From: Steve Nichols (steve@multisell.com)
Date: Mon Jan 07 2002 - 10:11:00 MST
>Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 16:36:10 -0500
>From: "J. Hughes" <jhughes@changesurfer.com>
>Subject: The Politics of Transhumanism
>Given the recent discussions of politics on this list, especially of
>extropianism as libertarian transhumanism, I invite list members to read my
>recent essay on "The Politics of Transhumanism." Thanks to comments from
>Natasha and Max I've cleaned up a couple of factual errors. I would
>appreciate your comments as well as I'm preparing it for submission for
>publication.
>http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/TranshumPolitics.htm
>Abstract:
>Contemporary transhumanism has grown out of white, male, affluent, American
>Internet culture, and its political perspective has generally been a
>militant version of the libertarianism typical of that culture. Nonetheless
>transhumanists are becoming more diverse, with some building a broad
liberal
>democratic philosophic foundation in the World Transhumanist Association.
>The essay also discusses the emergence of neo-Nazi and radical democratic
>transhumanism. For transhumanism to achieve its goals it needs to distance
>itself from its anarcho-capitalist roots and its authoritarian mutations by
>clarifying its commitments to liberal democratic institutions, values and
>public policies. By embracing political engagement and the use of
government
>to address equity, safety and efficacy concerns about transhuman
>technologies, transhumanists are in a better position to attract a larger,
>broader audience.
>Thanks for your eyeball time
>J. Hughes
Hi fellow humanoids,
I agree with the last sentence ... but have a question whether by "
political engagement" you agree with me that 'post-human' groups
(including various sub-sets) should contest elections, or whether you
just want to remain a lobby group?
Of course, I believe "trans-" human period happened between
Industrial Revolution to date, and any efforts to promote transhumanism
are thus at best pointless, and at worst regressive.
I also disagree with your "American"
comment ... aren't you aware of various Euro-groups and UK-based
post-human movement that has been around since the 1980's? The
difference between US & Euro groups seems to reflect broader
cultures, e.g European radical futurists seem more "green" and alternative
technology leaning, whereas you are probably correct that US based
groups seem more anarcho"capitalist" and right-wing libertarian leaning.
Is the point to "attract an audience" or to "convert/ upgrade" folks
to a post-human mindset? Any freak show can attract a wide
audience, look at self-proclaimed posthuman Marilyn Manson.
The human, legacy-condition world view seems to me like a
hypnotic torpor .... but since MVT and post-human philosophy
surely our aim should be to wake everyone up and upgrade their
"mental operating systems" (metaprograms in NLP) so as to
guide evolution in a favourable direction.
www.steve-nichols.com
www.Post-human.com Posthuman.Org(anisation)
*********************
Useless hypotheses, etc.:
Singularity, Transhumanism, Extropianism, Libertarianism, Religion.
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