This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This has virtually nothing to do with transhumanism except insofar as both involve technological advancement and thus feature in science fiction and futurism.
This has little to do with transhumanism except insofar as both involve altering your body with future technology. Transhumanism is centrally about making the human condition better, not sidegrades like becoming the other sex.
This is a small part of transhumanism in that it is a specific speculative method for using current technology to survive long enough to take advantage of possible future transhuman technology.
This is the only part of your post about a central aspect of transhumanism.
When people are dying of some disease like cancer, or when their family and friends die, they don't want it to happen. The longevity aspect of transhumanism is just the same thing but thinking more long-term. Maybe you think you'll gladly commit suicide when you hit 80, but actual 80-year-olds don't seem inclined to do that. And certainly people don't seem to prefer death to "culture shock". Sometimes people make peace with death, but this seems to have more to do with having to accept something you can't change or it being your only remaining escape from suffering than actually being happy with it. They also don't like it when their strength or eyesight fails them, or when routine parts of life become painful or difficult. Transhumanism says that we should use technology to fix those problems if we can, the same way we have used technology to fix other perennial problems of the human condition like starving to death or nearsightedness or being eaten by wolves.
There are other aspects of transhumanism besides life extension, though as the most pressing concern it is the most prominent. Intelligence enhancement would be the second-most prominent, and is a natural extension of how we value the contributions of genius scientists/etc. and do things like implement universal education to help children be successful and contributing members of society. And then minor stuff like giving yourself extra senses or superstrength or whatever is cool but not actually important, so it often features in fiction but rarely comes up in actual transhumanist writing.
Changing from a sex to another per se may not be the sort of objective upgrade championed by transhumanism, but changing from "constrained by your biology at birth" to "able to modify your biology as you see fit" definitely is -- a central part of transhumanism, even.
More options
Context Copy link
This rings rather hollow when both opponents and supporters of the transgender movement see the link to transhumanism. This is where I bemoan that so much of my information intake being hours upon hours of non-CTRL+Fable podcasts, but there was even some manifesto written in the 90's explicitly advocating for promoting transhumanism by way of transgenderism.
Also, I thought transhumanism is centrally about transcending the limits imposed on us by nature. By the logic of utilitarianism any change you make will be "improving your condition" because you wouldn't have done it otherwise.
People say a lot of things. There are people who will assure you that transgender ideology is either the culmination or feminism or incompatible with it. Spend any time reading SJW or transgender communities talk about fiction and you'll find them headcanoning tons of random stuff as actually about transgenderism. But if you read either prominent historical transhumanists or modern prominent transhumanists like Nick Bostrom (co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, now named Humanity+) there is little or no interest in transgenderism, except incidentally insofar as transhumanist technology might make body modification in general much easier.
I think that's more an economic/libertarian principle (rational choice theory?) rather than the logic of utilitarianism, utilitarianism doesn't say anything about whether people make good choices. Whichever principle says that because people are close to the consequences of their own choices and are self-interested they make better decisions for themselves than distant decision-makers like the government. But yes, providing more choices is generally an upgrade in the sense that it allows people to choose the better option, at least if the choice is easily reversible and provides rapid and clear feedback. ("Becoming a meth addict" is a choice enabled by modern technology, but having that option available is generally not an upgrade. Similarly grocery stores are much better than government meals when it comes to things like choosing food you like, but still struggle at tasks like increasing long-term health.) But the upgrade provided by having sidegrade choices available is much smaller than the upgrade provided by having the choice to continue living, or by granting objective capabilities such as higher intelligence, so it is those that transhumanists focus on.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, I didn't touch on intelligence, cognitive enhancements but that seems a logical consequence. I would argue that there's some connection between the mindset of your stricter definition and my broader outlook, though I accept it may not be the target of current thinking. They share some of the same features as a cognitive displacement, and have the same problem of finite transcenders. If it were to happen, then what? How to other perennial problems disappear when a threshold of technology makes something possible, how does this solve energy problems, global warming? Is it just luxury, lifestyle practices akin to luxury beliefs?
Global warming isn't a 'real' problem. It's a grift by climatologists, aiding a bigger grift by money that seeks to use the hammer of environmental laws to get even more money. There's no risk of people dying out or giant environmental catastrophes. Whatever changes may occur absolutely pale in comparison with e.g. ice ages and such. In fact, we're overdue an ice age, it'd be rather funny if we eventually found out we must do some warming to prevent a new one.
And yes, most problems would disappear if people were smarter. Nuclear power, for example, could get us 100x of our current energy production at zero carbon use. And if the median IQ was 150, running all those reactors wouldn't really be a problem.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link