EDITORIAL

This issue continues our inexorable advance on several fronts: #10 is larger than ever, with 48 densely packed pages (and would have been 56 pages if not for cuts forced by escalating costs). Color enlivens the cover for the first time. Distribution, both in the USA and internationally, has grown greatly since last issue: 2,500 copies are being printed and distributed all over the planet. This external growth accompanies an influx of new writers with a talent for intelligent, radical, and clear expression.

Rapidly growing circulation and production quality immediately increased costs unmatched by short-term income gains, forcing us to trim the issue down from the original monster. Two items postponed until next issue are economist Julian Simon’s analysis of how environmentalist Cassandras falsely alarm people regarding population and resources, and my review of Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns.

In this issue, David Krieger conducts the first in a series of interviews with leading transhumanist thinkers and researchers. David’s first subject is Mark Miller, a software developer working on the fabled Xanadu hypertext project. Mature hypertext will vastly increase the interconnectedness of information, allowing us to uncover knowledge and opinion with far greater selectivity, productivity, and ease.

Master roboticist Hans Moravec returns with a sweeping look at our future expansion into cyberspace and physical space. Hal Finney’s excellent introduction to electronic cash and public key cryptography reveals a powerful means of protecting our privacy while facilitating remote market transactions. A “cypherpunks” group has formed in Northern California to discuss and develop these techniques.

“Technological self-transformation” continues my development of the Extropian philosophy. J. Storrs Hall, moderator of the Internet newsgroup sci.nanotech, provides an illuminating introduction to the design and potential of nanocomputers – molecular-scale computers orders of magnitude smaller and faster than our current computing devices. He also reviews Drexler’s long-awaited technical tome Nanosystems.

In “Beyond the poor man’s Extropianism,” Mark Plus reviews two recent books on Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, examining the extent to which Rand’s intellectual descen-

MISSING CREDITS: In a grievous oversight, resulting from last-minute haste, I omitted to credit Extropy Institute director Tom Morrow for producing the new five-arrow spiral Extropy emblem gracing the cover of Extropy #9. Tom also designed the ExI logo. My thanks and apologies to Tom.

dents have succeeded in building her ideas into a philosophy of life fit for today and tomorrow. Harry Shapiro reviews Gleick’s book on the unconventional genius, Richard Feynman.

The spread of Extropian ideas is bursting beyond the confines of these pages: Apart from several e-mail lists spawned by Extropians, a growing number of reporters are calling ExI for our unique input on stories regarding advanced technologies and the future. On January 27 I will appear on Breakthroughs: A TransCentury Update – a public access cable-TV show in Los Angeles – explaining the Extropian worldview for thirty minutes to a potential audience of 120,000. We may also be mentioned soon in Time, and in a London newspaper. This exposure should attract new readers to Extropy, and bring new members into Extropy Institute, helping to ensure our sustained and expanded activity. If all goes well, Extropy may move to three or four issues per year in 1994.

Max More

Editor

NEXT ISSUE: Extropy #11, is due to be mailed on July 15 1993. Likely features include:

• A memetic analysis of the spread of Extropian ideas.
• The construction and politics of ocean habitats for experimental living.
• Artificial languages and increased rationality.
• How to upload consciousness to a computer.
• Part II of the Mark Miller interview.
• Space colonization – future space launch and habitation systems.
• An article on “fuzzy logic” by its foremost proponent.
• Economist Julian Simon’s “Bunkrapt: The Abstractions that Lead to Scares About Resources and Population Growth.”
• Plus other possible articles, and the usual detailed reviews in The Transhuman Taste.

In the months before Extropy #11 is published, more Extropian reading will appear in issues 4, 5, and 6 of the Extropy Institute newsletter, Exponent. See p.38 for more information.

EXTROPY — a measure of intelligence, information, energy, life, experience, diversity, opportunity and growth. Extropianism is the philosophy that seeks to increase extropy. The Extropian Principles are: (1) Boundless Expansion; (2) Self-Transformation; (3) Intelligent Technology; (4) Spontaneous Order; (5) Dynamic Optimism. [See Extropy #9]

TRANSHUMANISM — Philosophies of life [such as Extropianism] that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values, while rejecting dogma and religion. [See Extropy #6]

EXTROPY #10 Winter/Spring 1993

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