[extropy-chat] Transhumanism 666: The Mark of the Beast

[Samantha Atkins]

I wonder how many of us do believe, as I do, that humanity is at a very 
important crossroads.   Our science and technology has brought us to 
the point where our natural proclivities and desires are both magnified 
in their effects and capable of being satisfied on a scale undreamt of 
not long ago and largely undreamt of by the many even now.

It is doubtless an overly simplistic view, but the world often seems to 
have roughly two choices as to its immediate destiny.    On the one 
hand we can attempt to proceed more or less as we normally do in how 
our institutions, our economic and political activities and so on are 
structured,  and perhaps most importantly in our fundamental 
assumptions about what is possible and reasonable in the world and just 
what is possible for us.   I also believe, as I think most of us do, 
that our accelerating level of technological sophistication brings many 
of these assumptions into question.    To name one relatively key 
assumption, the assumption of fundamental scarcity may well be a major 
driver in our institutions and interactions that turns out to be a 
false assumption given say, full MNT.   If we are bound by the old 
assumption though we will fight against the creation of a world scene 
that actually embodies abundance instead of scarcity.   We will 
continuously reinvent scarcity, cling to it, and strive to protect 
institutions and practices developed for operating under scarcity.  We 
will even see the harbingers of greater abundance in each area, such as 
increasingly open and copious flow of information today, as evils to be 
stopped or shackled.      I also hold to the notion that our 
increasingly accelerated technological means in service to an outdated 
set of assumptions and methodologies will lead to great chaos and 
oppression, perhaps so great as to be truly apocalyptic in the most 
negative sense.

On the other hand, if we can adapt our institutions and our very selves 
to the possibilities of great abundance, of unlimited life spans, of 
the free flow of information and computational resources to all people 
we could well see a relative paradise on this earth and fairly quickly. 
   The great rub is we ourselves.   It is not at all clear how much and 
to what degree we can get out of our own way.   This is more than a 
matter of simple desire to do so.   Our very evolutionary programming 
places some limits on how much we can change how quickly to adapt to 
circumstances quite different than those we evolved to handle.   We do 
not yet know what those limits are.    One of the mistakes made by 
every utopian vision of the future is to assume too much malleability 
of human beings and by extension, our institutions.

I am of the opinion that humanity is in the process of making deeply 
fundamental choices that will effect the destiny of this species.   It 
depends on my current level of optimism and unbounded hope what I 
believe is the extent of the upside.   It depends on my current level 
of cynicism, despair and being appalled at the news of today how 
utterly awful I think the opposite outcomes are likely to be.

Apocalyptic movements and thinking are thus in my view a manifestation 
of quite real decision points at this time in human history.    
Dressing them up into fights between Good and Evil and Light and Dark 
Powers is not helpful.   But just because we can look askance at many 
such movements past and present does not mean that we do not have very 
fundamental decision points that are ours to traverse.   The 
ridiculousness of many of these movements does not mean that our own 
decisions and actions will not have truly epic import to the future of 
our species.

- samantha