[ExI] Reframing transhumanism as good vs. evil

[John Grigg]

Ben, bellow forth with your best rendition of a mad
scientist/supervillain laugh, and tell your classmate that you and all
the other evil transhumanists are only getting started with the master
plan to exploit the weak and conquer the world.

"You have seen nothing yet!!!"

John  ; )

On 1/12/11, Darren Greer <darren.greer3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I had an
>> idea to speak
>> about transhumanism, to which one of my classmates rather
>> indignantly
>> asked me why I wanted to advocate biotech enhancement
>> instead of medicine.
>
> That kind of question irks me slightly: it makes the mistake of assuming
> popular modalities in the discipline *are* the discipline. Since when is
> biotech not medicine? Transport back a five hundred years and you'd have a
> student asking a doctor with some new approaches why he'd rather perform
> surgery than bleed the patient with leeches and gauge his dominant "humor."
>
> Darren
>
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> AlgaeNymph <algaenymph at gmail.com> asked:
>>
>>
>> >
>> > A while age in college, I was in a speech class where one
>> > of the things
>> > we did was have a group critique our ideas.  I had an
>> > idea to speak
>> > about transhumanism, to which one of my classmates rather
>> > indignantly
>> > asked me why I wanted to advocate biotech enhancement
>> > instead of medicine.
>> >
>> > That's the problem we have.  Even when we're not seen
>> > as evil, we're
>> > seen as selfish nerds who are utterly indifferent to
>> > it.  The sad thing
>> > is I find myself almost believing this.  Causes that
>> > comedians can't
>> > brand as outright evil or obvious spin are pretty much
>> > about fighting
>> > evil and/or saving innocents.  Citizen heroics,
>> > basically.
>> >
>> > What kind of citizen heroics do *we* have?
>>
>>
>> You've got to be joking.
>>
>> What's more heroic than saving the lives of 100,000 people a day?
>>
>> Even superman is never shown doing that.
>>
>>
>> Ben Zaiboc
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> *"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The
> 'hard' is what makes it great."*
> *
> *
> *--A League of Their Own
> *
>