J. Hughes: The very first sociology essay I ever read, back as a college freshmen in 1979, hooked me. It was an analysis by William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark of the steps used by Mormon missionaries to reel in converts. I saw in that essay that the sciences of human behavior would be the passionate and fascinating pursuit that they in fact turned out to be.
When I got a chance to meet Bill Bainbridge in the 21st century I discovered to my delight that he was the co-mastermind of the very cool NBIC initiative, had written major studies of science fiction, was interested in the project of uploading human personalities into silicon (albeit through the process of endless personality surveys, which sounds even more painful than having your head microtomed off into a laser scanner), was doing research in and on virtual worlds, and had written much more fascinating studies of the religious life. Bill gave keynote addresses at both the 2003 Transvision conference I organized at Yale University, and at the August 2006 Transvision conference in Helsinki Finland.
Bill has now accepted our invitation to be the IEET’s first Senior Fellow, and we are very excited to help make more people aware of his work, and weave his insights into the tapestry of technoprogressive thought and policy.
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