From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Jun 20 2001 - 13:46:39 MDT
On Tue, Jun 19, 2001 at 01:06:08AM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Define "statism" please.
Stasism is Virginia Postrel's term for the view that we should either
prevent change or control it strongly.
Statism is sometimes used to denote somebody who thinks that a strong
state or government is a good idea. Similar to etatism.
> > A philosophy without philosophical thought? So, what to fill this blank with? What filled the blank was technology, that was thought to be uncharged with cultural meaning.
> >
> > Transhumanism has everything to do with lawn chairs, microwave owens and Pokemon collectable trading cards.
> >
> > If a certain technology is developed it may have many good and practical applications, but it may also be applied in bad and impractical ways. Technology is a venue to make humanity's problems more agreeable, but it is not the fundamental part of transhumanism
> >
>
> This is false. Without technology you cannnot transcend the
> limits that bind us including the evolution-imposed limits to
> our rationality and the range and breadth of our reason.
> Technology is utterly necessary (but not sufficient) for
> transhumanism to succeed.
I disagree. Imagine a world where no technological advance beyond
today's technology is possible. Transhumanism would still be a workable
philosophy, even if we couldn't become immortal or jupiter brains using
technology. That is because it contains more than the dream of being
posthuman: there are a lot of limits to overcome using what we have and
can create. In the limit of no technology at all trnshumanism becomes
humanism, of course. But we differ in that we see that technology and
other rational means can help us become better when they are available,
and not just the "software" of humanism such as education.
Transhumanism is often easily recognized by flashy ultratech, but I
would say that Grameen International Bank is really a transhumanist
endeavor in a very real sense - using applied sociology, economy and
mobile phone technology to empower people.
> We are not yet capable of defining a full moral and political
> theory. Dynamism is much too weak to fill the bill. Objectivism
> was in many ways a good start but had its own blinders that
> ultimately largely derailed it.
In that case we better get working on it! I think we already have some
very good building blocks in the Aristotelian, enlightenment humanism,
and liberal traditions. Let's learn from the mistakes of objectivism and
other philosophies.
> > Why are we positive towards human change? In the end it gets down to
the fact that man has the right not to have his freedom infringed, and
that of course includes the right of men to develop themselves and their
right to implement their freedom in creating new technologies- as long
as it doesn't hurt other people.
> >
>
> This is not sufficient for what extropians are about.
Only if you regard ultratech as a necessary part of extropianism. Given
that some people wnt to transcend the current human condition (an
observed fact) and the above reason, it follows that there should be a
push - among those interested - towards advanced technology.
What would you consider a sufficient reason for extropianism?
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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