[ExI] Are transhumanists becoming the bad guys?

[efc at swisscows.email]

Hello Darin, and thank you for the background!

So since you've been active since the mid-90s, have you seen the 
"transhumanist bad guy" narrative coming and going throughout the years?

I've never seen it before, but if you've seen it coming and going, it's 
just old news, and that I never saw or heard it.

Best regards,
Daniel


On Wed, 29 Nov 2023, Darin Sunley via extropy-chat wrote:

> We have been in for some time, and are heading into, an extended period of massive societal change and economic uncertainty. Per
> Keith Henson, this triggers a deep-seated gene complex that turns people unreasonably xenophobic. Any group radically different from
> one's own becomes intrinsically suspect just on general principles.
> I've been active on this list and other transhumanist-adjacent circles since the mid-90s. And even with the general principles set
> aside, some of the substance of those complaints is, broadly speaking, true. Transhumanists are still, and really always have been,
> at best, mildly hostile to traditional conceptions of spirituality and religion. The Venn diagram between transhumanism and New
> Atheism in the 90's was almost a pair of concentric circles. Not all online atheists were transhumanists, but virtually all
> transhumanists were atheist, frequently aggressively so.
> 
> On Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 3:37 PM efc--- via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>       Hello list,
>
>       The other day I was listening to a conspiracy pod and all of a sudden, I
>       heard a medium talk about how the transhumanists want to
>       eradicate all spiritual values and merge humanity with the machine.
>
>       In my own home cooked transhumanist version, transhumanists are
>       optimistic, life affirming people who are solving problems with
>       science and technology.
>
>       So when did transhumanists start to become the bad guys in conspiracy
>       circles? Did anyone of you encounter this in real life or in
>       virtual life?
>
>       Curious shift in narrative that completely passed me by and caught me by
>       surprise.
>
>       Best regards,
>       Daniel
> 
>
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> 
>