A TRASHHUMANIST LOOK AT TRANSHUMANISM

 

I just took the first step toward becoming a cyborg. I now seethrough artificial lenses. My world is brighter, sharper. A new, improvedHD version.

However, I am not a Transhumanist. I’m more of atrashhumanist.

As a science fiction writer, I do like to stay hip to things likeTranshumanism. It pays to know what cutting edge movements are up to. Also,sometimes I find things I can . . . let’s say, appropriate.

I follow Zoltan Istvan, a major transhumanist writer and activist.He recently recommended a novel, Even God Herself, by anotherTranshumanist, Chris T. Armstrong. I read it. It’s a fun, weird read and Irecommend it to those curious about the movement.

It also got me thinking.

Istvan dabbles in politics. He ran for president–yes, of theseUnited States of America–as the candidate for the Transhumanist Party in 2016(documented in the film Immortality or Bust), for governor of Californiain 2018, and considered running for the Libertarian and Republican presidentialcandidacies for the 2020 race. What could all this mean in 2024?

(Just had a wishful fantasy flash: What if Trump and hisclones all ate each other alive during a televised debate and Zoltan ended upthe Republican candidate?)

I found myself rereading Istvan’s novel The Transhumanist Wager.It’s as crazy as I remember it. I recommend it, too. Both books provide an excellent overview of Transhumanism.

Which brings me to why I’m a trashhumanist.

Like cyberpunk (I'm also not now nor have ever been acard-carrying cyberpunk, but that’s another story . . .) I have reservationswith Transhumanism. 

I like the whole body modification/customization thing, butdo we really need immortality? A lot of people just get dragged along by socialpressures, and never really figure out what to do with themselves, and the onlyreason they don’t live fast, die young and leave good-looking corpses isbecause they’ve stumbled into obligations. Even if you could be healthy longpast your body’s use-by date, most people I’ve known who live long decide thatthey’re all done at some point, and dying doesn’t seem like a bad thing. Also,the problem with immortality is that it takes forever to be sure that it’sactually working.

Back in the Nineties, a guy with a remarkable resemblance to theFifties puppet/kid show host Howdy Doody kept showing up at science fictionconventions, trying to sell cryonics. “When you’re dead, everybody else makesall the decisions,” he’d say. But why would you care when you’re doing whatRaymond Chandler called the Big Sleep?

As LSD guru Timothy Leary said when he decided not to get frozen:“They have no sense of humor. I was worried I would wake up in 50 yearssurrounded by people with clipboards.”

Uploading into an android body is a step beyond the c-punk dreamof living in virtual reality. And not only do they want to live forever, butthey don’t like the fact that we’re animals. Christopher yearns for the“de-animalization” of the human race. Istvan wants us to stop being“super-apes” and ditch our “baggage culture.” There’s an abhorrence of biologyand all its sensual, hot, wet, stickiness, and a sterile lust for what theAztecs called the Way of the Fleshless, which is another way of saying death.

People are worried about AIs wanting to kill off ussloppy, illogical humans, but actually, if AIs are going to truly live,they need our mess, our trash. Android bodies are not enough. They need soft,sensual, sensitive meat-suits, like our bodies.

And that is exactly the way robotics are developing.

The Singularity will happen when biology and technology becomeindistinguishable, and compatible in ways we haven’t imagined. And it’s gonnabe good and nasty.

Meanwhile, I recommended that you Transhumanists out there readRudy Rucker. He’s way ahead of you with all this, especially his novel Juicy Ghosts.

Trashhumanism forever!

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