Yes, I am responding to a post on Dale Carrico’s blog again. Please don’t complain about it in the comments, or say it’s a waste of time, because it’s not, and the issues raised are very thought-provoking and relevant. The point is not to “win” an argument (arguments are not battles), but to elucidate and explore various issues. If it helps to avoid tripping your brain center that focuses on tribal politics (and thereby derailing a calm and rational approach), pretend his criticisms just fell from the sky, or were extruded by some machine. The reason why is because when you say “Dale is dum lol” in the comments, my readership look like idiots,in the way that comments on Digg and Reddit make the readership look like idiots. It also means you can’t take criticism in a calm way.
Dale’s post is entitled “Transhumanists Believe It Is Bad To Be Sick Or To Suffer If This Can Be Avoided”. I will reproduce it here, and add numbers to his points (to make them easier to respond to):
“1) This belief is one that nobody has ever thought of before. We are very lucky the transhumanists have come along to encourage us to believe these things that nobody ever thought of before except them.
If you believe that being sick or enduring avoidable suffering is bad you may be a member of this small elite band of brilliant original intellectuals without even knowing it. You should probably give one of their membership organizations your money.
Most transhumanists also believe in all or most of the following:
2) That the imminent arrival of a nonbiological superintelligent Robot God will end history in an event called the Singularity…
3) That they may be lucky enough to be immortalized by being “uploaded” into computer software (since we all know how reliable and eternal that is) or superhumanized with techno-barnacles and genetic elixirs that are on the immediate horizon (only, you know, all hidden-like for now)…
4) That differently enabled people who fail to function “optimally” according to the transhumanists’ perfectly neutral and objective standards may be being abused whether they know it or not and so may require “enhancement” whether they want it or not in order to make this “abuse” stop…
5) That swarms of multipurpose programmable nanobots will soon make everybody who counts rich beyond the dreams of avarice…
6) That some people are “pro-technology” in some incredibly general way that seems not to be able to distinguish particular technodevelopments from one another very clearly while some other people are “anti-technology” in an exactly equally general way that seems not to be able to distinguish particular technodevelopments from one another very clearly either, and that this distinction matters much more than old-fashioned distinctions between “left” and “right” that silly non-transhumanists still seem to think are important for some reason.
7) All of this is perfectly obvious if you really think deeply about things the way the transhumanist intellectuals do.”
My responses:
1) Everyone claims it’s bad to be sick or to suffer to a certain extent, but they seem to change their minds past a certain point, saying that some sickness and suffering is “natural”. For instance, it’s not as sad when someone over the age of 60 dies as it is when someone young dies. (Both equally deserve our sympathy.) Or that being depressed some of the time is normal. (Certain people, like me, have a high genetic set point for happiness, and are rarely depressed, and we should develop therapies to give everyone a high happiness set point if they want that.) Or that slowly growing decrepit and weak as you get chronologically older is acceptable. (It’s unpleasant, why rationalize?)
So transhumanists really are different. And we deserve credit for that. To us, no nonconsensual pain or suffering is acceptable. To lessen it, we propose not just modifying our surroundings (as has already been done for ages, and all of us fully take advantage of by living in heated houses), but by modifying our bodies and brains (which has only been done to a very limited extent thus far). Is Dale saying that modifying our surroundings is OK, but modifying ourselves isn’t? Or what?
For more on this, see Transhumanism as Simplified Humanism, by transhumanist guru Eliezer Yudkowsky (see what I did there?)
2) “Nonbiological superintelligent Robot God” is quite redundant. Nonbiological and robot are practically the same and superintelligent and God are practically the same. Anyway, yes, it makes sense that a superintelligent AI, if it’s technologically possible, would change the world quite significantly. For one thing, it could copy itself numerous times, and share cognitive content instantly.
Think about the differences between humans and chimps — we have 98.4% genetic similarity, yet humans can build a technologically advanced civilization, whereas chimps can’t. To chimps, we are “superintelligent”. If an additional 1.6% genetic difference, produced perhaps through gene therapy, created a new being smarter than us as we are than chimps, would it seem “superintelligent”? Yes, it would. So dismissing superintelligence so readily is foolish.
We’ve already used genetic engineering to enhance intelligence — in mice. It’s only a matter of time until it gets used on humans. And as for AI, we have no idea of telling how difficult it is, but we can say that once we get human-equivalent AI (even if it takes 100 years), superintelligent AI will soon follow. This is because of copying, faster substrate, instant information sharing, and other reasons. The debate is still open, but this is a technical argument, not a cultural one, and though Dale will never respond with a technical rebuttal (he never does), I’m putting it forth for the benefit of the audience.
Once superintelligent AI or intelligence-enhanced people are created, Homo sapiens won’t be the smartest species on the block anymore. It’s not the “end of history”, but it’s a damn significant milestone. Dale (and some others) like to laugh about the possibility and ignore it, because it doesn’t fit in neatly with their worldviews. That’s fine, because every day more people do take it seriously, and it’s a free country, so we’re free to continue doing so. (Though of course that won’t stop Dale from calling us mean-spirited names.)
3) The uploading argument just has to do with using functionalism as a philosophy of mind. I do, so I believe uploading is possible. Computing software isn’t necessarily reliable, but the question should be, “is it less reliable than a chunk of slowly rotting proteins?” The answer, in some circumstances, may be no.
As for “superhumanizing”, even simple things like better nutrition may be behind the global average rise of intelligence, called the Flynn effect. So obviously, we can modify our bodies to make them better, however we personally define that. Of course, you’d think Dale would be tolerant of people doing whatever they want to their own bodies, but in this case, he seems to be remarkably intolerant. Here’s an idea — if scientists come up with a therapy or implant that makes my life better, and it makes it to market, how about letting me use it without calling me names?
In the past, Dale has expressed support for the phrase “keep your laws off my body”, but he seems to throw it out the window unless it applies to a woman’s right to choose. Intolerance towards transhumanist modifications is the sort of thing that leads to laws against them, regulating people’s bodies by law. I have a better idea — be tolerant, and discourage laws that regulate what people do with their bodies. Dale is discriminating against trans-human individuals before they even have a chance to exist yet. That’s like double discrimination.
4) Transhumanists believe people should be able to do what they want. “Optimal” is subjective, though there may be significant intersubjective consensus on matters. For instance, some tribes in Africa believe that female circumcision is just fine and dandy, but civilized nations argue otherwise. We can’t predict what people in the future will think about the way we live today. No one should have their body touched or otherwise manipulated without their permission. I even think that spanking your children should be against the law, so I (a typical transhumanist) can hardly be accused of forcing people to be “enhanced” if they don’t want it. (Though I can be accused of telling people to refrain from physically punishing their own children, however reasonable they mistakenly think it is.)
Dale seems to have convinced himself that transhumanists advocate mandatory body mods simply because we feel the word “enhancement” is politically correct, while he doesn’t. “Enhancement” implies that some state of being or mind is more enjoyable or effective than another, heaven forbid the thought. He is so offended that we even use the word, he wants to demonize us for it. There’s another way: stop doing it.
An excerpt from the Wikipedia page on the topic may be illuminating:
“Many critics argue that “human enhancement” is a loaded term which has eugenic overtones because it may imply the improvement of human hereditary traits to attain a universally accepted norm of biological fitness (at the possible expense of human biodiversity and neurodiversity), and therefore can evoke negative reactions far beyond the specific meaning of the term. Furthermore, they conclude that enhancements which are self-evidently good, like “fewer diseases”, are more the exception than the norm and even these may involve ethical tradeoffs, as the controversy about ADHD arguably demonstrates.”
How about this. We accept that there are some enhancements that more people will agree are really “enhancements”, and some that are more controversial. We use the enhancements we want (or none), and force no one else to obey our opinion. There, wasn’t that easy?
5) I doubt swarms of nanobots would ever really be used in the near term, because it’s far easier to create nanobots simply fastened down into place and put in a vacuum-filled box. This avoids all the complex calculations necessary for swarming behavior, avoid infrastructure for flight, and allows a more controlled manufacturing environment.
I’m not sure that molecular manufacturing is possible, but I think it probably is, and if so, it will definitely increase our ability to manufacture what we want for lower prices. If molecular machines can be built into programmable nanorobots, molecular manufacturing will be possible. This would be especially beneficial for the world’s poorest, who lack even the most basic necessities. Whether or not molecular manufacturing is plausible is a whole other argument, again, a technical one, not a cultural one. Regardless, we can expect global per capita GDP to increase, as it has since the Industrial Revolution. By the standards of Medieval Europe, today we are wealthy “beyond dreams of avarice”. Who then would have thought that today we’d have metallic spires taller than their tallest buildings, capable of flying through the sky faster than the speed of sound?
6) I agree with Dale here that the “pro-techology” and “anti-techology” labels are insufficiently subtle to grasp the reality of people’s complex opinions. As for politics, plenty of transhumanists think politics is important and have their own political stance. That’s why the vast majority of people voted for an actual political group in WTA (World Transhumanist Association) surveys and very few people called themselves “upwinger”. As for Dale, it seems that anyone who doesn’t share his socialist views is considered an evil person. He maligns left-center transhumanists such as myself, saying we can’t really be such great people because we seem to get along with libertarian transhumanists. Apparently we should be polarizing ourselves more. That will help things get done.
7) Obviously not, as we can see from the above. Transhumanists advocate a diversity of opinions and welcome opposing viewpoints. This has always been true, and reading about it in the early transhumanist literature is part of what made me comfortable with applying the label to myself. In fact, I’d say the average transhumanist is far more tolerant of dissenting opinions than the average socialist, average Democrat, average Republican, average atheist, average Christian, or average Internet commenter for that matter. That is why I give Dale’s dissenting opinions air time on this blog even when there are plenty of other things to talk about.
Another argument Dale often brings up in his posts, but not in this one, is that transhumanists have a hatred of their bodies. This is absolute crap. My current body is just fine, and I make full use of it. I see myself naked in the mirror every day, and haven’t screamed once. I just don’t see it as absolutely optimal. But Dale seems to argue that those who don’t see their Homo sapiens bodies as completely optimal seem to have something wrong with them. Funny how his own argument, that no one knows what “optimal” is, blows up right in his face there. Dale: stop telling me and other transhumanists we hate our bodies. It’s BS.
Well said!
#3: I don’t think Dale is showing intolerance against (hypothetical) transhumans, more like asserting they won’t exist (at least not as soon as transhumanists expect.)
#4. There is something to be said for replacing “enhancement” with “consensual modification”, for clarity and PR if nothing else. You’re right that “enhancement” need not imply one global standard, but if that’s what people hear, the word is a problem. “Consensual modification” immediately drives home the point that this is for people who want it, bypassing pop-bioethical (or as Dale says, “biomoralizing”) concerns like “are we ready for …?”.
#5. This would be especially beneficial for the world’s poorest, who lack even the most basic necessities – not necessarily. MNT could benefit everyone, or it could be used to benefit an elite to the detriment of everyone else.
“2) That the imminent arrival of a nonbiological superintelligent Robot God will end history ”
- Dale is arguing against a straw man. I haven’t heard any transhumanist say that the singularity will be the end of history – just like the change from apes to humans wasn’t the end of history. Also, the use of the word “God” is marginal amongst transhumanists – personally, I avoid it like the plague.
3) “… superhumanized with techno-barnacles and genetic elixirs that are on the immediate horizon (only, you know, all hidden-like for now)” – the advent of personalized medicines based on cheap genome sequencing technologies is far from being “all hidden”.
4) “That differently enabled people who fail to function “optimally†according to the transhumanists’ perfectly neutral and objective standards may be being abused whether they know it or not and so may require “enhancement†whether they want it or not in order to make this “abuse†stop…”
- this is the most blatant example of straw-manning I have seen in a while. Dale – If you’re listening – can you cite a transhumanist thinker who has advocated forced technological enhancement?
6) ” That some people are “pro-technology†in some incredibly general way that seems not to be able to distinguish particular technodevelopments from one another very clearly while some other people are “anti-technology†in an exactly equally general way that seems not to be able to distinguish particular technodevelopments from one another very clearly either, ”
– this is a fair criticism. I think that this message is important to get out there: high-tech does NOT automatically imply good. Thanks Dale.
So, Michael was right: in amongst a lot of straw-manning, name calling, obfuscation, and ranting, dale came up with a decent point that we should all take seriously. It pays to listen to your critics.
“this is a fair criticism”
No it isn’t; most (admittedly not all) transhumanists know perfectly well that advanced technology can be dangerous, and Dale is dishonest in implying they don’t.
Well, I would say that it is the one point that is at least a valid criticism for a significant number of transhumanists. I’ve never heard a transhumanist advocate forced enhancement. I’ve never heard anyone say that “the singularity” will be the end of history (in fact, most people who hold an opinion on this believe almost the exact opposite, that it will be a lot more like a beginning).
But I have heard transhumanists saying things that are dangerously close to “technology for technology’s sake, irrespective of what the consequences are”. I think that there is certainly a perception out there (amongst non-transhumanists) that that’s what we think.
actually, I should probably add that I wholeheartedly agree with nick’s comment regarding #4.:
“There is something to be said for replacing “enhancement†with “consensual modificationâ€, for clarity and PR if nothing else. … “Consensual modification†immediately drives home the point that this is for people who want it … “
Re: “There is something to be said for replacing “enhancement†with “consensual modificationâ€, for clarity and PR if nothing else. … “Consensual modification†immediately drives home the point that this is for people who want it …”
This may depend on English not being my native language, but in this context I read “consensual” not only as “for people who want it” but also as “and accepted by others”. I don’t like this: if my growing wings does not harm anyone, I don’t want any Carrico to tell me if I can have wings or not.
This ties with Michael’s acute observation that Carrico apparent agreement with “keep your laws off my body” only applies to his pet politics.
Giulio,
Dale doesn’t want to ban (or compel particular uses of) genetic engineering or embryo selection any more than he wants to ban abortion. Nor does he think that most transhumanists advocate such, although some come close to it, e.g. wanting to prevent deaf couples from engineering their children to be deaf. He is primarily attacking people for implicit assumptions about particular traits being ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than others. Such norms can lead to social pressure, even without legal backing, to modify offspring in particular directions.
There is an important point here, that it is easy for those with more socially normative traits to fail to empathise with people who are happy with their various manifestations of neurodiversity (or other diversity). Mandatory intraversion or extraversion would be very disturbing. On the other hand, the birth of a child with Down’s syndrome, or some other characteristics that mean that the child’s support will consume enormous amounts of energy from parents or the state, is pretty clearly worse news than the birth of a child with high physical vigor, robust general cognitive capabilities, and executive function. Thus we see the vast majority of children with Down’s syndrome aborted in the United States.
For me, one point that ‘enhancement’ points to but ‘consensual modification’ does not would eb positive externalities. People with high mathematical aptitude and other traits conducive to scientific creativity can wind up producing vast benefits for others. Sociopaths impose serious costs on other people, and make it more difficult to have a liberal democratic order conducive to improvements in prosperity and welfare. If regulation is required to prevent elites from engineering their offspring to be brilliant, driven, Machiavellian power-seekers that would seem justifiable. Conversely, subsidizing offspring modification for extreme potential for scientific creativity looks to be immensely valuable.
Roko, I agree a significant number of transhumanists are pro-technology in an overly general way, but most of what you might call transhumanism’s “opinion leaders” are not, and so it’s wrong to present this as a new or interesting insight coming from Dale.
Re: “He is primarily attacking people for implicit assumptions about particular traits being ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than others. Such norms can lead to social pressure, even without legal backing, to modify offspring in particular directions”
Agreed. But nobody is making this assumption, explicit or implicit. It is something Dale has invented to support his hatred against transhumanists.
Steven,
Ray Kurzweil is the emblematic representative of transhumanism to the public, and does evince a general techno-optimism that seems to take risks and drawbacks too lightly, although even he has advocated for the restriction of various technologies, e.g. arguing against the publication of disease genomes.
However, since Dale typically directs his most ardent attacks against ‘Singularitarians’ it does seem that his argument is grossly undercut by the fact that Nick Bostrom, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Peter Thiel are not only alert to risks but actually devote their energies to reducing the risks of technological development (e.g. by influencing the sequence of development for various technologies or by studying ways to produce them safely) rather than generally accelerating technological development.
wired has an interesting little article which I would categorize as transhumanist lite. Compares hypothetical augmentation drug with coffee.
I would like to see some kind of definitions around “end of history”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History
History is the continuous, systematic narrative and the research of events in the past of importance to the human race, including the study of events over time and their relation to humanity.
So there is the history before homo-sapiens. There would still be history even if homo-sapiens are modified.
Also, in regards to augmentation with technology and biological versus non-biological.
Currently many people have smart phones that they carry around all the time, some have cochlear implants, pace makers etc… They also have lasik eye surgery, millions take steroids, millions take test score enhancing drugs, cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, take vitamins etc… Voluntary modification is common place.
The smart cellphones can provide access to the internet, google, wikipedia etc.. to augment the ability of someone to access facts, other resources etc… They can also access systems for enhancing the ability to perform math (calculators). People also drive cars, forklifts and ride Segways (mobility enhancement).
So technology has caused and is causing enhancement and modification.
So the only things at issue are how much more and how will this change in the future.
Will the bandwidth speed to my smartphone increase ? Will its processing power improve ? Will the interface get better (true some companies could backslide on this but people would then choose not to buy their phones) ?
So certain features trends seem certain.
recently there is lab work for human power generated from regenerative braking from walking. Generates 5 watts while someone is walking A square meter of flexible solar cells could generate 19-56 watts depending upon location and sunlight conditions.
US army has solar tent material for generating up to 1000 watts
There is plenty of other energy that could be captured to power devices
Broken into usable terms, waiting to be harvested are 81 watts from a sleeping person, 128 from a soldier standing at ease, 163 from a walking person, 407 from a briskly walking person, 1,048 from a long-distance runner, and 1,630 from a sprinter, according to the center. But of course there’s not 100% capture. Body heat, for example, can only be converted with 3% efficiency with current thermoelectric materials.
Computing at about 19.4 gigaflops per watt for best new chips. This is a continually improving metric.
Exaflop processing with configurable semi-custom processors is achievable by 2015
Lightweight batteries and ultracapacitors. 100-300 watt-hours/kg.
So within say 10 years, carrying around teraflop+ class smartphones that are constantly charged with gigabit+ connections seems likely. Plus other components and gear could be carried and powered. 36V power tools (not used constantly unless you had access to a solar tent or we were capturing a lot more of the ambient power) or human body powered tasers, vision enhancement gear etc… Also, not including all the gear you might have in the future car or around your home. Also, you could have availed yourself of immune system enhancement, myostatin inhibitors etc…
Would individuals choose a better-faster phone ?
Would the businessperson or someone with more money have a better phone ? Maybe. Students with not much income can still own iPhones. How about medical procedures ? Who is paying $500-1000 for lasik now ? Is it only the wealthy ?
There are choices and priorities now and there will be options, choices and priorities in the future.
People who take advantage of opportunity – technological or otherwise – are and have become richer. Ray Kurzweil, Bill Joy are both what I consider rich. I do not know what the quantity is of “beyond dreams of avarice”. It appears to be a useless subjective phrase with an anti-wealth bias most frequently used by Berkeley communists.
One could look at the economic history of the world. list of regions by past GDP on a PPP basis and divide by populations to get per capita levels of wealth. It seems pretty plain that in the thought experiment of asking someone from one of those past times to compare their economic lot versus someone at a place and time with more tech that the place with more tech is richer with a larger fraction of people who would classified as rich.
Giulio,
Transhumanists or fellow travelers are indeed making such claims, I made some just minutes ago! Saying that the state should coercively prevent certain consensual modifications (e.g. for ruthless sociopathy) and subsidize others (e.g. for greater scientific creativity or compassion) is eugenics, and not simply ‘libertarian eugenics.’ Thinking that the space for diversity and autonomy in modification is very large doesn’t change the fact that I think some changes are unambiguously ‘worse’ or ‘better’ for individuals or for society.
This may depend on English not being my native language, but in this context I read “consensual†not only as “for people who want it†but also as “and accepted by othersâ€.
I’ve never heard “consensual” used this way.
He is primarily attacking people for implicit assumptions about particular traits being ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than others. Such norms can lead to social pressure, even without legal backing, to modify offspring in particular directions. There is an important point here, that it is easy for those with more socially normative traits to fail to empathise with people who are happy with their various manifestations of neurodiversity (or other diversity).
Quoted for truth.
Agreed. But nobody is making this assumption, explicit or implicit.
How can you be sure?
Keep in mind that Accelerating Future‘s commenters are a fairly high grade of transhumanist. Plenty of elitist assholes have glommed onto the label.
When Dale mentions “ending history”, I believe he’s alluding to the book by Francis Fukuyama, and thus means not that Singularitarians think stuff will stop happening but that we think political and economic concerns will be ended by SAI. I’m not sure what I think of this.
I have expanded my comment from above into an article on my site
It is probable that Dale is referring the to the Fukuyama book about “ending history”, but I think it should be defined more clearly as to what it is and what is ridiculous about that definition. I do not believe that political and economic concerns will end regardless of changes in technology or society. Billionaires still have political and economic concerns. Warren Buffet, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg and Ted Turner and others chime in on economics and politics all the time.
Can whole countries and regions get left behind when technology could make them richer or better off ? I would say yes because it has happened before and is the current situation. Africa missed the boat on a lot of industrialization for centuries. China lagged for about 7 decades before the big catch up. Did the countries with the technological lead take full advantage of the technology and economic opportunities before them ? No. If better choices had been made could a sustained growth rate of 5% per year have been possible instead of the 2-3% average of the 20th century ? I would say yes. What would that have meant ? That the economy of the leading countries could have been 6 times bigger if +2% growth over 90 years was achieved.
constant 2% per year growth: 7.1 times more after 100 years
constant 3% per year growth: 18.7 times more after 100 years
constant 5% per year growth: 125 times more after 100 years
Do we consider places with 6-20 times less per capita income to be poorer or poor ? do we consider someone who has 6-20 times more money to be richer or rich. Here is the chart of GDP per capita that exists now
If every place was as poor as Malawi how would the world be a better place ? or maybe Cuba as a place that some Berkeley communists would identify as a place with a good system. More equally available medical care etc… ($4500-7000/ per year per cap PPP)
Utilitarian: agreed on all counts.
Nick: “Plenty of elitist assholes have glommed onto the label.” Could you give some examples of the kind of person you mean? (Or the kind of ideas you mean, if you understandably don’t want to call anyone specific an asshole.)
Brian: I could be wrong but I don’t think Dale is an actual communist.
Dale has plenty of other labels for himself and what he believes in terms of economics etc… I believe he likes “technoprogressive peer-to-peer networked society with guaranteed incomes, universal single-payer healthcare/education.”
wikipedia on Karl Marx
A critique of the original ideas of Karl Marx
Marxism at wikipedia
-a view of history according to which class struggle, the evolving conflict between classes with opposing interests, structures each historical period and drives historical change
A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
– how else would one fund high levels of guaranteed incomes and pay for universal health care and education ?
Communism at wikipedia
Criticism of Marxism
I think calling his beliefs “rebranded communism or communist 2.0″ is accurate and more accurate than “nonbiological superintelligent robot god” is to the concepts of artificial general intelligence.
@Nick: “When Dale mentions “ending historyâ€, I believe he’s alluding to the book by Francis Fukuyama, and thus means not that Singularitarians think stuff will stop happening but that we think political and economic concerns will be ended by SAI. I’m not sure what I think of this.”
- hmmm. Well, for starters, Francis Fukayama is hardly a transhumanist(!), so perhaps it’s just a touch silly for dale to be making us answer for Fukayama’s ideas. I agree with you that this seems to be where Dale got the phrase “end of history” from.
I think there’s a good kernel of truth in the idea that our current political and economic concerns will probably be made irrelevant by the advent of smarter than human intelligence. Imagine how little importance the sub-prime mortgage crisis is going to have if someone invents AGI tomorrow.
But that doesn’t mean the end of history! As Brian Wang says:
“So there is the history before homo-sapiens. There would still be history even if homo-sapiens are modified.”
History of post AGI earth is likely to bear the same relation to 20th century history as 20th century history bears to the history of a tribe of monkeys. That’s because it’ll be more interesting, more subtle and vastly more complex!
Well, for starters, Francis Fukayama is hardly a transhumanist(!), so perhaps it’s just a touch silly for dale to be making us answer for Fukayama’s ideas.
I think you misunderstand; I only think that’s where Dale got the phrase, not that he endorses Fukuyama.
steven: I should have given examples up front. Transtopia is the obvious one. Marvin Minsky’s comments are a mild example; comments like this are stronger, although I’m only inferring that he’s a transhumanist. This guy (third paragraph, behind authentication) and this one (behind authentication; key sentence: However, you can rest assured that such a primitive existence will not be remembered by me or anyone interested in being more than rabid dogs fornicating in the streets.). I’ve seen plenty of others I can’t remember. Also, not that they’re elitist or assholes but they do give H+/S^ a bad name, there are some self-identified transhumanists/Singularitarians who see the creation of higher intelligence as an end in itself even if it wipes out humanity; specific examples fail to come to mind, although Eliezer pre-2001 or so might count.
I think that an ‘end to history’ in the sense of major shifts in power might follow reasonably soon after the development of powerful AI, since superintelligences could create much more stable social structures than humans have been able to. If surveillance and social control technologies are sufficiently powerful a global order can be ‘locked in’ in a fashion that has been impractical historically.
I think calling his beliefs “rebranded communism or communist 2.0″ is accurate and more accurate than “nonbiological superintelligent robot god†is to the concepts of artificial general intelligence.
We don’t have to sink to his level. By my understanding you could have high taxes and still have capital controlled by private individuals rather than the state, and it wouldn’t be communism.
I wouldn’t say “end of history”, but I think “end of history as we know it” would be a fair description of a technological singularity.
“We don’t have to sink to his level. By my understanding you could have high taxes and still have capital controlled by private individuals rather than the state, and it wouldn’t be communism.”
Also known as: Denmark, Sweden, etc? The northern European countries have near chart-topping rankings for economic freedom from libertarian think tanks, high incomes, and large welfare states designed with attention to economic incentives in relatively corruption-free governance systems.
Low personal income and consumption taxes are the most popular ‘right-wing’ economic policy, but nowhere near the most valuable when compared to flexible product markets, capital markets, and labor markets that permit creative destruction and economic growth. Similarly, government single-payer health care in the United States offers only minimal health gains at high cost by comparison to increased support for global public health and medical research expenditures.
Michael, I really appreciate your engagement with Dale on this. Unlike many of the more flame-ridden threads on his blog (which he can’t control any more than you can), it’s quite encouraging to see the conversation here. I think it’s really bearing fruit.
I can see most of my response to your post in particular have already largely been expressed but Nick Tarleton, so I won’t repeat those.
I really do think there’s a lot of fruit to be picked by resisting the urge to engage Dale without resorting to adversarial attitudes; I have a suspicion he does this on purpose as a kind of idiot filter. I’ve seen it work that way as a kind of supercharged Crocker’s rules on steroids, only more fun.
There’s a line that needs to be drawn, classically, between tolerating diversity in the form of self-modification and protecting diversity in the form of self-expression. I think your connection between what you label “intolerance” in the form of Dale’s ridicule of transhumanists and policy which either prohibits or impresses particular modifications is a bit thin, especially when you consider his prominent commitment to supporting morphological diversity. I think he would recognize that hypocrisy if that were the case.
Dale has walked away from rhetoric before, as he seemed to recently from the term “technoprogressive”, which he worked hard to popularize. I’m sure if he saw his own ridicule of transhumanism used to foment intolerance, which in turn (eventually) fueled eugenic practices, he’d be the first one to walk away from it, too.
If Dale we’re seriously intolerant of transhumanism, he’d be working to get it wiped off the blogosphere, rather than calling attention to its more absurd or – literally – ridiculous incarnations and conclusions. This isn’t to say, in any sense, that transhuman or singularitarian conclusions aren’t true or even likely – just that their weird. But we should all be used to that, and used to having to overcome that as we relate these prospects to people who haven’t yet been exposed to them.
Instead, Dale puts a clown nose on it, and responds with more speech, not less. Even though it’s comic in ways that might peeve transhumanists and singularitarians off, shouldn’t we realize that Dale’s refusal to “be polite” has no bearing whatsoever on the criticisms he levels? I’m not saying that trolls always – or even often – have worthwhile arguments. But growing a skin, and being a grown-up (like I see Michael doing here), is part of what is needed to be taken seriously to begin with.
I see the appropriateness, even, of Dale “calling names”, considering that his argument is that transhumanists and singularitarians are often childish, ridiculous, or absurd. And what better way to bring the kids out of the woodwork than to taunt them?
You know, lately, (in the past two years) I have been hearing more and more criticism of the Transhuman movement (much more so than the previous 5 to 10) I think this is because most of the critics know that this kind of technology is coming close, and they are becoming more and more afriad, sounding their alarms, acting like chicken little, and trying to berate those who belive in transhumanism because it makes them feel better abou themselves.
They have no idea what to do once all this happens. They are simply afriad of change.. afriad of evolution. Just my humble opinion.
Michael,
It’s ‘Transhumanist,’ not ‘Transhuman.’
@Nato: “I see the appropriateness, even, of Dale “calling namesâ€, considering that his argument is that transhumanists and singularitarians are often childish, ridiculous, or absurd. And what better way to bring the kids out of the woodwork than to taunt them?”
um, I personally don’t think that calling people names, engaging in ad-hominem attacks and a whole slew of other forms of sophistry helps. I would much rather have critics who raise objections to the transhumanist project in a calm, logical way than people like dale who mostly act like a troll and occasionally say something vaguely sensible.
You don’t even have to be “anti” transhumanist to criticize transhumanism. If you look at Nick Bostrom’s book chapter “the future of humanity”, you’ll see several critiscisms of things that notable transhumanists have said, e.g. Bostrom criticizes Kurzweil’s predictions.
http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/future.pdf
@Nick Tarleton,
You make a good point. Lot’s of transhumanists don’t put a good image out to the rest of society. There is definitely a strong undertone in places that current human life and culture is more or less worthless. You have to be very clear, as Michael does, that you believe current life is just dandy, you just don’t have a problem with making it dandier. The problem is, I believe, that many transhumanists don’t really believe that, whether they are consciously aware of that or not.
While there is a serious core to transhumanism, with clear direction and mature motivations, there is also the surrounding cult. There really hasn’t been something so tantalizing put forward since Christianity arose (speaking from the perspective of the average person at the time). The people attracted to transhumanism/singulatarianism for the salvation component probably won’t act any more rationally than Christians have over the last 2000 years.
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