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What ever happened to the transhumanists?

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Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#61

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…

This seems like the most appropriate description of transhumanism.

I think for a long time in human history, technology simply wasn't there to alter the physical nature of humanity. But in recent decades, we understand much more about human physiology enough to alter human body in a drastic and permanent way.

This is generating lots of contention between groups about what's acceptable to change and what's not acceptable to change. Also I think about how people think they are rational about their positions on these matters but they are more like strong cultural presumptions about what's right and wrong.

Let's consider situation we already have.

Consider sex change operation. There's one camp that's complete fine with people getting sex change operation, while there's another camp that condones and some, want to outlaw such operation. The liberal camp likes to say that a person should be able to do what they want to do with their body.

However, at the same time, the both of the camp tends to dislike male steroid usage to change one's physique (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/108-2004/h226). For some reason, same reason to let people decide what they want to do with their body, doesn't apply when it comes to male physique.

It's interesting to see how technology is challenging our preconceived notion of right and wrong and sheds lights to inconsistency in our rationale.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#62

Is there a pre-agricultural movement I could sign on to? It seems like every development post-hunter-gatherer has been in service of extending our lives while simultaneously making them (and the environment) worse. We talk about quality of life, but what kind of life is it to sit inside a box 2/3 of your life, or breaking your back in a factory, or on a farm? Most hunter-gatherers actually have more leisure time and…

It would be nice to keep the technology/medicine that keeps mothers and babies alive through childbirth, though.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#63

Is there a pre-agricultural movement I could sign on to? It seems like every development post-hunter-gatherer has been in service of extending our lives while simultaneously making them (and the environment) worse. We talk about quality of life, but what kind of life is it to sit inside a box 2/3 of your life, or breaking your back in a factory, or on a farm? Most hunter-gatherers actually have more leisure time and…

I don't know how to break it to you but many if not most pre-technology hunter-gatherers lived horrible lives, full of pain and misery and died much younger, usually as babies.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#64
I discovered transhumanism around the turn of the century. I thought I'd found a treasure trove of insight. I was all about it for 3 or 4 years. Told people who weren't interested all about it. It was really easy to believe in radical transformation of the status quo in those days. There was a feeling in the air that the advent of the Web would solve everybody's problems, end scarcity, make everyone rich (especially us) and propel the stock market upward from then on.

Well, that feeling was short lived. It wasn't too long before I decided futurism in general was not an analysis of where the world is heading, but what certain communities of sci-fi nerds and techies wanted to happen, and believed they themselves could or would make happen. And that's fine I guess. But I was much more skeptical that their hockey-stick takeoffs would happen, at least in my lifetime.

What's happened in my lifetime so far is you can get more stuff delivered to your door, and faster; and computers got smaller and better at the same time. Ok. Well, computers were already getting smaller when I was born. Maybe they can get smaller. I'm not sure what that looks like. The display is probably a light pair of reading glasses. Maybe the computer is a wristwatch. Or a nose ring.

And then maybe later the computer goes inside you and injects into the optic nerve. And hey look at that, there's some transhumanism, I think. But I doubt anyone living knows how to do that. I'm just rambling now...

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#65

Does anyone working in tech ACTUALLY thin transhumanism is a good idea? It seems like a field ripe for criminal exploitation and hacking, even in an optimistic future. Unless I lose a limb, or an eye, keep my body offline.

Agreed. The smartphone market ruined the idea of cybernetic augmentation for me. It made it clear that any augmentation would inevitably have to be sold and maintained by some company, and I couldn't think of any companies I'd trust to support hardware in my body.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#67

"Transhumanism" is already here, in a way. We have medications including some complex drugs, most people at least take multi-vitamins, we have surgeries and sometimes do weird stuff like transplant limbs or faces. Even simpler, we have knowledge of diet and health which lets us stay in better shape than before (though a lot of people are in worse shape due to junk food...we have access to high-protein diets and effec…

I have small portable machines stuck to my body that monitor my blood sugar and inject insulin as needed. In this sense for me transhumanism is here. This stuff keeps me alive and keeps me healthy.

I think we'll start seeing a lot more genetic modification that will go hand in hand with biological/machine modification. Just sticking technology in us quite often triggers immune responses that our body fights, these things will have to grow hand in hand.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#68
post #12

I used to identify as a transhumanist and believed that technology could do no harm. I was an adolescent donning rose-colored glasses, with a burning passion for science, technology, and improvement of our species. Only after an electrical engineering degree, 10-15 years of more wisdom, and dabbling in biohacking have I realized that we really have no clue about the massive deleterious impacts that technology has on…

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 satis- fies the drive for power. More importantly, the [REDACTED] hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior).

Without looking, what should [REDACTED] be replaced by?

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#69

It was replaced by Virtual Reality. The transhumanist philosophy was transcendental. Man, armed with innovative genius and deep technological knowledge, could one day remake himself and transcend his limitations. It wasn't so much a "philosophy" as a prediction of an inevitable and obvious future, which they were simply impatient to reach. Freedom from all biological, physical, intellectual constraints! Today, people…

No post body was provided.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#70

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.

where do people get this idea that a flat plane of silicon can ever out-compete the chemical interconnectivity of fractally-folded grey matter (don't get me started on performance-per-watt) AI's greatest risk is people assuming it's superior while being little more than a charismatic magic 8-ball

Who said anything about silicon? Maybe AGI will be built on our current bread of processors or maybe the next generation. The only way i see you can be correct is if today's exponential technological advancements come to a halt or reverse. I do not foresee a future where we do not eventually create an AGI superior to us. Maybe in 5 years time, maybe in a 100. But it is coming.
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