Re: Nature defines "transhumanist"

From: Ziana Astralos (zianastralos@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Jun 15 2000 - 19:39:14 MDT


--- Robin Hanson <rhanson@gmu.edu> wrote:
> This from today's Nature:
>
> Nature 405, 730 - 732 (2000) "Nanotech thinks big"
> by Colin Macilwain.
>
> This is the first paragraph:
>
> "There is no such thing as bad publicity, it is
> sometimes said. But ever since Eric Drexler brought
> the term 'nanotechnology' into vogue in his 1986
> book Engines of Creation, some researchers have felt

> that the field has been burdened by unwanted
> baggage. Drexler envisioned an era in which factory
> production lines were replaced by self-replicating,
> nanoscale 'assemblers' — and warned that such
> entities could supplant humans to become the
> dominant 'life' forms on our planet. These ideas
> were quickly seized on by transhumanists — people
> who imagine what the world will look like after
> technology has rendered us extinct.
>
> But today, nanotechnology is acquiring the respect
> researchers in the field believe it deserves. ..."

~sigh~ I just *knew* there had to be a reason why I
never liked that magazine/journal/whatever much. :)
IMHO they tend to...ooh, I need to scroll my reply
text down further, just looking at that "definition"
makes me cringe ;) ...get some things close to right
but yet just wrong enough/confused enough/distorted
enough to make me wish they hadn't said anything at
all :)

Onward,
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