From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Dec 05 1999 - 02:49:00 MST
After reading _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich_, I've realized that
the <SL2 automatic association between "transhuman" and "Nazi Germany"
is based on a historical misconception. Near as I can tell, the Nazis
never tried to create a new superior race; never even claimed to be
evolving into one. Rather, the Nazi philosophy was that there was an
Aryan ideal, the "blond beast of prey", which had existed at some point
in the past until it was corrupted by mixing with lesser races. They
were trying to *breed back to that*, not breed forward to a new
humanity. Transhumanism, which deals with shareable technological
augmentation rather than eugenics, has essentially no point of contact.
I've therefore done my best to create the following one-minute
countermeme to the whole concept of transhumanism bearing even a vague
resemblance to the Nazis:
==
Historically, the Nazi philosophy was that they were protecting the
existing Aryan ideal from racial corruption. Despite the common
misconception, they never tried to create supermen. They just claimed
to be supermen. And that's the key difference. That's *always* the key
difference. That's what separates the Spanish Inquisition, which burned
heretics in the defense of what they thought was the truth, from
science, which tries to discover new truths and share them with
everyone. It's the difference between claiming to be perfect, which is
bad, and trying to be better, which is good.
Transhumanists don't claim to be transhumans. We want to create
transhumanity and share it with everyone, or at least offer everyone the
opportunity. History teaches us to beware of claims to have the
absolute truth, not to be wary of truth itself, or of the quest for
truth. History teaches us to be wary of those who claim to be a
superior race. But that says nothing about the quest for transhumanity,
much less actual transhumans.
==
Bonus historical zinger:
Nazi political/economic philosophy: "National Socialism"
Transhumanist political/economic philosophy: "Anarchocapitalism"
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way
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