I would still suggest that Immortalism/Transhumanism is a difficult agenda to sell. Having faith in ultraintelligence in which we are not allowed to comprehend or anthropomorphize
I do not believe that 'buying into' SAI is a prerequisite for becoming a transhumanist or an Immortalist, although I personally have come around somewhat to the idea of AI and to the information based side of Immortalism in general.
I never bring up AI when having a preliminary conversation with an atheist unexposed to our meme. I usually go with the life extension meme. It's more orthodox and easier to attach to contemporary issues such as therpeutic cloning or gene therapy. Stem cell is particulary easy to build upon as it is a hot button issue within our society and many free thinkers have at least a rudimentary understanding of what it entails.
Case in point: often I will see the traditional potential applications of therapeutic cloning being discussed on an atheist forum (such as potential cures for Parkinsons, diabetes, cirrhosis, etc.) and I will step in and point out the 'untraditional' potential applications. Then I'll plug Michael West's
The Immortal Cell and his site www.michaelwest.org. I consider West to be utterly main stream and this is important. We want to show the uninitiated that our movement's line of reasoning has a solid basis in the real world and mainstream science.
the Transhumanist paradox in which Transhumanists generally endorse Occam’s Razor but can’t acknowledge keeping needs simplistic and congruent with purposeless reality), is practically just as ludicrous as angels and demons.
I think I understand what you're getting at and I am inclined to agree, but could you further ellaborate?
After all, we are 5 million year old winners not because of genetic across-the-board conformity.
3.6 to 4.0 MYO winners, but what's a million yrs in the scheme of things?
)
Why do I bother?Because the way I look at it, in the United States alone (leaving aside a secular Europe), there are 30 million individuals who are close to "getting it". If we could convince even 10% of this 30 million that life extension is feasible and worthwhile then we would become a force to be reckoned with.
One last thing. Another idea I have for trying to open the door to our meme among atheists is by presenting them with a common enemy and showing how that enemy is threating their freedoms and the progress of society (AKA; the enemy of my enemy is my friend
). As I stated earlier, most atheists love to attack what they see as the negative impact of Christianity upon society. Nothing gets under a free thinker's skin like a fundie standing in the way of medical progress and Kass (with his close ties to the Bush Administration) couldn't be a more perfect straw man. I plan on utilizing this strategy in the not-too-distant future.