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

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

"Unfortunately, That Doesn't Seem to Be What's Happening"

Mike Treder, earlier today, on the tragic dearth of serious, informed critiques of the transhumanist "movement" and "philosophy":
I'm certainly not suggesting that transhumanism and, for that matter, technoprogressivism, are immune to intellectual challenges…. So, I'd be more than pleased if we could engage with others who will offer thoughtful and well-researched critiques of the transhumanist agenda. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be what's happening here.

Oh, if only somebody somewhere made the least effort to address the almost unassailably luminously forceful transhumanist agenda in a thoughtful or researched way. No doubt my own efforts fail to pass that high bar as well. (Awkward, one might think, considering how many so-called "technoprogressive" formulations are directly but highly selectively cribbed from writings of mine, just with all the caveats, criticisms, contexts, and questions removed.)

My response to Treder's piece, from earlier today, is here. My recent, related discussion of David Correia's Counterpunch expose of Singularitarianism is here. My "Condensed Critique of Transhumanism" is here. Not that I am a serious, informed, thoughtful, well-researched critic of transhumanism or anything, so, you know, no worries. Robot Cultists are so cute when they are in denial!

3 comments:

jimf said...

> My response to Treder's piece, from earlier today. . .

Ehh?

> My recent, related discussion of David Correia's Counterpunch expose. . .

Ehh?

> My "Condensed Critique of Transhumanism" . . .

Ehh?

> Not that I am a serious, informed, thoughtful, well-researched critic. . .

Mmmmf.

> Posted by Dale Carrico. . .

Who?

Dale Carrico said...

And of course I'm just one incidental example, obvious in this context because my critiques are ready to hand. There are a number of published serious explicit critiques of transhuman and singularitarian follies, of course, not to mention a host of critiques (some over a century old) of digital utopianism, social networks in the context of neoliberalism, development discourse as postcolonial, eugenicism, megascale engineering as sublime, technological society, the reductionism of technical rationality that apply directly and devastatingly to our Robot Cultists given the traditions and frames they cite, lean on, re-activate, whether they are aware of this or not (self-awareness isn't exactly one of their strong suits, possibly a factor landing them in a Robot Cult).

But beyond all that serious attention to which Treder is sublimely unaware steeping as he is, either resignedly, opportunistically, or even in a full froth of True Belief, in superlative sub(cult)ural futurology, there are also the sensible throngs who upon encountering Robot Cult discourse straightforwardly dismiss its hyberbole, extremity, infantilism out of hand with a healthy critical eye and skepticism that is altogether lost on him as well.

Given all that, Treder's declaration that he didn't consider the belief's of his weird Robot Cult perfectly unassailable, as if this were some monumentally generous concession, just tickled my funny bone, as did his subsequent spectacle of sadness at the lack of serious engagement with the transhumanoid FAQ by the great intellectuals of the world, a surprising number of whom actually have addressed themselves to Robot Cultists as a symptomatic phenomenon, but who in general would be as little likely disposed to talk to a Robot Cult "intellectual luminary" as to one of the saucer-eyed lawyers for the Church of Scientology about the paradoxes of Being.

And one must point out that, like, say, James Hughes, Mike Treder is cactually one of the better, more thoughtful, more nuanced of the superlative futurologists, hence a sanewashing enabler of the out-to-lunch scoundrelry of Max More, the out-to-lunch ineptitude of Natasha Vita More, the out-to-lunch batshit crazy of Guilio Prisco, the out-to-lunch megalomania of Eliezer Yudkowsky, and so on.

It's all rather ridiculous but also terribly sad. And as I say -- given what they symptomize and illustrate as a reductio of more prevailing corporate-military futurology, and given their deranging noisemaking effects in the context of media-sensationalism -- one should at least, in my view, treat the Robot Cultists, however unserious intellectually, as serious as a heart attack in at least some of their effects.

jimf said...

> [O]ne should at least, in my view, treat the Robot Cultists, however
> unserious intellectually, as serious as a heart attack in at least
> some of their effects.

Indeed, however unserious they may be intellectually, cultists can have mighty
serious (as in heart attack) effects in the public arena.

The Mormons come immediately to mind -- they've been sanewashing
(or "mainstreaming") their public image so successfully that serious
political candidates can be Mormon-identified without being
dismissed out of hand (unlike, say, Scientologists).

It's also astonishing (and ex-cultists are often astonished at **themselves**)
how people who are otherwise perfectly sensible can compartmentalize
their religious (or cultic) beliefs to keep them from away from painful
scrutiny.

There's a guy named Lyndon Lamborn -- I think I've mentioned him before --
a Boeing engineer and an expert in analyzing the wreckage of crashed
airplanes to find out what went wrong, who comes from a big Mormon
family and who spent much of his adult life in blissful,
unquestioning acceptance of his inherited belief system, until a chance question
from a co-worker started him on a path of research that deconstructed his
entire heretofore unexamined religious foundations. You might say -- he says --
that his background in science and math would likely have run afoul
of blind belief and an "alternative" standard of truth
sooner or later, but it certainly doesn't always happen that way.
He's now a pretty devastating public critic of the church, in spite of the
strain it puts on his relationships with erstwhile friends and family members (to
say nothing of the formal excommunication that it resulted in for him personally).

Destructive Mind Control Part 1 of 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BjecRzDoHg

(Edmonton Ex-Mormons Conference held May 28th, 2009.
Lyndon Lamborn presents on Destructive Mind Control within the Mormon Church.
After a highly publicized and controversial exit from Mormonism, Lamborn
intertwines the story of his awakening with psychological aspects of
religious belief. In his book _Standing For Something More_
Lamborn alternates chapters detailing the psychology implications of
church membership with his own personal story. Lyndon is very honest and
not hiding anything that he did or that the church has done in presentation.
The book lists some serious problems with Mormonism which he describes
in a very intelligent manner that may make a believer rethink his beliefs.)