CONTENTS

1. A Note From Dr. J.
2. IEET News
3. Articles
4. Multimedia
5. TechEthx News
- IEET-News List Posts
- Trans-Spirit List Posts
6. Events
- with IEET Speakers
- all events

Full Story...

I’ve been fascinated with the growth in public awareness recently regarding bionic athletes. It’s very interesting to watch something go from fringe and then mainstream. Almost a year ago, an article by Jamais Casico made me take a real look at what it is to be bionic when he talked about his cochlear implant The Accidental Cyborg. Since then, I’ve had a heightened awareness and intrigue for the topic. 

Full Story...

People often ask me for my definition of the technological Singularity.  More specifically, they want me to offer some predictions as to what it will actually look like and what it might mean to them and the human species.

Full Story...

Leon Kass, the scientific community frowns on your deathist shenanigans and paternalistic tomfoolery.  We will continue to denounce your anti-freedom, control-freak bioethical views until the day your theocon allies are booted out of the White House, which will occur on January 20, 2009.  Enjoy your eight months.

Full Story...

Harvard’s Michael Sandel argues in his book The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering that life is a gift and that we should accept the unbidden nature of this gift, working toward acceptance and solidarity with others rather than seeking unbridled mastery over human biology.  But is life properly viewed as a gift?

Full Story...

A parody of the tear-jerking Obama “Yes We Can” video.

Listen/View

Akansha is an aspiring scientist, philosopher and science journalist who joins us from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  She is currently completing her senior thesis on Alexander’s disease at the Waisman Center. 

The Fermi Paradox—if there’s other intelligent life in the galaxy, given how long the galaxy’s been here, how come we haven’t seen any indication of it?—is an important puzzle for those of us who like to think ahead. Setting aside the mystical (we’re all that was created by a higher being) and fundamentally unprovable (we’re all living in a simulation), we’re left with two unpalatable options: we’re the first intelligent species to arise; or no civilization ever makes it long enough. 

Full Story...

According to a little more than half of you internet addiction is for real, even if a little overblown.

Full Story...

There’s two kinds of people asking me about the economy lately: people with money wanting to know how to keep it “safe,” and people without money, wanting to know how to keep safe, themselves. Maybe it’s the difference between those two concerns that best explains the underlying nature of today’s fiscal crisis. 

Full Story...

Shannon Vyff is author of 21st Century Kids, an SF novel for kids. We talk about futurism, cryonics, social justice, calorie restriction, talking to kids about death, and teaching transhumanism in the Unitarian Universalist Sunday School program. (MP3)

Listen/View

Discussions of the implications of the augmentation of our biological bodies with prosthetic technologies can be found quite readily in the esoteric discourses of self-described transhumanists, social theorists and bioethicists.

Full Story...

CONTENTS

1. A Note From Dr. J.
2. IEET News
3. Articles
4. Multimedia
5. TechEthx News
- Existential Risks List Posts
- Trans-Spirit List Posts
6. Events
- with IEET Speakers
- all events

Full Story...

There’s been considerable media attention surrounding a recent breakthrough in the development of a male birth-control pill (MBCP).

Full Story...

Abstract: This article investigates the conceptual distinctions between therapy and various forms of human enhancement. It begins by proposing a typology of human enhancements in order to make more rigorous and grounded discussions about the distinction between therapy and enhancement. Three types of human enhancement are proposed: 1) engineering traits of accepted value, 2) engineering traits of contested value and 3) radical transhuman enhancements. Subsequently, the paper explores the distinctions between the ethical justifications that are advanced for therapeutic interventions, comparing them with human enhancements, concluding that the salient characteristic of health-related suffering enables enhancement to gain legitimacy from the perspective of traditional medical ethics. Finally, the paper considers a number of practical obstructions to the realization of radical transhuman enhancements. Specifically, it discusses procedural obstacles to approving experimental medical research for human enhancements, the likely commercialization of human enhancements that would ensue from their development, and the need to develop experimental medical interventions via animal models.
Recommended Citation

Miah, Andy (2008) “Engineering Greater Resilience or Radical Transhuman Enhancement?,”

Available as PDF here after registration

Products put together by a nanofactory (see here for some fun examples) can be expected to be far more powerful and sophisticated than today’s best-built products. 

Full Story...

This episode:

# An overview of my recent talk at the Center for Inquiry
# Discussing Twitter and Google Apps
# Part 3 of my Fermi Paradox talk: Possible solutions and next steps
# Why the male birth-control pill is so important for men; sorry, ladies—this pill isn’t about you

Listen/View

I have one thing to say: depopulation is not a global warming strategy.

Full Story...

Interested in developing the “technoprogressive” political perspective? Then join the the technoprogressive list.

Full Story...

Scientists, with the help of Buddhist monks and the Dalai Lama, are unlocking mysteries of the brain.

Listen/View

Transhumanist philosopher (and IEET Chair) Nick Bostrom desperately hopes that we never find signs of extraterrestrial life—advanced or otherwise.  Why? Because he understands the Fermi Paradox.

Full Story...

“Maybe there are only two sexes: men and mothers.” Alice Sheldon, writing as James Tiptree Jr. to Joanna Russ

Full Story...

If we are alone it may be evidence that we have sneaked past the huge hurdles in the way of any species becoming an intelligent star-faring civilization. Then again, we could still be extinguished at any moment. 

Full Story...

We need a crash development program for wind, solar, tidal, wave, geothermal - and possibly nuclear - energy infrastructures. Geo-engineering is too risky except as an absolute last resort.

Full Story...

The grand myth of environmentalism is that it’s all about saving the Earth. It’s not. The Earth will be just fine. Environmentalism is all about saving ourselves.

Full Story...

In 2004, I wrote a piece called “Transhumanism at the Crossroads,” which has been one of my most popular essays. It was originally published as part of my old “Eye of the Storm” irregular column on the Betterhumans site.

Full Story...

The IEET Board of Directors and I are delighted that the esteemed artificial intelligence researcher Dr. Ben Goertzel has accepted our invitation to become an IEET Fellow. Ben’s (partial) bio here.

Full Story...

Every now and then, someone suggests to me that, alongside the pursuit of Artificial Intelligence, we should also be pursuing “Artificial Wisdom”

Full Story...

I (J. Hughes) just returned from a wonderful conference on the history and future of the theory of evolution. 

Full Story...

Dungeons & Dragons made me a professional futurist.

Full Story...