The Transhumanist Movement

Transhumanism is a movement whose goal is transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as study the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies. They predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label “posthuman”.

There are of course, many differing points of view on the subject. Proponents believe transumanism will result in an almost unimaginably idealistic future where we have not only conquered disease and poverty, but also have metamorphosed all of humanity into Super Beings. Imagine if your body never had to sleep or exercise, had millions of times more thinking power and energy, could photosynthesize its own food, heal wounds immediately, not feel pain or could live to be thousands of years old. Imagine living super-minds, immensely more powerful than ordinary human beings, super soldiers with super vision, hearing and strength, super rulers vastly more intelligent, on and on. Imagine a world of indescribable beauty, where wisdom, love, truth and peace prevail. A utopian world where the Singularity has occurred and its resulting advances remain tightly under the control of humans.

The term Singularity may be new to you, but it is a term you will be hearing more and more about in the near future. The Singularity is a hypothetical moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilization, and perhaps human nature.

Transhumanist visualize a global collective intelligence system or a ‘hive mind’ where everyone thinks and shares the same information with each other, on a global scale. They call it ‘machine integration enhancement.’ Using predictive programming, a global collective intelligence system will be created that will merge our biological bodies with machine intelligence – not just free-standing machines but nano-robots built into our bodies, making our brains machine-readable and interfaced with artificial neural networks.

The non-biological portion of our intelligence can be billions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence. Humans can be enhanced with brain computer interfaces and trained to be more creative and vastly more intelligent. They can share thoughts and information freely without having to study the subject matter, expand memory and sharpen capacity for concentration. New brain chips and transmitters can connect the brain wirelessly to the grid and allow the possessor to control a host of new electronics remotely by way of neural commands and to augment the senses.

This is the heaven scenario.

The hell scenario isn’t so pretty.

A version of the hell scenario focuses on the haves and have – nots.

In this world, there is a great divide between the classes. The haves are a select group, a ruling class with eternal youth, beauty and enhanced human capabilities. The have – nots become a slave class of non-thinking automatons living short, meaningless lives of servitude.

The have nots live in a desolate future where they are left behind in irreparable misery on a hotter, more crowded and utterly degraded planet. In this particular hell, groups are segregated and controlled by patent holders of specific genes related to the genetic makeup of certain groupings of people; they then withhold medicines or other life-supporting systems designed solely for that genetic group. Or even worse, “white plagues” designed to kill widely but selectively. The possibility lingers of engineering our evolution into several separate and unequal species. There is even the possibility of breaching species barriers set up by nature to create “Chimera” life-forms, human/animal hybrids.

All of this may seem rather alarmist but the potential is certainly there. I shudder to imagine how our world might have turned out if had Hitler gotten his hand on the A-bomb before the U.S. did, or if he had had access to these yet undeveloped technologies.

So many nations gladly hand over the reins of rulership to charismatic leaders that turn out to be maniacs down the road.It will be a continual task for future generations to keep these destructive and life altering technologies out of their reach.

As Albert Einstein quoted in 1917:
“Technology progress is like an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.”

Another great quote from C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man 1944:
“Human nature will be the last part of nature to surrender to man. The battle will then be won. We shall be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. But who precisely has won? For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please.”

 

QUOTE:As Albert Einstein quoted in 1917:
“Technology progress is like an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.”

Heck, I'm not going to get at commenting on this essay writing issue for an event to go to for others. He must have thought of commenting at his publishers with that comment.

What enthrals the reader: even to read a stranger's difficult handwriting is beyond my intellectual capacities.

 

Ok here goes:
Transhumanism.. interesting movement I believe, though ill pick through all the things I believe in and agree with. First of all... and this is important... PaaaLEASE! do NOT take a great idea and turn it into another "Movement" or "ism"! Drop the term. Stick with the concepts that are good. Start your research business, grow, learn, progress, fix spinal cords, cure alzheimers, cure cancer, and create true artificial intellegence. And if this so called "singularity" happens, it happens. Dont create another "trend" or "fad". Like emos, goths, or vamps. I almost forsee someday teens actually starting some kind of "cyborg" trend someday... Lets try to avoid something like this if possible.
I don't believe we are going to wipe out disease and poverty and live in a "utopia"... And I highly doubt there will be some kind of dystopian future where we are overpopulated. Overpopulation tends to take care of itself with death, famine, disease, and.... WAR! If we cure all other problems, theres only so much space in the world, only so many resources to support the population. If theres too many people, were gonna go crazy and kill each other, simple as that. Doesnt matter if we have infinite longevity.
And no, treating all these diseases like alzheimers, cancer, and spinal cord issues is not going to lead to a "utopia". Heres how reality goes for intellegent beings: you fix a problem, now that that one is fixed you have another to fix.... It does NOT end, trust me.

So , lets say that we can live forever someday. Just naturally, whats going to happen so that we can live for an extended lifetime and live it with some sort of sanity, we are going to wipe out all other conscious beings who get in our way because they are in the way... Now what do we do next? Oh shit! The planet's oil and natural gas is running out.. Guess that means we have to find some way of replacing all the gas on the planet we burnt up, so that civilization as we know it can continue. Lets say we fix that! Next we have to worry about the sun having a supernova someday! Because you didn't want to deal with dying within 75-100 years due to some physical illness, your choosing to die later from some other shitty thing. So, if you choose to keep living, just try to remember that you might come to a point down the road where you wished it ended at 75 or 100... Can you imagine being locked in a padded white room with immortality and have to wait till the supernova to end your misery? Or what if in the future, they punish people by inducing "locked in syndrome" on them and you do something the future society doesnt like. And... if there just so happens to be no "society" in the future, you piss someone off and they catch you off guard and induce locked in syndrome on you. Of course you also will want to consider... is death just going to be shitty too? So as conscious intellegent beings we are always being faced with the fear of the unknown.
The things that this "singularity", and "transhumanism" promises us does not allow us to escape "fate". Its most definitely very exciting! I am very excited as to what future technological development will bring. Ive heard people tell me things like genetic engineering, artificial intellegence, and curing the many dementia's is like a "double edged sword"... I dont like this analogy, because if im the one wielding the double edged sword, im the one who reaps the benefits of it. Those who dont have it are shit out of luck. Im gonna reap the benefits of this sword till someone comes by with a bigger one.