[extropy-chat] The Catalog Of Correctable Omnipresent Human Flaws

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Tue Jul 5 00:21:37 UTC 2005


Yes, he obviously doesn't think of the x-prize, the methuselah mouse
prize, the free state project, the electronic freedom foundation, etc
etc as 'transhumanist' because they are things that have already
happened. This is the strawman: as soon as we accomplish something, it
is part of the past and therefore by definition not part of the
transhumanist future that we've been predicting and working on for
years.

--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:

> --- Edward Smith <weg9mq at centralmail.zzn.com> wrote:
> > As of now, mid 2005, transhumanist work has consisted of
> > nothing except discussions, news-sharing, political debating, and
> > some political work on behalf of issues that are related to
> > transhumanism.
> 
> Ha ha ha wrong.  Although I can see how one would come to such an
> erroneous conclusion.
> 
> > There have apparently been no attempts at
> > actually IMPLEMENTING transhumanism, that is, modifying
> > human zygotes (probably produced in test tubes), most likely
> > via a retroviral gene-delivery vector.
> 
> One step at a time, yo.  The human genome ain't the easiest learning
> tool out there.  There's been tons of ongoing work just trying to
> understand what all the various bits are.  See any number of
> mainstream
> biomedical research publications focussing on genetic anything.
> 
> In the mean time, there's been work on modifying the genomes of
> plants (look up Genetically Modified Organisms - which work has been
> so
> widespread as to have provoked debate in many nations, and
> unfortunately legal restrictions in some) and some animals.  A few
> people have tried basic gene therapy on humans; unfortunately, we
> know
> so little that the attempts killed people.  The regulating bodies
> have
> been discussing safeguards to make sure deaths don't happen again;
> they've put a halt to actual gene therapy for now, but they
> definitely
> do not want that halt to last forever - just until there's a good
> chance they won't kill anyone else.  (Of course, they're ignoring all
> the deaths their delay is causing in the mean time, but they tend to
> do
> that a lot.)  See
>
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/medicine/genetherapy.shtml#status
> 
> I'll leave commenting on the proposal for a new list and archive to
> others.  But the fact that it is so easy to believe transhumanism is
> all talk and no action says something.
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> 


Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
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