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Technoprogressive? BioConservative? Huh?
Quick overview of biopolitical points of view


whats new at ieet
Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds 2010 Conference

Russell Blackford on “Science Fiction and Technoscience” @ World Science Fiction Convention

Visualizing Global Population Growth

Rethinking Nanotechnology

We All Live in a Virtual World

Crowd-Viewing the Moon: September 18

The Conversion of a Noted Ostrich

Resilience Science

IEET is Rocking the Intertubes

Skrying Excremental Fans from Idaho and Manhattan


comments

postfuturist on 'Is the libido merely a function of biological reproduction that will disappear in posthumans?' (Sep 5, 2010)

postfuturist on 'Can you see ahead 90 years?' (Sep 5, 2010)

Mike Treder on 'Can you see ahead 90 years?' (Sep 5, 2010)

veronica on 'Can you see ahead 90 years?' (Sep 5, 2010)

Abraham on 'Israel's Value to TransHumanism' (Sep 5, 2010)







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Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds 2010 Conference

About 30 persons attended the ASIM 2010 Conference,  satellite to the Singularity Summit 2010, San Francisco, August 16-17th. Besides the participants in San Francisco, about 25 remote participants attended online in Teleplace.

The videos of ASIM 2010 talks and discussions have been posted to blip.tv:

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Visualizing Global Population Growth

The world’s population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years — and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth. This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology (you’ll see).

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Andrew Maynard

Rethinking Nanotechnology

by Andrew Maynard

Back in July, the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) posted a Request For Information in the Federal Register for input to the next NNI strategic plan – to be published later this year. The closing date for comments was a couple of weeks ago now. I got mine in in the nick of time.

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Maria Korolov

We All Live in a Virtual World

by Maria Korolov

The IEET’s Mike Treder recently asked a loaded question: “If you could live in a world that was just the way you wanted it to be, with specifications you’d chosen, customized and personalized to meet your every need and fulfill your fondest desires, would you spend all your time there? Or would you prefer to stay here, in the real world?”

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Michael Gold

Crowd-Viewing the Moon: September 18

by Michael Gold

You are cordially invited to what might be called a worldwide moon-up.

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David Brin

The Conversion of a Noted Ostrich

by David Brin

Bjørn Lomborg has apparently changed his mind, and now thinks that global warming is the number one planetary crisis priority.

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Resilience Science

Future Tense on ABC

Many scientists around the world believe that we need to focus on ways of making our urban and natural environments more resilient. So what is the idea of resilience science? And how can it help deal with future environmental challenges? An interview with Dr Brian Walker, chair of the Resilience Alliance, Guy Barnett, researcher for Sustainable Ecosystems, and ecologist Paul Ryan.

Also: Future Governance  In a world where issues like climate change, population and migration are challenging the way we organise our societies. How should we address some of these issues? And what affect will they have on the future of governance?  listen | download (4.4MB)

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IEET is Rocking the Intertubes

In the last year our web traffic has doubled.

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J. Hughes

Skrying Excremental Fans from Idaho and Manhattan

by J. Hughes

With the US facing a possible double dip recession, and a resurgent far right political movement poised to sweep into Congress in the Fall elections, I found myself reading two strangely complementary dystopian novels about economic collapse. The first, Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse by Survivalblog writer James Rawles, is a manual for right-wing survivalist gun-nuts dressed up like a novel. The second, Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, is an example of contemporary literature at its finest. Although from nearly opposite ends of the social universe both novels see the spiraling economic and political crisis in the United States ending in the complete collapse of the Republic as we know it.

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Is the libido merely a function of biological reproduction that will disappear in posthumans?

Our new IEET reader poll asks whether the exercise of human sexuality someday could become obsolete.

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Plurality of IEET Readers Say Politics Will Always Matter

A clear plurality, though not a majority, of respondents to a recently concluded poll agree that no matter how far ahead we look, the exercise of politics will remain vital.

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V.R. Manoj

Conflicting Convictions of Personhood and Emulated Personhood

by V.R. Manoj

The concept of embodiment often does not offer a corresponding explanation for the variety of personalities that a human being expresses once within the Internet’s intricate social network.

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Predicting the Future in 1964

On the BBC program, Horizon, in 1964, scientist, author, and futurist Arthur C. Clarke looks ahead to tell us what’s coming.

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George Dvorsky

Helping the Chilean miners survive with space science

by George Dvorsky

Quite a story developing in Chile: the 33 miners who are trapped 700 meters underground will have to wait about four months before they are rescued. That’s obviously not going to be easy on the men who have been trapped for over 18 days already. Keeping it together psychologically, physically and socially for that extent of time will undoubtedly prove challenging.

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Transhumanism, the Singularity, and Mass Extinction

Singularity Podcast

Nikola Danaylov recently interviewed George Dvorsky for the Singularity Podcast.

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Doug Rushkoff’s New Book Out

Doug Rushkoff’s first book on interactive media, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, is now heading to the printer and available for pre-order.

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Activate!

Jamais Cascio, Senior Fellow of the IEET, examines the dynamics of Internet evolution, at the Activate2010 Conference in London, July 1.

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New Issue of JET Now Available

The latest issue (volume 21, issue 1) of the IEET’s Journal of Evolution and Technology, devoted to Nietzsche and European posthumanisms, is now complete. This issue takes off in response to an article on Nietzsche and transhumanism by Stefan Sorgner, published in March last year; it contains a mix of full articles and shorter responses by William Sims Bainbridge, Max More, and others.

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Andrea Kuszewski

The Neurological Orgasm

by Andrea Kuszewski

When we last spoke about sex, we discussed the neurotransmitters involved in pleasure and attraction, namely dopamine and oxytocin. Now let’s look a little deeper into the action of those neurotransmitters and how we can manipulate their action — to extend the neurological orgasm for as long as possible.

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George Dvorsky

There’s More to Singularity Studies Than Kurzweil

by George Dvorsky

I’m finding myself a bit disturbed these days about how fashionable it has become to hate Ray Kurzweil — because it’s not all about Ray.

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Philippe Verdoux

A Paradox of Enhancement

by Philippe Verdoux

Is it necessary first to enhance in order to decide whether or not enhancing is a good idea?

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Better Kids, By Design (The Movie)

Jim

As part of the promotion of the forthcoming film “Jim” the producers have set up a site for a genetic enhancement firm Lorigen Engineering.



On the Lorigen site they have a parody of the IEET’s concern about universal access to enhancement technologies:

Access

We believe that everyone has the right to secure their genetic legacy and build a better future for themselves and their children. We also know that the kind of assurance we offer isn’t cheap, and that for some of the less fortunate among us it may even seem unattainable.

That’s why we’ve come up with some innovative assistance programs to help people in these difficult financial times achieve their dreams. Our new Genet-Assist® financial aid packages can help you design the child of your dreams within the budget you can afford. Our “Future Earnings Metrics” can help to determine the potential economic output of your enhanced child so you can make the tough decisions with confidence. In fact, we’re so confident in the predictive power of this new system that we’ll even help finance your package by taking equity out of your child’s projected value in the form of a loan and applying it toward the design and birth processes. And if that’s still not enough, we’re working with members of Congress right now on a new federal assistance program that will help you to defer the interest and offset some of the costs through tax credits and rebates. All so you can rest assured that your child’s future is secure and bright.

Not exactly what we have in mind when we talk about “access.”

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Kris Notaro

Zombies, Human Sonar, and Transhumanism: an Interview with Rutgers Professor Katalin Balog

by Kris Notaro

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Katalin Balog, an Associate Professor at Rutgers/Newark. Prior to her current position she taught at Yale for 10 years. Prof. Balog is primarily a philosopher of mind and psychology though her interests intersect with metaphysics and philosophy of language.  Her interest spans both Western psychology (cognitive and evolutionary psychology but also psycho-analysis) and Eastern (especially Buddhist) psychology. She is currently working on problems related to the nature of consciousness, personal identity and free will.

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Hank Pellissier

Israel’s Value to TransHumanism

by Hank Pellissier

Imagine this sci-fi scenario: A small tribe with unique literature, customs and myths believes they’ve been “chosen” for a glorious destiny. But they’re driven out of their native land, forced to wander the globe for aeons, persecuted and annihilated, until they’re impelled by a utopian novel to return to their homeland. They name their new city after the inspirational book and their country becomes a technological powerhouse… but still, they’re surrounded by enemies. They wage eternal war, they hover between hope and apocalypse… their contributions to humanity are astounding but they continue to fear total extinction. Familiar? Of course. I’ve described Israel and the Jews.

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Ben Scarlato

Why We Need to Cheat Darwin

by Ben Scarlato

Last year, JET published Kristi Scott’s fascinating article Cheating Darwin: The Genetic and Ethical Implications of Vanity and Cosmetic Plastic Surgery, which analyzed the implications of cosmetic plastic surgery (CPS) for relationships and genetics. It suggested that since “what one sees is not necessarily what one will get in regards to DNA” that “there is a responsibility on the part of the individual to disclose any previous CPS.” However, there are many other instances where we misrepresent our genetics or interfere with evolution. These range from other cosmetic enhancements, to medicines that allow the unhealthy to survive and the infertile to reproduce. But if we want a better future, we need to become comfortable with bending the principles of evolution to our will, and understand the risks and rewards of doing so.

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George Dvorsky

Making brains: Reverse engineering the human brain to achieve AI

by George Dvorsky

The ongoing debate between PZ Myers and Ray Kurzweil about reverse engineering the human brain is fairly representative of the same debate that’s been going in futurist circles for quite some time now. And as the Myers/Kurzweil conversation attests, there is little consensus on the best way for us to achieve human-equivalent AI.

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Ben Goertzel

AIs, Superflies, and the Path to Immortality

by Ben Goertzel

Why do we suffer poor health, disease, and limited healthspan? 

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Milan Cirkovic

Anthropic Shadow: Observation Selection Effects and Human Extinction Risks

by Milan Cirkovic

(by Milan M Cirković, Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom)  We describe a significant practical consequence of taking anthropic biases into account in deriving predictions for rare stochastic catastrophic events. The risks associated with catastrophes such as asteroidal/cometary impacts, supervolcanic episodes, and explosions of supernovae/gamma-ray bursts are based on their observed frequencies. As a result, the frequencies of catastrophes that destroy or are otherwise incompatible with the existence of observers are systematically underestimated. We describe the consequences of this anthropic bias for estimation of catastrophic risks, and suggest some directions for future work. DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2010.01460.x

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Technoprogressive Disaster Preparedness Pt2

Changesurfer Radio

Dr. J. chats with Aton Edwards, executive director of the International Preparedness Network (readyforanything.org) and author of Preparedness NOW! They discuss simple steps to prepare for disasters, the types of threats to think about, and technologies that might help mitigate risks. Part 2 of 2.

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Technoprogressive Disaster Preparedness Pt1

Changesurfer Radio

Dr. J. chats with Aton Edwards, executive director of the International Preparedness Network (readyforanything.org) and author of Preparedness NOW! They discuss simple steps to prepare for disasters, the types of threats to think about, and technologies that might help mitigate risks. Part 1 of 2.

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