From: Giu1i0 Pri5c0 (g2002@prisco.info)
Date: Sun Jun 30 2002 - 04:06:29 MDT
http://transhumanism.com/content/walker0201.shtml
What is Transhumanism? Why is a Transhumanist?, by Mark Walker, June 29, 2002. Readers are welcome to post comments to the forum linked to the article (follow the link "View/post comments").
>From the introduction:
There is a specter that ought to be haunting the world, the specter of Transhumanism.
Transhumanism, I will argue, is the philosophical thesis that that we ought to employ technology in the near-term for the purpose of attempting to perfect ourselves. Even those not friendly to Transhumanism ought to pay heed, for within the lifetime of most of those alive today humanity will, in all likelihood, possess the technology to radically reengineer humans, to create new and better persons. Clearly, the philosophical, political and social ramifications of Transhumanism are staggering indeed; arguably, they are unprecedented in human history. Moreover, the fact that the technologies necessary for such experiments are imminent - most expert opinion clusters around the years 2020 to 2050 [1] means that Transhumanism ought to be on everyone's lips. It is no exaggeration to say that Transhumanism ought to be the headline news every evening on television and front page on every morning newspaper. We stand at the crucial juncture in human history.
My aim here is to outline what I consider to be the essential core of Transhumanism, specifically; the definition I offered above contains three theses:
1. The Technology Thesis: Within a hundred years humanity will possess the technology to reengineer Homo sapiens.
2. The Ideal Thesis: The goal in the reengineering task is to perfect ourselves.
3. The Ethical Thesis: We ought to employ technology to realize this ideal.
I will discuss each of these in turn. The exposition of Transhumanism will also reveal why one ought to be a Transhumanist...
--- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 g2002@prisco.info myfirstname@mylastname.info http://mylastname.info/myfirstname
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