Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?

#11

Post by Immortalin » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 4:04 AM UTC

polybius wrote: post #10

Immortalin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: To be specific, I meant those who believe in life extension and immortality, such as mind uploading, nanotechnology-based telomerase solution etc.

> believe in life extension and immortality What does this "believe" mean, though? That one trusts that these advances will happen? Think they should happen? Wish fervently that they would happen? All of the above? I do not think people would say they "believe in personal hovercrafts", just that they would like personal hovercrafts to exist, or expect they will (or won't) someday exist, or think they ought to already…

To clarify, I meant people who willing to pursue and embrace immortality (e.g. investing in nanotechnological research, regenerative medecine) and would not simply reject the idea as a pie-in-the-sky theory or argue that we should not be playing god. I am just interested to know how many people on HN would support life extension etc. and would be willing to consider it if it were to happen in this century. ;)

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?

#12

Post by Immortalin » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 4:11 AM UTC

crazypyro wrote: post #5

exratione wrote: post #2

Not enough, I'd imagine. It has always been a stronger thread in the tech community than elsewhere, but it is still only a thread. Take a survey of your office and you'll find few people who put any thought into radical life extension, mind uploading, and the rest of the visions of the future that were ideas in search of advocates in the 80s and are now in the very early stages of actual development.

It's interesting to mind experiment with the idea of governmental development of these major, huge time span projects, similar to the way space exploration is undertaken. I think eventually this will be the way into the sci-fi future we all imagine. A Manhattan project scale plan that would allow them to focus specifically on solving the hardest problems we know and not having to worry about profitability.

I do not think the government would be willing to research this. Despite how expedient this sound, I think that it is best driven by capitalists who wants to profit from it. History has proven to us time and again that innovation is the fastest when there is a monetary incentive. The governments around the world would not be willing to invest in this as this is one of those researchs with a low chance of returns, in addition, it would create a nightmare of political problems due to overcrowding etc. If the transhumanism movement was to pick up momentum among the non-profits, there is a high chance that governments and politicians might try to stop simply because of the problems it might cause, not to mention the opposition by religion organisations. As the saying goes, aurum est potestas, if this was to take off, it is inevitable that there must be huge financial backing by the higher end of the financial spectrum.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?

#13

Post by Immortalin » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 4:13 AM UTC

polybius wrote: post #4

exratione wrote: post #2

Not enough, I'd imagine. It has always been a stronger thread in the tech community than elsewhere, but it is still only a thread. Take a survey of your office and you'll find few people who put any thought into radical life extension, mind uploading, and the rest of the visions of the future that were ideas in search of advocates in the 80s and are now in the very early stages of actual development.

> and are now in the very early stages of actual development Can you give some examples? I am curious.

Google telomere regeneration, nanorobotic advancements, regenerative medicine, eliezer yudkowsky. Kurzweilai.com is a good place to start too.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?

#14

Post by crazypyro » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 7:31 PM UTC

Immortalin wrote: post #12

crazypyro wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to mind experiment with the idea of governmental development of these major, huge time span projects, similar to the way space exploration is undertaken. I think eventually this will be the way into the sci-fi future we all imagine. A Manhattan project scale plan that would allow them to focus specifically on solving the hardest problems we know and not having to worry about profitability.

I do not think the government would be willing to research this. Despite how expedient this sound, I think that it is best driven by capitalists who wants to profit from it. History has proven to us time and again that innovation is the fastest when there is a monetary incentive. The governments around the world would not be willing to invest in this as this is one of those researchs with a low chance of returns, in…

As a counter-example, the moon landings were not driven by monetary incentive. In fact, I would say innovation is driven much more by survival and fear. Otherwise I agree.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?

#15

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 15, 2014, 10:13 AM UTC

crazypyro wrote: post #14

Immortalin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think the government would be willing to research this. Despite how expedient this sound, I think that it is best driven by capitalists who wants to profit from it. History has proven to us time and again that innovation is the fastest when there is a monetary incentive. The governments around the world would not be willing to invest in this as this is one of those researchs with a low chance of returns, in…

As a counter-example, the moon landings were not driven by monetary incentive. In fact, I would say innovation is driven much more by survival and fear. Otherwise I agree.

[deleted]