TSNh+ Student Advocate Guide v 1.0 document for review and final touches

[Ben Hyink]

Dear TSNh+ organizing committee and Ben Goertzel,

Attached is a nearly complete initial version of an original transhumanist student advocate guide primarily geared toward advising students on how to organize a campus club and host events. In terms of advising how to successfully set-up a campus group (possibly the hardest part of leading one) it is second to none that I've seen. The content is limited by my own knowledge base but maybe you could contribute information where my input was minimal (I do think it is important to keep all the sections as placeholders for improved versions). I would like to ask Joseph Jackson to contribute a short section on setting up an area DIYbio lab as a project or alternative focus, maybe referencing a longer guide he could create; additionally, perhaps Bryan Bishop could create a section on open manufacturing groups (does anyone object to either?). Edward Miller also might contribute a short set of discussion topic questions on a technical topic (a weak area for me) in the discussion meetings section. Maybe Natasha Vita-More can flesh out the sections on giving interviews. The document should be kept a reasonable length (e.g. over 70 pages might be a little intimidating to the average club founder).

Once we have a DIYbio and open manufacturing section we could format the headings of each section so they are at the top of a page rather than the middle of pages and number the index. We also will need a short, one-page acknowledgements section for everyone who ends up working on the document just above the index. I would prefer listing my own name alongside other contributors rather than in some elevated status as the primary contributor (in time I even might not be that).

In the document I mentioned the Haldane Award (which I don't see listed on the Humanity Plus website) and IEET internships. My hope is that those elements will be approved and the final document, maybe with some administrative edits, will be approved for addition to the Humanity Plus website in the Become an H+ Activist section to replace the older version (which was of poorer quality than this one, imo - almost unreadable with all the highlights and italics).

Best wishes and happy holidays,

Ben

[Ben Hyink]

Two additional sections that could use your assistance are the "Transhumanism's Relevance" one (in need of updated topics) and "Further Reading on Organizational Strategies."

[Ben Hyink]

Sounds great! Thanks for the help.

On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Ben Goertzel <b...@goertzel.org> wrote:

Looks great Ben!

I'm mostly offline till Jan 3, but will be happy to edit and add onto
this in the new year.

Seems it will be a quite valuable document to have..

I will ask Natasha and Max if they can contribute to the section on
"Further Reading on Organizational
Strategies", and I myself will try to add something to the section on
"Transhumanism's Relevance."

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this...

ben

--
Ben Goertzel, PhD
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC
CTO, Genescient Corp
Chairman, Humanity+
Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science, Xiamen University, China
Advisor, Singularity University and Singularity Institute
b...@goertzel.org

"My humanity is a constant self-overcoming" -- Friedrich Nietzsche

[Ben Hyink]

The section "Online Presence and Technology Tools" also could use a techie's touch. I envisioned making it a basic introduction of essentials for a club to use plus maybe pointing people in the direction of more sophisticated online presence tech and technology tools.

[Kristi Scott]

Hey Ben,

Sorry for not getting back to you earlier when you requested it. As always, you are quite the impressive worker. I have attached the student document I was asked to update by David and Alex earlier this year. As far as I know nothing was done with it. It may be of help to you, albeit a little late. I am also relatively offline until Jan 3rd and will have a bit of time before the semester starts up again Jan 18th. 

Regarding the mention of the IEET intern program, per the recent IEET Leadership meeting, the IEET internship program will be suspended after 2010 due to lack of staff to adequately manage it.

Thanks Ben for taking this on!

Kristi

[Ben Hyink]

Kristi,

I'm sorry that you put all that work into the old document. I barely referenced other student guides (like the SSA one that was mostly adapted from) besides getting some idea of what topics I should cover to make it easier to avoid copying the work of others again, since Humanity + wants an document without reference to non-transhumanist organizations (especially a secular humanist one, as that really narrows down what people might perceive to be our audience).

One section of the revised document that we might be able to salvage is the list of institutions recommended for pursuing a graduate degree in bioethics (with your website corrections, etc), as that content by James Hughes is still in the new document. Since you know exactly what your edits meant maybe you could revise that section of the new guide. I'm not sure what else might be saved but anything from the old guide that is still in the new guide might use your edits...

That's a real shame about the IEET intern program. Maybe we should store the description to use in a later version if IEET ever reboots the program.

Hope your holidays are very happy!

Sincerely,
Ben

[Natasha Vita-More]

Hi Ben H and All! 

 

Great to hear from you.  I'll gladly work with you all on this.  Please let em know if you are available to Skype next week or next weekend.  It would be beneficial to start the new year with a high-spirited TSN-H+ student network.

 

All my best,

 

Happy Zen and Newtonmass and whatever holidays you are celebrating!

Natasha

 

 

 

Natasha Vita-More

 

---

From: tsnh...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tsnh...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ben Hyink
Sent: Friday, December 24, 2010 7:39 AM
To: tsnh...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Ben Goertzel
Subject: [TSNhplus] TSNh+ Student Advocate Guide v 1.0 document for review and final touches

[Ben Hyink]

I will need to buy a headset and I'm still not sure when I will be at my father's house without a computer (definitely on and maybe after Sun 1/2/11), but I'll try to be available for a Skype conference call / chat.

It sounds like some of us won't have time until after New Year's Day but sometime before 1/9 would be ideal for me as I won't have much time to do anything with the document after that day (at least until late spring / early summer).

Happy holidays all!
Ben

[nat...@natasha.cc]

Hi all,

I just reviewed the "Guide" and it is a truly beneficial document. I
did see some areas of the text which are outdated or incorrect and
need to be updated. I will create a new version of the document and
revise/update it in track changes and send to you all within the next
week. I suggest that we not use this document until the changes have
been made and we agree on them.

Best wishes,

Natasha

Natasha Vita-More

[Bryan Bishop]

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 5:33 PM, Natasha Vita-More  wrote:

I just reviewed the "Guide" and it is a truly beneficial document.  I did see some areas of the text which are outdated or incorrect and need to be updated.  I will create a new version of the document and revise/update it in track changes and send to you all within the next week.  I suggest that we not use this document until the changes have been made and we agree on them.

Where can I see a copy of this document?
 
- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Ben Hyink]

Bryan,

Natasha Vita-More is revising the document. Attached is the older
version we won't be using.

Ben

[Bryan Bishop]

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 8:18 PM, Ben Hyink wrote:

Bryan,

Natasha Vita-More is revising the document. Attached is the older
version we won't be using.

Thank you, Ben. For the peeps at Humanity+, it's now on Google Docs.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Ben Hyink wrote:

The section "Online Presence and Technology Tools" also could use a techie's touch. I envisioned making it a basic introduction of essentials for a club to use plus maybe pointing people in the direction of more sophisticated online presence tech and technology tools.

Having spent a lot of time on college campuses, I think college transhumanists would frown on a few of the suggestions just because they don't seem to be the most "up to date" in terms of technology trends, smartphones, things like that. Can I edit this too? Are we using Google Docs for edits?

[Ben Hyink]

Bryan,

I wouldn't mind, as long as the extremely easy-to-use (and important,
initially, for the non-tech savvy club founder) Yahoo! Groups are
described and the section emphasizes the importance of basic websites
and listserves (maybe just describing those first). The document can
refer to really sophisticated tech and describe the basics of how to
set it up (within a reasonable space), but it absolutely must instruct
people with little or moderate technical skill how to create an online
presence and an announcement list. People who have all the tech
answers won't need to refer to that section of the document anyway.

Something I forgot to mention that is a useful simple tool is Excel. A
sentence or two on that topic would be sufficient.

In fact, I propose this:

"An Excel file may be helpful to store all the contact information you
collect from your information sign-up sheets. Include one or more
field to list the date on which the information was collected (you
might want to follow the format Year/Month/Date to make searches
easier)."

Feel free, anyone, to suggest an alteration to it, but I hope it will
be included in some form.

Another thing I forgot to mention was use of social networking sites,
but you (Bryan) probably could cover that topic and related ones in
more insightful and comprehensive ways than me. Thanks for
contributing to the project!

[Ben Hyink]

One way it could be broken up is to create "Beginner," "Intermediate"
and "Advanced" subsections.

[Ben Hyink]

I just found two resources that I think the TSN guide should at least
provide links to if not adapt and incorporate as examples in the
Academic Working Groups section.

YALE WORKING GROUP
AI, NANOTECH, AND TRANSHUMANISM:
ETHICS, TECHNOLOGY, AND UTOPIAN VISIONS
Nick Bostrom and Bonnie Kaplan
http://www.transhumanism.org/resources/Syllabi/YalePlanning.htm

Syllabus: The Ethics and Policy of New Technologies [2002 - would need updating]
http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/more/syllethpolnewtech

Below is a revised version of some comments I made to Natasha
Vita-More off list.

"I should mention that I find the academic working groups more
valuable, all considered, than the traditional clubs. Here's why:

1) The prospect of reaching more teachers and grad students who might
weave the subjects into their classes or offer a special course on the
subject, maybe even sustain the working group for a long time

2) Potentially impact academics - who in turn can influence more
students over a longer time span - through presentations that can be
posted online (as the Stanford Transhumanist Association did via a
website and blog) and ideally in articles and papers, rather than
primarily affecting (most likely a small number of) students who
probably won't enter academia in the discussion groups

3) The same or better prospect of bringing speakers to campus through
events (like the STA's big "Singularity Summit"), possibly with
(inter-)departmental assistance, and probably a better chance of well
attended campus-based panel discussions

4) Higher expectations of professionalism, which is good training for
professional advocacy, especially to a critical academic audience

My own knowledge base and experience relates almost entirely to
traditional clubs, so information relevant to them was what I had to
offer in the guide. Much of the information could still be applicable
to an academic working group - especially in terms of getting a lot of
student involvement, which in turn might make creation of a course on
the subject more likely. Personally, I would like to see an expanded
section on academic working groups."

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 7:41 PM, Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 7:02 PM, Ben Goertzel wrote:
>>
>> I would suggest making it a Google doc...
>
> it already is- check the Humanity+ folder

[Natasha Vita-More]

Good morning all!

I have been reading though the document and *maybe* the table of contents
structure's organization could be framed differently.

I'll send my suggested changes to the table of contents to Ben H. later
today, along with my other changes to the document. I'll discuss with him
and if he agrees, then I will present this on the googledocs document.

All my best,
Natasha

Natasha Vita-More

-----Original Message-----
From: tsnh...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tsnh...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf
Of Ben Hyink
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 11:46 AM
To: tsnh...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Bryan Bishop
Subject: Re: [TSNhplus] Re: TSNh+ Student Advocate Guide v 1.0 document for
review and final touches

[Ben Hyink]

Natasha,

I'll probably agree. The only possible sticking point would be I think
it would be best if the academic working groups are described first if
that's the model we are going to encourage people to use (as opposed
to the traditional club model - information for which can be useful
for the former, of course).

I will need to check whether it looks identical to the two student
organizing guides I modeled my table of contents on (to be sure I
covered most important topics), but that is unlikely, and could be
easily remedied.

Looking forward,
Ben

[Natasha Vita-More]

Thanks Ben. I didn't work on this over the weekend because I had what we
call here in Austin "Cedar Fever". I'll work on it today and send to you.

[Natasha Vita-More]

Great. Thanks.

Natasha Vita-More

-----Original Message-----
From: tsnh...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tsnh...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf
Of Ben Hyink

Sent: Friday, January 14, 2011 12:15 PM
To: tsnh...@googlegroups.com

[Ben Hyink]

Just to be clear, as I mentioned in a separate E-mail a while back,
I'm totally fine with the table of contents you showed me. The
structure made sense in a way I hadn't expected. We can roll the
academic working group and traditional club advice together, just
emphasizing relatively "active" (high student involvement) club
start-up procedures and then encouraging an academic working group
format, if the founders are willing to establish and sustain it. The
end result might be an academic working group with somewhat of a
traditional club feel (i.e. more socializing/traditional club
elements). Or it might just result in a traditional club if that's
what the founders want (hopefully one that brings speakers and does
outreach to the wider campus AND/OR engages in projects with
significant, positive lasting effects).

The only changes I might make would be to include the "Online Presence
and Technology Tools" segment at the end of the very first section
(about starting the club) and then in its respective section further
down the table of contents list, put "Information Tables" first (and
maybe follow it with "Fundraising" - as that is almost as important
and more important than publications).

Best,
Ben

[Ben Hyink]

One more thing - A shortcoming of the old approach was that it
described academic working groups before giving people adequate
instruction on effectively starting a group. It kind of threw people
in the deep end and might have given them a false sense that they knew
the basics. (Rarely, some people just intuit and infer much of the
relevant information, or picked it up from previous experience, but
we're trying to make the non-organizing-geniuses useful and help the
geniuses become maximally useful as campus group organizers and
leaders.)