KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
Well I mean I do despise human beings to an extent but not for the reason the left does.
Philosophy Leftism, Gnosticism, and Transhumanism
- Thread starter TheRejectionist
- Start date
Well I mean I do despise human beings to an extent but not for the reason the left does.
Do you dispise human actions or human nature.
The former is understandable the later some thing that needs to be grown out of.
KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
I don't know to be honest. So much of what we think of as human comes from human nature. I don't think humans are pure bilogical blank slates that the left thinks we are but I do think that 99.99% of everything we are discussing (Gender roles and expression, The ideal governmental systems, war and violence. ect ect.) is just the human nature of lashing out at everything we don't agree with Like if it wasn't for human nature we would not be having this conversation we'd be just doing our own thing with likeminded individuals and not really giving a crap about what that other tribe is doing over there.
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LordsFire
Internet Wizard
Prosthetics to recover missing or lost functionality, is a very different concept than transhumanism.
Transhumanism seeks to leave physical and biological humanity behind, to become something 'more,' something 'better.'
KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
So we aren't talking about becoming a cyborg or an android with a human soul? We're talking about the borg-like macro orgasm crap you see in sci-fi?
What is the appeal of that? I never understood the "cybernetics steals your soul" trope (I think it's bunk for the most part and I think in reality it'd very from person to person) and I never understood why so many writers seem to want to treat it as a good thing.
That.Woodcutter from OZ was still human.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
There's no uniform group on things like this.
Some more thoughtful sci-fi, especially cyberpunk subgenre like Ghost in the Shell, explicitly use cybernetics to explore 'what does it mean to be human?' in a context where physical humanity is being taken away.
Some science fiction, like Eclipse Phase, is implausibly idealistic 'the future will just be better' stuff, largely created by radical libertarians who think between technology and a form of pseudo-anarchism a near-ideal society can be attained.
Some want to go the Adeptus Mechanicus route and 'reject the weakness of the flesh,' even though the human body is a more capable machine than anything humans have ever designed; this position is largely based on ignorance.
IRL, there are some people who literally think that between cybernetics and possibly a technological singularity, mankind can ascend to functionally become gods.
There's all kinds of takes, and even as a broad umbrella term, 'transhumanism' isn't a large enough movement that there are well-known particular schools of thought. I'm sure if you found a dedicated transhumanist forum, you could find some sub-categories there, but then, have you ever actually heard of a dedicated transhumanist forum?
Yeah, transhumanism covers too many different ideas, concepts and desires to make broad statements about it.
Some may want to advance biosciences to the point that they can look like heroes of Greek myth, be able to wrestle a space marine, and know that in the case of a nasty accident their future will look more like Robocop than bed ridden vegetable. Probably with at least few hundreds years of disease free life in the package. That IMHO is absolutely not "seeking to leave physical and biological humanity behind" while still definitely it does aim to become something clearly better.
On the other end of the spectrum there are people who want to be a electronic ghosts in a server box managed by benevolent AI overlords, or weird furry creatures that would have less in common with baseline homo sapiens than most Star Trek and Star Wars aliens do - in such cases definitionally they would not be human, or even biological life in some extremes, and not necessarily "better" in any material sense either.
The Adeptus Mechanicus, with their attitude to AI and insistence on humanlike forms occupies a place somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
TheRomanSlayer
Kayabangan, Dugo, at Dangal
Honestly speaking, it would have been more ideal if the general public was actually given factual information about Gnosticism and what it actually teaches without facing judgmental reactions from the diehards that scream heretic whenever we want to know about it. The Dualism that is present in Gnosticism can be appealing to anyone who is fed up with the universalist garbage that was being regurgitated.
Bassoe
Well-known member
Tragedy of the commons. If it's possible to use transhumanism to remake yourself into something functionally drastically superior to a baseline human, someone's gonna do it and then they'll have a massive Outside Context advantage over the rest of us. Therefore, the only winning move is to augment yourself or your progeny first so they're the ones with the indefatigable advantage of being superior. If given a choice between having hypothetical Bassoe Junior being smart enough to conquer their way to the position of the Great Khan (Noonien Singh), tyrannical emperor of the world or a tyrannized peon with someone else as Khan, I obviously choose the first option.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
It won't work that way, because cybernetic 'enhancement' isn't actually 'enhancement.'
The human body is a fantastically capable of and robust machine, one which human technology still does not even approach matching the broad capabilities of.
Sure, you could replace an arm with a machine equivalent, and it'll probably have stronger grip strength, and be made of tougher materials. If it's extremely advanced, it might even have a level of fine control comparable to a human hand.
What would it lack?
Tactile feedback, pain sense, thermal sense, thermal regulation, self-repair, the ability to become stronger naturally, use as resources for the rest of the body in emergencies, resistance to fouling, cheap and easy power source, and that's all just off the top of my head.
Cybernetics that are 'just better' is the realm of not even science-fiction, but outright 'science-fantasy,' and the more we learn about the complexity of biological life, the more we realize this is the case.
On top of this, cybernetics come with the issue of inflicting surgical trauma to implant, repeating that to do maintenance work, and steep costs. We are only just beginning to get into places where we can have a machine/nervous system interface, and regular prosthetics that don't incorporate this technology can already be quite expensive. Mixing that in would probably increase cost by an order of magnitude, and even then we haven't seen any clear indication that such a thing can actually increase capability, rather than replace it.
Everything that sci-fi often attributes to cybernetics from physical capabilities, you could far more easily get from a suit of power-armor. Why try to implant armor-skin, when you can instead where armor over the skin, and gain the benefits of both? Why replace muscles with hydraulics, when you can just use them in concert?
The other 'realm' of cybernetic augmentation, brain enhancement, isn't even on the horizon as a possibility at this point, and is still purely in the realm of fiction. Maybe someday someone will figure out how to do such a thing, but it isn't looking to be in our lifetimes, so it's hardly worth worrying about. Given the capabilities of the human brain vs the capabilities of computers, not just on scale or speed, but the basic underlying principles on which they function, it's dubious that 'mental enhancement' is possible, or if it is, it'll be no better than having a calculator to do math for you wired directly into your brain, rather than held in your hand.
Worrying about a future where the social elite make pacts with demons to gain superior physical forms and more capable minds is something more worth worrying about than them becoming cybernetic supermen. The technology for both is about at the same level.
As usual, jack-booted thugs on the retainer of elites is a much more realistic threat.
LordDemiurge
Well-known member
Personally I would have no problem with genetic engineering to optimize the human bodies in moderate ways.
IE raise people to the upper bounds of intelligence, health and physical capacity.
Looks are in my opinion a bit too much of a slippery slope. Because frankly if plastic surgery and filters are any indication, we'd end up with a future where every woman will look like they were manufactured in the same factory.
But on the other hand your kind of caught in an arms race where if you choose not to engineer your son, he'll go to school where every boy is given the Dolph Lundgren package.
Though realistically we'll probably see embryo selection be a thing. Especially in demographics and groups that have no problem with abortion.
IE raise people to the upper bounds of intelligence, health and physical capacity.
Looks are in my opinion a bit too much of a slippery slope. Because frankly if plastic surgery and filters are any indication, we'd end up with a future where every woman will look like they were manufactured in the same factory.
But on the other hand your kind of caught in an arms race where if you choose not to engineer your son, he'll go to school where every boy is given the Dolph Lundgren package.
Though realistically we'll probably see embryo selection be a thing. Especially in demographics and groups that have no problem with abortion.
TheRomanSlayer
Kayabangan, Dugo, at Dangal
Genetic engineering and gene therapy might become more common in the future, and I do love the idea of creating an entire new generation of genetically enhanced human beings without any kind of physical and mental deformities involved, plus eliminating the potential of hereditary diseases along the way. For example, if a selected regular human being has a family history where diabetes, asthma, and heart disease were common in his or her ancestry, modern science can potentially locate the recessive gene responsible for such a thing and eliminate it. This application can expand to include family histories of mental health problems and eliminate that future problem before it becomes a thing
Oldbreeds - basically regular human beings that are not genetically enhanced, or we can call them Organic Humans
Newbreeds - the aforementioned genetically enhanced human beings with expanded brain capacity and enhanced physical strength. This kind of thing would definitely be necessary, since we're not sure if the human body in its condition would be capable for further space exploration, though additional exploration to Mars has been achieved by humans without the necessary genetic enhancement.
If we could take the technology that's been used to clone any animal or human being, and apply that to the creation of an entirely new kind of human being from egg fertilization plus gene editing and enhancing, we can potentially eliminate the need for surrogate mothers in favor of expanded artificial wombs that will serve this purpose.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
All genetic engineering really needs to do is edit out things like chronic illnesses and prevent any real horrid deformities or handicaps in children. Thereafter one lets the miracle of life and its randomness do its thing with the next generation.
yeah Im sorry but you cant trust the current crop of leadership with that kind of power expecially in the west.
Any new tool they are given will be used for evil ends, incredibly evil ends we really cant have nice toys until their gone and replaced with a much more limited ruling class.
TheRomanSlayer
Kayabangan, Dugo, at Dangal
Which is even more tragic, considering the massive potential for such a thing in the wrong hands. And we definitely can't trust the Eastern batch of leadership as well for the same reasons.