Advancing Humanism vs. Transhumanism

"Well, if you insist on tagging me, call me a meliorist."

This post started to percolate when I read this... "The cowardice I see out there is astonishing. Smart, productive, de facto transhumanists that are just too damn stodgy to use the T-word to describe themselves."

It continued to brew after I read this... "All humans have the right to become transhumans. If not, then the transhumanist movement is no longer humanist."

And what would a blogpost be without controversy? "An international, intellectual, and fast-growing cultural movement known as transhumanism... intends the use of biotechnology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence as tools that will radically redesign our minds, our memories, our physiology, our offspring, and even perhaps... our very souls."

Seven or eight years ago I had a real fascination with transhumanism. It seemed like the kind of cool, progressive movement that a smart, sci-fi loving geek like me could relate to and embrace. Yet here I am, 'regressed' back to ordinary humanism. Why? What changed?

• I began to feel that the transhumanist movement was limited in its unflagging reverence of technology. Like the man said, "At best, we can say that we have effectively become 'slaves' to the technology we create." (q) Technology was/is presented by transhumanists as the only, the inevitable, and even the superior course through which humanity can, will, and should evolve. I began to believe that there was another way for humanity to evolve, and for the definition of what it means to be human to significantly change; one that did not involve the hybridization of man and machine.
• I began to believe that transhumanism was too focused on the far future, and was dangerously disconnected from the problems that we currently face. Don't tell me about the glories of a cyborg body; tell me about the various expressions of humanity that stand to be wiped out by improvements in genetic screening technology. Tell me about the current sociological consequences of our rush to seek 'normalcy' via neuropharmacology.
• Transhumanist writings began to seem more like the fantasies of an isolated elite, and less like a practical, mainstream philosophy or an attempt to address current real-world concerns. Yes, on some level we like to be entertained with visions of the future, but where/what is the transhumanist approach to hunger, poverty or illiteracy? What does transhumanism have to say about the fact that coveted biological 'amplifications' aren't available to everyone?

I appreciate that it's exciting to talk about and plan for a far future; one that might be utopian or dystopian, as your mood permits. Even I find it more exciting to talk about the possibility of mind-uploading than the future of Brazil as an agricultural world power.

But I also want to talk about what happens when you force the ordinary factory worker to engage a slow, flawed piece of software for eight hours via voice recognition. How does the company's desire for increased productivity rate against the psychological and neurological change (one might even say 'damage') that the new technology inflicts upon the worker? And I want to talk about the freedom to resist the pressure to modify one's consciousness according to the current social norms.

Embracing the race toward a better future via technology is transhumanism. Being concerned for those who suffer along the way is humanism. We really shouldn't be transhumanists without first being humanists...