[ExI] Zero State & other 'splinter' transhumanist movements

[Amon Zero]

2011/5/4 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>

> Amon Zero wrote:
> >In short, transhumanism appears to be splintering. That's not to say that
> the various facets of transhumanism do not heavily overlap, >but that the
> wheel simply seems to be turning once more.
>
> The Mormon Transhumanist Association comes to mind (you can tell where our
> booth is at a H+ conference, by listening for the sounds of irritated voices
> and grinding teeth)...
>
> http://transfigurism.org/
>


Hi John -

I must say I've found you guys (i.e. Mormon Transhumanists) quite intriguing
for some time. There are people within ZS working to adapt its principles
into a religion of sorts (known so far as "the praxis" - small p - or
"transhuman praxis", where Praxis - capital p - refers to ZS as a whole),
which gave rise to one of the more interesting early discussions / debates.
Basically, a slim majority of early ZS members were opposed to any
'religion' or 'spiritual philosophy' angle whatsoever, *even when* they
agreed with every single tenet of the proposed belief system. So it was the
label, the word 'religion' itself, that was making them squeamish.

Anyway, we went for a compromise in the best distributed-networks tradition,
allowing the religion project to go ahead, but emphasizing that it is just
one way in which people may choose to engage with the ideas and action of
offer, which all members are equally free to determinedly ignore.

If anyone is wondering why we'd bother with a religious aspect at all, let's
just say that some of our members know a large number of sympathetic 'fellow
travellers' who are some shade of pagan or spiritualist and would more
naturally grok transhumanism presented that way. If the details and
principles are the same, I don't see a problem myself.

Best,
A
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