I respond now only to say that the poem may be appreciable in ways other than my feeling like it’s sort of like hip-hop. I find myself the first totally positive critic here, but seriously, Swimmer, you have something there, if you want to do something with it. I’m just trying to offer my point of view.
Allow me to add for Swimmer’s benefit that I totally support the development of poetry for the benefit of yourself and others even when it completely doesn’t appeal to me. Most sophisticated poetry and art isn’t supposed to appeal to people like me. I have absolutely no problem with using lesswrong to present it or develop it and didn’t downvote it even on the main page (even though the folks may be right that it is more of a discussion thing.)
To be honest, if I read this poem written by someone else, I would probably think “whoa!” I’m not so much of a ‘transhumanism, yay!’ type either, but the last three lines randomly popped into my head, and they seemed suited to a poem about transhumanism rather than a poem about, say, flowers. Presenting ideas that jar with people a little bit is a good way to get comments, as demonstrated.
Allow me to add for Swimmer’s benefit that I totally support the development of poetry for the benefit of yourself and others even when it completely doesn’t appeal to me. Most sophisticated poetry and art isn’t supposed to appeal to people like me. I have absolutely no problem with using lesswrong to present it or develop it and didn’t downvote it even on the main page (even though the folks may be right that it is more of a discussion thing.)
To be honest, if I read this poem written by someone else, I would probably think “whoa!” I’m not so much of a ‘transhumanism, yay!’ type either, but the last three lines randomly popped into my head, and they seemed suited to a poem about transhumanism rather than a poem about, say, flowers. Presenting ideas that jar with people a little bit is a good way to get comments, as demonstrated.