One of the biggest letdowns for me about the film Wall-E was that all of the robots, save the evil navigator, were in some way visually anthropomorphic. They had hands, eyes, voices, that were unmistakably humanish. Pixar’s great mascot, Luxo Jr., managed to be lovable without these traits. There is a certain extra level of magic involved in making a great character that is utterly unrecognizable as human.
When I was in undergrad, a professor asked our whole class a strange question. The question was strange because it seemed totally out of context, but I think he had a point, so I present it here as a worthy thought experiment.
Sex, on its own, in the wild, natural and unadorned, is still complicated. Don’t believe me? Look at a peacock or a bird of paradise. Salmon die after they procreate. Sea slugs penis joust. Now throw in evolved human biology, history, culture, technology, and science and you have a real disaster on your hands.
Transhumanism spans a huge swath of intellectual territory, straddling bioethics, philosophy, science fiction, engineering, and computer science. Throw in conspiracy theories and cyberpunk nihilism and you have all the ingredients for Deus Ex.
Say that I knew that medicine had advanced to the point where I could reasonably expect to live to be 350 years old, with the first two decades, of course, going to maturation, and the last two decades resembling our current aging process. What would I do with all of that time?
The old cliché that the “future is not written” is an allusion to free will and the indeterminate nature of the self. Invoking hope and courage, the implicit corollary is “for we are in the process of writing it.” We may yet, it seems, create progress in spite of the looming obstacles before us.
Prosthetics are amazing. Aimee Mullins and Oscar Pistorius are living examples of how a disability can become an opportunity not just for success, but for super-human ability.
I have been lucky enough to swim with dolphins twice in my life. Once it was as a “swim with dolphins” experience in Mexico where I was pushed around by the dolphins in an awesome little display of power and warned not to “pet them on the tummy, or they might get horny, and, by extension, violent.” It is a strange thing to be cautious not to arouse a cetacean.
Ratatouille is a fantasy, but a fantasy so close to reality that the fantastic bits almost go unnoticed. The moments where the film asks us to suspend our disbelief are so few and so minor that we forget the film is about a talking rat who can cook. Remy’s unbelievable intelligence is what creates the conflict for the whole story.
My family has the tradition (as do a lot of other families, I think) of watching The Muppet Christmas Carol at some point the week of Christmas. I got to overthinking things per the usual and now am worried about whether or not The Great Gonzo could cast a vote.
The human sex drive is complicated (duh). It is closely tied with mental processes, both biologically and by association within our culture, that we often forget how simple hormonal or physical “problems with the plumbing,” as it were, can mess things up.
In keeping with the theme of talking about my favorite TV shows under the pretense of some sort of analysis, I’d like to talk a little bit about Fringe.
I really, really like the show Glee. I like it because it stops pretending that people who live in small cities in western and mid-western states are somehow more wholesome than their metropolitan counterparts. I like it because it exposes the high school ruling class for the terrified, soon-to-be-townie losers they usually are. I like it because it admits high schoolers have sex and drink and smoke weed and still manage to function. I like it because it obliterates the myth that marrying your high school sweet heart is a good idea. I like it because it is the sunshiniest, saccharine dark comedy I’ve ever seen.
The Venture Bros. is one of those shows I don’t really laugh out loud at until the third or forth time I watch an episode. It isn’t because the jokes aren’t hilarious the first time, it’s just that there is so much awesome compressed into every moment I don’t have time to laugh. “Twenty Years to Midnight” is one of the few exclusions: the Grand Galactic Inquisitor’s ridiculous interjections still make me tear up from laughing so hard. My larger point is that there is so much going on in any given episode, some stuff can get lost in the mix.
District 9 is one of those films that, when you examine it in pieces, it doesn’t seem that amazing. If you were to ask me about any specific piece of the film: the action, the cinematography, the effects, the acting, the writing, etc. I would say that it might fall in the “good” or “pretty good” category. As a whole, however, the film manages to constantly combine those “good” elements into great scenes and chains so many great scenes together that a truly wonderful and unique story results.
Transhumanism’s relationship with postmodern philosophy and critical theory is a strange one. For example, Nick Bostrom’s influential “A History of Transhumanist Thought” spans centuries, covering the gamut from Utnapishtim to the President’s Council on Bioethics, but makes little mention of those who radically challenge the core Enlightenment narrative upon which he builds his history. Figures like Nietzsche, Marx, and Donna Haraway do all receive a nod in Bostrom’s essay, including Haraway’s cyberfeminist motto, “I’d rather be a cyborg than a goddess,” but their ideas go unanalyzed. Of course, the context for these thinkers is often ignored and their works simply mined for epigraphs and potent, argument-punctuating lines such as Haraway’s.
Dr. Massimo Pigliucci critiqued my arguments against aging on his blog, Rationally Speaking. Pigliucci is a trained philosopher, so I’m going to go into hyper-academic mode for a while on this post. If you’re into long-winded, nuanced logical deconstructions of arguments and overly dry chest-beating, please read on. If not, check out these awesome warning signs of the future from Anders Sandberg. Make your choice now.
Transhumanism’s niche (some would say “cult”) status causes those of us who support it to answer a lot of the same questions over and over. Those questions were asked in droves on Marginal Revolutionin response to my three-landmarks of transhumanism effort. I’m going to do my best to answer them here. Cowen himself actually asked one I hadn’t heard before, so I’m going to let that one ruminate the longest. Let’s start with the classic: aging.
There is an absolutely stellar article in the New York Times about Dr. Richard Wrangham’s essay “Catching Fire.” Go read it now. If you finish it and want to know even more, like I did, go read the Slate review as well.
One of the great criticisms of the transhumanist movement is that it will only benefit wealthy, First World citizens and that the ones who need the most help, the impoverished and marginalized - including their children - will be forgotten. This is already a partial problem with current science and technology. Worse, some of those who try to help end up coming up with absurd solutions that aren’t really what the poorest and majority of disenfranchised need. Then again, some solutions, like Dean Kamen’s slingshot (if it actually does what he says) are exactly what is needed.
If personhood ever becomes a basis for law, we will develop a set of rights structures for the stage between birth and personhood. Until then, we must understand personhood as a scale comprised of several traits. This scale is still being developed, but, as a concept, shows it’s usefulness over the reductionist “human species” as a category for rights. Just as our DNA doesn’t determine our identity and personality, neither should it determine our rights.
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