This is an issue that comes up quite often: is it inappropriate to describe Robin Hanson as an extropian or singularitarian transhumanist, for example, given his conspicuously transhumaist ideas, citations, and associations, even if he disapproves that moniker for whatever reasons? Sometimes there would seem to be fairly cynical public relations considerations driving the resistance to such labeling: Nick Bostrom has created successive institutions for the elaboration and organization of transhumanist ideas and campaigns with more or less the same concerns and many of the same players, but from the World Transhumanist Association to the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies to the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute each has retreated from the explicit transhumanist label and the more obvious and extreme paraphernalia of sub(cult)ural enthusiasms attaching to his abiding preoccupations in bids for more mainstream funders and more respectable attentions. But, then again, sometimes a scholar will dip a hand into the transhumanoid stream of techno-fetishistic True Belief without necessarily partaking of it. Would it be appropriate to describe scholar Andy Miah, who writes about prosthetics and both medical and athletic subjecthood, as a transhumanist -- not only because of his topic, but because he addresses his topic to interested transhumanists?
And what about me? The technoscience topics that concern me have often overlapped with those of transhumanists. And for good reason: I've been a pretty vociferous critic of futurism and transhumanism for over twenty years. But I have engaged with actual transhumanists quite directly, and often in their discursive spaces and publications. To this day I publish my unfuturism at the World Future Society, after all. Early on, I was quite friendly with a few comparatively more scholarly transhumanist-identified socialists and often meliorated the ferocity of my criticisms in the give-and-take of debate in the hope of dissuading them of the worst of their techno-fetishism, eugenicism, consumerism, and death-denialism.
But how should these topical continuities and affiliations impact people's proper sense of my discursive and cultural vantage? I am not one who thinks the story ends with whatever an author declares their positioning to be: there are logical entailments, cultural signals, citational relations, historical associations, unconscious symptoms that shape objective assignments of ideological and authorial positioning of which an author is often imperfectly or incompletely or incorrectly aware.
@TheAlexKnapp You're not the problem, obviously. After years of exposing extreme futurist sub(cult)ures (transhumanism/singularitarianism) 1
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@TheAlexKnapp my more recent work is revealing pathologies in prevalent neolib futurological/think-tank methods, scenarios, extrapolation. 2
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
Ten years later people still look up what the futurist said. Admittedly, they do it to laugh… @TheAlexKnapp @docfreeride @dalecarrico
— Sam Mikes (@sammikes) April 8, 2015
@sammikes @TheAlexKnapp @docfreeride Recently futurists have eschewed prophet model, now claim instead that they "fail interestingly," fyi.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico even Kurzweil? I should dig up the debunking of him I wrote ca. 2000. The only self-described futurist I follow now is @ramez
— Sam Mikes (@sammikes) April 8, 2015
@sammikes @ramez Both Kurzweil and Ramez are transhumanists, which means robot cultists. No, I was talking about so-called "professionals."
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico @sammikes I don't call myself a transhumanist. Find the term highly divisive & misleading. Hardly ever talk about robots. Best.
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
@ramez @sammikes Interesting, do you think the application of that term is always misleading? That is, is anybody a transhumanist?
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
I raise this point here and elsewhere because it is pretty commonplace for transhumanists to retreat from exposures of particularly ridiculous entailments and associations of their views by declaring "transhumanism" altogether too dynamic and heterogeneous to be tied to any of its themes or theses or public figures, however characteristic they may be, and yet then proceed to celebrate and identify with transhumanism and make claims in its name nonetheless as if it were a perfectly legible and continent phenomenon. I actually don't think that is what is happening with Naam, whose retreat from the transhumanist term seems to me more a public relations matter from our conversation.
You are the author of "More Than Human: Embracing the promise of biological enhancement"? (A rather transhumanist theme, yes?) @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
Do you now regret accepting the 2005 HG Wells Award for Contributions to Transhumanism, from the World Transhumanist Association? @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
Are you still a fellow at IEET, founded by transhumanists Nick Bostrom and James Hughes? @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
Does saying it is "divisive" to attribute a transhumanist label to you mean it is uncomfortable or untrue? Are you now a critic? @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
People do change, you have interesting things to say on some topics, I'm just curious if you've now re-assessed transhumanism. @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico I'm the author of that book. I remain enthusiastic about the use (with some care) of technology to improve the human condition.
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico You won't find the word 'trasnhumanist' in the book, though. For a reason. I think it creates a false separation from public.
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico In general, seems to me that most people want technologies that improve health, capabilities, etc if they're safe & affordable
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
It's called healthcare; and you don't have to join a robot cult or indulge futurist hyperbole to advocate it (indeed best not to) @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico 'Transhumanist' creates an aura of weirdness around a set of technologies that, if they arrive, will eventually seem normal.
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
One wishes transhumanists would wait to describe fancies as "technologies" until after they actually exist to be talked about. @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico An example is IVF. Once 'test tube babies'. That's a bit like 'transhuman'. Now quite normal. That's why I don't use the word.
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
"use... of technology to improve the human condition" Bostrom's (sanewashing) FAQ definition of transhumanism (as you know). @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico Oh, I thought I'd come up with that one myself. Maybe Nick borrowed it from me, or vice versa. It's what I mean, at any rate.
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
Are you claiming transhumanists had anything to do with the introduction or distribution of IVF or other actually-existing ARTs? @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico No. That was an example of how biotech is initially viewed as weird. (As is the 'transhumanist' word.) Then becomes normalized.
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
FYI, transhuman-"enhancement" discourse aka eugenics isn't just "weird"; likewise "uploading" is an incoherent notion, not "weird." @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
Transhumanists like to dismiss criticisms of their pseudo-scientificity and con-artistry as "timidity" or yuck-factor emotionalism. @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
Transhumanism IS a legible discourse with generic assumptions, citations, figures, frames, cynical PR evasions notwithstanding, yes? @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico Oh, Dale. Don't you remember how much you liked my book? http://t.co/djx94a0tjJ pic.twitter.com/JhFwkjey5m
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico Indeed, you basically called out the reason that I don't like the word 'transhumanist'. pic.twitter.com/FATZpMNkbo
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
You might note that I was associating Naam here with the very transhumanist term he eschews, and also that I repudiate as transhumanist the phrase "more than human," which is the title of his book. All this in this passage in which he thinks he has discovered me agreeing with him.
But I was critiquing the whole premise of transhumanism, while you were (and I suspect are) *mobilizing* that discourse. @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
But the thrust of your response is correct: I am still paying for being too nice early on to transhumanists, thinking them educable. @ramez
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
For an idea of what I am talking about here, my post Unperson discusses the period during which IEET re-published some posts from Amor Mundi (as the World Future Society does now), and my post Technogressive: What's In A Name discusses the transhumanoid appropriation of a term which I once used myself but then dropped because I did not want to seem to endorse their misuses of it.
In my experience transhumanism invest qualified scientific change with hyperbolic fancies to attract attention, deny feared mortality.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
@dalecarrico Now work calls. Must finish a talk for tomorrow morning. Another time.
— Ramez Naam (@ramez) April 8, 2015
Very Serious.
@ramez Good luck to you. Still interested in exchanging substantive critiques of transhumanism with you, if indeed you have them (as I do).
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 8, 2015
I noticed that some few folks who identified as futurists and transhumanists were favoriting and retweeting Naam's side of our exchange, and followed up the conversation with some reflections:
After my exchange w- @ramez seems many futurists/transhumanists regard example of IVF somehow means transhumanist discourse is legitimate 1
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
That new medical techniques do emerge and are sometimes adopted after initial perplexity hardly means every imagined therapy will do. 2
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
That new useful consumer appliances occasionally appear doesn't render irrelevant critiques of marketing as repackaging stasis as novelty. 3
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
And none of this touches the deeper critiques of transhumanist discourses in which: 4
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
one: "enhancement" is advocated as if there is agreement in advance as to what would is regarded as "enhancement," 5
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
@dalecarrico though enhancement is ALWAYS enhancement to WHOM? to WHAT ENDS? at WHAT COST/RISK? 6
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
@dalecarrico two: uploading "info-selves" is often regarded as a longevity strategy tho' a picture/scan/profile of a self ISN'T that self. 7
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
@dalecarrico This confusion is embedded in problematic digi-reductive assumptions about consciousness, intelligence, selfhood, life, etc. 8
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
three: Transhumanists often seek to reframe diseases associated with aging to aging itself as a disease, a rhetorical not medical gambit. 9
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
Transhumanists had nothing to do with the development, distribution, or education about IVF (or any other actual medical therapy), 10
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
their recourse to IVF as sanewashing for their eugenic and death-denialist techno-fetishism obscures much more than it clarifies. 11
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
The problem with transhumanist wish-fulfillment fantasizing is not that it is "weird," but that it is pseudo-scientific and reactionary. 12
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) April 9, 2015
1 comment:
> [I]s it inappropriate to describe X as an extropian or singularitarian
> transhumanist, for example, given his conspicuously transhumaist
> ideas, citations, and associations, even if he disapproves that
> moniker for whatever reasons? Sometimes there would seem to be
> fairly cynical public relations considerations driving the
> resistance to such labeling. . .
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/08/28/singularity_transhumanism_humanity_what_word_should_we_use_to_discuss_the.html
-----------------
Singularity or Transhumanism: What Word Should We Use to Discuss the Future?
by Zoltan Istvan
Aug. 28 2014
Singularity. Posthuman. Techno-Optimism, Cyborgism. Humanity+.
Immortalist. Machine intelligence. Biohacker. Robotopia.
Life extension. Transhumanism.
These are all terms thrown around trying to describe a future in
which mind uploading, indefinite lifespans, artificial intelligence,
and bionic augmentation may (and I think will) help us to become
far more than just human. They are words you hear in a MIT robotics
laboratory, or on a launch site of SpaceX, or on Reddit’s Futurology
channel.
This word war is a clash of intellectual ideals. It goes something
like this: The singularity people (many at Singularity University)
don't like the term transhumanism. Transhumanists don't like
posthumanism. Posthumanists don’t like cyborgism. And cyborgism
advocates don't like the life extension tag. If you arrange the
groups in any order, the same enmity occurs. All sides are wary
of others, fearing they might lose ground in bringing the future
closer in precisely their way.
While there is overlap, each name represents a unique camp of thought,
strategy, and possible historical outcome for the people pushing
their vision of the future. . .
The word transhumanism has also long been in use, pushed by philosophers
like Max More, David Pearce, and Nick Bostrom. However, until recently,
it remained mostly a cult word, used by smaller futurist associations,
tech blogs, and older male academics interested in describing radical
technology revolutionizing the human experience. Two years ago, a
Google search of the word transhumanism —- which literally means
beyond human -— brought up about 100,000 pages. What a difference a
few years makes. Today, the word transhumanism now returns almost
2 million pages on Google. And dozens of large social media groups
on Facebook and Google+ -— consisting of every type of race, age group,
sexual orientation, heritage, religion, and nationality -— have transhuman
in their titles. It’s also the term that I’m backing, even though I’m
not sure it will win out. . .
====
Things have come to a pretty pass
Our romance is growing flat,
For you like this and the other
While I go for this and that,
Goodness knows what the end will be
Oh I don't know where I'm at
It looks as if we two will never be one
Something must be done. . .
Vanilla vanella chocolate strawberry
Let's call the whole thing off. . .
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