Extrotech.net
By Ziana Astralos
July 2002
BJKLEIN: Ziana, you've created an excellent site, www.extrotech.net, on which you state:
"This site's goal is to provide information on websites, movies, books, etc, pertaining to Transhumanist/Extropian technologies and/or concepts in some way, no matter how small, be it factual or fictional, or represent a step toward such things." - Ziana Astralos
What sparked your interest in creating your site?
ZIANA: I had a huge accumulation of bookmarks, continually disorganized despite my occasional attempts at taming the mess, and thought why not sort some of them into webpages to make it easier to keep track of things. Then I decided if I was going to make webpages anyway, why not upload them so that someone else might find it useful. (Although this did clear out several hundred bookmarks at the time, and has averted thousands more since then, there's still far more clutter in other areas that continues to pile up! Ah well.)
It began with a simple layout primarily because it was originally only for my own use, thus with no reason to make it fancier. But I stayed with the simplicity both to make it easier to maintain the large numbers of additions, and to be fully accessible to people without the latest equipment (faster to load, fewer incompatibilities). From January 2000 to March 2002, I was doing all the sorting and alphabetizing and such manually, so 'simple' would certainly help there! By then I had been using XML on Extropy Institute's site for several months, and decided that would be a much easier way to maintain the T.E.C.H. listings. Now I just add the information for each link to one big file, and use http://saxon.sourceforge.net Saxon to generate the HTML pages from templates. Currently only the http://anzwers.org/f...h/websites.html Website are done that way, but eventually I'll move the other areas to a similar system.
BJKLEIN: You're helping and contributing to many transhumanist sites, forums, mailing list, and chat rooms; could you list 5 or 6 of the most important groups and give a brief description?
ZIANA: There's my personal one, of course, T.E.C.H. at http://www.extrotech.net/. Around the same time I reformatted the websites to XML, I also started sending out an approximately-weekly (sent sometime every weekend, depending on when I have the time) newsletter of sorts, linking to the webpages and magazine articles that I added to my lists during that week. Anyone who'd like to receive it can email subscribe@extrotech.net with their preferred email address. There's also an associated webring.
I am the webmaster for Extropy Institute's site at http://www.extropy.org/, and the executive editor for Extropy: Journal of Transhumanist Solutions at http://www.extropy.org/ideas/journal/. ExI has an email list which can be subscribed to at http://www.extropy.org/exi-lists/ or accessed (and searched) through the BBS at http://www.extropy.org/bbs/ . It also offers an IRC chat room, details of which can be found at http://www.extropy.org/forums/.
I also serve as a member of the board of directors of the World Transhumanist Association, at http://www.transhumanism.com/, and liaison to other transhumanist organizations. The WTA offers several email lists, including "WTA-Talk". They publish the Journal Of Evolution and Technology and the www.transhumanity Webzine, although I am not involved in either of those.
I read the BJKlein.com forums and have posted occasionally. The BJKlein IRC chat room is hosted on the ExI web server, and I am in there occasionally. Actually, whenever I connect to it I join #extropy (for ExI), #immortal (for BJKlein), and #sl4 (for Eliezer's SL4 email list.)
In addition, I follow the Cryonet email list, at http://www.cryonet.org/, and a variety of other lists (most at Yahoo Groups). I am also the nanotech section editor for http://www.futurefile.com
BJKLEIN: Do you have friends to which you talk about your transhuman interest, and if so, what is their reaction to your ideas?
ZIANA: I am acquainted with a number of religious people, some of whom have expressed distaste for such topics. Some even insist birth-control is 'unnatural' and 'wrong', so I doubt they would be particularly receptive. ;-) But around the more open-minded people, I slip memes in here and there, mention related articles, just little things like that. I usually don't mention something without them bringing it up first. I find that generally if people come to an idea on their own (or think they did), they are more receptive to it than they would be if it were immediately thrust upon them.
BJKLEIN: Do you have a prediction for when to expect the Singularity and what changes might we expect to see as we approach? (heh, I'm asking you to predict the future... you don't have to answer this one if you don't want to)
ZIANA: One of the main reasons I ended up with so many transhumanism-related sites and articles bookmarked in the first place is that I try to be aware of all developments in those fields (easier said than done, of course!). It makes it more possible to get an idea of how things are progressing. It keeps seeming to me that a culmination of a variety of research is likely for some time around 2020, +/- 10. (Which, coincidentally, is a timeframe favored by science fiction and ancient ledgends alike. ;-) )
Even the rather surprising NSF-sponsored paper (certainly not new concepts, but to see them actually presented in an officially-funded report, and in such depth...) on ConvergingTechnologie For Imporving Human Performances comes to a similar conclusion. Barring some major setbacks, I doubt it would be much later than 2030-2040 (although if that's wrong, I have no knowledge of these statements! ;-) ). And whenever we might rationally expect it, I expect it's more likely come about sooner than expected-- "NOBODY expects the Singularity!" ;-)
BJKLEIN: Anything else you would like to add that I might have forgotten to ask?
ZIANA: Oh, so *answering* the questions isn't enough, I have to *ask* them too? ;-) Nothing in particular comes to mind at the moment.
Thanks
