[ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists

[Tom Nowell]

I'm sorry if the following post sounds in anyway
anti-Bryan, but his posts have been the most
dismissive towards religious influence recently. I'm
going to mention why I think we should pay attention
to religion and how it views transhumanism.

Bryan said " They certainly don't have supercomputers,
they don't have massive research institutions, 
they don't have neurofarms, the only power they have
is lots of listeners and a widely distributed 
mental program. What does this power have to do with
transhumanism?"
 Well, if they decide that some transhumanist ideas or
methods are incompatible with their code of ethics,
they will use that mental program to try and influence
as many people as possible. This includes many lapsed
catholics without a particularly strong interest in
science, who when pushed on a bioethical topic may go
"I don't know!<shrug> I guess it sounds a bit contrary
to what I was taught as a child, so I suppose I'm a
little bit against transhumanist technology X".
 Italy, like most developed countries, is a
representative democracy. This means laws are made,
and taxes spent, by people who's career depends on
chasing votes. If enough Italian politicians decide
that chasing the catholic vote is more important than
letting some biological research facility or
experimental medical clinic do what it wants, then
transhuman progress in that country may be seriously
held back. The US ban on federal funding of embryonic
stem cell research didn't hold back the field as much
as some feared, but the prospect of labs being banned
from performing certain research is very real.

Bryan also said "The religious institutions are not
doing ES cell nor GMO research." This is true, but
they *are* funding think tanks which comment on these
lines of research and lobby politicians with their
point of view on how these things should be licensed.
Your ES cell or GMO research group would like to
allowed to legally earn a living without risking jail
or being closed down.

Bryan also said "we're 
increasingly able to do research without financial
cost (more "DIY")." DIY research still depends on
being allowed to do it legally. If your research
requires iodine, red phosphorous or hydrochloric gas
you risk DEA investigation in the US, as the link
below makes clear.

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/csa/872.htm

If the war on terror becomes the war on bio-terror,
anyone doing home biotech research risks being locked
up without trial. I think it was in Greg Bear's
"Quantico" where he painted a picture of a US filled
with terrorism, where even vineyards were closely
monitored for their biotech fermentation equipment,
and the FBI was furiously trying to contain biotech. 
 I must admit, I've always liked the idea of DIY
biotech research, and would love to become a "wetware
hacker" of sorts, but I think in the UK I'd be
breaking a huge number of laws. I can imagine a future
in which me and Bryan are sat in the Guantanamo Bay
rehabilitation facility for suspected bioterrorists,
being played lectures on Intelligent Design over and
over again until we confess that genetics is a lie and
god made the human race perfect, and please may we
have a phone call?

I was going to finish by commenting on remarks about
Italy's low birthrate despite the catholic church's
opinion on contraception, but as I was typing
discovered there was no way I could do this without
making a large number of potentially offensive remarks
all based on a couple of highly dubious magazine
articles which selectively reported statistics about
sexual behaviour around the world. You have to love
the British media, they'll use sex to sell anything,
but I wouldn't want to rely on their statistics.

Tom


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