[extropy-chat] Transhumanist day in Madrid

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

The "Segundas Jornadas sobre Convergencia
Ciencia-Tecnología<http://fundacion.vodafone.es/VodafoneFundacion/FundacionVodafonePopupFicha/0,,26100,00.html>"
took
place in the University of Alcalá (near Madrid) from 6 to 10 March 2006. On
March 9 there was a panel on "TRANSHUMANISMO: UNA VISIÓN ÉTICA DE LA
TECNOLOGÍA PARA LA EXTENSIÓN DE LA VIDA" (Transhumanism: an ethical vision
of life extension technology) with many transhumanist speakers.

I think the event was very successful, with more than 500 students who
listened to the presentations (I could notice only a few people asleep in
the audience) and asked sensible questions.

I am receiving letters from students to thank the lecturers for opening
their eyes on the transhumanist worldview. One letter says: "until now I
viewed our mortal lives as something with a beginning and an end, and
nothing more. But now I believe in Man and in his technology, and this gives
me hope".

It is very intersting that we did not have any abstract ethical questions on
whether human enhancement is "right", God's plans, respect for nature,
reverence for our mortality, etc. The word "God" was not pronounced even
once. But we had a lot of concrete ethical questions on the social impact of
life extension, human enhancement and NBIC technologies.

My impression is that young students in Spain accept that human enhancement
technologies will be developed and deployed, perhaps sooner than most people
think, and that they are willing to consider this as a positive or at least
acceptable trend. But they want to hear "the rest of the story": how to
solve other, more urgent problems of our world like war, poverty, hunger,
public health etc.

Full report (under development) at:

http://futuretag.net/index.php/Alcala090306
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