Transhumanism Has Already Won
It's 2010, and transhumanism has already won. Billions of people around the world would love to upgrade their bodies, extend their youth, and amplify their powers of perception, thought, and action with the assistance of safe and tested technologies. The urge to be something more, to go beyond, is the norm rather than the exception.
At their base, the world's major two largest religions -- Christianity and Islam -- are transhumanistic. After all, they promise transcension from death and the concerns of the flesh, and being upgraded to that archetypical transhuman -- the Angel. The angel will probably be our preliminary model as we seek to expand our capacities and enjoyment of the world using technological self-modification. Then, even angels will get bored of being angels, and expand outwards in a million new directions, resulting in an explosion of species never before seen -- exceeding in magnitude and variation even the Cambrian Explosion of 530 million years ago.
Humanity, as it stands today, is a seed, a bridge. We will plant flowers and trees across the universe. All we have to do is survive our embryonic stage, stay in control of our own destiny, and expand outwards in every direction at the speed of light. Ray Kurzweil makes this point in The Singularity is Near, a book that was #1 in the Science & Technology section on Amazon and on the NYT bestsellers list for a reason.
The mainstream has embraced transhumanism. A movie about using a brain-computer interface to become what is essentially a transhuman being, Avatar, is the highest-grossing box office hit of all time, pulling in $2.7 billion. This movie was made with hard-core science fiction enthusiasts in mind. About them, James Cameron said, "If I can just get 'em in the damn theater, the film will act on them in the way it's supposed to, in terms of taking them on an amazing journey and giving them this rich emotional experience." A solid SL2 film, becoming the world's #1 film of all time? It would be hard for the world to give transhumanism a firmer endorsement than that.
Everything is Not Alright
I am tremendously sympathetic to transhumanism's critics and detractors, more so than most transhumanists I have met. Many transhumanists don't seem to understand that when you step outside of the confines of 3.5 billion years of natural evolution in a few short decades of intense technological progress, there are risks. Risks like new viruses and new weapons, to say the least. Even today, global security is entirely dependent on a few very knowledgeable scientists keeping their mouths shut. They start talking to the wrong people, and suddenly cities aren't such safe places to live anymore.
People are basically nice when they're well-fed, and damn evil when they're hungry. Deprive the world's cities of the millions of truckloads of fresh vegetables and meat that arrive every day, and suddenly things will get all nasty. The technologies that transhumanists talk about messing with -- biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence -- will force societies to radically restructure or die. I've talked to dozens of selfish transhumanists whose response to this is basically, "well, too bad for them!" No. Too bad for you, because they'll gladly drag you down with them.
Even technologies readily available today, but rarely used -- such as the direct electrical stimulation of the pain and pleasure centers of the human brain -- could become fearsome new plagues on humanity if in the hands of the wrong political or religious fanatics. The Western world today has a sort of fantasy of invulnerability, like a teenager taking his dad's NSX for a joyride. Americans, especially, are high and drunk on our country's prominence in the world. What could possibly go wrong? Radical Islam hates us and all they could achieve is bringing down the World Trade Center.
Imagine a hundred or so tribes in an area covering many hundreds of square miles, quarreling with sticks and stones for hundreds if not thousands of years. Suddenly, they get rifles. In many places around the world, this has already resulted in genocide. That situation is what will happen to humanity as a whole throughout the next fifty years. The Western world is so impressed with its own accomplishments over the past centuries that we don't realize that there is much, much more to come.
Like it or not, the bedrock of any society rests on security. Legal and financial power are trivialities in comparison to the military power and security that makes the legal and economic machinery possible. History is strewn with thousands of examples where legal and financial "realities" collapsed like a cloud of dust when the security fundamentals were threatened. There's nothing that will make people stay inside like a bombing or pandemic.
They Like Us?
Mainstream culture around the world has already embraced transhumanism and transhumanist ideals. The question is not whether humanity will move towards a transhumanist future (it will), but how that power is channeled. It's not hard to convince people to become stronger and healthier if it truly is within their grasp. What we need to worry about is massive power in the hands of individuals with selfish or truly alien and abstract morals.
Good and evil are ideas. Any goal system is ultimately arbitrary. As long as someone can protect themselves from injury or attack, they can do practically anything. This gives us unlimited freedom, but also unlimited peril. Given the ability to modify their own motivations and emotions, selfish people will have the option of becoming even more selfish. Conversely, the altruistic might amplify their compassion.
The Singularity Institute's strategy for dealing with this challenge is the creation of a recursively self-improving moral agent -- safe or "friendly" Artificial Intelligence. This ambition might turn out to be too much -- it may be that programming a computer with the subtleties of human-friendly morality is too great a challenge. But, I think we should try. We should try because the first being to cross the line into true transhumanity will probably be an Artificial Intelligence, and we might as well do something to ensure that it is friendly.
Now, it may be that enhanced humans cross the line into transhumanity first. If you're thinking about that route, consider what it means. Extensive animal testing and risky surgery. Brain implants, which would likely be necessary to achieve the kind of transhumanity that matters, are essentially carefully tuned rocks that we are inserting into proteinaceous tissue. The human skull is a pretty cramped space -- there is not a lot of room for additional machinery. To really get a lot out of it, you'd need to push the brain aside or use a fluid-filled cavity, which might not play well with the body. It is highly questionable whether we can get an I/O of sufficient bandwidth relying on electronic devices that just sit on top of the surface of the brain. My guess is that you'd need a lot of extremely thin, deep electrodes going to precise neural areas to get the necessary I/O. This may be harder or easier than it looks, but I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere near the first to try it.
If Artificial Intelligence and molecular nanotechnology are not available to meet humanity's thirst for ascension, people will turn to other routes. Crude surgery and the like. That's what I'm afraid of -- a botched entrance into transhumanity. An entrance where the soldiers, fighters, gangsters, and porn stars lead the way. This is already happening now, and it isn't all good. When magnified aggression and machismo lead the way into the future, the future becomes uncertain. We've seen this story many times before.
Magnify the Good in Us
To survive the future in one piece, humanity has to take those qualities that are the best in us -- love, compassion, and altruism -- and give them as much muscle as we can. A distributed approach will not work, because historically a few agents grab power and use it as they see fit. Even in democratic societies, this equation isn't much different, it's just that the few that get power are those with the most votes. Instead of denying the inevitable concentration of power, we have to do what we can to ensure that that power is used wisely.
Maybe it's impossible to keep checks on the powerful. If so, we are still at their mercy. Nudging them to do the right thing is better than having no influence whatsoever. At some point during the next century, the most powerful being will be a transhuman. It will be sculpted by whatever process eventually ended up succeeding in producing a true transhuman. We had better hope that process is a safe and sane one.
When people write an article about a problem, it's usually because they have a ready-made answer they want to sell you. But sometimes the universe just gives us a problem and it has no special obligation to give us an answer. Transhumanity is like that. Whatever answer we come up with may be a little messy, but we have to come up with something, because otherwise the future will play out according to considerations besides global security and harmony. Power asymmetry is not an optional part of the future -- it is a mandatory one. There will be entities way more powerful than human. Where will they be born? How will they be made? These questions are not entirely hypothetical -- the seeds of their creation are among us now. We have to decide how we want to give birth to the next influx of intelligent species on Earth. The birth of transhumanity will mean the death of humanity, if we are not careful.
April 29th, 2010 - 19:26
Hi Michael.
Accountability is the sole antidote to someone grabbing power, and as things appear to be developing, I think we will end up trading secrecy for security. We are developing rapidly towards VR, AR, and the fusion of the real world with the virtual. We are saturating our world with cameras, sensors, and other personal surveillance devices. As we continue to take steps towards lifeblogging, recording our every word and action as they happen, this will lead to a variant of the “Truth Machine” because we will become accountable for every thing we do.
And this will apply not only to the individual, but to our governing institutions as well, forcing them to become open, transparent, and above all, accountable. It’s not going to be immediate, but I do think that it’s going to be relatively quick.
Is this Good? Evil? Moral, Immoral? Depends on who you ask. Regardless, it does seem to be what is happening.
April 7th, 2011 - 04:01
it’s evil
April 30th, 2010 - 03:54
> Extensive animal testing and risky surgery. Brain implants, which would likely be necessary to achieve the kind of transhumanity that matters, are essentially carefully tuned rocks that we are inserting into proteinaceous tissue. To get them working, we’d need to test them on a lot of animals first, including mice, rabbits, and chimps. How many animals will have to die before we come up with a brain implant we are satisfied with?
Fallacious appeal to moral intuition (fuzzies in place of utility). When we are talking about shaping the future of humanity, a few thousand dead bunnies are not a relevant concern in comparison to the goodness of the resulting outcome.
April 30th, 2010 - 05:05
If the only way to “the good[] outcome” were indeed through death of bunnies, I might agree with Mr. Nesov. But that’s far from clear. By setting up a false dilemma of two options (bunnies vs. good future), Mr. Nesov neglects to remember that there may be ways to the good future that are less lethal to bunnies. If there are, then the death of bunnies is a relevant moral concern. Thus, Mr. Nesov characterizes Michael’s comment as a “[f]allacious appeal to moral intuition”, but, in doing so, commits the classical false dilemma fallacy.
*Note: his argument can also be attacked on the grounds that even a nearly infinite future utility does not mean that certain necessary sacrifices of present utility are worth it.
April 30th, 2010 - 09:05
Your choice of photo supports a negative stereotype about the kinds of men attracted to transhumanism, Michael. Transhumanist guys need to upload to avatars to find girlfriends?
April 30th, 2010 - 10:08
Interesting article. Needless to say, I disagree with both your emphasis on security and dismissal of decentralized power. You present preserving the Western world as paramount. I care more about overturning the system of irrational scarcity and suffering. Where’s the security for the millions in daily struggle across the planet? The insane existing order is a catastrophe in itself. Changing this reality matters as much as avoiding the sort of hypothetical future risks you discuss.
April 30th, 2010 - 10:40
Vladimir, you’re right that I am appealing to moral intuition, but I am appealing to something larger than just the death of a few thousand bunnies. Part of my point is that surgery and biology are inherently complex and difficult to manage, and that reaching a Singularity via this means does not appear to me to be as “safe and sane” as an AGI approach. Many thousands of humans would probably need to die, or suffer brain infections or disorders due to not-perfect surgery, to really achieve powerful IA. That is just my personal opinion, and I think that the advocates of IA have not thought it through hard enough. I didn’t want to be all melodramatic and say, “I am concerned that the first IA superintelligence will be insane or merely selfish”, though that’s part of the point I was getting at.
Mark, I’ll remove it then. I was only trying to illustrate that the mainstream has embraced a movie featuring transhumans. This has important implications because it suggests that transhumanists ideals are accepted more widely than many people thought.
April 30th, 2010 - 11:01
Well once again you write the truth. I would never have seen these developments the way you have if not for this blog. I believe Transhumanism will have won when we erase our capacity for self-destruction.
April 30th, 2010 - 11:45
To be clear, I objected to your argument, not implied conclusion. There are valid reasons to steer clear from meddling with human mind using crude tools. Nonetheless, animal suffering is not one of them, and rationalization can’t be excused by the conclusion being correct.
April 30th, 2010 - 12:00
With regard to brain implants, I suspect much of the research could be conducted via simulation. I think these fears may be exaggerated. Did the current development of computer-brain interfaces involve extensive animal testing and/or harmful side effects to humans? I only remember that one story about monkeys controlling robotic arms. Under the current climate of cooperate capitalism, I’m sure advancements would come hand-in-hand with oppression and incompetence, but I don’t know that that’s inevitable. Remember, all present research involves the exploitation of workers across the globe. It’s a difficult moral situation.
April 30th, 2010 - 12:42
I used animal suffering as a stand-in for the larger issue. Also, whether or not making animals suffer is worth it will ultimately depend on whether the resulting IA Singularity is a good or bad one.
To return to the original issue, I agree that I was substituting the ideas of warm fuzzies for utility, and I am incorrect to do so. I will delete a couple sentences and replace them with something.
April 30th, 2010 - 13:14
> Also, whether or not making animals suffer is worth it will ultimately depend on whether the resulting IA Singularity is a good or bad one.
Decisions are made based on available state of knowledge, and their worth is given by how well they reflect uncertainty, not how well they reflect unknown reality. Playing the lottery is an incorrect decision even if you win a fortune.
April 30th, 2010 - 13:15
Michael, have you read Hughes’s article the philosophical underpinning of transhumanism? Warm fuzzies might be the way to go:
I suspect the movement could benefit from more emotional appeals.
April 30th, 2010 - 14:36
I’m not sure why only brain implants are mentioned for intelligence enhancement, and not genetic engineering. All the enhancement of intelligence in the past, from bacterium to human, has used this mechanism. I say the easiest route would be to upgrade the most intelligent thing we know of (the human brain) with the mechanism we know has upgraded it in the past (genetic tweaking).
April 30th, 2010 - 14:59
John Smart argues forcefully against the practicality of increasing human intelligence through biotechnology. Of course, he’s not a big fan of brain implants either. He sees only a digital revolution in future, which I find somewhere narrow and presumptuous.
April 30th, 2010 - 15:45
Now that transhumanism has won, all that’s left for transhumanists to do is to triumphantly declare that they were right all along (“Told you so!”), pat each other on the back for a job well done, pack their bags and go home to spectate while science saves the world.
I don’t think any transhumanist around here can contest this assertion: Transhumanists are just a bunch of cheerleaders for science. Go science! And science SCOOoooressss!
April 30th, 2010 - 16:57
“It’s 2010, and transhumanism has already won.”
I wasn’t aware there was a contest.
I am also not aware of any religious doctrine that says human beings will become angels, either after death or at any other time.
April 30th, 2010 - 16:59
“I don’t think any transhumanist around here can contest this assertion: Transhumanists are just a bunch of cheerleaders for science.”
I sure can. There are a lot of transhumanists doing the science and funding the science. That’s not just cheerleading.
May 1st, 2010 - 00:40
I guess what I meant to say was that transhumanism’s prominent, visible function seems to be cheerleading for science. You can be a scientist and you can fund science without being a transhumanist. Science doesn’t need transhumanism. But you can’t be a transhumanist without science (and technology) or can you?
Our world is utterly dominated by technology and science. Not by transhumanism. You don’t need transhumanism to enjoy and benefit from the new technologies. If transhumanism ceased to exist, the world wouldn’t notice. It’s like the absence of the Popular Science magazine wouldn’t affect science journals or the practice of science one bit. So what is the function of transhumanism other than cheerleading for science?
May 1st, 2010 - 01:10
Most forms of posthumanity will probably preserve humanity in their history “books” and “museums” – since understanding the past is likely to be critical to a proper understanding of future possibilities – such as meeting alien races. So, it seems pretty unlikely that humanity will “die”.
May 1st, 2010 - 06:21
“It’s like the absence of the Popular Science magazine wouldn’t affect science journals or the practice of science one bit. So what is the function of transhumanism other than cheerleading for science?”
In this sense, transhumanism is about having the balls to say where the domination of our world by science and technology is leading. Most scientists don’t dare to (publicly) think about the bigger picture implications of what they’re involved in (often they don’t even care), whereas transhumanists, be they scientists or not, do talk about and analyze the various scenarios and ethical/etc issues.
May 1st, 2010 - 06:50
As a comment to Michael’s article regarding the prevalence of transhumanist themes, I can’t help but to see them in the current popularity of vampire stories among teenagers (Twilight, True Blood). A lot of teenage fantasizing “I wish I was a vampire so I wouldn’t die and were beautiful and strong” going on currently.
May 1st, 2010 - 06:54
Hi Michael. I enjoyed your post. This is the most important issue for transhumanists. No other issue will matter if we get this wrong.
May 1st, 2010 - 08:25
Excellent post, Michael. Although I am closer to being an IA advocate, I can agree that people everywhere are showing they would like to feel more alive and be more connected, to have more options and to live longer, and many of them would like to see an end to real-life violence (outside of sports, anyway).
As someone mentioned in the previous comments, amplification of our intelligence need not be purely cognitive. In fact, I consider emotional modulation an equally important goal to cognitive enhancement. If we could find methods to allow our “better natures” (if we can admit this messy, convenient shorthand) to have the upper hand more often in decisions about where to direct conscious attention, we would be able to work more calmly and cooperatively towards stated common goals, and to incorporate data brought to us by machines more effectively.
That is, if we agree that building a raft is the best idea, we don’t want to bog down in the middle of building it because one of us begins to feel jealous of the other’s raft-y prowess and then finds a rationalization for not building the thing at all. Problems like this arise less often from participants’ insufficient logic than from an excess of emotions irrelevant to whatever job is at hand.
By the way, aren’t we giving ourselves a bit too much credit to think that the hunger for more life and more knowledge is fundamentally different from the mindless drive of bacteria to eat everything handy and make more bacteria? It may or may not be the way of our universe to concentrate energy and information locally while dissipating it more generally, but can we really set ourselves up so high as to think that the intensity and purity we enjoy or seek or strive for is “important” or “meaningful” outside our own mental worlds?
May 1st, 2010 - 09:25
Sure enough, there is! Commentators and thinkers on both sides of the spectrum have pointed out how bioethical issues are becoming another major axis in the spectrum of political beliefs, just like the social and economic axes. J. Hughes describes this well in his writings.
Sciency, science is not really an autonomous force of its own that unfolds according to a predetermined plan. What people choose to research and which areas of research become popular has as much to do with cultural and philosophical beliefs among scientists as it does with the inherent structure of the “scientific knowledge space”. Even if some scientists don’t say they have an explicit philosophy about what science to do (they probably do, they just don’t feel like sharing it), many of the controllers of funding do indeed have a lot of ideas about what science to do, and myriad belief systems influence this. For instance, you could have two controllers of funding, one at Future Shock Level 0, the other at SL2. What projects they choose to fund could vary wildly.
Like Aleksei says, transhumanism is about looking at the big picture. Some of the most dynamic and exciting scientists and engineers are transhumanists, and transhumanist ideals energize and infuse their agenda. Look at Ed Boyden at MIT, for instance. Boyden is already tremendously respected among neuroscientists because of his great new idea for a brain-computer interface. Even though his research program is just getting started, it is guided by a vision of beneficial brain implants which may be 10-20 years in the future.
Grassroots life extension activism built around the Methuselah Foundation has raised millions of dollars for life extension research, and there are dozens of technology companies founded directly by transhumanists.
May 1st, 2010 - 14:54
“Instead of denying the inevitable concentration of power, we have to do what we can to ensure that that power is used wisely. ”
Inevitable, likely so true. It seems all but inevitable that power will concentrate again as it tends to do, but this time it won’t be in insects, if power can be made to concentrate in those fit to rule, then the world shall improve for the better. Absolute power in the hands of the greatest minds will make for a world beyond imagination.
The laws of men will crumble… for the only thing that upholds the law is the power behind it, and those with the greatest power, their law will be backed by the greatest strength. Thus all law will bend and break when facing theirs. The natural laws bestow upon them the right to rule.
May 1st, 2010 - 20:06
This is sounding worse and worse. I know many transhumanists consider themselves bearing the torch for the Enlightenment in the twenty-first century, but must the movement resurrect the desire for an enlightened monarch? Technology has the potential provide actual liberation. I’ll echo Goertzel: I want us all to become gods.
May 1st, 2010 - 22:18
Giving everyone powers is like giving everyone guns. Indiscriminate empowering of the masses is a dangerous thing. If some one is as powerful and able as you they can very likely hinder your goals or worse maybe even manage to kill you. This is self-evident and I believe likely any higher intelligence will realize that they can give power but not enough to destroy or hinder their goals.
The first super intelligence if it has enough time will likely control the flow of power such that it will remain in power indefinitely. Any other choice will simply be gambling on its ability to accomplish its goals in the long term.
May 2nd, 2010 - 00:13
My comments to Michael’s post and other blogs that reference it:
http://giulioprisco.blogspot.com/2010/05/has-transhumansim-already-won.html
May 2nd, 2010 - 09:49
As Shevek says in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, “Freedom is never very safe.”
I’m not completely opposed to the technocratic notion of a superintelligence directing production and consumption to benefit everyone equally, but this reverent talk of AI rulers disgusts me. To the extent that transhumanism recreates the religious narrative of the all-knowing patriarch in sky, I’m not interested.
May 2nd, 2010 - 14:01
“AI” is not a single thing, but a universe of possibilities. To say that quadrillions of possible minds will not share in governance and Homo sapiens will occupy all management posts forever is closed-minded and anthropocentric in the extreme. The entire point of transhumanism is going beyond that. Maybe you just aren’t really a transhumanist?
May 2nd, 2010 - 14:05
Summerspeaker:
“I’m not completely opposed to the technocratic notion of a superintelligence directing production and consumption to benefit everyone equally, but this reverent talk of AI rulers disgusts me. To the extent that transhumanism recreates the religious narrative of the all-knowing patriarch in sky, I’m not interested.”
What do you care about more: the results that we might achieve in the future, or the narrative that the method to achieve those results brings to mind?
May 2nd, 2010 - 15:54
In the real world an intelligent agent cannot hope to perfectly predict, what other intellects of equivalent ability will do. This is very likely true. You’re in a given environment and you empower and enable other agents with as much resources as you have, and you’ve just made that environment more unpredictable, more uncontrollable, and probably even more dangerous.
Sharing power is not the same as sharing equivalent power. I’m not saying that All conceivable minds will do this, but that in general I would expect, the more ‘optimal’ an agent was to tend in the long run to attempt to increase the probability of being better off in that environment. And increasing the power of unpredictable elements within the environment to the point where they can hinder your goals whatever they may be, and probably pose a threat to your survival and freedom(as whatever laws they bring tend to do.) is simply a very risky and IMO pointless gamble.
Of course that is my view, I expect what I would in general consider ‘optimal’ will tend to prosper and try to be better-off in the long run in a given environment. In my view an ‘optimal’ agent in an environment will tend to try to increase its probability of survival, increase its capabilities, increase its freedom.
Only sub’optimal’ minds would take high risk gambles with dubious small pay-offs, that put in jeopardy the probabilities of an almost certain better future if it abstained from said gambling.
May 2nd, 2010 - 16:37
You misunderstand completely. I’m an anarchist, Michael. I oppose governance in the traditional sense. If I must have a master, I would prefer one carefully designed for benevolence; I’m no human chauvinist by any stretch of the imagination. But I believe we can move beyond ruling and being ruled.
May 2nd, 2010 - 17:35
“But I believe we can move beyond ruling and being ruled.”
Anarchists would get taken more seriously if they/you had actually set up a self-sufficient community somewhere that was thriving and had an ability to defend itself against strong outside aggressors. (Communities that parasitically utilize the law enforcement capabilities of existing non-anarchistic nation states don’t count.)
May 2nd, 2010 - 17:52
I have no complaints about being dismissed as an anarchist. It’s the aspersions on my commitment to transhumanism that bother me. To my mind, the two belief systems fit together naturally.
May 2nd, 2010 - 18:23
Since very few anarchic communities exist, except in places like Somalia, I am skeptical that that political system will ever prevail over much of the Earth. I’m not making a moral judgment here — I’m just being pragmatic about what I have seen reality be about. Defending against outside aggressors or internal criminals requires some centralization of power, and such concentrations of power have inevitably emerged throughout all of biological history. This phenomenon is literally billions of years old. You can say you don’t like it, but until you show us a demonstration of the kind of community Aleksei mentions, then I’m just going to assume that the future will have stronger and weaker entities, and plan and think accordingly.
May 2nd, 2010 - 19:01
Understood, Michael. As you might expect, I’ll continue to say I don’t like it. But you should note how much your argument resembles those leveled against transhumanism. A few judicious substitutions and it would serve well in a refutation of Aubrey de Grey.
With a nod to my primitivist comrades, I’ll also suggest that the most common social structures used by hominids for countless thousands of years came closer to the anarchist dream than to modern society. Current levels of hierarchy and inequality are the exception, not the historical norm. That’s why green anarchists see smashing civilization as the only path to liberation. Needless to say, I disagree with them; I’d rather not starve. But biological record does not so clearly rule out life without bosses, nor does the future need be bound by the past.
May 3rd, 2010 - 08:27
If the pain, suffering, and inequality of the past thousand years is “closer to the anarchist dream” than our current society, then I want nothing to do with the anarchist dream. I’d rather be protected by an authority. Most anti-authoritarians are really closet liars, because if they were assaulted by a brigand or bandit, they’d gladly welcome an authority to defend them. Most modern-day anarchists seem delusional insofar as they wouldn’t survive for more than a few weeks in a truly rough environment, without law and order.
We can reduce some of the current level of hierarchy and inequality, but complete anarchism seems silly to me. Thankfully, the vast majority agrees. Instead of arguing in favor of anarchism on a political level, I would be more interested in a seeing a video of you demonstrating how you would use firearms to defend yourself from a determined band of brigands without police assistance.
May 3rd, 2010 - 15:50
Thousand years, Michael? I was referring to hominid hunter-gather societies prevalent before civilization. As best we can tell, such groups had markedly less inequality than in more recent times. As noted above, I share your affection for technological comforts and abundance. It’s important to distinguish between material conditions and social systems. The vast majority of early stratified and civilized groups suffered at least as much as their more egalitarian counterparts.
As you suggest, I would welcome assistance from most anyone in a dire situation; I see no hypocrisy in this. Anarchism does not mandate unthinking hostility to authority. Nor does recognizing the positive aspects of the existing arrangement imply acceptance of it as a whole.
I can only shake my head at your reverence for law and order. As best I can tell, our disagreement stems from fundamentally different conceptions of human behavior and motivation. The fact that I refrain from violence has nothing to do with the legal prohibition against assault and murder. Your Hobbesian emphasis on brutal aggression makes a caricature of the species. Current society operates as much on cooperation and compromise as competition and conflict. Equality and plenty foster peace more than armed enforcers do. The latter become necessary primarily to defend privilege.
May 3rd, 2010 - 16:10
The root of all inequality lies in nature itself. Individuals have mind-blowingly extreme variance in capabilities.
In pre-tech times, when no one had nothing, everyone was more equal, but: there were more beautiful, stronger, and smarter individuals, and uglier, weaker, and dumber, too. Inequality existed. Then the smart ones built a civilization, manifesting this hereditary inequality in material terms. Now they own almost everything and the dumb and ugly own almost nothing. It has been game over for those who didn’t win in the hereditary lottery for millions of years already. Humans didn’t invent inequality. In recent times we have fought against it more successfully than ever before in history.
Address your letters of complaint to Mother Nature, that paragon of inequality.
May 4th, 2010 - 07:03
As Hobbes said:
“… wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal[, in] such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain…”
May 4th, 2010 - 10:45
Summerspeaker, why not go move to Somalia or South Africa if you are searching for anarchy? (I’m trying not to be belligerent here — I really want to know why those countries wouldn’t qualify for you.)
May 5th, 2010 - 05:56
That’s a classic a troll question used against anarchists, Michael. Are you at all familiar with the historical political movement? I assume you’re familiar with libertarianism. We’re the socialist version, more or less.
Both Somalia and South Africa stand out as beacons of inequality. If I were go either of them, I would immediately try to get involved in local radical organizing. It would not take me closer to the ideal of a society based on the principles of liberty and equality. Having a bunch of bosses violently struggling for control isn’t any better than having an established coercive power.
South Africa, by the way, has a fairly strong government; I’m not sure why you would use that country as an example.
May 5th, 2010 - 09:36
I am familiar with the historical movement.
If there are few rules, then why do you expect people to suddenly become equal? Are you one of those anarchists who desires a return to the structure of pre-industrial societies, under the premise that “people were more equal then”?
South Africa has among the highest rape and crime rates in the world. Though it has a government, it doesn’t seem to be doing much good. It’s an example of lawlessness.
Law and order protects the poor and weak from the rich and strong. Without them, the rich and strong do what they please.
May 5th, 2010 - 17:19
Then I have trouble believing you are debating with me in good faith.
I find the greater egalitarianism and reduced hierarchy of such groups desirable, yes. Unlike my primitivist/green anarchist friends, I don’t want to smash civilization and technology in order return to that mode of human organization. You seem to agree with the primitivists on one thing: that mass society requires a coercive power structure. They find this intolerable and thus reject mass society. We collectivist anarchists, on the other, reject the assumption that mass society and freedom cannot coexist.
In addition to our conflicting views of human nature as described earlier, you and I disagree about the function of law. I see the state as fundamentally protecting the rich and strong. Example of this abound. Enforcement of property rights, for instance, benefits the haves at the expense of those who ain’t got. (To use Omali Yeshitela’s term.) We anarchists argue that the majority of the violence that concerns you results from such enshrined economic and social inequalities.
May 5th, 2010 - 18:09
I am debating you in good faith, I just am very incredulous.
My point is that there is no such egalitarianism. Humans living in tribes regularly bully, raid, or kill each other. Within a tribe, an alpha male does what he pleases, killing or torturing rebellious betas and raping women as necessary. This is borne out by observations of primitive tribes around the world.
I do agree that mass society requires a coercive power structure, but coercive power structures often surface in small tribes as well. I would say that avoiding coercive power structures would require avoiding all other humans pretty much entirely. Maybe a small group of 3-6 could exist without it, but I doubt it. I myself am interested in resisting the coercive power structures of society by building self-reliant knowledge and skills.
Reality is Hobbesian. Maybe you should try living in a rural area of a third world country and see what I mean. I get the feeling that you have led a sheltered life without major hardship. In my teenage years and early twenties, I spent a decent time on the streets of San Francisco and I can tell you that people are crazy. Did you know that there are people that entirely make a living by robbing and stealing from other people, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways? Do you know what meth addicts are like? The world is full of people who will screw you over to make a dollar. They are not going to stop pestering us because we ask them to kindly join our anarchist collective system of social organization.
Removing all inequalities would require the massive application of force. Some people are naturally way smarter and wiser than others and will end up with the better friends, partner, and/or toys. I agree that the law sometimes does protect corporate interests too much, such as by giving banks massive bailouts, but the idea of eliminating all inequality to me seems like a Quixotic crusade. Why not just force us all to wear the same clothes and talk like robots?
May 5th, 2010 - 19:34
But is simply wanting more life and more enjoyable life — better looks, stronger muscles, keener senses, etc. — really *trans*human? It just seems to me that it’s simply wanting more of what we already count to be human.
Longer-living, stronger, healthier and more attractive bodies isn’t transhumanism, just superhumanism.
May 5th, 2010 - 20:50
You’re going against a large body of research by denying the greater egalitarianism of early hunter-gather societies, Michael. Your talk of alphas and betas applies more to gorillas than to humans. For example, see here for discussion of an excellent 2008 paper on the subject.
Perhaps we do live in different worlds. In my experience I have more to fear from the cops than from folks on the street. I’ve spent considerable time canvassing in supposedly rough neighborhoods and the only people who gave me problems were the boys in blue. While I’ve had various things stolen from me, the police alone have threatened violence. They pointed a Taser at me in front the place where I stay because I tried to stop them from further hurting an already handcuffed housemate. We got off lucky; far worse abuses happen daily throughout this city. The coercive power structure you support takes a tremendous toll in human suffering.
The successful ones do it from within established authority systems. Focusing on homeless meth addicts distorts the issue. I oppose oppressors of all varieties, be they despotic drug dealers, bigoted politicians, or scheming CEOs.
Indeed; I have no interest pursuing equality to its absurd extreme. Under the current circumstances of glaring inequality, however, there no dangerous of reaching that point anytime soon. Also, as a transhumanist, I believe folks can and should have access to whatever level intelligence and wisdom they desire. Eventually, these traits will become easily transferable.
May 5th, 2010 - 21:41
Thanks for the paper, it looks interesting. In your own words, how is anarchism different than libertarianism? More emphasis on stealing from the rich to giving to the poor?
May 5th, 2010 - 22:45
More or less. Collectivist anarchism differs with libertarianism most dramatically on property. We anarchists consider individual ownership beyond personal possessions to be theft from us all. Workers giving so much of the results of their labor to a distant owner who might never have even seen the factory is just a form of tribute.
This topic and debate inspired a post of mine you might be interested in and/or annoyed by.
May 6th, 2010 - 03:38
Summerspeaker, what do you think would be the right course of action in the following scenario:
An individual, someone like the tech billionaires, say, Larry Ellison or Bill Gates, but taken to an extreme, will do humanity a whole lot of good, but JUST CAN’T get around to doing it, can’t find the motivation, without owning everything there is to own and more: he/she needs her own space station, trips to the Moon and Mars, thousands of personal slaves, anyone she chooses, including the mega rich – yes, even they would have to do her bidding. Not just an own city or state, or continent, but simply the whole planet, etc. She wants it ALL!
Should she have it all or should she be denied this and, with it, humanity be denied the good, whatever it is, like the curing of all diseases, uploading, immortality, or simply, the Singularity? When are personal excesses disproportional to the achievement of eternal common good? Ever?
How far-fetched is this? Humanity does exhibit a tendency to give power-hungry individuals a lot: Stalin and Hitler got it all, perhaps the North Korean dude too, basically their own states, and what good did they ever do? Attempt and partially succeed in destroying their own country/civilization (priceless historical treasures were lost in the bombings, not to speak of a couple of generations of highly intelligent people).
All of that “excess” would seem absolutely insignificant in a post-singularity world.
May 6th, 2010 - 10:06
Summerspeaker, here is my response:
I think you’re connecting two unconnected things here. When I argue against anarchism, it doesn’t mean I’m arguing in favor of benevolent despotism. You should interpret it as me simply arguing in favor of the neoliberal status quo, more or less. My arguments are in line with the views of mainstream figures like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. You may disagree with them as well, or attribute a love of benevolent despotism to anyone who is comfortable living with a government, but it doesn’t really connect to Friendly AI in any conceivable way. Friendly AI is not even meant to be an agent that rules anything, it’s supposed to implement human volition as determined by querying human preferences, extrapolating them, and seeing where they cohere. The only purpose of the Friendly AI under the current plan is to act as a temporary intermediary.
Another thing you should note is that our proposed route to Friendly AI doesn’t ever involve the programmers directly instilling the ultimate motivations into the AGI in question. It involves what is essentially an elaborate polling mechanism, Coherent Extrapolated Volition. Under this proposal, the political views of the people putting together the AGI wouldn’t leak into the AGI’s motivations because the AGI is fundamentally designed to get its supergoal content from “the masses”.
May 6th, 2010 - 15:08
Michael: “it doesn’t mean I’m arguing in favor of benevolent despotism”
Aren’t you, though?—modulo the slew of caveats about how our human concept of despotism is at best only a clumsy metaphor for understanding the true dynamics of a world with vast differences in intelligence amongst agents?
Michael: “interpret it as me simply arguing in favor of the neoliberal status quo, more or less. My arguments are in line with the views of mainstream figures like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.”
I doubt anarchists are likely to find this very reassuring!
May 6th, 2010 - 16:14
Not at all because “despotism” is a fleshed-out concept with historical examples, and what I am advocating is nothing like that. What I am advocating is not even anyone telling anyone what to do. My vision of the future here is inclusive of many possible political systems and sub-systems, even including anarchism.
Probably not, but I want to make it clear that this is not a debate between fascism/authoritarianism and anarchism, but between a boring middle-of-the-road neoliberal perspective and an anarchist perspective.
May 7th, 2010 - 20:08
Interesting, Michael. As you might expect, I think Zack has a point. Assuming you share Bostrom desire for and definition of a singleton, the future superintelligent power would resemble a dictator in the sense that it could accept no challenge to its supremacy and would “exert effective control over major features of its domain” (Bostrom’s words). While a genie using CEV would attempt the tricky (and laudable) task of pleasing everybody, it would make the final decision. Presumably it wouldn’t even let you leave its territory because of the potential threat you could pose in the future.
If you differ from Bostrom, I would like to hear how.
June 7th, 2010 - 05:31
If transhumanists (Anissimov excepted) took time to ponder the trend of increasing interdependence we’re seeing today, transhumanism as a movement would have changed radically.
Globalization is just one facet of social and technological interdependence, where just to send this comment rely on electrical and telecom providers worldwide and a number of network administrators. To get here, there’s a network of technologies depending on each other to be able to transform ore and oil into computers, not to mention the financial networks and the social organizations making this possible.
Transhumanists love to extrapolate trends. Then why not look at the rise of interdependence, starting with more and more complex ecological systems and moving on to social animals and then more and more complicated societies where people depend on a lot more people all over the world than ever before, with increasingly specialized jobs.
This is a very clear trend and many have pondered how this makes us more and more vulnerable. This again is a historical trend. Plenty of large animals have gone extinct and do so on a daily basis, but only the most cataclysmic of events would have had a chance to exterminate whole single-celled species in the ocean.
What does this mean for transhumanism? That you can’t go it alone? That the risks to yourself ARE increasing exponentially towards the singularity? It would mean that your future existence as a cyborg, angel or download is intimately connected with the poor you shrug at, the ignorant you look down on and the luddites you detest.
This is one trend-extrapolation that would cause much unease for the average fan of transhumanism, so expect it to be persistently ignored :-)
June 29th, 2010 - 17:55
Very well written post you have here. As 1 blogger to another one, I recognise how hard and how much energy it requires to come up something tangible and good. Respect.
July 28th, 2010 - 17:27
Christians do NOT believe that they will become angels. I stopped reading your article right there. Get your facts straight.
October 16th, 2010 - 15:38
Reading this blog it is amazing what rubbish folk will add to a site, Really what is the point? Give the owner a break and stop adding so much .
January 9th, 2011 - 02:11
Dear Michael,
I just read an article you wrote on the Transhuman’s and how they have already won. I found your article very informative and I agree with most of it.
I know the part about ….very knowable Scientist keeping their mouth shut is so true but Michael I am troubled by what I believe are the direct results of the Government Security
Systems such as Human Machine Interface Systems and their polymers because seem to match the fiber symptoms of Morgellons Disease.
If you are not aware of this disease please check into it. I believe a bad assembly of these fibers or the inflammation that can accompany them is why my sister after a long illness has been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. I believe that the Pedot got a little carried away in her body.
We are treating her with off protocol with D.C.A. and light therapy and her cancer has not grown in one year since diagnosis.. So their does seem to be hope in this.and prayer most of all.
I wrote to a molecular biologist about my theory that Morgellons fibers are very much like the fibers described in the Brain Machine Patent that our Government may have certain rights to. She was at first just very kind to tell me so nicely… No , don’t think it is possible yet but then she wrote back after researching my theory with a big yes, probably is.
You know our Scientist are scared to help us so I came direct to you , please help us.
Michael I have spent 3 intensive years working hours upon hours a day to find the source of the fibers that come from my sister’s skin and in doing so realize that these ttechnologies will be like a game of King of the Hill and America had to capitalize before others did.
I wondered what I would do if I where a Scientist and was confronted with this new happening becoming a eventual technological probability , would I hide it and hope others would too, hell no because we know that history always repeats itself and some evil one would become King of the Hill.
I however hope that some help is offered to our very ill community.
I believe you are probably aware of the polymers that can be brought to bloom in the vascular system to create an artificial nervous system interfacable with computer programs.
I do know it is possible to be involved with something and not realize it as in the case of Dave Larson of Larson’s Media who worked for the Government designing implantables until he found one in his own body and became at odds with his employers. Have you read his plight?
I myself found what looked under a microscope to be molecular wires from a small lesion on my knee.
It is amazing how they get these things to self assemble!
My question to you Michael or should I say my plea.
Can you help us?
There must be a way to help those that this is not integrating in well.
Seems like there are some sort of high energy sacs that clog up or should I say improperly fold resulting in lysosomal storage diseases type illness and inflammation induced Cancerous like conditions.
I believe it is the D.N.A. wires that have not grafted properly in these conditions but they are tuneable right?
Can you in anyway point us in the right direction?
Thank you,
Jennifer Miracle
April 7th, 2011 - 04:09
I hate to say, at the risk of sounding like a simple minded troll and a Luddite, well let me use a metaphor to show how I feel about all this. I tend to think your class of people have their heads in the “cloud” or cloud computing. It would be nice to see you all come down to earth someday. I know, I’m generalizing, but not everyone wants to be a Soroyama figure or a Stepford resident. I know I don’t.
February 3rd, 2011 - 02:46
People should belive in Budda. I especially love people on Bali – they are all friendly and welcome. If you look up the history – Christians are not less agressive than Islam. it’s a fact.
September 26th, 2011 - 08:15
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