Overdue State of the TH/h+ Union
July 19th, 2008 by meawopplThere is an interesting current forming in otherwise largely stagnant TH/h+ community (th+?). It seems the WTA is making somewhat of a land grab to try and unify the whole bit. I have been privy to a good amount of the discussion between all those folks, and it is my general opinion that the lack of movement does not so much represent any lack of drive on the part of all the folks involved. While there is a large number of big thinkers and leaders out there (Bostrom, De Gray, Thiel, Kurzweil, Smart, etc), they have all made systematic departures from parts of the movement as a whole, and carved their own niches. Resultantly, their success does little to support local groups with a wide breadth of ideas.
Let's face it, a lot of the memes presented by the community are controversial and largely counter-current to religious, political, and arguably ethical norms of today's day and age. Whatever gains can be had by presenting yourself as a local leader, are nearly nullified by the fear of being misconstrued as in some way socially or intellectually deviant. I myself have frequently opted to leave my (admittedly limited) leadership experience in h+ off many an application and resume. It was a choice easier than facing the possibility that a potential employer sees the little h+, does some research, and draws conclusions that don't in any way truly represent the kernel of who I am and what I believe in. I am certain that I am not the only one with that fear. You may notice our previous leadership is largely undocumented at the request of the people involved. (To everyone who knows them and may not have been updated in a while as to their condition, they are well and active in their goals)
This practice of secrecy is fundamentally intellectually dishonest. I do not begrudge anyone who makes that choice, but no matter how you cut it you betray your own ideology. I see parallels in this practice with how many followers of less accepted belief systems "pass" as conforming to expectations. Study of race and ethnicity contain similar ideas of "passing", but the point I am trying to get to is the following:
Given the nature what we believe, it becomes hard to cultivate any sort of leadership, and thusly difficult to perpetuate the ideas and organizations that support them. Correspondingly, there remains a real leadership vacuum at many levels in the community as a whole.
I don't know if anyone really reads these blog posts, but I think that the WTA role in the whole movement ought to be consciousness raising. Working on mergers and groups is really just drawing a circle around a group of people who are already close anyway.
h+ is beautiful, and is a natural extension of love for the world. We need to be courageous about saying what we think and advertising the ideas we represent. With increased awareness and understanding of the ideas there will come a systematic decline in the social stigma associated there with.
So with that in mind, I want to set what I hope becomes an example to others. Here is what I believe about some of the h+ contemporary issues:
The h+ meme - We can do more. We can be more. The possibilities of the future grow every more numerous every day. The idea that we can be more than the sum of our parts is an idea I have seen forming in the minds of many unacquainted with the meme. We are already in peoples heads, they just don't have a name for it 
The Singularity - Having seen the process by which simple machines can be used to refine themselves with the application of human intelligence, gives me an incredible yearning to see what the future holds. Did you know that saw-mills scan incoming logs and apply complex algorithms to simultaneously minimize the cost of cutting, the wasted wood, and time? Its a computationally trivial task that saves _large_percentages of wood from being scraped and energy being wasted. This is happening in _every_ industry. The power of computers to impact the world around us is simply staggering and is growing. (I will write a whole post about this in the not to distant future)
Radical life extension - It is a good idea. Emphasis on idea. Arguably we have already accomplished this (look at the average neolithic life span), but the idea of entitlement to longer, healthier life spans is a good one. I think that SENS is doing good work in the right places, ditto to all the interesting biochemistry and medical research going on out there. I think the really radical thinkers are overly optimist about the speed at which it is happening, but correspondingly, the medical and biological community displays a similar magnitude of pessimism. It is my belief however that there are so many hurdles even over the horizon of our grasp I give it odds of 5:1 against within our lifetimes. Please don't let that discourage anyone! I myself like the idea that even if I don't beat the curve, that I will be helping those in the future toward that point.
Cryonics - Total BS (at the moment). I am sorry to all or any of you who think otherwise, but solidification/vitrification of geometrically and chemically simpler objects of _far_ lower sensitivity and information density (not to mention huge commercial relevance) remain unsolved problems. The concept is absolutely solid (every pun intended), but it is my belief that about 3 orders of magnitude more research would have to be poured into the problem before it would be in any way realistic.
AGI - It coming. Be nice to your hardware. See Singularity above.
So in conclusion, be courageous. I want to support this idea and spread this meme with all of my heart.
Lastly, don't let your fear decide how you act, your beliefs deserve better.
The world is beautiful place, and it deserves more h+.
-Matthew Goodman
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