Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Sunday, June 10, 2012

I Guess You Never Heard of the Already-Existing Word "Education"?



Transhumanists and Singularitarians and Techno-Immortalists love to distract attention from the crazytown articles of faith that are actually unique to and definitive of their sects of the Robot Cult -- you know, their desire and their belief that many will be able, and much sooner than non-Robot Cultists think, to live in genetically and prosthetically tweaked sooper-bodies with comic-book sooper-powers in free nanobotic-cornucopia-filled treasure caves, attended by very sexy sexbots, very possibly in outer space, until they decide to upload their "informational-selves" forever into a cyber-heaven that will be even more awesome still, as it will be under the ministrations of a sooper-intelligent post-parental history-ending Robot God of infinite loving grace.

No, no, they will tell you, what transhumanism is REALLY about, is the belief that things can get better (which is kinda sorta what a belief in "progress" already is, and nobody was really crying out for a new word for it like "transhumanism" and definitely nobody ever needed to join a Robot Cult to express such a belief, especially when the people in the Robot Cult really seem far more interested when it comes down to it in other, rather odder, rather ill-conceived notions about how intelligent unintelligent artifacts are or how eugenics isn't bad anymore in consumer societies or how corporate-military organizations that profit from destroying the planet are the only places we can count on to clean up the planet for profit) or the belief that scientific research can achieve remarkable things (again, nobody ever needed to join a Robot Cult to express such a belief, especially when the people in the Robot Cult really seem attracted to ideas on the margins of science and sometimes in outright pseudo-science) or the belief that evolution is not the final word when it comes to the human condition (again, "culture" and "civilization" are already available words, and there are far more places outside of the Robot Cult than inside it where discussions of their histories and limitations and constituents are rich and full and serious), and the examples continue on and on.

Again, it really is quite commonplace for cultists to sanewash their kooky belief-systems in mixed company -- oh, you know, we believe in togetherness and tolerance and helping each other -- and, you know, that an intergalactic overlord called Xenu, who presided over dozens of planets, millions of years ago, bombed a Prison Planet now known as Earth where billions of refugees of his empire were displaced into camps near volcanoes whose spirits now coalesce around living humans causing them all sorts of difficulties misdiagnosed by foolish scientists as medical and psychological in nature, you know, just plain common sense!

6 comments:

Summerspeaker said...

My opinion of education, progress, and civilization ranges from skepticism to opposition depending on my mood. Narratives of progress and civilization have driven vast horrors over past centuries if not millennia. I find these elements of transhumanism the most problematic. I'd much rather be a transhumanist than a progressive, though I realize both words have piles of negative association. Hell, I think I'd rather be a Robot Cultist than a progressive. Cheers!

Dale Carrico said...

There is of course plenty to be wary about that happens under the sign of civilization, progress, education -- but those who recognize this have, at the same time, to take care to discern what happens under the sign of anti-civilizationism, reactionary conservatism and enforced ignorance before they glibly throw the baby out with the bathwater. You have some truly admirable impulses, Summer, but I can't say that I am surprised at all that you would prefer to indulge in the wish-fulfillment fantasies of a Robot Cult facilitating the corporate-militarism you disdain in the abstract than actually do the heartbreaking and compromised work of progressive reform in the actual world. As for me, I am still a believer with American socialist Michael Harrington that "the best liberalism leads toward socialism. I’m a radical, but... I want to be on the left wing of the possible." Cheers right back atcha, and annoying and patronizing tho' you will find my saying so, I still hold out hope that you will become a worthy ally one day.

Summerspeaker said...

Okay, but don't hold your breath. ♥ I don't think the exotic bugs can cure a asphyxiation yet. I'm not strictly anti-civ (that would be difficult as a transhumanist), but I feel critiques of civilization and progress accomplish more in the current political climate than trumpeting these things as the vast majority of transhumanists, progressives, and probably all non-anarchist radicals do.

Dale Carrico said...

If I can walk and chew gum at the same time, so can you.

John Howard said...

Transhumanists and Singularitarians and Techno-Immortalists love to distract attention from the crazytown articles of faith that are actually unique to and definitive of their sects of the Robot Cult -- you know, their desire and their belief that many will be able, and much sooner than non-Robot Cultists think, to live in genetically and prosthetically tweaked sooper-bodies ...

HA! Pretty funny Dale, is that an inside joke to those of us who know that you are a Transhumanist who loves to divert attention from your crazytown article of faith that many of us will be able to choose safe and voluntary genetically tweaked prosthetically enhanced sooper-bodies to enable us to procreate with someone of the same sex? That's a pretty crazytown idea, but to you it's an article of faith that it's crazy to object to or cast doubt on or (horrors! No!) prohibit completely. I say we should prohibit creating babies any way other than joining an existing man and an existing woman's unmodified untweaked gametes, and you get all apoplectic.

You try to come across all sane, but you are trying to sanewash the parts of Transhumanism that suit you, which happen to be the most crazy and useless parts. t's distressing to see that you continue to bullshit everyone like this, after I've called you out on it before.

Dale Carrico said...

your crazytown article of faith that many of us will be able to choose safe and voluntary genetically tweaked prosthetically enhanced sooper-bodies to enable us to procreate with someone of the same sex

I don't believe -- let alone hold as an article of faith -- that a technique enabling same-sex procreation exists, and I have no particular expectations about it either.

Certainly I don't think that speculative topic should concern people more than, for example, the exploitation of many donor-siblings or precarious egg-donors or surrogate mothers, worries about the promotion of dangerous therapies by for-profit Big Pharma or the elimination of access to treatments for people in overexploited regions in the world through for-profit IP regimes and that sort of real world issue.

It is true that IF same-sex procreative ARTs (assistive reproductive techniques) were developed, proved reliably safe and were made affordably available to everyone who actually wanted them who were well informed and not under duress (and for me the bar should be higher than it tends to be at present for saying someone is truly informed and nonduressed), then no, all things being equal, I don't have a pre-emptive prejudice leading me to declare a blanket ban on the very idea of such a thing.

You say that makes me a "transhumanist" despite the fact that I devote huge amounts of my time to the critique of transhumanist and futurological and reductionist and eugenic discourses. This is because you are a truly confused person.

For those who are not long-acquainted with this blog, John Howard has been appearing out of the blue for years and years and always obsessively returns to his fears about technology creating some kind of menacing same-sex procreation that will destroy the world even if it is safe and accessible and wanted by free adult sane responsible well-informed people.

It's true that John Howard repeatedly calls me out on the "bullshit" that only he sees, and on my insidious plot to seem sane despite my cyborg homosexual agenda. I'm sorry, John, but it isn't my job to still those demons voices in your head telling you how lovely sucking a fat cock would be right about now, but as always I wish you the best as you travel the long strange road to your own private perfection.