[ExI] Reframing transhumanism as good vs. evil

[Adrian Tymes]

2011/1/12 AlgaeNymph <algaenymph at gmail.com>:
> "But is it really better?"  The people who control the socially-accepted
> definition of morality feel that all you need is love and organic
> gardening.  Wanting more is Consumerism, which is what the Corporations make
> you buy into!  Instead, we should be Respecting the Earth and Doing Our Part
> in the Community.

And that is one of the "evils" we fight against.  Wanting to cure death for
everyone (perhaps the rich would benefit first, as often happens, but this
does not prevent us from spreading it to everyone) is something that
scares them, so they fight against our goal, making up facts and making
all sorts of logical fallacies in their crusade against those who genuinely
seek a better tomorrow.  They insist that we will mess it up - but the only
alternative to trying to do something about our problems is not doing
anything about our problems, and punishing those who try.  That attitude
has demonstrable results in, for example, much of the Middle East: see
what happens to teachers and modernists who so much as suggest that
perhaps girls ought to receive the same education as boys.  (For extra
drama - if a slight logical fallacy, but again, the people you're debating
often don't care about fallacies* - point out that the one who recently shot
a US Representative was thinking this way.)

"Luddite" is starting to become accepted as a term for those who would
trash the generally accepted benefits of modern tech.

* This itself, BTW, is one of the main problems.  The opposition, by and
large, has accepted the practice of making up likely-sounding but in fact
false data, and pretends that fallacies do not invalidate their arguments.
They've also convinced much of the public that this is valid.

One tactic to counter them is to call them on this whenever they do it.
The next time they claim that just because you're a transhumanist you
must be evil, and therefore your words can be dismissed without
consideration, try pointing out that they're defending a point of view that
has promoted the slaughter of over a billion people (and decline to cite
any sources, other than vague mumblings about crusades and current
wars) while you're promoting a point of view that could remove most of
the reasons for war.  The next time they claim the benefits of
enhancement can only ever accrue to The Rich, ask them how much The
Rich paid them to say that, and then point out the number of "astroturf"
organizations that The Rich routinely pay to pretend to be incensed, to
trip up and slow down those who really do want to help The Non-Rich.

When a lot of the audience forget why fallacies invalidate arguments, and
your opposition tries to take advantage of that to discredit your side, try
countering with an exaggerated example - which you then acknowledge as
probably invalid, but only to the degree that your opposition's fallacy is also
invalid - to remind the audience.

(On a related note: I'd like to see someone counter one of these "sex
predator" moral panics that result in "tougher" - but actually less effective -
laws by pointing out, to those urging the passage of these laws, that one
could take issue with how they looked at one's children, and thus
convinced that they intend to rape your children, get them branded - and
banned from much of society - for life, when all they actually did was look
at that someone's kids.  Oh, and of course the courts would have to take
their kids away because they looked at someone else's kids, because of
course a sex predator is presumptively unqualified to raise children.  Twist
the screws by asking them why they want to martyr their own children in
order to pass a law that actually makes our children less safe, by making
it harder for cops to find the real predators.)

> Oh, but you'll only improve quality of life for The Rich (who may as well be
> the aliens from They Live) and create a caste system.

No more a caste system than already exists.

> Also, without death,
> we'll have overpopulation and Rich People living forever.

Assuming a) this never spreads beyond rich people and b) we don't eventually
get off of Earth.  Many of the arguments against us boil down to, "X has never
yet happened therefore X can never happen" - if they're even explicit
about their
assumption of the indefinite status quo.

> At this point, I expect you'll tell me that there's nothing I can do about
> such people and that I should just ignore them.  How is that a good idea
> when they're not ignoring us while getting more people listening to them
> than we are?

You're right, someone has to focus on countering them in the media.  From
your original problem description, it sounds like you might wish to become
that someone.

> That last one may be the most significant part.  People make up all sorts of
> evil motives for us, but they rarely turn out to be true.
>
> How do we convince the public otherwise?

That is the crux of your college assignment, no?