Transhumanism

[Conserative Morality]

Then, and forgive my phrasing here, but what exactly is it that separates you from a racist if we think on those terms?

I wasn't aware that human races were anything but a social fiction made to reflect broad phenotype differences between groups of people. The reason I am not a racist is precisely because the differences between 'races' are so minor as to be inconsequential.

[Ostroeuropa]

If the only thing that makes you human is disease and death and all your limitations you mustn't have a very cheery life...

Not what I meant and you know it isn't. Basically, I believe in what Conservative Morality said. Our downfalls are what make us human.

Overcoming those downfalls is what makes us human.
There is no poetry or beauty in the flaw without either the potential to overcome it, or the overcoming of it.
A villain who is born a villain is not tragic, as an example.
Nor is one who would always be a villain.
It's in the missed oppurtunity for betterment that we find tradgedy.
It's the same for anything. To simply accept our flaws and such would be ... boring.

[Conserative Morality]

Regardless of the actions of the humans, you'd back them. Regardless of the actions of the aliens even.

Certainly.

Regardless of similarity etc.

Haven't we already established the whole 'spectrum of thought' deal?

You know your race, and you're sticking by it, all other ones be damned.

My species, if you please.

"Me against my brother; my brother and I against my cousins; my brother, my cousins and I against strangers." - Bedouin proverb

[Esternial]

If the only thing that makes you human is disease and death and all your limitations you mustn't have a very cheery life...

Not what I meant and you know it isn't. Basically, I believe in what Conservative Morality said. Our downfalls are what make us human.

I agree with the "don't give it to people who don't need it" thingy, although I would be in favour of - for example - a kind of nano-particle that can be injected into your bloodstream to monitor your glucose levels, warning you when it's too high or low. Same for blood pressure, perhaps, though that seems more complicated.

[Ostroeuropa]

Then, and forgive my phrasing here, but what exactly is it that separates you from a racist if we think on those terms?

I wasn't aware that human races were anything but a social fiction made to reflect broad phenotype differences between groups of people. The reason I am not a racist is precisely because the differences between 'races' are so minor as to be inconsequential.

There you have it exactly.
I don't view physical differences between individuals as being of any consequence provided their mentality is broadly the same.
Which is precisely why I'd treat an AI like a person, and it's also why i'd treat a human upload as a person.
Their body doesn't matter.

[AETEN II]

Earth is not our home. It is our birthplace that will be destroyed eventually by cosmic events beyond out control. Better to leave it and spread ourselves across as much space as possible to avoid extinction. With immortality, our greatest would have infinite time to work and contribute to mankind.
And yes, with an augmented mind you could likely spare yourself the grief, if-so-wished. Although you could probably convince a loved one to augment themselves as well. Turning up such a gift defies logic.

And there will always be purpose- to contribute to the survival and condition of the species. Not advancing ourselves as far as we possibly can is pathetic and asking for extinction.

So long as it is equal opportunity and not based on those who have the most money.

I agree as well. It would unfortunately have to start out by payment, but hopefully with government subsidizes it would become affordable to all economic groupings.

[Seperates]

So long as it is equal opportunity and not based on those who have the most money.

I agree as well. It would unfortunately have to start out by payment, but hopefully with government subsidizes it would become affordable to all economic groupings.

I highly doubt it. Hierarchy tends to promote hierarchy, especially within a corporatist/capitalist society.

[Conserative Morality]

There you have it exactly.
I don't view physical differences between individuals as being of any consequence provided their mentality is broadly the same.

Again, didn't we establish the whole "Difference in thought" spectrum?

Which is precisely why I'd treat an AI like a person, and it's also why i'd treat a human upload as a person.
Their body doesn't matter.

Body and mind are absolutely inseparable. The body defines how we experience and react to the external stimuli that make up life, which, in turn, shapes our way of thinking.

[Transhuman Proteus]

1) We'll be able to colonize space by then. Nobody will give a shit about Earth besides strip mining if for metal and researching the technology to make a faster than light drive (NASA is already researching one). We won't need Earth.

Earth is forever our home. We don't need the Colosseum of Rome, the Tower of London, Hagia Sofia, but these things remind us of our past, who our ancestors and predecessors were, and who we are.

Earth is as finite as we are, it'll just live for longer. Any number of cosmic events could render it uninhabitable, bad news if we are still clinging to it like a security blanket when they come. Even if we have moved on the suns going to bake to as dead as Mars in less than 2 billions years, and then the suns going to swallow it a couple of billions later.

2) You could either force her hand, or simply wipe your memory of her upon death. Really, it's up to you.

What the actual fuck.

An answer to a scenario of "if you lived forever how would you cope with people who you love choosing to die" - I definitely don't agree with the first (though the sainted humans you talk of do it all the time, keeping people on life support, guilting the cancer ridden into undergoing treatments they don't want). The second - eh, it is you choice. You should be able to control your memories, just like you should be able to control your body.

3) Lol life is meaningless? While being able to endlessly revel in the glory of mandkind as immortalized great thinkers were able to dedicate entire centuries to their work, rapidly expanding our culture and increasing our technological power? Sounds more like heaven.

Sounds more like hell. You think philosophy is born from a life with no end and no purpose?

You have proof a philosopher couldn't philosophize if they were able to live a long, potentially indefinite period of time? Note, there would be no life without end, there would only be a life that hadn't ended yet. Since eternity is a long time.

Because?

What about human thought of today is perfect?

People think how people think. I see no point in thinking like anything other than a human being.

What's the point of being human save being human? I don't aspire to anything different, because there is no higher goal than humanity; humanity, as is, is what I am, what I believe in, what I support. All of our flaws, our problems, physical and otherwise, they make us what we are. I wouldn't trade being human for anything.

So we aren't really that much different then the people that have gone before who thought they were the bee's knees, and a few centuries from now when human thought likely follows different cultural and social paradigms, as ours does from people hundreds of years did before us, they'll think the same. No real reason there for chilled blood at the thought of humans, though scientific processes, thinking vastly differently or any reason why their thoughts would be inferior or of less value.

Being a human is all I know, and I enjoy it. But I don't think it is all there necessarily is or has to be (in the fullness of time). I'd find it exciting to try something different. I enjoy trying to write truly alien when writing fiction, I enjoy playing non-humans in games. I don't think the baseline human of today is the pinnacle of anything either, as much as I like being one. I would be intrigued by something significantly different from us that still descended from us, and I would understand where people would be coming from going down that path.

[Rainbows and Rivers]

Transhumanism would bring about the worst excesses of elitism in human society and amplify it. Having a transhuman aristocracy lording over everyone else by virtue of their ability to afford these enhancements is infinitely worse than even the most stratified feudal societies of centuries past...the difference then was the common people could overcome the elites by virtue of the fact that they were all human and subject to the same limitations but with an aristocracy comprised of individuals vastly more capable than any common person the chance of overthrowing a corrupted regime is virtually zero.

Okay, you know how when microwaves first appeared only a few people could afford them and then like a decade later most people had one?

Give me one good reason human enhancement technology isn't going to follow that pattern.

[Ostroeuropa]

There you have it exactly.
I don't view physical differences between individuals as being of any consequence provided their mentality is broadly the same.

Again, didn't we establish the whole "Difference in thought" spectrum?

Which is precisely why I'd treat an AI like a person, and it's also why i'd treat a human upload as a person.
Their body doesn't matter.

Body and mind are absolutely inseparable. The body defines how we experience and react to the external stimuli that make up life, which, in turn, shapes our way of thinking.

Out of interest, do you think a person blind and deaf from birth thinks in a fundamentally different manner from you.
And expanding on that, does that effect the way you view them at all.

[Britannic Realms]

That's awfully mean to those poor animals. Your points may have been true about the barbaric societies of the past but we have standards in today's world.

So what you're saying here is that transhumanism requires some form of eugenics, or something that could easily be warped to be eugenics. Oh great. Paying for this 'assimilation', this sounds like the foundations of some kind of neo-feudalistic society in which these cyborgs would rule over the poor people who wouldn't be able to be blessed with such augmentations. As a matter of fact, assimilation is an awfully sinister word to use, it sounds as if this augmentation would rip away your humanity and put you into some kind of hive mind.

Life would become boring. There is only a finite amount of things one can do.

I'd sooner die from falling from a two-storey building than be transformed into one of these cybernetic monstrosities that you appear to be showing.

Oh, and what if a government gains control over these implants. Surely they would involve computers? Therefore, they can be hacked and then you've gone and completely buggered the whole thing up if that kind of thing happens.

Actually, that's a stupendous idea. A hive mind would be perfect, and eliminate the threat of hacking. Not to mention that it would permanently bind humanity together in a peaceful, utopian society as not only would it be impossible to wreak malice upon others, it would certainly increase morale of the species. It would also the be the ultimate form of the social animal- form what we evolved and what we are.

And no, we don't owe anything to other species. They're lucky if we're kind enough to store their DNA and resurrect them on whim. We don't need them at that point. We don't owe anything to them. A species only owes itself its own survival, nothing else. Dogs and Cats exist for the sole original reason of serving humanity- now acting as companions.

Now, I definitely support a strong and a united community, but a hive mind is a terrible idea. You would say 'farewell' to personal liberty, to have one's own thought process, everything would be shared. A live in a hive mind, is a live not worth living. I may not be a libertarian but, by God, I would defend the right to personal liberty with my life.

I never said that we have a debt to any other species, it's just human to show compassion to those who are less fortunate, be them disadvantaged humans or lower animals. Animals have the ability to feel and to recognise and love people, it's just that they don't have a way to express it as we do. The fact that they can hold such feelings is, itself, incredible and I think that it is just wrong to disregard these animals who have done so much for us and who love us so much. Think of horses, without them, who would there have been to pull ploughs or carriages? And think of elderly people, who keep pets to have them for company. To them, and millions of others, these animals are not just on Earth to be exploited, they are here to be loved and cared for just as much as a human would care for another human.

[Vetalia]

I agree as well. It would unfortunately have to start out by payment, but hopefully with government subsidizes it would become affordable to all economic groupings.

It'll never happen. The elite would control its access to the common people and deny them the most essential benefits of the enhancement process. Unless some innovative person finds a way to achieve these benefits outside of conventional channels transhumanism guarantees the enshrinement of an enhanced aristocracy to rule over us. The one aspect that levels the playing field between the people and the elite is the fact that we are all human, and transhumanism destroys that in its entirety.

[Olivaero]

There you have it exactly.
I don't view physical differences between individuals as being of any consequence provided their mentality is broadly the same.

Again, didn't we establish the whole "Difference in thought" spectrum?

Which is precisely why I'd treat an AI like a person, and it's also why i'd treat a human upload as a person.
Their body doesn't matter.

Body and mind are absolutely inseparable. The body defines how we experience and react to the external stimuli that make up life, which, in turn, shapes our way of thinking.

How could you possibly know this never having conversed or even observed a mind disconnected from a body?

[Britannic Realms]

I agree as well. It would unfortunately have to start out by payment, but hopefully with government subsidizes it would become affordable to all economic groupings.

It'll never happen. The elite would control its access to the common people and deny them the most essential benefits of the enhancement process. Unless some innovative person finds a way to achieve these benefits outside of conventional channels transhumanism guarantees the enshrinement of an enhanced aristocracy to rule over us.

Exactly. As I said earlier, neo-feudalism in action.

[Finjaldn]

Not what I meant and you know it isn't. Basically, I believe in what Conservative Morality said. Our downfalls are what make us human.

Why aren't our success's what makes us human? Why must it always be our downfalls?

Good point. The reason I say downfalls is that the average human can connect with our downfalls better then our successes.

[Ostroeuropa]

Again, didn't we establish the whole "Difference in thought" spectrum?

Body and mind are absolutely inseparable. The body defines how we experience and react to the external stimuli that make up life, which, in turn, shapes our way of thinking.

How could you possibly know this never having conversed or even observed a mind disconnected from a body?

That depends on whether you view conceptual minds as minds...
And if you ignore that they happen to share your body (But certainly their opinions aren't formed by it's experiences. they are formed by your mind crafting them.)

[Conserative Morality]

Earth is as finite as we are, it'll just live for longer. Any number of cosmic events could render it uninhabitable, bad news if we are still clinging to it like a security blanket when they come. Even if we have moved on the suns going to bake to as dead as Mars in less than 2 billions years, and then the suns going to swallow it a couple of billions later.

That's no reason to place no value on it.

An answer to a scenario of "if you lived forever how would you cope with people who you love choosing to die" - I definitely don't agree with the first (though the sainted humans you talk of do it all the time, keeping people on life support, guilting the cancer ridden into undergoing treatments they don't want). The second - eh, it is you choice. You should be able to control your memories, just like you should be able to control your body.

Again, that doesn't strike you as infinitely infantile? "I don't like this, I'm just going to forget it ever happened."

You have proof a philosopher couldn't philosophize if they were able to live a long, potentially indefinite period of time? Note, there would be no life without end, there would only be a life that hadn't ended yet. Since eternity is a long time.

Death gives meaning to life, gives it poignancy, a sense of finite being that has clearly had a hand in philosophy from the earliest days of religion to Nietzsche and Sartre and beyond.

So we aren't really that much different then the people that have gone before who thought they were the bee's knees, and a few centuries from now when human thought likely follows different cultural and social paradigms, as ours does from people hundreds of years did before us, they'll think the same.

This has nothing to do with culture or society.

No real reason there for chilled blood at the thought of humans, though scientific processes, thinking vastly differently or any reason why their thoughts would be inferior or of less value.

Because it wouldn't be human.

Being a human is all I know, and I enjoy it. But I don't think it is all there necessarily is or has to be (in the fullness of time). I'd find it exciting to try something different. I enjoy trying to write truly alien when writing fiction, I enjoy playing non-humans in games. I don't think the baseline human of today is the pinnacle of anything either, as much as I like being one. I would be intrigued by something significantly different from us that still descended from us, and I would understand where people would be coming from going down that path.

I only ever write and play humans, because being human is the ultimate form of being.

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

[Olivaero]

How could you possibly know this never having conversed or even observed a mind disconnected from a body?

That depends on whether you view conceptual minds as minds...
And if you ignore that they happen to share your body (But certainly their opinions aren't formed by it's experiences. they are formed by your mind crafting them.)

Not *quite* the same thing ... or actually I don't know really... It might be! Having internal dialogues always horrendously confuses me whenever I try to analyse it

[AETEN II]

I agree as well. It would unfortunately have to start out by payment, but hopefully with government subsidizes it would become affordable to all economic groupings.

It'll never happen. The elite would control its access to the common people and deny them the most essential benefits of the enhancement process. Unless some innovative person finds a way to achieve these benefits outside of conventional channels transhumanism guarantees the enshrinement of an enhanced aristocracy to rule over us. The one aspect that levels the playing field between the people and the elite is the fact that we are all human, and transhumanism destroys that in its entirety.

It depends. If you have an adamant Transhumanist for a CEO, chances are it'd be cheaper. It just would depend on who developed the technology- corporations or government scientists.

[Conserative Morality]

Out of interest, do you think a person blind and deaf from birth thinks in a fundamentally different manner from you.

To a degree. There are certainly aspects that they would think in a fundamentally different manner than I would by virtue of lacking two significant senses.

And expanding on that, does that effect the way you view them at all.

I would still view them as having human thought patterns, and that's what's important. It's like growing up in a radically different environment.

[Vetalia]

Okay, you know how when microwaves first appeared only a few people could afford them and then like a decade later most people had one?

Give me one good reason human enhancement technology isn't going to follow that pattern.

A microwave merely cooks food in a convenient manner, it doesn't give you abilities far above those of other people.

[Conserative Morality]

How could you possibly know this never having conversed or even observed a mind disconnected from a body?

Do you deny that the way we react to external stimuli shapes our way of thinking?

[Ostroeuropa]

It'll never happen. The elite would control its access to the common people and deny them the most essential benefits of the enhancement process. Unless some innovative person finds a way to achieve these benefits outside of conventional channels transhumanism guarantees the enshrinement of an enhanced aristocracy to rule over us. The one aspect that levels the playing field between the people and the elite is the fact that we are all human, and transhumanism destroys that in its entirety.

It depends. If you have an adamant Transhumanist for a CEO, chances are it'd be cheaper. It just would depend on who developed the technology- corporations or government scientists.

It's also wrong on the face of it.
What's in a corporations interests?

Consumption.
Lots
of
consumption.

How best to deliver this?

Mass produce and sell Body 2.0 with mind upgrades.

This DIRECTLY leads to the discovery of Body 3.0 because now you have a bunch of people demanding the next best thing and who have the minds able to design it.
Which leads to 4.0 etc.

There is a reason computer models keep improving so fast.

[Transhuman Proteus]

If the only thing that makes you human is disease and death and all your limitations you mustn't have a very cheery life...

Not what I meant and you know it isn't. Basically, I believe in what Conservative Morality said. Our downfalls are what make us human.

Sounds like the endless social comforting we have done for much of civilization to keep us productive and from becoming depressed as a species.

"Things are grim and we suffer and lose and hurt but hey it makes us human and if we live our lives with smiles on our faces and pay our taxes Ra and everyone will nod approvingly and we'll get to go to an afterlife where we'll be immortal and live for all eternity in paradise"

Now, we are getting to a point were the potential exist to really change that to some degree and live longer, better lives (not eternity in paradise, but still) and people reject it for the "no, we should go on suffering because we're better for it". No, we're really not. *Looks back at the thousands of years of glorious downfalling humans and how glorious their downfalls made them. Sighs a little*

Transhumanism would bring about the worst excesses of elitism in human society and amplify it. Having a transhuman aristocracy lording over everyone else by virtue of their ability to afford these enhancements is infinitely worse than even the most stratified feudal societies of centuries past...the difference then was the common people could overcome the elites by virtue of the fact that they were all human and subject to the same limitations but with an aristocracy comprised of individuals vastly more capable than any common person the chance of overthrowing a corrupted regime is virtually zero.

Okay, you know how when microwaves first appeared only a few people could afford them and then like a decade later most people had one?

Give me one good reason human enhancement technology isn't going to follow that pattern.

Because their has been a painfully slow shift to democratic access of technology? I mean you have government loans and grants and rebates to help you access necessary equipment in many places. From digital set top boxes so people can continue to access tv to money so people can by better computers and fridges to be more productive, less pollutant.

Democratic Transhumanism, understanding a lot of this stuff is a long way away advocates changes to society to better allow people to access technological progress.