[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[Stefano Vaj]

Thank to the hospitality of my friend Giulio Prisco's blog,
Transumanar<http://www.transumanar.com>,
I thought it a good idea to summarise and make available on the Web a few
personal ideas about some some political issues that have obvious strategic
implications for the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti and more in general
the European and international transhumanist movement.

Here is the full text of my post:

<<Five Points for European (and World?) Transhumanism

In response to a some concerns recently raised in the framework of
Associazione Italiana Transumanisti's mailing list with respect to the
positions within the transhumanist movement on a number of important issues,
I came up with five points that I believe should denote the "party line" of
this organisation, and that I would like to share here with a broader
public.

1) *The struggle for access to technologies cannot be ignored in favour of
some eschatological vision of eternal solutions to all conflicts*. I am
referring here to access to both future, possibile technologies and already
existing technologies; both at a social and at an international level; and
especially to technologies that are crucial to individual and collective
survival and self-determination (in fact, transhumanists are among those
most likely to struggle everywhere for their own access, as well as that of
their biological and spiritual children and of their communties however
defined, against prohibitionisms and monopolies of all sorts).

2) I*t is not reasonable to expect that it be generally accepted that the
amount of currency units an individual or an entity is credited with in the
databases of financial institutions is a universal and "divine" sign
implying an exclusivity (or priority) right in the access to technologies*,
so that those not profiting from such advantage should peacefully surrender
to their lot.

3) Fundamental research and its technological and educational infrastructure
are essential for our future. More importantly, to the kind of future we
would like to live in, and to the values we promote. Now, *the investments
required by fundamental research cannot be adequately sustained by the mere
funds possibly devoted to it by business organisations*. In fact, it is
disputable that the market can sustain breakthrough-oriented, high-risk,
long-term research at all, let alone research the returns of which appear to
be radically unpredictable.

4) *No compromises are really acceptable with regard to freedom of research
and to the freedom of biological and reproductive self-determination*,
especially in view of ideas aimed at the globalisation of absolute and
universal values of a more or less overtly metaphysical foundation.

5) *Technological developments cannot, and above all should not, be taken
for granted*. Specific technological achievements can never be presumed to
self-produce irrespective of the legal framework, societal investments, and
dominant cultural values, and are rather to be considered as the goal of a
deliberate, political will able to establish the pre-requisites for their
flourishing. Even supposed virtous circles, positive feedbacks and recursive
technologies require bootstrapping and the maintenance of a compatible
environment along their entire life cycles. Discussions on what to do best
with future technologies and and how to "regulate" them are fine, but often
sound too much like the proverbial cavemen fighting over the spoils of a
mammuth they have not taken down yet in the first place. A continuing
acceleration in the pace of techno-scientific progress, or any flavour of
Singularity, are certainly a legitimate hope and a distinct possibility, but
in no way a guaranteed outcome, especially with regard to the issues which
are the most relevant for actual people, namely the "when?" and the
"where?". To opine otherwise involves tranforming transhumanism in a tea
club, gathering people just in order to applaud politely from the side what
is supposed to take place anyway, or in the kind of cults where no action
whatever is prescribed, faith and contemplation being all they are about.
Worse, it risks to induce some transhumanists to concentrate on a debate
with neoluddites on how best to "govern" what for the better and the worse
both sides consider, with a naive extrapolation of trends actually
jeopardised from many angles, as largely inevitable developments; and desist
from any initiative aimed at actually conquering the destiny envisioned by
its leading thinkers and precursors.>>
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