Talk:Libertarian transhumanism

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Contents 1 Extropianism 2 Criticisms 3 References and Sources 4 Death and Taxes

[edit] Extropianism

Natasha Vita-More has said: "ExI is not a political organization. Extropians were and are libertarians, democrats, upwingers, non-partisan and whatever else they are.

Years ago, most "extropians" were libertarian in Silicon Valley and LA. Some of them have not been around for about seven or more years. But even if they were, when ExI kept growing, (in the mid to late 1990s) more and more people came on board who were interested in transhumanism, the future, technology and they brought with them their own political views. ExI has never stated that it is a libertarian organization and never required its members to be libertarian. I was a Green and now non-partisan. My artist friends were/are democrats or progressives. My transhuman friends were/are upwingers. My academic colleagues were/are non-partisan or progressives. They were and are all members of ExI. So you can see why they and I do not like being pigeonholed as being members of a political viewpoint that we do not share.

If you want to do something to separate out your groups from ExI to make a statement and show people that you are the more inspiring and beneficial group, then just respect Dr. More and his writings and all else will follow suit. I will quote him in an interview he did for you:

" NeoFiles: The Extropian movement encloses a strong belief in a libertarian pro-free enterprise politics within its basic principles. Do you feel that this is a necessary part of any transhumanist paradigm? Conversely, do you feel that it might unnecessarily exclude potential compatriots? (I, for instance, have basically non-ideological, ad hoc, situational, pragmatic politics – I can, in fact, be rather left wing – depending on the situation.)

Max More: The first sentence is incorrect. It’s a relic of a decade or more ago, and is deliberately perpetuated by some transhumanists (mostly, but not exclusively, socialistic ones) and accepted by those who haven’t checked for themselves. Even the earliest version of the Principles did not, in fact, “enclose a strong belief in a libertarian pro-free enterprise politics.” Granted, the early principles and the tone of our first publications certainly favored a strongly libertarian approach.

Things change. That fact is inconvenient to two groups of people: Critics who are too intellectually dishonest or lazy to tackle extropic transhumanism as it has evolved. And transhumanists who seek to misrepresent extropic transhumanism in order to build their influence over a movement they’re so desperate to control.

I am not a libertarian, unless you take a generously broad view of the term. I’m hardly an exception these days. Even going back a few years, a survey of Extropy Institute members showed that a substantial proportion did not describe their political views with the l-word. When it comes to politics and economics, a high degree of pragmatism (in the skeptical and empiricist sense) is healthy, and ideology is problematic. But you can also go too far with situational pragmatism.

If I must be branded with some label, let it be something like “principled pragmatism.” It may take an apparent oxymoron to convey the tricky and ever-evolving balance between theoretical, principled understanding on one hand, and raw, situation-specific perception on the other."

--Loremaster 03:13, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I too would like to maintain distance from extropianism in the definition. The connection is just a historical detail; more important are the actual beliefs. To this end I moved it down in order of appearance.--SpaceTycoon 23:34, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Natasha Vita-More was not aware of the article on libertarian transhumanism when I posted her comments here. These are from an email conversation she had with a colleague of mine for educational purposes. That being said, I agree with the rationale of your edit. --Loremaster 00:29, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I've edited the article to take into account Vita-More's objection. --Loremaster 09:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms

I deleted the following text from the Beliefs section, which was added by anonymous User:137.163.19.100:

Contrary to Klaus-Gerd Giesen, many libertarian transhumanists do not consider themselves inegalitarians, meritocrats or biological determinists and do not reduce everything to the hereditary gene and do not have a fantasy of omnipotence.

First of all, this text should have been in the Criticism section not the Beliefs section. Second, it isn't enough to simply state that libertarian transhumanists do not consider themselves the things they are being accused of. The counter-criticism must provide convicing arguments which explain why they are not. Also, please cite sources. --Loremaster 15:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Although eventually this article should include a counter-criticism section. SpaceTycoon 02:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Only if notable self-described libertarian transhumanists can be cited as providing one. We can't write the counter-criticsm we presume they would say. That would go against Wikipedia: No original research policy. --Loremaster 04:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References and Sources

Perhaps we should use Ronald Bailey's Liberation Biology: The Scientific And Moral Case For The Biotech Revolution as the main source for this article. This might entail rewriting the Lead and Beliefs section. --Loremaster 21:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, since I've improved the article, this won't be necessary. --Loremaster 09:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Death and Taxes

I've finished improving the Libertarian transhumanism article. However, does anyone know of a source for the following claim:

Libertarian transhumanists disagree with Benjamin Franklin's famous quote, "Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes", and would like to eliminate both.

If no one does, it will have to be deleted soon. --Loremaster 04:33, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the unsourced claim. --Loremaster 20:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you could source the libertarian claim on taxes and the transhumanist claim on death. It would be easy to source that Libertarians would like to eliminate taxes and easy to source that transhumanists would like to eliminate death. It seems like an obvious statement concerning the two philosophies. If presented in this way with sources, the statement presented above probably wouldn't need one. Morphh ^(talk) 22:20, 06 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. I don't think your suggestion holds up to Wikipedia guidelines on such matters. --Loremaster 22:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I've heard the quote too, but I can't remember where. Without a reference (to the juxtaposition of the two, not merely each individually), I agree that deleting it is better.

Wellspring (talk) 16:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)