Transumanar

Considerations on the development of the transhumanist movement

I have written a previous version of the the note below, in Italian, for a discussion on the Italian Transhumanist Association mailing list. This revised version includes feedback from the many people who participated in the discussion.

The T word is slowly but steadily penetrating the collective consciousness, and Fukuyama’s statement on transhumanism as “the most dangerous idea in the world”, as well as less sophisticated but perhaps more widely disseminated statements, for example by representatives of the world’s religions, ensure that more and more persons everywhere on the planet try to understand what transhumanism is about by reading the sources. I think transhumanism is still in a phase where “there is no such a thing as bad press” (well, almost), so I welcome almost any attack, even some delirious hate pieces, with some pleasure. Furthermore, sometimes enemies can be directly useful: I believe Fukuyama’s definition of transhumanism - “A strange liberation movement has grown within the developed world. Its crusaders aim much higher than civil rights campaigners, feminists, or gayrights advocates. They want nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints. As “transhumanists” see it, humans must wrest their biological destiny from evolution’s blind process of random variation and adaptation and move to the next stage as a species” - is one of the best.

Of course the wave of attacks continue, for example Wesley J. Smith has recently stated that “we are out of our minds to follow [the transhumanist] course” in an article aptly titled ”Transhumanism on the March”. I am less optimist than Smith - I do not thinks we are seeing a Transhumanist March yet, but I hope we will see one soon.

I want our ideas to reach as many people as possible, in a clear and understandable way. Why? Because our worldview can give a sense of meaning of life, a vision of our place in the universe, peace and happiness. This has been the historic function of the world’s great religions and monolithic ideologies that, on the other hand, are now finally beginning to show some fatigue and soon will be completely unable to persuade people more and more culturally sophisticated and used to the scientific worldview. We should not forget that these are still a minority, but the trend is clear.

There are two things that I find very, very frustrating. One is that there are still few committed and declared transhumanists (The WTA has slightly more than hundred paying members), and the other is that we do not have sufficient resources (the current WTA’s yearly budget is less than 20.000 dollars). Comparing this with, for example, the Raelians, who have tens of thousands of paying members and a huge budget, it is clear that something is not working as it should. It is worth noting that the Raelian message is very similar to the transhumanist one, with an extra “value added” layer (I would say reduced), of UFO cr… nonsense. May the presence of this extra layer be what manages to capture people’s attention? Is there any lesson to learn? Without bothering aliens, there are so many bioluddite and fundamentalist groups (talibans of all religions) with deep pockets full of money donated by members and benefactors.

For example, the Center for Genetics and Society has an yearly budget of almost one million dollars and ten full time, paid managers and staff. Imagine what a transhumanist organization could achieve with such resources! There are many people in the world with plenty of disposable money, and wishing to see their money used to do something good. Of course, they donate according to their definition of “good”. Today there are certainly only few enlightened, “quasi-transhumanist” persons among the very rich, but there are some. I personally know some very wealthy persons who take transhumanist ideas seriously and would certainly at least consider a well targeted and justified funding request for specific programs, presented in a professional way. For each hundred persons who donate to fundamentalist religious or bioluddite sects there must be, say, five to ten who would donate to us. The challenge is identifying them, reaching them, and persuading them that we can use their money to do something good.

As far as fundraising is concerned, the most remarkable success stories in the transhumanist community are Aubrey de Grey‘s projects, with 8 millions dollars distributed between Mprize and SENS. This is certainly due to the fact that Aubrey and his team propose very well defined projects focused on the reduction and elimination of ageing, with measurable results. But there are many other transhumanist projects of this kind: first steps towards conscious artificial intelligence of (more than) human level, preliminary research on enabling technologies for uploading, the formulation of the transhumanist philosophical and ethical platform, etc., that should all be much better funded.

Nothing can be achieved without appropriate resources. Resources can be of two types: human, and financial. Until now the growth of the transhumanist movement has been mainly based on the unpaid work of activists, but what volunteers can do is limited, especially in view of the fact that they must also earn a living. A volunteer can contribute an occasional rush of highly creative work, but often not the long hours and the steady committment and availability that is required to get things done. Especially for the more routine tasks (probably 90% of the workload: writing and answering letters, maintain websites, identify and analyse important news, produce professional graphics and multimedia components, identify potential donors, write letters and comments to the press, etc.) we need paid employees and collaborators.

So I think fundraising is the top priority. We are working to create a transhumanist think tank in Europe, probably to be associated with the IEET. I hope the new think tank will be able to act as European fundraising central. Since it requires personal contact, fundraising is probably most effective on a local or at least regional basis. We will develop solid programs, visionary but realistic and with measurable objectives, and present them in a professional and appealing way to potential donors. As I have said above, the first task will be identifying the “quasi-transhumanists” among the very rich. I hope to see a spiral growth: the money will permit paying our collaborators, and their work will permit achieving the objectives of the programs, starting new programs, reaching more people and receiving more money, and so on in a positive feedback loop. If the initiative will succeed (no forget that - I wanted to say *when* the initiative will succeed), the European fundraising central will be able to support the WTA, national chapters such as the Italian Transhumanist Association, a European cryonics centre, and other worthy initiatives on a case by case basis. I consider this project among my personal top priorities in 2007. In January we will incorporate the new organization in Milan, Italy, as a registered non-profit.

Transhumanism is fully entering the political sphere. This is especially visible in Italy, also because of the attacks and stigmatisation of the catholic church. The core transhumanist meme can, as it is well known, infect a wide range of philosophical and political platforms - right, center, left, globalist, localist, materialist, spiritual etc. It will thus be possible (with hard and careful work) creating transhumanist groups and caucases inside most political parties and opinion movements. This process, up to a certain extent, is already ongoing in some countries such as Italy. We need to keep on and export the model.

But it is also important to analyse why we don’t seem to be managing to “reach the masses”. This has been partly due to insufficient media exposure, and after some high visibility appearances on the press and the media, such as the recent documentary on Italian national channel RAI 3, we have seen the “miracles” that television can do. But perhaps past difficulties in outreach have not only been due to insufficient media exposure, but also to a certain incapacity to communicate effectively. There is a very interesting discussion thread on Michael Anassimov’s blog, were the discussing has moved from the small number of transhumanist women to the central issue of communication skills. In part I agree with the comment by PJ Manney “The problem with most H+ers is that none of you spend much time with people outside of the intellectual/hi-tech world”. This has certainly been an actual problem in the past but will, I hope, fade out with the appearance os a new wave of transhumanists, much more diversified in terms of gender and educational-professional background, in much better touch with the zeitgeist, and on a global scale instead of North American only. I hope this new wave will facilitate reaching “the masses”. PJ Manney said more on her blog: “The real discussion is about how H+ ideals are communicated to all people, everywhere”.

We cannot deny that the great world’s religions have managed, and quite well, to reach the masses. Religions’ success is due to the fact that they offer an answer to the nightmare of death. Yes, your loved one are dead, and sooner or later you will also die, but you will meet again in heaven. This is a *very* powerful meme as the penetration of religion demonstrates. With the coming of a secular worldview based on science, it seems impossible to continue taking religion seriously. But is it really so? Perhaps not. I am very interested in the current experimental activities to create “transhumanist religions”, based on science, but still able to offer hope in “another life” even for those who are already dead. Some information on these experiments, links and my own toughts can be found in my article Engineering Transcendence, on which my forthcoming book Transcendent Engineering is based.

Needless to say, while the vast majority of those who participated in the discussion on the mailing list agreed with all previous points, this last point has generated a steamy debate and outraged some hard-core rationalists. It has been difficult to explain with clear words that, while I *am* a hard-core rationalist myself, my scientific worldview and my belief in our potential for boundless expansion enabled by technology make me appreciate the plausibility of, for example, omega-point-like scenarios where science, and science alone, can resurrect the dead. Perhaps the communication problem lies in using the world “religion” which has a very negative connotation for some. Maybe “spirituality” would work better. Of course, these ideas would generate even stronger debates in conventional religious circles. I think I have a clear vision of the point I am trying to make here, and know that other transhumanists share a similar vision, but I can see that it is a difficult vision to communicate.

Posted by on 12/31 at 11:52 AM

Thanks for your insights. I think this discussion of religion and its possible intersection with transhumanism is fascinating and important. One position whose value I believe hasn’t been fully explored or even well-considered is that of the believer who hopes for an afterlife but doesn’t allow this hope to instill complacency with our present level of advancement.

I believe the problem with both sides of this argument is that each believes that it is necessary to complete reject his current stance in order to benefit from the other. Why can’t the rationalist understand the value of traditional religious memes and attempt to demonstrate how his position will allow many of these visions to be realized? Memetic Darwinism (if you will) demonstrates that even the most potentially beneficial ideas don’t survive if their proponents are incapable of presenting them in a way that makes them compelling to a significant number of people. Demanding that believers reject all professions of faith before they may be allowed to support the transhumanist agenda, or asserting that faith and transhumanism are mutually exclusive, are fascist and counter-productive behaviors. Experience teaches that uncharitable attempts to ridicule others’ beliefs or coerce them into changing their position are never successful in the long term. The rationalist can learn from good religious examples those methods that are most likely to win followers: long-suffering, kindness, service, love, etc. Far from useless platitudes, these techniques have been responsible for radical changes throughout the centuries, and are the reason than many prominent religious figures continue to be remembered today.

On the flip side, why should the believer think that science is a threat, rather than a powerful tool for bringing to pass the heavenly visions he hopes for? Why can’t the believer see that there is much common ground in the goals of transhumanists and the traditional prophecies of heaven and immortality? I believe that the most faithful hope is that brand of hope that is willing to do all within its power to bring about the desired conclusion. I also believe that any god worth worshiping would highly value such faith in his children, rather than the dormant and essentially dead faith of those who are waiting for him to come down and fix everything for them.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I believe that God exists, but until I fully understand his modes of operation, I am compelled to use those means that I do understand to accomplish my desires. Indeed, if I wish to gain any reward from that God I believe in, I must use the talents at my disposal to do all I can to assist in bringing to pass His agenda now, which I believe is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” To me, this means that I must pursue and support the sciences as the most likely means of which I am aware of accomplishing the desired outcome of immortality and eternal life with my loved ones. This is also why I belong to the Mormon Transhumanist Association, whose goal, among others, is “to use science and technology according to wisdom and inspiration, to identify and prepare for risks and responsibilities associated with future advances, and to persuade others to do likewise.”

When both sides of the argument can begin to understand these concepts, I wager we will see a lot more progress.

Posted by Carl Youngblood on 01/09 at 05:59 PM
Please forgive a couple of typos:

- 2nd paragraph, first sentence, should read “completely,” rather than “complete.”
- 2nd paragraph, last sentence, should read “are the reason that” instead of “are the reason than.”

Also, “Memetic Darwinism,” as I think about it, is rather redundant. I would prefer to have begun the sentence with something like, “A study of memetics demonstrates that...”

Posted by Carl Youngblood on 01/09 at 07:07 PM
Thanks for your comment Carl, and I am also in favor of dialogue between science and religion.
I do not believe in a God who created the Universe from outside, but suspect that transcendence will emerge from the evolution of sentient life in the Universe. And time physics may be weirder than we think…
So I hope for an afterlife but do not allow this hope to instill complacency with our present level of advancement. What we do now contributes to creating the possibility of an afterlife.
G.

Posted by Giulio Prisco on 01/10 at 08:03 AM
I think you express some great points, especially the notion that whether or not god exists now, our actions can have a strong influence on his/her/its future existence.

Although I attempt to guide my life according to certain beliefs, and although I may have had subjective experiences that for me reinforce these beliefs, I acknowledge that they are ultimately unverifiable. I labor under the supposition that they are, but I try to act so that even if they’re not, my actions will still be beneficial to myself and to the world around me.

Another interesting argument is Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument, which might allow for a god operating outside the universe and yet maintain adherence to natural law of some kind or another. But this argument, in my opinion, should probably not influence us too much. Whether or not we are laboring in a simulation, it is still imperative that we do everything possible to improve our present condition.

Posted by Carl Youngblood on 01/11 at 12:35 AM
Correction: my recent sentence “I labor under the supposition that they are,” should have been “I labor under the supposition that they are true,”.

Posted by Carl Youngblood on 01/15 at 05:43 PM