The community had heroes with handles like T. O. Morrow and R. U. Sirius. It was hard to take them seriously. Just look at Sirius' publication list. When serious sounding titles like "Transcendence: The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity." are published by the same guy who also published "Everybody Must Get Stoned. Rock Stars On Drugs. " and "Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. " and "Cyberpunk Handbook: The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook." then yeah, it is easy to write off.

I did the Extropian name change, too. ; )

I agree that the transhumanist idea needs some cognitive house cleaning. For one thing, the newcomers like Zoltan Istvan amuse me by not seeing the contradiction between the transhumanist goal of "living forever" versus Zoltan's boosterism of younger transhumanists, especially the 20-something transhumanist women who think that posting all those selfies on Facebook accomplishes something. Apparently Zoltan, a man in his early 40's, can't imagine how transhumanists in, say, the 2030's, will talk about him as one of those obsolete figures from the Dark Ages of transhumanism who needs to step aside for a younger generation.

In other words, we seem to miss the perspective of seeing transhumanism as a project of personal development where time works to your advantage. The transhumanists' life extension goal should state explicitly that the experience of living all those extra decades and centuries in good shape will turn you into a really impressive badass, at least if you do it right. Even within the limits of current life expectancies, if age and experiences add value, then the older transhumanists with good reputations should have higher status and more authority in promoting the world view than padawan transhumanists with shorter résumés who have yet to prove themselves.