[ExI] Is Transhumanism Coercive?

Joseph Bloch seculartranshumanist at gmail.com
Thu Oct 20 23:03:06 UTC 2011


2011/10/20  <natasha at natasha.cc>:
> Quoting Joseph Bloch <seculartranshumanist at gmail.com>:
>
>> On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> And while the jury may still be out on the subject I am not
>>> sure that the majority of "expert transhumanists" are ready to
>>> repudiate it without a second thought.
>>
>> I'm more than a little worried about this causal bandying about of
>> "expert transhumanists" as a phrase. It seems to carry with it the
>> implication that those of us without PhD's should just hush up and let
>> the experts do all the Big Thinking for us.
>
> I think Stefano means experts in transhumanist-related arguments, not
> "expert transhumanists", per se. Anyway, let's not dismiss PhDs or those who
> do not have them. After all, Ronald Baily is not a PhD and he is one of the
> most erudite thinker on transhumanist-type topics, while Don Ihde is a PhD
> and his thinking on transhumanist topics is nescient.
>
> Natasha

Well, Stefano was merely echoing Brett, who stated:

"There is always going to be some small minority set of non expert
transhumanism that advocate coercion, even of the military type."

Brett, perhaps you could elaborate on this difference between "expert
transhumanism" and "non expert transhumanism"? You seem to think that
the latter spawns coercive transhumanist ideas, and the former
presumably does not. Specific examples (both of what makes some forms
of transhumanism "expert" and of those who advocate coercion) would be
appreciated.

Joseph




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