[ExI] Reframing transhumanism as good vs. evil

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jan 12, 2011, at 7:47 AM, AlgaeNymph wrote:

> On 1/11/11 5:42 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>> 
>> 1) What is the boundary between "enhancement" and "medicine"?
> 
> Medicine is considered an act of caring, unless it's professional and technological and icky corporate bad.  Enhancement is considered cheating (steroids!), unless it involves Hard Work and natural supplements.

Medicine is currently only defined as curing disease - departure from the norm.  So aging, since it affects all, is considered the norm and it is officially non-medicine to attempt to cure it or to prescribe for it or claim your product helps with stop it.  The FDA will not approve a true enhancement drug put forward as such.  Bizarre, but that seems to be the way of it.

> 
>> 1a) Does, say, curing cancer necessarily fall into only one of the two?
> 
> Medicine, but it's a rich white man's disease.  What we should really be doing is preventing disease caused by Unhealthy American Diets.
> 

Cancer affects everyone of course. 

>> 1b) What about prosthetics?
> 
> Medicine, because it's Restoring the Balance.
> 
>> 1c) What about prosthetics that exceed human baseline performance?
> 
> Permissible only if the enhancement is accidental.
> 

Yep.  This is the official medical utterly insane position.


>> 2) What part of "making life better for everyone (who wants a better life) and
>> eliminating many of the root causes of evil (resource scarcity, fear of death,
>> lack of understanding)" is not a long term and more complex form of "fighting
>> evil"?
> 
> "But is it really better?"  The people who control the socially-accepted definition of morality feel that all you need is love and organic gardening.  Wanting more is Consumerism, which is what the Corporations make you buy into!  Instead, we should be Respecting the Earth and Doing Our Part in the Community.
> 

YES, it obviously is by definition.     

>> 3) Is not part of the discomfort we cause, because we propose to do
>> something about evils that most people have accepted as inevitable?
> 
> Oh, but you'll only improve quality of life for The Rich (who may as well be the aliens from They Live) and create a caste system.  Also, without death, we'll have overpopulation and Rich People living forever.
> 
> At this point, I expect you'll tell me that there's nothing I can do about such people and that I should just ignore them.  How is that a good idea when they're not ignoring us while getting more people listening to them than we are?
> 
>> That last one may be the most significant part.  People make up all sorts of
>> evil motives for us, but they rarely turn out to be true.
> 
> How do we convince the public otherwise?

Only one way.  Produce the benefits we seek.  Build it and they will come.  Off-label use of several drugs for enhancement is rampant across multiple levels of society now.  This will only increase.     Build it and they will come.  Insist by all means possible on the freedom to do so and never allow it to be taken away.

- samantha



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