Sentient Developments Podcast Rebooted
This was sent to me by George Dvorsky:
Transhumanist-themed podcast: George Dvorsky's Sentient Developments
After a three year hiatus, George Dvorsky has rekindled his futurist-themed podcast, Sentient Developments. The show serves as a counterpart to his blog of the same name and covers similar topics, often in more detail and with accompanying clips and interviews for added depth and insight.
The Sentient Developments Podcast, which runs weekly, deals with a number of issues familiar to the readers of AF. As an explicitly transhumanist-themed podcast, Dvorsky deals directly with the potential for human enhancement, both in terms of what is possible today and in the near future. True to the tagline, "Futurism, science, life," Dvorsky looks into those technologies and techniques available today that can improve or expand human performance and experience--from diet and exercise to nootropics and implants.
In addition, he looks to the future and considers more radical possibilities for the human species, whether it be cybernetics, genetics, radical life extension, or the technological Singularity. And as Chair of the Board for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Dvorsky analyzes these issues through the lens of a critical bioethicist.
As a science-themed podcast, Sentient Developments covers more than just human enhancement. Concerned about animal welfare, and as the program chair for the IEET's Rights of Non-Human Persons Program, Dvorsky often discusses his efforts to see human-equivalent rights afforded to a number of highly sapient species. He is also an expert in SETI studies and often covers the latest in cosmology, metaphysics, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And like many AF readers, he's concerned about technological advance and the potential for catastrophic and existential risks; geopolitics, foresight, and risk mitigation are frequently discussed on the show.
The Sentient Developments Podcast is available on iTunes (http://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/sentient-developments-podcast/id135712771). Listeners can also subscribe directly to its feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/PodcastSentDev).
February 5th, 2012 - 03:13
Thanks for the timeless content you have produced. It is an inspiration.
Where can I find audio or video files featuring you?
It would be great to hear you in a discussion with other transhumanists. Perhaps even something semi-regular.
Seems some blog near you could also use rekindling…
February 12th, 2012 - 06:12
It sure looks pretty bleak around here these days. By the looks of it transhumanism is near dead, certainly very deep into the rehash territory, a mere zombie of what it was 10-20 years ago. What went wrong? Probably nothing. It seems transhumanism has reached one of its main goals: seems everyone involved with H+ gets funded these days, yet nothing much seems to happen. If anything’s advanced it’s the level of hype that has really got refined over the years, toned down enough to make it palatable for the mainstream.
Hope that in another decade people finally get wise and stop throwing money down this well-marketed pseudo-productivity drain and fund something real like peer-reviewed science (now there’s a concept not much discussed around transhumanists, while gushing breathlessly about the latest science-y startup) funding that actually gets things done.
These days transhumanism = the future expertly marketed. The question is: was it ever anything else?
February 12th, 2012 - 06:39
Transhumanism is full of unwarranted assumptions that don’t have any scientific basis. Real futurism on the other hand is concerned with actual existing science and technologies being extended and conservatively extrapolated – breakthroughs aren’t assumed. We can have some measurable confidence in it. Transhumanists’ predictions don’t have a single tenuous thread of continuity from here to there. It’s all wishful thinking no different from those offered by religions.
February 13th, 2012 - 08:04
Michael:
Please don’t shut down your blog. I really enjoy it and learn from it. Many people do.
Enjoy your blogging hiatus, but please come back soon!
February 19th, 2012 - 09:10
The future is only accelerating toward your grave. There is no progress, no immortality, no salvation, no better world coming. This is as good (and bad) as it’s ever going to get. You and the universe will both end in eternal Darkness, gone and forgotten by all.
Now, if you’ll all indulge me, I’d like to share a bit of poetry:
The Black Door gapes and the Black Wall rises;
Twilight gasps in the grip of Night.
Paper and dust are the gems man prizes—
Torches toss in my waning sight.
Drums of glory are lost in the ages,
Bare feet fail on a broken trail—
Let my name fade from the printed pages;
Dreams and visions are growing pale.
Twilight gathers and none can save me.
Well and well, for I would not stay:
Let me speak through the stone you gave me:
He never could say what he wished to say.
Why should I shrink from the sign of leaving?
My brain is wrapped in a darkened cloud;
Now in the Night are the Sisters weaving
For me a shroud.
Towers shake and the stars reel under,
Skulls are heaped in the Devil’s fane;
My feet are wrapped in a rolling thunder,
Jets of agony lance my brain.
What of the world that I leave for ever?
Phantom forms in a fading sight—
Carry me out on the ebon river—
Into the Night.
—”Lines Written in the Realization That I Must Die”, by Robert Ervin Howard
February 21st, 2012 - 12:44
Hello, Mr. “All is Lost”. Your attitude is valid yet useless. How about an attitude that is equally valid but useful? If you cannot see any point in anything, please accept my apologies on behalf of the universe for troubling you so inconsiderately.
February 22nd, 2012 - 08:34
Michael, intelligence is a source of constant pain when you’re faced with stupidity. My condolences for having to put up with idiots. Feel free to censor all the jerks and halfwits. They’re not worth the bandwidth, nor really their atoms for that matter…
February 22nd, 2012 - 17:45
Transhumanism is most certainly not dead. The blog may be (Though probably not), but transhumanism is slowly but steadily growing.
February 23rd, 2012 - 06:35
There are only two things that can make men of wit abstain from intellectual pursuits: women and drink. Judging by the length of the hiatus, Michael has taken up both. ;-P
March 5th, 2012 - 19:43
Let him have fun with both.
Women, drinking and progress/transhumanism.
What else is there in life?
February 23rd, 2012 - 13:26
MICHAEL!! No more posts?! Please blog s’more.
March 5th, 2012 - 19:44
Please come back Michael. We miss you.
March 10th, 2012 - 12:43
Don’t change wordpress themes. Write more articles. Please! We’re all going through withdrawal.
March 14th, 2012 - 20:12
Lol @ these comments… I love you all. :) Sorry I keep being busy. I’ll think about starting again.