2016: Transhumanism non stop

hplus magazine

Can Transhumanism Be Saved? — An Open Letter to the Transhumanist Movement

authors Hi-Impact




Maybe it's the casual ones that think themselves better than everyone else just because they think they see the shape of technology ahead of the curve. Or maybe it's the Silicon Valley tech types who unironically think that lower economic classes aren't deserving of the same rights given to them.

Regardless of exactly who it is, perhaps a modern Shakespeare would write that something is rotten in the state of transhumanism.

 

Don't get me wrong, I fully embrace the core idea of transhumanism. The idea of being able to enhance ourselves to become better, to overcome our limitations, excites me. But unfortunately, the idea seems to have gotten some bad baggage along the way.

 

No doubt I've seen quite a few disturbing things from other transhumanists; but I won't go into a laundry list of them because the main theme boils down to this: "I'm better than everyone else, so screw everyone else".

 

Is that really what we want transhumanism to be about?

 

I suspect a few factors that play into the current narrative of "got mine, to heck with you" in transhumanism, but I'm not going to finger point, not now.

 

While there are objections of all stripes to be made of the current paradigm in transhumanism, the one I'll focus on is the fact that the core ideals of transhumanism, and the extraneous baggage it has acquired, are fundamentally at odds with one another.

 

Transhumanism was supposed to be about improving ourselves, becoming less like apes and more like angels if you will. But now transhumanism has been transformed (dare I say hijacked?) by people who revel in being the ape. People who, despite their ideas on technology and existence, still practice the power struggles and smug sense of self-superiority that's been with us since time immemorial. In other words: to them it's less about becoming more and more about just about being the same person inside a computer or robot.

Is there a chance to save transhumanism?
Maybe, but it will take a lot of soul searching amongst us to figure it out. We have difficult decisions to make ahead of us. Not only must we search ourselves and come together and speak with each other, but we must also consider what consequences our actions will have on the greater part of humanity.

The core transhumanist ideal is on the verge of becoming a reality, it's time we grew up and own it.

 

This article originally appeared here. Republished under Creative Commons Attribution-share Alike license version 3.0.