Talk:Transhumanism

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[edit] IMPORTANT: Friendly advice for new contributors

Having invested a lot of time and energy in editing the Transhumanism article, the primary contributors (User:StN, User:Metamagician3000, User:Loremaster) have been guided by one overriding principle: All claims for and against transhumanism, or otherwise, be accurate, properly attributed, and well-referenced. We don't own this article but we want it to be the best possible resource for anyone (e.g. students, journalists, cultural critics) who is interested in the subject rather than an attempt to portray transhumanism in the best or worse possible light. Despite having conflicting views, we all cooperated in an effort to make the article well-written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable enough for Featured Article status. Therefore, we recommend you be bold but take the time to discuss any major addition or deletion of article content in this talk page before proceeding in order to avoid an unnecessary dispute. Thank you. --Loremaster 01:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Since many people have pointed out that the Controversy section (formely known as the Criticisms section) of the Transhumanism article is unusually long, I suggest that new contributors refrain from adding content to this section unless it substantively (rather than superficially) contributes to the debate. --Loremaster 17:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links / See also

A comment from the Featured Article Candidate page:

There are 20 external links to organizztions not disccused in the article. I would like to see these dealt with within article or changed to See Also wikilinks to their corresponding articles. If they are not notable enough to have an article I wonder if we should be linking to them at all --Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 17:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that something could be done to improve the External links section. However, according to a Wikipedia rule of thumb: 1) if something is in See also, try to incorporate it into main body 2) if something is in main body, it should not be in see also and therefore 3) good articles have no See also sections. --Loremaster 21:46, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

We should follow the Wikipedia:External links guidelines. --Loremaster 20:07, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Regarding "See also" sections: I personally disagree with all three points listed above. Does anyone know if this is really a style guideline, or published "rule of thumb" of WP? I tried searching for "see also" on the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page and all I found was (guess what?) a "See also" section. People visiting an article are often going to be curious about what articles exist on related subjects, and aren't necessarily going to want to read the entirety of their current article looking for blue links. In short, I think this article should have a "See also" section. Comments?
KarlBunker 12:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm opposed to it. My recommendation regarding a "see also" section isn't an official Wikipedia guideline. As I said, its a rule of thumb for good articles which was recommended to us by two Wikipedia administrators. That being said, more often that not "see also" sections are used by people to put links to their pet articles which often have nothing to do with the subject of the article. --Loremaster 17:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. I'm not hearing any argument as to why it's a rule of thumb for good articles. I see it serving a purpose and I don't see how it does any harm. True, people might put junk in it, but in my experience that doesn't happen that much. (A "xxx in popular culture" section would be a whole 'nother story, or course.  :-)
KarlBunker 18:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
"See also" are a list, lists are worse then text. Wiki is not paper, we should have room to discuss all related issues, and "See also", which rarely discuss the linked items, give little indication why they are relevant. --Loremaster 16:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm with Loremaster on this one. Metamagician3000 02:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The External links section is becoming quite long. Should we consider deleting some possibly innappropriate links according to Wikipedia:External links guidelines. Also, should we consider updating the History section by mentioning some of the para-transhumanist groups linked to in this section. --Loremaster 07:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox

Is there currently a Transhumanist userbox? There was one previously, that I was using, but it was deleted in one of those random userbox deletion sprees. Thanks.

MSTCrow 00:54, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no template - which I think is appropriate as I think that all such userboxes expressing adherence to a religious, political , philosophical, etc., belief should gradually be removed from template space. However, if you want I can help you userfy the old box, or you can feel free to copy the code for the box that merely expresses interest in transhumanism from my userpage. Metamagician3000 02:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

How is expressing interest different from expressing support? Oh, and if you look at the tail end of my userboxes, you'll that I'm strong supporter of userspace expression.
MSTCrow 02:47, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There's obviously a huge difference between expressing interest in something and supporting it. I am interested in many belief systems that I actually disagree with (not so much transhumanism, as it happens, since I have a lot of sympathy for it, blah, blah). Anyway, this is not the place to debate userbox policy. I told you my view and offered in good faith to help you. Do you want my help or not? Metamagician3000 07:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There is this user box available: {{User Singularitarian}} Morphh 12:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Like Metamagician, User:Khat Wordsmith has found a way to have a transhumanist user box. --Loremaster 00:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I made one myself, currently I'm the only one using it: {{User:Joffeloff/Userbox/Transhumanism}} --Joffeloff 15:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Great article on a tricky subject

I love the way you guys organized the objections to Transhumanism. This is a very smart and balanced article. Good work. ---- CharlesGillingham 06:33, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. :) --Loremaster 03:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy section

[edit] Idea for categorising Controversy?

Just a short idea, perhaps it might help to organise/split the massive controversy section into subtitled sections? From what I see, the majority seems to be a discussion of the projected future in a transhuman society and the morality of such a society. It might also benefit from some discussion of the normative aspects of the transhuman ideal, that is to say, why the values of transhumanism itself might be somewhat controversial. So from what I see it's made up of two distinct strands, a section which discusses a potential transhuman reality and its possibility (which understandably varies broadly), and then there's a section consisting of a discussion of the pursuit of transhuman values (what I would say is more authentic philosophical discussion). What do you think? 131.111.200.200 (talk) 00:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Although I am not opposed to any minor or major improvement of the Controversy section, we should all remember that the current version of this section (which came about through collaborative effort) contributed to Transhumanism meeting featured article criteria so I don't see why we need to change it. In other words, if it ain't broke, why fix it. That being said, I think the introductory paragraph of the Controversy section deals with the issues you have raised. But feel free to expand it and I'll tweak your contribution if necessary. -Loremaster (talk) 00:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested addition

Hi and thx to all those who've done such great work on the article. I esp like the controversy idea/section; and i have variant argument to suggest, which i didn't see in a scan of the archives, and which in my experience is roughly as common and deserving of mention as the others listed. That is the argument that (some) transhumanists have unrealistic expectations of technology due to a desire to escape their own death, predicting that the technofix will come just in the nick of time. A good reference for this is http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/03/the_maesgarreau.php . I could be bold and add it straightaway, but i'm suggesting it here out of respect for the maturity of the article and because i'm not sure where to fit it in. It seems to fall under both the futurehype or fountain of youth sections. Since it could be seen as primarily an argument about prediction/feasibility, maybe it could be given a couple sentences in FH? OTOH, the closest critique in the article currently is by midgley in FoY; perhaps it could be added after her. What do others think? Feel free to add it as you see fit; i'm happy to suggest-and-run ;^). Hope this helps, "alyosha" (talk) 21:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting point... Let me think about whether or not and how it should be integrated. --Loremaster (talk) 22:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
It is an interesting point, though all it really amounts to a vauge hypothesis in a blog. It's very likely that such a theoretical "cognative bias" could be argued. Then again it's just as possible to point at events in the past where seemingly drastic innovations (technological or sociological) do indeed come about within a lifespan. The difference between wishful thinking and even educated guesses can be a blurry line. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 23:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The point isn't that it's true, nor that the reference is evidence. The point is that it's a critique that in my experience comes up fairly often; and the reference is to cite a good example, better than list postings or blog comments or my say so. "alyosha" (talk) 00:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, for the most part the criticism/controvery listed are legitimate arguments that boil down to part POV and part what train of logic you are useing. It could be used as a valid argument, but nothing there really solidifies into anything (a) as a clear hypothesis other than a vauge notion (b) something that relates specifically to transhumanism as opposed to a statement on humanity as a whole. Do you see where I'm going with that? And yes, to a very good degree the truth of the argument does come into play. Is there really much point in including arguments that can be easily determined to be moot? I think that such a thing would have to have a very solid reference to be included.--Human.v2.0 (talk) 00:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure i follow you, incl how much you don't like the controversy section in general, or the validity of its current contents, or my suggestion. I support the first two, and am not interested in debating them -- tho i will say i support the inclusion of controversies which are culturally prominent, even if you or i may not feel a given argument against >H is ultimately valid. The point is to illuminate >H via debate about it. Also, my suggested critique is both a clear hypothesis (as shown in the reference), and "something that relates specifically to transhumanism" (it concerns a view that vanishingly few non- >H hold). I feel it's in line with what's already in the article, and in my experience it comes up often enough, on the part of serious enough people, to warrant inclusion. The reference shows that by incl 3 notable people (kelly, maes, and garreau), and thus would seem to be a very solid reference for the purpose. "alyosha" (talk) 02:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Alyosha, could you write here in your own words the criticism you would like to add to this article. --Loremaster (talk) 13:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[Popped out to top level because we're back to the initial proposal.] My sense is that this is mainly a critique of the realism of predictions, thru the secondary psychological critique. So i'd put it in futurehype, after the three books discussed -- a new fourth paragraph, something like this: "It has also been argued that some transhumanists have overly optimistic expectations of when dramatic technological breakthroughs will occur because they hope to be saved from their own deaths by those developments. Several notable transhumanists have predicted that death-defeating technologies will arrive (usually late) within their own conventionally-expected lifetimes." Plus the citation above; which btw i'd appreciate someone else doing -- i' haven't done one like that and i'm afraid it'd take me a while to get it right. That's my first try: how does that sound? "alyosha" (talk) 16:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

This needs to be tweaked. Let me work on it druing the week and then we will judge. --Loremaster (talk) 23:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Alyosha, I forgot to ask: What is the typical transhumanist rebuttal to this criticism if there is one? --Loremaster (talk) 07:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I was trying to keep my proposed addition as short as possible, and i see it as a subtype of futurehype, so i was thinking that the current rebuttal to to that criticism would cover it. Eg, kurzweil is named there, and he's certainly someone who's received and responded to the criticism i'm adding (or making explicit). Oc it's fine if the consensus is to add a mention in the rebuttal as well. "alyosha" (talk) 17:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
OK. --Loremaster (talk) 19:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I've added Alyosha's good contribution to the article. --Loremaster (talk) 19:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Nice job: better placement and wording that my first draft. Pleasure consensing with you, and others. :^) "alyosha" (talk) 18:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. :) --Loremaster (talk) 20:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New subsection focusing on human dignity

User:Mindstalk added the following new content to the Controversy section of the Transhumanism article:

Loss of human dignity

Closely related to the arguments about "trivialization of human identity" and "dehumanization" is a claim that reproductive and life-extending technologies may affront human dignity, a claim made especially by the Catholic Church, and the President's Council on Bioethics led by Leon Kass. For example, laws or calls for banning human reproductive cloning are often justified with a claim that cloning infringes human dignity, as in UNESCO's Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, and the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and its Additional Protocol on the Prohibition of Cloning Human Beings. Transhumanism itself has been specifically singled out as a threat to human dignity. The concept has been attacked as useless by Ruth Macklin and Steven Pinker, and as contributing nothing not already covered by the allegedly clearer concept of autonomy.

Putting aside issues of prose quality and MoS compliance, it seems that Mindstalk is unware of the fact that the Controversy section has been repeatedly criticized for being too long. Furthermore, this new content doesn't really add anything new to the article that hasn't been directly or indirectly dealt with in other subsections. Therefore, I would oppose its addition as is. However, I would support a more consice version being intergrated in another subsection. I invite all to comment. --Loremaster (talk) 12:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I know perfectly well that some people think Controversy is too long (or other sections comparatively to too short.) And while I obviously knew it seemed to overlap with other sections, the "human dignity" argument -- with that exact phrase -- in particular is a rather common one when it comes to reproductive technologies, and there was no reflection of that in the article. As for prose and MoS, I thought those were grounds for re-writing, not deletion, assuming the raw information was worthy of inclusion. -- Mindstalk (talk) 14:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
[Disclosure that i have a proposed addition to controversy above. ;^) ] While i like the controversy section and am not concerned about its current size (tho in part because it's being watched effectively), i respect the article's general stability and those who feel that controversy is already too long. So i'd say that any additions (esp there) should be substantive, minimal in size, and worked into pre-existing sections if at all possible. I agree with Loremaster that what you've proposed overlaps too much with material already present. I suggest you carefully distinguish btwn what's already in there (eg kass) and what isn't (eg pinker, "human dignity"), and post a draft to talk that briefly integrates the latter. Hope this helps, "alyosha" (talk) 15:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh hey, people are now worrying about the dignity of plants. Relevant, maybe? -- Mindstalk (talk) 21:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Are you joking?!? --Loremaster (talk) 23:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm just going to come out and say that I've been asking myself if some parts of the recent page are wrtten/added specifically to screw with my head ("my" being used in reference to most people that keep tabs on this wiki). --Human.v2.0 (talk) 23:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Well call me a monkey's grandchild... This [1] is the actual Swiss page detailing the information. Much of the material has been around for a while in the lawbooks, such as terminator genes to prevent the strains from accidentally spreading (Or, depending on your view, keeping long-term ownership of the strains firmly in the hands of the creators. Likely a bit of both.). I am wondering how much of it is motivation for protecting a literal dignity of plants, to put a form of check in place against radical changes, or if it's simply poor word choice. It will take me some time to sift through the material to see how relevant some of it is to this article, though I am going to pop over to entries on GMOs to see what is said there. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the issue is protecting biodiversity rather than "plant dignity" (which is a ridiculous choice of words). Regardless, this is utterly irrelevant to a criticism of transhumanism which exclusively focuses on the modification of humans. --Loremaster (talk) 20:17, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
It is indeed one of the nuttier wordings possible, and I have not yet found a great deal of information regarding it other than the typical laws and guidelines you find. Considering the wording, I was somewhat curious as to if any parallels drawn from that to the genetic modification of humans (well, asside from the metric googleplex of pre-existing content on that), but it seems pretty moot. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 22:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, by the article I provided, it starts with a law saying the "dignity of creatures" has to be protected, and then someone decided that included plants. -- Mindstalk (talk) 06:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image at the top of the page

I think it would be nice to have an image at the top of the page. Does anybody have any suggestions? Apparently the one I picked as a placeholder was somehow not good. Zazaban (talk) 23:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

There have been previous, well not "issues", but Natasha Vita-More has a somewhat inordinate amount of coverage (much more so in the past, as well) and is not important enough to the topic to be one of the immediate things refernced by the wiki. And on an (almost) complete aside, it's just not a good peice of art at all. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 00:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Human.v2.o that we need something better regardless of whether or not I like Natasha Vita-More's work. --Loremaster (talk) 02:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I didn't read anything about the image and I have no idea who Natasha Vita-More is. I only added it because I thought it looked good at the top of the page. The person who made it had nothing to do with me adding it to the top of the page. Zazaban (talk) 04:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, to be honest the image can't be picked just because it's pretty. They have to be in the Wiki in the first place for some good reason, and the context of the image should be payed attention to when deciding where and how they are used. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 13:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Let's not just put an image at the top of the page simply because we desperately want to fill a void. Let's discuss the addition of the most appropriate image here rather than engaging in an edit war. --Loremaster (talk) 17:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay then, let's discuss. I personally liked the last one that was up there. Zazaban (talk) 19:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
The last one, Image:Converging technologies.png, doesn't really look good and already has a perfect place somewhere else in the article, specifically next to the paragraph that discusses the NBIC report the image was made for. --Loremaster (talk) 20:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Image:Converging technologies.png looks like a cult/pyramind scheme image to me at first glance each time, though that's a slight asside. I'm not personally familiar with the ways of getting images usable for Wiki (in the copyright sense, for the most part), so I can't think of a good suggestion at the moment. I'll peek around for some ideas. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 22:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

What do you all think of this image for the top of the page, which I found on two transhumanist websites: The Creation of the New Adam --Loremaster (talk) 22:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Eh, it's not bad, but the direct religious overtones of it seem a bit out of place. Maybe that's just me? Then again, there are only few times when I've been able to take edits/photoshops of that particular piece seriously; it's such a dramatic work that any edits come off like a Monty Python animation.
*chuckle* Everyone truely is a critic, when it comes to art. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 01:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
But is it really that out of place in light of the fact that some transhumanists and fellow travelers talk of the promises of transhumanism using direct religious overtones? Have you heard of the book Remaking Eden? The title says it all... --Loremaster (talk) 02:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh, the fact that many use religious overtones, metaphors and the like certainly isn't something that even needs argueing. Certainly not omnipresenst (pun intended) or terribly directly, but often enough that you don't miss it. I guess that I don't personally have a Yay or Nay on that image; it can work, though I'm not entirely liking it myself. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 02:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm open to alternatives. Have you seen one you like? --Loremaster (talk) 16:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
What about this one? Self-improvement by John Lund --Loremaster (talk) 20:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I can't seem to find a way to get it to let me link to it. Requires a login, perhaps?--Human.v2.0 (talk) 20:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope. It doesn't matter. After thinking about it, I've concluded that this image is not transhumanist enough. In fact, it's too Buddhist. --Loremaster (talk) 20:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] From an earlier editor

I was one of the main contributors to this article during the period when it took on its present form, underwent peer review, and was promoted to a Featured Article. The others were Metamagician3000, an avowed advocate of transhumanism and Loremaster, who was a bit skeptical of the philosophy and movement, though not nearly to the extent that I am. Overall, Loremaster's position could be characterized as the most "neutral" of the three. Together we arrived at a tone and coverage of topics that satisfied most critics (who also made many contributions). There continued to be a substantial group of commentators who saw the existing article as unduly promotional of transhumanist ideas, but the existence of the Controversies section served to balance these objections. I have recently started following the discussions of the article after a hiatus of more than a year. It looks to me like advocates of transhumanism are trying to refashion the article so as to reduce and undermine the criticisms and more overtly promote the movement. Loremaster's attempts to defend it as a useful and indeed respected Wikipedia article are being portrayed as tendentious. I think this is entirely unfair. There are no real transhumanism skeptics currently contributing to the article. If the contributions of earlier critics are erased by the new group of editors, a collective effort of more than a year would be degraded and the article would probably lose its FA status once general readers became aware of the changes. The upside for transhumanists would be that Web searches for the term would turn up one less balanced discussion and one more piece of hype to add to the many existing ones from the WTA.StN (talk) 03:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kanzure's comments

Sorry, that's factually incorrect (you're making it seem like a POV war -- nobody's trying to make the world a censored and More Happy place, just hear me out here). If anything, people are trying to add more content that is more relevant to the times and transhumanism, but instead it's left with this debate nonsense that doesn't represent the topic of transhumanism -- indeed, many of the arguments are outdated and in need of revision themselves and aren't facutally up to the times ("genetic divide" arguments, for example, assume socioeconomic barriers that are otherwise nonexistant due to self-replicators (like MNT, RepRap, etc.)). It's just distracting from the actual point of the article - transhumanism. Anyway, as for the more modern content that needs to be included, there's been all sorts of things: in bio, there's biohack (diy genetic engineering etc.), biopunk, diybio, oww, dnatube, biodatabase, microbewiki, biominewiki, snpedia, polonator, tmp2 (LUF), open access dirwiki, EURKA wiki, neuroensemble, etc. More community-oriented includes the blogs (that, admittedly, I can't cite quite off the top of my head), imminst, methuselah, hplusclub, barcamp, scifoo, scibarcamp, biobarcamp (Shroeder, Smolin, ...), techshop.ws, many facebook groups, meetup groups, onsingularity, biogerontology groups for life extension, alcor, cryonet, etc., and if anything this proactive approach illustrative of transhumanist principles is to be highlighted. And for that 'balance' that others might want, we could throw in some links to synbiosafe.eu - the European e-conference on synthetic biology safety & responsibility. Lots of other developments to include too. All blocked, and so the article barely represents transhumanism. I guess this is ultimately because transhumanism is about people and the future, and this is a moving target. -- kanzure (talk) 06:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

"genetic divide" arguments, for example, assume socioeconomic barriers that are otherwise nonexistant due to self-replicators (like MNT, RepRap, etc.) Kanzure, self-replicators don't exist. RepRap is a neat research project which is a long way from freeing anyone from the shackles of dependence on the industrial economy; MNT mechanisms in general are in a very primitive stage, with chemists such as Richard Jones skeptical of the whole Drexlerian dry-nanotech vision. The socioeconomic divides are real, the self-replicating tech is highly speculative and non-existent, with no guarantee of being (a) possible or (b) if possible, being developed at the same time as or before genetic technologies. And even with mature self-replication, "post-scarcity" is a rather dodgy concept, especially when the limiting factor on genetic tech is likely to be expertise, not raw material wealth. Cheap mature AI would be more relevant than MNT, but it's easy to imagine that a useful genome database and reliable PGD would be available well before AI or MNT, leading to the "rich get richer concerns" which are more directly addressed by generous universal health care. Answering concerns about one non-existent technology by appealing to a totally unrelated different non-existent technology hardly helps my argument that transhumanists aren't crackpots... these are possibilities, not good predictions, let alone certainties. Your quoted text sounds like exactly the sort of utopian vision of "technology will solve all our problems, even the problems created by new technology" that attracts the crackpot label. -- Mindstalk (talk) 07:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
"Kanzure, self-replicators don't exist." Cells. RepRap is worth mentioning as a project -- people are working on it, and others can join and help out. MNT is primitive, yeah, no dispute there. With respect to (b), note that synthetic biology allows us to use the amorphous fabrication routines and evolutionary engineering to do self-replication via wetware instead of the drytech approaches. Either way we win, you see? Re: post-scarcity & expertise; yes - but anybody could dump information, or even the classical Matrix-esque brain downloading scenarios (isn't this in the article?). Re: universal health care, the diybio tech allows you to take that under your own control. So these technologies do, in fact, exist. -- kanzure (talk) 07:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 :rolleyes: Yes, cells exist. I meant self-replicating technology we can design and exploit in a "post-scarcity" way. Sure, mention RepRap, but it's not a solution to economic divides. Neither is non-existent synthetic biology or non-existent brain downloading, just as fusion is not a solution to the looming energy crisis. If we had self-rep and could copy minds around and had cheap fusion, sure, we might have something like post-scarcity and no economic divides (though even that's hardly a guarantee.) But we don't, and genetic tech isn't contingent on those things, so answering economic equality concerns with those technologies is a non sequitur. -- Mindstalk (talk) 07:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
You can exploit cells in a post-scarcity way. You modify the genome, you insert the DNA molecules back into the colonies, you let it grow. Nobody said the synthetic biology route would be easy, but saying that it's "non-existant" is a bit of a stretch. RepRap *is* a solution to economic divides -- check out the entire open source scene, that's all because of replication of information (not self-rep, of course, it's done by people clicking around and computers doing queries etc.). Just because RepRap doesn't work yet doesn't mean that von Neumann was wrong. "Release early and often." -- kanzure (talk) 17:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
We may be able, at some point, to exploit cells in a "post-scarcity" way. Yes, we often do use self-rep 'tech', from having babies to agriculture to PCR. A key concept is limiting factors; self-rep runs into difficulties at some point -- lack of critical resource, or land, or labor to maintain it, or parasites -- and nothing on the horizon looks likely to fix that, to a level of "shovel in rock and muck and sunlight and get what you want". RepRap might be the seed of a solution to economic divides, it's not one now. Can it make food? Clothing? Its own microelectronics? Housing material? Its own feedstock? Do a wide subset of industrial chemistry? Open source has been very cool and powerful, but atoms are a lot more complicated than bits, and there's no material equivalent for a computer. -- Mindstalk (talk) 03:40, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Mindstalk/others, what about the other topics I brought up? [I note that many of the discussions on this talk page sort of degenerate into focusing on one specific detail isntead of the original content of the messages [which is fine, but I'd like to pull this back on track]]. -- kanzure (talk) 17:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
As I said in another section, I encourage you or anyone else to update or improve the article especially the History, Theory and Practice sections. However, the suggestion that the Controversy section is "debate nonsense that doesn't represent the topic of transhumanism" or that "many of the arguments are outdated and in need of revision themselves and aren't factually up to the times" is ridiculous in light of the arguably "crackpot theories" (as explained by Mindstalk above) you are promoting as rebuttals to the practical and ethical criticism of transhumanism. --Loremaster (talk) 10:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
What other topics? The list of genomics and longevity websites and forums, and mention of Facebook and Meetup groups? Fair enough, but how would you integrate them into the article, apart from a long and structure External Links section (which would be fine by me, but lots of such links seems unpopular on Wikipedia these days.) And how many of those are full of people self-identified as transhumanists, vs. stuff happening anyway which some transhumanists find neat? The WTA is obviously part of the transhumanist "movement", but it would look odd to claim, e.g. the Human Genome Project in the same manner. That's an invitation for proposal, not a rhetorical question; how would you integrate some or all of those links? -- Mindstalk (talk) 03:32, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
That's a good question, Kanzure. How exactly do propose intergrating some of these links while respecting the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. --Loremaster (talk) 23:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree, it is a good question. I'm working on it. I was hoping for some collaboration though. Not just immediate reversion - maybe shuffling around different points until they fall into place, a general agreement, instead of just deleting and forgetting about it. So if I go in and strategically rework these sources into the article, are they going to be yanked ? or will we try to play around and see what can be made to work? (Also, why is this called Kanzure's Komments? What's with the K?) -- kanzure (talk) 05:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Just tell us here what you want to do here before editing the article. I don't forget about anything. As for the K, I was just being stylish. --Loremaster (talk) 15:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd assumed you put in the Komment... I see Loremaster did, when he was archiving threads. Seems rude. -- Mindstalk (talk) 09:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
It wasn't meant to be rude. Anyway, I put back the C. --Loremaster (talk) 15:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] One Person's Summary of Problems with this Article

Since I've distributed this among other places in the Transhuman community, I'll place it here also, for the record. From someone who has been involved in the this community for a couple of decades.

  1. It too heavily emphasizes technologies over the processes of change, natural and otherwise.
  2. It portrays the ideas as belonging to a kind of elite group ('intelligensia').
  3. It portrays the holders of such ideas to attract large enemies and then expands on those 'detractors' for more than half of the article.
  4. Its history is, in my opinion, a crime of inaccuracy, not only missing the last decades when the word 'transhuman' was in use, but missing the last 2000+ years, when the basic ideas were being implemented, or trying to be implemented, and more importantly _debated_.
  5. The Theory section that follow the History section is lacking the same background depth.
  6. The Aims section barely gives a subsection of the 'large picture' of : Living: Longer, Smarter, Stronger. I.e. the myriad of ways that human lives can be improved with research, education, smart investments in our future, and how to help ourselves build the social, political, and cultural structures to make all of that happen.
  7. The Ethics section misses completely the most important idea of self-ownership and responsibility.
  8. In the Currents section - it gives equal weight to the real or fictitious subgroups, and there is one little line devoted to Extropians, which was, in fact, a prominent carrier of the ideas for more than 15 years.
  9. There is way too much space devoted to Spirituality and 'soul' in this article.
  10. Uploading is barely described. Instead it goes into a criticism, almost immediately. Strange for a topic that generates endless discussion (ad nauseum) on mailing lists for almost 20 years, hmm?
  11. In the Practice section, it is missing *most* of the daily life practices, that people are using to live longer, smarter, stronger. Vaccination, contraceptives, eye glasses, pacemakers, smart nutrition, exercise, assisted reproductive technologies (which is mentioned in _one place only_ in the 'Postgenderism' line of Currents!). The latter is quite strange for a topic that generates enough heat to be banned in some countries, no? The section is also missing mind tricks, meditations, and all of those do-it-yourself practices that people in our community have been trying and 'doing' for decades.
  12. Similarly for the 'Technologies of Interest'; there are large holes missing. What about space technologies, quantum computing, large-scale 'computing at home' efforts, evolutionary psychology insights, efforts to solve the energy problems, SENS research, technologies for democratization of societies?
  13. AND NOT A SINGLE WORD ABOUT HAVING FUN.
  14. This article is, in my opinion a gross distortion of Transhuman/extropian ideas, as I've known them for the last 20 years.

Amara (talk) 13:43, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Although I am still confused since I thought Amara said she was leaving, I'll respond to this criticism later today or in the next few days. --Loremaster (talk) 14:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
If she obviously changed her mind about leaving, it doesn't seem helpful to keep bringing that up. -- Mindstalk (talk) 14:27, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't trying to be helpful. I was trying to make a point that she was acting like a spoiled child that is throwing a tantrum because she isn't getting her way. That wasn't appropriate behavior on the talk page of a Wikipedia article. --Loremaster (talk) 14:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to add in some sources.

1. Take a look at the transhuman article. The opening: "an evolutionary transition from the human to the posthuman". And the opening for transhumanism is: "an international, intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes, and overcome what it regards as undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging and involuntary death". If anything there's not enough emphasis of both tech and change. It portrays transhumanism as an ideology, as if the WTA is a final say in the matter, and as if the WTA has some sort of agenda to transform Humanity on its own (which brings us to your next point) -- if that's the case, then let's go ask the WTA to make a formal statement on that matter once and for all.

3. Maybe it should focus on the actual counter points to ideas instead of detractors.

6. Not only *can* be improved, but *are* being improved. There are many articles in the news that can be seen about these things. For example, education - OpenCourseWare has been in the news.

10. That's weird, considering Harvard has been doing connectomics studies, the Allen Institute is doing (funding?) mRNA gene expression analysis of regions of the brain, and brain slice imaging tech has been improving.

11. Added some links - did not edit your actual content. Don't know if this against policy or not. Please revert if you find disturbing. And re: postgender, I'm sure a link to transgender will be a good place to get perspective. And diy - more recently the internet versions of these things. Ex: HobbySpace, Howtoons, How Stuff Works, fansites/howitsmade/howitsmade.html How It's Made, wikiHow, OSAerospace (sort of), Make Community, The Buckminster Fuller Institute, Humanitarian Information for All, ThinkCycle, How to do things, Wikipedia (to a limited extent, given a broader focus), The Internet Craftsmanship Museum, Instructables. Even youtube and dnatube.

12. Re: tech for the democritization of societies. On the information front, there's the GNU Free Documentation License, and then on the tech front there's stuff like One Laptop Per Child and great examples of how tech has allowed people to do more for themselves - like openfarmtech or even the recent article about the Californians going up against the flames with cell phones and communication technology.

13. Yes, there's not much on playfulness (like seen here). What else? Virtual realities like Second Life and World of Warcraft would be a good start. They effect millions of users, daily.

-- kanzure (talk) 17:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I would think that discussing Second Life, WoW, OLPC, and similar things in connection with transhumanism would definitely be original research. ~~ N (t/c) 21:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Nah, since those websites for each of those projects have statements that are transhumanist (without using that keyword). So if anything 'transhumanist' must have the transhumanism keyword in it, then that's something else we need to talk about. This isn't a search engine - that's for Google etc. -- kanzure (talk) 23:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Could you reference these statements, for those of us that don't touch MMOs as a general rule? And as I think someone previously mentioned, just because some transhumanists can point at something and go "hey, I like that" does not necessarily make it mentionable here (though I am aware of the mutterings to that extent for 2nd Life, but have never heard a single whisper to the kind for WoW). --Human.v2.0 (talk) 23:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Identifying similar-sounding statements is OR. They don't have to call themselves transhumanist, though, they could be identified as such by notable sources. Many arguably transhumanist things are not identified by their creators as such, true, but it's not Wikipedia's place to make the connection. Something like mentioning SL in passing as an example of VR seems valid; is that all you meant? ~~ N (t/c) 00:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, in passing. Not a full section etc. -- kanzure (talk) 05:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Loremaster's reply to Amara

Amara, as someone who has been involved in the Transhumanist community for a couple of decades, you have to be especially mindful of the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest policy.

  1. You are correct that the article does emphasize technology over processes of change. It is a reflection of the fact that many supporters and critics of tranhumanism argue that many transhumanists do emphasize technology over processes of change! However, it's a fair point. Can you expand on how you would correct that?
  2. As I explained previously, the word "intelligentsia" was simply chosen (by me) to reflect the fact that the first transhumanists were part of a "social class of people engaged in complex mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them". Whether or not this is interpreted as "elitist" (which I am assuming is something transhumanists don't want) is irrelevant. However, the word was removed so it's a moot point.
  3. It is simply a fact that transhumanists have attracted numerous critics which is reflected in this article in a fair and balanced way. This issue has been extensively discussed in the past and I consider it settled.
  4. The History section is based on an essay written by Nick Bostrom(!). We have recently used more information from this essay to expand this section. I am not opposed to expanding it even further especially in relation to the use of the word "transhuman". However, I would oppose original research that speculates about the "pre-transhumanist history of the last 2000 years" especially if it is unsourced.
  5. Feel free to expand the Theory section with content that cites sources.
  6. Feel free to expand the Aims section with content that cites sources.
  7. Feel free to expand the Ethics section with content that cites sources.
  8. The Currents section is similar to the one found in the Transhumanist FAQ of the WTA(!). The goal of this section is not to give more or less weight to any current. If people want to know how important these currents are they can simply read their respective articles. Furthermore, this section is not about organized movements but currents of thoughts.
  9. The Spirituality section simply seems to take a lot of space because other sections haven't been fully expanded yet. However, I hope your opposition to the section doesn't come from an "anti-religion POV", which obviously this article cannot reflect.
  10. The Spirituality section is not the right place to discuss the multitude of positive implications of mind uploading. That's what the mind uploading article is for. However, as long as it is consice, feel free to expand the Technologies of interet section to discuss how important the (pseudoscientific) notion of mind uploading is to transhumanism.
  11. Feel free to expand the Practice section with content that cites sources. However, there is nothing uniquely transhumanist about the use of vaccination or eyeglasses.
  12. Feel free to expand the Technologies of interest section with content that cites sources.
  13. THIS IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIC ARTICLE! The goal is not to make Transhumanism look "fun" or "cool" nor should it be viewed as a tool to convince people to become transhumanists or join the WTA. This article must have a dispassionate neutral point of view which reports the facts even (or especially) if they make some transhumanists and "anti-transhumanists" unhappy.
  14. Although the Transhumanism article is far from perfect, Natasha Vita-More, a pioneer of transhumanism, is on record as saying that it was a pretty fair and accurate article when it reached Featured Article status (despite her recent criticisms) so I think the accusation that it is a "gross distortion" is absurd and insulting. However, please keep in mind that this article is about Transhumanism not Extropianism. If you want more fair and accurate information about the latter please read the Extropianism article and update/improve it if necessary.
--Loremaster (talk) 19:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Democracy" vs "freedom"

Can we please stop the edit war and accusations of vandalism? I think it would help for Maziotis to explain why he thinks "democracy" is POV. In context, the article clearly does not assert that democracy is valuable; the section is saying that some see transhumanism as bad because it's a threat to democracy, so it only asserts that the people making that criticism value democracy. Perhaps Maziotis could provide examples of self-professed non-democrats warning of transhumanism's threat to freedom? ~~ N (t/c) 16:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I could answer your request by mentioning anarchist authors (such as John Zerzan), but in that case I would be rightfully accused of facing a POV with another one.
The question here shouldn't be what political regime/philosophy is more threaten by transhumanism. It is my understanding that the fact that liberal democrats give their perspective on the threat of transhumanism is relevant, as it is given in the article, with the proper sources provided.
My issue here is that the article itself presents a topic of controversy, where a section deals specifically with a common held human value such as "morality", equated with "democracy". There are authors with different political views that conceptualize technology in relation to the reality of the brave new world society in different ways. Why should the issue of freedom (which I believe is the underlying value here, like morality) be given voice to a particular political doctrine, such as liberal democracy, and not others?
Not everyone thinks that the human freedom that is being threaten by the compromises of a futute brave new world is maintained trough electoral political representation.
If the section deals only with liberal views on the brave new world, it should be changed along with the title.Maziotis (talk) 17:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for not reverting again. It wouldn't be POV to cite Zerzan. In fact, please do - the only current mention of primitivism is in the existential risks section - this is an omission. ~~ N (t/c) 18:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I actually think that this section, as it is, should not have the title changed to "freedom", since it only mentions the liberal democrat perspective. But the problem I raised stands. I find inadmissible that this article speaks trough liberalism to hold “morality” along with “democracy”. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maziotis (talk • contribs)
As I see it, the juxtaposition hardly equates morality and democracy - it merely says some democrats feel transhumanism threatens both - and is unproblematic given the current content. If you want to add more non-democratic critiques, in that section or elsewhere, please do. ~~ N (t/c) 18:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Maziotis, you bring up a good point. I've deleted the reference to "liberal democracy" until that subsection is improved. --Loremaster (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Maziotis has restored the expression "liberal democracy" with good reason. However, we still need to improve that subsection. --Loremaster (talk) 18:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't have time right now to add those references. Since this is the place to discuss further improvements to the article, I leave here two links that I think might help someone who is interested to start exploring this perspective:

Maziotis (talk) 09:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. --Loremaster (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Examples in fiction

assuming this to be true: is an international, intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes.

Many of the examples given from science fiction are simply wrong. Childhood's end is the natural evolution of humans; Slan's are not human, they are a different species seeking to enslave humans; I Robot has no enchancment of humans, it's about their replacment by robots; Bladerunner is the same with androids etc etc. Given that these clearly non-TH stories may have generated discusion within the movement, i have fact tagged them for now so people can verify that such discusion took place.Yobmod (talk) 09:57, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

As the Currents section shows, the interests of the transhumanist movement are not limited to human enhancement. The creation of robots, androids or artificial intelligences, and their recognition as persons is a transhumanist albeit a secondary one. So I think the issue is providing sources that describe any of these works as transhumanist to avoid the accusation of original research. --Loremaster (talk) 15:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

(I just noticed this is a FA. Would it be better to move them to the talk page, rather than add tags? Mir ist egal)Yobmod (talk) 10:06, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I've provided a source for them. --Loremaster (talk) 15:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks :-). Although it seems to me that if robots, aliens and (natural) mutants are each enough to make a book transhumanist, then 99% of SF qualifies. Tranhumanism becomes simply SF as religion. I had thought technology and intent were essential ingredients!Yobmod (talk) 16:23, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, some people do argue that transhumanism is simply SF as religion: Give Me That New Transhumanist Religion --Loremaster (talk) 17:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)