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Since 1,988 and formation of the Posthuman Movement, and articles by early adopters like Max Moore were a sign our message was being received — although I always argued on various Extropian & Transhuman bulletin boards & Yahoo groups &c that “Trans” was a redundant middle and we should move straight to Posthuman, now armed with the new MVT knowledge (also figures on the CDR). There will be a new edition of World Philosophy, the first this millennium, to coincided with various Posthuman University events later this year. Here is the text:

THE EXTROPIAN PRINCIPLES V. 2.01 August 7 1992.

Max More Executive Director, Extropy Institute.

1. BOUNDLESS EXPANSION — Seeking more intelligence, wisdom, and.
personal power, an unlimited lifespan, and removal of natural, social.
biological, and psychological limits to self-actualization and self-realization. Overcoming limits on our personal and social.
progress and possibilities. Expansion into the universe and infinite existence.

2. SELF-TRANSFORMATION — A commitment to continual moral.
intellectual, and physical self-improvement, using reason and critical.
thinking, personal responsibility, and experimentation. Biological and.
neurological augmentation.

3. INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY — Applying science and technology to.
transcend “natural” limits imposed by our biological heritage and environment.

4. SPONTANEOUS ORDER — Promotion of decentralized, voluntaristic.
social coordination mechanisms. Fostering of tolerance, diversity.
long-term planning, individual incentives and personal liberties.

5. DYNAMIC OPTIMISM — Positive expectations to fuel dynamic action.
Promotion of a positive, empowering attitude towards our individual.
future and that of all intelligent beings. Rejection both of blind.
faith and stagnant pessimism.

These principles are further explicated below. In depth treatments can.
be found in various issues of EXTROPY: The Journal of Transhumanist.
Thought. (Spontaneous Order in #7, Dynamic Optimism in #8, and.
Self-Transformation in the forthcoming #10.)

1. BOUNDLESS EXPANSION
Beginning as mindless matter, parts of nature developed in a.
slow evolutionary advance which produced progressively more powerful brains. Chemical reactions generated tropistic behavior, which was.
superseded by instinctual and Skinnerian stimulus-response behavior.
and then by conscious learning and experimentation. With the advent of.
the conceptual consciousness of humankind, the rate of advancement.
sharply accelerated as intelligence, technology, and the scientific.
method could be applied to our condition. Extropians seek the.
continuation and fostering of this process, transcending biological.
and psychological limits as we proceed into posthumanity.
In aspiring to transhumanity, and beyond to posthumanity, we.
reject natural and traditional limitations on our possibilities. We.
champion the rational use of science and technology to void limits on.
lifespan, intelligence, personal power, freedom, and experience. We.
are immortalists because we recognize the absurdity of accepting.
“natural” limits to our lives. For many the future will bring an.
exodus from Earth — the womb of human and transhuman intelligence
expanding the frontiers of humanity (and posthumanity) to include.
space habitats, other planets and this solar system, neighboring.
systems, and beyond. By the end of the 21st Century, more people may.
be living off-planet than on Earth.
Resource limits are not immutable. The market price system.
encourages conservation, substitution and innovation, preventing any.
need for a brake on growth and progress. Expansion into space will.
vastly expand the energy and resources for our civilization. Living.
extended transhuman lifespans will foster intelligent use of resource.
and environment. Extropians affirm a rational, market-mediated.
environmentalism aimed at maintaining and enhancing our biospheres.
(whether terrestrial or extra-terrestrial). We oppose apocalyptic.
environmentalism, which hallucinates catastrophes, issues a stream of.
doomsday predictions, and attempts to strangle our continued.
evolution.
No mysteries are sacrosanct, no limits unquestionable; the.
unknown must yield to the intelligent mind. We seek to understand and.
to master reality up to and beyond any currently foreseen limits.

2. SELF-TRANSFORMATION

We affirm reason, critical inquiry, intellectual independence.
and intellectual honesty. We reject blind faith and passive.
comfortable thinking that leads to dogmatism, religion, and conformity. A commitment to positive self-transformation requires us.
to critically analyze our current beliefs, behaviors, and strategies.
Extropians therefore choose to place their self-value in continued.
development rather than “being right”. We prefer analytical thought to.
fuzzy but comfortable delusion, empiricism to mysticism, and.
independent evaluation to conformity. Extropians affirm a philosophy.
of life but distance themselves from religious thinking because of its.
blind faith, debasement of human dignity, and systematized.
irrationality.
Perpetual self-improvement — physical, intellectual.
psychological, and ethical — requires us to continually re-examine our lives. Extropians seek to better themselves, yet without denying their.
current worth. The desire to improve should not be confused with the.
belief that one is lacking in current value. But valuing oneself in.
the present cannot mean self-satisfaction, since an intelligent and.
probing mind can can always envisage a superior self in the future.
Extropians are committed to expanding wisdom, fine-tuning.
understanding of rational behavior, and enhancing physical and.
intellectual capacities.
Extropians are neophiles and experimentalists. We are.
neophiles because we track the latest research for more efficient.
means of achieving our goals. We are experimentalists because we are.
willing to explore and test the novel means of self-transformation.
that we uncover. In our quest for advancement to the tranhuman stage.
we rely on our own judgement, seek our own path, and reject both blind.
conformity and mindless rebellion. Extropians frequently diverge from.
the mainstream because they do not allow themselves to be chained by.
dogmas, whether religious, political, or social. Extropians choose.
their values and behavior reflectively, standing firm when required.
but responding flexibly to novel conditions.
Personal responsibility and self-determination goes.
hand-in-hand with neophilic self-experimentation. Extropians take.
responsibility for the consequences of our choices, refusing to blame.
others for the risks involved in our free choices. Experimentation and.
self-transformation require risks; Extropians wish to be free to.
evaluate the risks and potential benefits for ourselves, applying our.
own judgment and wisdom, and assuming responsibility for the outcome.
We neither wish others to force standards upon us through legal.
regulation, nor do we wish to force others to follow our path.
Personal-responsibility and self-determination are incompatible with.
authoritarian centralized control, which stifles the free choices and.
spontaneous ordering of autonomous persons.
External coercion, whether for the purported “good of the.
whole” or the paternalistic protection of the individual, is.
unacceptable to us. Compulsion breeds ignorance and weakens the.
connection between personal choice and personal outcome, thereby.
destroying personal responsibility. The proliferation of outrageous.
liability lawsuits, governmental safety regulations, and the.
rights-destroying drug war result from ignoring these facts of life.
Extropians are rational individualists, living by their own judgment.
making critical, informed, and free choices, and accepting.
responsibility for those choices.
As neophiles, Extropians study advanced, emerging, and future.
technologies for their self-transformative potential in enhancing our.
abilities and freedom. We support biomedical research with the goal of.
understanding and controlling the aging process. We are interested in.
any plausible means of conquering death, including interim measures.
like biostasis/cryonics, and long-term possibilities such as migration.
out of biological bodies into superior vehicles (“uploading”).
We practice and plan for biological and neurological.
augmentation through means such as effective cognitive enhancers or.
“smart drugs\.

For drone racing enthusiasts. 😃


If you follow autonomous drone racing, you likely remember the crashes as much as the wins. In drone racing, teams compete to see which vehicle is better trained to fly fastest through an obstacle course. But the faster drones fly, the more unstable they become, and at high speeds their aerodynamics can be too complicated to predict. Crashes, therefore, are a common and often spectacular occurrence.

But if they can be pushed to be faster and more nimble, drones could be put to use in time-critical operations beyond the race course, for instance to search for survivors in a natural disaster.

Now, aerospace engineers at MIT have devised an algorithm that helps drones find the fastest route around obstacles without crashing. The new algorithm combines simulations of a drone flying through a virtual obstacle course with data from experiments of a real drone flying through the same course in a .

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia — To see Russia’s ambitions for its own version of Silicon Valley, head about 5,600 miles east of Moscow, snake through Vladivostok’s hills and then cross a bridge from the mainland to Russky Island. It’s here — a beachhead on the Pacific Rim — that the Kremlin hopes to create a hub for robotics and artificial intelligence innovation with the goal of boosting Russia’s ability to compete with the United States and Asia.


On Russia’s Pacific shores, the Kremlin is trying to build a beachhead among the Asian tech powers.

Translated English into code with AI.


AI research firm OpenAI has announced a new version of its Codex software, which uses machine learning to translate natural English language into code. The company is releasing Codex as a free API to a limited number of users. It could help programming become much more accessible.

By examining MRI data from a large Open Science repository, researchers reconstructed a brain connectivity pattern, and applied it to an artificial neural network (ANN). An ANN is a computing system consisting of multiple input and output units, much like the biological brain.


Artificial neural networks modeled on human brain connectivity can effectively perform complex cognitive tasks.

We combined a machine learning algorithm with knowledge gleaned from hundreds of biological experiments to develop a technique that allows biomedical researchers to figure out the functions of the proteins that turn genes on and off in cells, called transcription factors. This knowledge could make it easier to develop drugs for a wide range of diseases.

Early on during the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists who worked out the genetic code of the RNA molecules of cells in the lungs and intestines found that only a small group of cells in these organs were most vulnerable to being infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That allowed researchers to focus on blocking the virus’s ability to enter these cells. Our technique could make it easier for researchers to find this kind of information.

The biological knowledge we work with comes from this kind of RNA sequencing, which gives researchers a snapshot of the hundreds of thousands of RNA molecules in a cell as they are being translated into proteins. A widely praised machine learning tool, the Seurat analysis platform, has helped researchers all across the world discover new cell populations in healthy and diseased organs. This machine learning tool processes data from single-cell RNA sequencing without any information ahead of time about how these genes function and relate to each other.