Do you think modern medicine is on the brink of eliminating disease forever? Not quite yet, it seems, which is why health insurance will remain a necessity for at least the next few decades. But just because we need insurance doesn’t mean we should allow corporations to steal from the healthy to cheat the unhealthy.
If we take a long view of human civilization and history, it is hard not to be impressed by how far we have come. Sure, we could always do more, and yes, I’m as impatient as you for the next steps forward. But it doesn’t hurt once in a while to pat ourselves on our collective backs for what we’ve accomplished over the last few thousand years.
As previously noted, David Brin will be guest blogging on Sentient Developments this week. The first topic that David will be addressing is one that is near and dear to both of our hearts: biological uplift. To get you primed for this discussion I can recommend a number of articles, books and resources.
[Warning: contains spoilers for the Battlestar Galactica episode Islanded in A Stream of Stars] In some instances, one should cling to hope and keep fighting even when that hope seems lost. At other times, it is necessary to accept defeat and loss, or abandon a goal towards which substantial resources have been dedicated. Distinguishing between these two situations is the challenging, yet crucial element.
The IEET and the editors of the Journal of Evolution and Technology (JET) are pleased to announce the publication of two special issues of JET, one brought together by Sky Marsen with the intention of publishing a book on transhumanism, and the other a collection of papers from the IEET’s May 2006 Human Enhancement Technology and Human Rights conference at Stanford University. Together they represent the wide array of issues at play in the debate over human enhancement and our transhuman future, from the daily lived experience of pushing to maximize one’s potential, to the legal, political and philosophical arguments we will need to secure universal access to safe enhancement technologies. Enjoy!
Shocking, you say? How could I, an unabashed proponent of human enhancement, be opposed to seeing disabled athlete Oscar Pistorius compete at the Olympic Games?
Oscar Pistorius, AKA “Blade Runner”—the South African sprinter who uses carbon fiber prosthetics in place of the lower legs amputated as a child—has officially lost his bid to run in the 2008 Olympics.
Some deaf way wish to revolt against the hearing world and defend the autonomy of deaf culture. But not everyone has the luxury to revolt. For the unwilling deaf, there are now cochlear implants.
Mirror neurons are theorized to be, according to some of the more heavily popularized literature these days, neurons which activate in the primate brain upon observation of another individual performing an action.
The most voted option took into account a second-order effect of considering disability costs to society, namely the possibility that this could open a window for eugenic measures. This type of analysis is generally part of the IEET’s approach to the study of policy and technology, a sensitivity apparently shared by those who took the poll.
New poll: Should (legal, safe) nootropics be banned from academic tests?
Champions of electronic voting machines often tout their benefits for differently enabled citizens in particular. Although concerns about the underaccessibility of old voting systems are certainly legitimate (and overdue), too often this rhetoric of improved accessibility has actually functioned as a way of deflecting growing criticism of the extraordinary insecurity of many of the actual systems that have been put in place across the country.
“Here’s the posthuman rub: We are expanding our control into a vast number of realms that we previously had no choice but to submit to, stoically or otherwise.” - Erik Davis,
I have long been leery of the general term “enhancement medicine” to describe what are now (and will soon be in even more powerful forms) therapeutic practices of genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification.
I’m the kind of person who learns by doing. This blog is largely a place for me to think out loud as I figure things out and formulate my arguments and opinions. It’s not uncommon for me to change my mind about some things, or to be persuaded by someone else’s arguments.
In reading various discussions in various places recently, it has become clear that there is (as I feared) a bit of, shall we say, animosity between something that calls itself “bioethics” and something that calls itself “disability rights”. I am quite dismayed to see this, because I’ve been following a lot of the topics associated with these concepts and it did not really occur to me that there could be any contradiction or apparent rivalry between them.
I appreciate the work of the radical advocates for the “disabled” at Not Dead Yet, and I have learned quite a bit about morphological and lifeway diversity from their resources. (If you want to know the reasons why I scare-quote the term “disabled,” you can read my piece, Differently Enabled.) I am appalled when such perspectives get dismissed as always-only “disability extremism” or what have you by their opponents, even when I disagree myself with the views being trivialized in this way.
Bioethicists who work in health care are frequently called upon to make difficult decisions in often less than desirable situations. Thankfully, the steady introduction of new technologies provide ethicists, health practitioners and families with a variety of options. The trick these days is to choose the most desirable course of action. But the fact that most new technologies and the manner in which they are applied often appear shocking and radical at the outset makes ethical decisions even more difficult.
If anyone clicks on my profile, they might notice that I have “disability rights” listed as one of my interests. I think it is necessary to explain my position here. I do consider myself a “transhumanist” because that philosophy is closely in-line with the outlook I’ve developed independently of even learning of transhumanism—but I am not in favor of some of the more eugenic-like aspects of some transhumanist lines of thought.
Occasionally advocates for the “disabled” will find themselves making arguments in which they seem to suggest that there might be something somehow “genocidal” about a woman’s choice to end a pregnancy that might eventuate in a differently enabled child. Rarely, but sometimes, this is literally the—to me, dreadfully misguided—claim the advocate is actually making. But more usually when they are talking this way I think “disability” advocates are trying to get at a much more fraught and painful point that is simply terribly difficult to convey:
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