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 …

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Nine Reasons I’m Interested in Survivalism

I’ve become more interested in survivalism over the past few months, for a number of reasons.

1) Survivalism describes a “back to the basics” approach to survival and living that helps strip away (or at least make optional) the consumerism and other trivialities that tend to preoccupy the minds of modern city dwellers, which is refreshing. It’s also intellectually fulfilling because it’s a vast domain of knowledge with practical application. Smart people also tend to see new solutions to problems that many others do not see, so in an area where it’s easy to get up to speed and start having novel ideas, they benefit from the satisfaction of developing novel ideas that few if any people have thought of before and which can help others.

2) In today’s uncertain times, survivalism is especially appealing to generations growing up in periods of economic and geopolitical turmoil. Survivalism doesn’t have to be an all-out lifestyle change — even something as simple as growing food in your own backyard to supplement purchases from the supermarket can lead to better nutrition, …

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