Monthly Archives: August 2022

In 2004 the prominent political scientist Francis Fukuyama described transhumanism as the worlds most dangerous idea. In 2011 transhumanism was featured on the cover of Time magazine, under the headline: 2045, the year man becomes immortal.

In 2022, when was the last time you read about transhumanism? What was once a piercing roar has retreated to barely discernible background noise, writes George Dvorsky, a transhumanist writer who is the chairman of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, in a fascinating article in Gizmodo.

Its not so much that transhumanism has declined. Instead it has been normalised, Dvorsky muses. He quotes Anders Sandberg, an Oxford don who is one of the principal theorists of the transhumanist movement:

We live lives online using wearable devices (smartphones), aided by AI and intelligence augmentation, virtual reality is back again, gene therapy and RNA vaccines are a thing, massive satellite constellations are happening, drones are becoming important in warfare, trans[gender] rights are a big issue, and so on, he said, adding: We are living in a partially transhuman world. At the same time, however, the transhumanist idea to deliberately embrace the change and try to aim for such a future has not become mainstream, Sandberg said.

The link between transhumanism and transgenderism is strong, at least on the theoretical level. Transgenderism views the body as a malleable tool, sexuality as a limitation to be transcended. As Dvorsky observes:

Martine Rothblatt, the billionaire transhumanist and transgender rights advocate, took it a step further when she said, we cannot be surprised that transhumanism arises from the groins of transgenderism, and that we must welcome this further transcendence of arbitrary biology.

But there are other explanations for why transhumanism is no longer on the medias radar. One is scepticism and even hostility towards technology. Citizen surveillance, data theft, war drones, manipulation by social media, deepfakes, and so on have demonstrated that advanced technology has a dark side.

Transhumanist themes pop up in films but nearly always as feature of a dystopian future.

Plus, people are distracted by other causes climate change, war in Ukraine, conflict with China, financial crises Today we are having a serious problem with cynicism and pessimism paralyzing people from trying to fix and build things, Sandberg told Dvorsky. We need optimism!

Finally, politics, from Dvorskys point of view, has taken a nasty turn. The power of anti-vaxxers in Covid pandemic showed how hostile many people are to genetic manipulation of any kind. And the Dobbs decision has restricted reproductive rights, which is a key issue for transhumanists. Until these rights are established, it seems a bit premature to laud the benefits of improved memories or radically extended lifespans, as sad as it is to have to admit that, writes Dvorsky.

Continue reading here:
Whatever happened to transhumanism? - BioEdge

Thats an unholy trinity if ever I saw one: Bostrom, Musk, Galton. Theyre all united by terrible, simplistic understanding of genetics and a self-serving philosophy that reinforces their confidence in bad ideas. They are longtermists. mile Torres explains what that is and why it is badalthough you already knew it had to be bad because of its proponents.

As I have previously written, longtermism is arguably the most influential ideology that few members of the general public have ever heard about. Longtermists have directly influenced reports from the secretary-general of the United Nations; a longtermist is currently running the RAND Corporation; they have the ears of billionaires like Musk; and the so-called Effective Altruism community, which gave rise to the longtermist ideology, has a mind-boggling $46.1 billion in committed funding. Longtermism is everywhere behind the scenes it has a huge following in the tech sector and champions of this view are increasingly pulling the strings of both major world governments and the business elite.

But what is longtermism? I have tried to answer that in other articles, and will continue to do so in future ones. A brief description here will have to suffice: Longtermism is a quasi-religious worldview, influenced by transhumanism and utilitarian ethics, which asserts that there could be so many digital people living in vast computer simulations millions or billions of years in the future that one of our most important moral obligations today is to take actions that ensure as many of these digital people come into existence as possible.

In practical terms, that means we must do whatever it takes to survive long enough to colonize space, convert planets into giant computer simulations and create unfathomable numbers of simulated beings. How many simulated beings could there be? According to Nick Bostrom the Father of longtermism and director of the Future of Humanity Institute there could be at least 1058 digital people in the future, or a 1 followed by 58 zeros. Others have put forward similar estimates, although as Bostrom wrote in 2003, what matters is not the exact numbers but the fact that they are huge.

They are masters of the silly hypothetical these are the kind of people who spawned the concept of Rokos Basilisk, that an all-powerful artificial intelligence from the future might retroactively punish those who did not help bring about its existence. Its the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, where the many are padded with 1058 hypothetical, imaginary people, and you are expected to serve them (or rather, the technocrat billionaire priests who represent them) because they outvote you now.

The longtermists are terrified of something called existential risk, which is anything that they fear would interfere with that progression towards 1058 hardworking capitalist lackeys working for their vision of a Randian paradise. Its their boogeyman, and it doesnt have to actually exist. Its sufficient that they can imagine it and are therefore justified in taking actions here and now, in the real world, to stop their hypothetical obstacle. Anything fits in this paradigm, it doesnt matter how absurd.

For longtermists, there is nothing worse than succumbing to an existential risk: That would be the ultimate tragedy, since it would keep us from plundering our cosmic endowment resources like stars, planets, asteroids and energy which many longtermists see as integral to fulfilling our longterm potential in the universe.

What sorts of catastrophes would instantiate an existential risk? The obvious ones are nuclear war, global pandemics and runaway climate change. But Bostrom also takes seriously the idea that we already live in a giant computer simulation that could get shut down at any moment (yet another idea that Musk seems to have gotten from Bostrom). Bostrom further lists dysgenic pressures as an existential risk, whereby less intellectually talented people (those with lower IQs) outbreed people with superior intellects.

Dysgenic pressures, the low IQ rabble outbreeding the superior stockwhere have I heard this before? Oh, yeah:

This is, of course, straight out of the handbook of eugenics, which should be unsurprising: the term transhumanism was popularized in the 20th century by Julian Huxley, who from 1959 to 1962 was the president of the British Eugenics Society. In other words, transhumanism is the child of eugenics, an updated version of the belief that we should use science and technology to improve the human stock.

I like the idea of transhumanism, and I think its almost inevitable. Of course humanity will change! We are changing! What I dont like is the idea that we can force that change into a direction of our choosing, or that certain individuals know what direction is best for all of us.

Among the other proponents of this nightmare vision of the future is Robin Hanson, who takes his colonizer status seriously: Hansons plan is to take some contemporary hunter-gatherers whose populations have been decimated by industrial civilization and stuff them into bunkers with instructions to rebuild industrial civilization in the event that ours collapses. Nick Beckstead is another, who argues that saving lives in poor countries may have significantly smaller ripple effects than saving and improving lives in rich countries, it now seems more plausible to me that saving a life in a rich country is substantially more important than saving a life in a poor country, other things being equal. Or William MacAskill, who thinks that If scientists with Einstein-level research abilities were cloned and trained from an early age, or if human beings were genetically engineered to have greater research abilities, this could compensate for having fewer people overall and thereby sustain technological progress.

Just clone Einstein! Why didnt anyone else think of that?

Maybe because it is naive, stupid, and ignorant.

MacAskill has been the recipient of a totally uncritical review of his latest book in the Guardian. Hes a philosopher, but youll be relieved to know he has come up with a way to end the pandemic.

The good news is that with the threat of an engineered pandemic, which he says is rapidly increasing, he believes there are specific steps that can be taken to avoid a breakout.

One partial solution Im excited about is called far ultraviolet C radiation, he says. We know that ultraviolet light sterilises the surfaces it hits, but most ultraviolet light harms humans as well. However, theres a narrow-spectrum far UVC specific type that seems to be safe for humans while still having sterilising properties.

The cost for a far UVC lightbulb at the moment is about $1,000 (820) per bulb. But he suggests that with research and development and philanthropic funding, it could come down to $10 or even $1 and could then be made part of building codes. He runs through the scenario with a breezy kind of optimism, but one founded on science-based pragmatism.

You know, UVC, at 200-280nm, is the most energetic form of UV radiation we dont get much of it here on planet Earth because it is quickly absorbed by any molecule it touches. Its busy converting oxygen to ozone as it enters the atmosphere. So sure, yeah, its germicidal, and maybe its relatively safe for humans because it cooks the outer, dead layers of your epidermis and is absorbed before it can zap living tissue layers, but I dont think its practical (so much for science-based pragmatism) in a classroom, for instance. Were just going to let our kiddos bask in UV radiation for 6 hours a day? How do you know thats going to be safe in the long term, longtermist?

Quacks have a breezy kind of optimism, too, but its not a selling point for their nostrums.

If you arent convinced yet that longtermism/effective altruism isnt a poisoned chalice of horrific consequences, look who else likes this idea:

One can begin to see why Elon Musk is a fan of longtermism, or why leading new atheist Sam Harris contributed an enthusiastic blurb for MacAskills book. As noted elsewhere, Harris is a staunch defender of Western civilization, believes that We are at war with Islam, has promoted the race science of Charles Murray including the argument that Black people are less intelligent than white people because of genetic evolution and has buddied up with far-right figures like Douglas Murray, whose books include The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam.

Yeah, NO.

Link:
Who needs religion when you've got these clowns promoting bad ideas? - Freethought Blogs

Morals are on our side, science is on our side, the law is on our side, and the Nuremberg Code is on our side.

Thousands of people from many different countries gathered on Aug. 20, 2022 in Nuremberg, Germany to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Nuremberg Code. Many activists, physicians, musicians, and others came to speak or perform during the afternoon at an event set up by the World Council for Health, whichwas set up on amultilingual livestreamso that viewers from across the world were able to join in.

The Nuremberg Code is a 10-point document highlighting a set of ethical research principles in experiments involving humans. Initially disregarded when the code was created in 1947, it has come into conversation in light of recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Vera Sharav, a medical doctor, Holocaust survivor, activist, and founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, was one of the speakers at the open-air event. She spoke about how human experimentation and eugenics never ended with Nazi Germany; how after World War II, thousands of Nazi scientists who operated closely with Hitler, were smuggled into the United States to continue their work.

These were brutal scientists, engineers, and technicians who actively participated in the human eugenics program during the Nazi era, she said, and they dont see people as humans. They legally infiltrated the United States and educated the next generation of scientists and taught them to be indifferent to humans, and ruthless. Sharav says that the reason President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex during his farewell speech was precisely because many people in the military and weapons sector were no longer interested in the basic rights of humanity.

She refocused the speech on modern times and said that this mode of thinking had never gone away; it has been passed down until today and applied during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were many inhuman aspects to the development of the vaccines, she said, and many of them violated the Nuremberg Code established decades ago, such as waves of mass testing, vaccination, and medical passport efforts.

Sharav drew parallels between the Nazi eugenics movement and the transhumanist theories being promoted today, especially by globalists. The opinion that humans are perfectible through electronic components and biotechnology is known as transhumanism, and many pandemic response measures were in line with this vision.

Another speaker was Dr. Rolf Kron, who came under heavy scrutiny in Germany because he was one of the first doctors to question the COVID-19 narrative. After speaking out against the official policies, he was woken up one day by the police who came and searched his house. This act, however, did not intimidate Kron, and for the past 15 months he has continued to speak out against the vaccine mandates among other things.

Kron said he knew many doctors who were fired because they had written medical certificates for patients exempting them from wearing a mask in public. Doctors in Germany, he said, were under strict scrutiny of the government and had no choice to obey the government because they would otherwise face unemployment, social scrutiny, and other forms of pressure. Doctors are now being looked at like criminals [if they put the wrong foot forward].

He called for an end to the medical tyranny as it seemed like a repetition of the medical offenses that led to the Nuremberg Code in the first place. He strongly reemphasized the codes as the baseline of scientific experimentation and that which should never be violated.

Although the Nuremberg Code is not officially a part of any law in the world, it is still enforced internationally, much like laws against slavery and piracy, said Mary Holland, the president and general counsel of the non-profit organization Childrens Health Defense. It is an international standard established by lawyers and doctors, and the importance thereof cannot be reemphasized enough, especially given the current situation, she said.

Dr. Holland says that although the current situation seems unappealing, it is still not too late. We have been winning for the last two years! The narrative that these injections work is over, [along with testing asymptomatic people and similar former regulations]. Dr. Holland highlighted how crucial the Codes are today, and how vital it is for us to fight back.

Morals are on our side, science is on our side, the law is on our side, and the Nuremberg Code is on our side.

Overall, the energetic event went on for the entire afternoon and hosted many more speakers from a multitude of nations as well as contributing professional musicians.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.

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The Importance of Medical Ethics Highlighted During the 75Th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Code - The Epoch Times

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Book critics Fiona Capp and Cameron Woodhead cast their eyes over recent fiction and non-fiction titles. Here are their reviews.

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Neil Balme: A Tale of Two MenAnson Cameron, Viking, $34.99

When former Richmond strongman Neil Balme contacted novelist (and Age columnist) Anson Cameron in 2020 and asked if he would be interested in writing his story, Balme chose well.

The result is not just the tale of a footballers life, but a thoughtful character study of an intriguing figure: a man of paradoxes and contradictions, a thug on the field with a history of violent episodes, but to those who know him a thinker, mild mannered, someone who goes his own way, but also a players player keenly aware of the collective of football itself.

Cameron covers his playing life, his coaching and key administrative roles at various clubs, plus the impact of football on his private life with sympathy, wit (he has a great turn of phrase) and the kind of intellectual inquiry his complex subject requires. A genuine cut above usual sports writing.

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RiggedCameron K. Murray & Paul Frijters, Allen & Unwin, $32.99

For all our nonsense talk of being an egalitarian country, Australia according to World Bank data is one of the most unequal in the developed world. Cameron Murray and Paul Frijters boil this down to something they call the game of mates, the title of their 2017 study, Rigged being an updated version.

In the nature of a parable, they invent a devious, corrupt villain called James, and an ordinary sucker, Sam, who indirectly foots the bill. But its a real-life tale of networks within networks. James works for a government department in land development, gets to know certain developers, jumps the fence and joins them armed with all his inside knowledge and contacts, resulting in massive government contracts.

Transport, mining, banking, COVID schemes that lined companies profits, you name it. The same principle applies.

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The WitnessTom Gilling, Allen & Unwin, $34.99

Much has been written about the infamous Sandakan death marches in Borneo during World War II, this latest study focusing on one controversial figure: Australian Warrant Officer Bill Sticpewich. Of the 2400 Australian and British POWs sent to Sandakan, only six escapees survived. Sticpewich was one of them.

Drawing on records and other texts (especially Tim Bowdens interviews with survivors), Tom Gilling creates a vivid picture of the brutality of camp life and sadism of the commander Captain Hoshijima. Sticpewichs evidence during war crimes trials was so compelling it sent Hoshijimi and others to the gallows.

But was he a heroic survivor or a collaborative opportunist out for himself at the expense of everyone else? The truth is possibly somewhere in between. Whatever, its a dramatic tale of war and survival.

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My Father and Other AnimalsSam Vincent, Black Inc., $32.99When Sam Vincent, a would-be writer in his 20s, offered to help out on the family farm just outside Canberra after his fathers hand was damaged in an accident, he could not have seen how events would unfold.

At first, he worked alongside his father, a sort of unpaid apprentice learning the trade, at the same time getting to know his father, warts and all. Then his mother suggested he needed a project of his own, which led to him becoming an orchardist, specialising in the Smyrna fig, which in turn led to grazier school and learning about holistic farming. Then, seven years later, his parents moved off the property, and he was suddenly in charge: a farmer, albeit a kind of accidental one.

True to his title, Vincent recounts it all in a droll, amused and bemused Durrell-esque style. Its also a window onto the new rural Australia.

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Every Version of YouGrace Chan, Affirm, $32.99

Set in a 2080s Melbourne ravaged by climate change, Every Version of You envisages a world where those who can afford it gel up and plug in to spend time on an unspoilt virtual planet known as Gaia. When the tech to allow a full upload into Gaia emerges, people choose to leave their physical bodies behind.

For Tao-Yi, her boyfriend Navin and their friends, the decision tempts and torments: Navin, plagued by ill-health, hopes to find release from suffering; Tao-Yi is left to wonder why shes so reluctant to surrender, as her friends upload themselves one by one.

With an intriguing blend of cli-fi, philosophy of mind and transhumanist themes, Grace Chans novel delivers striking science fiction steeped in absurdity and dystopian menace.

Grace Chan is a guest at the Melbourne Writers Festival.

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Cult ClassicSloane Crosley, Bloomsbury, $29.99

Sloane Crosley, author of the sharp-witted essay collection I Was Told Thered Be Cake, takes on the New York dating scene with a twist in her second novel, Cult Classic.

We follow the disgruntled editor of a psychology magazine, Lola, who is newly engaged to a devoted fiance, Boots, but might be developing an acute case of cold feet. Awkwardly, Lola keeps running in to her exes. With the first, outside a Chinese restaurant, she relights an old flame, but when she continues to run intoher exes again and again, something more bizarre than a coincidence is afoot.

Cult Classic is Twilight Zone-style speculative fiction that fuses acerbic dating memoir and digital media satire into a romantic parable with a neat twist.

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Isaac and the EggBobby Palmer, Headline Review, $32.99

This sensitive and assured debut novel from Bobby Palmer deep-dives into the perils of extreme grief. After the sudden death of his wife, Isaac Addy is in such anguish he finds himself on a bridge about to jump off. A nearby cry of suffering stays Isaacs hand; he heads into the woods and discovers Egg, a mysterious creature who starts as an inarticulate companion then evolves, ushering in an emotional transformation.

Isaac and the Egg could easily have been twee, but this unstinting study of grief is delivered with the seriousness of a fairytale. And while he uses a whimsical premise, Palmer is at pains to avoid sentiment and always has a well-judged flash of gallows humour at hand to leaven the novels bleaker intensities.

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HydraAdrienne Howell, Transit Lounge, $29.99

A young antiquarian, Anja, snaps at work and gets fired. She has a lot going on already: her mother has died recently and her husband left her after a hellish trip to Greece.

When Anja hits rock-bottom, shes drawn to an eerie sea change, using her inheritance to lease an isolated cottage by the sea. But it isnt long before she becomes convinced that shes not alone in the bush, that her every move is being watched, and tension builds as Anja begins to seek an unseen presence and confront the cause of her unease.

Adrienne Howell has written a paranoia-inducing modern gothic. It does suffer from the letdown of an uninspired reveal, but not before showing off the authors distinctly gothic vision and talent for creating suspenseful atmospherics.

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History of a hard man: Neil Balme memoir stands out from the pack - Sydney Morning Herald