[ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 55, Issue 4

[Tom Nowell]

> "Richard Loosemore" <rpwl at lightlink.com> Wrote:
> 
>> Hi John.
>>
>> I love this transhumanism list.  Well informed. 
Full of rational,
>> reasoned argument.  Plenty of people who understand
the complexities
>> of  the world enough to know that cause and effect
are often linked
>> in  subtle ways that can only be understood by
careful thought.
>> These are truly the people of the future, no?

Sometimes, I feel that the transhumanists are about as
much the people of the future as early 20th century
eugenicists were. They were full of ideas, guided by
Darwinism, contained many leading intellectuals, and
were convinced that something had to be done to stop
genetically inferior people taking over the world. As
a result of policies they advocated such as forcibly
sterilising disabled people and eugenic associations
with Nazi science, they are now often discredited.
They also operated with knowledge of mendelian
genetics but without knowledge of DNA.
 Today, instead of discoursing in our salons and
literary journals, we email each other and moan about
how religous beliefs are stifling biology, or how
people are too blind to take NBIC technologies
seriously, or how people are taking the wrong approach
to energy production. Our knowledge of future
technologies is based on the early promise of
fast-developing fields, and they could well develop
much differently from how we predict.
 Sometimes I really wonder what separates us from
intellectual movements of the past that fell by the
wayside.

Tom


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