Re: The Politics of Transhumanism

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Tue Jan 15 2002 - 12:13:44 MST


"S.J. Van Sickle" wrote:
>
>
> The Draka elite actually realize that they have painted themselves into a
> corner. Their model of society, while workable (barely) in a growing
> heavy industrial society, cannot in the long run compete with with the
> growing information economy of the West. They must conquer the rest of
> the world, while they still retain the capacity. Furthermore, they
> realize that they will always be threatened by their own slaves, and
> politically divide into two factions over this. One faction favors (after
> the conquest allows them the luxury) a gradual liberalization, granting
> more freedom to the slave class over time. The other, whose work has
> already begun with the birth of the first of the New Race, favor
> genetically engineering the Master Race, and just as importantly the
> engineering of a slave race designed to be dominated and like it. They
> hate and fear the liberals, and the liberals fear the the human race will
> be engineered into termites.
>
> It is an interesting depiction of essentially *choosing*, for non-rational
> ideological reasons, the sort of society you want, and then going about
> engineering people to fit that preconception. I suppose the commies would
> create Socialist Man, and the Nazi's something like the Draka. What sort
> of people would libertarians create?

"Everysen a Chief, none Indians", as Damien says in "The White Abacus".

The underclasses should all be mindless robots, not human beings or
sentient ai. The problem with popular acceptance of this vision is that
too many people can't envision themselves as ever being a member of the
upper class, so they automatically assume that the intent is that they
be enslaved.



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