> >Luckily, I'm in a country with a solid welfare system.
> > Much as I'd loathe doing it, I have this to fall back on.
> > If there was no welfare system, I would be back in the public
> > service like a
> > shot.... The system I'm building would
> > likely not exist, and have no hope of existing.
Remember the basic principles of the welfare state: people are too stupid,
weak and evil to decide for themselves. It is better if a technocratic elite
does it in their place. Really, if something is an opposition to
transhumanism it is the welfare and the attitudes it spread in the
population. I just have to look at my own country, Sweden (the most
extensive welfare state in the world), to see its ill effects. People loose
their creativity, work doesn't pay off (have to pay all those taxes to
empower the politicians and the bureaucrats, in Sweden a 50% tax on income
is standard), and a sizable part of the population is dependant on the
goodwill of bureaucrats for every instance of their lives (2/3 of the
population). I survive as a businessman here in Sweden JUST by constantly
beating the system. If I was following the rules I would go chapter 11,
immediately.
I' m often appaled by the lack of ideological consciousness among
transhumanists, the welfare state doesn't produce self- asserted
individuals. It produces sycophants, that are horribly afraid of what other
people might think (after all that's the normal situation in a welfare
state, the bureaucrats' opinion matter for all decisions in life. Forget
about expanding your lifespan, forget about cryonics! In the welfare state
you don't have the economic resources to be innovative, people in the
welfare states are poor- the government is rich.
And if you fall through the system, there is nothing else to rely on. And if
the system collapses the country goes down the drain. Uruguay was one of
the richest countries once, by adopting a very big welfare state they lost
that position. So has Sweden.
One might wonder why this way of thinking is so wide spread among
transhumanists. Well, most don't understand the connections between
technology and society, and how they interrelate. As the vice chairman of
Aleph I once talked to one of our members. I asked him: "why are you a
transhumanist?". He replied: "I just want to play a bit with computers". I
predicted then that I would never see him again. Call me psychic, I was
right. Because in the mass society (as German economist Wilhelm Röpke called
it), you are not able to cultivate your own interests, the priorities made
by others take precedence. And if you don't understand what transhumanism
really is about you soon wont see why it is practical, or moral.
I have come to the conclusion that transhumanism in many ways have made
grave mistakes in its strategy. Perhaps it has lacked the important
ideological education.
> > I'd be paying less tax. But I'd be far less innovative.
> >
> > Emlyn
You'll be just as innovative as other people tell you to be (its not for you
to decide, you don't have the means). But being innovative isn't really all
transhumanism is about. A nazi can "play a bit with computers".
Transhumanism is a much greater stream of ideas that touch all aspects of
life. Transhumanism has to interest itself in politics.
Waldemar
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