There’s more than just the Randian aspect, though - there’s also the whole fundamentalist-style techno-rapture thing that really doesn’t help.
Since no transhumanist can transfer their fashionable higher characteristics to their offspring, I call the whole thing another Ubermenschial delusion.
Just do the same kind of upgrade as you did on yourself. Possibly with way better tweaks on the genetic level and better integration of the additional tech because of starting with younger brain.
If this was a jab on not getting laid, I should note that there are cloning technologies and surrogate mothers.
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Nah, it wasn’t a jab but certainly in answer to your first paragraph, luck on finding a partner, society and state which will allow thinkering/upgrading the kids. Hell, lets elongate their skull while still soft.
These additions aren’t really integrated, they don’t give man an evolutionary edge, they are only tools. We might as well bolt an Ipod to our skull if it makes us feel EXTRA special.
The females of the transhumanist species are admittedly quite rare, but they exist. That just means that you have to be better than 95% of the competition. (Not exactly optimistic. Oh well. But still possible.)
The society and state - don’t beg for permissions and don’t get caught are the two basic rules, not only for biomed.
Merely cosmetic. Not worth the effort.
That’s true - so far. However there’s quite a lot of literature about neural interfacing out there; try “neuroprosthetics”, “neuroprostheses”, “brain-computer interface/interfacing”, and similar keywords on e.g. Amazon, and you get quite some interesting titles.
And then there are the medical publications. A friend in a university is all you need to get through the paywall. Or less-known-in-the-mainstream russian webs with the articles. There are ways.
There are ways to get extra sensoric organs; a 3-axis magnetic field sensor is an example, or sensing of radiation. These are fairly easy, even. The former, even in merely a wearable form, gives researchers (after few weeks of getting used to it) a vastly enhanced sense of navigation. The latter may provide a survival edge in a post-nuke-war scenario, or, to a lesser degree, if a nearby reactor barfs.
The stage is set. Expect the play to unfold.
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The stage is set. Expect the play to unfold
Fair, let’s hope for comedy, unlike the previous Axis produced play.
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You are sounding a little transphobic, here.
What is it about transhumanists that makes you feel so small, so insignificant, so outmoded?
Is it your small, insignificant outmoded cis-human body?
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Computer hackers don’t hire certified professionals to do what they need – they git-r-done.
Am I making a comparison between rednecks and body-modders?
G-d forbid.
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The differences between medicine and transhumanism have little to do with fantasy or wishes. Western models of professional medicine and medical ethics place primacy upon the notion of pathology, that using technology to intervene in the organism is only ethical when it is in service of remedying an accepted medical problem. But practice and laws generally forbid using the same technology to facilitate improved or even simply different functionality. This, for instance, sums up the entire US perspective on drug regulation. Treating a disease is legitimate use - but simply making a healthy person stronger or smarter is not, this is considered unethical. Also, there is a sort of “libertarian” quandary with regards to legal limits as to what extent a person can accept risks and liability with unproven or uncommon procedures. Why can’t I legally sign a waiver to let a friend perform surgery on me? The simple answer is that law and medicine are priesthoods controlled by The State, they are invested in this control. George W. Bush’s bioethics advisor named transhumanism as the single greatest threat to national security, because maintaining the current status quo is dependent upon not having superhumans to deal with who cannot be controlled.
Some of the disdain of and towards transhumans and posthumans alike is simply a matter of semantics and categories. Many people substitute old absolutes such as “god says so” for more secular-sounding ones such as “it’s human nature” to explain away why people should gracefully go along with that which is against their better judgement. When a person’s argument against me requires that “humans just never do this”, I don’t mind replying “then it appears I am not human”. It might seem like a sensational claim to someone who’s thinking is limited by such categories, but I think there isn’t anything outre about it.
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It’s all a matter of degree though.
It’s not unusual to believe that being an off-the-shelf human with cancer, Parkinson’s, MS, etc. is “not good enough” when we can potentially achieve better, is it? After all, our ancestors found ways to fix things like dysentery, myopia, bacterial infections… they figured out how to take down prey, survive in freezing temperatures, store food, retain information for future use, travel long distances in short times… all sorts of things that a basic human is not biologically equipped to do.
Technology has led to speciation in human history before. We’re not homo habilus anymore. We figured out fire and cooking and our brains got bigger and our bodies changed shape and we figured out social organization and our brains got bigger still. It’s entirely possible that our descendants won’t be homo sapiens, because of technology.
(I would argue that if there is a “human nature”, this is it: we all want things to be better. We just don’t always agree on what better is.)
Human evolution wasn’t guided by human intent in the past; it was just a side effect of trying to make our lives better. Transhumanists believe we’re starting to guide it, that we’re a couple of technological breakthroughs away from making ourselves into another species, and that our rate of making breakthroughs is accelerating.
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So do Singularitarians look at both groups as primitives squabbling about which femurs make the best clubs?
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For many of us, it’s not a distaste of being an “off the shelf” human that leads to transhumanist ideals, but a very simple desire to expand the nature and possibilities of the human experience, possibly at the sacrifice of our own wellbeing, as we activly search for the tools to increase our capabilities so that our entire species may finally rise above our animal natures and seed other stars.
Well, some research turned up that there was a panel of 18 bioethics advisors under Bush 2; and it seems the purpose of the board was to provide a fig leaf of gravitas for opposing stem cell research. I couldn’t source the quote you refer to, but I’m fairly certain the context in which it was uttered was a pro-life anti-stem cell research one.
There are very, very good reasons for strict ethical and legal controls on medical treatment that don’t need to invoke a deity or morality; just the scale and depth of human suffering that medical charlatans have wrought and continue to wreak. Given the difficulty inherent in evaluating the consent of people who believe their lives are on the line, we default to restriction. And a slightly slower pace of bleeding-edge amateur medical device development is a casualty I’m willing to accept.
I’ve found many transhumanists in the US tend to be right leaning Libertarians. Not all, however. I’m not. I found it through Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary (SMI2LE: Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension). I also read Mondo 2000 back in the Olden Tymes and R.U. Sirius is still a part of things. My philosophy is more along the lines of those people. I started the Philadelphia chapter of humanity+, Philly Futurists with a friend who is also closer to the previously mentioned influences than to Randianesque Social Darwinism. The last year and a half, though, has seen a giant decline in the group since more of the Rand/Libertarian types have grown to outnumber the group’s originals. Participation is significantly down and most of the originals have felt alienated enough to leave since our views are now in the minority and have been shouted down. I’m thinking of starting a new group that will be selective in its membership. That goes against my likes but, as it stands now I am essentially the owner of a whole lot of nothing. Sad. We had some great times. I hope to again because non-Rand transhumanists do exist.
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Why can a person not accept the responsibility of such possible suffering? Don’t these ethics seem to be based upon authoritarian morality? For (a sensational) instance, if a healthy person signs a waiver to have their healthy legs removed and replaced with cyborg legs? If they are willing to undertake the risks, who gets to say they shouldn’t?
Or how about nanomachines to repair cell replication errors? You could end up a pile of goo in a few years - or practically immortal. It stands to reason that sometime people will evaluate this decision and decide it is a risk worth taking.
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Not so sensational. There are people with some sorts of body dysmorphic disorders who want to get a limb amputated. They usually resort to such degree of self-injury that they get what they want.
I find it a bit odd. When somebody lives in a wrong-gender body, the surgery is accepted. (Good. Why not.) When somebody lives in a body with one limb too much, it is suddenly not acceptable. Why oh why.
(I have the opposite problem, running out of hands/arms all the time; that is a bit more involved as the additional control wiring is not a solved issue yet, but when it gets available, I’d get mad as a cut snake if somebody told me I cannot have it Just Because.)
For upgrade to cyborg parts, there was a scifi book on that topic reviewed here on BB. What I found odd on the book was the described attitude of other people to the one who went that route, despite the replacements being functionally superior.
A bunch of self-important, constipated, overaged men in suits and ties, calling themselves an Ethical Commission?
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[quote=“PhoenixK, post:13, topic:52836, full:true”]That’s the part that gets me, that digging around in your own body while maybe sorta knowing what you’re doing, as opposed to getting medical professionals involved to help avoid infection, properly anchor or install whatever the component is, etc. If I only had a handful of bucks and not much else, it damn sure wouldn’t go toward helping me implant a Handicam in my face with duct tape and superglue in my basement lair. However, if I had the money to do it right, get or build a useful and non-disfiguring component, have trained professionals on hand to assist (or more likely, to do), then I’d think about it a little harder.[/quote]Now that I think about it, if one only has a handful of bucks and not much else, one might well be willing to take a greater risk to improve one’s station than someone with much more to lose.
[quote=“popobawa4u, post:35, topic:52836”]Why can a person not accept the responsibility of such possible suffering? Don’t these ethics seem to be based upon authoritarian morality? For (a sensational) instance, if a healthy person signs a waiver to have their healthy legs removed and replaced with cyborg legs? If they are willing to undertake the risks, who gets to say they shouldn’t?
Or how about nanomachines to repair cell replication errors? You could end up a pile of goo in a few years - or practically immortal. It stands to reason that sometime people will evaluate this decision and decide it is a risk worth taking.[/quote]Okay, but what if someone seeks to profit by misrepresenting the risks?
Sure, it would be great if people were sufficiently engaged to do their own research and evaluation and determine which risks are or are not misrepresented. And maybe an informed and educated populace would elect responsible and competent leadership, too.
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I have a technological artefact that makes a funny noise and a burning smell if it gets over 3000rpm. I’m scared to go 70mph in it… 
My phone is pretty good though. Waterproof and shit (the car is also leaky).
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Transhumanist Dad-joke: do you know how to keep an obsolete body in suspension?
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