<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1486400437934_73211"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:HyphenationZone>21</w:HyphenationZone>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
        {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal";
        mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
        mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
        mso-style-noshow:yes;
        mso-style-parent:"";
        mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
        mso-para-margin:0cm;
        mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
        mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
        font-size:10.0pt;
        font-family:"Times New Roman";
        mso-ansi-language:#0400;
        mso-fareast-language:#0400;
        mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026"/>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</div><div style="text-align:justify" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1486400437934_75195"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1486400437934_75196" lang="EN-GB">I think that Empyre addresses two things which
are important and essential to societies today, knowledge and information
processing. These are obviously also two of the fields at risk of being
obscured by the crisismongering that’s come into the political arena over the
course of (at least) the past year. When I say political arena here I mean
internationally, as can only be the case at the stage of globalism we’re at. My
view is that the Listserv provides a sounding board for a wide variety of viewpoints
on many of the finer features of these fields, such as robotry, internet
research, e-democracy to name but three. Then of course there are the
contributions made via Empyre to the field(s) of esthetics and the great
openness in terms of sharing work and notions. My own contribution is small,
mostly lurking. I hope to make it larger. In any case I look forward to many
more issues of the Listserv. Best wishes, William</span></div>
</div></body></html>