From: Timothy Moenk (tmoenk@bellsouth.net)
Date: Tue Jan 21 2003 - 16:15:27 MST
For the past two weeks I've been lurking through sl4 and various closely
related forums, and now I've decided that it's time to join the community.
My name is Timothy Moenk, and I'm currently an undergraduate student at
Georgia State University (Though I'm taking this semester off due to a car
accident involving a pedestrian.. and yes, I was the pedestrian) and an
aspiring author. That I am currently aware of, I have two main drives in
life. The first of these being the pursuit of self knowledge. Thus my
interests reside in philosophy, psychology, and the like. My other drive,
and I acknowledge that it may sound a bit cliche, is to change the world in
some meaningful way. This drive has also fueled my interests in philosophy
and sociology, but also my interest in technology at a very young age.
I became aware of nanotech a few years ago and knew intuitively of the
potential that it holds, but I haven't actively kept up with the field (if
it might be called that) until just recently. There was a time four years
ago in which I read everything I could get my hands on concerning nanotech,
but I couldn't yet find the public forums to discuss the ideas in my mind.
I'm sure that many people on this list have experienced the birth of a
novel idea in their own minds, only to find months or years later that
another individual or groups of individuals had also come up with the idea
on their own and run with it. I've been experiencing this on an hourly
basis the past two weeks. As it currently stands, I think that I've read
most of my thoughts and ideas in one form or another on this clusteral side
of the internet. And so, it is apparent that I have much more reading to
do before I feel I can contribute much to this community.
Even though I've only just recently heard the term, I would have to
consider myself a transhumanist. The transhumanist philosophy is one that
has been fostering itself in my mind for a few years now. I would say that
there are areas where I diverge with the mainstream philosophy(who doesn't
though?) , but on the whole I have to acknowledge that it is still a
developing philosophy just as any socially alive philosophy is. So I
suppose I will leave the topic of defining myself in relation to
transhumanism alone. Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet Eliezer
when he invited me to the local (Atlanta) meeting of transhumanists. I
greatly enjoyed this gathering and intend to continue attendance. I found
much of the conversation to be very stimulating (not to mention humbling..
for the most part I remained rather silent as I was taking things in), and
wish to become more acquainted with everyone that I met there (and also the
ones that I didn't have a chance to meet at the time). It's going to take
a natural disaster (or perhaps a synthetic disaster of similar magnitude)
to keep me away from the next meeting.
In any case, I just wanted to let everyone know of my existence and that
I'm here. As I don't yet feel comfortable with the knowledge base I have
to draw from, I don't think I'll be making much of a contribution at first,
but then again perhaps expanding my base of knowledge will be enough for
now as an investment for the future. As most of you have probably already
noticed, I tend to be rather verbose in my writing. I could -try-to tone
it down a bit if anyone thinks I'm a bit too long winded, but otherwise I
can't really help it. I've been long winded ever since I was first
introduced to the keyboard in elementary school. Although amongst this
crowd, I don't think I should anticipate any of the usual objections to my
writing..
Anyways, Greetings. And here's to the future we shall create.
-Timothy Moenk
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