Should We Promote Transhumanism Or Stop It?

[voldemort_11]

Transhumanism means modifying the human species via any kind of emerging science, including genetic engineering, digital technology, and bioengineering. The focus is on using prosthetics and other modifications to enhance, rather than compensate for, normal human functions.

Transhumanism is a cultural and intellectual movement that believes we can, and should, improve the human condition through the use of advanced technologies.

One of the core concepts in transhumanist thinking is life extension: Through genetic engineering, nanotech, cloning, and other emerging technologies, eternal life may soon be possible. Likewise, transhumanists are interested in the ever-increasing number of technologies that can boost our physical, intellectual, and psychological capabilities beyond what humans are naturally capable of. Transhumanists use implants to modify their body and seek to also modify human longevity, brain power, and senses.

[Old_Geezer]

Judging from the OP; I think any proposed change/treatment/whatever should be debated separately to agree the morality of it.

But it isn't something to dismiss out of hand. If there are no accepted moral objections to something, then unless good reasons can be put forward to prevent it, who has the right to say to someone they can't enhance their abilities ?

[vascop]

Go for it, I say. That's how we arrived at where we are now - mostly good. Think of Hawking - just one example. Others have restored sight and hearing etc. Don't listen to the 'playing god' types, we'd still be living in the stone age if we listened to them. Think of all the people with birth defects we could help. onward and upwards!

[atalanta]

"eternal life may soon be possible" - er, no, it won't. Not soon, not ever.
The trouble with fancy technologies which may benefit the human race is that they are going to be very very very expensive, and only the richest people will be able to have them. The gap between the transhumanist "haves" and the non-transhumanist "have-nots" could end up destroying humanity altogether.

[vascop]

atlanta I agree that eternal life is a very very long way off, but I don't agree with your downbeat assessment of new technologies. They are always expensive at first.
Cheer up.

[TranquilElectron]

I don't agree with the fact that eternal life may soon be possible, because no matter how advanced we'd get, I don't think we're powerful enough to go against nature, we're beings which in the end have no choice but to leave this world and that's solely based on the energy. You may argue saying that the energy which we need to survive after our supposed 'death' which basically defines eternal life could be provided by technology, I agree, but how long?
Nothing lasts forever. If we'd ever be able to modify brain power and senses, and this if gotten into the wrong hands can destroy us. In the end, it's a nice movement, but at the same time dangerous.

[vascop]

We go against nature all the time so I don't agree with that proposition. When we save people's lives we are going against nature. Danger is the stuff of life. Don't be too tranquil!

[vascop]

When we save people's lives we are not really going against nature because it's our nature to try to save lives, but your phrase ''going against nature'' has a strangely religious sound to it. Please don't bring that into this discussion.

[vascop]

If by going against nature you mean using science to save peoples lives and alter things then we do it all the time thank goodness.

[vascop]

Nature is by no means perfect and we can always find ways to improve things.

[voldemort_11]

@atlanta even my concerns are the same. In the status quo itself there is a huge barrier between the rich and the poor so wont these technologies which will definitely be expensive widen this barrier? Aren't we giving the rich too much of power and means to dominate over the poor?

[Hypognosis]

Living forever is, in some ways, irresponsible. By continuing to eat, you deprive a newborn, somewhere, the ability to eat.

If, however, you are the head of an ongoing research program, which, year on year, continues to assure food surpluses, such that no-one goes short of a meal, no matter how great the population becomes, then your continuance - the preservation of your knowledge, wisdom and benevolence - could be justified.

However, by this stage, you will have entrenched a hideous application of the principle of meritocracy: everybody struggling to prove their worth to society, for the right to have the machines kept switched on.

Sounds like a Sci-Fi trope but I can't think of any examples, at the moment.

[AstonMiller555]

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