Transhumanism

[Ian Livingston]

Ah, arriving at humanity--what would that look like? What is a human? Are
we talking Frank Herbert-style humans as superior humans who deserve the
label of messiah, god-king, what not? Or are humans those really,
incredibly selfish, self-centered, world-despoiling animals that gouge out
beauty for the sake of seeming better than another human who didn't gouge
out as much beauty? What is a human? Our history (and pre-history, for that
matter) implies little of good, much of good. The effects of humanity, and
of humanism, have quite overwhelmed the noblest intentions with all the
meanest debasements.

So I guess I agree with David on this matter?

Although, I do sometimes consider something I would call posthumanism in
terms more like a perversion of Emerson's after all: setting aside the
importance of human life and intelligence from its place of prominence in
the modern ethos and replacing that center with with something bigger and
more inclusive of the many intelligences the biosphere has working within
it. Humans can't even live as long as a tree, for chrissake, get over
ourselves. The morbid fear of death is a gilt gift borne of guilt. Death is
nothing to fear: it just is, like life. Which, I guess takes me from
Emerson perverted around to something more Zen-like, though still
perverted, as even Buddhism ranks humans too highly, it seems to me.

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 7:20 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> I like your sentiment.  Being human is a high aspirational  bar and a low
> real one.
>  David Morris
>
> On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 7:06 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> When we're human, I'll think about transhumanism, maybe. Even Emerson's
>> trans- has always bothered me.
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> > On May 2, 2017, at 7:30 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Thanks Mark, definitely an article with more than enough to interest
>> > P-list readers (and it's not long at all!). I found it here but I'm
>> > not sure if there's another, longer version:
>> > http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/04/the-techno-libertarians-praying-for-
>> dystopia.html
>> >
>> > I used to have more sympathy for transhumanism, the way a young,
>> > white, straight, middle class, educated male from a first world
>> > country might not see problems with ideologies that amplify
>> > inequalities he doesn't yet know exist. When your greatest fear isn't
>> > death by poverty or domestic violence or hate crime or being the wrong
>> > colour (has anyone seen Get Out yet? Amazing film) but death by
>> > literally just getting so old that you die, then maybe you will devote
>> > a great deal of energy betting on technology and against nature. If
>> > you go far enough down that rabbit hole, though, you might end up like
>> > Peter Thiel, prominent in that article, who not long ago told an
>> > interviewer that he's interested in injecting the blood of young
>> > people so as to prolong his life indefinitely. Technovampires, who
>> > woulda thought they'd become a real thing?
>> > On the other hand, there is a strain of transhumanism (used to be
>> > called posthumanism) that's more interested in abolishing the
>> > distinctions between nature-human-technology and seeing them all meld.
>> > That seems more fruitful as it isn't anti-organic, excuse the pun.
>> >
>> >> On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 3:19 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> I bet there aren't too many members of this list who wouldn't find a
>> >> lot to admire in the three episode documentary series TechnoCalyps,
>> >> which is available for free on Youtube.
>> >>
>> >> TechnoCalyps Part 1 - TransHumanism
>> >> https://youtu.be/7MXQSbjBL7Q?
>> >>
>> >> TechnoCalyps Part 2 - Preparing for the Singularity
>> >> https://youtu.be/u1n0QSnWyAA?
>> >>
>> >> Technocalypse Part 3 - Digital Messiah
>> >> https://youtu.be/EvWuF_KXuDk?
>> >>
>> >> I found it thought provoking and occasionally challenging. I'd love to
>> >> hear what P-Listers have to say about it.
>> >>
>> >> Jerky
>> >>
>> >>> On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 12:53 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>> Transcending Death via whatever technologies are available or
>> imaginable is
>> >>> nothing new.  Those technologies include AI (as in transference of
>> personal
>> >>> consciousness to an artificial brain), cryogenics, genetic
>> engineering, etc,
>> >>> as Pynchon noted in that essay (which was it?).
>> >>>
>> >>> David Morris
>> >>>
>> >>>> On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Part of a longer article which will look long so many will not even
>> start
>> >>>> reading it.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> If this doesn't remind you of the dismantling of V, tell me why?
>> >>>>
>> >>>> "Transhumanists view the human body as a system in need of
>> technological
>> >>>> disruption and ultimate transcendence, and neo-reaction views the
>> state, the
>> >>>> body politic, in much the same manner."
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Part of longer article:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> There is, in transhumanism itself, a strain of old-timey historical
>> >>>> romanticism: a sense of history as an inexorable progress toward a
>> >>>> teleological vanishing point, where all human meaning is subsumed and
>> >>>> obliterated by a godlike technology. This belief that flesh is a dead
>> >>>> format, and that our future — or that, at least, of a technological
>> elect —
>> >>>> involves a final merger with machines is one that interlocks in
>> sinister
>> >>>> ways with the view of democracy as a failed and outmoded institution.
>> >>>> Transhumanists view the human body as a system in need of
>> technological
>> >>>> disruption and ultimate transcendence, and neo-reaction views the
>> state, the
>> >>>> body politic, in much the same manner. Seen in a certain way, this
>> is a
>> >>>> mind-set — a reductionist understanding of the world as a hackable
>> system —
>> >>>> inherent in the culture of computer science. The flesh is weak, and
>> >>>> democracy is entropic; both are subject to forces of decay, to human
>> >>>> inefficiencies and failings. As eccentric and fringe a phenomenon as
>> Dark
>> >>>> Transhumanism may be, it’s usefully viewed in this sense as an
>> extrapolation
>> >>>> of tendencies inherent in the mainstream techno-capitalism of Silicon
>> >>>> Valley.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> *A version of this article appears in the May 1, 2017, issue of New
>> >>>> YorkMagazine.
>> >> -
>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
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