Not that I want to discourage anyone from writing about utopian futures. Now more than ever, the world needs idealists.

• Re: Transhumanism Skewered by Karl on Wednesday April 19, @08:20AM
  

• Re: Who guards the Guardians? by Karl on Wednesday April 19, @09:15AM
  

• Re: Transhumanism Skewered by Karl on Wednesday April 19, @08:16AM
  
• Re: Transhumanism Skewered by D. Amato on Wednesday April 19, @02:11PM
  
• Re: Transhumanism Skewered by Karl on Thursday April 20, @07:10AM
  
• Re: Transhumanism Skewered by Jimmy Mac on Wednesday October 04, @01:09PM
  

Which is a pity, because solving some of the issues that will be brought up by advancing technology might clarify some of our problems today. If we can use nanotechnology to feed the hungry and cure the sick all over the planet, should we? What if we don’t need advanced technology to do that? When is a computer or genetically engineered life form complex enough to deserve treatment as a person? What happens when we apply those standards to creatures that already exist? If anyone can create weapons of mass destruction by running a program through a replicator, what should we do to keep them from attacking their neighbors? Should we treat sovereign nations any differently?

I think it would be wise of us to work out some of these issues before we create beings capable of applying those solutions to us. I’d prefer that any superintelligent beings get a start as highly ethical humans or at least have good cause to regard us as loving parents, but failing that, it’d be nice to have reasonable expectations that they would share our ethical standards... and we wouldn’t regret it.

So I am surprised to see you of all people advocate suppressing progress, because it seems to me that having written such a book, you must know - understand at a gut level, not just as an abstract concept - that evolution doesn't magically stop, that the current state of affairs isn't especially favored as an evolutionary optimum, that stopping progress will not result in stasis, but in decline and ultimately extinction.

Now, there is a small lunatic fringe among transhumanists who want to convert themselves into entities with the power of gods and morals and aesthetics somewhere between those of a bacterium and a theorem prover, and to the extent you are criticizing that philosophy I agree with you.

But "Who should decide? The joyous. --Those few among us who live in a state of grace" is equally alarming. As I think you are aware, handing total power to a ruling elite for the sake of an ideology is a proven recipe for disaster at best and hell at worst.

Which group should decide what the future will be? None! No group, no government, no "few... who live in a state of grace" are good or wise enough to be trusted with that sort of power. It's a decision for all of humanity - not by the "pick which untrustworthy political party gets the power" method, but by the emergent method of the market of ideas.

As it happens this meshes with reality, because if you ask people who actually work in the relevant fields, the current batch of predictions about imminent flying cars, moon bases, total cancer cures, electricity too cheap to meter etc are no more realistic than the last batch; it's going to be the work of generations - of the world, not just one corporation or nation - to bring any of this about. So no, let's not help them build our future. Let's help us build our future.

• Re: Transhumanism Skewered by Karl on Thursday April 20, @12:04PM
  
• Re: Transhumanism Skewered by Russell Wallace on Thursday April 20, @07:59PM
  
• I love you ! by Feed Proper on Thursday August 17, @01:14PM