponsors list in formation
&lt;br/&gt;  
&lt;br/&gt;Much of the criticism of enhancement technologies has focused on the potential for increased discrimination against women, people of color, the poor, the differently enabled, or "unenhanced" humans. Some bioethicists have proposed a global treaty to ban enhancement technologies as "crimes against humanity." 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Defenders of enhancement argue that the use of biotechnologies is a fundamental human right,  inseparable from the defense of bodily autonomy, reproductive freedom, free expression and cognitive liberty.  While acknowledging real risks from genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive enhancement, defenders of enhancement believe that bans on the consensual use of new technologies would be an even greater threat to human rights. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Health care, disability and reproductive rights activists have argued that access to technology empowers full and equal participation in society. On the same grounds a generalized right to "technological empowerment" might connect defenders of enhancement technologies with disability activists, reproductive rights activists with would-be parents seeking fertility treatments, the transgendered with aesthetic body modifiers, drug policy reformers and anti-aging researchers with advocates for dignity in dying.
&lt;br/&gt;  
&lt;br/&gt;Yet, what, if any, limits should be considered to human enhancement? On what grounds can citizens be prevented from modifying their own genes or brains?  How far should reproductive rights be extended? Might enhancement reduce the diversity of humanity in the name of optimal health?  Or, conversely, might enhancements inspire such an unprecedented diversity of human beings that they strain the limits of liberal tolerance and social solidarity?  Can we exercise full freedom of thought if we can't exercise control over our own brains using safe, available technologies?  Can we ensure that enhancement technologies are safe and equitably distributed? When are regulatory efforts simply covert, illiberal value judgments?
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Between the ideological extremes of absolute prohibition and total laissez-faire that dominate popular discussions of human enhancement there are many competing agendas, hopes and fears.  How can the language of human rights guide us in framing the critical issues?  How will enhancement technologies transform the demands we make of human rights?
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;With the Human Enhancement and Human Rights conference we seek to begin a conversation with the human rights community, bioethicists, legal scholars, and political activists about the relationship of enhancement technologies to human rights, cognitive liberty and bodily autonomy.  It is time to begin the defense of human rights in the era of human enhancement.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Examples of topics that might be addressed:
&lt;br/&gt;  
&lt;br/&gt;Day One: Human Enhancement and Control of the Body
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;For instance, papers might address:
&lt;br/&gt;- How much morphological diversity can the polity sustain?
&lt;br/&gt;- Animal-human chimeric enhancement and animal rights
&lt;br/&gt;- Reproductive cloning: Irrelevant, futile or an important battle? 
&lt;br/&gt;- Disability rights and cyborg assistive technology
&lt;br/&gt;- Life extension and the right to die: Two sides of the same coin? 
&lt;br/&gt;- Germline engineering and the consent of the future generations
&lt;br/&gt;- Procreative liberty and the genetic enhancement of children
&lt;br/&gt;- The medicalization of transgenderism
&lt;br/&gt;- Cosmetic surgery and future body modification
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Day Two: Cognitive Enhancement Technology 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;For instance, papers might address:
&lt;br/&gt;- Enhancing capacities for citizenship
&lt;br/&gt;- Social equality and cognitive enhancement
&lt;br/&gt;- Freedom of thought as a basis for rights to use cognitive enhancement
&lt;br/&gt;- Psychoactive drug law reform
&lt;br/&gt;- Religious liberty and entheogens
&lt;br/&gt;- Regulating the risks of neural implants and brain machines
&lt;br/&gt;- The myth of the "authentic self" 
&lt;br/&gt;- Challenges to human personhood and citizenship from cognitive enhancement
&lt;br/&gt;- Use of technologies of personality modification in criminal rehabilitation
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Instructions for Submitting Presentations
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Include all of the following information in a two-page proposal for your presentation
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- Title of presentation
&lt;br/&gt;- Type of presentation: paper, panel, poster, workshop
&lt;br/&gt;- Abstract (25-100 words) for inclusion in the conference program
&lt;br/&gt;- Media to be used and audiovisual equipment needed (if any). 
&lt;br/&gt;- Designated contact person (only one per proposal)
&lt;br/&gt;- Complete name, title, organization, address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address for each session presenter
&lt;br/&gt;- Brief biographical sketch of each presenter 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Please submit your proposal electronically to the conference chair James Hughes at director@ieet.org
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The presenters of accepted proposals will need to pre-register for the conference by April 15, 2006 at the reduced rate of $100 in order to be included in the program.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;For more information please contact the conference chair James Hughes Ph.D., Public Policy Studies, Trinity College, Williams 229B, 300 Summit St., Hartford CT 06106, james.hughes@trincoll.edu, (860) 297-2376.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Timeline for Presenters
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;  Proposals due by: January 1, 2006
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;  Notification of acceptance: March 1, 2006
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;  Deadline for pre-registration by presenters: April 15, 2006
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Publications
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;You may submit your full paper for consideration for publication in The Journal of Evolution and Technology. A special issue on Human Enhancement and Human Rights will be published in the Spring of 2006 [http://jetpress.org/#Rights] but papers will also be  welcome on these topics at any time. &lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 Oct 2005 03:19:37 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/fad0ac2f-28b1-4623-997f-d36f008d8197</guid>
      <dc:creator>jhughes</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2005-10-28T03:19:37Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Greetings</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/6eed35e1-381d-4c03-8e79-287c8b6298b7</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;fellow cyborgs. It warms my circuits to see other cyborgs here on earth engaging the political process. There is much humans can learn from us. Humans are doing a poor job of running things on this planet, and could use all the help we can give them.&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:44:37 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/6eed35e1-381d-4c03-8e79-287c8b6298b7</guid>
      <dc:creator>emiglio</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2005-10-06T17:44:37Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Invitation to technoliberation list</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/273ac151-25b4-4b43-aace-a0e2a0fa8d28</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Some Radical Cyborgs, techno-progressives, democratic transhumanists and so on have started the TechnoLiberation list. Y'all are welcome:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://groups.yahoo.com/group/technoliberation/
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Using technology to deepen democracy, using democracy to ensure
&lt;br/&gt;technology benefits us all.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The technoliberation list is a welcoming space for conversation,
&lt;br/&gt;collaboration, organization, and debate among liberal, social, and
&lt;br/&gt;radical democrats from around the world all of whom share the sense
&lt;br/&gt;that emerging, converging, disruptive global technological
&lt;br/&gt;developments threaten unprecedented harm while they promise
&lt;br/&gt;unprecedented emancipation for humanity. We want to think about the
&lt;br/&gt;ways in which technology provokes us to rethink and reimagine the left
&lt;br/&gt;wing of the possible.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Some of the list's principals are also involved in the Cyborg Democracy blog:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://cyborgdemocracy.net/blogger.html
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;------------------------
&lt;br/&gt;James Hughes Ph.D.
&lt;br/&gt;Executive Director
&lt;br/&gt;Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 
&lt;br/&gt;http://ieet.org
&lt;br/&gt;Williams 229B, Trinity College
&lt;br/&gt;300 Summit St., Hartford CT 06106
&lt;br/&gt;(office) 860-297-2376 
&lt;br/&gt;director(at)ieet.org&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:37:09 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/273ac151-25b4-4b43-aace-a0e2a0fa8d28</guid>
      <dc:creator>jhughes</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2005-08-30T19:37:09Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Peak Oil?</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/feb2385f-eb61-4bef-a023-adf4110b8b5d</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;After picking up James Kunstler's "the long emergency", it forced me to consider how are we to deal with a peak in oil production and a resulting increase in energy costs. Unfortunately the continuing success of Moore's Law (and accelerating change in general) relies on cheaply available energy, so I believe it is vital that transhumanists become active in seeking and advocating for sustainable sources of energy. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Perhaps if more conservative american politicians were convinced of the possibility and desirability of life extension, they might be more willing to work towards sustainable energy policy. After all, if you believe you are going to be dead or raptured soon, why care about the environment and the future of human civilization. As Mr de Grey stated, a society with an expectation of indefinite life span is a more risk averse society, and I can think of no interest more dear to most politicians (and most people in general) than self interest.&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 29 Aug 2005 07:45:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/feb2385f-eb61-4bef-a023-adf4110b8b5d</guid>
      <dc:creator>Max</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2005-08-29T07:45:25Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>New Tribe: "Hardware"</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/b907e362-639f-4a2f-a00a-6e05fd2ddb1d</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Hardware. Where our goal is to bring together people for the simple and elegant reason of building cool shit. Or just shit in general.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;22gunsonfire.tribe.net &lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 1 reply
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 May 2005 01:01:26 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/b907e362-639f-4a2f-a00a-6e05fd2ddb1d</guid>
      <dc:creator>Dane</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2005-05-13T01:01:26Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>New Tribe: "Polymaths: Universal Humans"</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7f1c32e9-ca5e-4970-b626-ec4fb9424edb</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;universalhumans.tribe.net
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;A polymath (also known as a polyhistor) is a person who excels in multiple fields, particularly in both arts and sciences. The most common term for this is Renaissance man. Other terms for this are Homo universalis and Uomo Universale which in Latin and Italian respectively is translated as "Universal Man". Many notable polymaths lived during the European Renaissance period, and a rounded approach to education was typical of the ideals of the humanists of the time. A gentleman or courtier of that era was expected to speak several languages, play a musical instrument, write poetry and so on, thus fulfilling the Renaissance ideal. During the Renaissance, Baldassare Castiglione, in his The Book of the Courtier, wrote a guide to being a polymath. On the other hand "polymath" may be applied more strictly, taking Leonardo da Vinci or Goethe as prime examples, and requiring a universality of approach. A polymath may not necessarily be classed as a genius, which is a more debatable classification; and certainly a genius may not display the breadth to qualify as a polymath. Albert Einstein is a prime example of a genius who was not a polymath. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath &lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 22 Mar 2005 20:37:57 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7f1c32e9-ca5e-4970-b626-ec4fb9424edb</guid>
      <dc:creator />
      <dc:date>2005-03-22T20:37:57Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>my book More Than Human is now out!</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/f4063d51-e6e1-48fc-96b7-1071d8144618</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;As some of you know, I spent a good chunk of the last two years working on a book.  Well, it’s out!  The book is titled “More Than Human” and it’s a non-fiction look at the potential to use biotechnology to make people stronger, smarter, and longer lived.  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;You can read about what's going on with the book, including recent reviews and upcoming events, at http://www.morethanhuman.org
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Now I’m asking for YOUR help to make the book a success!  There are five things you can do to help me:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;1) BUY THE BOOK!
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Click here to buy a copy of my book.
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&amp;amp;path=tg/detail/-/0767918436
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The more you buy, the higher I’ll rate on Amazon and possibly on other lists.  The higher I rank, the more other people will buy the book!
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;2) BUY RELATED BOOKS!
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;If you buy related books on Amazon, people who look at those books will see a link to More Than Human!  So if you’ve been thinking about buying any of the following books, buy them now!
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&amp;amp;path=tg/detail/-/0316172324/
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Collapse by Jared Diamond
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&amp;amp;path=tg/detail/-/0670033375/
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&amp;amp;path=tg/detail/-/0393317552
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&amp;amp;path=tg/detail/-/076790818X/
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&amp;amp;path=tg/detail/-/0618005838/ 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;or any of Amazon’s best selling popular science books
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&amp;amp;path=tg/new-for-you/top-sellers/-/books/75 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;3) SUBMIT A REVIEW TO AMAZON!
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Once you’ve read the book (or now if you’ve read it already), go back to the Amazon page and write up a review.  Don't feel obliged to make it a 5 star review.  Users can sniff out phoney reviews.  Just write what you honestly think.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;4) POST TO YOUR BLOG!
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;If you have a blog, including a livejournal, post a link to the Amazon page for my book to your blog.  That’ll cause the book to pop up on sites that track which books are being most discussed and most linked to in the blogosphere.  (Like Technorati's BookTalk: http://www.technorati.com/live/products.html )
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;5) FORWARD THIS MAIL!
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;If you know others who you think would be interested in the book, tell them about it or forward this mail!  Especially if they're people I don't know.  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Thank you all for your help.  With your help and a little luck, More Than Human may get out there in front of a lot of people.  
&lt;br/&gt;mez
&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:58:52 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/f4063d51-e6e1-48fc-96b7-1071d8144618</guid>
      <dc:creator>mez</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2005-03-09T15:58:52Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Brainwave cap Success</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7743ae23-0103-4184-8d02-a6d1141f7c29</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Well its getting closer all the time.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Here is another article from today's news on a new cap with as few as 64 electrodes. These are human trials, which show remarkable success with serious implications.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;'Brainwave' cap controls computer 
&lt;br/&gt;Tuesday, 7 December, 2004, 10:30 GMT  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The cursor movements were recorded: blue is slowest, and red fastest. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;A team of US researchers has shown that controlling devices with the brain is a step closer. Four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, successfully moved a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Previous research has shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain. 
&lt;br/&gt;{excerpt}
&lt;br/&gt;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4074869.stm
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;And this time the effort is in my back yard, very very cool. I may have to make contact.
&lt;br/&gt;http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/heal..._thought07.html
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci...ght7dec07.story&lt;/div&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 07 Dec 2004 13:45:20 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7743ae23-0103-4184-8d02-a6d1141f7c29</guid>
      <dc:creator>Lazarus_Long</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-12-07T13:45:20Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>New movement to co-opt corporations for change</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/921707e2-4848-474d-a337-89e5a07ac42f</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;New movement to co-opt corporations for change 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I have a passion for life - for my life, my kids ’lives, and all of our lives …so I have to share my passion and my vision (that follows) with you …hoping that it might lead you to more hope-filled, joyful and sustainable lives. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;First, for perspective, the next paragraph is the important part of world history in a single paragraph. Then, I hope to enlist you in joining the Aikido Activism Movement, a movement that can face today ’s deepest challenges with the most empowered approach to change. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;THE IMPORTANT PART OF WORLD HISTORY IN A PARAGRAPH 
&lt;br/&gt;Humanity has passed from a first great era of primarily physically-mediated conflict to one today of primarily economically-mediated conflict (see for example, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins - http://www.tinyurl.com/4tebc or http://www.tinyurl.com/5t8j9 ) and NOW we can and must advance to an era of primarily reason-mediated conflict. In each of the earlier eras people by and large did the best they could with what they had (as they will today and in the future only now with much better tools for communication which MUST be used for increased understanding, which -- fortunately -- can naturally translate to caring). The problem of capitalism today was less a problem when it was invented as a solution to feudal imperialism (with regular physical conflict). Economic imperialism has yet further removed the suffering from view of the beneficiaries of economic imperialism; but, in order to link with economic subjects, a global network has been built that can actually be used to bring people together -- and while inter-tribal, international, and intercorporate engagements in ages of primarily physically-mediated and primarily economically-mediated conflict have a history of being quite exploitive (if not deadly), engagements in the dawning age of reason can evolve to be much more like a dance, yet still a dance of joy or survival depending on one's viewpoint. The key should be seeing the power of inclusion, which can bring joy and unity -- replacing profit maximization with fruition maximization as a necessity for sustainability/survival and joy in a globalizing era. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;My passions have been channeled into writing about a systematic solution to this systemic problem of today: that corporations do both the most good and the most bad, but it is their ability to hide bad things in the complexity of corporate behavior and in the popular but treacherous myth they promulgate -- "greed is good" -- that has led to essentially all major world problems. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Efforts to overpower corporations with grass roots public fervor or death-of-their-excesses by a thousand cuts from non-profits or NGOs appear to be having little effect, so why not turn the tools of corporations (and their economic might) against their regressive practices? This is Aikido Activism, my passion that I hope will become yours in a budding movement that everyone should want to join - and that anyone and everyone with a computer and Internet access is empowered to advance by sharing parts of the puzzle (how Aikido Activism can be applied in their field and applying it), supporting other Aikido Activists, getting the word out electronically, etc. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Change is possible. Find out who some Aikido Activists are who are working for progressive transformation of outworn social traditions –and please share any comments, ideas, connections, at the new wiki-website http://aikidoactivism.xwiki.com/ where there is a growing amount of information begun to be collected and organized online to advance the Aikido Progressive Movement – to understand our past and build a promising opportunity for our future.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Spidey&lt;/div&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sun, 14 Nov 2004 14:53:13 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/921707e2-4848-474d-a337-89e5a07ac42f</guid>
      <dc:creator>spidey</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-11-14T14:53:13Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>New Tribe: Existential Risks</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/37ce223e-d78e-4c2d-9c0e-06d3ed977360</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;New Tribe: Existential Risks
&lt;br/&gt;existentialrisks.tribe.net
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Because of accelerating technological progress, humankind may be rapidly approaching a critical phase in its history. In addition to well-known threats such as a nuclear holocaust, the prospects of radically transforming technologies like nanotech systems and machine intelligence present us with unprecedented opportunities and risks. Our future, and whether we will have a future at all, may well be determined by how we deal with these challenges.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;This tribe is an open forum for a general discussion of human extinction scenarios - a discussion of all possible risks, their viability or implausibility, and what we can do to avoid them. Contributing tribe members are highly encouraged to read Nick Bostrom's essay, "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards" which can be found at http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html.&lt;/div&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Nov 2004 17:51:12 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/37ce223e-d78e-4c2d-9c0e-06d3ed977360</guid>
      <dc:creator />
      <dc:date>2004-11-11T17:51:12Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Please help me promote Citizen Cyborg</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/5333c391-e1bb-4b16-8990-a1a335675dc8</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Friends,
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;As you may know, my book about transhumanism and democracy, Citizen Cyborg, is coming out in two weeks: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0813341981/
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I'd like to request your helping in promoting it. A couple ideas:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;1. I'll be traveling some in the coming months and I'm trying to set up book store readings/signings. In the NYC/NJ/New England area I could probably make an event with little advance planning. Outside of New England my travel plans currently are:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- October 23-24 - Washington D.C. 
&lt;br/&gt;- October 28-31 - Philadelphia, PA
&lt;br/&gt;- November 6-7 - Chicago
&lt;br/&gt;- November 14-16 - Portsmouth NH 
&lt;br/&gt;- November 25-28 - Washington D.C.
&lt;br/&gt;- January 13-15 - Santa Fe, New Mexico
&lt;br/&gt;- March 4-6 - New York City
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;So if you are in one of those places, and would like to help me arrange something, let me know.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;2. The book's visibility on Amazon is partly determined by whether people have recommended it as an "in addition to" or "instead of" for other books. Citizen Cyborg's ISBN is 0813341981, and you just put it in the little box on another book's page, like Andy Clark's Natural Born Cyborgs http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195148665/ or Stock's Redesigning Humans http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/061806026X/
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;3. I'm a scintillating interviewee, full of pithy quotable opinions. If there is a local radio talk show that you think might be good call/email them the material below, and tell them to book me. Make sure to tell them about Fukuyama's assertion that transhumanism is the most dangerous idea in the world.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Thanks for your help. We have a couple explicitly transhumanist books coming out in the coming year, such as Ramez Naam's More than Human, so let's all help get them to the top of the charts. Starting with mine.
&lt;br/&gt;;-)
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;----------------------------------
&lt;br/&gt;Dr. J. Hughes
&lt;br/&gt;Author of Citizen Cyborg
&lt;br/&gt;(Westview Press, 2004)
&lt;br/&gt;http://cyborgdemocracy.net/citizencyborg.htm
&lt;br/&gt;(phone) 860-428-1837
&lt;br/&gt;jhughes@changesurfer.com
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;------------------------------------------------
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;SAMPLE EMAIL TO A LOCAL RADIO STATION
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Dear (Program Director/Show Producer), 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;There is someone who I think would be great on [name of show]: Dr. James Hughes, the author of the book Citizen Cyborg thats coming out November 1.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;His book is about the growing debate over "transhumanism," the idea that people should be allowed to become "more than human."  Recently Francis Fukuyama, a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins who is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, wrote in the journal Foreign Policy that transhumanism was the most dangerous idea in the world.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I've heard Hughes speak (he produces a weekly radio program that's on the web) and he would make a great guest. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Here are the details about his book:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;------------------------------------------------------------------------
&lt;br/&gt;-----
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Title: Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Author: James J. Hughes Ph.D.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;ISBN: 0813341981
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Publisher: Westview Press
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Release date: November 1
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Book Website: http://cyborgdemocracy.net/citizencyborg.htm
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Bio: Dr. Hughes teaches Health Policy in the public policy program at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut. Dr. Hughes received his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1994. He is a member of the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at Yale University.
&lt;br/&gt;Dr. Hughes has taught health policy at the University of Chicago and the University of Connecticut. He serves as Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association, an organization advocating the use of technology to transcend the limitations of the human body. He also produces the weekly public affairs radio show Changesurfer Radio, writes the Change Surfing column at Betterhumans.com, and contributes to the Cyborg Democracy blog.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Publicist: Jason Brantley    Jason.Brantley@perseusbooks.com
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Endorsements for Citizen Cyborg:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;"A challenging and provocative look at the intersection of human self-modification and political governance. Everyone wondering how society will be able to handle the coming possibilities of AI and Genomics should read Citizen Cyborg." 
&lt;br/&gt;(Dr. Gregory Stock, author of Redesigning Humans)
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;"A powerful indictment of the anti-rationalist attitudes that are dominating our national policy today. Hughes brings together ideas from religion, history, science, bioethics, and politics in a unique way. The book sparkles with insights, challenges, and new ways of looking at the problems our society is facing today. He is a worthy guide to a more humane future." 
&lt;br/&gt;(John Lantos M.D., author of Do We Still Need Doctors)
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;"James Hughes is a sober, insightful, useful and optimistic thinker about the astonishing changes in store for human nature. Citizen Cyborg is an important contribution to the rapidly moving debate on human enhancement." 
&lt;br/&gt;(Joel Garreau, author of While God Wasn't Watching: The Future of Human
&lt;br/&gt;Nature)
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;"A fascinating tour of the coming intersection of politics, nanotechnology, and biology, by the leading champion of Transhumanism.
&lt;br/&gt;Anyone who wants to understand the tumultuous bio-politics of the next decade should read this book." 
&lt;br/&gt;(Gregory Pence, author of Who's Afraid of Human Cloning, Professor, Philosophy and School of Medicine, University of Alabama Medical
&lt;br/&gt;School.)
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;"Citizen Cyborg is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the dangers posed by radical transhumanism. James Hughes's passionate and skilled advocacy forces us to confront the kind of society we want for ourselves and our children." 
&lt;br/&gt;(Wesley J. Smith, author of Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World and Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America)
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Summary: 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;In the next fifty years, life spans will extend well beyond a century.
&lt;br/&gt;Our senses and cognition will be enhanced. We will have greater control over our emotions and memory. Our bodies and brains will be surrounded by and merged with computer power. The limits of the human body will be transcended as technologies such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering converge and accelerate. With them, we will redesign ourselves and our children into varieties of posthumanity.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;This prospect is understandably terrifying to many. A loose coalition of groups-including religious conservatives, disability rights and environmental activists-has emerged to oppose the use of genetics to enhance human beings. And with the appointment of conservative philosopher Leon Kass, an opponent of in-vitro fertilization, stem cell research and life extension, to head the President's Council on Bioethics, and with the recent high-profile writings by authors like Francis Fukuyama and Bill McKibben, this stance has become more visible-and more infamous-than ever before.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;In the opposite corner a loose transhumanist coalition is mobilizing in defense of human enhancement, embracing the ideological diversity of their intellectual forebears in the democratic and humanist movements. 
&lt;br/&gt;Transhumanists argue that human beings should be guaranteed freedom to control their own bodies and brains, and to use technology to transcend human limitations.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Identifying the groups, thinkers and arguments in each corner of this debate, bioethicist and futurist James Hughes argues for a third way, which he calls democratic transhumanism. This approach argues that we will achieve the best possible posthuman future when we ensure technologies are safe, make them available to everyone, and respect the right of individuals to control their own bodies.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Hughes offers fresh and controversial answers for many other pressing biopolitical issues-including cloning, genetic patents, human genetic engineering, sex selection, drugs, and assisted suicide-and concludes with a concrete political agenda for pro-technology progressives, including expanding and deepening human rights, reforming genetic patent laws, and providing everyone with healthcare and a basic guaranteed income.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;A groundbreaking work of social commentary, Citizen Cyborg illuminates the technologies that are pushing the boundaries of humanness-and the debate that may determine the future of the human race itself.&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 16 Oct 2004 19:11:45 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/5333c391-e1bb-4b16-8990-a1a335675dc8</guid>
      <dc:creator>jhughes</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-10-16T19:11:45Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>www.nanoaging.com news about AI</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/a49bc019-bdee-4142-a064-23925473c285</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;www.nanoaging.com news about AI
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;well sometime.. ;-)&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 0 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 02 Oct 2004 03:22:46 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/a49bc019-bdee-4142-a064-23925473c285</guid>
      <dc:creator>Jonathan</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-10-02T03:22:46Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Smart Mobs for Parecon</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/e8af34cf-8104-4e6b-8e64-2bf5f3f30f18</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt; A scalable social network system using Smart Mobs infrastructure like phones and text messaging can be used for participatory economics:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;1) In this system, goods and services are produced according to a plan developed by an iterative procedure of democratic, participatory consumers and producers councils. Smart mobs could optimize the communications and participation at this level.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;2) Parecon businesses could use smart mobs by creating a pool of job offers and demands to distribute balanced job complexes in a decentralized way.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I would like to get in touch with people interested in making this an opensource sourceforge project so if you are, or know any one or any anarchist tech collectives that might be interested, let's talk about it/contact me/join the "Participatory Economics" tribe.&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 2 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 14 Jun 2004 04:36:16 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/e8af34cf-8104-4e6b-8e64-2bf5f3f30f18</guid>
      <dc:creator>Sébastien</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-06-14T04:36:16Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Transvision 2004 - Aug 5-8, 2004 - Toronto - Register Today!</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/4927ccb3-28db-476f-b76c-aa930e6a5474</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;TRANSVISION 2004
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Art and Life in the Posthuman Era
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;August 6 to 8, 2004 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;University of Toronto
&lt;br/&gt;Toronto, Ontario, Canada 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Sponsored by the World Transhumanist Association
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Co-sponsored by the Extropy Institute, Immortality Institute, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence,  Longevity Meme, Changesurfer Radio, Betterhumans.com, Transhumanist Arts and Culture and The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;For more information and to register:
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.transhumanism.org/tv/2004/
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Friday  August 6, 2004   (JJR McLeod Auditorium) 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;1:00 PM to 3:00 PM - Introduction to Transhumanism seminar for journalists
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;3:00 PM to 6:00 PM - Registration
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;5:30 PM to 6:30 PM - Reception
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;6:30 PM to 8:00 PM - Buffet dinner
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;8:00 PM to 9:30 PM - Keynote address by Steve Mann (JJR McLeod Auditorium)
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Saturday  August 7, 2004   (JJR McLeod Auditorium) 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;8:30 AM to 9:30 AM - Registration and breakfast
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;9:30 AM to 10:30 AM - Opening Keynote Address: 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Aubrey de Grey  "The feasibility and desirability of indefinite youth: recent advances from unexpected quarters"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;9:00 AM to 4:00 PM - Art exhibits and displays (Location: JJR. McLeod Auditorium Foyer)
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;10:45 AM to 11:45 AM 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 1: Managing Risks
&lt;br/&gt;- Mike Deering "Telluris of Cyborgs: Safety Passage through Great Filter of Evolution" (with Pavel Vassiliev)
&lt;br/&gt;- Michael Vassar "Nanotech Safety is AI Safety"
&lt;br/&gt;- Mark Walker "The Ship of Fools: An Argument for Surviving Apocalyptic Risks through Cognitive and Ethical Enhancements"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 2: The Emerging Transhuman Culture
&lt;br/&gt;- Jende Huang "Humanism and The Culture Wars"
&lt;br/&gt;- Dale Carrico "Vulgar Biocentrism Among the Technophiles"
&lt;br/&gt;- Kip Werking "The Transhuman Condition"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 3: Public Policy
&lt;br/&gt;- Anders Sandberg "Transformative Technology, Patient Culture and Health Policy"
&lt;br/&gt;- Robin Hanson "The Future of Debate"
&lt;br/&gt;- Simon Smith "Automatic for the People: How Humans Can Benefit from the Rise of Machines"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;12:00 PM 1:00 PM - JBS Haldane Award Banquet
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Address by Ron Bailey 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;1:15 PM to 2:45 PM
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 1: Nanotech 
&lt;br/&gt;- Mike Treder "Making a Safe Transition into the Nano Era"
&lt;br/&gt;- Tihamer Toth-Fejel "Self-Replicating NanoMachines: A Kinematic Cellular Automata Approach"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 2: Writing and Publishing Transhumanist Books 
&lt;br/&gt;- Ramez Naam, author of More than Human (2005, Doubleday/Random House)
&lt;br/&gt;- Ron Bailey, author of Liberation Biology (2005, Prometheus)
&lt;br/&gt;- James Hughes, author of Citizen Cyborg (2004, Westview/Basic)
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 3: Babies and Puppies 
&lt;br/&gt;- Linda MacDonald Glenn "Vexation of Viability: Arbitrary or Valid? (Legal and Ethical Issues in ARTs)"
&lt;br/&gt;- Jeff Medina "Transpuppyism? The Status of Non-Humans in Transhumanist Ethics"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;3:00 PM to 4:30 PM 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 1: Social Change 
&lt;br/&gt;- Phil Goetz "Calibrating Accelerating Change"
&lt;br/&gt;- Mark Hopkins "The Fourth Wave"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 2: Art, Reproduction and the Future
&lt;br/&gt;- Linda Wallace  "Female Infertility and Reproductive Technology: An Artist's Perspective"
&lt;br/&gt;- Monica Bock  "Art and the Maternal Experience"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 3: Human Enhancement
&lt;br/&gt;- Tihamer Toth-Fejel "A Critical Look at Leon Kass and Transhumanists on Ageless Bodies: Enhancement and Degradation of the Human Person"
&lt;br/&gt;- Natasha Vita-More "Posthuman Prototypes Debate Their Own Design" 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;8:00 PM to 9:30 PM - Keynote presentation by Stelarc (JJR McLeod Auditorium) 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Sunday August 8, 2004 (JJR McLeod Auditorium) 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;8:30 AM to 9:30 AM - Breakfast
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;9:30 AM to 10:30 AM 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 1: Aging 
&lt;br/&gt;- Joao Pedro de Magalhães "The genetic network of human ageing: a system-level approach"
&lt;br/&gt;- Rafal Smigrodski "How to buy new mitochondria for your old body"
&lt;br/&gt;- Aubrey de Grey "Removing toxic aggregates that our cells can't break down"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 2: The Future of Intelligence 
&lt;br/&gt;- Michael Anissimov  "Enhancing Intelligence; from Neurohackers to Self-Improving Ais"
&lt;br/&gt;- Sean Kearney "Can Social Software Increase Human Intelligence?"
&lt;br/&gt;- Stelarc  "Avatar and Machine Intelligence"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 3: TBA
&lt;br/&gt;- Richard Maxwell  "The Conscious Clock"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;10:45 AM to 11:45 AM
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 1: The Future of the Body
&lt;br/&gt;- Kenneth Evans "Random Feed Switch Every Twenty Five: Gender and Technology in Transmetropolitan"
&lt;br/&gt;- Robin Zebrowski "Posthuman AI: How Recognizing the Importance of the Body Will Change Things"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 2: Uploading and Immortality
&lt;br/&gt;- Ben Hyink "Toward Non-Fatal Uploading: A New Framework"
&lt;br/&gt;- Allen Randall  "Quantum Miracles and Immortality"
&lt;br/&gt;- Peter Passaro "Reimagining Uploading"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Panel 3: Transhuman Art and Aesthetics
&lt;br/&gt;- Simon Levy "The Fractal Beauty of Emergence: Re-envisioning Intelligent Behavior in Man and Machine"
&lt;br/&gt;- George Dvorsky "The Impact of Enhanced Humans on the Future of Art and Expression."
&lt;br/&gt;- Jerry Paffendorf  ”Digital Worlds: Networked Online Gaming as Extension Not Diversion”
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;12:00 PM 1:15 PM - Closing Address: 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Nick Bostrom "Human Enhancement: Answering the Why Question"
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;------------------------
&lt;br/&gt;James J. Hughes Ph.D.
&lt;br/&gt;Executive Director
&lt;br/&gt;World Transhumanist Association 
&lt;br/&gt;http://transhumanism.org 
&lt;br/&gt;Box 128, Willington CT 06279 USA
&lt;br/&gt;secretary@transhumanism.org&lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:41:37 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/4927ccb3-28db-476f-b76c-aa930e6a5474</guid>
      <dc:creator>jhughes</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-06-18T16:41:37Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Transhumanism without transhumanists?</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/cc9bcfe0-dca8-459e-a77c-32f2e3f65958</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;It's interesting to note how more and more humanists (and some persons inside of transhumanist forums) think the so-called transhumanist movement is a hindrance and not a help for a evolution of human being.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Present spokespersons of transhumanism should be more aware of what kind of reactions provoke some eccentric attitudes able to get attention of media but giving to transhumanist project a *bad press* between potential allies as open humanists.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;This article by Austin Dacey from *Free Inquiry* magazine is a example of a open humanist:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The New Perfectionism
&lt;br/&gt;by Austin Dacey
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dacey_24_4.htm 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 15 Jun 2004 14:32:11 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/cc9bcfe0-dca8-459e-a77c-32f2e3f65958</guid>
      <dc:creator>rizomas</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-06-15T14:32:11Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>fzzzzz</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/24ace8e1-96d2-45c7-8661-0bba82ba24a1</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;                    )       (
&lt;br/&gt;                   )         (
&lt;br/&gt;                  )     #     (
&lt;br/&gt;                   )         ( 
&lt;br/&gt;                    )       ( 
&lt;br/&gt;                       
&lt;br/&gt;                  &lt;/div&gt;
				&lt;div&gt;
			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 5 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2004 07:05:58 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/24ace8e1-96d2-45c7-8661-0bba82ba24a1</guid>
      <dc:creator>ascii</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-03-02T07:05:58Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reconciling transhumanism with humanism</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/aabf7d4c-4ea9-4c54-8cbc-535398e9a9e3</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Can someone please direct me to a philosophical delineation of transhumanism?  Specifically I am looking for any sort of epistemic musing on the ontology of transhumanism and any potential conflicts in ideology or philosophy between contemporary humanistic principles and transhumanism.
&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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			- 13 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 23 Mar 2004 23:14:13 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/aabf7d4c-4ea9-4c54-8cbc-535398e9a9e3</guid>
      <dc:creator>Protocols</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-03-23T23:14:13Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Other Radical Cyborg links</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7048273b-8331-4dd1-9aff-18ee01a40145</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Any Radical Cyborgs in Tribe who are also in Orkut can sign up for the Radical Cyborgs in Orkut at:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=26439
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Also ten of us maintain the Cyborg Democracy blog at:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://cyborgdemocracy.net/blogger.html
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;You can subscribe to the RSS for the Radical Cyborg blog at that URL
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The World Transhumanist Association maintains a discussion list for &gt;H politics at:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.transhumanism.org/mailman/listinfo/wta-politics/
&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 27 Mar 2004 15:15:38 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7048273b-8331-4dd1-9aff-18ee01a40145</guid>
      <dc:creator>jhughes</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-03-27T15:15:38Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>TV04 Taking Shape</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/f44163fd-bdf6-4c93-96bb-40fe6f7bde1f</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;TransVision 2004, the World Transhumanist Association's annual conference, is starting to take shape and it's looking to be an incredible event. The conference will be held this summer in Toronto from August 6-8 with this year's theme being "Art and Life in the Posthuman Era." Confirmed keynote speakers to date include Howard Bloom, a global brain theorist and well-known speaker on co-evolution and convergence of technology, art and culture, and Steve Mann, Canadian cyborg and the developer of the EyeTap wearable and mediated reality. Other confirmed speakers include biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey, erotic digital artist Tsubasa, transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom, our very own transhumanist bioethicist and activist James Hughes, Extropian artist Natasha Vita-More, developmental singularitarian John Smart, and the Center for Responsibile Nanotechnology's Mike Treder. We're also looking to get artist Stelarc and aging expert S. Jay Olshansky. And that's just the start, as we've got 5 months to go and we're sure to attract more notable speakers. For more information about TV04 visit the Website. If you'd like to present or perform, be sure to send in your proposal.
&lt;br/&gt;www.transhumanism.org/tv/2004/&lt;/div&gt;
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			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
			- 1 reply
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Mar 2004 04:37:41 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/f44163fd-bdf6-4c93-96bb-40fe6f7bde1f</guid>
      <dc:creator />
      <dc:date>2004-03-12T04:37:41Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>The Cyborg Mother: A Breached Boundary</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/637505f7-cdce-48ca-b961-305180b44736</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;CTHEORY THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE 
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.ctheory.net *** __________________________________________________ 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The Cyborg Mother: A Breached Boundary
&lt;br/&gt;======================================================== 
&lt;br/&gt;~Jaimie Smith-Windsor~
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Why not tell a story in a new way? Why not think in unfinished ways?
&lt;br/&gt;Without fixity? Without finality? Ask questions without answers.
&lt;br/&gt;Without presuppositions and causes and effects and linear time. Why not. Why not "whisk yourself away from your comfortable
&lt;br/&gt;position?"[1] When we live in a world of fractured identities and broken boundaries, why not rebel against yourself, or the
&lt;br/&gt;technologies of "yourself" and discover new ways of being? Reconcile that everything is being shattered. Identity is being shattered and
&lt;br/&gt;technology is picking up the pieces, and there stands before us an infinitude of recombinant possibility. Rewriting history becomes possible:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The time of history passes through the stories of individuals:
&lt;br/&gt;their birth, their experience...[2]
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Full at: http://rekombinant.org/article.php?sid=2251&lt;/div&gt;
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			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 23 Mar 2004 20:20:05 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/637505f7-cdce-48ca-b961-305180b44736</guid>
      <dc:creator>rizomas</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-03-23T20:20:05Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>human brains to mars</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/71f42fc0-d6e7-4b24-bb20-777d63dfe368</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;this guy wants to pop the brains out of those useless body shells and hook them up to computers for the trip to mars.
&lt;br/&gt;I think he's actually serious:
&lt;br/&gt;http://marshallbrain.com/mission-to-mars.htm&lt;/div&gt;
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			posted in
			&lt;a href="http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net"&gt;Radical Cyborgs&lt;/a&gt;
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		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 20 Mar 2004 23:21:44 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/71f42fc0-d6e7-4b24-bb20-777d63dfe368</guid>
      <dc:creator>Jaffa</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-03-20T23:21:44Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>Pleasure, desire, transhumanism and cyborgs</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/6235c71b-ca8e-40cc-8b08-3d0d3733a654</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Following Dale Carrico' research, I miss to explore connections between transhumanism, cyborgs, desire and pleasure.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Technocentrism is doing we forget pleasure as a possible goal of cyborgization. It can be interesting to reread some of last Foucault writings from a cyborg point of view.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I have'not the original. I did a translation of a part of "Michel Foucault, an interview: Sex, power and the politics of the identity": 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- You suggest in your books that the sexual release is not in such a way to place in game the private truths on itself exactly or on its desire of that an element of the definition process and construction of the desire. Which are the practical implications of this distinction? 
&lt;br/&gt;- What I would like to say I am that, in my opinion, the homosexual movement today has more necessity of an art of living of that of a science or a knowledge scientific (or pseudoscientific) of that is the sexuality. The sexuality is part of our behavior. It is part of the freedom in our fruition of this world. The freedom is something that we ourselves we create - it is our proper creation, or better, it it is not the discovery of a private aspect of our desire. We must understand that, with our desires, through them, if they restore new forms of relations, new forms of love and new forms of creation. The sex is not a fatality; it is a possibility to accede to a creative life. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- In the deep one, it is the conclusion to which you arrives when he says that we must try to become us gays and not in contenting them in reaffirming our identity of homosexual. 
&lt;br/&gt;- Yes, he is this. We do not have to discover that we are homosexuals. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- Nor to discover what this wants to say? 
&lt;br/&gt;- Accurately, we must, before, create a life way gay. One to become gay. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- and he is something without limits? 
&lt;br/&gt;- Yes, clearly. When we examine the different ways for which the people have lived deeply its sexual freedom - the way that they have created its works of art, forcibly we evidence that the sexuality such which we know it today becomes one of the sources most productive of our society and our being. I think that we would have to understand the sexuality in one another direction: the world considers that the sexuality constitutes the secret of the creative cultural life; it is plus a process that if she inscribes in the necessity, for we today, to create a new cultural life, under the conduction of our sexual choices. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- In practical, the one of the consequences of this attempt to place in game the secret she is that the homosexual movement was not more far of the one than the claim of relative civil laws or human to the sexuality. This wants to say that the sexual release if has limited to the level of a requirement of sexual tolerance. 
&lt;br/&gt;- Yes, but it is a aspect that is necessary to affirm, of beginning, an individual to have the possibility - and the right - to choose its sexuality. The rights of the individual in that it says respect to the sexuality are important, and more still the places where they are not respected. She is necessary, at this moment, not to consider as decided these problems. Since the beginning of the Sixties, if it produced a true process of release. This process was very beneficial in that it says respect to the mentalities, still that the situation definitively is not stabilized. We must still give a step ahead, we think I. I believe that one of the stabilization factors will be the creation of new forms of life, relations, friendships in the societies, the art, the culture of new forms that if restored by means of our sexual choices, ethical and politics. We not only must in also defending them, but in affirming them, and not only affirming while identities to them, but while creative force. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- Many of the things that you say remember, for example, the attempts of the movement feminist, whom it desires to create its proper language and its proper culture. 
&lt;br/&gt;- Yes, but I am not I hold of that we let us must create our proper culture. We must create a culture. We must carry through cultural creations. But there, we must in striking them with the problem of the identity. I am unaware of what we would make to produce these creations and am unaware of which forms take these creations. For example, I am not of all certain of whom the best form of literary creation that can reach the homosexuals is the romances homosexuals. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- In fact, we ourselves we would not agree to saying this. It would be to leave of a essencialismo that in them we must necessarily prevent. 
&lt;br/&gt;- It is truth. What it is understood, for example, for "painting gay"? E, however, I am certain that from our sexual choices, from our ethical choices I can create something that has a certain relation with the homossexualidade. But this thing does not have to be a translation of the homossexualidade in the domain of music, of the painting - what I know, again? - that I do not think that this is possible. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- How you see the extraordinary proliferation, after the ten or fifteen last years, of the practical masculine homosexuals, the sensualização, if you prefer, of certain parts until then neglected of the body and the expression of new desires? I think, I am clearly, in the characteristics most surprising that we call films ghetto-pornôs, the S/M clubs [ sadomasoquismo ] or of firstfucking. Is this a simple extension, in one another sphere, of the general proliferation of the sexual speeches after séc. XIX, or before they are about developments of another type, proper of the current historical context? 
&lt;br/&gt;- In fact, what we would like to speak here is necessarily, I think I, of the innovations that imply these practical. We consider, for example, "sub-culture S/M", to retake an expression expensive our friend Gayle Rubin[ 1 ]. I do not think that the movement of practical the sexual ones has that to see with placing in game the discovery of trends deeply hidden sado-masochists in our unconscious one. I think that the S/M is more than this, I am the real creation of new possibilities of pleasure, that had not been imagined previously. The idea of that the S/M is on with a deep violence and that this practical is a way to liberate this violence, to give solution to the aggression is a dull idea. We know very well that these people are not aggressive between them; that they invent new possibilities of pleasure using certain strange parts of the body - erotizando the body. I believe that we have a creation form, of deposit of creativity, which the main characteristic is what I call dessexualização of the pleasure. The idea of that the physical pleasure always provém of the sexual pleasure and the idea of that the sexual pleasure is the base of all the possible pleasures, has, thinks I, truily something of false. What these practical of S/M in show them is that we can produce pleasure from objects most strange, using certain parts tins of the body, in the situations inabituais, etc. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- the assimilation of the pleasure to the sex is then, exceeded. 
&lt;br/&gt;- It is accurately this. The possibility to use our bodies as a possible source of a multiplicity of pleasures is very important. If we consider, for example, the traditional construction of the pleasure, evidences that the physical pleasures, or the pleasures of the meat, are always the drink, the food and the sex. He is ai that it is limited, I think I, our understanding of the bodies, the pleasures. Frustra me, for example, that if it always examines the problem of the drugs exclusively in prohibition or freedom terms. I think that the drugs would have to become element of our culture. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- While pleasure source? 
&lt;br/&gt;- While pleasure source. We must study the drugs. We must try the drugs. We must you manufacture good drugs - susceptible to produce a pleasure very intense. The puritanismo, that places the problem of the drugs - a puritanismo that implies what if it must be against or the favor - is a errônea attitude. The drugs already are part of our culture. In the same way that it has good music and harm music, it has good and bad drugs. E then, in the same way that we cannot say we are "against" music, we cannot say that we are "against" the drugs. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- the objective is to test the pleasure and its possibilities. 
&lt;br/&gt;- Yes. The pleasure also must be part of our culture. It is very interesting to notice, for example, that, after centuries the people in general - but also the doctors, the psychiatrists and same the release movements - they have always spoken of the desire and never of the pleasure. "We must liberate our desire", we say they. Not! We must create new pleasures. Then, he can be that the desire appears. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- He is significant that certain identities if constitute around new practical sexual such which the S/M? These identities favor the exploration of these practical; they also contribute for the right of the individual to deliver themselves. But they also do not restrict the possibilities of the individual? 
&lt;br/&gt;- She sees well, if the identity is only one game, only one procedure to favor relations, social relations and the relations of sexual pleasure that create new friendships, then it is useful. But if the identity if becomes the problem most important of the sexual existence, if the people think that they must "unmask" its "proper identity" and that this identity must become it law, the principle, the code of its existence, if the question that if places continuously is: "This is in accordance with my identity", then I think that they had made a return to a form of ethics very next to the one to the traditional heterossexualidade. If we must in locating them in relation to the question of the identity, we have that to leave of the fact of that we are only beings. But the relations that we must establish with same us are not identity relations, them must before be innovation, creation, differentiation relations. He is very flat to be always the same. We do not have to exclude the identity if he is for the bias of the identity that the people find its pleasure, but we do not have to consider this identity as a universal ethical rule. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- But so far the sexual identity has been very useful politically. 
&lt;br/&gt;- Yes, it is very useful, but it is an identity that in them limits e, I think that we have (and we must have) the right of being free. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- We want that some of sexual practical ours are practical of resistance in the direction social politician or. How this is possible, being that the stimulation of the pleasure can serve to exert a control? We can be safe of that it will not have exploration of these new pleasures? I am thinking about the way for which the advertising uses the stimulation of the pleasure as an instrument of social control. 
&lt;br/&gt;- if it cannot never be safe of that it will not have exploration. Of fact we can be safe of that it will have one, and that everything what it has been created or acquired, all the land that if has earned will be, at a moment or another one, used in this way. It thus seems to be in the life, the fight and the history of the men. E I do not think that this is an objection to all these movements or all these situations. However, you have reason in designating that we must be cautious and conscientious of the fact of that we must follow ahead, to also have other necessities. Ghetto S/M of San Francisco is a good example of a community that has the experience of the pleasure and that it consists in lathe of this pleasure. This segregation, this identification, this process of exclusion produces return effect. I would not dare to use the word "dialectic", but he is not very far of this. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- You write that the power is not only a negative force, but also productive; that the power is always present; e that where it has to be able, has resistance, and that the resistance is not never a position of exterioridade in relation to the power. But as not to arrive at the conclusion of that we are imprisoned in the interior of this relation and that we cannot, in a certain way, to escape? 
&lt;br/&gt;- About the reality, I do not think that the word "imprisoned" either a good word. One is about a fight, but what I want to say when I speak of relations of being able is that we are, ones in relation to the others, in a strategical situation. For being homosexuals, for example, we are in fight with the government and the government in fight with us. When we have businesses with the government the fight, it is clearly, she is not symmetrical, the situation of being able is not the same one, but we participate at the same time of this fight. It is enough that any one of us if raises on the other, and the prolongation of this situation can determine the behavior to follow, to influence the behavior or the not-behavior of another one. We are not imprisoned, then. It happens that we are always in accordance with the situation. What I want to say is that we have the possibility to change the situation, that this possibility always exists. We cannot in outside placing them of the situation, in no place we are free of all relation of being able. I did not want to say that we are always imprisoned, for the the opposite, that we are always free. At last, in few words, he has always the possibility to change the things. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- the resistance is, then, in the interior of this dynamics of which if it can remove it? 
&lt;br/&gt;- Yes. He sees that if he does not have resistance, does not have relations of being able. Because everything would be simply an obedience question. From the moment that the individual is in a situation of não.fazer what it wants, it must use the relations of being able. The resistance comes in first place, and it it remains superior to all the forces of the process, its effect compels to change the relations of being able. I think that the term "resistance" is the word most important, the word-key of this dynamics. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- Politically speaking, the element most important can be, when the power is examined, the fact of that, according to certain previous conceptions, "to resist" it simply means to say not. It is only in negation term that if has conceitualizado the resistance. Such as you understand it, however, the resistance you are not solely a negation. It is a creation process. To create and to recriar actively, to transform the situation, to participate of the process, this are to resist. 
&lt;br/&gt;- Yes, thus I would define the things. To say does not constitute the minimum form of resistance. But, of course, at some moments it is very important. She is necessary to say and not to make of this not a decisive form of resistance. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- This excites the question to know in which way, and in which measure, a citizen - or a subjectivity - dominated it can create its proper speech. In the traditional analysis of the power, the element onipresente on which if it establishes the analysis is the dominant speech, the reactions to this speech or, in the interior of this speech, only the subsidiary elements. However, if for "resistance" in the seio of the relations of being able we understand more than a simple negation, not if it can say that certain you practise - the lesbian S/M, for example - are truily the way in the which dominated citizens formulate its proper language. 
&lt;br/&gt;- Of fact. I think that the resistance is an element of the strategical relations in which if it constitutes the power. The apóia resistance if, in the reality, on the situation to the which combat. In the homosexual movement, for example, the medical definition of homossexualidade consisted in an instrument very important to fight the oppression of the which age victim the homossexualidade in the end of century XIX and beginning of the XX. This medicalização, that was a way of oppression, has been also a resistance instrument, since the people can say: "if we are sick, then why in they condemn them, in they menosprezam them", etc. He is clearly that this speech in them seems sufficiently ingenuous today, but for the time it was very important. 
&lt;br/&gt;I would say also, in that he says respect to the lesbian movement, in my perspective, that the fact of that the women have been per centuries and isolated centuries in the society, frustrated, rejected in some ways provided them a real possibility to constitute a society, to create a certain type of social relation between them, it are of a world dominated for the men. The book of Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the Love of Men*, is, to this respect, very interesting. It raises a question: That type of emotional experience, that type of relations can be established in a world where the women does not have to be able social, legal or politician? E Faderman affirms that the women had used this isolation and this absence of being able. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- the resistance is itself the process that consists of liberating the discursive practices, it seems that the lesbian S/M is one of the practical ones that, to a first sight, can be declared more legitimately practises of resistance. Where measure this practical and these identities can be perceived as a plea to the dominant speech? 
&lt;br/&gt;- What me it seems interesting, in whom says respect to the lesbian S/M is that it allows to liberate itself of a certain number of estereótipos of the feminilidade that are used in the lesbian movement - this strategy if establishes on the oppression of that the lesbians had been victims, and the movement used it to fight against this oppression. But it is possible that today these tools, these weapons you are exceeded. It is clearly that the lesbian S/M tries to liberate of all the old estereótipos of the feminilidade, the attitudes of rejection of the men, etc. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- In its opinion, what if it can learn regarding the power - and in addition also, the pleasure - with the practical one of the S/M that is in deep a explicita erotização of the power? 
&lt;br/&gt;- It can be said that the S/M is the erotization of the power, the erotization of the strategical relations. What it shocks me in the S/M is the way as it differs from the social power. The power if characterizes for the fact of that it constitutes a strategical relation that if established in the institutions. In the seio of the relations of being able, mobility it is what it limits, and certain ortalezas are very difficult to knock down for having been institutionalized, because its influences is sensible in the course of justice, in the codes. This means that the strategical relations between the individuals if characterize for the rigidity. 
&lt;br/&gt;In this way, the game it S/M is very interesting because, while strategical relation, is always fluid. It has papeis, is clearly, but any one knows well that these papers can be inverted. To the times, when the game starts, one is the master and, in the end, this that is enslaved can become master. Or exactly when the papers are steady, the protagonists know very well that this if deals with a game: or the rules are transgressed or have an agreement, explicit or tacit, that certain borders define. This game is very interesting while source of physical pleasure. But I would not say that it reproduces, in the interior of a erótica relation, the structure of a relation of being able. It is a stage of structures of the power in a strategical game, capable to look a sexual or physical pleasure. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- Where this strategical game is different in the sexuality and the relations of being able? 
&lt;br/&gt;- the practical one of the S/M unchains on the creation of the pleasure and exists an identity between what it happens and this creation. The S/M is the reason for which is truily a subcultura. It is an invention process. The S/M is the use of a strategical relation as pleasure source (of physical pleasure). This is not the first time that the people use the strategical relations as pleasure source. It had, in the Average Age, for example, the tradition of the love cortesão, with the trovador, the way that if restores the loving relations between a lady and loving its, etc. It was treated, also, of a strategical game. This game is retaken, today, between the boys and girls who go to dance Saturday to the night. They place in scene strategical relations. What it is interesting is that, in the heterossexual life, these strategical relations precede the sex. They exist following the purpose to get the sex. In the S/M, on the other hand, these strategical relations are part of the sex, as a convention of pleasure in the interior of a particular relation. 
&lt;br/&gt;In one of the cases, the strategical relations are purely social and are the social being that is objectified; while that in the other in case that, the body is the implied one. E is this transference of strategical relations that pass of the ritual of the cut to the sexual plan, what it is particularly interesting. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- In a granted interview it has years to the magazine Gay Pied one or two, you said that what more disturbed to the people in the relations homosexuals is not in such a way the sexual act in itself, but the perspective to see the relations affective if to develop outside of the normative pictures.* The places and the friendships that if tie unexpected. You find that it is this unknown potential that the relations homosexuals carry, or you it would say that these relations are perceived as a direct threat in opposition to the social institutions? 
&lt;br/&gt;- a thing is had that it interests me today is the problem of the friendship. In elapsing of the centuries that if had followed to the Antiquity, the friendship if constituted in very important a social relation: a social relation in the interior of which the individuals make use of a certain freedom, of a certain form of choice (limited, clearly), that it also allowed them to live very intense affective relations. The friendship also had economic and social implications - the individual had to assist its friends, etc. I think that, in séc. XVI and séc. XVII, this type of friendship was disappearing, about the way of the masculine society. E the friendship starts to become another thing. From séc. XVI, texts meet that explicitamente criticize the friendship, that is considered as something dangerous. 
&lt;br/&gt;The army, the bureaucracy, the administration, the universities, the schools, etc. - in the direction that if has these words nowadays - they could not function ahead of so intense friendships. We can see in institutions a considerable effort for diminishing or minimizing the affective relations. In this in case that, particular, the schools. When if they had inaugurated the intermediate schools that had received some young youngsters, one of the problems was to know as if it could not only hinder the sexual relations, clearly, but also in hindering the friendships. On the subject of the friendship, it can be studied, for example, the strategies of the Jesuit institutions - they were cliente of the impossibility of suppression of the friendship, them they had tried then to use the paper that had the sex, the love, the friendship and to limit them. We would have now, after studying the history of the sexuality, trying to understand the history of the friendship. It is an extremely interesting history. 
&lt;br/&gt;E one of my hypotheses - which would not present, if I tried to prove it, no difficulty - he is that the homosexualidad (for that I understand the existence of sexual relations between men), becomes a problem from séc. XIX. We see it to become a problem with the policy, with the legal system. I think that if it became a problem, a social problem, at this time, is because the friendship disappeared. While the friendship represented something of important, while it was socially accepted, was not important that the men kept between them sexual relations. If it cannot simply say that they did not have them, but that they did not have importance. This did not have no social implication, the things was culturally accepted. That they made love or that they hugged themselves did not have the lesser importance. Absolutely none. A disappeared time the friendship while culturally accepted relation, the question is placed: "what they make, then, two together men" At this moment the problem appeared. In our days, when the men make love or have sexual relations, this is perceived as a problem. I think on this, that the disappearence of the friendship while social relation and the fact of the homossexualidade to be declared as social problem, politician and doctor are part of the same process. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- what he matters today is to explore the new possibilities of the friendship, she is herself necessary to emphasize that in a wide direction, all the social institutions are made to favor the friendships and the friendships and the structures heterosexuals, with the disdain to the friendships and structures homosexuals. The true work is not to restore new social relations, new models of values, new familiar structures etc.? All the structures and the institutions that walk together with the momogamy and the traditional family are one of the things that the homosexuals access does not have easily. That type of institutions we must start to restore with the purpose to not only defend us, but also to create new social forms that will constitute a solution accomplishes? 
&lt;br/&gt;- Which institutions? I do not have a necessary idea. Clearly, I think that he is total contradictory to apply for this end and this type of friendship the model of the familiar life or the institutions that walk together with the family. But it is truth that, in function of some relations that exist in the society are protecting forms of familiar life, if it evidences that some variants are not proteges, are at the same time, richer, more interesting and more creative of the one than these relations. But, of course, they are also well more fragile and vulnerable. The question to know which types of institutions we must create is a capital question, but I cannot bring the reply. Our work, I think, I am to try to elaborate a solution. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;- Where measured we want or we have necessity of that the project of release of the homosexuals is a project that, far of if to content in considering a passage, intends to open ways? Said de.outra.forma, its conception of sexual politics refuses the necessity of a program to be followed, in function to praise the experimentation of new types of relation? 
&lt;br/&gt;- I think that one of the great constatations that we have made since the First War she is this of the failure of all the social programs and politicians. We perceive that the things are not never produced as the programs politicians want to describe; e that the programs are always, or almost always, lead either the abuses, either to a domination politics on the part of a group, wants is technician, bureaucrats or others. But one of the accomplishments of the Sixties and seventy - that I consider as beneficial accomplishments - is that certain institucional models have been tried without programs. Without program it does not want to say blind person - while thought blindness. In France, for example, in the last times, if it has criticized sufficiently the fact of that the different movements politicians in favor of the sexual freedom, the arrests, the ecology, etc., do not have a program. But, I think, not to have program can be at the same time, very useful, original and very very creative, if this does not want to say not to have real reflection on what it happens or not to be worried about what is impossible. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;[Michel Foucault, joins interview: sexe, to pouvoir et la politique of la identité, with B. Gallagher and Wilson, Toronto, June of 1982). The Advocate, n. 400, 7 of August of 1984, pp. 26-30 and 58. This interview was destined to the Canadian magazine Body Politic. 
&lt;br/&gt;v Translated from FOUCAULT, Michel. Dits et Écris. Paris: Gallimard, 1994, pp. 735-746, for Wanderson Flower of the Birth.]
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Full interview in Spanish at: www.hartza.com/fuckault.htm&lt;/div&gt;
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			- 0 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 13 Mar 2004 16:07:18 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/6235c71b-ca8e-40cc-8b08-3d0d3733a654</guid>
      <dc:creator>rizomas</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-03-13T16:07:18Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>a kinda crazy idea...</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7cd4bdd2-987a-4529-b085-7d45c9b7cc45</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;i was thinking the other day on the fact that many insurance companies will cover hormone therapy and sex-change operations for transsexuals (under the rather skewed premise that transsexualism is a psychological disorder) and considering if i might try to present to them a request that they cover operations for transhumans as well (even if under the same skewed premise).  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Any thoughts?  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;All I've come up with so far is that we should all start seeing therapists and getting diagnosed...&lt;/div&gt;
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			- 14 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Mar 2004 16:49:28 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/7cd4bdd2-987a-4529-b085-7d45c9b7cc45</guid>
      <dc:creator>mitx</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-03-05T16:49:28Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>robotic exoskeleton enhances human strength and endurance</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/5aeb26dd-dfc1-48d2-9cce-73e5278842a2</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;"The mere thought of hauling a 70-pound pack across miles of rugged terrain or up 50 flights of stairs is enough to evoke a grimace in even the burliest individuals. But breakthrough robotics research at the University of California, Berkeley, could soon bring welcome relief — a self-powered exoskeleton to effectively take the load off people's backs."
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I just came across this, but don't have the time to read it all now. I could just bookmark it, but I thought, why not give the link to my fellow radical cyborgs as well?
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.scienceblog.com/community/article2402.html
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Discuss ;-)&lt;/div&gt;
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			- 3 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Mar 2004 17:29:43 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/5aeb26dd-dfc1-48d2-9cce-73e5278842a2</guid>
      <dc:creator>nex</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-03-06T17:29:43Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>Silicon vs Biological</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/56b3a22a-1826-4ff6-a12d-baccf6d7fbd4</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;I've been pondering the notion of cyborg, and how it is typically visualized.  Cyborgs as depicted in movies/books tend to have screens over their eyes, data slots in the back of their skulls, machine guns in their arms and silicon computers in their brains, etc.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;So that's version 1 of the post-human - computer attached to human.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Version 2 is something I've seen more of recently and involves changing the human body through biological means.  In these scenarios your body can last a long time without eating, or becomes immune to viruses or more intelligent, simply by being born with a gene-altered body.  I'm currently reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.  She's got a post-apocalyptic scenario where humans have be re-designed.  They have their legs turn blue when they're ready to mate like baboons.  They have their sex drive genetically manipulated to result in less jealousy and rape.  They have their stomachs altered to be able to process grass and bark, and are vegetarians.  Their urine is designed to have chemicals that ward off predators.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;And then perhaps, is the middle-ground of nanotechnology.  Where you still have machines running around in you, but they're so small you can't see them.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Is the notion of the computer-attached-to-human dying out in favor of the other technologies?  Perhaps silicon will be an outdated medium for constructing technology by the time we really get around to augmenting ourselves?&lt;/div&gt;
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			- 9 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 01 Mar 2004 11:02:59 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/56b3a22a-1826-4ff6-a12d-baccf6d7fbd4</guid>
      <dc:creator>Jaffa</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-03-01T11:02:59Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>Reflections on sensory experimentation</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/947f60ae-745d-497d-86d8-3b351f620ddf</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Sensory Experimentation Somatosensory Extension
&lt;br/&gt;Reflections by Todd M Huffman 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Some time ago I was involved with a project involving cochlear implant patients. If you are not aware of cochlear implants, they are a medical device that bypasses damaged structures in the inner ear that directly stimulate the auditory nerve, allowing some deaf individuals to learn to hear and interpret sounds and speech. During my time on the project I became fascinated with sensory experience, specifically the ability to gain a completely new sense. Similar research is being performed in the visual system, bypassing a defective eye and allowing the blind to see. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Extending the sensory experience is not a new endeavor; it is done with night vision goggles, hearing aids, binoculars and so on. Yet there is something fundamentally different between a hearing aid and a cochlear implant, the hearing aid is conceived as separate from the body, whereas the implant becomes part of the person both physically and conceptually. An implant also stimulates the senses in ways an exogenous artifact cannot, the stimulus from an implant is perceived as a ‘natural’ extension, rather than by artifact. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Fortunately I possess all of my natural sensory abilities; I am not a candidate for cochlear or visual implants. Also direct neural manipulation, while not outside the bounds of physical law, is simply not an option for me at this time. As an intermediate step in sensory experimentation I have added an implant to extend my somatosensory capabilities, a magnet underneath the pad of one of my fingers. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The magnet is neodymium, coated in gold and then encased in implant grade silicon. It is a cylinder 1/32nd of an inch in diameter and 1/16th of an inch long. It was surgically implanted in the subcutaneous layer of the distal pad of my left ring finger. After a week the site completely healed without complications. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I am now able to perceive magnetic fields in ways not naturally possible. The sensation is different than holding a magnet, as the neurons are stimulated with a higher resolution. With the implant I can detect subtle changes in polarity and strength that I cannot when equipped with a magnet in the conventional manner. Yet the most significant observations have come from another property of implants, their relative permanence to exogenous artifacts. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Being able to perceive magnetic fields has expanded my conscious perception of magnetic fields ‘in the wild’. In one sensory incident, I was walking out of the library, and I sensed the inductive anti-theft device. I have walked in and out of dozens of libraries hundreds of times, and never once have I thought about the magnetic fields passed through me to prevent me from stealing a book. I have been intellectually aware of the mechanism, but never paid attention until now. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Another time I opened a can of cat food for my girlfriend’s pets, and I sensed the electric motor running. My hand was about six inches away from the electric can opener, and I was able to sense where the motor was inside of the assembly. Again it brought my attention to a magnetic source that I understood intellectually, but would have otherwise been unaware of. I feel I am one step closer to fully grokking the reality I inhabit. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I have not yet used my newly gained sense for anything significantly useful, but that is not the point. My desire was to expand the way I think about my current senses. The experience of my implant is not nearly as rich as my visual or auditory sensation, but nevertheless after a week it has dramatically changed the way I think about my daily sensory experience. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;A small magnet embedded in a finger may seem like a trivial exercise. I find it difficult to explain the significance, somewhat akin to trying to explain to a blind person what it is to see. The problem isn’t defining the technical characteristics of the visual system, but one of trying to convey what conscious perception of certain wave frequencies does to the way a person conceptualizes the world. In modifying my body I have ever so slightly altered the way I organize the world in my mind. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I eagerly await the day in which I can integrate more elaborate senses into myself. With every passing minute I try to see radiant heat, hear radio waves, and think the thoughts of those that pass by. And by better understanding what I cannot feel, I can fully appreciate what I have now. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;------
&lt;br/&gt;This is posted at www.vim-vigor.net/implant.html
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;For pictures of the magnets and the procedure, www.vim-vigor.net/implant.html&lt;/div&gt;
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			- 42 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sun, 01 Feb 2004 01:09:20 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/947f60ae-745d-497d-86d8-3b351f620ddf</guid>
      <dc:creator>oddboy</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-02-01T01:09:20Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>rat muscles for bots</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/9627fcf0-f35d-40ef-bf48-f6a9092355c3</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;'Musclebots' Are Coming
&lt;br/&gt;According to an article to be published by New Scientist on February 28, First robot moved by muscle power, a microrobot half the width of a human hair has been powered by living rat heart muscle. "It is the first time muscle tissue has been used to propel a micromachine." 
&lt;br/&gt; 
&lt;br/&gt;http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2004/02/26.html
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;the line between 'artifical' and 'natural' is rapidly disappearing - if indeed it ever existed.&lt;/div&gt;
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			- 0 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 28 Feb 2004 08:54:30 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/9627fcf0-f35d-40ef-bf48-f6a9092355c3</guid>
      <dc:creator>Jaffa</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-02-28T08:54:30Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>Cyborg 101: cult classic by Angus Wong online</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/a74d6edb-8d11-4195-82d6-d9c4e58644ac</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;Cyborg 101
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The Warrior's Guide to the Blackboard Jungle. Online book 
&lt;br/&gt;by Angus T.K. Wong.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;With the recent release of Terminator 3, we went back in time to retrieve this cult classic by Angus Wong. Unfortunately his original site has vanished. Some of the information is dated, but overall it stands as an inspiring journal of an intrepid explorer. It is too unique to let fade into the pixel dust of cyber-history so we've reproduced what we could, without modification; all rights are retained by Angus. 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Introduction
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 1
&lt;br/&gt;Making of a Cyborg
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;How it all began and why 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;shell shock / a personal quest / the secret to success / a critical difference / intrinsic motivation / paradigms and the world view / on becoming a cyborg 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 2
&lt;br/&gt;A Better War Machine
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Basic cyborg know-how 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;preliminary mission briefing / the art of war / maxok / enemy anniliation / the effects of synergy / concentration of power / some time travelling / feeling guilty and regrets in life / a summary 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 3
&lt;br/&gt;Cybernetic RAM Upgrade
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Tactical advantages through enhanced memory capacity 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;the ultimate weapon / sequential access / basic memory principles / random access / using weird stories / memorizing speeches or presentations / remembering people¹s faces / the best-kept secret to aceing exams 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 4
&lt;br/&gt;Operating System
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Debugging your environment 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;the power of organization / establishing the HQ / cleaning up your room / primary defense systems / minimizing multi-tasking in your life / worries and other useless thoughts / getting down to studying / cybernetic energy levels / sleep and brainwaves / internal clocks / the siesta / polyphasic sleep / Leonardo da Vinci¹s big secret / the CyberSleep method / the anchor method / the core method / induction of sleep / the organic connection / amazing facts about nutrition / exercise and the cyborg soldier / rebounding / rollerblading 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 5
&lt;br/&gt;Hardware
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Towards the winning edge 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;our personal assistants / the mighty organizers / keeping track of your life / the micro-cassette recorders / maximizing creativity / turn unproductive time around / the desk environment / orthopedic supports / lighting effects / putting personal computers to real use / buying a computer system / floppy disks / backing-up / finding support 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 6
&lt;br/&gt;Input/Output
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Your dialogue with the world 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;a brain age / the cyberspace / intelligence acquisition / putting modems to work / online services / communicating with the world / bulletin board systems / researching books / finding periodical articles / where no-one has gone before / using databases / consolidating information / writing the paper / prioritization and structure / presentations / the mother of all battles / teacher rapport / knowing the enemy / other friends and foes 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 7
&lt;br/&gt;The Battlefield
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Cybernetic military strategy and applications 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;the master plan / short term goals / the grandmaster of war / the thirty-six stratagems of Ancient China / the art of cyborg war / the highest of them all / know thy enemy / throwing bricks / a house on fire / the tragedy of the commons / sheep¹s clothing / interdependency / the Star Trek transporter/ beyond the stratagems / recharging / the shortest path / the best defense / commitment to battle / the ultimate resource / the mind of the strategist 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 8
&lt;br/&gt;Video Acceleration
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;How to read at warp speed 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;speed limits / why you read slowly / basic concepts to rapid reading/ breaking the sound barrier / the CyberRead method / higher effectiveness / scanning books / vision training / greased lightning 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 9
&lt;br/&gt;The New Edge
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Further enhancements 
&lt;br/&gt;a big controversy / how nootropics work / smart nutrients / the mighty vitamins / ginko biloba / gotu kola / coffee and cigarettes / chlorella / other smart nutrients / biochemical effects revisited / smart drugs / piracetam / hydergine / vincamine / vasopressin / the bottom line / redesigning the self / the subconscious / conditioned responses / modifying our programming / subliminals / mind machines 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Chapter 10
&lt;br/&gt;Epilogue
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Epilogue 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;endgames / the unification of the world / lamentations and responsibilites / roads ahead / the secret of true invincibility 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Appendix A
&lt;br/&gt;Bugs in the System
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The failure of modern education 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;a serious problem / student apathy / the classroom sweatshop / archaic technologies / a failure to update / subversive computers / the paradigm of the cyborg / how this book fits in / a bit of psychology / learned helplessness / the future of education / a call to arms 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Appendix B
&lt;br/&gt;Sources
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Appendix X
&lt;br/&gt;Documentary Evidence
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.grasshopper.com/cyborg101.htm&lt;/div&gt;
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			- 5 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 07 Feb 2004 19:30:34 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/a74d6edb-8d11-4195-82d6-d9c4e58644ac</guid>
      <dc:creator>rizomas</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-02-07T19:30:34Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>human testing</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/a12a0a95-0aaa-47c1-9d2f-f5262b1a6795</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;I mentioned this in another tribe, but it wasn't very productive. Surely everyone here is familiar with this study?
&lt;br/&gt;http://www.nicolelislab.net/NLNet/Load/Abstracts/ab2003_learning.pdf
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;The technology is here. It works. Human testing is the obvious next step. All that would be needed is willing subjects... such as myself. What are the obstacles, be they social, legal, moral, whatever? How long until it's likely to happen? And when it does, how can I get in on it?&lt;/div&gt;
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			- 2 replies
		&lt;/div&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2004 22:23:06 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/a12a0a95-0aaa-47c1-9d2f-f5262b1a6795</guid>
      <dc:creator>StFiend</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2004-02-06T22:23:06Z</dc:date>
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    <item>
      <title>Singularitarianism</title>
      <link>http://radicalcyborg.tribe.net/thread/e5729bba-8fd3-40fd-a241-8cecd49a019d</link>
      <description>&lt;div&gt;I've been meaning to respond to Michael's very interesting and constructive post on "singularitarianism" for quite a while, but I've been really distracted with other writing commitments (my damnable dissertation!) -- so, sorry if this seems like too little too late.  I've started a new topic heading to discuss this, since the interesting question of "radicalism" is separate from, though related to, the question of "singularitarianism." (The word "radical" -- if such things interest you -- initially meant "fundamental," was extended into political affairs in the late eighteenth century, almost exclusively to describe movements for the progressive reform of capitalist social relations, and only in the twentieth century came to mean something like a desire for "total revolution," which seems to be the unfortunate default usage under the other topic heading.)  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Now, a few points from Michael's excellent and interesting post:
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;"I think it's unfortunate,” he writes, “that this controversial branch of transhumanism [singularitarianism] must be labelled "religious" by those who would rather not have it around. This is especially shocking considering that one of the founders of the World Transhumanist Association, Nick Bostrom (with more academic accomplishments than anyone else present) is a Singularitarian. I've been spending the last few years trying very carefully to determine *what exactly* is responsible for this widespread kneejerk revulsion to Singularity-oriented thinking, and I've got a few ideas, but for the most part I remain confused!" 
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Michael appears to worry that those of us who see in *some* versions of singularitarianism a quasi-religious character are simply *smearing* singularitarianism, or that our opposition to it on such grounds is ultimately unconsidered (ie, “kneejerk”).  That may be true of some people who make this move, but surely not all?  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;I have often heard people describe the "singularity" as an impending apocalyptic event, one in which they have faith but few reasons that it will arrive within their lifetimes, that they desire its coming to pass "come what may," that they await it passively, finding it inevitable, rather than working to bring about through their own effort, research, or activism.  Michael, can you honestly tell me you have not heard such things yourself?  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;It seems obvious that these attitudes and behaviors can be discussed in analogy to certain religious beliefs and behaviors.  Michael's own version seems to me to be less vulnerable to these charges, but precisely because this is so it seems he should be just as concerned as singularity-skeptics are about the *versions* of singularitarianism that are less productive and reasonable than his own.  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Also, while it is true that I am an atheist myself, the fact is nobody should simply assume that just because I compare a phenomenon to religion I mean thereby to malign it.  I have a deep respect for many forms of religious and spiritual practice, even if they have no place in my personal life.  Let a million flowers bloom, I always say!  My belief is that the triumph of secular civilization is that it makes possible the co-existence of many forms of life, spiritual and materialist alike.  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;But my tolerance and even celebration of those who follow different paths from my own certainly does not require me to deny I believe what I believe, to refrain from sharing the reasons for which I believe as I do, and to draw connections between practices and consequences where I see them.  People are free to do what they will with what I choose to share with them.  Conversation is a way of getting along – but conversation is more than a monologue, after all.
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;Haven't Max More and Anders Sandberg and Tim May, among other very "prominent" transhuman intellectuals and fellow-travelers, also pointed out that *some* versions of singularitarianism look quite a bit like religions?  If it really is true that Nick Bostrom is a singularitarian, this hardly suggests that it is "shocking" that not all transhumanist-types agree with him on this question.  As you say, singularitarianism is controversial.  
&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;If you are honestly confused about why some people are skeptical about singularitarianism may I recommend the Whole Earth Review issue (111) on the Singularity?  Jaron Lanier and Bruce Sterling, among others, address the question in a very provocative and useful way.  I think this url will take you there: http://www.wholeearthmag.com/
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&lt;br/&gt;You go on to say:
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&lt;br/&gt;"The Singularitarian platform is pretty straightforward and simple: 
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&lt;br/&gt;1. Humans are not at the theoretical maximum of intelligence and compassion. 
&lt;br/&gt;2. Transhumans can be smarter and kinder than humans are. 
&lt;br/&gt;3. Once transhuman intelligence comes into being, we can safely predict that recursive self-improvement will carry it to superintelligence in a relatively short time, making the stakes very large. 
&lt;br/&gt;4. If the first transhuman intelligence is kind, that could be very very good. If the first transhuman intelligence is not kind, that could be really really bad. 
&lt;br/&gt;5. Why not be prudent and try to make the first transhuman intelligence a kind and volition-respecting one, since it could easily ruin all our previous accomplishments if it isn't, and our first step into transhumanity could very well characterize the rest of the journey?"
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&lt;br/&gt;I think Cosmo makes a very important point when he says that your version of "The Singularitarian Platform" seems conspicuously more moderate than almost any other version I have ever seen.  For the record, I agree personally with all five of your points here, but I remain a pretty conspicuous on-the-record anti-singularitarian nonetheless.  
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&lt;br/&gt;Three key points you do not mention in your Domesticated Singularitarian Platform (hereafter "DSP") are these:
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&lt;br/&gt;[ONE: The Singularity as Singular Event]
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&lt;br/&gt;We can agree that developmental trajectories imply a radical technological transformation is in the works in the future, and quite possibly within the lifetimes of billions now living -- and yet we should distinguish between those who assume that these developmental curves suggest necessarily that there will be a sudden and totalizing Event in which sweeping transformations of an unprecedented nature will occur.  
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&lt;br/&gt;This issue is often discussed under the terms of a debate about the inevitability (or not) of a "hard take-off singularity."  
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&lt;br/&gt;Vernor Vinge himself seems to assume a "singularity" will have this sweeping hard take-off character (indeed, it's kinda sorta built in to the term/metaphor itself, isn't it?) in this phrasing from his classic essay on the topic (reprinted, btw, in the WER issue I mentioned above), where he characterizes the singularity as "a throwing-away of all the human rules, perhaps in the blink of an eye -- an exponential runaway beyond any hope of control."
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&lt;br/&gt;For myself, in general terms, I think of the singularity as (at best) a useful methodological fiction defining the limits of foresight in the face of techno-cultural transformation -- an ideal limit, not an actual instant at which we could somehow arrive -- where transformation is so widespread or totalizing that we cannot describe outcomes as either positive or negative because we have lost every frame of reference on the basis of which to make that assignment. I think it is useful to specify such a limit because it reminds us that straightforward extrapolation will rarely yield predictive successes, and ever less so with the passage of time so long as technological trends continue. But it is also useful to insist that the limit case is ideal rather than real, since the whole point of such an idea is surely to spur greater rigor and foresight and care in the face of these transformations, rather than panic or passivity.
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&lt;br/&gt;I will note, for the record, that Eliezer Yudkowsky's more recent formulations of the singularity idea seem less about exponential development and more about the imp