IEET Life News

Randall Mayes Don’t become a Cyborg by Accident (literally) - It can be Fatal

2009-07-02T23:08:22+00:00

Imagine these hypothetical situations; you are injured and lying on the battlefield or are involved in a serious automobile accident and require a blood transfusion. What are the medical treatment options in these scenarios?

Kyle Munkittrick Transhumanism F.A.Q. : Is Aging A Moral Good?

2009-07-02T23:00:47+00:00

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 Revolution in 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.

Mike Treder The Difficult Questions of ‘Personhood’

2009-07-02T15:06:43+00:00

Every human is a person, right? And anyone we call a person must be a human, correct?

Well, no, not necessarily.

Ben Scarlato True Blood: Coexistence

2009-07-01T02:39:59+00:00

[Contains spoilers] True Blood is a fascinating HBO series about vampires living with humans, now in its second season. It follows Sookie Stackhouse, a human that has fallen in love with the vampire Bill Compton. While the vampires’ fight for marriage rights and the intense religious opposition reflects the gay rights struggle, True Blood’s depiction of an ageless species with several enhanced powers also provides an exploration of how society might deal with transhumans, and perhaps more importantly how society views such possibilities.

Science Fiction and Tech Innovation

2009-06-28T13:30:05+00:00

io9’s head honcho Annalee Newitz talks about the relationship of science fiction and technological innovation at Webstock09. “Just two decades ago, the Web and public internet were the stuff of science fiction. Creators like William Gibson, who coined the term “cyberspace” in his novel Neuromancer, helped define the terms of social life online, as well as inspiring many of the inventions (like smartphones) that we take for granted. But what is today’s science fiction telling us about where our technology will go tomorrow? I’ll talk about the stories today’s scifi creators are telling about the Web and internet, and how their ideas create a fantastical map of what people are seeking in their online lives.”

Annalee Newitz at Webstock 09 from Webstock on Vimeo.

Mike Treder Technoprogressives and Transhumanists: What’s the difference?

2009-06-25T15:41:11+00:00

Nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science—the so-called “NBIC” technologies—have the potential, especially as they converge, to radically transform both human beings and human societies.

Let’s consider a couple of questions raised by the powerful possibilities that loom in the near future.

J. Hughes On Democratic Transhumanism

2009-06-24T19:50:03+00:00

The political journal Re-Public has published two special issues on the politics of transhumanism. The first collection included IEET Executive Director J. Hughes’ article “Transhumanist politics, 1700 to the near future”. This second collection of essays includes IEET Fellow Riccardo Campa’s “Toward a transhumanist politics”, an interview with IEET Fellow Andy Miah on “Human enhancement and the accumulation of biocultural capital,” and this interview with Dr. Hughes about democratic transhumanism and technoprogressivism.

Nick Bostrom When Will Computers Be Smarter Than Us?

2009-06-24T18:53:10+00:00

Intelligence is a big deal. Humanity owes its dominant position on Earth not to any special strength of our muscles, nor any unusual sharpness of our teeth, but to the unique ingenuity of our brains. It is our brains that are responsible for the complex social organization and the accumulation of technical, economic and scientific advances that, for better and worse, undergird modern civilization.

Riccardo Campa Toward a transhumanist politics

2009-06-24T17:32:24+00:00

The central transhumanist idea of self-directed evolution can be coupled with different political, philosophical and religious opinions. Accordingly, we have observed individuals and groups joining the movement from very different persuasions. On one hand such diversity may be an asset in terms of ideas and stimuli, but on the other hand it may involve a practical paralysis, especially when members give priority to their existing affiliations over their belonging to organized transhumanism.

George Dvorsky Transhumanism and the ‘Intelligence Principle’

2009-06-24T01:32:18+00:00

“In sorting priorities, I adopt what I term the central principle of cultural evolution, which I refer to as the Intelligence Principle: the maintenance, improvement and perpetuation of knowledge and intelligence is the central driving force of cultural evolution, and that to the extent intelligence can be improved, it will be improved.”—Stephen J. Dick