From: owner-associates-digest@lists.xmission.com (associates-digest) To: associates-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: associates-digest V1 #16 Reply-To: associates-digest Sender: owner-associates-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-associates-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk associates-digest Friday, October 20 2000 Volume 01 : Number 016 Re: (associates) Senior Associates mailing list on death's door Re: (associates) Senior Associates mailing list on death's door Re: (associates) Senior Associates mailing list on death's door (associates) Suggestion for getting the word out Re: (associates) Suggestion for getting the word out Re: (associates) Suggestion for getting the word out (associates) Guardian, Commercial and Idealist Ethical Syndromes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 21:52:32 -0700 From: "Jack Powers" Subject: Re: (associates) Senior Associates mailing list on death's door Rich- Maybe I'm just an old fart, but I agree. Maybe some journalist will try to explain why technology whizzed by us. For me, text=ideas, I haven't found time to experience ideas in new clothes. I was hoping this list would blossom, but it has been disappointing so far. Jack Powers - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rich Thomson" To: Cc: "Chris Peterson" Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 12:26 PM Subject: (associates) Senior Associates mailing list on death's door > > Hi, > > The Senior Associates mailing list that I created here at xmission > will soon close, unless people start actively using it. > > This list never really took off because Foresight never really > bothered to tell anyone about the list and the few people who did know > about it never really started any discussions here. > > Its rather disappointing to me personally that Foresight chose to > put so much energy into things like "palace chat" and so-on rather > than pursue the main "internet killer app" format of a mailing list. > Perhaps I'm just a technology laggard, but things like crit and > nanodot just don't spark as much interest in me as a relatively "low > tech" mailing list. Its very trendy tehse days to webify all > possible interaction with the computer, but this isn't necessarily a > good thing. > > My intent in creating this mailing list was to provide a forum where > SAs could discuss nanotechnology issues in a dufus-free forum (i.e. > we wouldn't have to spend lots of energies explaining why nanotech is > feasible and/or probable in the near future). Public forums on > nanotech always seem to suffer from the dufus factor and it was my > additional hope that this forum would allow for cogent discussions > among SAs themselves before/after group meetings and so-on. > > However, this list can't go anywhere if Foresight isn't interested in > telling Senior Associates about its existence -- I don't have a list > of all the SAs mail addresses in order to tell them myself. AFAIK it > hasn't ever been mentioned in any of Eric's letters to SAs nor is it > ever mentioned at any of the gatherings or on any of Foresight's > literature sent to SAs. That pretty much guarantees that noone will > use it since they remain ignorant of its existence. > > So unless those few of you who are on this list start using it as a > forum for discussion among SAs, I will close this list in the next few > weeks. > > -- Rich > > > - > To unsubscribe from associates, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" > with "unsubscribe associates" in the body of the message. > For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send > "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. > - - To unsubscribe from associates, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe associates" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 11:24:27 EDT From: Maxts@aol.com Subject: Re: (associates) Senior Associates mailing list on death's door Hi Rich: Yeah, this is a sad thing. Personally, I tried to get onto the email list some weeks ago with no luck. As I recall, I sent a note saying that I wasn't receiving any posts. I assumed I had done something incorrectly. I'm not sure what the "dufus factor" is, but I wouldn't be surprised if I qualify as one of the dufuses (dufi?). I have no background in programming or even a secondary education, but I've read extensively in nanotech litrature and I had hoped that as an interested layman I could provide a different perspective. I can't understand why a forum such as this didn't take off. Anyway, I'm still here and still interested in case something comes of it. Thanx for the note. Randy Means Sunnyvale, CA 408/ 732-9951 - - To unsubscribe from associates, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe associates" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 09:44:27 -0600 From: Rich Thomson Subject: Re: (associates) Senior Associates mailing list on death's door In article <3f.b84115b.271f1aab@aol.com>, Maxts@aol.com writes: > [...] I'm not > sure what the "dufus factor" is, but I wouldn't be surprised if I qualify as > one of the dufuses (dufi?). If you're a senior associate then you're interested enough in nanotech to not qualify as a dufus ;-). By "dufus factor" I was referring to the kinds of nonsense arguments that say nanotech is physically impossible -- the kinds of arguments that caused Drexler to write Nanosystems. An example of someone I'd lump into the dufus category would be someone like Jeremy Rifkin who manages to write an entire book predicting doom and gloom for the earth and its ecosystems because he doesn't understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics and he treats the earth as a closed system. > I have no background in programming or even a > secondary education, but I've read extensively in nanotech litrature and I > had hoped that as an interested layman I could provide a different > perspective. I'm not an ivory tower academic and I believe that every human being could contribute usefully to the debate. Just because they could doesn't mean that they will, of course. There are people who are very well educated and intelligent yet still propose absolutely naive solutions -- Bill Joy is the most recent high-profile example. > I can't understand why a forum such as this didn't take off. My personal view is that competing "cool" pet projects at Foresight kept something as mundane as a mailing list from being pursued. Internet mail isn't "cool" or "sexy" or one of the latest round of technologies that the hype machine has latched onto and is promoting as if it were the best thing since sliced bread. However, mail is the ubiquitous internet "killer app" that people often cite as the single application of the network from which they derive the most value. Sure, its nice to have all kinds of information at your fingertips via the web, but while libraries of information are nice -- direct communication with other human beings is always better. > Anyway, I'm still here and still interested in case something comes of it. Perhaps my "do or die" challenge will result in something more than a metadiscussion of the list's death ;-). I can't make people use this list and I can't make them talk about nanotech here and those who know me personally realize that even if I could "make" people do these things that I wouldn't exercise that power anyway. -- Rich - - To unsubscribe from associates, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe associates" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 23:03:27 -0500 From: "Steven C. Vetter" Subject: (associates) Suggestion for getting the word out Rich, How about posting an announcement and invite in Nanodot? Many people read multiple media / forums and may see the utility of having more than one venue for discussion. As a tip, I would stay away from bashing other forums, and just politely state the unique values of an email listserv. Steve Steven C. Vetter President Molecular Manufacturing Enterprises, Inc. 9653 Wellington Lane Saint Paul, MN 55125 - - To unsubscribe from associates, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe associates" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 10:20:17 -0600 From: Rich Thomson Subject: Re: (associates) Suggestion for getting the word out In article , "Steven C. Vetter" writes: > How about posting an announcement and invite in Nanodot? Because Nanodot is a public forum, not senior associates. I'm not interested in maintaining a list for public nanotechnology discussion. There's already sci.nanotech and other publicly available nanotechnology discussion lists. My original purpose in starting this list was to have a forum for Foresight SAs to discuss nanotech and act as a "virtual gathering place" between the physical gatherings. The discussion between SAs that takes place at a physical gathering has always been the best part of a gaterhing and my hope was to extend that atmosphere online. Obviously this can't take place without Foresight's support, which never came for whatever reason. > As a tip, I would stay away from bashing other forums, and just politely > state the unique values of an email listserv. Technologies, organizations, and people have positive and negative aspects. I do not believe that the future is best served by only mentioning the positive ones. This is also at the core of Foresight's goals: they don't *only* talk about the positive benefits of nanotech, but feel it is just as important to discuss the negatives. Miss Manners may say that it is best to only talk about the positives, but the end result is that the negatives remain unknown to many people. I'd rather have a negative honest evaluation of myself, or any of my works than a polite whitewashing that leaves me in a self-deluded state of perfection. - - To unsubscribe from associates, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe associates" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 10:20:17 -0600 From: Rich Thomson Subject: Re: (associates) Suggestion for getting the word out In article , "Steven C. Vetter" writes: > How about posting an announcement and invite in Nanodot? Because Nanodot is a public forum, not senior associates. I'm not interested in maintaining a list for public nanotechnology discussion. There's already sci.nanotech and other publicly available nanotechnology discussion lists. My original purpose in starting this list was to have a forum for Foresight SAs to discuss nanotech and act as a "virtual gathering place" between the physical gatherings. The discussion between SAs that takes place at a physical gathering has always been the best part of a gaterhing and my hope was to extend that atmosphere online. Obviously this can't take place without Foresight's support, which never came for whatever reason. > As a tip, I would stay away from bashing other forums, and just politely > state the unique values of an email listserv. Technologies, organizations, and people have positive and negative aspects. I do not believe that the future is best served by only mentioning the positive ones. This is also at the core of Foresight's goals: they don't *only* talk about the positive benefits of nanotech, but feel it is just as important to discuss the negatives. Miss Manners may say that it is best to only talk about the positives, but the end result is that the negatives remain unknown to many people. I'd rather have a negative honest evaluation of myself, or any of my works than a polite whitewashing that leaves me in a self-deluded state of perfection. - - To unsubscribe from associates, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe associates" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 16:35:31 -0500 From: "Pat Gratton" Subject: (associates) Guardian, Commercial and Idealist Ethical Syndromes Well, since Rich is encouraging people to use this list, I'll go ahead and send out a message on it. I tend to think that this message would be better suited to a Foresight Senior Associates lists than to Nanodot, but Nanodot is better publicized, so I am also posting to it (though it make take it a while to appear - and it's a bit more sociological/ethical than usually appears on Nanodot, so it might be rejected for editorial reasons). The first two ethical syndromes listed in the subject are described in "Systems of Survival" by Jane Jacobs. The third syndrome is my own contribution (though it is strongly inspired by the description of Open-Source/Hacker culture described by Eric Raymond in "Homesteading the Noosphere".) I argue that Jacobs missed a third syndrome, which I call the Idealist Syndrome: http://www.grist.org/articles/00.10.19_Idealist_Syndrome.html I use the categorization of these three syndromes to characterize members of organizations interested in transformational technologies: http://www.grist.org/articles/00.10.19_Transtech_Ethical_Syndromes.html I welcome comments and suggestions regarding either of these two papers. If you're not familiar with Systems of Survival, you can find the book here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679748164 and a brief summary and review here: http://www.grist.org/articles/00.10.19_Systems_of_Survival.html http://leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9312/glendon.html ..Pat - -- Pat Gratton, Ph.D., gratton@pobox.com - - To unsubscribe from associates, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe associates" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ End of associates-digest V1 #16 ******************************* - To unsubscribe from $LIST, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe $LIST" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message.