Interesting stuff Max and I do commend your repeated attempts to approach all this with a Old-Whig- Federalist & Burkeish coating of careful-paced humility. But such restraint is novel and all but absent those with the power to abuse/mutilate children & traditional Christian families who dare question -- NEA dominated school boards, AMA medical licensing -- not to mention the likes of Fauci, K-Schwab and a host of others like Kurzweil, and the whole Singularity crowd...of very Rich and Powerful men -- who clearly do NOT share your restraint and humility. Given the history of Secularized Revolutionaries, I suspect your very well intentioned "Mature Transhumanism" would give Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Burke, Russell Kirk -- OR a host of Cancelled Scientists the past few years much comfort.
KingsNorth's skepticism, I suspect, derives from the Real of "Power-Politics" world we now live in -- Not another of those abstract theoretical visionary Worlds we might love to dream and imagine.
This post is so defensive, about something apparently so innocuous, though with the scary name, that an unfamiliar reader would have to feel a bit suspicious. For most of the post, only the word "transhumism" provided a clue that we're talking about anything but normal economic growth.
Perhaps of interest, years ago? I concocted in my head, and wrote down large parts of, a novel set on Mars, which was peopled partly by a race originally derived from humanity, but that had been genetically engineered to be the ideal Martian colonists. They were large, very strong and skillful, deficient in artistic creativity but with a masterful engineering intelligence, much more instinctively obedient than normal humans, and with extra fingers and extra joints in their fingers to enable them to work with extreme efficiency. Above all, their skin was totally altered, so that it was specially airtight and able to maintain their bottle integrity in an environment of nearly zero atmosphere. They also had special lungs that could observe huge amounts of air, and then go without breathing for a long time. All this made them able to walk about on the surface of Mars, where ordinary humans had to live in glass bubbles.
The novel is set in the distant future, around 2470, by which time human colonization of Mars is not being actively pursued. China is a global hegemon on earth, and Mars is divided into "the Protectorate," directly under Chinese, rule and inhabited exclusively by these genetically engineered posthuman Martians, and "the colonies," where human populations live, descended from an age of human colonization centuries before, but sometimes enriched by refugees from Earth. The colonies aren't exactly independent, mostly because humans can't really run a colony on Mars, due to the excessive inconvenience of not being able to walk freely on the surface, as well as their inadequate engineering instincts, so they're dependent on Martians. And the Martians are all under the Protectorate because they're genetically engineered to be so obedient. However, the human colonists are so remote and helpless that the Chinese ignore them, and the Martians are willing to serve them for free because humans are, to them, so beautiful. You see, their aesthetic sensibilities are still mostly human, even though their bodies are posthuman. The Martians are hideously ugly to humans, and quite ugly to one another also, and humans only reluctantly tolerate them in their midst, but a small Martian minority willingly dwells in special segregated ghettos and keeps all the infrastructure running for humans that hardly do any work, simply for the pleasure of seeing them sometimes.
The novel focuses on the Martian governor general of a human colony, who takes pity on a girl from Earth, just arrived on a refugee shuttle, who comes to him to beg that her friend, who died on the interplanetary voyage, but who had to secretly converted to Christianity, be given a Christian burial against the will of her Muslim family. For whatever reason, she is the first human he has ever met who displays no repugnance for him, and he is touched far more deeply than has ever happened to him in his 150-year lifespan. He then learns that she is a Spanish princess from a dynasty the Chinese on earth want to exterminate as a potential focal point of resistance. He determines to hide her, though it seems impossible amidst the Martian surveillance state, and it's the beginning of a years-long secret project that ends in a kind of rebellion, culminating in amnesty for her but arrest for him. Before dying, he is brought to a terrible interview with the scientist who originally invented the Martian race, and who, unbeknownst to any Martian, is still secretly preserved as a kind of brain in a vat and rules the Martian people. The scientist to tells his story, and why he did it all, in a kind of apologia pro vita sua. The condemned governor general, though overwhelmed, manages to respond well enough to refute the undead scientist's sense of mission, so that he gives up the struggle to overprolong his life for the welfare of humanity, lets go, and sinks into oblivion.
I suppose it's clear that the novel was not meant as a defense of posthumanism.
This helps give me a kick to write True Transhumanism part 3.
Interesting stuff Max and I do commend your repeated attempts to approach all this with a Old-Whig- Federalist & Burkeish coating of careful-paced humility. But such restraint is novel and all but absent those with the power to abuse/mutilate children & traditional Christian families who dare question -- NEA dominated school boards, AMA medical licensing -- not to mention the likes of Fauci, K-Schwab and a host of others like Kurzweil, and the whole Singularity crowd...of very Rich and Powerful men -- who clearly do NOT share your restraint and humility. Given the history of Secularized Revolutionaries, I suspect your very well intentioned "Mature Transhumanism" would give Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Burke, Russell Kirk -- OR a host of Cancelled Scientists the past few years much comfort.
KingsNorth's skepticism, I suspect, derives from the Real of "Power-Politics" world we now live in -- Not another of those abstract theoretical visionary Worlds we might love to dream and imagine.
This is such a blisteringly good piece and interview https://unherd.com/2021/05/how-science-has-been-corrupted/
This post is so defensive, about something apparently so innocuous, though with the scary name, that an unfamiliar reader would have to feel a bit suspicious. For most of the post, only the word "transhumism" provided a clue that we're talking about anything but normal economic growth.
Perhaps of interest, years ago? I concocted in my head, and wrote down large parts of, a novel set on Mars, which was peopled partly by a race originally derived from humanity, but that had been genetically engineered to be the ideal Martian colonists. They were large, very strong and skillful, deficient in artistic creativity but with a masterful engineering intelligence, much more instinctively obedient than normal humans, and with extra fingers and extra joints in their fingers to enable them to work with extreme efficiency. Above all, their skin was totally altered, so that it was specially airtight and able to maintain their bottle integrity in an environment of nearly zero atmosphere. They also had special lungs that could observe huge amounts of air, and then go without breathing for a long time. All this made them able to walk about on the surface of Mars, where ordinary humans had to live in glass bubbles.
The novel is set in the distant future, around 2470, by which time human colonization of Mars is not being actively pursued. China is a global hegemon on earth, and Mars is divided into "the Protectorate," directly under Chinese, rule and inhabited exclusively by these genetically engineered posthuman Martians, and "the colonies," where human populations live, descended from an age of human colonization centuries before, but sometimes enriched by refugees from Earth. The colonies aren't exactly independent, mostly because humans can't really run a colony on Mars, due to the excessive inconvenience of not being able to walk freely on the surface, as well as their inadequate engineering instincts, so they're dependent on Martians. And the Martians are all under the Protectorate because they're genetically engineered to be so obedient. However, the human colonists are so remote and helpless that the Chinese ignore them, and the Martians are willing to serve them for free because humans are, to them, so beautiful. You see, their aesthetic sensibilities are still mostly human, even though their bodies are posthuman. The Martians are hideously ugly to humans, and quite ugly to one another also, and humans only reluctantly tolerate them in their midst, but a small Martian minority willingly dwells in special segregated ghettos and keeps all the infrastructure running for humans that hardly do any work, simply for the pleasure of seeing them sometimes.
The novel focuses on the Martian governor general of a human colony, who takes pity on a girl from Earth, just arrived on a refugee shuttle, who comes to him to beg that her friend, who died on the interplanetary voyage, but who had to secretly converted to Christianity, be given a Christian burial against the will of her Muslim family. For whatever reason, she is the first human he has ever met who displays no repugnance for him, and he is touched far more deeply than has ever happened to him in his 150-year lifespan. He then learns that she is a Spanish princess from a dynasty the Chinese on earth want to exterminate as a potential focal point of resistance. He determines to hide her, though it seems impossible amidst the Martian surveillance state, and it's the beginning of a years-long secret project that ends in a kind of rebellion, culminating in amnesty for her but arrest for him. Before dying, he is brought to a terrible interview with the scientist who originally invented the Martian race, and who, unbeknownst to any Martian, is still secretly preserved as a kind of brain in a vat and rules the Martian people. The scientist to tells his story, and why he did it all, in a kind of apologia pro vita sua. The condemned governor general, though overwhelmed, manages to respond well enough to refute the undead scientist's sense of mission, so that he gives up the struggle to overprolong his life for the welfare of humanity, lets go, and sinks into oblivion.
I suppose it's clear that the novel was not meant as a defense of posthumanism.
What do you think about going to Mars?