Transhumanism

[Amicitia]

Where does one get transhumanism anyways?

For the record, Hardy wrote that "I write about mathematics because, like any other mathematician who has passed sixty, I have no longer the freshness of mind, the energy, or the patience to carry on effectively with my proper job."

[Belial]

But how does one stop the decay of creativity?

Where does one *get* the decay of creativity?

Where does one get transhumanism anyways?

Non Sequitur. Allow me to rephrase the question:

Why should there be a decay of creativity?

[Amicitia]

It's something innately human.

[Belial]

Setting aside the truth of that statement, why would modifying yourself cause you to lose that? Does it expire after a hundred years whether you're dead or not? Are double amputees with advanced prosthetics 30% less creative due to modified body mass?

[Nyarlathotep]

What amount of the Earth, of human history, counts as interesting? How many beaches do you have to see before you think you've seen them all? How many people must you meet before you think of them as types, instead of as individuals?

I disagree. I've been from England to Japan; I've been from Maine to Florida, Arizona to California to Hawai'i, I've met people from Egypt, Lebanon, Niger, India, Pakistan... I'm not the most well-traveled person, but I've been around. And the more people I meet, the less they are types, and the more they appear as individuals. Here, in Japan, I no longer just see the faceless masses presented by the media; I see people, each with their own unique hopes and dreams. Even the most vapid valley girl has a story.

And each and every beach I've seen has been unique, each tree I've seen has been a wonder, the whole world is amazing.

And before you say "it's just because you're young", note that my parents, who are nearing sixty, share this attitude. My mother has lived in more places than most people have ever been in their lives; she's lived in Greece, Switzerland, Morocco, Lebanon, the Phillipines, California, New York City, Washington DC; she's been ALL over the US; to England, France, Spain, Germany; to Egypt and Israel; to Japan and China. She's befriended more people than I've even ever known in my life (though she's not still friends with them all, but hey) and she now works as a teacher, wherein she sees even more diverse students from all over the country. She still considers each person unique and interesting in their own right, still loves to hear their stories. Even though she's been so many places, she still loves to travel, to both return to where she's been and share that life with her friends and family, to find new secrets and changes in those places, and to see new horizons and explore new places.

Even if you did map every corner of this earth and meet every person alive today, there'd be billions of new children that you'd missed, and the map would change by the time you got to the end of it. You forget that you can explore not only in space, but in time, and that the whole of humanity comprises nearly infinite possibility. No two people are alike, and no matter how boring you think a person is they still have a story which might be worth your time to hear.

And even if you have explored this whole earth, there's still the infinity of space out there for you to examine. If you tire of humanity, then seek your fortunes among the stars - and if you -are- immortal, then you really do have the vast reserves of time and patience necessary for such a journey.

Point is... if you honestly think that people are all the same and that every beach is identical, you haven't met enough people or seen enough beaches, and you're a horridly closed-minded and jaded person.

[Maurog]

Being at constant wonder with the world does not imply an open mind and unjaded attitude, but rather just short memory. Can you recall every tree you ever seen? Can you name every person you ever met?

[Nyarlathotep]

Being at constant wonder with the world does not imply an open mind and unjaded attitude, but rather just short memory. Can you recall every tree you ever seen? Can you name every person you ever met?

No and no, I suppose. But are you trying to say that ignorance is bliss?

[Amicitia]

I'm assuming you'd probably just declare that as well as immortality that all human imperfections have been "repaired," right? Why bother calling such things vaguely human, if they're not in any way so?

But I digress.

Here's a source on the age-creativity correlation:
http://jbd.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/99

By the way, your example is irrelevant, as age does correlate to creativity, having more or less limbs doesn't.

[Belial]

Of course, we don't have any studies for humans that are in their 60s and 70s but have the physiology and neurology of 20 year olds.

And the limb example was tied to transhumanism, ie, the practice of modifying and improving the human physiology. You stated that this practice would reduce creativity, as it is inherently human. I offered two examples of transhuman conditions: extreme longevity, and extreme modification, so as to get you to pin down what you thought would reduce creativity.

[Nyarlathotep]

I'm still not sure how extreme longevity decreases creativity. Katsushika Hokusai, who did the famous Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji (which includes the Great Wave) lived until he was 89 years old and painted almost up until the day he died. His work became, if anything, more creative as he grew older. Indeed, he continued experimenting throughout his life, constantly trying to change and improve. That's not a lack of creativity with age, that is growth.

To give a more modern example, Ray Bradbury is 87 years old and continues to write. I'm not sure if his work has gotten more creative or not, but it certainly hasn't gotten less creative or interesting.

Age doesn't decrease creativity, it merely increases experience.

[Amicitia]

Okay, I just read an article on transhumanism, and they're just idiots who think that the human condition is purely bad and must be remedied. Right?

So what's valuable about transhumanism?

[Nath]

Okay, I just read an article on transhumanism, and they're just idiots who think that the human condition is purely bad and must be remedied. Right?

What article was this? I was not familiar with the expression 'transhumanism' before this thread, so I looked it up:

Transhumanism (sometimes symbolized by >H or H+) is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes, and ameliorate what it regards as undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human condition, such as stupidity, suffering, disease, aging and involuntary death.

Doesn't say anything about the human condition being purely bad.

[Amicitia]

You must have missed the part that wasn't explicitly written.

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

He must have missed the part that wasn't implied, too.

[Morphing Ball]

http://transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/declaration/

Here is a transhumanist declaration upheld by the members of a prominent transhumanist association. This doesn't seem to mark the human condition as purely bad, but I'm sure as with all such things there is a bit of a range; some transhumanists will be more radical than others. Still, I just don't like the idea. Of course there is a great deal of effort being invested in ameliorating the human condition, and some of this is acceptable to me. To try and reduce suffering in the world is a noble effort. But wanting to eliminate aging? Death? If this idea is truly embraced by all transhumanists then it really is just ridiculous. And it seems inextricably bound to eugenics, an idea I just can't agree with.

[Maurog]

I think they're concentrating on suffering, disease, aging and involuntary death, because that's the easiest part.

[Belial]

But wanting to eliminate aging? Death? If this idea is truly embraced by all transhumanists then it really is just ridiculous.

Why?

Okay, I just read an article on transhumanism, and they're just idiots who think that the human condition is purely bad and must be remedied. Right?

[Goplat]

To try and reduce suffering in the world is a noble effort. But wanting to eliminate aging? Death? If this idea is truly embraced by all transhumanists then it really is just ridiculous.

If the police catch a serial killer, should they just let him go because stopping death is "ridiculous"? If you accept that murder is wrong, it makes no sense to think natural death is right. They both cause the deaths of many unwilling innocents (the latter, a few orders of magnitude more). Just because we have hitherto been helpless against death from old-age doesn't mean there's something sacred about it.

And it seems inextricably bound to eugenics, an idea I just can't agree with.

"If you ever want to improve yourself, you're just like Hitler." If we're going to throw insults around, maybe I should say that opposition to transhumanism is inextricably bound to creationism. Why would you worship the status quo unless you thought God created it?

[Morphing Ball]

But wanting to eliminate aging? Death? If this idea is truly embraced by all transhumanists then it really is just ridiculous.

Why?

Death is a good thing. If we didn't have death, we'd be in a right bloody mess. Centuries old people populating the galaxy, consuming planets with more speed and efficiency than Galactus. That's what the transhumanists seem to want; to impede aging and extend human influence into deep space. I don't think we need that. The population increases quickly enough without trying to get death out of the way.

And a weaker but shorter argument would be that it really goes against the natural order of things.

To try and reduce suffering in the world is a noble effort. But wanting to eliminate aging? Death? If this idea is truly embraced by all transhumanists then it really is just ridiculous.

If the police catch a serial killer, should they just let him go because stopping death is "ridiculous"? If you accept that murder is wrong, it makes no sense to think natural death is right. They both cause the deaths of many unwilling innocents (the latter, a few orders of magnitude more). Just because we have hitherto been helpless against death from old-age doesn't mean there's something sacred about it.

And it seems inextricably bound to eugenics, an idea I just can't agree with.

"If you ever want to improve yourself, you're just like Hitler." If we're going to throw insults around, maybe I should say that opposition to transhumanism is inextricably bound to creationism. Why would you worship the status quo unless you thought God created it?

I respect the status quo because we do enough damage to our planet as it is. How are we going to sustain the population if people don't die. Even interstellar colonisation will hardly account for the enormous increase in human population we're talking about. We can't eliminate death, or there will just be too many people.

It is really ridiculous to suggest that allowing natural death to occur is tantamount to murder. People die; if they die at a ripe old age, and it hasn't been inflicted as a premeditated murder, I just can't find anything to be upset about.

[Belial]

Death is a good thing. If we didn't have death, we'd be in a right mess. Centuries old people populating the galaxy, consuming planets with more speed and efficiency than Galactus. That's what the transhumanists seem to want; to impede aging and extend human influence into deep space. I don't think we need that. The population increases quickly enough without trying to get death out of the way.

I imagine once you got death under control, the next step would be to slow your breeding rate way down.

As for spreading to and populating new colonies, I'm not really sure why that's bad.

And a weaker but shorter argument would be that it really goes against the natural order of things.

So does just about every aspect of civilization.

It is really ridiculous to suggest that allowing natural death to occur is tantamount to murder. People die; if they die at a ripe old age, and it hasn't been inflicted as a premeditated murder, I just can't find anything to be upset about.

I can. So much left to do. So much left to see. But somebody decided that curing death was "bad", so now I have to slowly become more and more decrepit until finally all I can do is moulder in my own filth and an age-dimmed awareness of my own suffering, and then die. What's right about that?

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

Death is a good thing.

Death is an evolutionary trick that has outlived its usefulness. The sooner we can get rid of it the better.

[Morphing Ball]

I can. So much left to do. So much left to see. But somebody decided that curing death was "bad", so now I have to slowly become more and more decrepit until finally all I can do is moulder in my own filth and an age-dimmed awareness of my own suffering, and then die. What's right about that?

Do you really want to be immortal? No-one is going to be able to experience all of infinity no matter how long they live. There will always be so much more to do. Some people are content with the small window of experience the normal lifespan allows them. Certainly you can extend the lifespan, we've been doing that gradually for some time, but do you really want to eliminate death? How much time could you want? What would you do with it?

And I'm not saying the gradual decline towards death is pleasant, but I think I'd go mad if I went on for ever.

Death is a good thing.

Death is an evolutionary trick that has outlived its usefulness. The sooner we can get rid of it the better.

Oh, yes, evolution is a tricky bastard.

Myself, I wouldn't mind a greatly extended lifespan but immortality isn't my thing.

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

I'm assuming you'd probably just declare that as well as immortality that all human imperfections have been "repaired," right? Why bother calling such things vaguely human, if they're not in any way so?

You seem to think that humans are defined by their flaws. How... odd. I thought it was our pursuit of transcendence.

Myself, I wouldn't mind a greatly extended lifespan but immortality isn't my thing.

That's 'cause you're a pansy

[Morphing Ball]

I'm assuming you'd probably just declare that as well as immortality that all human imperfections have been "repaired," right? Why bother calling such things vaguely human, if they're not in any way so?

You seem to think that humans are defined by their flaws. How... odd. I thought it was our pursuit of transcendence.

Well, here's something I can agree with. We pretty much have the same flaws as all the other animals.

[Goplat]

Do you really want to be immortal? No-one is going to be able to experience all of infinity no matter how long they live. There will always be so much more to do.

Yes; and good to know that I'll never get bored with life.

Some people are content with the small window of experience the normal lifespan allows them.

Well, I'm not; and just because "some people" think something doesn't mean all of humanity needs to do the same. I don't want to force immortality on you; why do you want to force death on me?

Certainly you can extend the lifespan, we've been doing that gradually for some time, but do you really want to eliminate death? How much time could you want? What would you do with it?

Who knows? I don't even know what I'll be doing when I'm 30, let alone 5000. But like you said, there's always so much more to do; I'm sure I'll find something. I'd rather not be denied the choice to become immortal just because I might get bored, thanks.

And I'm not saying the gradual decline towards death is pleasant, but I think I'd go mad if I went on for ever.

Like I said - you're not going to be forced to live forever. If you really want to die, you can. But it is wrong for you to be able to force your suicidal views on others.

[Morphing Ball]

Like I said - you're not going to be forced to live forever. If you really want to die, you can. But it is wrong for you to be able to force your suicidal views on others.

You have got to be taking the piss.

[Goplat]

How so? You've stated that "Death is a good thing". Surely that includes your own?

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

It is really ridiculous to suggest that allowing natural death to occur is tantamount to murder. People die; if they die at a ripe old age, and it hasn't been inflicted as a premeditated murder, I just can't find anything to be upset about.

Think of it like this: I discover a cure for Really Bad Disease. You have Really Bad Disease. I refuse to give you the aforementioned cure because you contracted Really Bad Disease naturally. Am I a murderer, or just a douchebag?

[Morphing Ball]

Death is good in some ways and bad in others. In any case, accepting one's death is not the same as desiring it. Also, how am I forcing my ideas on you? This is called "discussion".

It is really ridiculous to suggest that allowing natural death to occur is tantamount to murder. People die; if they die at a ripe old age, and it hasn't been inflicted as a premeditated murder, I just can't find anything to be upset about.

Think of it like this: I discover a cure for Really Bad Disease. You have Really Bad Disease. I refuse to give you the aforementioned cure because you contracted Really Bad Disease naturally. Am I a murderer, or just a douchebag?

I would naturally want to survive illness, and you would be a. I'm not saying I necessarily reject the idea of artifically extending life, but I just don't want to live for ever and ever. That's just how I feel about it at the moment. Perhaps once immortality is on the market I'll hear some good reviews and I'll give it a try.

[Nath]

I'm assuming you'd probably just declare that as well as immortality that all human imperfections have been "repaired," right? Why bother calling such things vaguely human, if they're not in any way so?

OK. Feel free not to call them human, if you prefer.

Here's a source on the age-creativity correlation:
http://jbd.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/99

By the way, your example is irrelevant, as age does correlate to creativity, having more or less limbs doesn't.

Is the correlation due to psychological or physical factors? If the former, who's to say that the psychology of a 70 year old will be the same as it is today when the average person lives for thousands of years? If the latter, what if the physical deterioration could be prevented?

Anyway, with all this talk of immortality, are we forgetting a certain law of thermodynamics? I don't think we need to place much emphasis on immortality. A more practical goal, I think, is to make involuntary death less common rather than non-existent.

[Iv]

I like the theme so I jump in the bandwagon with a quote and a remark.

About human perfection and adaptivity to its environment : From the excellent "Accelerando" of Charles Stross (freely available as a download), spoken by an AI: "You're as stupid as it's possible for an intelligent species to be – there being no evolutionary pressure to be any smarter – but you still don't internalize that." I think it has a point.

About boredom : Maybe someone who would be alive since 2000 BC would be bored as of today, history repeating itself, landscapes not changing much. But now imagine a world with billions of immortal beings, remembering errors from the past, each one carrying centuries of memory, of philosophical thinking, of education. Imagine yourself with the same luggage, sharing knowledge and thoughts in one of the twenty languages you have learned, in order to create novelty in arts or in technology. I give it at least a few millenniums before it becomes boring.

Plus, take also into account that the Singularity should happen any time now

[Nyarlathotep]

Death is good in some ways and bad in others. In any case, accepting one's death is not the same as desiring it. Also, how am I forcing my ideas on you? This is called "discussion".

It is really ridiculous to suggest that allowing natural death to occur is tantamount to murder. People die; if they die at a ripe old age, and it hasn't been inflicted as a premeditated murder, I just can't find anything to be upset about.

Think of it like this: I discover a cure for Really Bad Disease. You have Really Bad Disease. I refuse to give you the aforementioned cure because you contracted Really Bad Disease naturally. Am I a murderer, or just a douchebag?

I would naturally want to survive illness, and you would be a. I'm not saying I necessarily reject the idea of artifically extending life, but I just don't want to live for ever and ever. That's just how I feel about it at the moment. Perhaps once immortality is on the market I'll hear some good reviews and I'll give it a try.

There's nothing in transhumanism which says that you have to live -forever-. All they're trying to get rid of is involuntary death. If you want to die, so be it.

And for myself, I'd be just content with getting rid of disease and aging. I can deal with being killed by the sun exploding or the end of the 'verse or something (ie, when there's nothing interesting going on anymore). It's just that as long as there's stuff to see, I still want to see it - and I really do not want to get old. The idea of turning into a wreck to be put in a nursing home does NOT appeal to me. Particularly since alzhimers runs in my family.

Re: Eugenics... how like people to point to the very worst examples :\ It's like talking about Christanity and saying that the religion as a whole does no good whatsoever because the Inquisition happened and becuase fundamentalists shoot people. or that the whole of Judaeism is bad becuase of what's going on in Israel, or the whole of Islam is bad because of the fanatics in the middle east, or that Science itself is bad. After all, Hitler contributed to other sciences as well.

[Morphing Ball]

About boredom : Maybe someone who would be alive since 2000 BC would be bored as of today, history repeating itself, landscapes not changing much. But now imagine a world with billions of immortal beings, remembering errors from the past, each one carrying centuries of memory, of philosophical thinking, of education. Imagine yourself with the same luggage, sharing knowledge and thoughts in one of the twenty languages you have learned, in order to create novelty in arts or in technology. I give it at least a few millenniums before it becomes boring.

It only takes one revival series for an overly keen new writer to have such a civilisation destroyed by cybernetic mutants.

I am of course talking about why I don't like Russell T Davies. I shouldn't be, this is an on-topic forum.

[Belial]

Do you really want to be immortal?

This one's easy: yes.

Unfortunately, as Nath pointed out, that is unlikely. I will settle for an average lifespan of two millenia or so before the statistics for accidental or violent death catch up to me.

No-one is going to be able to experience all of infinity no matter how long they live. There will always be so much more to do.

Yes. So why not do it for as long as possible? What's so great about dying?

Some people are content with the small window of experience the normal lifespan allows them.

Some aren't.

Certainly you can extend the lifespan, we've been doing that gradually for some time, but do you really want to eliminate death? How much time could you want? What would you do with it?

In order: Yes, until I decide I'm done, and whatever I damn well want.

I would naturally want to survive illness, and you would be a. I'm not saying I necessarily reject the idea of artifically extending life, but I just don't want to live for ever and ever. That's just how I feel about it at the moment. Perhaps once immortality is on the market I'll hear some good reviews and I'll give it a try.

Think of it this way: If we cure aging and death, and you take a longevity treatment, and *then* you decide you're bored with life, you *can* end it.

If we don't, and it comes your time to die, and you decide you're not done, then you're S.O.L.

Why not go the path of more options?

[Morphing Ball]

Why not go the path of more options?

I can certainly accept this point of view.

[Samej]

Someone a couple of posts back mentioned a "natural order"; things like this always confuse (or slightly annoy) me, what does that term actually mean?

Also, some clarification of the term "natural" may be necessary, I have often seen it used to imply that there are (real) things which are not natural (which seems to be against the simplest definition of the word); mostly things that have occurred due to the actions of humans: how can the actions of all other organisms be called “naturalâ€

[Maurog]

Aren't we very much transhumans already, compared to someone from the middle ages? We're vaccinized against diseases, we fix our teeth, we improve our poor eyesight with lasers, we even have professionals whose job is to fix broken minds.

There is nothing natural about that.

[Insignificant Deifaction]

Honestly, I don't think The Fountain's purpose was to explain why death is inevitable and why you shouldn't tamper with the most inevitable of certainties--The Fountain was about accepting that a loved one is gone and not wasting your last hours with them by trying to save them from something they have already accepted.

Honestly, to me, Transhumanism feels like an obsessive, non-offensive version of eugenics. Eugenics is the belief that some people are inferior for genetic reasons (ethnicity, disability, etc) and eugenicists from Alexander Graham Bell to Mengele (and there is evidence that Bell's eugenicist groups inspired the Nazis, especially in their treatment of the Deaf) have long studied on how to use technology, law, and class to control and 'raise up' the 'untouchables' and 'trainables' of society; transhumanism is to believe that the human body is intrinsically and irreparably flawed and, in the very assumptive idea that nature cannot do its job, we start adding bells and whistles to ourselves until we reach the saturation point and (in science-fiction) we don't even die. In eugenics, fueled by hate, scientists hope to 'raise up' a sector of society. In transhumanism, fueled by fear of death and pain, scientists hope to 'raise up' everyone.

Let me ask you a question: if you could live forever, what would you do? Wouldn't you get bored? What if people continued to have children, but no one ever died? Isn't that just asking for disaster? Would some people get bored and OPT to die? How many people can we really trust to do the noble thing and snuff it for the good of the environment, etc.? What if humanity becomes entirely complacent? The entire impetus for genius is the necessity of change. If no one gets ill, dies, or suffers anymore (which is what Transhumanism ultimately hopes to achieve), how can we ever continue to push the envelope? Rethink ourselves? Would we need to? Wouldn't we just end up like Fahrenheit 451? Complacent?

I'd rather die than be complacent. Luckily for me, transhumanism is not yet reality and I never have to fear living forever. Imagine the social ramifications--religion would be pointless, faith would extinguish, morality would end, and thus ethics would suffer as well or become so inflated as to collapse under its own weight. The basis of all cultures is to cheat death. When death is out of the equation...the variables disintegrate.

I am all for augmenting the living to improve the quality of life, but I believe Transhumanism's ultimate goal of eradicating all pestilence, suffering, and death is far too sanitizing and idealist. Yes, the transman or the body modder or the man with a prosthetic leg or the woman who uses in-vitro--these examples are technology and its social tendrils affecting our biology and how we view ourselves. All of these instances are fine in my book, because they do not cheat death.

To me, there are some natural processes we have to accept. The body is suited for our environment if we were to get back in touch with our environment. Humans are social creatures, and intelligent; advanced society was inevitable. We are not above other pack animals, we merely evolved differently. Society complicated things, and we became complex with it. Now we feel that we are imperfect, and that somehow, imperfection is bad. That pain is bad. That death is a 'disease to be cured' to quote Tom Creo (in the aforementioned Aronofsky film). Personally, I feel that hardship and humanity's unique adaptation to hardship is what makes us human. Maybe that's naive of me to say, but I feel that to end hardship would be to make a lot of our struggles and our triumphs seem pointless, which dangerously sounds like nihilism, which is another philosophy I feel is flawed, but that's another discussion entirely.

Man, imagine a nihilist with transhumanist roots. That's just wacky.

I've never read the fountain, but this post is pretty much where I'm going to start with my methods.

First, transhumanism is not about the flaws of the human body, it's more about accepting that there is room for improvement. There is a subtle difference, saying we are flawed is to say we must be corrected, whereas if there is room for improvement it's up to us to decide how-or if-we will do that.

If I could live forever what would I do? Whatever I damn well please. Boredom only enters into it if you can't imagine. If people continue to have children, we take more territory to support them, and we boost our food yielding capabilities to heights they've never seen. Would some people opt to die? Yes, they would indubitably, immortality is not mandatory. We can't trust anyone to snuff it for society, we just go on, making certain that even if nobody snuffs it nobody will be forced to. H+ is pushing the envelope. H+ doesn't have a destination, it's just an un-ending path in whatever direction we bloody well feel like, at no point would we stop reinventing ourselves, at no point will we need to reinvent ourselves. I haven't read F451, but suffice it to say, it doesn't really matter what we do, dystopia is just around the corner at this rate, worrying about how we would be under H+ is a moot point if we don't have the infrastructure to become a decent H+ society. It's not some idealistic thing, it won't be a reality the way things are going, but people have to work bloody hard if it will succeed.

Religion *is* pointless. Once you stop thinking of religion as necessary for holding the moral order (because it's not), you realize religion doesn't serve any useful purpose in society. The ramifications are nonexistant, because it would invoke no change. As for cheating death, I certainly don't feel that as the basis for my morality, that's the thing really, you have to trust people to not be completely self-serving. I-and most people here I imagine-are good-natured and are good moral people solely because we feel it is the right thing to do. Not for fear of punishment.

Santization and idealism, it may be the former, but it is not the latter. It is entirely possible that we are making things too easy, but the idea is that it won't really matter. As for it being idealistic, it certainly isn't, because it is entirely possible, and not oversimplified to the point of ignoring flaws. Everyone knows it isn't going to be easy to do, and will still be flawed long after we achieve some semblance of it, but we just have to keep working on it. That makes it pragmatic more than anything else, but with a lofty goal.

Nihilism is a dangerous toy, too much nihilism and you get depressed and mopey, just the right amount and you gain the energy of freedom. And your achievements will still matter, sure, you won't have something as impressive as narrowly avoiding death, but people will still be different, there will still be conflict and clashes of ideas, and that's all you need to be accomplished at something. We are not perfectly adapted, as you are well aware. Both of us cannot (or thereabout) carry children, because we are small people, and the human body never completed the evolutionary processes necessary to give birth to our massive craniums (amongst other problems, in general and for you and me). We overcome all of this with our mastery of technology. Technology is free evolution in a way, adapting in ways we wouldn't have normally, allowing us to really find Earth a paradise.

-End Khonsu counter-

Okay, it's like this to me, Transhumanism is really something quite different from anything we describe.

People in H+ are unique, more unique than we ever were, as there is no set path, no direct mandatory improvement. You can be what you want to be, because H+ is not just human improvement, it's expressing yourself by changing your body. Along with the ability to extend our lifespan comes, oh, I dunno, perhaps the ability to grow another arm. I'm not saying it's likely those two will be connected, but that is not the point.

Basically, body mod and transhumanism go hand-in-hand to me. We're trying to improve on our bodies, well, we might as well express ourselves whilst we're at it. It's going to happen anyway, designer eyeballs or something. In fact, transhumanism to me is nothing more than body mod also working to add on to our original abilities and improve our health. Body mod with a healthy attitude if you will.

Whew... I'm done.

[Amicitia]

Apart from that massive textblock(the Internet makes me grateful now that debates in real life have time limits, forcing brevity), and Belial dismissing off my posts, is there anything innately valuable one reaches through becoming a tranny? Last time I checked, elimination of the human condition isn't worthwhile.

[Belial]

is there anything innately valuable one reaches through becoming a tranny?

Putting aside that nothing is innately valuable except insofar as that it is valued......

What's *not* worthwhile about eliminating aging and adding to and increasing one's own physical and mental and abilities?

Last time I checked, elimination of the human condition isn't worthwhile.

What are you defining as "the human condition"?

And in my defense, I didn't dismiss your points until you started making broad sweeping statements, complete with unnecessary insults, about transhumanism and "the human condition", without explaining yourself.