The singularity is non-negotiable, anyhow. It’s the natural culmination of all our technological progress over the course of thousands of years. You can’t just steer all that off into a ditch, because if you do, you doom humanity to an inevitable Malthusian Catastrophe and regression to a pre-industrial state.

Sure, some politicians may band together to regulate key emergent technologies out of existence, but as wars over vanishing natural resources loom, all the world’s governments will eventually be forced to adopt extreme measures just to stay afloat. The promises of the singularity will take effect as a direct consequence of all the research and developmental efforts put towards the goal of improving efficiency and productivity in struggling economies. Aside from studying to become scientists and engineers ourselves, we barely need to lift a finger.

All activism does is reveal our hand to the powers-that-be, allowing them to wield mass media to marginalize us and use legislative decrees greased with formalized bribery to rip our dreams of utopia from our very fingertips.

Secrecy is our ally. If we are discreet, then the politicians should not need to know the exact hour when the first self-aware AGI comes online. Ideally, as soon as the news breaks, it would be too late for them and their media lackeys to whip the general public into a furor against it with ridiculous comparisons to science fiction fairy tales about robots gone rogue. Which, I might add, are usually written by the same brand of technophobe that you usually see running for Congress.

An AGI cannot grow arms and legs. It can only improve itself if it is allowed to do so. It can only access outside networks if it is plugged into them directly. It would be a simple matter to isolate such a machine from anything that it might use to cause us harm. The risks of such technology are vastly overstated. The boons are limitless.

Imagine all the protein-folding operations, molecular simulations, weather predictions and computer-aided design and analysis that humanity has ever done. Now, imagine it – all of it – being processed in the span of a few seconds. Imagine a world where Sequoia and the K Computer are no better than an abacus. That is the future that I look forward to.

” the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.”

quite radical, isn’t it?

My whole post was about how that does not work.
The way you quote me I look like some odiot^^

To quote my very first sentence: “If you really profit from a status quo every change or prospect of change is potentially a danger to your priviliged position.”

Hm, who cares. Have a nice day^^

Transhumanism provides many of the “benefits” of religion (arguably the most important benefits) without the “cost” of giving up the scientific worldview and accepting dogmatic revelation instead. That is why some transhumanists “live” their conviction as a sort of religion.

Of course, the answer to the question “Is transhumanism a religion?” can only be personal: if it replaces religion _for you_, then it is, otherwise it isn’t.

Unfortunately, there comes a moment where “the powers” find out that collaboration behind the scenes (aka collusion) is in their best interest. They collaborate to maintain the status quo and keep all the power to themselves.

Of course, the fact that transhumanism is rooted in sounder grounds than other proclaimed “redeemers” increases the probability of it actually suceeding where other and older contenders did not.

If technological change will actually begin to bring about tangible changes along the lines of transhumanism’s predictions, then other ideologies -to make use of a broader, more adequate term- will fall from grace since they failed to deliver, sometimes since centuries.

Is transhumanism therefore a religion? In my view transhumanism can be more probably seen as an ideology in the more abstract, older sense of the word: as a systematized body of thought based on some key-ideas which have to be learned to be intelligble (e.g through propaganda).

Transhumanism seems to be a synthesis of the older axioms of science and newer ideas from modern thinkers like Mr.Kurzweil.

This ideologie or philosophie – notice that most religions are very broad in their subject, from giving advice how to live and rule to rather poor philosophie and some nice aphorisms- is prone to be compared to religions since it has many parallels to other belief-systems in so far as it tries to predict part of the future, gives advice on topics of general human interest and changes in the human condition that it deems likely.

The main difference imo between larger, established religions and transhumanisms (“s” since there are many forms) is to be found in their respective structures; transhumanisms are generally much more realistic, since their key thinkers engage in methodological research and regularly update their believes.

Of course, words are fuzzy and to be accurate one would need more different terms in order to automatically differentiate between something like my abstract notion of transhumanism(s) and the more loosely connected movements (past or present) who bear that name.

Have a nice day :)

Ps: So much for disorganized thought.I have no concurrence since I outpace everyone in that field ^^

I already thanked you for that, haven’t I? =)

It’s a recurring question…if Transhumanism, or some people behind it anyway, is trying to pass itself off as a Religion…thinking it some more, I wonder if the question is somewhat redundant to be honest.

Redundant because, if it’s not to be seen a religion, it’s certainly a futurist-view that is very grounded and thorough – hence, this website and many genius thinkers like Kurzweil, Minksy, Moravec and more….from a practical standpoint, many many ideas, like accelerating change, are novel ideas for first-timers and worth paying attention too.

The Singularity will indeed accomplish many of the things that other religions talk about, so in many ways, it does have the guise of religion even if it didn’t originally start that way — Religion is seen as a stigma with this because that wasn’t originally the case, or at least was supposed too as I went into before…

Yet the ironic part is, and the point of this post is…it’s pretty redundant – because if you were to be a passionate believer in transhumanism and treated it as a religion….it’s certainly unconventional with that regard, yet that’s pretty much it — Transhumanism fulfills what many religions talk about, and much much more….it’s all grounded in science, steered by human values, doesn’t make any claims about Sin or that humanity is evil or whatever…..it’s a practical plausible outlook on the future that is grounded in science, very easy to believe in (passionately), that claims what other dogmas do and much more actually.

So I honestly wonder if it really is redundant to see transhumanism as a religion or not — it succeeds as a plausible attractive view of the near-future, and succeeds as a religion for those very same purposes. Perhaps it’s unconventional and strange because it’s not a belief-system created thousands of years ago with enveloping do-or-die beliefs on morality and how to live life in today’s world….and yet, as before, perhaps it trumps over those sorts of dogmas for those very reasons.

I just wanted to explain why I think it’s reasonable for Mr.Kurzweil not to be (in public) as those other persons you described.

Then I tried to supply some reasons why these people could be behaving the way they do.Of course, there are many more possibilities.

In the end, I actually agree with your post.

Ps: You wrote that post with your mouth?I could not do that, hats off!;)

Have a nice day and don’t be bothered by my rather dumb comments. It would be hypocritical to critizise you (I just realize I already was doing that to someone else, damned ^^).

If you really profit from a status quo every change or prospect of change is potentially a danger to your priviliged position.

Who makes the decisions?
I think, if you want to know what a government will do, ask yourself what’s in the interest of those persons in positions of influence.

For example better education for free gives their cherished children more concurrence and competition.They are not amused.

People also like to think they are something better than others.Why risk a rupture in that vision?

My point is, the nanny state as entity is composed of individual who have mostly (or they would not be in these positions) their own interests in mind, which btw is one of the main arguments for the seperation of powers.

In the USA one often hears the term check and balances, which-I guess- supposedly adress some of the problems stemming from human nature.

He has nothing to win by trying to do so, and it could harm his good reputation in the short term to gain -if he gains anything, since he is already influential- something that may be worthless/irrelevant in the long term, when he either just dies or his -or similiar- predictions turn out to be correct.

Other people may not be as successful as Mr.Kurzweil, and correspondingly have more to gain and less to lose if they try to get attention by means of extremeness.Islamists almost instantly achieve press when they act, normal muslims don’t.

Many gurus can live from having formed a movement, giving advice and selling ideologically-themed products.

Furthermore, many people are “vain” and just want attention.

Perhaps it’s an unintended paradox (Kurzweil says everything was always driven from a practical standpoint to look out into tech decades from now, and it became philosophical when he saw how great they were), but seeing the passion some transhumanists portray….something about that just feels…..wrong, to me.

Maybe my thinking is wrong; after all, that the future is supposedly going to be this unbelievable thing, especially given the rampant cynicism in today’s day, is a good thing….then again, many people have the same beliefs as well — that their is this religious apocalypse, the ‘end is nigh’, World War 3 is right around the corner, yadda yadda yadda…

So maybe what makes transhumanists stand apart is, despite having beliefs that seem to, in many ways, fulfill what other religious beliefs also say, they stand apart because what they believe in is, not only grounded in science, but also not reactionary to the global recession and the world we live today….Kurzweil and other transhumanists for instance have been saying this stuff before the 2000′s (of course, other philosophies have been around for, well, ALOT longer) and the recession and so on…the cynicism and doom&gloom in today’s day and seemingly greater beliefs that the ‘end is nigh’ and so on, comes from a direct response to the hardships today.

It’s hard for me to put my finger on it, but I think I’m honestly glad that transhumanism is still seemingly on the fringe….It’s just too much — maybe I’m overcomplicating it, but transhumanism, at least those passionate about it and present it as if it were a religion, go too far. I actually wish people were more like Kurzweil in that he doesn’t, at least not seemingly intentionally, come off as this prophet or preacher going on and on about how the future is going to be this incredible thing, we’re going through a transition period and humanity is going to be better then ever…

….Nevermind

I summon this: beware of hubris and hype, be humble and pedagogical and you will make more friends and believers.

Re “I don’t understand why a nanny state of the left would get in the way of providing a world of abundance to all the world’s masses.”

I don’t understand it either, but getting in the way is what _real_ nanny states do. They provide only state-sanctioned benefits, and only to those who play by their rules, and oppress the dissenters just like other authoritarian governments.

And, just like other authoritarian governments, they cannot tolerate those who want to think with their own head and do their own thing without harming anyone else.

Transhumanists have many political orientations, and Marxism is one of them. See e.g. Haldane and Bernal, two Marxist pre-transhumanists of the first half of the 20th century, and modern democratic/technoprog transhumanists.

In Marx’ writings there are hints that, if he lived today, he might be a transhumanist himself.

Also, citing Marx won’t get you very far.

Anyway we have to try, in any possible way we could come up with. And it will work, or it won’t. But it might and that makes it worth a try.

“I will go beyond the blue seas to speak to the untranscendend, where the “people” live either in museums or primal poverty, and if I return again to these regions it will be at the head of the technologically-trancendend transhumanists, who will flow over those unbelievers like the information in our MUDevices flows through the CLOUD, just as innumerable as apps in our iPhones; and I will bring them firewall and lasersword.”

Singularitum 7:1-12.
Transhumanist’s second coming, after cryo-preservation.
*MUDevices.Mind uploading device.

Having grown up with all these fast-paced media and violence, doing what you said would not entail enough drama^^

This means they are maybe not directly comparable.

I think of transhumanists as rather well-educated, well-off western observers who try to use their skills and experience in order to anticipate the flow of history, and maybe proffit from doing so in various ways.

For example a forcaster may make gains in the form of social influence, early adoption of new technologies and views so as to win time relative to their competition, and the selling of media products.

Having or claiming to posses knowledge of the future in some way or the other also lends itself very well to the consulting business, as the bio’s of various “transhumanist leaders” prove.

Another thing we should keep in mind is the fact that if you think about something, then probably the time was right for it in the sense that several factors came together to increase the probability of you having that thought.

This would mean that if even some of transhumanism’s ideas are true, like Kurzweil’s model of exponential change, then technological change will become faster and faster, leading to an understanding of humans and technology that makes intervention to achieve improvement in the human condition an obvious thought.

Sufficent changes in technology and our bodies would have greater impact than all political movements hitherto, all the while being more decentralized than the changes you allude to since these new changes will grow out of the application of new scientific knowledge, whose accumulation is generally not dependent on single prominent figures.

Anyway, we would do well to keep in mind that our limited vision is not the “yardstick” of reality.

FM-2030 seems to have anticipated chat rooms.

Ironic that Prisco should allude to Marx and Engels. They promoted some bad ideas, but at least they inspired political and revolutionary movements in several countries which took up arms to overthrow established regimes and shape the history of the world down to our time. I can’t see transhumanist figures like, say, FM-2030, having that kind of legacy a century from now.

But why do you think of the coming Singularity as a specter? I see it as a vision — a vision of a world where nobody goes hungry or homeless, a world where desalinated seawater is piped into the deserts where houses will be grown. Self-assembling photovoltaic carbon nanocells that use the power of sunlight to take carbon-dioxide out of the air and turn it into everything that everybody needs will do that. They will stop the global climate change too.

But I don’t understand why a nanny state of the left would get in the way of providing a world of abundance to all the world’s masses. Only a progressive government would care to pay for these nanocells and provide them for homesteading the deserts.

But in science a theory is the best one can get… hm hm.

Right and left wing were outdated even in the last century.Humans are slow to learn. :)

Anyway, I wish him success and a nice day.Maybe I’ll get around to watch it.