[extropy-chat] Re: themes in anti-transhumanist arguments

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Neil Halelamien <neuronexmachina at gmail.com> wrote:
> On a related note, I think most of the anti-transhumanist arguments
> I've come across have tended to follow one of the following themes:
> 
> 1. Religion: Certain advanced technologies violate the will of God.

Common answer: whose God?  (See refutations of Pascal's Wager.)

Less common answer: point out that some interpretations of God would
actually see advanced technologies as not only okay, but part of God's
plan for us - specifically, allowing us to better understand God's
wisdom and to better accomplish God's work, just like we have for all
of human history.

> 2. Environmentalism: Advanced technologies will increase humanity's
> capability to ruin the environment. (I suspect most environmentalists
> would object to turning the solar system's mass into a Dyson sphere)

Common answer: it will also increase humanity's capability to save and
restore the environment - as, for example, it has measurably done ever
since the environmentalist movement started.  (Actually before, but
environmentalists are more likely to accept this counter if they are
allowed to take some credit for it.)  There is every reason to believe
this trend will continue.

Less common answer: if things really go to heck, advanced technologies
will allow us to completely evacuate humanity from the Earth, to let
the Earth recover while our lives go on.

> 3. Social justice: The rich, western world, and/or corporations will
> get access to advanced technologies first, leading to greater
> economic
> and social disparities.

Common answer: look at the current definition of "poverty", versus the
definition many decades ago.  Note that, for example, few people
actually starve in industrial countries, unlike in the 1800s.  Why
should we care if some people get super-rich and go play in their own
world, if in the bargain we can drastically improve living conditions
for the world's poor?

Less common answer: of course it will.  But the faster we develop the
technologies, the faster we can get them to the rest of the world and
correct not only those disparities but the ones we currently face.

> Perhaps it would be useful to put together a resource (maybe a wiki?)
> of arguments we often encounter, along with useful counter-arguments?
> We of course don't want to end up being like certain
> anarcho-syndicalists, with their never-ending verbatim quotation of
> Chomsky talking-points, but having such a resource could still be
> useful.

A Wiki specific to us might never be known to the vast majority of
people to whom the information would be of use.  I wonder if we could
put it on some entry in Wikipedia without violating their NPOV.  (If
we violate it, they'll remove our text, and our effort will have been
for naught or even counterproductive.)