Transmutation
I think in my almost 54 years of life, I've slowly moved from being a secular humanist to a secular transhumanist, enough so that it's crept into my fiction.
It's not a bad thing, and I'm not ashamed of it. But my perspective on transhumanism isn't rooted in the idea that we need to become cyborgs or whatever.
Rather, it's an awareness that our humanity is part of the problem we face as we continue to roll forward as a society. We're still primates, despite everything we've accomplished as a species.
The recent trend of billionaires (themselves deeply problematic in a supposedly democratic society) building bunkers might as well be a return to caveman living, yes? The irony isn't lost on me--a billionaire's bunker is a damned cave, even if it's a posh one.
Mankind had to be a ruthless species to attain our position in the world. The mass extinctions we've caused over the past 400,000 years speaks to that ruthlessness.
In many ways, civilization's slow march forward (aka, progress) has been as much in spite of our humanity as because of it.
And now we're nearing a wall--call it The Great Filter or whatever you like--it's human civilization running up against our old habits as a species. It's why poverty still rages, why wars still rage.
In order for us to evolve into something other than a doomed species on a doomed world, we need to honestly assess ourselves as a species and try to do and be better than our human nature will allow.
The stakes of it couldn't be more serious--if we are unable to become enlightened as a species, are simply cavemen (and women, yes) in designer clothes, we're bound for extinction. If we're a world that worships the wealthy and the famous, we're bound for extinction.
A transhumanist evolution needs to take place if we're to have any chance of avoiding self-annihilation. Maybe it's more of a lift than we're capable of as a species. Maybe we're doomed to just be plutocratic primates.
What idealism I have left in me hopes we can rise above our natures and leave behind that ruthless, sociopathic cave dweller we once were (and still are haunted by, whether we know it or not), and realize a true world civilization of shared peace and prosperity.
Our brains set us apart from most of our fellow animal peers, but civilization has allowed so many of us, aided and abetted by technology, to be cruel and brutal on a scale that would strike our most ruthless ancestors with awe.
I try to remain hopeful, but that hope is grounded in a transhumanist recognition that we are part of the problem--at least the humanity we currently are. To progress, we must do and be far more than we are.
It's not a bad thing, and I'm not ashamed of it. But my perspective on transhumanism isn't rooted in the idea that we need to become cyborgs or whatever.
Rather, it's an awareness that our humanity is part of the problem we face as we continue to roll forward as a society. We're still primates, despite everything we've accomplished as a species.
The recent trend of billionaires (themselves deeply problematic in a supposedly democratic society) building bunkers might as well be a return to caveman living, yes? The irony isn't lost on me--a billionaire's bunker is a damned cave, even if it's a posh one.
Mankind had to be a ruthless species to attain our position in the world. The mass extinctions we've caused over the past 400,000 years speaks to that ruthlessness.
In many ways, civilization's slow march forward (aka, progress) has been as much in spite of our humanity as because of it.
And now we're nearing a wall--call it The Great Filter or whatever you like--it's human civilization running up against our old habits as a species. It's why poverty still rages, why wars still rage.
In order for us to evolve into something other than a doomed species on a doomed world, we need to honestly assess ourselves as a species and try to do and be better than our human nature will allow.
The stakes of it couldn't be more serious--if we are unable to become enlightened as a species, are simply cavemen (and women, yes) in designer clothes, we're bound for extinction. If we're a world that worships the wealthy and the famous, we're bound for extinction.
A transhumanist evolution needs to take place if we're to have any chance of avoiding self-annihilation. Maybe it's more of a lift than we're capable of as a species. Maybe we're doomed to just be plutocratic primates.
What idealism I have left in me hopes we can rise above our natures and leave behind that ruthless, sociopathic cave dweller we once were (and still are haunted by, whether we know it or not), and realize a true world civilization of shared peace and prosperity.
Our brains set us apart from most of our fellow animal peers, but civilization has allowed so many of us, aided and abetted by technology, to be cruel and brutal on a scale that would strike our most ruthless ancestors with awe.
I try to remain hopeful, but that hope is grounded in a transhumanist recognition that we are part of the problem--at least the humanity we currently are. To progress, we must do and be far more than we are.
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