Re: How another list group reacted to Anders' story about racist transhumanists

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sat Apr 01 2000 - 01:53:11 MST


"john grigg" <starman125@hotmail.com> writes:

> As Anders requested I sent off his story to a list who could be considered
> transhumanist 'racialists.' lol These were their reactions. By the way,
> what is a 'jävla tönt'?

I think a translation would be "Damn dork". :-)

> From: jq <jfulton@w...>
> Date: Wed Mar 29, 2000 8:21pm
> Subject: Re: A story...
>
> At 02:46 PM 3/29/00 -0800, you wrote:
> >From: John Grigg alaska16@e...
> >
> >Hello everyone,
>
>
> hey Griggy! Long time no arrogant whine! ;>
>
> Nevertheless, it's nice to see anders et al. have an
> positive view of the future, seeing as how we're
> de-evolving into a less capable species due to righteous
> anti-eugenicists such as yourself, it's good to know
> you dont have any problem with your complicity in it.
> TRASH-humanists, striving together for a coercive utopia...

:-) So he completely missed the point of the story?

As for the devolution, it is on such a tremendously longer timescale
than cultural and technological evolution that it is irrelevant for
all practical transhumanist aims. We have the technology ~now to start
fixing bad genes or at least do prenatal screening, and in the short
run we will likely see genetic enhancements. Things like devolution
and race will not survive that long outside small groups. The nicest
thing is that by leaving the choice up to the parents one can get a
distributed, non-coercive system that still achieves the eugenic aims.

> BTW, swedes, espc. those not out of their "equiv" of
> graduate school, are not really know for their 'science'.
> 'cocktail viruses' really, you should write for Star Trek.
> Of course, he COULD be an expert, as you say, with an
> awful publishing record. Most neurology experts have enough
> knowledge not to pander antisense oligonucleotide virus
> gene therapy (in the embryo!!) to anyone but true deludes
> such as yourself. Not their field, not yours either.

:-)
 
> From: Hans Larsson <herman_9_ad@y...>
> Date: Thu Mar 30, 2000 10:28am
> Subject: Re: A story
>
> In Sweden, to the middle and the upper classes, race
> issues are still on an academic level. I'd like to
> check back on this person in a few years just to see
> how he changed his mind. Tell yout friend he's a jävla
> tönt.

:-)

Sure, race issues are sensitive and totally PC here in Sweden.

My impression is that the readers didn't quite get what I was aiming
at. Transhumanism + racism will end up becoming transhumanism anyway -
if you believe we can change the human condition drastically, then
puny things like race is becoming *IRRELEVANT*. Who cares if your
neighbour had black parents when his skin now is silver and his genes
come from 43 different species? Who cares if his home culture was
American when he has modified his personality and adapted to several
globalized net cultures. This is likely even more frightening for the
PC crowd than the racists...

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:08:58 MDT