1. A Note From Dr. J.
2. IEET News
3. Articles
4. Multimedia
5. Events
A NOTE FROM DR. J.
Mike and I had another very productive pow-wow down in New Haven Wednesday. We’re looking at projects and priorities for the next couple of years, revising our literature, and preparing to approach philanthropists for support to kick our act up a notch. If you have funding sources in mind that you think we should approach please let one of us know. Mike and Linda are cranking out that NSF grant proposal as I write.
Mike has also been stirring the pot this month eh? His essay on personhood was comment-bait for right-wing Christians, his thoughts on Peter Thiel’s disturbing Randian hostility to democracy generated frothy debate about the history of hierarchy and the state, and his summary of Singularitarian thought irked a few of the S^ faithful. Our blog subscriptions have been climbing daily since Mike started writing for Ethical Technology, and I really have the sense that we are building a technoprogressive community.
It may be time to start kicking that community up a notch. I’ve spent the last seven years trying to organize local transhumanist groups through the WTA/Humanity+, while building the IEET as a political thinktank. But the growing IEET community suggests that it may be time for there to be local IEET or technoprogressive study groups, cells, covens, whatever. Let me know if you would be interested in meeting IEETers/technoprogressives in your area face-to-face.
Although Mike has been generating a lot of the comment-bait, another metric for our site is search term link-bait. This month Kristi’s piece on plastic surgery and the Jon and Kate show, plus Ben Scarlato’s piece on Battlestar Galactica and True Blood, sucked up about 25% of all the search engine hittage. I know Mike is a little leery of my enthusiasm for pop culture criticism, wanting us to be all serious and stuff. I have my rap about how Frankenstein and Gattaca are biocon cudgels pulled out uncritically to smack down technoprogressive ideas, and how we need to engage culture makers and consumers about the use of biopolitical tropes in pop culture. But attracting all those unsuspecting eyeballs to subversive messages about our glorious future of socialized life extension drugs and postgender sex in virtual worlds, when they were just trying to find some juicy gossip? Priceless.
Speaking of pop bioculture, I just stayed up to 3am last night to finish Robert Charles Wilson’s wonderful Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America. Spoiler: there is no technology in it beyond the 19th century’s. It is set in a United States in which the radical Christian sect known as Dominionists (yes, they exist) have been able to establish a theocracy in the U.S. when we run smack into peak oil collapse. The protagonist is an escaped endentured servant, who is best friend to a tragic atheist, evolutionist Philosopher who has the misfortune of being the nephew of the murderous President of the United States. Wilson’s depiction of a quasi-feudal United States, and of the mindset of a writer who is very smart but limited by the collapse of scientific knowledge and Enlightenment values, is chillingly and hilariously spot-on. Highly recommended, and makes an excellent companion to Brian Slattery’s Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America, which also deals with the re-introduction of slavery in a post-Peak Oil U.S. I’m finding that apoco-fiction is just the all-is-change-and-indeterminacy/don’t-be-attached narrative mantra I need in these times. But they also, as they intend, make me want to fight like hell for the Enlightenment even if the Dominionists do surround our family compound and threaten to sell my kids to the sugar cane plantations in Nunavut.
Finally, give us some feedback on the space policy that Ben hammered out. We’re trying to put up some texts to sketch out the parameters of a loose, cosmopolitan, internationalist technoprogressive policy platform. We want to hear what you are thinking about politics and policy.
Transmission closed.
J.
________________________________
IEET NEWS
Yes, let’s go to space! (Jul 22, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/poll20090722/
In a recently concluded poll, IEET readers overwhelmingly supported human/posthuman expansion into space.
Crossed Genres Interview with IEET’s Athena Andreadis (Jul 18, 2009) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/andreadis200907182/
Athena Andreadis, Associate Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, author of To Seek Out New Life: The Biology of Star Trek, and IEET Fellow, talks about human-hybrids, werewolves, settling on other planets, and human evolution both past and future in this interview posted at Crossed Genres.
Defining ourselves as TP, H+, or other (Jul 14, 2009) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/poll20090714/
In a recently concluded poll, almost half (49%) of IEET readers identified themselves as Technoprogressive and Transhumanist, while 24% called themselves Transhumanist (H+) only, and 12% said Technoprogressive only.
Life Inc. video dispatches and audiobook available (Jul 3, 2009) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/lifeincd09/
IEET Fellow Doug Rushkoff is posting brief videos and MP3s encapsulating key concepts from his Life Inc for de-corporatizing our lives, abandoning the speculative economy, and rebuilding both commerce and community from the bottom up.
Blackford and Schuklenk interviewed about 50 Voices (Jul 3, 2009) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bsi50v/
The Examiner conducted a very nice interview with IEET Fellow Russell Blackford, and his co-editor Udo Schuklenk, about their new volume 50 Voices of Disbelief
IEET Readers Cool Toward Geoengineering (Jun 25, 2009) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090625b/
Only a third of IEET readers who responded to our recently concluded poll agree that geoengineering is a good idea and should be started as soon as possible. Almost half (47%) of respondents are “on the fence” and believe that more study is needed before they can say for sure, while a small but significant percentage definitely oppose it.
JET - issue 20(1) now complete (Jun 23, 2009) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/jet20090622/
Issue 20(1) of JET is now complete, with Jamie Cullen’s article on the Chinese Room thought experiment, plus reviews of Watchmen and Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True.
________________________________
ARTICLES
Randall Mayes: In Defense of Patenting DNA: A Pragmatic Libertarian Perspective (Jul 26, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/mayes20090726/
Although biotechnology patents existed prior to the 1980s as the biotechnology era officially began, they soon became a divisive public policy issue. Perhaps a culture war issue is more appropriate as the free market approach of using DNA patents in biomedical research is under fire from strange bedfellows, a bioconservative-technoprogressive axis. The bioconservative criticisms are on moral grounds and the technoprogressive criticisms for economic reasons based on values.
Ben Scarlato: Technoprogressive Thoughts on Space Policy (Jul 24, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/scarlato20090724/
Marking the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, we present some thoughts on a technoprogressive approach to space policy. One of the IEET’s projects is to begin a discussion among technoprogressives about the parameters of technoprogressive policy ideas, using our “Technoprogressive Policy Wiki”. The policy wiki is outlined, but empty, and we have provided our interns with some parameters for how to begin filling it in. The goal is not to express “the IEET’s position” on any specific topic, but to explore our own internal agreements and diversity about policy topics, while pointing to relevant websites, documents, and policies. Ben’s piece here on space policy was developed after conversation with the executive director, and then review and extension by the IEET Fellows and staff. Like the rest of the wiki we expect it to continually evolve. We present it here for further critique and extension before we add it to the policy wiki. - J. Hughes
Mike Treder: Transhumanism as Religion (Jul 24, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090724/
Do transhumanists hold a set of beliefs that effectively offer an alternative to traditional religions? And if so, is that necessarily bad?
Kyle Munkittrick: On the Importance of Being a Cyborg Feminist (Jul 23, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/munkittrick20090723/
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.
Mike Treder: Can you see ahead 90 years? (Jul 22, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090722/
Give us your best guess about the state of the world in the year 2099.
Marcelo Rinesi: Cyberwarfare is for Individuals, not States (Jul 22, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rinesi20090722/
We are used to scale being the telltale characteristic of state involvement in warfare. Individuals can go on shooting sprees, and terrorist cells can put bombs, but only states can engage in large-scale warfare. But, as most metaphors of the ‘cyber-’ kind, this intuition breaks down with so-called cyberwarfare.
Mike Treder: Luck of the Draw (Jul 21, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090721/
If you had been born with your exact genetic makeup, but in another time and place, would you still have achieved whatever success you’ve had? Is the happiness you’ve gained mostly a matter of effort and determination, or do you owe a lot of your accomplishments to a fortunate but accidental combination of timing and location?
Kyle Munkittrick: Is Anti-Aging a Moral Good, continued: Response to Pigliucci (Jul 21, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/munkittrick20090722/
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.
Mike Treder: Implanting a Telescope Inside the Eye (Jul 21, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090721b/
A tiny telescope, already approved for use in Europe, can be implanted in one eye to help people with an advanced form of macular degeneration. The device takes the place of the natural lens.
Marcelo Rinesi: Harry Potter and the Negotiation Table (Jul 20, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rinesi20090721/
There’s a dark magic in every negotiation table. No matter what the stakes — political, economical, personal — there’s a sinister spell worthy of a Voldemort clouding minds and making what should be impossible a daily occurrence.
Mike Treder: No More Libertarians (Jul 19, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090719/
Can you remember when libertarians stood for something good? Okay, maybe you can’t, but let’s at least acknowledge the arguably reasonable notions that libertarianism once represented.
Athena Andreadis: Eldorado Desperadoes I: Of Mice and Men (Jul 18, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/andreadis20090718/
About a week ago, the Internet went wild with the announcement that a “fountain of youth” drug had been found that extends life by about 10%. I picked a site at random and read the report, knowing full well what I would find buried somewhere in the story. Sure enough, there it was, tucked at the end of a paragraph halfway down: the study was done on mice.
Mike Treder: Singing the Singularity (Jul 16, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090716/
Like many a useful concept, the Technological Singularity has become over-invested with emotion, ideological leanings, and tangential agendas. Can its value be recovered?
Jamais Cascio: The Desktop Manufacturing Revolution (Jul 15, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20090715/
The end of the current production-manufacturing economic model may be on the horizon. But what if nothing’s ready to replace it?
Mike Treder: Reliving Apollo 11 (Jul 14, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder200907142/
Where were you on July 20, 1969? Many of us can recall exactly where we were and what we were doing when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon. (Of course, a good number of our readers probably were not even born then.)
George Dvorsky: A pill for longer life? (Jul 14, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dvorsky20090714/
A drug commonly used in humans to prevent transplanted organs from being rejected has been found to extend the lives of mice by up to 14%.
Mike Treder: Should off-Earth expansion be a high priority for humanity? (Jul 14, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090714/
Modern humans have walked the Earth for about 200,000 years. In that time, we have colonized, inhabited, and “tamed” diverse environments on many continents. Unfortunately, our heavy footprint has seriously impacted the planet and fundamentally altered the biosphere. We have destroyed rainforests, depleted fisheries, burned huge amounts of fossil fuels, sucked water aquifers dry, and given Earth a fever in the form of global warming. So, should we stay here and work to repair or mitigate the damage we’ve done? Or should we try to move most of the human population off-Earth and let the planet heal itself?
Mike Treder: Climate Change Explained (Jul 10, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090710/
Predictions of melting ice caps, receding glaciers, thawing permafrost, rising sea levels, longer and more frequent droughts, hyper-powerful storm systems, species depletion, refugee migration, disease outbreaks, economic disruption, and other catastrophic results are becoming more plausible with each passing year. Unless something changes very fast, the future does not look very bright.
Harold Brackman: Martine Rothblatt’s The Apartheid of Sex 15 Years Later (Jul 8, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rothblatt20090708/
Martine Rothblatt’s former history professor at UCLA, Dr. Harold Brackman, has written a forward for the new edition of her The Apartheid of Sex.
Kristi Scott: Jon & Kate plus Plastic Surgery (Jul 8, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/scott20090708/
I have watched Jon & Kate plus 8 since the beginning. For those of you who don’t know this is a show about a mother and father who had a set of twins and then a set of sextuplets, totaling eight children. For those of who are wondering why I am doing a two-part musing of this show and don’t like reality TV I say give it a chance, again. There is a lot to see in reality TV other than people making a debacle of their lives and I have watched my fair share of it.
Chris Phoenix: Draconian measures for molecular manufacturing? (Jul 8, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/phoenix20090708/
If molecular manufacturing has to be controlled, how much of society needs to be controlled to accomplish that?
Mike Treder: Self-Designed Evolution (Jul 7, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090708/
A lecture given by Stephen Hawking and reprinted in Scientific American has been gathering a lot of attention recently in cyberspace.
George Dvorsky: The ‘end of science’ my ass (Jul 7, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dvorsky20090707/
The reports of the death of science have been greatly exaggerated.
Roko Mijic: Will becoming a yokel improve your life and save the planet? (Jul 7, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/mijic20090707/
(Response to Edward Miller’s “How to Redesign our Communities for the Internet Age” on open source ecology.) If we are to reliably produce good ideas about changing the world here in the blogsphere, then we must prune out the bad ideas; open source ecology is a bad idea if ever I saw one.
Mike Treder: Dropping Bombs (Jul 6, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090706/
Barack Obama is in Moscow this week, holding talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and—perhaps more importantly—with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is regarded by many as still holding the crucial keys of power inside that nation’s opaque political structure. In any case, the leaders are discussing, among other things, nuclear disarmament. Between them, Russia and the United States possess more than 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads. And so, any negotiations that can lower those numbers significantly can only be viewed as positive.
Edward Miller: How to Redesign our Communities for the Internet Age (Jul 3, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20090702/
(IEET intern Edward Miller is guest blogging at Sentient Developments this month.) There is a long list of crises that we need to face and I won’t waste time boring you by listing them. As our brightest minds admit they were wrong, I hope that I can say, without qualification, that big changes in our thinking are required. Unfortunately, we haven’t made that “Change” even though we now have some new faces in power, and a bunch of old faces out of business or in prison.
Randall Mayes: Don’t become a Cyborg by Accident (literally) - It can be Fatal (Jul 2, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/mayes20090702/
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?
Marcelo Rinesi: From Space, Watts, Bits, and Dreams (Jul 2, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rinesi20090702b/
Space travel is very cheap. There’s no friction in the vacuum of space, so once you get something to move, it just keeps moving without spending any energy. The problem lies in getting things away from the gravity well of a planet.
Kyle Munkittrick: Transhumanism F.A.Q. : Is Aging A Moral Good? (Jul 2, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/munkittrick20090702/
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.
Marcelo Rinesi: Postapocalyptic Gardens (Jul 2, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rinesi20090702/
Growing your own food might be fun, but it’s not the best survival strategy.
Mike Treder: The Difficult Questions of ‘Personhood’ (Jul 2, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090702/
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 (Jun 30, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/scarlato20090630/
[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.
Mike Treder: Progress on the Technoprogressive Wiki (Jun 30, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090630/
What is a ‘technoprogressive’? What do they believe? And what the heck’s a ‘TP Wiki’??
George Dvorsky: Exploring transhumanist themes in Battlestar Galactica: Caprica (Jun 30, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dvorsky20090630/
Good news for Battlestar Galactica fans: the new Caprica series is excellent. I finally caught the two-hour pilot and was quite impressed with the new direction. If this first episode is any indication, this is going to be a provocative and fascinating series—one that will touch upon many topics near and dear to transhumanists, including artificial intelligence, whole brain emulation, consciousness transfer, virtual reality and even immortality.
Jamais Cascio: Hacking the Earth (Jun 29, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090629/
Some of the most thoughtful work on the topic of climate change appears in Jamais Cascio’s new e-book, Hacking the Earth. Cascio is a Bay Area futurist who worked with Global Business Network during the 1990s and is currently a research affiliate at the Institute for the Future, a global futures strategist at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
Mike Treder: Technoprogressives and Transhumanists: What’s the difference? (Jun 25, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090625/
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 (Jun 24, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20090623/
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.
Ben Goertzel: AI And What To Do About It: Invest in human obsolescence (Jun 24, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/goertzel20090623/
Of all the amazing technologies on the brink of creation, one has implications far beyond any others: the establishment of superhuman artificial intelligence, or AI.
Nick Bostrom: When Will Computers Be Smarter Than Us? (Jun 24, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bostrom20090623/
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 (Jun 24, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/campa20090622/
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’ (Jun 23, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dvorsky20090623/
“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
________________________________
MULTIMEDIA
Planetary Praxis (Jul 26, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/novak20090726/
Dan Novak teaches about The Sixties, philosophy and futurism at the University of Rhode Island. A veteran of the spiritual counterculture and the political Left, Dan talks with Dr. J. about globalization, spirituality, the Marxist writer Ernst Bloch, and the concept of a “planetary praxis,” uniting personal spiritual growth with global social change. (MP3)
Proclaiming Four Environmental ‘Heresies’ (Jul 25, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/brand20090725/
Stewart Brand, who helped usher in the environmental movement in the 1960s and ‘70s, has been rethinking his positions on cities, nuclear power, genetic modification and geoengineering. This talk at the US State Department, a foretaste of his major new book, is sure to provoke widespread debate.
The Ethics of Health Insurance (Jul 24, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/moyers20090724/
During almost 20 years inside the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter saw for-profit insurers hijack the U.S. health care system and put profits before patients. Here, he speaks with Bill Moyers about how those companies are standing in the way of responsible health care reform.
Technology is Political (Jul 21, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/casciofl0907/
More snippets of the FreedomLab interview with Jamais.
Augmented Reality and Ethical Futurism (Jul 19, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/casciobtr0907/
Jamais Cascio talks to John C. Havens about Augmented Reality, the intersections of emerging technologies, environmental dilemmas, cultural transformation, The Semantic Web, and the ethical implications of technology and media moving forward. (45 min)
Capitalism, for Dummies (Jul 19, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rushkoffli0907/
Is capitalism just an elaborate shell game, an attempt to sell economic growth as a grand Ponzi scheme?
Doug Rushkoff on the Colbert Report (Jul 19, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/colbert20090718/
Douglas Rushkoff discusses the downfalls of operating the world like a corporation and how to weaken corporate influence.
Real Terminators (Jul 19, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascioti0907/
Jamais talks to That’s Impossible about “real terminators.”
News of the Future: Atheism, IQ, Longevity, Sperm (Jul 18, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/csr20090725/
Atheists are smarter. Purpose in life predicts longevity. The coming crisis of aging and arguments for the Longevity Dividend. Artificial sperm: a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle? (MP3)
News of the Future: Bad Thoughts (Jul 18, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/csr20090718/
Why trying to suppress bad thoughts make them worse. Lying takes brain work, but truth doesn’t. What the Supreme Court confirmation hearings should be asking (enhancement, uplift, cognitive liberty, etc.) What do Americans think about science and climate change today? (MP3)
RIP Walter Cronkite (Jul 17, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cronkite20090717/
On this 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, a fitting tribute to a great journalist who will be sorely missed.
The Nanotechnology Revolution (Jul 8, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder200907082/
A distinguished panel of guests, including IEET Managing Director Mike Treder, explain the benefits—and risks—of this powerful technology that could be here sooner than most expect.
Science Fiction and Tech Innovation (Jun 28, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/newitz20090628/
io9’s head honcho Annalee Newitz talks about the relationship of science fiction and technological innovation at Webstock09.
Systemic Theory on the Inevitability of World Government (Jun 23, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/stiwg02/
Ohio State Political Science professor Alexander Wendt lectures in 2002 on why he believes a one state world is inevitable.
TransAlchemy interviews Mike Treder, Part 1 (Jun 23, 2009)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090623/
Part One of a lengthy interview with IEET Managing Director Mike Treder.
________________________________
IEET SPEAKER EVENTS
Blackford @ Anticipation, the 67th Worldcon
Montreal, Canada
August 6-10
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/blackford20090806/
Andy Miah on Climate Change and Nanotechology
Daejeon, South Korea
August 20-23
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miah20090820/
Andy Miah @ International Symposium of Electronic Art
Ulster, Northern Ireland
August 26-29
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miah20090826/
de Grey @ SENS4
Cambridge, UK
September 4-7
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/aubreysens4/
Andy Miah @ Bionic Health
London, UK
October 1
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miahbh09/
Aubrey de Grey, Ben Goertzel @ Singularity Summit
New York, NY, USA
October 3-4
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/singularitysummit09/
Natasha Vita-More on Human Enhancement at Ciencia Viva
Lisbon, Portugal
October 10
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/vitamore20091010/
Treder on “Humanism and Transhumanism”
Philadelphia, PA
October 25
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder2009071/
Aubrey de Grey, Ben Goertzel @ BIL:PIL 2009 Healthcare Innovation Conference
San Diego, CA USA
October 30-31
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bilpil09/
Vita-More on “Transformative Human: radically enhancing/extending life”
Melbourne, Australia
November 26
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/vitamore20091126/
Nick Bostrom on “The State of the Enhancement Debate”
Philadelphia, PA USA
December 2
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bostrom20091202/
_______________________________
SUBSCRIBE
Blog
http://feeds.feedburner.com/EthicalTechnology
EMERGENCE - IEET newsletter
http://ieet.org/mailman/listinfo/ieet-announce
IEET daily news feed list
http://ieet.org/mailman/listinfo/ieet-news
IEET Biopolitics of Popular Culture list http://ieet.org/mailman/listinfo/ieet-images
IEET Longevity Dividend list
http://ieet.org/mailman/listinfo/ieet-life
IEET Catastrophic Risks/Secure Future list http://ieet.org/mailman/listinfo/existential
Contact:
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
http://ieet.org
Executive Director, Dr. James J. Hughes
Williams 229B, Trinity College
300 Summit St.
Hartford CT 06106 USA
Email: director @ ieet.org
Phone: 860-428-1837
________________________________
Emergence encourages submissions for publication. Please send submissions to: director@ieet.org. Submissions will be reviewed by the IEET staff, and final determinations regarding publication are at the sole discretion of the IEET.