[extropy-chat] Human - Posthuman gap

Joseph Bloch jbloch at humanenhancement.com
Thu Apr 28 00:20:01 UTC 2005


I don't see this as being what Eugen is saying at all.

Saying that there will be an end to the Human species, and that they 
will be succeeded by some PostHuman successor species, is most 
definitely not the same as saying that "there may be no place for the 
majority of the people around us".

I think even the most hardcore of us would agree that we would (and 
actively do) encourage the transition of each and every person alive 
today into a state of PostHumanity. That's why we almost universally 
agree on the desirability of making sure Transhumanist technologies are 
available to as wide an audience as possible. (Disagreement, of course, 
arises based on the question of just what is the most efficient way to 
make sure that happens; a relatively government-free Free Market, or a 
government-driven model; but the end result is common to both camps.)

It is a critical question, and also opens up the can of worms of the 
desireability/morality/practicality of imposing such a transition on 
those who don't, in their pre-PostHuman state, choose to undergo the 
transition (in a world where the majority of the population has an 
effective IQ of 1000, can someone with a "normal" IQ of 100 make such a 
choice and be said to be truly "informed"? Such standards are 
relative...) Another sticky wicket appears when those who choose not to 
transform themselves seek to impose that decision on everyone.

I say give as many people as possible the opportunity to shed their 
pre-PostHuman existence, and I am fairly sure that Eugen (and indeed the 
vast majority here) would agree on that broad goal.

Joseph

Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal": 
http://www.humanenhancement.com
New Jersey Transhumanist Association: http://www.goldenfuture.net/njta
PostHumanity Rising: http://transhumanist.blogspot.com/ (updated 4/21)

Samantha Atkins wrote:

>
> On Apr 27, 2005, at 2:59 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>
>>
>> I think the idea of the posthuman label is to denote an end to people 
>> As We Know Them,
>> and TEOTWAWKI in general.
>>
>> For some strange reason, this is still controversial to some 
>> transhumanists.
>>
>
> Is it a "strange reason" that most of us enjoy being a person as we 
> know them and are more than a bit put off by the notion that there may 
> be no place for the majority of people around us in your apparent 
> vision of a posthuman world?   Are we supposed to just go blindly full 
> tilt forward with little or no care what happens to the world as we 
> know it and its people?    If that is the view then I hope that it 
> remains exceedingly controversial.
>
> - samantha
>
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