What ever happened to the transhumanists?(gizmodo.com)
gizmodo.com
What ever happened to the transhumanists?
https://gizmodo.com/what-happened-to-transhumanism-in-2022-life-extension-1849199492
422 comments
I used to identify as a transhumanist and believed that technology could do no harm. I was an adolescent donning rose-colored glasses, with a burning passion for science, technology, and improvement of our species.
Only after an electrical engineering degree, 10-15 years of more wisdom, and dabbling in biohacking have I realized that we really have no clue about the massive deleterious impacts that technology has on the natural world. From mental health decay to environmental destruction, the unintended side effects of technology were completely lost on me as a child.
I believe humanity needs to pump the brakes and take a critical step back to evaluate the damage we’ve caused. I hope that it isn’t too late to try to fix what we’ve destroyed.
Edit: Brakes
Only after an electrical engineering degree, 10-15 years of more wisdom, and dabbling in biohacking have I realized that we really have no clue about the massive deleterious impacts that technology has on the natural world. From mental health decay to environmental destruction, the unintended side effects of technology were completely lost on me as a child.
I believe humanity needs to pump the brakes and take a critical step back to evaluate the damage we’ve caused. I hope that it isn’t too late to try to fix what we’ve destroyed.
Edit: Brakes
To become transhuman or posthuman, you'd first have to understand what it is to be human, and we're not anywhere near that. Some of the enthusiasm about the hopes for such a transition were raised by this:
> "The Human Genome Project finally released a complete human genome sequence in 2003, in a project that took 13 years to complete."
The most remarkable thing about that accomplishment was how little it resulted in. Almost all of the hopes about medical breakthroughs and finally gaining a complete understanding of human biology have not been realized. There are many reasons for this - for example, the genome edits itself as it develops in different cell types, so the genome of your nerve cells is not the genome of your immune cells, heart cells, liver cells etc. Communication between all these cell types is incredibly important and that's hard to get from the genomic sequence. It turns out the 3D structure of the genome is as important as the 3D structure of proteins is, as it is an active dynamic entity in all cell types. There are probably dozens of other reasons on top of those.
As far as the notion of uploading one's consciousness into an artificial substrate while retaining one's sense of self, that seems highly implausible when we don't really understand the basic physical mechanism of consciousness, other than a vague idea that the brain is the most important component (even though nerves saturate the entire body).
Hence the whole subject remains in the science fiction arena and will stay there for a good long while, perhaps a century or more.
> "The Human Genome Project finally released a complete human genome sequence in 2003, in a project that took 13 years to complete."
The most remarkable thing about that accomplishment was how little it resulted in. Almost all of the hopes about medical breakthroughs and finally gaining a complete understanding of human biology have not been realized. There are many reasons for this - for example, the genome edits itself as it develops in different cell types, so the genome of your nerve cells is not the genome of your immune cells, heart cells, liver cells etc. Communication between all these cell types is incredibly important and that's hard to get from the genomic sequence. It turns out the 3D structure of the genome is as important as the 3D structure of proteins is, as it is an active dynamic entity in all cell types. There are probably dozens of other reasons on top of those.
As far as the notion of uploading one's consciousness into an artificial substrate while retaining one's sense of self, that seems highly implausible when we don't really understand the basic physical mechanism of consciousness, other than a vague idea that the brain is the most important component (even though nerves saturate the entire body).
Hence the whole subject remains in the science fiction arena and will stay there for a good long while, perhaps a century or more.
As someone who was quite plugged into the transhumanist scene in the 1990s and well-acquainted with several of the people referenced, I have a perspective that I think explains it more succinctly.
When I was introduced to it in the early 1990s, the movement was dominated by extremely technical doers and thinkers, with a culture that encouraged rigor. It was philosophical rather than political. In the late 1990s, transhumanism had its Eternal September moment, when it became fashionable and trendy to be "transhumanist". The discourse became dominated by people hijacking the transhumanist movement in service of their political and social agendas, with nary a nod toward rigor. The doers and serious people originally associated with the movement and which gave it its intellectual gravitas became greatly outnumbered and mostly moved on.
Many of the early transhumanists stopped labeling themselves as such because they did not want to be associated with the kind of people that came to define it.
When I was introduced to it in the early 1990s, the movement was dominated by extremely technical doers and thinkers, with a culture that encouraged rigor. It was philosophical rather than political. In the late 1990s, transhumanism had its Eternal September moment, when it became fashionable and trendy to be "transhumanist". The discourse became dominated by people hijacking the transhumanist movement in service of their political and social agendas, with nary a nod toward rigor. The doers and serious people originally associated with the movement and which gave it its intellectual gravitas became greatly outnumbered and mostly moved on.
Many of the early transhumanists stopped labeling themselves as such because they did not want to be associated with the kind of people that came to define it.
"Transhumanism" is already here, in a way. We have medications including some complex drugs, most people at least take multi-vitamins, we have surgeries and sometimes do weird stuff like transplant limbs or faces. Even simpler, we have knowledge of diet and health which lets us stay in better shape than before (though a lot of people are in worse shape due to junk food...we have access to high-protein diets and effective exercises though).
On the other hand, "transhumanism" where we upload our consciousness or modify ourselves to the point where we don't resemble humans anymore, probably won't come for a long time. Even problems like aging and disease and significantly hard to solve. Most of what we know about the human brain is psychology and large-scale things like hormones. Because evolution is a process which doesn't favor simplicity or straightforwardness, and the brain and body have trillions of microscopic cells all working more or less simultaneously - we don't have nearly enough computational power or resources or technology to even remotely "thoroughly" understand this.
I think in the near future we will gradually develop more bionic and cybernetic augmentations, like improving on those bionic arms and legs I heard about a few years ago, and implanted chips and medications. But it's going to be gradual and take a long time, and some things are just nearly impossible.
On the other hand, "transhumanism" where we upload our consciousness or modify ourselves to the point where we don't resemble humans anymore, probably won't come for a long time. Even problems like aging and disease and significantly hard to solve. Most of what we know about the human brain is psychology and large-scale things like hormones. Because evolution is a process which doesn't favor simplicity or straightforwardness, and the brain and body have trillions of microscopic cells all working more or less simultaneously - we don't have nearly enough computational power or resources or technology to even remotely "thoroughly" understand this.
I think in the near future we will gradually develop more bionic and cybernetic augmentations, like improving on those bionic arms and legs I heard about a few years ago, and implanted chips and medications. But it's going to be gradual and take a long time, and some things are just nearly impossible.
The article mentions Steve Mann. At the same time Mann was at the MIT Media Lab (as one of the first "Wearables" computing people, along with Thad Starner, Bradley Rhodes, and others), more conspicuously involved specifically in Transhumanism thought and discussion at MIT was Sascha Chislenko.
Sascha was associated with Marvin Minsky and Pattie Maes, and (like Minsky's protege, Pushpinder "Push" Singh), was one of the few people who'd wander the halls of the Lab, at all hours, striking up impromptu intellectual conversations (new AI methods, transhumanism, philosophy, economics, etc.) with random students. (Basically, much of what I imagined MIT would be like, they were it.)
Tragically, Sascha died way too soon. I don't know how much this impacted the future of Transhumanist thought, but I'm sure he'd have done more to advancing that and whatever he saw that thinking should be evolving into.
Sascha was associated with Marvin Minsky and Pattie Maes, and (like Minsky's protege, Pushpinder "Push" Singh), was one of the few people who'd wander the halls of the Lab, at all hours, striking up impromptu intellectual conversations (new AI methods, transhumanism, philosophy, economics, etc.) with random students. (Basically, much of what I imagined MIT would be like, they were it.)
Tragically, Sascha died way too soon. I don't know how much this impacted the future of Transhumanist thought, but I'm sure he'd have done more to advancing that and whatever he saw that thinking should be evolving into.
I discovered transhumanism around the turn of the century. I thought I'd found a treasure trove of insight. I was all about it for 3 or 4 years. Told people who weren't interested all about it. It was really easy to believe in radical transformation of the status quo in those days. There was a feeling in the air that the advent of the Web would solve everybody's problems, end scarcity, make everyone rich (especially us) and propel the stock market upward from then on.
Well, that feeling was short lived. It wasn't too long before I decided futurism in general was not an analysis of where the world is heading, but what certain communities of sci-fi nerds and techies wanted to happen, and believed they themselves could or would make happen. And that's fine I guess. But I was much more skeptical that their hockey-stick takeoffs would happen, at least in my lifetime.
What's happened in my lifetime so far is you can get more stuff delivered to your door, and faster; and computers got smaller and better at the same time. Ok. Well, computers were already getting smaller when I was born. Maybe they can get smaller. I'm not sure what that looks like. The display is probably a light pair of reading glasses. Maybe the computer is a wristwatch. Or a nose ring.
And then maybe later the computer goes inside you and injects into the optic nerve. And hey look at that, there's some transhumanism, I think. But I doubt anyone living knows how to do that. I'm just rambling now...
Well, that feeling was short lived. It wasn't too long before I decided futurism in general was not an analysis of where the world is heading, but what certain communities of sci-fi nerds and techies wanted to happen, and believed they themselves could or would make happen. And that's fine I guess. But I was much more skeptical that their hockey-stick takeoffs would happen, at least in my lifetime.
What's happened in my lifetime so far is you can get more stuff delivered to your door, and faster; and computers got smaller and better at the same time. Ok. Well, computers were already getting smaller when I was born. Maybe they can get smaller. I'm not sure what that looks like. The display is probably a light pair of reading glasses. Maybe the computer is a wristwatch. Or a nose ring.
And then maybe later the computer goes inside you and injects into the optic nerve. And hey look at that, there's some transhumanism, I think. But I doubt anyone living knows how to do that. I'm just rambling now...
oh believe me we're still around! you're just not gonna find a lot of that "above ground" so to speak. the good stuff happens in hushed tones or among small social circles.
And in places you wouldn't otherwise think to look, like transgender people. 'Cause when you think about it, taking synthetic experimental hormones to give our bodies new capabilities and reconnect ourselves to our minds more deeply reflects the essence of "trans humanism," no?
The overlap between the queer/furry community and the transhumanist/cyberpunk community is very strong and has always been. If you're looking for keywords to google for, check out the "Freedom of Form Foundation" and its research (this is both explicitly furry and explicitly transhumanist), some of the Korps RCG propaganda stories, the postfurry embassy, any of the plurality/tulpa/multiplicity/DiD recovery communities (a rare example of putting mind tech into practice today rather than fantasizing about it in the future), the people who make those full-body drone suits at hypnokink events, anything Naomi Wu touches, etc etc etc ...
And in places you wouldn't otherwise think to look, like transgender people. 'Cause when you think about it, taking synthetic experimental hormones to give our bodies new capabilities and reconnect ourselves to our minds more deeply reflects the essence of "trans humanism," no?
The overlap between the queer/furry community and the transhumanist/cyberpunk community is very strong and has always been. If you're looking for keywords to google for, check out the "Freedom of Form Foundation" and its research (this is both explicitly furry and explicitly transhumanist), some of the Korps RCG propaganda stories, the postfurry embassy, any of the plurality/tulpa/multiplicity/DiD recovery communities (a rare example of putting mind tech into practice today rather than fantasizing about it in the future), the people who make those full-body drone suits at hypnokink events, anything Naomi Wu touches, etc etc etc ...
It was replaced by Virtual Reality.
The transhumanist philosophy was transcendental. Man, armed with innovative genius and deep technological knowledge, could one day remake himself and transcend his limitations. It wasn't so much a "philosophy" as a prediction of an inevitable and obvious future, which they were simply impatient to reach. Freedom from all biological, physical, intellectual constraints!
Today, people understand that technology isn't just a tool, it's a weapon. Corporations want to corral people into virtual worlds they control, and governments want perfect surveillance and infallible enforcement of all laws, and soon social rules. Your brain implant will have NSA/China backdoors, regular 0-days "observed in the wild" (sorry, no refunds), or will crash occasionally because the QA team got laid off.
Smart technologists today can see that virtual reality (which is indissociable with brain implants and most other transhumanist tech except perhaps nanobots) just means far deeper corporate/elite control over people's psyches. Read "The Rise of Virtual Reality" by Anthony Napoleon. The replacement of "real reality" (governed by the laws of nature) with a reality fully governed by other humans (and their flaws). It's very hard to get giddy and impatient about that future.
The transhumanist philosophy was transcendental. Man, armed with innovative genius and deep technological knowledge, could one day remake himself and transcend his limitations. It wasn't so much a "philosophy" as a prediction of an inevitable and obvious future, which they were simply impatient to reach. Freedom from all biological, physical, intellectual constraints!
Today, people understand that technology isn't just a tool, it's a weapon. Corporations want to corral people into virtual worlds they control, and governments want perfect surveillance and infallible enforcement of all laws, and soon social rules. Your brain implant will have NSA/China backdoors, regular 0-days "observed in the wild" (sorry, no refunds), or will crash occasionally because the QA team got laid off.
Smart technologists today can see that virtual reality (which is indissociable with brain implants and most other transhumanist tech except perhaps nanobots) just means far deeper corporate/elite control over people's psyches. Read "The Rise of Virtual Reality" by Anthony Napoleon. The replacement of "real reality" (governed by the laws of nature) with a reality fully governed by other humans (and their flaws). It's very hard to get giddy and impatient about that future.
We currently have a massive chunk of society who are losing their collective minds about people engaging in the very early iterations of transhumanism—transgender folks.
I still regularly encounter people who are spitting angry against transgender folks and then later in the conversation will completely unironically talk about how much they love the cyberpunk genre.
Not many of them realize they would be the weird cultists in the background of the story holding signs preaching about unnatural technology.
I still regularly encounter people who are spitting angry against transgender folks and then later in the conversation will completely unironically talk about how much they love the cyberpunk genre.
Not many of them realize they would be the weird cultists in the background of the story holding signs preaching about unnatural technology.
I didn't know it was a "movement", i thought it was the logical conclusion of our current technological trajectory. I didn't even know they went in hiding, we are closer to transhumanism today than ever. Some of the technologies are within the visible horizon now, for real, like neurotechnology and artificial wombs. We just injected half the population with an mRNA protein template, repeatedly. I don't expect to reach the end my life while still a human, hopefully.
All humans are actively engaged in various levels of transhumanism, especially from a medical standpoint. We all hope that medicine will help us achieve what is, to us presently, superhuman lifespans. Many of us are mentally altered through psychotropic medicine and prefer living this way.
Transhumanism as a movement is just a vocal proponent of a process of technological adoption already happening on a regular basis.
Transhumanism as a movement is just a vocal proponent of a process of technological adoption already happening on a regular basis.
> face a new feudalism, as control of finance and the power that goes with it will be at the core of technological human enhancement, and democracy…will be dead in the water.”
While there's a significant risk of it to happen, it's not a given. Brain augmentation connecting people to each other might give a rise to the direct democracy when hundreds of the collective decisions take place every day: from desiding if your local road needs an upgrade between community members to voting for the national parliament members.
While there's a significant risk of it to happen, it's not a given. Brain augmentation connecting people to each other might give a rise to the direct democracy when hundreds of the collective decisions take place every day: from desiding if your local road needs an upgrade between community members to voting for the national parliament members.
It's dangerous to modify something we don't know in details - risk breaking it is too high. The only sane action transhumanism could do is to throw money and working hands on the biomedical research, also biomedical engineering. Even nanotechnology is less relevant since those nanobots would need to know exactly what to modify. At the end, likely we will just design new proteins which are true nanobots already existing in our bodies.
With our current relationship with tech, nobody on their right mind would want to anticipate transhumanism. Fix tech first, then people will start to hype it again.
I’m rather convinced, with really no evidence, mind you, that all the best future cyborg implants will be surficial and removable. Glasses. Skin patch. Etc.
I’ve seen how good we are with tech. I don’t see why we’ll need to cut people open to apply it.
I’ve seen how good we are with tech. I don’t see why we’ll need to cut people open to apply it.
I'd say just waiting for the possibility to be like actually possible?
I don't know if I would call myself one, but I believe I'm just a (very advanced) piece of software.
Whenever the possibility of hardware upgrade becomes available, count me in!
I don't know if I would call myself one, but I believe I'm just a (very advanced) piece of software.
Whenever the possibility of hardware upgrade becomes available, count me in!
I was hoping this would be more specific and do followups on people who were featured in places like Wired. For example they have a picture of Anders Sandberg wearing an eyepiece and carying around a computer. Does he still do that?
I've heard about people implanting rfid chips in their hand. Do they still use them a few years later?
I have no problem with enhancing our lives thru technology, but seeking eternal life in this universe is incredibly stupid because you're effectively seeking eternal damnation. Eventually someone captures you, locks you away and tortures you for thousands of years if not forever.
Creating heaven is hard, but hell is well within reach.
Creating heaven is hard, but hell is well within reach.
I once went to an early 2000’s transhumanist party with Nick Bostrom. He had a transhumanist leadership position at that point, if I recall. (The party was rad)
The most transhumanist thing in my life currently: getting into flow states writing academic papers with GPT-3. It is genuinely mind melting.
The most transhumanist thing in my life currently: getting into flow states writing academic papers with GPT-3. It is genuinely mind melting.
I think one reason transhumanism will never truly take off is because whenever something can be done more efficiently without potentially harming one's body, that's the winning piece of technology. Sure, we could try to make body mods that allow us to fly, but we already have helicopters and airplanes (not to mention jetpacks). Yes, we could make ourselves super smart by trying to integrate our minds with the Internet and AI, but we already have smartphones in our pockets.
Is there a pre-agricultural movement I could sign on to? It seems like every development post-hunter-gatherer has been in service of extending our lives while simultaneously making them (and the environment) worse. We talk about quality of life, but what kind of life is it to sit inside a box 2/3 of your life, or breaking your back in a factory, or on a farm? Most hunter-gatherers actually have more leisure time and work less, are healthy, don't pollute.
Reposting a comment of mine from 10 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28731696
Extropians are everywhere. Many names come to mind, like Assange, Hal Finney, Jurvetson, Carl Feynman, and many others.
I hope that something like this group comes back, but with a vengeance. Call me an optimist, but if they had put their minds to it, they could have accomplished much more than a mailing list, which has unfortunately dwindled in the last 10 years.
Cypherpunks write code- but what about the extropians?
Extropians are everywhere. Many names come to mind, like Assange, Hal Finney, Jurvetson, Carl Feynman, and many others.
I hope that something like this group comes back, but with a vengeance. Call me an optimist, but if they had put their minds to it, they could have accomplished much more than a mailing list, which has unfortunately dwindled in the last 10 years.
Cypherpunks write code- but what about the extropians?
> For Cameron, transhumanism looks as frightening as ever, and he honed in on a notion he refers to as the “hollowing out of the human,” the idea that “all that matters in Homo sapiens can be uploaded as a paradigm for our desiderata.”
Jonathan Coulton, The Future Soon:
Do you want to be a transhumanist because you are embracing something, or because you are running away from something, like the fictional character in this song? The latter is deeply unhealthy, perhaps fatally (or in this case, genocidally) so.
Jonathan Coulton, The Future Soon:
Cause it's gonna be the future soon
And I won't always be this way
When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away
It's gonna be the future soon
I've never seen it quite so clear
And when my heart is breaking I can close my eyes and it's already here
Do you want to be a transhumanist because you are embracing something, or because you are running away from something, like the fictional character in this song? The latter is deeply unhealthy, perhaps fatally (or in this case, genocidally) so.
"Like so many others after 9/11, I felt spiritually and existentially lost. It’s hard to believe now, but I was a regular churchgoer at the time."
Ah, the will to believe. In something. Anything. The believer crowd is usually not the group that makes it work. Today's "metaverse" enthusiasts and actual metaverse implementers have quite limited overlap.
Ah, the will to believe. In something. Anything. The believer crowd is usually not the group that makes it work. Today's "metaverse" enthusiasts and actual metaverse implementers have quite limited overlap.
Transhumanism never left. It became mainstream.
Personally I think widespread use of a certain kind of mature augmented reality will make its users effectively transhuman.
Eagerly awaiting the pill that turns me into my fursona.
My disgust reaction is provoked by enough transhumanist ideas that it feels more dystopian than utopian to me. I guess I'm too... human... to trans-human too hard.
Transhumanism should be about freedom and increased ability.
But the future is about corporate authoritarian dystopia, extreme wealth inequality, and environmental armageddon.
Pessimism for the future is beginning to take over.
I mean, look at "Meta", and the fact it's tied to effing facebook and all the crappiness that entails. VR is a lot like transhumanism in many ways, and it's clear VR will be attached to megacorps and google-class lockout and non-customer service.
But the future is about corporate authoritarian dystopia, extreme wealth inequality, and environmental armageddon.
Pessimism for the future is beginning to take over.
I mean, look at "Meta", and the fact it's tied to effing facebook and all the crappiness that entails. VR is a lot like transhumanism in many ways, and it's clear VR will be attached to megacorps and google-class lockout and non-customer service.
The promises of devices like neuralink are decades away from widespread voluntary adoption, at least. You can get small things done today, as you could 10 years ago, but they aren't ready for primetime.
Anecdotally, I got a small coated neodymium magnet implanted in a finger during my youth. It was cool as a college student, I could feel strong AC currents/PWM/etc and I never lost small metal parts like screws.
Those were small benefits though, and the risk was quite high. If the coating had breached, my immune system would have attacked the magnet. Accidentally smacking it into things was painful. I was always aware of the intrusive hardware in a mildly unsettling way. Etc.
When I entered a more nature-y phase of my life, I got it removed by a local tattoo artist who dabbled in body mods. They mentioned that the newer versions were much smaller, and would require serious medical facilities to remove.
At the end of the day, active body mods have too little going for them and too many awful failure modes. Passive ones can be fun - I've seen transdermal plastic beads put in some interesting places - but they're hardly transhumanist.