No post body was provided.
Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
#2Not 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.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
#330 years or less, they say. But I think it won't be so weird. I'll upload (and implant) when I get the chance to do so in the care of a doctor - the DIY implants people are doing now are a bit too extreme for me.
... That might be a yes.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
#4Not 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.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
#5Not 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.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
#6It would help to have a more specific definition. What is transhumanism, exactly? Humans already augmented their intelligence, their bodies, and their abilities with technology, and have done so for thousands of years.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
#7It would help to have a more specific definition. What is transhumanism, exactly? Humans already augmented their intelligence, their bodies, and their abilities with technology, and have done so for thousands of years.
> Humans already augmented their intelligence, their bodies, and their abilities with technology, and have done so for thousands of years.
Yes; it has often struck me that transhumanism is the unremarkable belief that new technologies will someday give our civilization new capabilities, mashed up with a kind of throbbing millenarian dubstep (these changes are imminent; they will transform everything; they will be our salvation; they will give eternal life or close enough; remarkable prophet-scientists will lead us to this promised future-land; etc. etc.) Wry G. K. Chesterton quote goes here...
(Forgive me, transhumanists, I know this is deliberately tweaking your nose; but so far this thread is light on actual transhumanists, and I thought gently provoking you might get you to appear! My research into your ways has been cursory at best, and I am perfectly amenable to being persuaded that transhumanism is a good thing to get behind... I settle back into my internet-armchair, and hope to be convinced.)
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
#8It would help to have a more specific definition. What is transhumanism, exactly? Humans already augmented their intelligence, their bodies, and their abilities with technology, and have done so for thousands of years.
Edit: To be specific, I meant those who believe in life extension and immortality, such as mind uploading, nanotechnology-based telomerase solution etc.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
#9I am excited about the prospects, but fear that it will only serve to further widen the rift between the rich and the poor.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are transhumanists?
#10It would help to have a more specific definition. What is transhumanism, exactly? Humans already augmented their intelligence, their bodies, and their abilities with technology, and have done so for thousands of years.
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 exist, etc.
Diction choices such as the "believe" above are why transhumanism has always struck me as quasi-religious (specifically millenarian) in character.
But then again, maybe when you're talking about (potentially indefinite) life extension, there's no way to avoid the millenarian flavor. Literal immortality! Not in some heavenly sphere, but here in our own galaxy! How could you not get all millenarian about such a heady thing?