[ExI] [wta-talk] De Thezier's New Year's Resolution: Quit Transhumanism

[Jef Allbright]

On 1/2/08, Justice De Thezier <justice.de.thezier at gmail.com> wrote:

> [Jef wrote:]
> > In short, consider the paradox:  You're frustrated and leaving because
> > of conflict over thinking and goals -- despite very substantial
> > agreement on values.
>
> Someone as introspective as I am is always aware of such paradoxes if they
> exists. However, my point is that the flaws of transhumanism undermine the
> values of transhumanism.

I suggested you try to see the contradiction in the bigger picture --
rather than looking within yourself for ideological purity.
(Libertarians observe the same purity of principle when they
introspect.)   Note that your response avoids the contradiction I
presented:  that you find yourself in frustration and conflict on
matters of ideology (ways of thinking, methods, imagined goals),
despite **very substantial agreement on values** that nearly all of us
would like to see promoted with increasing coherence into our future.

The first part of my post to was to acknowledge the flaws of
"transhumanism" as frequently conceived and expressed.  I also tried
to acknowledge our evolved tendencies to frame such issues in
heuristic terms of identification and imagined "goals", despite the
increasing incoherence of such models extrapolated beyond the
realities of the tribal environment of social adaptation.  I
understand the strong sense of passion and purpose and tribal cohesion
provided by those ancient tools, I do.

But as futurists we recognize that the times are changing -- and so
are we.  We find ourselves operating in the early 21st century and
able to glimpse, just barely, the shape of the wave of accelerating
change we ride.  Also just barely, we're beginning to sense the moral
baggage we carry along, a few items fresh and self-selected, some
given to us when we young -- but many more are outdated and outmoded
fashions of our ancestors, hardly appropriate for surfing tomorrow.

It's quite understandable that we tend to frame social decision-making
in terms of in-group versus out-group and tribal conflict over issues
of scarcity.  It's easy to understand political polarization in terms
of "rights" versus "liberties", and the application of power from
either point sources of authority or the imagined corrollary, a flat
plane of "democracy."

But it takes broader awareness to see the same issues turned
outside-in, where there is still exercise of power, but rather than at
points or across a plane: it's by the varied branches of a tree of
agency rooted in a common reality.  Rather than competing "rights" and
"liberties": private choices and public consequences within a shared
world.  Rather than conflict between in-group and out-group:
increasing agreement on converging probabilities, supporting
increasing expression of divergent possibilities.  Rather than
zero-sum problems: positive-sum opportunities.  Same issues, different
context.

This bigger picture is not an idealistic one, just a smarter one.  As
our problems/opportunities take on a broader context, so too must our
approach to solutions.

- Jef