Since I'm a fairly longstanding critic of the sub(cult)ural and self-described "political movement" expressions of futurological speculation especially as represented by Robot Cultists in their transhumanist, techno-immortalist, and Singularitarian flavors, I've been getting requests for my reaction to the fact that The World Transhumanist Association is now billing itself, rather preciously, as "humanity +".
Needless to say one has to wonder if a warm and fuzzy self-promotional rebranding designed to blunt the regular charges against transhumanist formulations of eugenicism and elitism is really best-served through the self-congratulatory attribution to one's own conspicuously marginal, usually embarrassingly wrongheaded, decisively Actually Human subculture of the moniker "Humanity Plus," especially given how this is apt to look from the perspective of those of us more likely to find ourselves on the Humanity Minus end of the stick.
But, you may have noticed that I don't really devote very much time to exposing Robot Cult foolishness these days, since, whatever the cruel pleasures afforded by the enterprise, ultimately it is unclear that transhumanists really deserve sustained attention once the basic critique is delineated and done with.
Therefore, to the question what do I think of WTA's rebranding as "humanity+" I think the better and short answer is not so different from what I think about Amway's rebranding as Quixtar: Not interested.
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