The first claim, which actually frames SD's whole case, is that "nearly all Transhumanists are either Neocons and Neocon influenced."
There is some real wiggle-room introduced by the inclusion of "influence" here, but the force of the point does seem to suggest that most transhumanist-identified people are also Movement Conservatives of one kind or another, and the simple truth is that so many of the highest profile transhumanists are mainstream liberals, social democrats, and even democratic socialists at this point in their movement's history that this is a hard claim to stand by. Sure, in the 1990s when transhumanism was defined by the libertopian Extropian cult this claim would have made more sense (the curious California hybrid of market ideology and hippy free love that prevailed among the Extropian ethos might make even that historical claim a little hard to support in a non-nuanced way).
I do think one might find oneself surprised by the number of unrepentant Randroids and libertopian free-marketeers among transhumanists to this day, but I also think it would be wrong to claim that "nearly all transhumanists" are in fact Neocons. I notice, however, despite this claim, SD supports it with a quotation from my work which makes a rather different sort of claim altogether, one which might suggest that they aren't really interested in proposing anything so facile in the first place:
Singularitarian[ism] has powerful resonances with the intuitions of neoliberals and neoconservatives. Some neoliberals and neoconservatives have already started to drift in a broadly Singularitarian, or at any rate technocentric, direction to save their anti-democratic agenda in the face of its current catastrophic culmination (Thomas Friedman, Glenn Reynolds, and William Safire are pretty good examples of this in my view), and it is hard for me to see how the majority of neoliberals and neoconservatives could long resist the lure of Singularitarian arguments that
[1] provide a rationale for the circumvention of democratic politics
[2] provide a rationale for increased investment in military R&D
[3] make recourse to tried and true strategies of fearmongering
[4] appeal to Old School conservative intuitions about the special Destiny of the West
[5] appeal to Old School conservative intuitions about the indispensability of elite Gatekeepers of the True Knowledge
[6] appeal to more newfangled conservative intuitions about "spontaneous order" and "natural(ized) markets."
Needless to say (I hope?), it is very different to say that there are thematic and conceptual "resonances" between two ideological worldviews and to say that partisans of one are necessarily partisans of the other. In this quote it is quite clear that the emphasis is less on Transhumanists identifying with Neoconservative politics than on Neoconservatives (and in the quote I refer to both Neoconservatives and Neoliberals, which also considerably complicates the picture here, surely?) making use of Transhumanist rhetoric for their own purposes. The six tendencies SD goes on to quote quite clearly are described as available and especially useful to conservative politics -- which is a very different sort of claim than to suggest that advocates of one actually intend or presently do make these connections.
And so, to a certain extent, I quite understand why more left-wing transhumanists would be annoyed at the accusation that their transhumanism makes them right-wing whatever their expressed convictions in the matter, but it seems to me such a defensive response is probably a bit beside the point (however understandable it might be). More to the point, it seems to me it would be dem-left transhumanists who would be the ones most interested in a critique like this, taking this delineation of conceptual resonances and vulnerabilities to reactionary appropriation under advisement, inspiring them to be especially on their guard on questions of forming strategic alliances and so on, and provoking efforts to reframe their positions to better reflect their progressive values. That this is not the reaction strikes me as curious and possibly indicative.
Social Democrat's second provocative claim is that "since 99.5% of transhumanists are white males, they don't care about any of these issues" [about the effects of poverty, race, gender and the like on the conspicuously unequal distribution of the costs, risks, and benefits of technological "development" in general].
Again, many white male transhumanists who do care about such issues (some few of whom have actually devoted much of their lives to redressing such injustices), are understandably annoyed at the suggestion that their whiteness and maleness disqualifies a proper appreciation of their expressed concerns and the work they do (those few who actually do so) to address them.
I remember all too well the literally hair-raising transformation of consciousness that confronted me as an ignorant and idiotic undergraduate taking a course in feminist philosophy -- and I mean to suggest that I was likely personally much more ignorant and idiotic than these transhumanists are possibly being accused of being -- realizing that whatever my well-meaning but historically uninformed, genial and general commitment to anti-sexism and anti-racism (the course moved from gender into race into queerness and I've never looked back!) could not insulate me from the ways in which being a beneficiary of whiteness and maleness in a white racist patriarchal capitalist society rendered me insensitive in spite of myself to the reality of my unearned privileges, skewed my focus, lent itself to making some connections more readily than others whatever the facts of the matter were, and so on.
Precisely because I was an anti-racist anti-sexist white male in a racist patriarchal society, these commitments required special vigilance from me, never permitted me the comfort of complacency (indeed the expectation of such comfort was already a marker of my whiteness and maleness -- does anybody imagine that women or people of color have comparable expectations of comfort in a racist patriarchal society -- if not, then why exactly should I?).
The point of calling attention to the way whiteness and maleness play into racism and sexism is not to disqualify white males from anti-racism and anti-sexism in advance, nor to indulge in name-calling, nor to activate the so-called perfectionism of a censorious political correctness, nor to make accusations of personal responsibility for structural social problems, nor to mobilize the endless narcissism of liberal guilt, but to register the difficult path of anti-racism and anti-sexist for white males in particular in racist patriarchal societies. It is foolish to pretend one's inhabitation of privilege is not registered in one's personal dealings with it, even if one manages a progressive democratic resistance to such privilege as one's own path.
These are hard truths to swallow, especially if one's privileges insulate us from the necessity to take on the risks and costs of swallowing them. But if one wants to substantiate the claim that one is anti-sexist and anti-racist after all then one of the ways one does this is to react to obvious truths about white male privilege in racist patriarchal societies with understanding and determination rather than defensiveness and demands for approval. At least that's how I see it.
6 comments:
Dale wrote:
> I do think one might find oneself surprised by the number
> of unrepentant Randroids and libertopian free-marketeers
> among transhumanists to this day, but I also think it would
> be wrong to claim that "nearly all transhumanists" are in
> fact Neocons.
Nevertheless, the presence of the unrepentant Randroids and
libertopians seems to constitute a pretty effective muzzle on
the expression of any other political viewpoints in the usual
>Hist watering-holes.
Apart from the inhibitory effect of the characteristic shrillness
of the libertopians, there may be an attitude of timidity toward
confrontation among non-libertopian >Hists whose rationale is something
along the lines of "well, the shared transhumanism is more important
than the present-day political squabbling, and after the
Singularity it won't matter anyway, so we'll just wink at
the indiscretions of the more rabid right-wingers."
As I think you've pointed out before, if I'm not mistaken.
It is true, at least, that openly advocating the use of
nuclear weapons by the U.S. in the Middle East **will** get
you moderated off the Extropians' mailing list, whatever the
opinions of the Ayn Rand Institute might be on the subject.
;->
There was also the ludicrous claim that advances in therapies for the treatment of diseases of aging would primarily benefit upper and middle class white males. As if white females and Japanese or Korean or Chinese or Indian men and women don't constitute a majority of those who benefit from expensive medicine today, as if Medicaid and universal health in non-US advanced countries does not provide sophisticated medical care to the poor, and as if it were sure that many of today's poor countries won't become much richer over time.
"Nevertheless, the presence of the unrepentant Randroids and
libertopians seems to constitute a pretty effective muzzle on
the expression of any other political viewpoints in the usual
>Hist watering-holes."
This is probably true of the major >Hist mailing lists, but there are are other environments that are other environments where this is not true at all, e.g. the Oxford/FHI crowd and IEET. Likewise, the community of philosophically-minded utilitarians interested in these issues is rather well connected and naturally free of libertopians and Objectivists. Most of the members of the latter group would not identify as >Hists, but would be classified as engaging in 'Superlative Discourse' here.
"Apart from the inhibitory effect of the characteristic shrillness
of the libertopians, there may be an attitude of timidity toward
confrontation among non-libertopian >Hists whose rationale is something
along the lines of "well, the shared transhumanism is more important
than the present-day political squabbling, and after the
Singularity it won't matter anyway, so we'll just wink at
the indiscretions of the more rabid right-wingers."
This is a significant effect, but the more rabid libertarians and certainly the Objectivists don't want to actually DO anything or make any positive contributions, so they can be largely neglected. I would say there are a handful of libertarian-leaning pragmatists who are worth engaging with and do make substantial contributions, but they're a small minority.
Ack, pardon the typos above.
"are other environments that are other environments"
…ludicrous claim that advances in therapies for the treatment of diseases of aging would primarily benefit upper and middle class…
Would this particular part of such claims still seem ludicrous to you if it were planetized?
[T]here are other environments where this is not true at all, e.g. the Oxford/FHI crowd and IEET. Likewise, utilitarians interested in these issues is rather well connected and naturally free of libertopians and Objectivists…
Do these communities actively disdain and critique the market libertarians and Objectivists among them, or provide them rare opportunities to publish in academic contexts and network with more mainstream professionals? Do you disagree that there are key aspects of "libertopianism" and "Objectivism" that are continuous with, or more extreme expressions of more mainstream neoliberal economic assumptions and reductionist assumptions (for example, evolutionary sociology, consequentialist ethics) that sometimes provide occasions for unexpected alliances between more respectable positions and the extreme ones you mention? I do really mean "sometimes" and not "always" here, but it does seem to me that the strange bedfellows one finds between mainstream and extreme figures in superlative sub(cult)ural technocentric organizations don't always seem so strange once one starts actually delineating shared assumptions, problems, figures, and frames.
"…rabid libertarians and certainly the Objectivists… can be largely neglected…"
I quite agree, but this sensible attitude seems to me to demand that one should not then neglect to notice when these folks are not being so neglected. And I must admit that despite the fact that consistent neoliberals are rarely rabid in their own market fundamentalism, their work is often far more significant in its continuities with the ideology of such rabid libertarianism than in its discontinuities.
Much the same critique applies to the "new Atheism" by the way. Due to historical accident one primary knot of hard core atheism in the US has always been the Rand cult. This is tremendously sad. One Randbot can easily drive 10 sane people away from a group. Indeed in my more tin foil hat moments I am tempted to think that the more cynical religionists actively support Randism for this very reason. It prevents people with healthy minds from sticking around in atheist groups and you are left with cranks, sociopaths and misanthropes, exactly confirming what the mainstream already thinks atheists are. In fact there actually is Scaife (kooky old fascist billionaire) money going into the Cato institute and some other big libertopian outfits though it's hard to tell whether this is just good greedhead investment in an ideology that justifies the rich or something more devious yet.
As to jfehlinger's last comment. I assume you are referring to a certain individual's comments on that list that the US should nuke Iran. I was occasionally on it at the time and I know who you are referring to. It took them great hand wringing and mental anguish to finally boot the guy. And he's still being actively quoted and cited as an authority of sorts on all sort of H+ sites. This is another thing wrong with H+ right now. They do not purge their fascists unless forced to and then they keep them around behind the scenes as advisers anyway making it clear that basic human decency isn't really on the radar.
Dale,
Would I find the statement that sophisticated therapies to treat aging would be unequally distributed givern current socioeconomic patterns and that people in places like sub-Saharan Africa would benefit vastly less than Japanese or Canadian citizens ludicrous? No, of course not. Nevertheless, the statement I criticized *is* ludicrous in its denial that non-white and non-male people would enjoy the benefits of such therapies, and constitute the majority of likely beneficiaries. I wonder how you would interpret Superlative Discourses if you applied such generous substitutions of meaning to all the arguments you critique. Would Pete Voss on Objectivism translate to a marvelous exposition of technoprogressivism?
Do IEET and FHI promote libertarianism by providing opportunities to publish in academic and mainstream contexts? Robin Hanson (who I would characterize as libertarian-leaning but not dogmatic) collaborates with FHI, but he is already a tenured professor at a fairly good economics department. Nick Bostrom has indeed enabled Yudkowsky to publish in his Oxford Press edited volume on catastrophic risks. My sense is that IEET works fairly hard to push democratic transhumanism at the expense of libertarianism, but does make use of libertarians who make good rebuttals to bioconservative positions. So I would agree that 'sometimes' aid and comfort are provided to libertarian thinkers (although I'm not aware of Objectivists benefiting from such treatment, perhaps you can point out some examples), but this seems to be limited and fairly incidental.
I disagree that consequentialist ethics marks a continuity with market libertarianism or Objectivism: in my view the defining feature of those positions is a direct attachment to certain structures of markets and property rights even if they have bad consequences, e.g. opposing progressive taxation to fund public goods and redistribution (based on diminishing marginal returns to wealth) because of a view of such taxation as theft. Pragmatic consequentialist neoliberals who view well-designed markets backed by strong social institutions as a powerful way of producing wealth and well-being, an instrumental value, seem to be rather different beasts in my view. I think Bill Clinton's framework of analysis and decision-making was pretty good, and could have led to even better results if he had faced less opposition on health care and the like and the improved fiscal position he created (including large reductions in military spending) had not been squandered by Bush II.
On neglecting Objectivists and rabid libertarians, my point was that I personally don't pay much attention to them because they are rarely as eager to cooperate on productive endeavours as, e.g. consequentialists, and are less desirable collaborators (nutty Rand cultists are likely to be irrational in other areas of activity and thought). I don't object to others dealing with them if there are significant benefits to be garnered that outweigh any destructive effects of enhancing their status. Milton Friedman's role in ending the U.S. military draft certainly increased his status, but the benefits of eliminating the draft outweighed any disadvantages of the increase. If libertarian bioethicists who just argue against bioconservatism and don't actively advocate against subsidizing universal access to enhancement technologies get tenure, why should I expend much effort to object?
Maybe you could give some informative examples of harmful specifically libertarianish or Objectivist ideas (e.g. opposition to universal basic incomes as a way to deal with automation, opposition to subsidized access to enhancement or longevity therapies, etc) that have been meaningfully advanced by aid and comfort from IEET or FHI?
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