Are you really ready for your new overlords, should science end humanity? NPR talks Post Humanism a - Polidicks

And then we get some Ghost in the Shell-ish stuff where terrorists start hacking brains and fuck shit up.

I know that transhumanism and stuff is a deep philosophical conversation of us shedding what makes us human but I want robot arms, and robot toes that dont hurt when you stub them

[QUOTE=Boaraes;46518467]The socioeconomic repercussions of a competitive "forced evolution" is not something everyone, including me, is going to want. Imagine the conditions for people who couldn't afford augmentations and are thus obsolete in an every increasingly competitive work ethic? Those who can afford it will exponentially increase in capability, while the rest just rot. If there's some kind of way to distribute this sort of thing with everyone in mind, particularly the currently disabled, then I'm all for it. Giving the rich godlike augmentations is asking for everyone to get fucked.[/QUOTE] Despite what I said above, I don't think surgical augmentation is going to be reserved for the rich. If a company has the choice between hiring two hazardous construction workers for $80k per year, or one worker for $40k per year plus $20k to give him implants that make him twice as productive, then that worker is going to score a free augmentation. Beyond that, as JgcxCub said, the rich being able to make themselves better with money already exists- just look at the educational system. And some of the benefits are overblown, like, so some rich guy can run like an Olympic sprinter, okay, that's not going to give him more of a societal advantage. On its most basic level, many of the advantages touted by transhumanism are really just extensions of technological trends. Transhumanism won't give wealthy people the access to sum human knowledge on the go while poor people need to find and read outdated books- smartphones with wi-fi did that. Transhumanism won't give wealthy people better senses while poor people need to struggle with imperfect sight and hearing- prescription lenses and hearing implants did that. The real danger, I think, is that even if incremental improvement is available to everyone, it'll be mandatory. Few people with vision defects mind being given free glasses, but a lot of people might mind surgical replacement of their organs, even if it's provided for free. Keeping up with everyone else will make transhumanism a requirement to stay competitive in society, and that's going to cause problems.

Brain uploading would be pretty useful for stuff like extrasolar exploration. Why bother with cryogenics when you can just put your virtual brain to sleep for the hundreds of years it would take to reach another star?

ive seen people talk about the singularity as if its the end of all our problems but i dont see it. transhumanism is neat but i have little doubt it'll be a while yet before we have some deus ex type of shit.

[QUOTE=CQRPSE;46518609]ive seen people talk about the singularity as if its the end of all our problems but i dont see it. transhumanism is neat but i have little doubt it'll be a while yet before we have some deus ex type of shit.[/QUOTE] Depends on what you mean by Deus Ex type shit. If you mean limb replacement, prostheses are starting to get more and more reliable and I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up being as efficient as the real thing by the end of the century. Same with artificial organs, though with the recent breakthroughs in "organ culture" I think those would end up being better alternatives. If you mean brain implants improving your capabilities or advanced Helios-type artificial intelligence or hivemind, then yeah that's not going to happen very soon.

[QUOTE=Megadave;46518017]I may be for a lot of crazy shit, but cyborg is where I draw the limit. There are so many environmental hazards, the deadliest being a solar flare. If they figure out a way to do this without using any electrical components, it can be doable.[/QUOTE] Latchup, SEUs and alot of other solar flare/EMP effects are rather easy to mitigate with proper engineering. But we'd need something active to repair circuits, etc akin to the body's healing process, especially when it comes to radiation total ionizing dose.

[QUOTE=Megadave;46518017]I may be for a lot of crazy shit, but cyborg is where I draw the limit. There are so many environmental hazards, the deadliest being a solar flare. If they figure out a way to do this without using any electrical components, it can be doable.[/QUOTE] I'd rather risk dying by solar flare than like fifty billion different types of diseases and injuries I can die from now.

[QUOTE=GÃ©za!;46518351]My biggest problem with this whole transhumanist shebang is that it would undoubtedly cost money. So who could afford their own artificial betterment? Rich people. They would become literally capable of becoming superior by the power of money. Would this new, mentally and physically superior class of society who already held power then willingly get rid of its own superiority to bestow the benefits of transhumanism upon those lower than them? Most probably not. [editline]18th November 2014[/editline] Or if they did, it would be expensive and slow and they would keep the controls in their hands. Want to get that company promotion? You better acquire X brain implant to help you multitask better. Oh you cannot afford it? The company can cover the cost... for a price. Perhaps some of your salary. Perhaps contracts that bind you to them. And of course, if you want your children to get ahead in any way, shape or form, you better start augmenting them at an early age! O, you cannot afford that? Then your children will forever be inferior, fodder unfit for important roles. People at large would lose control of their lives and their importance in society, and in order to regain that control they would be dependent on those that supply artificial superiority.[/QUOTE] By the time we've reached serious transhumanism capitalism will probably be obsolete anyway. Capitalism cannot survive in a world where there's not enough jobs to support a vast majority of the population, and more jobs are being done by machines every day.

I think people's distrust and disgust of things they don't understand and people different from them will stop any radical changes through augmentation. I'm not saying everyone is xenophobic, but most people will take enough notice of obvious and unusual body modification to make it a very bad move socially. Plus the fact that medical technologies advance pretty slowly with how long proper testing takes, drugs can take a decade to hit the market, genetic engineering of humans is going to take generations to develop and test, if we're being careful with the technology we have a lot of time to work out the issues with it. [QUOTE=Blanketspace;46516956]This is already someone's idea of beauty, and their deviantart is undoubtedly full of flawless examples of highly conductive perfection.[/QUOTE]Just jealous I'm ahead of the curve.

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;46518809]By the time we've reached serious transhumanism capitalism will probably be obsolete anyway. [B]Capitalism cannot survive in a world where there's not enough jobs to support a vast majority of the population[/B], and more jobs are being done by machines every day.[/QUOTE] Uhh, yes it can? In fact, unemployment is a necessity for it to thrive, because the job demand drives down salaries.

Superior ability breeds superior ambition.

[QUOTE=GÃ©za!;46518928]Uhh, yes it can? In fact, unemployment is a necessity for it to thrive, because the job demand drives down salaries.[/QUOTE] you're both kinda correct actually, but you can't sustain capitalism unless a majority of the population is to some degree satisfied and/or too afraid/apathetic to challenge it, and if a large majority ends up both poor and to top it off, in a system of massive inequality, people will start to demand reforms, and if reforms don't happen, then attempts at revolution happen, people are already pissed off at the massive inequality around the planet, if you start adding even more inequality plus inability to even find work(which invariably leads to hunger, the surest way to piss anyone off), its going to blow up sooner or later.

[QUOTE=GÃ©za!;46518928]Uhh, yes it can? In fact, unemployment is a necessity for it to thrive, because the job demand drives down salaries.[/QUOTE] if the vast majority of the population is unemployed i wouldnt exactly call it a well-functioning economy unless of course everybody is unemployed cuz machiens do everything and nobody has to work then mission accomplished everyone i guess.

[QUOTE=CQRPSE;46519044]if the vast majority of the population is unemployed i wouldnt exactly call it a well-functioning economy [B]unless of course everybody is unemployed cuz machiens do everything and nobody has to work then mission accomplished everyone i guess.[/B][/QUOTE] that wouldn't even be capitalism, it would be more like anarcho-communism.

[QUOTE=GÃ©za!;46518928]Uhh, yes it can? In fact, unemployment is a necessity for it to thrive, because the job demand drives down salaries.[/QUOTE] Unemployment is necessary for capitalism, but if a majority of the population isn't employed then everything falls apart, millions of people starve to death and companies exploit the people who do have jobs because there's no demand for employees and huge demand for jobs.

once robots are doing the vast majority of work for us then a base income would be virtually required for capitalism to continue to function

I thought that the Singularity ideal had some abundance-of-materials shit goin' on, as in, you couldn't be scalped for all your money and dying in a ditch because the system wouldn't actually work that way by that point. But, hell, I haven't read about it much lately.

I, for one, say fuck the overlords, ya'll can go be fish.

[QUOTE=_Axel;46518578]Brain uploading would be pretty useful for stuff like extrasolar exploration. Why bother with cryogenics when you can just put your virtual brain to sleep for the hundreds of years it would take to reach another star?[/QUOTE] I thought the point to cryo was to preserve your body for the whatever hundreds of years to travel

[QUOTE=Solomon;46517509]Transhumanism is fucking awesome. Anyone against it is against forward progress.[/QUOTE] Were you one of the writers for Eclipse Phase? ...sorry. Niche joke.

[QUOTE=Zenreon117;46520172]I, for one, say fuck the overlords, ya'll can go be fish.[/QUOTE]screw the Machine God too praise Father Dagon

Intelligent robots when?

[QUOTE=Talishmar;46517934]Getting rid of world hunger and financial inequality would be remarkably easier to name two.[/QUOTE] Well yes, I suppose when everyone is forcibly connected to the super intelligent hivemind, world hunger or financial inequality won't matter much. Or will having things or eating.

[QUOTE=Mingebox;46517555]Such as?[/QUOTE] We would no longer be limited by what our physical bodies are capable of. We'd be able to think at staggaringly higher capacities than we are now, essentially making most of our current problems child's play. People could think deeper, and create more things that stretch beyond what we can even conceive as capable now. Ending things like world Hunger, finding cures for even the most resilient of diseases, solving economic crises, being able to expand into space pretty much infinitely since it won't be a problem coming up with the tech necessary for it. Fact is, we'd be completely better at everything we are now, and the problems of the world now would become trivial. [QUOTE=Mingebox;46520970]Well yes, I suppose when everyone is forcibly connected to the super intelligent hivemind, world hunger or financial inequality won't matter much. Or will having things or eating.[/QUOTE] Singularity is not the dictatorship of machines over man. Singularity is simply the integration of machines with human kind, a process that would be passive, and not necessarily with a hivemind. It's stupidly pessimistic to assume it'd be The Matrix or something.

Alternatively instead of keeping with outdated economics we could automate the vast majority of our economy and restructure our society to not need money. It's eventually going to be possible for most things to be automated. Keeping the human element in would literally have no purpose other then for tradition. [editline]18th November 2014[/editline] Not to say that humanity should sit around and do nothing, as a matter of fact if, in the near to far future, we automated our industry we as a species could focus on other things. I guess the most accurate analogy would be humanity discovering agriculture again in terms of allowing us to switch our societal foci. [editline]18th November 2014[/editline] If this was the case then transhumanism would be less "augmenting my capabilities with money" and more "augmenting my capabilities to better suit my interests"

[QUOTE=Kyle902;46521447]Alternatively instead of keeping with outdated economics we could automate the vast majority of our economy and restructure our society to not need money. It's eventually going to be possible for most things to be automated. Keeping the human element in would literally have no purpose other then for tradition. [editline]18th November 2014[/editline] Not to say that humanity should sit around and do nothing, as a matter of fact if, in the near to far future, we automated our industry we as a species could focus on other things. I guess the most accurate analogy would be humanity discovering agriculture again in terms of allowing us to switch our societal foci. [editline]18th November 2014[/editline] If this was the case then transhumanism would be less "augmenting my capabilities with money" and more "augmenting my capabilities to better suit my interests"[/QUOTE] Reminds me of that old Arthur C. Clarke book that took place billions of years in the future, where humanity had stayed in existence so long because they had regressed to a single city that, was basically ruled by supercomputers, where no one was allowed to leave, and the people were all immortal. Nobody had to do any work at all, and they focused all of their time on leisure and art.

It's a well established scifi trope. But if I was to bring up a series as a counterpoint to such a society becoming lethargic I'd point to the Culture series. Human nature is not intrinsically sessile. I doubt our society would simply stagnate.

[QUOTE=HWECQI;46521175]We would no longer be limited by what our physical bodies are capable of. We'd be able to think at staggaringly higher capacities than we are now, essentially making most of our current problems child's play. People could think deeper, and create more things that stretch beyond what we can even conceive as capable now. Ending things like world Hunger, finding cures for even the most resilient of diseases, solving economic crises, being able to expand into space pretty much infinitely since it won't be a problem coming up with the tech necessary for it. Fact is, we'd be completely better at everything we are now, and the problems of the world now would become trivial. Singularity is not the dictatorship of machines over man. Singularity is simply the integration of machines with human kind, a process that would be passive, and not necessarily with a hivemind. It's stupidly pessimistic to assume it'd be The Matrix or something.[/QUOTE] When it comes to creating something incomprehensible in it's thought and absolute in power, assuming anything but the worst is stupidly naive.

[QUOTE=Mingebox;46521756]When it comes to creating something incomprehensible in it's thought and absolute in power, assuming anything but the worst is stupidly naive.[/QUOTE] It'd be one thing if we were just talking about AI and it's advancement, but transhumanism and the singularity are completely different. The entire point of the two is integration with human kind, not replacement that's why thinking it's a complete control by some kind of machine is just short sighted, it barely relates to the idea [editline]18th November 2014[/editline] It'd be one thing if you were assuming the negative economic effects or moral consequences of such a thing, but being enslaved by machines isn't what a singularity is meant to be