Possible change re DIYbio labs and Open Manufacturing hackerspaces

[Ben Hyink]

I certainly don't want to frustrate anyone already working on the
Student Advocate Guide, or make more work for anyone than they are
willing to take on.

It occurred to me today that a really adequate guide for creating and
running a DIYbio community lab would probably require more detail and
a longer section of text than I had originally conceived to be
included in the TSNh+ Guide (I originally had in mind four pages - ten
at the absolute most). Without adequate guidance on realizing a DIYbio
community lab that ensures everyone doing biotech experiments follow
safety protocol and has sufficient oversight - especially in the case
of people with little or no lab training or scientific knowledge - the
whole endeavor is a disaster in the making. Likewise is the case for
the section on Open Manufacturing hackerspaces and certainly that
would be the case for handling the bodies of cryonicists (Alcor or
other institutions are accountable for excellent treatment of those
clients)!

Maybe instead of trying to provide students with all these
alternatives to creating an academic working group or traditional club
in one guide we should just mention those other options and then over
time guides for those options can be developed for Humanity+.
Eventually, we might be able to offer a series of Humanity+ guides
advising activists on how to actualize transhumanist aims in practical
ways or spread awareness and improve understanding of transhumanist
topics.

Bryan, the issues I mentioned affect you most. If you want to do so,
we can still try to condense the information on DIYbio and Open
Manufacturing into a small section of this guide. Alternatively,
assuming you still want to share your knowledge, you could take more
time to write a longer stand-alone guide for one or both topics.

Regardless of what you choose in that respect, we still need your work
on the "online presence and technology tools" section, and feel free
to add to create discussion questions about your transhumanist tech
roadmap wiki that I cited in the section on discussion meeting topics.

Natasha, please share these thoughts with Max More when you have a
chance. I think a guide for people who want to create something like a
cryonics first-responder team in their city would be helpful to the
cryonics preservation process, but I completely understand if the
formation of such teams isn't acceptable because of liability issues
(I suppose everyone in the teams would need to be checked out,
trained, and approved by Alcor and that would be acceptable to other
cryonics institions).

Sorry for the long E-mail everyone, but hopefully it makes the
completion of this guide seem a little less daunting!

Best,
Ben

[Bryan Bishop]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 8:54 PM, Ben Hyink wrote:

Regardless of what you choose in that respect, we still need your work
on the "online presence and technology tools" section, and feel free
to add to create discussion questions about your transhumanist tech
roadmap wiki that I cited in the section on discussion meeting topics.

What is the status of the documents that you are having everyone edit?

Is the Google Docs doc now updated and ready for our changes?

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Ben Hyink]

I think Natasha was going to announce when she had revised the
document as a whole, but I don't think she was going to work on the
"online presence and technology tools" section because you agreed to
do that section.

Natasha, please verify what I said when you have a chance.

Thanks,

Ben H

P.S. I tried to check the google doc to see if extensive changes were
made by Natasha yet but I'm on an ancient (c.2000) computer and it can
take over a minute - literally - to click from one page to another. I
gave up when I didn't find the link right away. I should be getting my
new notebook computer in about a week.

[Natasha Vita-More]

Correct. Thanks B.

Natasha Vita-More