[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jan 21, 2008, at 4:01 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote:

> Thank to the hospitality of my friend Giulio Prisco's blog,  
> Transumanar, I thought it a good idea to summarise and make  
> available on the Web a few personal ideas about some some political  
> issues that have obvious strategic implications for the Associazione  
> Italiana Transumanisti and more in general the European and  
> international transhumanist movement.
>
> Here is the full text of my post:
>
> <<Five Points for European (and World?) Transhumanism
> In response to a some concerns recently raised in the framework of  
> Associazione Italiana Transumanisti's mailing list with respect to  
> the positions within the transhumanist movement on a number of  
> important issues, I came up with five points that I believe should  
> denote the "party line" of this organisation, and that I would like  
> to share here with a broader public.
>
> 1) The struggle for access to technologies cannot be ignored in  
> favour of some eschatological vision of eternal solutions to all  
> conflicts. I am referring here to access to both future, possibile  
> technologies and already existing technologies; both at a social and  
> at an international level; and especially to technologies that are  
> crucial to individual and collective survival and self-determination  
> (in fact, transhumanists are among those most likely to struggle  
> everywhere for their own access, as well as that of their biological  
> and spiritual children and of their communties however defined,  
> against prohibitionisms and monopolies of all sorts).
>
> 2) It is not reasonable to expect that it be generally accepted that  
> the amount of currency units an individual or an entity is credited  
> with in the databases of financial institutions is a universal and  
> "divine" sign implying an exclusivity (or priority) right in the  
> access to technologies, so that those not profiting from such  
> advantage should peacefully surrender to their lot.
>

If we assume that at least some technologies are at least in their  
beginning relatively scarce and expensive then what means other than  
money do you propose to use to determine who can gain access to these  
technologies?

> 3) Fundamental research and its technological and educational  
> infrastructure are essential for our future. More importantly, to  
> the kind of future we would like to live in, and to the values we  
> promote. Now, the investments required by fundamental research  
> cannot be adequately sustained by the mere funds possibly devoted to  
> it by business organisations. In fact, it is disputable that the  
> market can sustain breakthrough-oriented, high-risk, long-term  
> research at all, let alone research the returns of which appear to  
> be radically unpredictable.
>

Besides business organization and governments using tax revenues for  
such purposes there are also various voluntary associations of  
individual and organizations pooling funds and resources toward  
particular desired goals.
> 4) No compromises are really acceptable with regard to freedom of  
> research and to the freedom of biological and reproductive self- 
> determination, especially in view of ideas aimed at the  
> globalisation of absolute and universal values of a more or less  
> overtly metaphysical foundation.
>
What does this "compromise" or "no comprise" consist of?
> 5) Technological developments cannot, and above all should not, be  
> taken for granted. Specific technological achievements can never be  
> presumed to self-produce irrespective of the legal framework,  
> societal investments, and dominant cultural values, and are rather  
> to be considered as the goal of a deliberate, political will able to  
> establish the pre-requisites for their flourishing.
>

Advances are usually anticipated by the relative few.  So is this  
political will somehow directed by the few in these matters or is it  
expected to somehow spontaneously arise and be well founded in the  
majority?

> Even supposed virtous circles, positive feedbacks and recursive  
> technologies require bootstrapping and the maintenance of a  
> compatible environment along their entire life cycles.
>

Who has the understanding to do this assuming it does in fact need to  
be done?

> Discussions on what to do best with future technologies and and how  
> to "regulate" them are fine, but often sound too much like the  
> proverbial cavemen fighting over the spoils of a mammuth they have  
> not taken down yet in the first place. A continuing acceleration in  
> the pace of techno-scientific progress, or any flavour of  
> Singularity, are certainly a legitimate hope and a distinct  
> possibility, but in no way a guaranteed outcome, especially with  
> regard to the issues which are the most relevant for actual people,  
> namely the "when?" and the "where?".
>
Well sure.  But again how do these "cavemen" develop the proper  
"political will" to guide and nurture desirable technology?


> To opine otherwise involves tranforming transhumanism in a tea club,  
> gathering people just in order to applaud politely from the side  
> what is supposed to take place anyway, or in the kind of cults where  
> no action whatever is prescribed, faith and contemplation being all  
> they are about. Worse, it risks to induce some transhumanists to  
> concentrate on a debate with neoluddites on how best to "govern"  
> what for the better and the worse both sides consider, with a naive  
> extrapolation of trends actually jeopardised from many angles, as  
> largely inevitable developments; and desist from any initiative  
> aimed at actually conquering the destiny envisioned by its leading  
> thinkers and precursors.>>
>

Agreed very much that we often engage in pointless debates or assume  
developments that are not at all inevitable in lieu of doing the  
required work.

- samantha

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