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What ever happened to the transhumanists?

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Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#201

Post by zizee »

jholman wrote: post #132
photochemsyn wrote: post #91

To become transhuman or posthuman, you'd first have to understand what it is to be human, and we're not anywhere near that. Some of the enthusiasm about the hopes for such a transition were raised by this: > "The Human Genome Project finally released a complete human genome sequence in 2003, in a project that took 13 years to complete." The most remarkable thing about that accomplishment was how little it resulted in…

> To become transhuman or posthuman, you'd first have to understand what it is to be human What? Why? I'm post-adolescent (at least biologically, please don't bring up all of my emotional immaturity), and I still don't (and definitely didn't then) understand what it is to be adolescent. I live in a post-feudal society, and while I think we understand a few things about what it means to be feudal, I wouldn't bet on us…

I am interpreting the parent as saying before we can say something is post-human, we have to define (understand) what "human" is. If we cannot agree on what it is to be human, how can anyone be post-human? I.e. you can't define a "noun with modifier" until you define the noun.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#203

Post by gcr »

oh believe me we're still around! you're just not gonna find a lot of that "above ground" so to speak. the good stuff happens in hushed tones or among small social circles.

And in places you wouldn't otherwise think to look, like transgender people. 'Cause when you think about it, taking synthetic experimental hormones to give our bodies new capabilities and reconnect ourselves to our minds more deeply reflects the essence of "trans humanism," no?

The overlap between the queer/furry community and the transhumanist/cyberpunk community is very strong and has always been. If you're looking for keywords to google for, check out the "Freedom of Form Foundation" and its research (this is both explicitly furry and explicitly transhumanist), some of the Korps RCG propaganda stories, the postfurry embassy, any of the plurality/tulpa/multiplicity/DiD recovery communities (a rare example of putting mind tech into practice today rather than fantasizing about it in the future), the people who make those full-body drone suits at hypnokink events, anything Naomi Wu touches, etc etc etc ...

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#204

Post by notsapiensatall »

kragen wrote: post #192
notsapiensatall wrote: post #49

IMHO it's in a trough on the hype curve. Tech needs to improve before it'll rise again. The promises of devices like neuralink are decades away from widespread voluntary adoption, at least. You can get small things done today, as you could 10 years ago, but they aren't ready for primetime. Anecdotally, I got a small coated neodymium magnet implanted in a finger during my youth. It was cool as a college student, I cou…

What did you coat the magnet in, and how big was it?

I didn't make it, but IIRC it was coated in a biocompatible polymer or wax. It was a cylinder maybe 3mm tall, 5mm diameter?

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#205

Post by xvilka »

daoist_shaman wrote: post #148
FFRefresh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I agree with the thrust of what you are saying, in that we do need to think about the negative externalities of different technologies before scaling them out as a species. I am getting a little tripped up on your usage of 'the natural world' and 'environmental destruction' though. Aren't humans 'natural'? And if we are natural, shouldn't anything that springs from us also be 'natural'? We are subject to the…

I guess when I say “natural,” what I truly mean is “that which is not made by man.” Any substance which is found in the natural environment and mechanically altered does not count in my definition of man-made; this is essentially the same notion of natural that revolvingocelot points out. I think the crusade against “natural bias” is unfounded. Of course there are plenty of natural things that are not good for us—suc…

A lot of, probably even majority of viruses are a good thing - they add horizontal gene transfer to improve the evolution[1] and survival chances of species, sometimes even multiple ones at once, also making our own human virome[2].

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220105111420.h...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_virome

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#206

Post by peteradio »

stubish wrote: post #184
peteradio wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could potentially make a thing that acts like you, that's it. The only reason our existence is tolerable is that we agree with the guy that when he goes to bed he is dead and I take over in the morning and I make the same deal tomorrow.

Salami tactics (Yes Minister) would work around this. Replace and extend your brain and nervous system small parts at a time. Until one day you are entirely hardware, and thus your consciousness entirely software. Continuity of consciousness remains uninterrupted.

Sure, as soon as you offload your conscience though I think you are dead.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#207

Post by NateEag »

trasz wrote: post #134
coenhyde wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be keeping my body offline. But I think fusion with AGI is inevitable if we want to remain somewhat in control of our future. Otherwise we will be super ceded by super intelligent AI and become their pets.

We wouldn’t even notice we’ve become pets of any kind of superintelligence; one can’t notice intelligence vastly superior to their own, same way your cat can’t even remotely grasp what the code on your screen is for.

Heh - this sounds kind of like theism. :)

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#208

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #25
formerly_proven wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason why literally every fiction work on transhumanism is a dystopia, even those were transhumanism is just a generic stand-in for technological advancement.

That is absolutely not true – Iain M. Banks' Culture novels are probably some of the most well-known works of fiction with themes of transhumanism, and would hardly be called dystopian.

The existence of an average citizen of the Culture always seemed terrifyingly vacuous and stagnant. 99.999% of the trillions of individuals that exist are not talented or interesting enough to produce any artistic works or scientific research (particularly compared with the vastly superior intellects of the Minds) of value so they simply amuse themselves any way they can, under the gentle care and supervision of the Minds, until their body stops working. I am reminded in particular of the ship's crew who gave themselves colds simply because they wanted to experience being ill and the Minds' "Infinite Fun Space".

It is a very comfortable dystopia to be sure and possibly even the best outcome any sapient species could ever hope for but there is something very bleak about it.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#209

Post by gcr »

zajio1am wrote: post #147
f38zf5vdt wrote: post #8

All humans are actively engaged in various levels of transhumanism, especially from a medical standpoint. We all hope that medicine will help us achieve what is, to us presently, superhuman lifespans. Many of us are mentally altered through psychotropic medicine and prefer living this way. Transhumanism as a movement is just a vocal proponent of a process of technological adoption already happening on a regular basis…

I think there is clear philosophical division between 'humanist' medical position, which tries to fix what is broken, but considers healthy human body and mind as ideal, and 'transhumanist' medical position, which considers improvements important regardless whether they just fix what is broken, or improve beyond natural abilities.

See that's the thing! You're looking for the furry (and especially trans) / queer communities, especially the Freedom of Form Foundation or the "digital self-identity" simulacra folks. All of these communities are grounded in imagining existing the ideal versions of ourselves, and making that work actually happen

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#210

Post by toofy »

We currently have a massive chunk of society who are losing their collective minds about people engaging in the very early iterations of transhumanism—transgender folks.

I still regularly encounter people who are spitting angry against transgender folks and then later in the conversation will completely unironically talk about how much they love the cyberpunk genre.

Not many of them realize they would be the weird cultists in the background of the story holding signs preaching about unnatural technology.

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