From: hal@finney.org
Date: Thu Jun 17 1999 - 15:03:22 MDT
http://www.sacbee.com/voices/national/will/will_19990617.html is a very
interesting column by George Will. He describes Francis Fukuyama's
recent article following up 10 years after Fukuyama's influential "The
End of History" article in The National Interest.
Fukuyama's new article, "Second Thoughts", affirms the political
conclusions of "End of History". The great ideological battles are
over, won by liberal, democratic capitalism. The future ideology is
one of consumerism and materialism, with cooperative trade rather than
competitive warfare controlling international relations.
However, Fukuyama now understands that this is not in fact the end
of history. Rather, technological development in the next century will
redefine what it means to be human, with biological interventions in brain
chemistry and the human genome itself. Rather than the end of history,
this is actually the beginning of a new chapter in human development.
It is quite startling to see such Extropian sentiments presented by an
old fashioned, scholarly writer like Will. He refers to the abolition of
human nature and the beginning of post-human history. Just a few years
ago such sentiments remained firmly in the domain of science fiction
if not outright lunacy. This is dramatic evidence of how rapidly our
ideas are entering the mainstream.
Hal
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