Re: The Politics of Transhumanism

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Jan 21 2002 - 09:42:43 MST


On Wed, Jan 16, 2002 at 01:33:14PM +1100, Damien Broderick wrote:
> At 10:03 AM 1/15/02 +0100, Anders wrote:
>
> >transhumanism in suits and ties works!
>
> >In fact, we are very careful of not mentioning the word
> >"transhumanist" in the debate.
>
> Well, chief, you might start by getting rid of that Mary Baker Eddy/L. Ron
> Hubbard/Madame Blavatsky slogan from your sig file:
>
> >Towards Ascension!
>
> And, if I might continue being rude and personal, put the witchcraftish
> stuff somewhere else; yes, it's a legitimate trace of your youthful follies
> and varied polymathic interests, but it will frighten the horses in the
> streets.

True. When you find a skeleton in your wardrobe, it is usually you who
put it there yourself.

As for my witchcraftish stuff, it is these days mostly linked to my
roleplaying interests. Still something that tends to make people
suspicious (with the exception of dotcom people here in Stockholm, many
of which are quite familiar with roleplaying games - Jonas Birgerson,
the posterboy for Swedish dotcom hysteria and dotcom death, was the
chairman for the Swedish roleplaying gaming association).

Of course, getting rid of all the copies of my Yog-Sothoth invocation
ritual from the net would be rather impossible by now. Beyond a certain
point a document becomes independent and leaves home...

These are minor issues, but they are worth thinking about. To get back
to the main thread, my friend Ben pointed out to me that by now it would
be impossible for me to disawow any connection with transhumanism -
there are simply too much material around showing my great involvement,
so unless I want to do a general apology and claim I now have become a
true believer in bio-conservatism I will - for good and bad - be
associated with the term transhumanism. Which means that it would be
foolish for me to abandon it to what I consider malign influences (like
the prometheans), because it would still hurt me. So I better do what I
possibly can to keep the term transhumanism a positive word one can be
proud to apply to ones thinking.

Seems it is not just we who have ideas, the ideas have us too.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y


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