[extropy-chat] Human - Posthuman gap (was: Spain has become the third country in Europe to legalise gay marriage)

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2005 at 02:21:37PM -0700, Samantha Atkins 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 

Absolutely no disagreement there. Life's good, and all that.

But, long-term (not necessarily long in terms of the wall-clock) there
(hopefully, or all this is moot) will be increasingly more and more 
options available, and also a mounting pressure to choose between them.

Being a baby is nice, too, but we all have moved on since. I presume people would
frown if some (assuming, it was possible) decided to stay at that stage
indefinitely. (Breastfeeding, diaper rash, and cuddly toys in bright colors,
and all that funky poo. Weee! I take it all back).

> 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 

It is not my vision. I, personally, would prefer babies could stay babies
indefinitely, if that's what they really want to do. But the point is that
the world doesn't care, and it is not a good idea to try to serenely float in
the amniotic fluid towards the far (which could be soon) future.

> 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 

Actually, the very opposite. You're supposed to care, and make plans, to
minimize the amount of potential disruption and mayhem.

> know it and its people?    If that is the view then I hope that it 
> remains exceedingly controversial.

I'd be happy if we could start a constructive discussion on the premise that
the human primate bauplan people are going to become an endangered species
sometime within this century, or slightly beyond, and will need a protection 
plan and rehabilitation programme.

The only option straight out is the "head in the sand" one (because it's
indistinguishable from "welcome to the fossil record", which would kinda 
suck).

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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