Transhumanism

[ignoranceisntbliss]

I'm one of the biggest personal freedom lovers around. I'm even one of the biggest technonauts around. However, I have to draw the line somewhere, and the upper reaches of Transhumanism is it.

Most aren't ware of this rapidly approaching paradigm, but it's right on our doorstep. Transhumanism is the growing field and movement related to modifying our bodies in basically all ways to ultimately become "Post Human Entities" (Posthumans).

Its a rich blue sky dreamer scene involving everything you could think of from lumanescient tattoos, to body and brain enhancements, and ultimately indefinite lifespans.

Their goals are to enhance the human brain to many times the human limitations, and then achieve de facto immortality. On the latter, the theory goes that thru a plethora of technologies you extend the lifespan by several decades, and within that time technological progress will exponentially advance to herald theoretically hundreds of years... and by then they expect to even reverse the aging process.

What that means is there would be people who would basically be immortal, and would also have vastly enhanced cognitive 'skills' that would absolutely put them into a different class. Talk about a slippery slope. This may sound very far away but I can argue with a score of facts that suggest this is coming sooner than later. In short, open military programs claim to be within 3-5 years of cognitive self-aware artificial intelligence systems like that you see in the movies. If they're successful, which they display total confidence in, then the above reality will be kickstarted rapidly. Consequently, Ron Paul's position in artificial intelligence is very relevent.

Now considering Ron's position on stem cells, nutrition suppliments, and the freedom to do what we want to our bodies that seems to create the perfect framework for what I outlined above. At the moment I support all of those positions. But when we begin to talk about that aforementioned I can't confirm, especially not considering that follow the current trends this is all being snuck right in on us (the A.I. to enable it in particular).

You see Transhumanist see Stem Cells as a key element in their indefinite lifespan goals. Same goes for suppliments (Ray Kurzweil, the leader of this movement, eats literally dozens AND dozens per day; something like 100). And I've observed that many Transhumanist seem to gravitate towards Libertarianism mainly because of the freedom to do what we want with ourselves ideals. It's likely a Transhumanist here will read this. I'll be fair and state there are certain inevitablilities to much of this.

My question is, does anybody know of any specific quoteson these matters?

I'm as hard as worker can be in this Ron Paul effort, but I can't overlook this either. Especially not the AI paradigm. And what irony that when people finally might get freedom its when the world is about to be turned upsidedown.

[nickcoons]

I'm as hard as worker can be in this Ron Paul effort, but I can't overlook this either. Especially not the AI paradigm. And what irony that when people finally might get freedom its when the world is about to be turned upsidedown.

I don't want to put words into your mouth, so let me know if I've misread. But are you saying that you'd want research leading up to Transhumanism to be outlawed so that we'd never approach the potentially grave consequences you're implying? I don't think I could imagine being for something like that. The last thing I'd want is for it to be outlawed in the private sector, yet the government bureaucrats end up with immortality (because you know the laws wouldn't apply to them).

[tomcat]

I support transhumanism, but with boundaries. Being a humanist myself, I would want it to be watched closely so as to stay within humanist ethics

[nickcoons]

I support transhumanism, but with boundaries. Being a humanist myself, I would want it to be watched closely so as to stay within humanist ethics

Watched by whom?

[Matt_R]

There are negative impacts to all advances in human society. Every single time new technology has been created, it has had both positive and negative impacts. This is very much the same "conservative", and I don't mean on the political spectrum, argument that prevents or slows down advancements.

Think of all of the negative consequences the invention of the automobile had. There are hundreds of thousands of deaths each year contributed directly to automobile accidents. But then think of all of the positive impacts. People would definitely not die in nearly as great numbers if we still used horse and buggies, but imagine how difficult it would be to have a thriving economy.

Basically all technological advancements lead to advances in the standard of living, which I see as the ultimate goal of any human. Thriving to improve the human race is the most honorable thing you can do. Conservative thought prohibits this.

[jondisx]

I Disagree with Matt_R

[Ginobili]

Im all for Transhumanism, to a point. I have no prob with longer life spans, making your self smarter, and that tattoo idea... OMG i want one of those :)... but... making your self more phsyically powerful, adding apendegaes and stuff, making your self better looking, stuff like that... I really cant stand. And life span increases only if we have started settling on other planets.

Edit: if i misunderstood what Transhumanism is, my mistake.

[fsk]

The biggest one I heard of was having an RFID chip implanted in everyone "for their own protection".

[hypnagogue]

I've been meaning to have rare earth magnets implanted into the nerve clusters in my fingertips. It allows you to feel magnetic fields. It's a start. :p

[derdy]

IIB, love your videos!! And your research. You always got some great stuff on your myspace blog (if this is you, I think it is)

Anyways, welcome. I've seen you over at ATS as well.

[undergroundrr]

One of the most exciting things about a Ron Paul presidency would be deregulation and the freeing of capital for real technological and medical advancement. Right now the only tech being advanced is weaponry and surveillance equipment. The transhuman future is very exciting to me and it's one of the biggest reasons I'm for Ron Paul. Doesn't make a very good campaign plank yet, though.

[noxagol]

I love the prospects of the transhumanism ideas. The fear is unfounded in my opinion. My fear of it is that the implants and alterations will someone allow others to directly control my body.

[Nicketas]

,.,.,.

[ignoranceisntbliss]

Ah, I thought this thread was deleted.

Having spent a great deal of time researching these paradigm, amongst others, I have several gripes with it as a whole.

As has been pointed out in this thread, all technologies are like a doubled edged blade. Nanotechnology in and of itself is already being warned about by experts in the field as having even more potential destructive force on mankind than the nuclear age. Nanotechnology is but one aspect of the reality I'm speaking of.

But the 2 main implications I'm talking about are:

1: 'Massive' Artificial Intelligence

Right now the military claims to be roughly 3 years from the advent of the sort of AI you see in the movies. My theory is that one of the primary reasons they're rushing this prospect is the kickstart the "Technological Singularity", which would herald the things mentioned int eh OP. In any case, this is happening without any real oversight, watchdog groups, etc. The American public and world public ar ebeing blindsided by this. What they're talking about couldn't possibly have more profound implications in things like human history & ethics & religion and so on. This matter deserves the outmost attention, debate and oversight.

Assuming such potentials are possible, and I could cite many examples of success to justify the concern, then I must state that there is a certain amount of inevitability in it all. However, this sort of thing will not happen by accident antime soon. Instead it's being intentionally and deliberately ushered in at an alarming rate, and that's going by what they actually do say on their own .mil websites.

Considering this is happening, it's then crucial to consider who is making it happen. The key institutions are DARPA (military), NASA (through the military which there are a de facto vassal of) and Google (in an open public partnership with DARPA+NASA). In short, it's a military initiative that involves Google (whose slogan is to "gather all of the worlds information"). Most interestingly is that GWB and Al Gore are both key players in this scenario with GWB terrorizing everybody with the delusionary "War on Terror" via Militarism and massive runaway DOD funding, and Al Gore via Google + NASA with his "Global Warming" pseudo-Doomsday "By far the most terrifying film you will ever see" (see the DVD cover of his AIT film) [Google: "James Hansen"].

So what we have is a full scale sort of Manhattan Project to develop what can be best described as a "God on Earth" system, with no oversight, no watchdogs, no open public discourse or understanding, etc. And it's the military. A militaristic god on earth system. In my view, if that's not a cause for concern then nothing is.

Links proving the claims I've presented:
http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/programs/programs.asp (looks like the ACIP & BICA programs were recently completed 3 years ahead of schedule; this is HUGE news)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4md9IkVBchQ
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nasa+google
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2301756762339435723 (be sure to check the resource page)
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/IDA/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxevYaKc8-I
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/mar/19gore.html
Those are some quick links. I have more.

2: Widening between the haves and have-nots during the "Age of Transitions"

I doubt this is the place where I'd need to list out the numerous statistics demonstrating the reality of the situation right now as far as the shrinking Middle Class, balloning Lower Classes, and the enrichment of the Upper Classes. It's staggering, and it's currently growing.

Now we certainly all hope RP knows how to fix that, but lets be clear that he's in no way supportive of any redistribution of wealth. Regardless of what really happens in the future, it's disgusting that the Elite have hijacked the system for so long that to return it to its intended way still leaves the Elite in a position of conglomerated dominance. It should also be pointed out that if extreme caution isn't excercized in RP's dream of privitization then we can be on the way for form of "Private Tyranny" that can't be ignored. This is not to say that the ideal itself is wrong, but that in the engineered real world we live in today there is the potential for disaster just in terms of even more widening of the haves and havents.

But in light of Transhumanism we must realize the potential disaster that can come with the aforementioned. In a world where there's a wealthy few and a virtually bankrupted 'rest of them' the idea that the haves will be able to attain indefinite lifespans and powers of cognition multiple times that of their subjects is a scenario of said Elite Class becoming their own sorts of 'Gods on Earth'. Watch some of the transhumanist videos I'll link in and they themselves even describe it as just that.

Now no discussion of these two topics I'm pointing out is incomplete without mentioning that thru nanotechnology these Transhumanists will inevitably be cognitively interlinked with aforementioned A.I., but I'd like to keep these 2 issues seperate in this discussion so that we can still appreciate the potentials of them each on their own.

In the serious potential outcome of the Elite adjusting their portfolios and methonds to next exploit the ideals of the majority of those in this forum and movement, we must not be sloppy and blindsidedly eager and over-optimistic while under-pessimistic about what all of this means. Perhaps most importantly, assumig we get RP in there, which I'm working just as hard as the best of them to achieve, we must not lose our ability to be critical of Our President. Just think of all of the Bush-Bots and Al Gore Worshippers out there. The same methodologies must also be applied to the sort of 'Libertarian' sort of ideology that is evolving throug all of thsi and amongst us.

These realities I speak of must be considered and heavily scrutinized even if we do initially like the sound of it. The fact that the majority of earths inhabitants are currently positioned as subjects should make this apparent. Here in the US The People are currently set up for bankruptacy. I think many of RP's ideals would certainly help lift The People back up towards being able to lift themselves up and actually compete, but how long would that take to actually start making an apparent and lasting difference, assuming these things could start happening soon?

I can't say. And I don't have all the answers. But in my view getting RP in there is still only the beginning of what must be done to have some hope of all aforementioned not backfiring as I've specified. And I think We should also consider seeking some new ideas of how to make RP's Austrian School of Economics work in the real world of hegemonic Elites that we live in. I'm not sure how to do it, or how feasible whatever could really be, but we might consider some approach to their being fair limits of say how much property you can own (there are areas the size of states of State & Federal land that billionaires could buy up and lock down forever), or limits on how much one could make (should people really pocket a $BILLION per year, when the average individual income is $50,000 or whatever?) limited in some way, or overages syphoned off into chairites or programs or national debt (I know its a tax, but lets be real here people). If done properly, in due time, such hampers on the billionaire calss would hardly be needed as the havenots dwindled down, but thanks to some 90+ years of economic and social engineering it will currently take generations in the best case scenario for the average folks out there to find their own way up in any contrast of the Elite. I'm open to ideas.

Transhumanism links/videos:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6581761732541483047
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1079797626827646234