why I'm an atheist...

[FortunaMaximus]

It is a philosophical term. You're right about that, and I probably should have defined that more clearly.

However, it is an optimistic view, and when applied to extremely long timescales, this growth isn't necessary to combat entropy. What comes out of this growth may be the maturity and know-how necessary to resolve or violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

I find the Second Law to be a personal insult, as I do death. So, instead of getting angry at those two processes which combat, on one hand, a human life, and on the other hand, the life within the Universe...

At times, I find myself thinking on immense timescales and outlining projection models for the eventual fate of humanity, not in centuries or millennia, but across megayears.

Of course accuracy suffers, but over those timespans, being off by a century or an eon where some developmental branches are concerned, is fairly insignificant.

So much of day to day life is mundane and prone to interpretation. And it may be the fact I live a relatively simple life, free of capitalist competition and politics. Life, for me, is never boring. The establishments of society and what you have to endure to make your mark in a meritocracy simply consumes too much time.

Linksurfing Wiki after entering extropy, I found this:

[ QUOTE ]
People’s freedom to innovate technologically is highly valuable, even critical, to humanity. This implies several imperatives when restrictive measures are proposed: Assess risks and opportunities according to available science, not popular perception. Account for both the costs of the restrictions themselves, and those of opportunities foregone. Favor measures that are proportionate to the probability and magnitude of impacts, and that have a high expectation value. Protect people’s freedom to experiment, innovate, and progress.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fairly simplistic, perhaps, and self-evident as that statement is (Proactionary Principle) this would seem to be the ideal setting for science.