The Vulcans are but the latest members of an elaborately extended tradition of anti-traditionalist thought going back at least to the French Enlightenment.
How can he ignore Greek stoics?
Transhumanism is interesting. I am almost one myself. I do have somewhat mixed opinions about parts of the movement though.
I love technology: Most of the good things that have happened to civilization since the Bronze age have happened because of people developing better tools, better technology, better understanding of how the world works. I’m no fan of any “natural order”. The state of nature sucks. I’m no fan of ageing or death: The sooner people can fix those, the better. More power to them.
But there is a strain of transhumanism (mostly in the AIs blow up and take over the world camps) that is far more elitist and far less friendly to anyone else’s autonomy. Instead of proposing a future where people get better tools that enable them to do more, see further, live longer, etc, they seem more like Robot Cthulu cultusts. They are out to summon Robot Cthulhu to remake the world in their image before any of those other fools summons Robot Cthulhu to remake the world in those other fool’s image. A lot of mental gymnastics are expended on how to constrain, hobble, and control AI technology that doesn’t exist yet.
And the people who do work on actual AI problems and are actual programmers, who might have an actual clue about what they are actually doing, are dismissed as ordinary shmos who couldn’t possibly have the genius-level insight needed to make true progress or do it safely. (I read something along those lines on LessWrong somewhere). It’s offputting to say the least.
You’re welcome to join them in their shiny future, as a pet maybe. But the one thing they will never allow you is control: after all control would be allowing mere mortals to mess with things they couldn’t possibly understand.
Bleh.
I suppose the dividing line for me is:
Do you support giving people power?: giving them powerful tools, making *them* smarter, giving *them* wider range, providing *them* with opportunities to grow. (Allowing them to do precipitously dangerous, possibly even disastrous things with that power, as a necessary consequence of having it and the freedom it affords.)
Or do you want to hoard those tools/abilities/technology so that you can impose your will on the world before anyone else can ruin your beautiful vision by ‘doing it wrong’? (And by extension, rob them of their autonomy or any ability to control their world?)
The Vulcans are but the latest members of an elaborately extended tradition of anti-traditionalist thought going back at least to the French Enlightenment.
How can he ignore Greek stoics?
Transhumanism is interesting. I am almost one myself. I do have somewhat mixed opinions about parts of the movement though.
I love technology: Most of the good things that have happened to civilization since the Bronze age have happened because of people developing better tools, better technology, better understanding of how the world works. I’m no fan of any “natural order”. The state of nature sucks. I’m no fan of ageing or death: The sooner people can fix those, the better. More power to them.
But there is a strain of transhumanism (mostly in the AIs blow up and take over the world camps) that is far more elitist and far less friendly to anyone else’s autonomy. Instead of proposing a future where people get better tools that enable them to do more, see further, live longer, etc, they seem more like Robot Cthulu cultusts. They are out to summon Robot Cthulhu to remake the world in their image before any of those other fools summons Robot Cthulhu to remake the world in those other fool’s image. A lot of mental gymnastics are expended on how to constrain, hobble, and control AI technology that doesn’t exist yet.
And the people who do work on actual AI problems and are actual programmers, who might have an actual clue about what they are actually doing, are dismissed as ordinary shmos who couldn’t possibly have the genius-level insight needed to make true progress or do it safely. (I read something along those lines on LessWrong somewhere). It’s offputting to say the least.
You’re welcome to join them in their shiny future, as a pet maybe. But the one thing they will never allow you is control: after all control would be allowing mere mortals to mess with things they couldn’t possibly understand.
Bleh.
I suppose the dividing line for me is:
Do you support giving people power?: giving them powerful tools, making *them* smarter, giving *them* wider range, providing *them* with opportunities to grow. (Allowing them to do precipitously dangerous, possibly even disastrous things with that power, as a necessary consequence of having it and the freedom it affords.)
Or do you want to hoard those tools/abilities/technology so that you can impose your will on the world before anyone else can ruin your beautiful vision by ‘doing it wrong’? (And by extension, rob them of their autonomy or any ability to control their world?)