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What ever happened to the transhumanists?

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Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#311

Post by nyanpasu64 »

mise_en_place wrote: post #231
toofy wrote: post #210

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 cu…

That's arguing with bad faith and framing the argument incorrectly IMO. Nobody is " against trans " people, whatever that means. Many are against children joining that lifestyle, which may result in irreparable harm to the child. As an adult, I am on androgen replacement therapy but I am also very careful with it, regularly checking my labs to make sure I don't torch my liver in the process. I can make informed decis…

Going through natal puberty causes irreparable harm to children.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#312

Post by simonh »

kbenson wrote: post #275
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Nothing about magnet under the skin seems to be like something someone would necessarily look to be free from in a tech cleanse.

Poster literally tech cleansed of the magnet permanently because it got so annoying.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#313

Post by nyanpasu64 »

fastball wrote: post #309
Elinvynia wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transitioning for small children is literally just wearing different clothing. When they get a bit older, at most they can extremely rarely (due to people pushing against it, even though it reduces suicide rates and saves lives!) get puberty blockers. Those can then be stopped with minimal consequences if they decide that's not something they wanna do. What is actually cruel is FORCING kids to undergo their AGAB pube…

> undergo their AGAB puberty against their will It's also weird mental gymnastics like this that people are pushing against. For anyone who is not familiar with the acronym, AGAB means "Assigned Gender At Birth", and is push back against the fact that we broadly lump all people into either the male / female camp when they are born. It can be useful when talking about gender norms, etc – which are discussions worth ha…

Denying puberty blockers, which are easily produced, known to be acceptably safe, and can prevent physical changes, is forcing teens through a harmful puberty against their will.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#314

Post by the_omegist »

gcr wrote: post #203

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 e…

No post body was provided.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#315

Post by 0dayz »

monstertank wrote: post #228
toofy wrote: post #210

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 cu…

Quoted post unavailable.

I fail to how gender is not part of who you are as a human, if you have read ghost in the shell you should know it does explore sexuality/gender.

And you're mixing up action with identity, a straight person can identify as straight while not act on that identity, the whole "its not a choice" is the counter argument to society at the time demanding that LGBT people "straighten up".

It's not some LGBTs foundational argument.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#316

Post by simonh »

yarg wrote: post #304
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life." There are no self-grounding values. You cannot objectively justify why fertility is the overriding value here, rather than, say, fairness, liberty or anything else. So yes, you are absolutely espousing your values. If you want to make an argument, make it, don't pretend it's self-evident.

Not all of your ancestors had lives that were free or fair, but every last one of them was fertile.

Humans are a communal species, our cultures and psychology include behaviour that sacrifices our own personal reproductive chances in favour of the survival of the group, or simply deprecates personal reproduction as a priority. It’s genetic propagation by proxy, and it’s called kin selection or genetic altruism in the literature. A member of society can contribute to the survival and propagation of that society in many ways, propagating the group genome, and that doesn’t have to include through personal reproduction.

We have all benefited from the contributions made by members of past generations that didn’t reproduce, but their genes live on through their relatives that did reproduce. If all we care about is survival of the species, the best thing for all of us is that trans people get the help and support they need to leave the healthiest and most fulfilling lives possible, so that they can maximally contribute to society. I think that’s an overly reductive attitude, but that’s one way of thinking about it.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#317

Post by Banana699 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #259
Banana699 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>By your own standard, you don't deserve to live. Correct. This is something I say myself in the comment, if you bothered to read carefully. >You condemn Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Truman, because they killed people. And then you come out with the above sentence. You're a bit self-inconsistent here. False. I don't condemn any of those people (not because they killed anyway), I point out your own hypocrisy, a…

> They kill their own number 7 times per year ? I call bullshit. You think an eagle can live for a whole year while eating less than 7 other animals? If not, then there's a simple calculation: if each eagle in the world survives for at least 1 year, and each eagle needs to kill 7+ other animals to live for that 1 year, then all the world's eagles combined must kill 7+x their numbers every year. Not to mention that a…

It was a mistake to phrase this in relative terms. Here's another, better, formulation : while non-human animals kill n times their number per year, their number isn't 8 billion. So the total damage done is far far less than humans, enough to deserve a qualitatively different view.

And while non-human carnivorous animals kill their prey purely by hunting, which is 'fair' and limited in a sense, humans kill animals by cowardly and genocidely herding them and breeding them to be docile. This scales far more horribly : a predator can't kill a certain percentage of its prey before it becomes hard to find a prey, reversing the trend, while humans can simply breed more prey and use horrible industrial farming techniques to kill far more than any predator species, with 0 risk or consequences.

And while obligatory carnivores like eagles or whales literally can't survive without killing their prey, humans are equal parts carnivores and herbivores, we can survive equally well on plant diet and non-meat animal produce. We choose to kill for no reason but pleasure.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#318

Post by lljk_kennedy »

yarg wrote: post #304
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life." There are no self-grounding values. You cannot objectively justify why fertility is the overriding value here, rather than, say, fairness, liberty or anything else. So yes, you are absolutely espousing your values. If you want to make an argument, make it, don't pretend it's self-evident.

Not all of your ancestors had lives that were free or fair, but every last one of them was fertile.

What of people who were fertile but didn’t have children, through choice, medical reasons, death etc? Surely a person who is fertile but doesn’t have a child for any reason has the same net impact on the growth of population as an unfertile person (trans or not)?

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#319

Post by fastball »

fzeroracer wrote: post #307
fastball wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a few people willingly becoming sterile to solve other issues with their body. Most of the controversy around trans issues that I've seen would not exist if this was the only dimension to it.

Most of the controversy around trans issues is made up nonsense being pushed by a propaganda machine pining to politicize an entire group of people. The same group of people that have turned towards trying to harass gay, lesbian etc individuals because they know they can harness a certain virulent part of their base to harass and antagonize people.

Citation needed.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#320

Post by the_omegist »

concinds wrote: post #95
bufferoverflow wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was not replaced by VR. I am a trans humanist. As soon as there's a better than natural artificial heart proven to work for decades and with low risks, I will happily undergo surgery. Major cause of death avoided. My eyes are good for now, but I imagine in 20 years they will start really going downhill. If there's an artificial option, I will switch. Same goes for most organs. Unfortunately all these advances…

Transhumanism isn't just advanced medicine. The idea isn't to replace a human heart with an artificial heart that's mostly functionally identical (current-day technology). The whole idea is to transcend biological limits using technology, i.e. develop eyes, ears, and brains that are functionally different and superior. Prolonging human longevity is just one of the (many) goals of the transhumanist movement). Its core…

In every movement you have over-enthusiasts/utopists who don't see the challenges. But even in a game like Deus Ex you can see it's not difficult to see the utopia [0] from reality [1].

Now, like everything : no one will get a new limb if he knows a corp will make him a slave for life. So for these companies to succeed they must guarantee peace of mind to their users. You don't fear getting addicted to aspirin every time u take it. Perhaps open-sourced with generics parts.

On a more philosophical note, car makers gave us more freedom by transcending our biological limitations (higher speed, no tiredness) but in exchange of some loss of freedom (loan, accessible areas, time lost finding a parking spot, etc). Nothing comes without a cost.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG_oThcYsn0 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW1V1HQ5PDE

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