[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[Stefano Vaj]

On Jan 21, 2008 7:26 PM, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>  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?

My statement simply concerns the fact that somebody who is faced with
an existential risk is usually willing to do absolutely anything   in
his power to survive. This concern individuals as well as countries or
other communities. We already know for instance what African countries
think of the choice between breaching time-honoured intellectual
property principles such as international protection of phamaceutical
patents and doing what they can to alleviate HIV-related medical
emergencies. It is anybody's guess what would happen if somebody came
up with a radical longevist technology, and tried to maintain
exclusivity on it. In another sense, and speaking of weapons of mass
destruction, I expect any country that feels rightly or wrongly
threatened by them to be inclined to build effective defences or at
least deterrence as much as it can, irrespective of any "regulation"
to the contrary.

And I think we should not expect local transhumanists (or, for that
matter, transhumanists belonging to excluded classes and groups in
rich countries) to resist any of that in the name of some legal
formalism or other. I think realism, in a marxist sense, is in order
about all that.

>>  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.

Absolutely. And this is why I chose to formulate this point in a
negative sense, rather than merely affirming the need for governmental
intervention or public demand. Whenever an Open Source-like approach
can demonstrably work, I am just the happier with that. Actually,
besides transhumanism, Open Source advocacy is my other main
"political" engagement. Let me however vent my skepticism on the
chance that things such as the Apollo Project, the Manhattan Project,
the Human Genome Project, ITER or the Large Hadron Collider could ever
be implemented under such model.

>>  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?

To give you an example, you might refer to the Italian law under which
IFV is allowed but only if no more than three embryos are generated at
a time, and the mother is at least theoretically bound to accept
implantation of embryos screened by PDG.

>>  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?

What I am merely saying here is that technologies do not get developed
by themselves. They require well-educated, highly-motivated, well-paid
(both in monetary and social-status terms), free-to-act, inventors,
researchers, scholars, visionaries, entrepreneurs who do their
damnedest to deliver in this respect, and see that as a priority. Such
conditions in the first place should not be taken for granted. On the
contrary, many in Western Europe seem to believe nowadays that a
society can live and flourish that includes only managers, bankers,
share brokers, plus perhaps their fashion and hair stylists.

>> 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?

What I am saying is simply that unless technological progress is
promoted and sustained, discussions on guidance of what it could
deliver... if it ever existed are more or less of the same relevance
of that on the number of angels sitting on a pin... The second
discussion should never go without the first, IMHO.

Stefano Vaj