I interviewed Zoltan Istvan a few weeks back and this clip, where Zoltan argues liberal-democratic states must embrace the technologies transhumanists advocate to avoid the world being dominated by authoritarian tech-friendly dictatorships (e.g. China under its present regime), got me thinking. Essentially argues the transhumanist revolution will happen, but whether it is led by liberal-democratic or authoritarian states will condition the future of the human species. What do you think? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bQp7ST6VOo

I’m keen to grow my transhumanism focused YouTube channel (exclusive interviews with the likes of Zoltan) so pathetically grateful for any subs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVLqMgLDwO-aSk5YcYo1dA?sub_confirmation=1&fbclid=IwAR09G3CeTzFhafWcX8mLfhR0djbx4kmHKt3oJAwxq3M-sSrgtuYpZEFyYc8

There is a current of thought that appears to be carrying many technophiles out of the realm of science and into that of science fiction. For convenience, let's refer to those who ride this current as "the techies." The current runs through several channels; not all techies think alike. What they have in common is that they take highly speculative ideas about the future of technology as near certainties, and on that basis predict the arrival within the next few decades of a kind of technological utopia. Some of the techies' fantasies are astonishingly grandiose. For example, Ray Kurzweil believes that " [w]ithin a matter of centuries, human intelligence will have re-engineered and saturated all the matter in the universe." The writing of Kevin Kelly, another techie, is often so vague as to border on the meaningless, but he seems to say much the same thing that Kurzweil does about human conquest of the universe: "The universe is mostly empty because it is waiting to be filled with the products of life and the technium... " "The technium" is Kelly's name for the technological world-system that humans have created here on Earth.

Most versions of the technological utopia include immortality (at least for techies) among their other marvels. The immortality to which the techies believe themselves destined is conceived in any one of three forms:

(i) the indefinite preservation of the living human body as it exists today;

(ii) the merging of humans with machines and the indefinite survival of the resulting man-machine hybrids;

(iii) the "uploading" of minds from human brains into robots or computers, after which the uploaded minds are to live forever within the machines.

Of course, if the technological world-system is going to collapse in the not-too-distant future, as we've argued it must, then no one is going to achieve immortality in any form. But even assuming that we're wrong and that the technological world-system will survive indefinitely, the techies' dream of an unlimited life-span is still illusory. We need not doubt that it will be technically feasible in the future to keep a human body, or a man-machine hybrid, alive indefinitely. It is seriously to be doubted that it will ever be feasible to "upload" a human brain into electronic form with sufficient accuracy so that the uploaded entity can reasonably be regarded as a functioning duplicate of the original brain. Nevertheless, we will assume in what follows that each of the solutions (i), (ii), and (iii) will become technically feasible at some time within the next several decades.

It is an index of the techies' self-deception that they habitually assume that anything they consider desirable will actually be done when it becomes technically feasible. Of course, there are lots of wonderful things that already are and for a long time have been technically feasible, but don't get done. Intelligent people have said again and again: "How easily men could make things much better than they are-if they only all tried together!" But people never do "all try together," because the principle of natural selection guarantees that self-prop systems will act mainly for their own survival and propagation in competition with other self-prop systems, and will not sacrifice competitive advantages for the achievement of philanthropic goals.

Because immortality, as the techies conceive it, will be technically feasible, the techies take it for granted that some system to which they belong can and will keep them alive indefinitely, or provide them with what they need to keep themselves alive. Today it would no doubt be technically feasible to provide everyone in the world with everything that he or she needs in the way of food, clothing, shelter, protection from violence, and what by present standards is considered adequate medical care-if only all of the world's more important self-propagating systems would devote themselves unreservedly to that task. But that never happens, because the self-prop systems are occupied primarily with the endless struggle for power and therefore act philanthropically only when it is to their advantage to do so. That's why billions of people in the world today suffer from malnutrition, or are exposed to violence, or lack what is considered adequate medical care.

In view of all this, it is patently absurd to suppose that the technolog­ical world-system is ever going to provide seven billion human beings with everything they need to stay alive indefinitely. If the projected immortal­ity were possible at all, it could only be for some tiny subset of the seven billion-an elite minority. Some techies acknowledge this. One has to suspect that a great many more recognize it but refrain from acknowledging it openly, for it is obviously imprudent to tell the public that immortality will be for an elite minority only and that ordinary people will be left out.

The techies of course assume that they themselves will be included in the elite minority that supposedly will be kept alive indefinitely. What they find convenient to overlook is that self-prop systems, in the long run, will take care of human beings-even members of the elite-only to the extent that it is to the systems' advantage to take care of them. When they are no longer useful to the dominant self-prop systems, humans-elite or not-will be eliminated. In order to survive, humans not only will have to be useful; they will have to be more useful in relation to the cost of maintaining them-in other words, they will have to provide a better cost-versus-benefit balance than any non-human substitutes. This is a tall order, for humans are far more costly to maintain than machines are.

It will be answered that many self-prop systems-governments, corporations, labor unions, etc.-do take care of numerous individuals who are utterly useless to them: old people, people with severe mental or physical disabilities, even criminals serving life sentences. But this is only because the systems in question still need the services of the majority of people in order to function. Humans have been endowed by evolution with feelings of compassion, because hunting-and-gathering bands thrive best when their members show consideration for one another and help one another. As long as self-prop systems still need people, it would be to the systems' disadvantage to offend the compassionate feelings of the useful majority through ruthless treatment of the useless minority. More important than compassion, however, is the self-interest of human individuals: People would bitterly resent any system to which they belonged if they believed that when they grew old, or if they became disabled, they would be thrown on the trash-heap.

But when all people have become useless, self-prop systems will find no advantage in taking care of anyone. The techies themselves insist that machines will soon surpass humans in intelligence. When that happens, people will be superfluous and natural selection will favor systems that eliminate them-if not abruptly, then in a series of stages so that the risk of rebellion will be minimized.

Even though the technological world-system still needs large num­bers of people for the present, there are now more superfluous humans than there have been in the past because technology has replaced people in many jobs and is making inroads even into occupations formerly thought to require human intelligence. Consequently, under the pressure of eco­nomic competition, the world's dominant self-prop systems are already allowing a certain degree of callousness to creep into their treatment of superfluous individuals. In the United States and Europe, pensions and other benefits for retired, disabled, unemployed, and other unproductive persons are being substantially reduced; at least in the U. S., poverty is increasing; and these facts may well indicate the general trend of the future, though there will doubtless be ups and downs.

It's important to understand that in order to make people superfluous, machines will not have to surpass them in general intelligence but only in certain specialized kinds of intelligence. For example, the machines will not have to create or understand art, music, or literature, they will not need the ability to carry on an intelligent, non-technical conversation (the "Turing test"), they will not have to exercise tact or understand human nature, because these skills will have no application if humans are to be eliminated anyway. To make humans superfluous, the machines will only need to outperform them in making the technical decisions that have to be made for the purpose of promoting the short-term survival and propagation of the dominant self-prop systems. So, even without going as far as the techies themselves do in assuming intelligence on the part of future machines, we still have to conclude that humans will become obsolete. Immortality in the form (i)-the indefinite preservation of the human body as it exits today-is highly improbable.

The techies of course will argue that even if the human body and brain as we know them become obsolete, immortality in the form (ii) can still be achieved: Man-machine hybrids will permanently retain their use­fulness, because by linking themselves with ever-more-powerful machines human beings (or what is left of them) will be able to remain competitive with pure machines.

But man-machine hybrids will retain a biological component derived from human beings only as long as the human-derived biological component remains useful. When purely artificial components become available that provide a better cost-versus-benefit balance than human-derived biological components do, the latter will be discarded and the man-machine hybrids will lose their human aspect to become wholly artificial. Even if the human-derived biological components are retained they will be purged, step by step, of the human qualities that detract from their usefulness. The self-prop systems to which the man-machine hybrids belong will have no need for such human weaknesses as love, compassion, ethical feelings, esthetic appreciation, or desire for freedom. Human emotions in general will get in the way of the self-prop systems' utilization of the man-machine hybrids, so if the latter are to remain competitive they will have to be altered to remove their human emotions and replace these with other motivating forces. In short, even in the unlikely event that some biological remnants of the human race are preserved in the form of man-machine hybrids, these will be transformed into something totally alien to human beings as we know them today.

The same applies to the hypothesized survival of human minds in "uploaded" form inside machines. The uploaded minds will not be toler­ated indefinitely unless they remain useful (that is, more useful than any substitutes not derived from human beings), and in order to remain useful they will have to be transformed until they no longer have anything in common with the human minds that exist today.

Some techies may consider this acceptable. But their dream of immortality is illusory nonetheless. Competition for survival among enti­ties derived from human beings (whether man-machine hybrids, purely artificial entities evolved from such hybrids, or human minds uploaded into machines), as well as competition between human-derived entities and those machines or other entities that are not derived from human beings, will lead to the elimination of all but some minute percentage of all the entities involved. This has nothing to do with any specific traits of human beings or of their machines; it is a general principle of evolution through natural selection. Look at biological evolution: Of all the species that have ever existed on Earth, only some tiny percentage have direct descendants that are still alive today. On the basis of this principle alone, and even discounting everything else we've said in this chapter, the chances that any given techie will survive indefinitely are minute.

The techies may answer that even if almost all biological species are eliminated eventually, many species survive for thousands or millions of years, so maybe techies too can survive for thousands or millions of years. But when large, rapid changes occur in the environment of biological species, both the rate of appearance of new species and the rate of extinction of existing species are greatly increased. Technological progress constantly accelerates, and techies like Ray Kurzweil insist that it will soon become virtually explosive; consequently, changes come more and more rapidly, everything happens faster and faster, competition among self-prop systems becomes more and more intense, and as the process gathers speed the losers in the struggle for survival will be eliminated ever more quickly. So, on the basis of the techies' own beliefs about the exponential acceleration of technological development, it's safe to say that the life-expectancies of human-derived entities, such as man-machine hybrids and human minds uploaded into machines, will actually be quite short. The seven-hundred­ year or thousand-year life-span to which some techies aspire is nothing but a pipe-dream.

Singularity University, which we discussed in Part VI of Chapter One of this book, purportedly was created to help technophiles "guide research" and "shape the advances" so that technology would "improve society." We pointed out that Singularity University served in practice to promote the interests of technology-orientated businessmen, and we expressed doubt that the majority of technophiles fully believed in the drivel about "shaping the advances" to "improve society." It does seem, however, that the techies -the subset of the technophiles that we specified at the beginning of this Part V of the present chapter-are entirely sincere in their belief that organizations like Singularity University will help them to "shape the advances" of technology and keep the technological society on the road to a utopian future. A utopian future will have to exclude the competitive processes that would deprive the techies of their thousand-year life-span. But we showed in Chapter One that the development of our society can never be subject to rational control: The techies won't be able to "shape the advances" of technology, guide the course of technological progress, or exclude the intense competition that will eliminate nearly all techies in short order.

In view of everything we've said up to this point, and in view moreover of the fact that the techies' vision of the future is based on pure speculation and is unsupported by evidence, one has to ask how they can believe in that vision. Some techies, e.g. , Kurzweil, do concede a slight degree of uncertainty as to whether their expectations for the future will be realized, but this seems to be no more than a sop that they throw to the skeptics, something they have to concede in order to avoid making themselves too obviously ridiculous in the eyes of rational people. Despite their pro forma admission of uncertainty, it's clear that most techies confidently expect to live for many centuries, if not forever, in a world that will be in some vaguely defined sense a utopia. Thus Kurzweil states flatly: "We will be able to live as long as we want... ." He adds no qualifiers-no "probably," no "if things turn out as expected." His whole book reveals a man intoxicated with a vision of the future in which, as an immortal machine, he will participate in the conquest of the universe. In fact, Kurzweil and other techies are living in a fantasy world.

The techies' belief-system can best be explained as a religious phenomenon, to which we may give the name "Technianity." It's true that Technianity at this point is not strictly speaking a religion, because it has not yet developed anything resembling a uniform body of doctrine; the techies' beliefs are widely varied. In this respect Technianity probably resembles the inceptive stages of many other religions. Nevertheless, Technianity already has the earmarks of an apocalyptic and millenarian cult: In most versions it anticipates a cataclysmic event, the Singularity, which is the point at which technological progress is supposed to become so rapid as to resemble an explosion. This is analogous to the Judgment Day of Christian mythology or the Revolution of Marxist mythology. The cataclysmic event is supposed to be followed by the arrival of techno-utopia (analogous to the Kingdom of God or the Worker's Paradise). Technianity has a favored minority-the Elect-consisting of the techies (equivalent to the True Believers of Christianity or the Proletariat of the Marxists). The Elect of Technianity, like that of Christianity, is destined to Eternal Life; though this element is missing from Marxism.

Historically, millenarian cults have tended to emerge at "times of great social change or crisis." This suggests that the techies' beliefs reflect not a genuine confidence in technology, but rather their own anxieties about the future of the technological society-anxieties from which they try to escape by creating a quasi-religious myth.

Using a little critical thinking, one would question why someone would be against transhumanism. I have serious doubts that 99.9% of people would use the technology to become something... strange. I mean let's be realistic here people. The only thing people are going to use it for, is to:

1. Stay young
2. Be smarter/more athletic
3. enhance physical ability, ie more strength and endurance
4. live without disease and be resistant to injury

That's it. Do you really think that people will want to become some kind of socially shunned, freakish half/human? Once they realize the treatment that they're going to get, they're either going to move far away, or they're going to fall in line. Then there's the ever present "growing out of it" that people do. They're into something for awhile, they learn the better of it, and they move on. For many of them it'll be like a phase they go through, where people look back at them and laugh. Like we do now with a bad hairstyle.

I really think all of these fears are way overblown. Some of the anti-transhumanists sound like your typically retarded religious zealots. Always afraid, always talking about something they have no knowledge of.

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Link to Full Episode: https://radiowasteland.us/episode/transhumanism-with-ryan-gable/

This is a very speculative question, but I'm curious what approaches to "uploading" are considered at least vaguely plausible, and what they would entail.

For the sake of discussion, I will consider a "copy" of myself to be satisfactorily myself, provided the original ceases to exist, and there is little sense of discontinuity.

I'm hoping whatever conversation happens here, I end up reading much more on my own.

It seems to me that one of the goals of transhumanism is to avoid death. I'm not religious in any way, maybe a bit spiritual, but I'm just wondering, is living thousands of years really worth it? What if I spend thousands of years on this earth and finally die, and realize I've been wasting my time and i shouldn't have held it off. What if death is a good thing?

According to your ''race-realist'' science, is Niko Bellic white? Are Yugoslavians white?

In a conversation on human nature,I hear about the competition between our "reptilian minds"(the core architecture of our animal brain) and our "rational selves". So, I was thinking, if "thinking machines" seem to have all the rationality, the artistic and intellectual creativity, and capability without the tribalistic parts of the human equation, then wouldn't that make them truly better than us?

As far as I have seen (Which hasn't been too far, admittedly.), everyone here seems to only mention mechanical and digital improvements when talking about human evolution.

What about genetic/biological alterations and improvements?

I haven't done much reading into transhumanism (if you have any suggestions please tell me) but from my understanding one of the movements main goals is eradicating human suffering. I personally believe that would be decrement all in practice. I believe that altering our emotions so we can't be depressed or sad would make us less than human.

Sorry if this is incorrect, but the transhumanists I've spoken too seem to think this is the way forward. Also, sorry for any spelling or grammatically mistakes, I typed this on mobile.

Is immortality without invincibility a blessing or a curse? Here's 2 pros and cons to start it off… Pros

1. We live forever (which is, in and of itself, a subject for debate)
2. We live with family and friends for what'll seem like an eternity

Cons

1. Society can start seeming stale after a while
2. Overpopulation is definitely a real and legitimate threat

I've been thinking about an alternative (or maybe just a supplement) to a universal basic income.

Basically, housing needs would be addressed with large scale community land trusts.

As for production, maybe provide free of cost (or even open source) nanofactories.

I know this is all rather vague at the moment. But it's what I have right now. But what are your thoughts on this idea?

If they exist, are they endangering the subculture and its movements or helping it? Are there any subreddits for radical transhumanists so we can discuss their views here?

I was thinking if all of our world leaders should be replaced by AI. I think this might be a good idea. AI would be able to make better decisions and not let beliefs get in the way. It would always pick the objectively better option.

What about letting a single AI run the entire world? One single super intelligent machine making choices for the entire world.

Thoughts?

I'm not quite sure how to put into words what I'm trying to say, but I'll try my best.

There was a discussion on a biohacker forum, here's part of the opening post:

I’ve been around and interviewed quite a lot of self-identified

transhumanists in the last couple of years, and I’ve noticed many of them express a fairly stark ideology that is at best libertarian, and at worst Randian. Very much “I want super bionic limbs and screw the rest of the world”. They tend to brush aside the ethical, environmental, social and political ramifications of human augmentation so long as they get to have their toys. There’s also a common expression that if sections of society are harmed by transhumanist progress, then it is unfortunate but necessary for the greater good (the greater good often being bestowed primarily upon those endorsing the transhumanism).

I also think there's a problem with how much Silicon Valley types have a say in the movement. There are studies out there that show that wealthy people tend to be less charitable and caring than average.

So what say you? Does transhumanism have a carelessness problem? How can/should it be fixed?

TBH, there's quite a big spread of sociological/economic/political ideologies between some of us. I think it might only be a matter of time before the H+ movement fragments into sects.

What do you all think?

I personally believe that in the future, the God as we humans know it will be technology based and of course more intelligent than humans. It shall be able to control the environment among other things such as the physics of this world. I believe this will happen around 10,000 years after today.

Is there any trans-humanist god? Am I the only one who thinks this?

I always equate Transhumanism with progress and progress with an expansion of knowledge. But are the 2 mutually exclusive, and could there be a benefit in removing the trait of intelligence from the human genome in order to facilitate our long term survival?

I think transhumanist technologies should benefit everyone. So I think a good first step would be a small UBI and full strong copylefting of all technology (in addition to allowance of reproducing technologies through such methods as additive manufacturing).

With all the various transhumanist ideologies, there are even more trends that surface and ideas that fade. Which trends, ideas, etc. do you oppose or not support within transhumanism.

Disclaimer: I get a bit wordy when I'm tired and trying to not go on for too long (which I did anyways). I won't be offended if you don't read it and ask a question I already answered.

Libertarian Socialism is in favour of communism but also supports doing it within a framework that supports the freedoms of the individual. Anarchism is the primary Libertarian Socialist current, with Libertarian Marxism being a separate entity with a reasonable amount in common with what I believe personally.

In my opinion, while it ought to avoid becoming involved in individual's affairs, the state is the ideal means of organizing to enforce certain agreed upon laws regarding violence and personal property (as separate from private property). While individualism in large doses is dangerous, collectivism in large doses hurts everybody and so the state exists in part to protect the individual from the people via a just legal system and prevention of vigilante justice. The government may also, if the citizens allow it, serve the disabled, provide educational standards, and promote environmentalism if the system fails to adequately secure their importance. Anarchism handicaps itself from the tools the state provides in order to be absolute in its critique of hierarchy.

I am not a Marxist because though many of Marx's theoretical contributions are enlightening and useful for understanding capitalism and its relationship with the systems the precede and will eventually eclipse it, it takes it a step further into dogmatism. Dialectical Materialism has been misapplied from as early as Engel's "Dialectics of Nature", the Marxist understanding of the state and ideology are flawed, its determinism is merely a new eschatology, and "pure communism" is entirely based on the Marxist definition of state.

I am Libertarian because any system that has attempted to gain complete control of the economy has led to failure and dictatorship - Fascism or Bolshevism, they're all alike. Democratic Socialism is unlikely to be any better in the long term in my view, such change requires revolution entirely to avoid a dictatorial transition.

I am socialist because I cannot stand for a system which for every "win" (a high standard of living and relative equality) there are 6 losses (1 billion in the first world vs 6 billion in the developing world). The only solution is to hold the means of production in common to put an end to such grave inequalities, this solution is also far more practical than commonly believed.

What do I have to offer you, transhumanists? A guaranteed system in which the elite cannot hoard advances in your field and the government will exist to avoid the formation of a new transhuman elite, among other things.