From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Jul 23 2001 - 16:30:36 MDT
I'd consider myself a transneanderthal but not yet a postneanderthal. The
particular class of transneanderthal I currently belong to is "human", but
I hope to eventually belong to a more extreme class of transneanderthal
sentience. Even if I hope to someday be a postneanderthal, though, I have
no intention of ever ceasing to be a transneanderthal. Indeed, being a
transneanderthal is precisely what separates us from the apes and defines
our identity as sentient beings. I can only see augmentations as
continuing to improve and increase the transneanderthal status I so
value. Some may still be mourning the loss of our neanderthality, but now
that we have abandoned it I see no way out but forward. We are all
transneanderthals now and cannot help but become even more extreme
transneanderthals in the future.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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