[extropy-chat] Creating Transhumanity

[Adrian Tymes]

--- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Money is what makes things happen, the only force that
> we can always rely upon to make things happen.  Transhumanism
> will not advance on collective will, self-sacrificing 
> volunteers, individual courage, any of that.  Transhumanism 
> will be advanced a bit at a time by making each piece of
> the journey profitable.  Market forces will make it
> happen.  

Oh, but the irony is: often times, altering these same market forces -
developing tech to make things cheaper and better, altering society so
that a desired end becomes the most economically beneficial end, and so
forth - is often accomplished by collective will, self-sacrificing
volunteers, individual courage, and so forth.  Not always, of course,
but in the absence of those things, market forces will push development
towards that which is currently profitable.

Take, for example, the civil rights movement.  Even after the end of
slavery, it was perceived as profitable to treat people of color as
second-class citizens, so that relatively more affluent white people
would be more likely to purchase one's goods or services.  When this
fact changed - and, in fact, a significant number of said white people
started to not patronize merchants who discriminated against non-whites
- then the market followed.  But consider what it took to change that
fact itself.

We are simultaneously slaves to and masters of the market.  It is
definitely true that making certain lines of development obviously
profitable will accomplish our goals.  But how do we make them that
way?  (Either "proftiable" if they aren't already, or "obviously" if
they are but those with the power to do it don't see things that way.)