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What ever happened to the transhumanists?

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Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#271

Post by space_fountain »

yarg wrote: post #260
space_fountain wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The human race isn’t in an immediate danger of dying out for lack of babies. People are allowed to and do take many actions with a risk of sterilization. For goodness sake’s people get vasectomies and their tubes tied. This can’t be about fertility or else you should be out campaigning against the pill, condoms, and just plain old normal drinking. Also do you imagine grafting electronics, really progress of any kind…

I can assure you, my only concern here is inate fertility - (idiocracy aside) I don't give a shit about people deciding not to have children. As for the danger, population collapse is often precipitous - and by the time you notice it, is very hard to roll back. And it's not just our species impacted by the changes.

Ok, so are you also against birth control and or opt in sterilization, otherwise your position is inconsistent and I don’t claim morals are logic, but they should at least be consistent.

Oh also since we’re on a technicality forum. Trans hormones don’t necessarily cause permanent sterilization. Plenty of trans people have children

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#272

Post by maj0rhn »

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…

> I've seen transdermal plastic beads put in some interesting places - but they're hardly transhumanist.

Transdermal metal beads, in the form of little bells, were put in "interesting places" in India in the 1500s.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#273

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #270
stale2002 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you stopped acting in bad faith, looking for some gotcha, for one single second, you'd realize that by "unhealthly" they were referring to the effects of hormone treatments, which clearly have significant effects and side effects on the physical body.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#274

Post by jl6 »

Rodeoclash wrote: post #239
yarg wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't feel that's a fair comparison. The transgender community needs to stop pushing the notion that it's healthy and desirable; it's not - it's a devastating hormonal/fertility disorder. We can't even look into the extent to which the androgenisation of humanity is the consequence of the pollutants that we've introduced into the environment. Now, comparing this to trans-humanist body mods - how many of thos…

You mention sterility. As a thought experiment, what if the science was perfected that you could change gender perfectly (ala The Culture novels). Would you still feel the same way about it?

I think if you could undergo a perfect and reversible sex change operation as easily as changing your clothes, it would become simply a matter of fashion - but with that kind of technology, changing your sex would be one of the least interesting things you could do, and new controversies would arise: for example, is it ethical to modify your body to look exactly like someone else’s body? And how far can you go with body modification before it stretches credulity to identify as a human, and what does that mean for the concept of human rights?

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#275

Post by kbenson »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #214
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…

> IMHO it's in a trough on the hype curve. Tech needs to improve before it'll rise again. You're assuming that the technology will still be attractive even as other technologies improve in parallel or as we learn more about how the use of technology effects people. The article mentions RNA vaccines are partially transhuman, but I'm not sure I buy that. Maybe my concept is wrong, but the perception I got was always mo…

> We are already at the point where people go on tech cleanses, your technology gives you screen time reports so you can make sure you are not using it too much, people are abandoning social networks. We are literally trying to use computers less.

That's just it though, those screen time reports are because people are forced to consume things through tech that forces them to be immobile and looking at a small screen next to them, and people go on tech cleanses not because of the problems of microchips and the conveniences of instant coffee from cheap appliances, but because constant bombardment of the thoughts and opinions of everyone, everywhere, all at once becomes problematic and draining very quickly, even as it's addictive.

Transhumanist doesn't have to mean jacked into the internet in new and horrible ways. The GP comment itself notes how a simple magnet exposed a new sense they did not have previously. Nothing about magnet under the skin seems to be like something someone would necessarily look to be free from in a tech cleanse. Some people would likely think it brings them closer to nature.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#276

Post by ungamedplayer »

space_fountain wrote: post #271
yarg wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can assure you, my only concern here is inate fertility - (idiocracy aside) I don't give a shit about people deciding not to have children. As for the danger, population collapse is often precipitous - and by the time you notice it, is very hard to roll back. And it's not just our species impacted by the changes.

Ok, so are you also against birth control and or opt in sterilization, otherwise your position is inconsistent and I don’t claim morals are logic, but they should at least be consistent. Oh also since we’re on a technicality forum. Trans hormones don’t necessarily cause permanent sterilization. Plenty of trans people have children

Citation for plenty needed.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#277

Post by fragmede »

filoeleven wrote: post #68
nemo44x wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if Ted Kaczynski will be hailed as a great philosopher in the future and humans 100 years from now will condemn our time for our treatment of him while justifying his actions as that of a desperate man on the right side of history. It's ironic writing this on a website.

From the manifesto: > But it is obvious that modern [REDACTED] philoso- phers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psycho- logical needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it sat…

For those that follow that want to know the answer: leftish.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#278

Post by the_omegist »

LesZedCB wrote: post #264
yarg wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No mention of mental illness there, but you already knew that.

sorry, you just disagree with them being happy even if it makes them infertile. classic intellectually dishonest HN concern troll

The classical consumerist hedonist mentality : if they are happy then who can say anything about that ?

Well it seems you're the one trolling here.

If you deny the right to people to have opinions and judgments based on their beliefs about anything they wish, you're doing worse than you complain about.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#279

Post by mkmk3 »

lostgame wrote: post #267
adrianN wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big fraction of the anti-transgender movement is not against adults modifying their bodies, but against a) children modifying their bodies, b) persons with modified bodies claiming to be the opposite gender thanks to their modifications (or indeed, before any modification). They probably would have much less of a problem with an adult replacing one of their eyes with an x-ray camera or whatever.

I wish that were the case - but it’s a significantly smaller fraction than it needs to be. The largest fraction of the anti-transgender movement is clearly the American conservative Christian right, who has completely chosen to ignore human rights in favour of Old Testament values. (Source: I’m transgender, and I’m terrified what’s going on in the USA.)

The fraction of people who want to prevent children transitioning or claiming youre a different gender, versus people against general body mods, is smaller than it needs to be? That might be a really good point if true.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#280

Post by ben_w »

Rodeoclash wrote: post #255
yarg wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grow a hollow in a vat and insert the brain? It'd be prohibitively expensive for most, but why not?

It was free in the culture novels. So, the problem is with the fact we can't do it properly yet? Also, you mentioned environmental factors, is that thinking based on a paper or similar?

Everything was free in the Culture novels; more interestingly, gender swapping was a built-in biological function that one could activate by willpower alone, and hold in a part-way state, even allowing two people to get each other pregnant concurrently.
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