When we asked “Do you think that there will be a cure for Alzheimers and other dementias by 2030?” only 8% of the 109 of you who responded were pessimistic.

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Our work on nonhuman personhood was cited yesterday in the New York Times Dot Earth blog, which led to snark from the Right, and lots of signups and likes on our Facebook page.

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We asked “Is addiction to Internet pornography a real thing?” Less than 20% of you thought Net porn was any more addicting than anything else.

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Fellows Kevin LaGrandeur and Stefan Sorgner are part of an international consortium of institutions working on the Metabody Project, investigating the role technology has on interrelatedness of embodiment and emotion.

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Although the quantified self movement has been getting a lot of attention within technoprogressive and transhumanist communities, appealing to the self-engineering mindset, not many IEET community members have started quantifying themselves. Two thirds either measure nothing about themselves, or only watch their weight. Only one in eight are using mobile health devices or apps to record facts about their bodies or minds.

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Four hundred people responded to the IEET poll on whether they were science fiction fans. More than half - 54%- said they were “canon-masters,” knowledgeable about science fiction from “H.G. Wells to Charlie Stross, Star Trek to Battlestar Galactica.”

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The IEET is looking for tech-savy, science, philosophy and political lovers to write essays and articles. If your looking forward to a technologically progressive future please contact us! This is a great opportunity to get your ideas about how to create a better world out there!

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The IEET is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Kevin LaGrandeur as a Fellow. Kevin is author of the 2012 cultural history of the idea of artificial intelligence in premodern thought, Androids and Intelligent Networks in Early Modern Literature and Culture (Routledge, 2012).

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We are pleased to introduce the four members of our revised IEET intern program: Jonathan Lin, Will Hiltman, George Bickers and Andrew Cvercko.

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This end of year appeal for support comes a little later than usual because I (J. Hughes) was rocked by the recent Sandy Hook school shooting, about 25 miles from my office at Trinity College. As a social scientist and public policy person I try to keep my eye on the big picture, the tens of thousands of people who are killed every day by violence, treatable disease, poverty and inadequate infrastructure.  I try not to let my proximity to some tragedies distract from the larger and more persistent needs of the world. But as a parent and someone with many small connections to Sandy Hook I was left stunned and tearful for days. And angry that the balance of forces in American politics has prevented us from having the simple and effective public policies around guns and mental health that have kept the incidence of gun violence and mass killings lower in other industrialized countries.

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The IEET grieves for the innocent children, staff and families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, CT USA. Our condolences to everyone effected by today’s tragedy. We need to reevaluate the culture of violence (including the amount of guns so readily available) in the United States, and help anyone who may be mentally ill as best we can.

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We asked “By 2100 what will the international political system be based on?”  More than half of you were optimistic that we would achieve some kind of democratic world government.

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Kris and Dr. J. are traveling to San Francisco tomorrow for the H+ events, so we’re calling the top hitters for November a day early.

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What did IEET readers peruse most fervently in October? 3D Printing articles by L. S. McGill took the top two slots, followed by anything and everything, from apocalyptic forecasts to Buddhist cognitive enhancement. Here’s the cream of the crop below:

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IEET Readers are split on the question “When Aspergers is curable, will parents be morally obliged to cure it in their children”? One reason readers may be split is because there is such a huge variety of personalities someone with Asperger syndrome can take on. It can affect how one acts towards others, however theres many cases where Asperger syndrome increases compassion. Who is to say what the social norm should be? There is such a broad “norm” for symptoms of Asperger syndrome that it takes great expertise to identify it in some people.

Therefore the “social norm” of everyday culture is not much different then some patients with Asperger syndrome. However, in the end modern culture can only learn from people who have been diagnosed who are proud that they have it and the benefits of having it. We might even want to add some aspects of the syndrome to ourselves for example the ability of some to focus just on one subject for a long period of time.

In a future world where every brain is enhanced however, someone born with a “normal” brain will be looked at like they have a “disability.” We may be more likely to learn from Asperger syndrome than to treat it.

From Wikipedia:

Autistic people have advocated a shift in perception of autism spectrum disorders as complex syndromes rather than diseases that must be cured. Proponents of this view reject the notion that there is an “ideal” brain configuration. and that any deviation from the norm is pathological; they promote tolerance for what they call neurodiversity. There is a contrast between the attitude of adults with self-identified AS, who typically do not want to be cured and are proud of their identity, and parents of children with AS, who typically seek assistance and a cure for their children.

This may also explain the split between the IEET readers.
392 readers responded to this poll

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Ben Hyink was a passionate transhumanist and secular activist, and an intern and intern coordinator with the IEET. He helped organize and lead the Humanity+ Student Network (H+SN) and the Chicago chapter of Humanity+, co-wrote the “Humanity+ Student Leadership Guide,”, and was the recipient of the 2007 JBS Haldane award for outstanding Transhumanist Student of the year. Having struggled with depression he ended his life last week.

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As of this morning millions of people in the Northeast of the United States are still without power, and many are stranded in homes damaged by flooding with transportation blocked by fallen trees. We hope you are all safe and restored as soon as possible.

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Gradually in the next few weeks, there’s going to be a shift in staffing at IEET. Hank Pellissier - the present Managing Director - is handing over those duties to long-time IEET contributor Kris Notaro.

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Humanity+ conference in San Francisco, December 2012, at San Francisco State University. IEET’s Executive Director James Hughes will speak at the event, along with IEET Fellows Jamais Cascio, Natasha Vita-More, and Ben Goertzel.

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The University of Minnesota’s Momentum magazine has featured IEET Jamais Cascio in its Fall 2012 cover article.  Cascio - “one of the most sought-after speakers in the world today” - discusses the future of government, jet packs, oil, urban infrastructure, and other topics.

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On October 1, Prof. Riccardo Campa - IEET Fellow, Chairman of the Italian Transhumanist Association, and assistant professor of sociology at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow - presented a lecture to post-graduate students of the State University of Milan, Biotechnologies and Transactional Medicine Department.

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Evan Selinger, IEET’s prolific new Fellow, has an essay entitled “Ethics Go Digital” in the October 2, 2012 issue of “The Chronicle of Higher Education.”

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What did IEET visitors read, watch and argue about in September?  The internet, transhumanism, politics, religion and much much more.

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Comment sections on many websites are filled with venomous invective, aggressive one-upmanship, cruel insults, and disrespectful toxicity. Bucking this trend, IEET offers - exclusively - Non-Violent Dialogue. “Buddhist Right Speech” is our ethical guideline. Today - September 25, marks the 100th day since this policy has been instated.

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Stefan Lorenz Sorgner is extremely productive. Recently he organized a conference in Dubrovnik, he is participating in an analysis of the film “Mensch 2.0 - Die Evolution in unsure Hand” and his most recent monograph is the subject of a symposium organized by the Nietzsche Forum in Munich.

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The Longevity Party - started by IEET contributors Ilia Stambler and Maria Konovalenko - already has chapters in 18 nations, after only two months of existence: Russia, the US, Israel, Finland, Georgia, Canada, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Mexico, Uganda, South Africa, Korea, Philippines, Singapore.

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IEET is sending a second shipment of LG cellphones and Blackberries to Madagascar as part of it’s African Futures Project, to elevate daily life there via techno-progress. The communication devices were donated by Roger Hansen of the Mormon Transhumanist Association.

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IEET Director Giulio Prisco will deliver a lecture titled, “A Spectre is Haunting the World: Is the Singularity Near?” at a conference titled, “The Voice of Science” on September 22 in Madrid.

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On September 11, Natasha Vita-More spoke at the “Enhancement, Emerging Technologies, and Social Challenges” conference, at the Inter-University Center in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

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A news article titled “Robots at War: Scholars Debate the Ethical Issues” includes comments by IEET Fellow Wendell Wallach, who is a scholar at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics.

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