From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Nov 30 2001 - 16:52:50 MST
On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 04:32:34PM -0900, John Grigg wrote:
> Anders wrote:
> Also, I think we still have not put our core agenda in good shape. The transhumanist worldview is far less rich, complex and with connections to current issues than the anti-enlightenment views we are struggling with: compare the few paltry pages and texts we have with the massive environmental literature and its accompanying vision of a certain natural order, shored up by ties both to romanticism, the left and many consumer interests! It is not just a case that they have been doing it longer, the core worldview is rather consistent and easy to adapt to new situations - given a situation, any situation at all, and you can put it into the great narrative of environmentalism. It is far harder to do what with transhumanism, which makes it harder to make transhumanism an
> integral part of other debates.
> (end)
> So, Anders EXACTLY what would you recommend to turn the tide?
> Can Pro-Act with little or no funding really be the catalyst to
>change things? And could Pro-Act somehow gain major corporate
>funding?
Yes and no. Pro-Act is a good thing, and being well funded is
also a good thing, but it takes more than Pro-Act to turn the
tide and change the future. It could be a core or essential part
for the change, but we are talking about a cultural
megascale project, a memetic Dyson sphere.
What I think we need (now I go into preaching mode):
1) Get our philosophical and ideological vision together.
We need a coherent core vision that can be expressed both as
scholarly papers, popular science, debate and art. It should be
open-ended and possible to develop into something to be truly
passionate about. We already have some great ideas, but they
need to be tied together into more than just a big pile of ideas
that loosely fit together into a liberalist-humanist pattern.
This does not imply that we need to throw out everybody who does
not subscribe to the Sacred Principles v 2.32, but we need a
well defined core vision that really defines transhumanism and
shows what it is and isn't.
2) Create a serious image. So far, we have not cared much
about that, and it seriously weakens our ability to be taken
seriously, get into relevant forums and get a positive media
image of our ideas. As long as transhumanism is fringy, it will
attract fringe elements and repel otherwise affiliated
mainstream elements. How many professors would boast about their
transhumanist membership? We need our diversity, but seriousness
and diversity are not contradictory - there is room for both
serious academics, serious webdesigners and serious stand up
comedians. This also includes the creation of high quality
forums and debates.
3) Get our networking together. We have been good at
international networking, but lousy at connecting with groups
with parallel or similar aims. Part of this has been a tendency
to keep to ourselves, fed by both (I think) a sense of
uncertainty and negative reactions from people we have
approached from the wrong direction. We need more transhumanists
in suits and ties! (for you who simply can't stand the idea of a
tie, I suggest
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/apparel/57ff.shtml)
This is one area where Pro-Act can be very helpful. We should
also set up other groups, seeking to network outside our own
traditional world of cryonics, science fiction, hacktivism and
space. There are many other groups we should approach: emerging
pro-tech, pro-globalization groups, the biotech business,
humanism, various universities, forward-looking foundations and
other networks of visionaries. There are likely unexpected
allies even in the environmentalist movement and among consumer
groups. We have to find them.
4) Integrate our vision into other areas. Transhumanism divorced
from current issues is a walk-over victory for our cultural
opponents. Instead, inject transhumanist ideas into the debate,
make them part of the issues. The cloning issue isn't just about
cloning, it is about the definition of human - something eternal
or changeable? Medical and digital freedom are necessary for the
development of what we seek. The struggle to uphold and extend
the open society is essential for us, and we can provide
unexpected and perhaps visionary ideas about how the open
society of the future will work - if we can create the core
vision to guide us.
5) Win over the intellectuals and mainstream by showing them a
vision that is more sexy, more workable, more profitable and
more moral than the others. It will not happen overnight, and we
have the most intense competition in the world. Even if we are
*wildly* successful it will take decades. But that takes a
coherent set of core ideas that can be expressed and
re-expressed again and again, extended to new areas and turned
into a grand narrative. It takes the development of a network to
spread this core vision (and develop it). It requires the
development of a serious transhumanism with high level internal
debates and quality forums to develop ideas further and to
entice people to seek to join. And finally, transhumanism has to
become part of the agenda wherever it can.
These steps are not sequential, but they depend on each other.
Look at how other movements have used them successfully. Yes, we
think we are right and they are mostly wrong. But even if we are
100% right about everything we still won't succeed without a
good strategy. Everybody will have a different role, create
their own local tactical vision - I might write papers and
books, you might turn yourself into a media star and a third
person might spend his time networking.
> And aren't there already organizations sponsored or even
>created by megacorporations to advance a very pro-tech agenda?
>Wouldn't there funding levels be in the tens of millions?
Could you name any such organization?
Note that this is a good example of how widespread one story is,
the one about how megacorps rule the world and manipulate all
our minds through massive lobbying groups, advertisements and
the media. According to this story there *must* be a lot of such
organizations and they would be well funded by their corporate
masters, and likely quite successful at manipulating everybody.
So how come Monsanto has failed at making GM food acceptable in
Europe, and the media is in general GM-critical? Part of this is
of course that we tend to interpret them through our own reality
filter, but even when we take our own bias into account there is
a big anti GM bias left. The truth is that these megacorps
aren't that fast on the uptake, and have not spent their money
on pro-tech groups to any large extent.
The megacorp-story is an example of how a powerful story, a way
of seeing the world, can become extremely pervasive (turn on TV,
and it is there in many shows. Go to a movie, and it is there.
Read a thriller, and it appears) and affect how we behave in the
world. What I want is to create a transhumanist story just as
powerful.
That said, there are some groups that I think are on our side.
Look at http://www.agbioworld.org/ for example.
>Why is the "weight of the world" on our shoulders
>with this?
Where else would it be? If we want to move the world, then we
have to lift it. We can't ask anybody else to do it for us, the
best we can do is to find other people who also want to lift it
and cooperate.
> What do you see as the end results, if we fail to rise to the
> challenge, both short-term and long-term?
Short term: nothing, except that the number of really good
posters and thinkers at forums like this and conferences like
Extro and TransVision will dwindle. Things will get a little bit
noisier, a little bit more clannish but nothing you can't adapt
to. Meanwhile the world outside the cosy list will change in
ever more threatening ways. Over time, transhumanism becomes yet
another network or subculture in the intersticies of a society
guided by entirely different principles. It might be a fun
subculture, but if humanity becomes transhuman it will not be
because of transhumanism and the form of transhumanity might be
very far from any desirable vision we have.
> I would like to agree with Robert on this one, but I tend to
>think Anders is right. We may end up living in a "botched
>future" if the challenge is not met. Sort of, but not really,
>the 2020 or 2030 we always dreamed of.
Yes, this is my greatest fear. And the worst thing is that as a
transhumanist I can't help but feel responsible for what world I
create. It would be so cozy to be able to sit and say that the
state of the world is everybody else's fault, but in the end I
can't do that. The world is ours to shape, and we better shape
up.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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