[ExI] transhumanist in mainstream news

[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 10:53 PM,  Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sure, here's my review of Zoltan's book:
> http://www.kurzweilai.net/book-review-the-transhumanist-wager

Good review, thanks.

A *long* time ago, 30 years about, I ran into one of the far edge
Libertarians, Objectivist variation I guess.  This person (who I will
not name) had the opinion that if it came down to him dying or the
entire human race, the race would have to die.

I always considered myself a lower case libertarian of the Space Cadet
(Heinlein) variation.  But that was too much for me.  And I rather
doubt Heinlein would have thought much of it either.

We are not just social animals.  Evolution has wired us up to take
risks defending the group (tribe, band) because our genes are shared.
Under some circumstances it makes sense to take risks or even to die
in the defense of your group.  See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection#Hamilton.27s_rule

Keith