A Double-Feature on The Extropians
Link-post for two pieces I just wrote on the Extropians.
The Extropians were an online group of techno-optimist transhumanist libertarians active in the 90s who influence a lot of online intellectual culture today. Prominent members include Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nick Bostrom, Robin Hanson, Eric Drexler, Marvin Minsky and all three of the likely candidates for Satoshi Nakamoto (Hal Finney, Wei Dai, and Nick Szabo).
The first piece is a deep dive into the archived Extropian forum. It was super fun to write and I was constantly surprised about how much of the modern discourse on AI and existential risk had already been covered in 1996.
The second piece is a retrospective on predictions made by Extropians in 1995. Eric Drexler, Nick Szabo and 5 other Extropians give their best estimates for when we’ll have indefinite biological lifespans and reproducing asteroid eaters.
Pretty tangential, feel free to remove:
The YouTube “BarelySociable” did a 2-part video a while back, trying to figure out who Satoshi Nakamoto was. He gave pretty decent evidence it was a British guy who’s not any of the 3 candidates mentioned.
I had the first of these pieces printed and left on my desk to read the other day.
That’s awesome to hear! Hope you enjoy
Thanks for posting this.
I was aware of the Extropians/involved on the margins in late 1990-s, because of my friendship with Sasha Chislenko.
The Extropian Creed essay by Ben Goertzel written in September 2000 might also be a relevant appendix to this material.