Restrain Technoloty or Die

 Restrain Technology or Die

A friend of mine wrote an interesting paper on transhumanism: Trans or Not to Trans, Accompanying Slides.  He asked for my thoughts, and here is what I wrote:

I just got around to reading Jerry's Transhumanism paper.  The slides shared previously make a lot more sense now!

This is a great paper, describing as it does human evolution, our current position, and prospects for the future, using a scientific and technological perspective.  With regard to the ultimate question -- "To Trans or not to Trans – That is the Question. What do you think?" -- I would reply that the question is "How should we proceed in the direction of transhumanism?".

As well documented in the paper, the process is already well underway.  While many are recommending we proceed with caution or try to put the cat back in the bag, how can we do that?  The paramount goal must be the same as in natural selection -- survival.  Genes survive which are most well adapted to their environment.  Our environment is changing at breakneck speed and the genes / human technology will not be able to keep up.  Therefore, we need to slow down environmental change.  Above all, this means clamping down on technological change.  

To address one issue with this mentioned in the paper -- "any effort in the West to regulate implementation of the TH agenda will largely fail because the Chinese will never agree to conform to Western ethical values".  I don't think this possibility should be dismissed out of hand.  The Chinese are probably better placed to control technology than "the West" because they have a more top down government and are not as subject to capitalist anarchy.  To the extent that "we" have any power with regard to transhumanism, "we" need to control our own behavior.  That means strict regulation on technological development.

Just my 2 cents.  Thanks for writing this and sharing!

P.S. The book I'm "reading" now (on Audible) is discussing the evolutionary and genetic basis of feelings such as goodwill and guilt (the conscience).  Let's get working on increasing those.