[extropy-chat] Socialism versus Transhumanism

[Jose Cordeiro]

Dear transhumanist friends,
 
     I totally agree with Max's point below. We should oppose this misuse of the name democracy meaning socialism as proposed by leftists. For a long time, I have been making the same critique about James Hughes's paper, which should be called "socialist" transhumanism as opposed to "democratic" transhumanism.
 
     The leftists already "stole" the name "liberal" in the Anglosaxon world and that is why the word "libertarian" had to be created. Words are important. Another example is how some US sports people stole the name football (for a US game with no round ball and with not much use of our feet) from the real football played around the world, and created instead the silly name soccer.
 
     I am a believer in democracy and libertarian ideas, which are perfectly compatible, and I strongly oppose the "stealing" of the term democracy by leftists to cover up their socialist plot. Socialism has been always a disgrace wherever it has been tried. The funny thing is that socialists always "steal" words to cover up: in Latin American most leftists propose State Capitalism, which is nothing but Socialism under another name.
 
     My concern about socialists is that they will want to restrict liberties, as they always do, and stop the free rise of transhumanism. By its very nature, transhumanism depends very much on individual liberties, since people will decide what to do with their lifes, minds and bodies. The main opposition will be coming from socialists, and communists, facists, Sharia Islamists and other groups that "know better" what is good for you.
 
     SOCIALISM IS BASICALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH LONG-TERM TRANSHUMANISM.
 
     Transhumanistically yours,
 
     La vie est belle!
 
     Yosé

Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:
What *does* bother me is socialists like James Hughes and Dale Carrico who 
use the term "democratic transhumanism" and talk about "cyborg democracy". 
Their use of the term "democracy" appears to me to be a cover for 
socialism. This disturbs me in large part because socialism has always been 
a disastrous goal and method and extending it to transhumanist issues would 
probably be even worse.

That's the main issue, as far as I'm concerned.-talk


La vie est belle!

Yosé (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


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