Do you want to be Transhuman?

What makes you think the latter two circumstances would involve little or no sensation?

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Irrelevant. Transhumanists do not try to impose their ideals onto other people. Regardless of what sci-fi says in real life I only see bio-conservatives trying to interfere with transhumanists and never the other way around.

What transhumanists what to do with their body is their own business and not yours.

edited 27th Sep '14 1:53:09 AM by IraTheSquire

To be fair, he never said that he would forbid anyone from doing anything. He just said that he would not want any of these things for himself.

EDIT: Also, if transhumanists achieved what they hope to achieve, they would transform the world in radical ways — ones that could not help but affect even people who would prefer to "opt out". So it's not unreasonable, I think, for people to have some concerns about this.

edited 27th Sep '14 1:59:08 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Sorry, when he asks questions like this:

He's already imposing his morals on me.

Perhaps we are reading this differently: but I don't see how this is "imposing his morals on you (or me, for that matter)". He's presenting his perspective, and asking us if we would disagree with it (and if so, why). I don't really perceive that as offensive.

edited 27th Sep '14 2:01:44 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I've read some of Greg Egan's works. His writing style is rather dry and overtly technical, but he clearly is a smart cookie. I particularly remember this quote from his FAQ about some of Ideas in his books.

hashtagsarestupid

Yeah let us not use evolutionary algorithms to produce artificial general intelligence. It would take a long time and if we don't hold the steering wheel on the thing the whole time at this point we lost big time. We need friendly ai with moral values so yeah need to solve that to the point that we can built a moral agent from the ground up.

As for mind uploading, I am all for it. Meat is not the best thing for our brains to be made of and I want to live forever so there.

When life gives you lemons, burn life's house down with the lemons.

I think he perceived my wording as hostile.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

& The tone was exactly the type of "What would YOU do when you see a baby drowning in a river and you can swim? Or are YOU so morally bankrupt that you can let the baby drown?"

Also, I disagree with the notion that transhumanism will necessary stop people from "opting out". Part of the movement is finding the ethical means of improvement and taking away consent is definitely not ethical. If it hasn't been in the movement yet then it should.

edited 27th Sep '14 7:57:38 AM by IraTheSquire

Mod Voice

~maxwellelvis: This is the second thread I've seen you post in today where you've taken a contrary position on a topic on the basis of poorly understood information and put words in people's mouths. I'm getting a bit tired of it.

edited 27th Sep '14 7:54:26 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Sorry.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

An article from a friend linking transhumanism with queerness, in particular transgender.

It's not so simple, I think.

I mean, suppose that we found a way of making people capable of punching through steel. I — and, I suppose, many others — would feel some concern about that, since I do not particularly relish the perspective of having my head punched right off. Note, I am not necessarily saying that I'd want that specific enhancement to be banned — there are arguments both for and against that, and of course much would depend from the exact details of the enhancement and on its possible non-violent uses — I'm just saying that I'd have concerns about that, that debate would be necessary, and that some reasonable compromise between my desire for safety and other people's desire for physical enhancement would have to be reached.

Now, many of the enhancements that Transhumanism promises make this hypothetical "punching enhancement" look pretty trivial: and if they were effectively available, even people who chose to "opt out" would have their lives and environments radically transformed by that availability, possibly in ways that they'd find undesirable. Note, one thing I am absolutely not saying is that we should ban research about these things — that'd be a thoroughly stupid idea — or that all such enhancements should be banned or restricted; all that I'm saying is that reasonable concerns could well arise, and that when/if they do they should be considered fairly and reasonably, without giving in to the temptation of simplistic, "one-size-fits-all" solutions.

edited 27th Sep '14 8:06:00 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

If you take the "mechanical arm that can punch through steel" idea and explore it a bit more thoroughly, you'll see that the considerations are fairly complex.

We already manufacture prosthetic arms for people. These arms are not as strong as natural arms, but they are increasing in sophistication all the time. It is not unreasonable to predict that they will eventually attain human-equivalent capability. If they can get there, then it is not unreasonable to predict that they may some day surpass human capability.

There are practical, moral, and ethical considerations involved. From a practical perspective, an appendage can only be as strong as what it's anchored to. If your hypothetical super-arm can lift boulders and punch through steel, but it's anchored to an ordinary human shoulder joint, then it would rip itself off of your body before it could exercise even a fraction of that power. So making this super-arm work would involve a lot of Required Secondary Powers. A person wouldn't just be able to go to the bionics store, hack off "Righty", and walk out a superhero/villain.

Disregarding those practical issues for the sake of the discussion, you also have to consider ethics. The same concerns would apply as for the sale of personal weaponry, since a person with a bionic super-arm would be capable of inflicting massive damage. One would imagine that wearers of these arms would need to be licensed and registered, and possibly required to use limiters/governors while in public or other places where their arm could be a danger to others. Significant training would be indicated as well, just as an untrained yahoo would never sanely be trusted with a machine gun or a bazooka.

While the bearers of these super-arms would enjoy certain physical advantages, it's hard to imagine that they'd have an easy time of it. Undoubtedly, social stigma against the "transhumans" would be significant and long-lasting, and while you might be able to punch the first few people who bully you through a wall, you can't punch all of the bullies through walls without going to jail. Further, while your super-arm may be strong and dexterous, it doesn't necessarily qualify you for any tasks that can't already be done by robots that are specialized for their roles. You wouldn't be able to play sports with it; it would be properly ruled cheating, unless a special league were established for transhuman sports. So it wouldn't necessarily grant you any real world advantages that would offset the disadvantages.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Why would you trade sensation? If anything you could actually enhance and expand sensation. Making you able to see in ultra-violet and infra-red for example; making you aware of magnetitc fields; having the ability to regulate pain levels; making you more empathetic, etc.

Yes, and? "I" am not an unchanging entity. Both my body and my mind have changed a lot since I was born and will continue to do so. Only with transhumanism however could I choose the change.

This would be one example of one possible "reasonable compromise between desire for safety and desire for self-enhancement" for that specific example (BTW, I obviously agree, granting that ability would not be anywhere as simple as replacing an arm with a stronger one).

It's next-to-impossible to predict in advance which advancements will actually become available, and when, and which issues they will cause to arise. The only thing I'm saying is that if and when they arise, they'd have to be considered and resolved on a case-by-case basis, and that going all "I have a right to improve myself, if you try to hinder me you are THE ENEMY!" or "I have a right to my humanity and my safety, if you endanger them with your dabbling you are THE ENEMY!" would instead not be very productive.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I admit, I'm a bit of a Luddite in this issue. But I can't help it, it's just the way I am. But I think I'm a hypocrite since I write stories about transhuman characters with none of these issues.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Why is that being a hypocrite? I also like to read stories and play games about war but am against war. Playing with and enjoying an idea is not the same thing as endorsing it for real.

And if you are personally uncomfortable with it you might still think it be cool/be neutral about it, when other people do it. Watching extreme sports doesn't necessarily make you want to do it yourself.

"What do you regret most about Permutation City? Something quite separate from the issues with the Dust Theory mentioned above, although these are all valid points. What I regret most is my uncritical treatment of the idea of allowing intelligent life to evolve in the Autoverse. Sure, this is a common science-fictional idea, but when I thought about it properly (some years after the book was published), I realised that anyone who actually did this would have to be utterly morally bankrupt. To get from micro-organisms to intelligent life this way would involve an immense amount of suffering, with billions of sentient creatures living, struggling and dying along the way. Yes, this happened to our own ancestors, but that doesn’t give us the right to inflict the same kind of suffering on anyone else. This is potentially an important issue in the real world. It might not be long before people are seriously trying to “evolve” artificial intelligence in their computers. Now, it’s one thing to use genetic algorithms to come up with various specialised programs that perform simple tasks, but to “breed”, assess, and kill millions of sentient programs would be an abomination. If the first AI was created that way, it would have every right to despise its creators."

Well, if we're running the evolutionary simulation, why would they have to suffer that way? It seems pretty reasonable to me that we could evolve intelligence without them.

Which is all fine and good until large swaths of the job sector inevitably start mandating it the moment it becomes profitable. And make you pay for it yourself if they can get away with it, the same way they do now with basic on-the-job training they would have given a couple decades ago but now require you to have ahead of time. The ideals of "the movement" won't mean jack once people start making money off it.

And there will be a business sector to do this. There will always be scarcity — even if not by resources, then by people who own those resources and create scarcity to increase their own power.

edited 27th Sep '14 11:33:57 AM by Pykrete

Nah.

Well maybe the pie will be so astronomically huge being poor will mean "not being a superintelligent cyborg", instead of "in danger of starvation".

edited 27th Sep '14 12:26:18 PM by CassidyTheDevil

Well, I am very uncomfortable with some of the implications of transhumanist theory, but I think what's going on with me as well is, I'm fascinated by the idea presented in Der Himmel Uber Berlin/Wings of Desire, and to a much lesser extent, it's Hollywood remake, City of Angels. I'm not sure how best to describe it, but Kyle Kallgreen does a pretty good summation here that might explain it. continued here

Basically, I'm equally fascinated with the singularity uplifting us to a higher state, and the idea of an inhabitant of that sort of higher state giving that up to experience the fleeting, yet sensational lives we live now.

edited 27th Sep '14 1:56:13 PM by maxwellelvis

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

@ Carc and Pykrete: That only applies if you limit the idea of "improvement" to "increasing your ability".

As my friend has pointed out in the article I linked, "improvement" can include "getting the body you want". Sex change in a way is transhumanism as it is altering the body into the gender you identify with. I don't think that anyone else can be impacted by that now, can they? (And when companies mandate that only post-op transgender people gets hired: that would be an interesting change from the current discrimination now would it?) Hence I said "not necessarily".

We just need a conversation about what that "improvement" entails which surprisingly enough hasn't happened. And we need to talk about potential social forces that may force people into joining the movement (and possibly change them: because I see that Pykrete's concerns only applies due to the capitalist nature of current society).

edited 27th Sep '14 4:51:06 PM by IraTheSquire

I don't think that there is anything inherently "pure" about the human form that mandates such an absolute declaration of principle. We're sacks of flesh with nerves and muscles and stuff — a remarkable biological machine but nothing that is so holy that we can't cut it, modify it, manipulate it with drugs. We do all of those already. Improving it with machinery is simply another step in the process.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"