Wielded by an expert, the sharp sword of rationality cuts deep, exposing underlying layers of confusion, intellectual laziness, or willful misunderstanding in what might on the surface appear to be logical arguments.
I am proud to announce that this Sunday, November 8, the BIL Unconference Series will present its first ever SustainaBIL, taking place from 11 am to 7 pm at ASU’s SkySong facility in Phoenix, Arizona.
As a humanist I believe in the equal worth of all human beings. My humanist sentiments open my eyes to the problem of global poverty, the pervasiveness of patriarchy and the dangers of extremism.
Genetic testing is here, and getting cheaper by the month. But the fundamental problem with their application isn’t technical, but cognitive: most people are very bad at dealing with odds.
On this lazy Sunday afternoon (or evening in Europe—or Monday morning in Asia), we offer four new Links Of Required Clicking for your mandatory perusal.
We have all heard the term “Nutty Professor,” which brings to mind the highly intelligent yet socially inept individual; excelling in the academic world, yet failing miserably in the realm of common sense. Is there an evolutionary explanation for why this phenomenon exists?
As a political theorist who works on issues that intersect the biological sciences and medicine, I frequently get puzzled looks when I tell students and colleagues I am working on aging and longevity science. Their puzzlement is understandable, as these topics do not currently receive much attention in the discipline.
There are many different ways to arrive at a list of the top priorities a society should set for itself. One could set priorities based on the intuitions or “gut instincts” people happen to have at any given time. Or, alternatively, one could base priorities on the empirical data we have concerning what harms individuals and societies and what the magnitude of the benefits of mitigating such harms would be. I prefer the latter approach.
Continuing our extraordinarily popular series of LORCs (Links Of Required Clicking), we’re back again with a new quartet of links that you simply must click.
Freedom stands for something greater than just the right to act however I choose—it also stands for securing to everyone an equal opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Abstract: Aging, being a composite of innumerable types of molecular and cellular decay, will be defeated incrementally. I have for some time predicted that this succession of advances will feature a threshold, which I here christen the “Methuselarity,” following which there will actually be a progressive decline in the rate of improvement in our anti-aging technology that is required to prevent a rise in our risk of death from age-related causes as we become chronologically older. Various commentators have observed the similarity of this prediction to that made by Good, Vinge, Kurzweil and others concerning technology in general (and, in particular, computer technology), which they have termed the “singularity.” In this essay I compare and contrast these two concepts.
The healthcare debate is shockingly narrow. We have the do nothing crowd, the privatize it more crowd, the single-payer people, and the public option folks. On the more radical end of the mainstream debates are those calling for more general practitioners, preventive care/incentives, and co-ops. Of the bills pushing through congress now, I have a feeling the public option is the only one with any teeth, but there are a million other non-mutually-exclusive ideas which could be implemented.
Last week we brought you our first edition of LORCs (Links Of Required Clicking). Now we’re back with a new quartet of links that you simply must click.
This essay will be translated and made part of the materials at this meeting of Italian Catholics considering radical life extension and human enhancement.
Improved life expectancy across the developed and most of the developing world is one of the main triumphs of medicine. But although the expected lifetime of an individual is slowly increasing in most countries, the maximum lifespan isn’t.
In 2002, I wrote Broken Dreams, a guidebook for the Steve Jackson Games “Transhuman Space” role-playing game series. Broken Dreams covered global traumas such as conflict, social disorder, economic decline, and intellectual property. Part of the book concerned how various societies reacted to the big changes underway in the world, and in that section I included a brief description of a common response: Social Transition Stress Disorder, or STSD.
Bioethicists might prefer to be seen as wise non-partisan sages, dispensing timeless wisdom. But now, albeit with great reluctance, they are forced to take an active role in the increasingly divided biopolitical landscape.
Does religion have any proper role in education? Can faith-based teachings, whether conducted in school, at home, or in places of worship be of benefit to individuals and societies?
The healthcare debate has gotten so weird, I think it’s time someone (I guess me) says what’s actually going on. I do not presume to have the answers to all of these problems (well, actually I think I have most of it figured out) but all I mean to do is share what appears to be happening. It is bizarre. Let’s start simple.
The relevance of nearly all biogerontology research to combating aging is restricted to the potential for slowing down the accumulation of molecular and cellular damage that eventually leads to age-related ill-health. Meanwhile, regenerative medicine has been progressing rapidly and is nearing clinical applicability to a wide range of specific conditions. My view is that we are approaching the point where regenerative medicine can be used against aging. This would entail not retarding but actually reversing the accumulation of damage. If successful, this would obviously be a far more valuable technology than mere slowing of aging. However, in order to be successful it must be comprehensive, and some aspects of aging may seem impossible to address in this way. In fact, however, it seems that all types of molecular and cellular damage which contribute to age-related ill-health are realistic targets of regenerative interventions.
Andy Miah is the Renaissance man of the enhancement enlightenment. While best known for defending “doping” (performance enhancement) in sports, as a professor in Ethics and Emerging Technologies at the University of the West of Scotland, his work draws from law, philosophy, art, cultural studies, sociology, bioethics, human enhancement, social media, life-extension, ethical culture, climate change, synthetic biology, and artificial life. As if that isn’t enough, Miah says he’s now looking at architecture and the future, extraterrestrial ethics, and ideas about biocultural capital. (And just for fun, he’s also a graphic designer and film connoisseur.)
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