Through my early years of research I've discovered a group of people in many fields of science, politics, engineering, etc. that call themselves transhumanists. It seems that, to encourage technologic advancements, yet keep in mind the threats and risks it may bring (the bigger the technology, the bigger the potential risks), transhumanism is the perfect movement.
Let's look deeper into what transhumanists, including myself after years of study, have found out.
Let's look deeper into what transhumanists, including myself after years of study, have found out.
Transhumanists
"Transhumanism is a way of thinking about the future that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase." This is the intro of the site whatistranshumanism I highly recommend.
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On encyclopedia Wikipedia we find following definition;
Transhumanism (abbreviated as H+) is an international cultural and intellectual movement with an eventual goal of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as the ethics of developing and using such technologies. The most common thesis put forward is that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label posthuman. |
My Opinion
Paul Watson, founder of Sea Sheperd, once said: "We're all just a bunch of primates out of control" and I am dissapointed to say I must agree with his quote. I do not get this comfortable easy feeling many have as transhumanists about future technologies if we look at how we've delt with change, progress and evolution in the past. If we scale up the magnitude of the cruelty and selective blindness the general public has, in combination with the powers that the future promises us, we're literally doomed to destroy ourselves. This is a terrible forecast, I know, yet the majority of the population (if you feel offended, I'm sorry, it's the truth) is not actively reaching out trying to achieve common goals for the future of humanity.
Ethically, an important ground rule I think we should follow is:
<< Technology may be integrated in humans, humans may never become integrated in technology. >>
- Wout D.
Many fear a future where humanity is obliterated by their own designs. If we allow humans to be integrated in a computer system or a network today, currently the outcome would be losing humanity. Luckily, there are alternatives.
Ethically, an important ground rule I think we should follow is:
<< Technology may be integrated in humans, humans may never become integrated in technology. >>
- Wout D.
Many fear a future where humanity is obliterated by their own designs. If we allow humans to be integrated in a computer system or a network today, currently the outcome would be losing humanity. Luckily, there are alternatives.
The Venus Project
Jacque Fresco is an American futurist and directs the Venus project. He puts forth a quite different vision for mankind as an alternative for our current capitalist system. The Venus project offers a beautiful alternative for our current society.
If we learn to work as global society towards a goal we can make an alternative planet where everyone's needs are taken care of, not because he or she works a certain amount of time for a certain amount of currency to then buy something - no - because this planet has enough to offer, technology and science as our society's backbone to make things more productive, automated, self-sustaining and thus the perfect environment for the human kind we are bound to give immortal individuality.
A resource based global ecologic economy where there's no need for local politics, poverty, certainly not war. An alternative, all may some consider it too utopian still for them to focus on, that if getting enough general attention as soon as that may come, will make nations dissolve and the world to balance it's wealth over the whole world. There are many options for energy, clean water and technology that educates to be distributed everywhere. |
Before moving on - one last thing about this - laws of nature have proven to be brutal and consistently inhumane, random and a threat for our existence. It is good to work on a sustainable balanced ecosystem in symbiosis with nature, but not go back to concepts like only the most powerful persons win while all the rest should figure it out on themselves (concentrated wealth).
It's possible for everyone with the necessary efforts - also the ones we now in our current system are misfortunate.
It seems wealthier people feel less need to think about such social situations, egocentrism increases as assistant professor Paul Piff illustrates here:
It's possible for everyone with the necessary efforts - also the ones we now in our current system are misfortunate.
It seems wealthier people feel less need to think about such social situations, egocentrism increases as assistant professor Paul Piff illustrates here:
I'll be very clear about this:
I hope we never become people without a self, a substantial persona or character.
I also do not wish our society to create articial intelligent robots that threaten to exterminate us (duh!).
This ever more common thesis that humans will evolve to a posthuman era, still lays emphasis on the humanism.
I think it is in the best interest of the future of human consciousness to keep that emphasis even when that era dawns, it might be easier to forget the fact that trial & error is how we've learned to get this/that far. Too many voices shout they bluntly want to globalize technology affecting our minds and lives with no way back. Also, something as "simple" as an EMP would become a devastating return to the middle ages as the body is no Faraday cage.
As Max More once put it; "I want to be there, I want to be a conscious part of the future" with what he means it's not the intention to exterminate mankind in the process of scientific evolution.
I'd like everyone to have a free will and freedom. For decades long research centers hid inventions towards mind control. We already experience subliminal thoughtsteering through media etc., influencing the masses through whatever means possible seems to have played a role
I'm very aware some may call it superstition or paranoia or even conspiracy theories, but all of it is true or at least attempted in a certain way. We live in a controlled environment that does flirt with the limits of privacy concerns. This should not be an excuse to bluntly forbid all technology, if the good of the invention outbenefits the bad of loss in privacy. Do not forget most of this privacy infringement means information is stored to plot big data, which can only help us.
What there is in statistics isn't harmful. What's done with it needs to be strictly regulated.
By whom? By us all, with good intentions for ourselves and every living being on this planet.
Margaret Heffernan said we have to dare to disagree, to see conflict as a way of thinking, together, constructively.
Training yourself to have an opinion is just something that only helps... ehm... everyone?
This is why people pick discussions or arguments (sometimes not about the topic you'd like, let alone they would share the same perspective on it you have). Don't be afraid to speak up, to engage in dialogue,
prove the other wrong, look for mistakes,it's what finally is the noblest goal; if it cannot be proven wrong, truth rises.
Say how you see it, and see a world go open by the replies and insights this bold action will give you.
A world where technology allows us to share this thinking even more and build to a better understanding of everyday topics, each other and the world we live in, is technology that frees us from limitations now often frustrating to any individual.
A study miss Heffernan quotes says 85% employees in European and American companies feel they have certain topics they don't dare to throw on the discussion table. They're afraid they will not be able to handle the discussion. Where this conflict - aka thinking - then at hand should not be feared and suppressed, on the other hand this should become a - may it rough - positive constructive space for everyone to contribute in opening up all the minds partaking.
We should counter instincts, our neurobiological drive to find kindred spirits, to find like minded people to be with.
We should find friends and contacts over the broad spectrum of specialisations and characters, opposing us, completely disagreeing with the thought models we have. Heffernan speaks about the duality between a hardworking, emphatic, outgoing, sociable doctor and her research colleague who was a mathematician, statistician, loving numbers more than people.
I hope we never become people without a self, a substantial persona or character.
I also do not wish our society to create articial intelligent robots that threaten to exterminate us (duh!).
This ever more common thesis that humans will evolve to a posthuman era, still lays emphasis on the humanism.
I think it is in the best interest of the future of human consciousness to keep that emphasis even when that era dawns, it might be easier to forget the fact that trial & error is how we've learned to get this/that far. Too many voices shout they bluntly want to globalize technology affecting our minds and lives with no way back. Also, something as "simple" as an EMP would become a devastating return to the middle ages as the body is no Faraday cage.
As Max More once put it; "I want to be there, I want to be a conscious part of the future" with what he means it's not the intention to exterminate mankind in the process of scientific evolution.
I'd like everyone to have a free will and freedom. For decades long research centers hid inventions towards mind control. We already experience subliminal thoughtsteering through media etc., influencing the masses through whatever means possible seems to have played a role
I'm very aware some may call it superstition or paranoia or even conspiracy theories, but all of it is true or at least attempted in a certain way. We live in a controlled environment that does flirt with the limits of privacy concerns. This should not be an excuse to bluntly forbid all technology, if the good of the invention outbenefits the bad of loss in privacy. Do not forget most of this privacy infringement means information is stored to plot big data, which can only help us.
What there is in statistics isn't harmful. What's done with it needs to be strictly regulated.
By whom? By us all, with good intentions for ourselves and every living being on this planet.
Margaret Heffernan said we have to dare to disagree, to see conflict as a way of thinking, together, constructively.
Training yourself to have an opinion is just something that only helps... ehm... everyone?
This is why people pick discussions or arguments (sometimes not about the topic you'd like, let alone they would share the same perspective on it you have). Don't be afraid to speak up, to engage in dialogue,
prove the other wrong, look for mistakes,it's what finally is the noblest goal; if it cannot be proven wrong, truth rises.
Say how you see it, and see a world go open by the replies and insights this bold action will give you.
A world where technology allows us to share this thinking even more and build to a better understanding of everyday topics, each other and the world we live in, is technology that frees us from limitations now often frustrating to any individual.
A study miss Heffernan quotes says 85% employees in European and American companies feel they have certain topics they don't dare to throw on the discussion table. They're afraid they will not be able to handle the discussion. Where this conflict - aka thinking - then at hand should not be feared and suppressed, on the other hand this should become a - may it rough - positive constructive space for everyone to contribute in opening up all the minds partaking.
We should counter instincts, our neurobiological drive to find kindred spirits, to find like minded people to be with.
We should find friends and contacts over the broad spectrum of specialisations and characters, opposing us, completely disagreeing with the thought models we have. Heffernan speaks about the duality between a hardworking, emphatic, outgoing, sociable doctor and her research colleague who was a mathematician, statistician, loving numbers more than people.
By overcoming these issues of intuition (the less fluent meeting with different people as yourself and engaging in positive thinking together),
we overcome the limits of one mind with only one set of beliefs & counterarguments. We enlarge, broaden and spread a better, more correct way of thinking, as many fields are accounted for, more than what a librarian in his library can come up with. |
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Also, the individual learns from this collective event. Variation leads to a blossoming personality, technology is what we use to help us find this ultimate truth and wisdom for everyone, to make repetitive tasks easier and usually faster along the way, it's the same principle as growing productivity.
If we can clear the bumps in the road ahead of us and make life smoother for everyone, humans don't tend to bore themselves.
I believe we'll find new challenges to have fun with as the horizon is moving very slowly, closer to us.
If traffic lights in a city are all connected in a computer network with automatic traffic cameras, a smooth transition for any commuter is easier to guarantee then any solution before. You do prefer not to wait 4 minutes before the red light turns green, certainly when there's no traffic coming from the crossing directions, right?
IBM's supercomputer is definately up for the task soon.
As so many people are left oblivious of what is going on in all fields of scientific studies, I hope to have the opportunity to make people consider consequences, moral rules, new rules for robots and actively participate in the construction of boundaries but also the breaking of dogmas for that to develop further. It's not because you're not a computer programmer that, when realised the potential AI has, you can't participate in deciding what can and cannot be programmed. People, and definately education, should develop computational problem solving skills and training. We should all think together.
Television contains ideological content, this can educate, just as much as it can destroy.
Writer Aldous Huxley called television companies "Programming departments dictating our knowledge and world".
Advancements in certain technology must be made aware of towards the public to make sure we all think together, but we shouldn't become Unabombers, but we shouldn't be real clonewar fans either.
We seem to get our knowledge today from the first hit we find on Google, and the time it takes our minds to access this data is increasing through every new technological commercial invention.
I think we need to read, judge after technocratic and ethical information and make sure we don't lose ourselves through it in our future by keeping ethics as important guidelines, whatever paradigm shift we might experience.
If we can clear the bumps in the road ahead of us and make life smoother for everyone, humans don't tend to bore themselves.
I believe we'll find new challenges to have fun with as the horizon is moving very slowly, closer to us.
If traffic lights in a city are all connected in a computer network with automatic traffic cameras, a smooth transition for any commuter is easier to guarantee then any solution before. You do prefer not to wait 4 minutes before the red light turns green, certainly when there's no traffic coming from the crossing directions, right?
IBM's supercomputer is definately up for the task soon.
As so many people are left oblivious of what is going on in all fields of scientific studies, I hope to have the opportunity to make people consider consequences, moral rules, new rules for robots and actively participate in the construction of boundaries but also the breaking of dogmas for that to develop further. It's not because you're not a computer programmer that, when realised the potential AI has, you can't participate in deciding what can and cannot be programmed. People, and definately education, should develop computational problem solving skills and training. We should all think together.
Television contains ideological content, this can educate, just as much as it can destroy.
Writer Aldous Huxley called television companies "Programming departments dictating our knowledge and world".
Advancements in certain technology must be made aware of towards the public to make sure we all think together, but we shouldn't become Unabombers, but we shouldn't be real clonewar fans either.
We seem to get our knowledge today from the first hit we find on Google, and the time it takes our minds to access this data is increasing through every new technological commercial invention.
I think we need to read, judge after technocratic and ethical information and make sure we don't lose ourselves through it in our future by keeping ethics as important guidelines, whatever paradigm shift we might experience.
Only then, I think it is possible to achieve a technological evolution that fits our best interest the most.
It's my opinion that even then, well prepared, the risk is enormous we lose control of our own inventions.
For more on ethics of technology: IEET
It's my opinion that even then, well prepared, the risk is enormous we lose control of our own inventions.
For more on ethics of technology: IEET
#YOLO
You do only live once, which means to enjoy it the fullest yet without losing sight of your security and longevity.
In a world where living longer is advancing, you might want to consider those dangerous things again.
Fast food, drugs, fast cars, motorcycles, dangerous climbs. Anything that affects your health or is risking your life, think about it again, if it's worth it, don't hold back, if the damage you can encounter doing so overrules the kick, just help yourself by abstaining.
In a world where living longer is advancing, you might want to consider those dangerous things again.
Fast food, drugs, fast cars, motorcycles, dangerous climbs. Anything that affects your health or is risking your life, think about it again, if it's worth it, don't hold back, if the damage you can encounter doing so overrules the kick, just help yourself by abstaining.
Hier klikken om te bewerken.
Anti aging medication
Some people reside to an arsenal of additives and supplements to hopefully keep their body in good shape.
(more to come)
(more to come)
Links
So, is there someplace you can sign up or get to know more about all of this? Sure, there are organisations and groupings of like-minded people, yet the whole transhumanists movement is wide spread and varies as much as society does. For now, I'll try to make sure keeping an updated list of websites I think are worth your time and curiosity through here: links and of course there is a day to day reporting through the Transhumanists facebook page. There are groups of people advocating for the Venus Project and even political parties starting up.
Politics
The Venus project, as discussed above, promises a world where we will not need politics,no need for anyone to be poor and war is never happening again. Until that world is achieved, politics is the ONLY possible way this world has to change the way this world is governed, this political system however is funded and heavily lobbied by the big industries, and thus once more, sadly; capitalism is the core drive of a species. Looks like a great way to all live our lives. Make virtual money so your coffin is soft when you die.
Instead I invite you to picture a democratic technocracy; where facts, research, ethics, science and technology are the key points of interest to base any global action on for the benefits of all of mankind. It is almost shocking how this seems to be so logic yet not many countries, a few exceptions in Asia, are using this as their main common purpose.
Instead I invite you to picture a democratic technocracy; where facts, research, ethics, science and technology are the key points of interest to base any global action on for the benefits of all of mankind. It is almost shocking how this seems to be so logic yet not many countries, a few exceptions in Asia, are using this as their main common purpose.
Zoltan Istvan tries to make this happen today.
Mister Istvan is an official candidate for the presidential elections in the United States and I had the chance to briefly speak with him recently. He writes numerous articles and books that quite frankly vastly exceed the writing quality you are getting here with my level of english. So without any hesitation, do look up some of his articles and research on many scientific websites and support the Transhumanist Party of your country, many pages and facebook groups have been established but they're almost all still in premature conditions, unlike the Transhumanist Party in the United States. |
If you're done with all that and decided to stick around anyhow, click next for an even bigger zoom-out from our timescale.
If there are people interested in a forum concerning these matters or those on the blog,
they can always leave me a message through contact.
they can always leave me a message through contact.
© Wout D