Extropy magazine archive, new mailing list Extropolis
I have been a proud and avid member of the Extropian community for more than two decades.
Recommended reading: “The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed By Rapidly Advancing Technologies” (2001), by Damien Broderick, one of the first and still one of the best books on the Singularity and all that.
See also my book [*]:
“The Extropians list has been my main source of intellectual fun for years, with awesome futuristic ideas, science, science fiction, and a radically simple philosophy of empowerment. I met many good friends through the list, and I am proud of being one of the Extropy alumni. It’s worth noting that many ideas that today are all over the mainstream press were first discussed on the list…”
The Extropians list is now called ExI-Chat. The official list archive at extropy.org starts in October 2003. A Github repository named Extropians, open to contributors, includes an Extropians list archive from 1996 to 2003. I maintain an archive of available scans of the late lamented Extropy print magazine in a subrepository.
The Extropy print magazine archive is now complete, but volunteers are needed for some more work. All issues of the magazine (1–17) are available as PDF scans, but some issues have not been OCRed. So the text in some issues is not searchable. If you have the know-how, OCR tools, and time, please join the Github project “Extropians” and volunteer to OCR the archive!
The ideal outcome of this project would be a freely downloadable EPUB ebook with all the issues of the Extropy magazine, easily readable and well-formatted, with images, ToC, index and all. But a PDF ebook with searchable text would be a good intermediate outcome that the world needs.
New mailing list Extropolis
A new mailing list called “Extropolis” was founded by a group of ExI-Chat (formerly Extropians) list members as an open forum to discuss all sorts of topics, including controversial topics. The group has only 2 rules, don’t be boring and don’t be stupid.
Replying to a thread aptly titled “You are all fucking assholes,” one of the founders described Extropolis as:
“It’s like ExI except where bad behavior is allowed: personal attacks, political campaigning, anything… it’s the rough country-western bar next to the nice restaurant and lounge.”
I hope Extropolis will recapture some of the radical and intense spirit of the early Extropians list.
Adults should be able to discuss and dissent clearly freely. These days this is out of fashion (temporarily I hope), but closed mailing lists like Extropolis are a step backward in the right direction.
About the name Extropolis:
“Most Extropians won’t really feel at home until we reach Extropolis: an artificial city floating far above Earth’s surface. As the trail-head for exploration of the solar system and beyond, Extropolis will place us on the verge of an infinity worthy of our expansive ambitions… (source: Tom Bell, Extropia: A Home For Our Hopes, Extropy #8. Note by the author: Max More deserves the credit for thinking up this apropos name.).”
See also:
“The playful mock-up of a future currency on the cover of [Extropy #15, see cover picture] was issued by the ‘Virtual Bank of Extropolis’ over the ‘Distributed Networks of Extropia,’ dated 2030 and denominated in ‘hayeks.’ Hayek himself appeared in the oval portrait, looking owlish and remote. On the reverse—where a US$5 features the Lincoln Memorial—Max More and T. O. Morrow appear, waving in sunglasses with the posture of rock stars doing a curtain call: their future’s so bright they need to wear shades… (source: Finn Brunton, ‘Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency’).”
[*] My book “Tales of the Turing Church: Hacking religion, enlightening science, awakening technology” is available for readers to buy on Amazon (Kindle | paperback).
Please buy my book, and/or donate to support other Turing Church projects.
Cover picture from Extropy #15.
