# Chapter 01: Extropians

> When transhumanism met mailing-list accelerationism

Canonical URL: https://foom.hyperplex.org/chapter/extropians

Timeline: mid-1990s – 2000

As a teenager, Eliezer Yudkowsky was deeply involved in the Extropians mailing list, which was then one of the main online gathering places for transhumanists interested in cryonics, nanotechnology, life extension, and the technological Singularity.

He soon became one of the list’s most active and intense participants. By 2000, however, he had grown frustrated with what he saw as its lack of focus and urgency. He left to found SL4 (“Shock Level Four”), a more specialized forum whose stated purpose was to accelerate the advent of artificial superintelligence.

## Predictions in this chapter

- [Singularity by 2025 (or 2005, given funding!)](https://foom.hyperplex.org/p/staring/index.html.md): Retracted: 2001; predicted 1996.

## Chapter sources

- [Extropians Archives](https://extropy.org/)
- [Staring into the Singularity](https://textfiles.meulie.net/russian/cyberlib.narod.ru/lib/critica/sing/singstar.html)