The Discover magazine blog has a piece posted by one Kyle Munkittrick, which explains in a very succinct and understandable way, the socially anarchic values that lie at the heart of transhumanist Utopianism. First, Munkittrick describes the near-metaphysical goals of the movement: From “When Will We Be Transhuman?”
As a movement philosophy, transhumanism and its proponents argue for a future of ageless bodies, transcendent experiences, and extraordinary minds.
Ah, but the devil is in the details. Munkittrick sets forth seven “indicators” of when transhumanism can be seen to have succeeded. Here they are in a necessarily abridged form:
1. Prosthetics are Preferred: The arrival of prosthetics and implants for organs and limbs that are as good as or better than the original. A fairly accurate test for the quality of prosthetics would be voluntary amputations.
I have warned that transhumanism supports the amputation of health limbs for those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder–a terrible mental illness. But this article makes it clear that such unwarranted surgery would not be limited to people who are emotionally disturbed. So much for medicine’s “do no harm” ethos.
2. Better Brains: There are three ways we could improve our cognition. In order of likelihood of being used in the near future they are: cognitive enhancing drugs, genetic engineering, or neuro-implants/ prosthetic cyberbrains.
Good luck with that. Who are going to be the guinea pigs to learn how to do it? Animal research would be essential, and human subjects too. And even if we could somehow be made smarter, that would not in any regard mean we would be better. In fact, I think very high intelligence is a highly overrated trait. Loving people, regardless of IQ, is what we really need, and that doesn’t come from technological recreationism.
3. Artificial Assistance: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) integrated into personal, everyday behaviors. In the same way Google search and Wikipedia changed the way we research and remember, AI and AR could alter the way we think and interact.
4. Amazing Average Age: The ultimate objective of health care is that people live the longest, healthiest lives possible.
Ah, the old transhumanist lament: We’re inadequate in every way, and we don’t live long enough. But just as a lake or pond needs the regular infusion of fresh water to remain healthy, society needs generational change to keep from becoming reactionary and stagnant.
5. Responsible Reproduction:… Responsible reproduction will involve, first and foremost, better birth control for men and women. Abortions will be reserved for the rare accidental pregnancy and/or those that threaten the life of the mother. Those who do choose to reproduce will do so via assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) ensuring pregnancy is quite deliberate. Furthermore, genetic modification, health screening, and, eventually synthetic wombs will enable the child with the best possibility of a good life to be born. Parental licensing may be part of the process; a liberalization of adoption and surrogate pregnancy laws certainly will be.
Hello Huxley!
6. My Body, My Choice: Legalization and regulation will be based on somatic rights. Substances that are ingested – cogno enhancers, recreational drugs, steroids, nanotech – become both one’s right and responsibility. Actions such as abortion, assisted suicide, voluntary amputation, gender reassignment, surrogate pregnancy, body modification, legal unions among adults of any number, and consenting sexual practices would be protected under law. One’s genetic make-up, neurological composition, prosthetic augmentation, and other cybernetic modifications will be limited only by technology and one’s own discretion.
Social anarchy and amorality run amok. Ironically, rather than promoting radical individuality, I think such a society would end up socially enforcing a stultifying uniformity, with culture of death undermining the value of the lives of all perceived to be transhumanally inferior.
7. Persons, not People: Rights discourse will shift to personhood instead of common humanity. I have argued we’re already beginning to see a social shift towards this mentality. Using a scaled system based on traits like sentience, empathy, self-awareness, tool use, problem solving, social behaviors, language use, and abstract reasoning, animals (including humans) will be granted rights based on varying degrees of personhood…When African grey parrots, gorillas, and dolphins have the same rights as a human toddler, a transhuman friendly rights system will be in place.
Destroy human exceptionalism and you will also destroy universal human rights. Or to put it another way, if a toddler were ever seen as the moral equal of a parrot, the parrot wouldn’t gain the right to life, the toddler would lose it.
Transhumanism is a nihilistic and solipsistic rebellion against the existing social order, personal behavioral restraint, and the unique dignity of every human being. More dangerously, it is thoroughly Utopian. As the French Revolution and its many and bloody progeny have repeatedly demonstrated, even the most well meaning Utopian enterprises rarely end well.
July 17th, 2011 | 5:36 pm
Hi Wesley.
Transhumanism is neither nihilistic nor utopian, although some Transhumanists may complement their Transhumanist ideas with nihilistic or utopian ideas.
To the contrary of your criticism, it’s the idea of a static humanity that is nihilistic, in that it rejects the only kind of humanity that has ever existed: dynamic evolving humanity.
Also to the contrary of your criticism, many Transhumanists explicitly reject (even denounce) utopianism, instead embracing the persistence of evolution: from prehuman to human, from human to posthuman, and beyond without any final static expectation. As new opportunities present themselves, so too will new risks, perhaps without end. Pursuit of the “best” often gets in the way of pursuit of the better. The ethical use of technology to expand human abilities, Transhumanism, can (and should) be about pragmatism rather than utopianism.
Finally, it’s simply inaccurate to position Transhumanism or Transhumanists generally as antisocial or egotistical. Ideologically, positive communal and environmental evolution are as important as positive individual evolution for Transhumanism. Individually, for every example of antisocial or egotistical behavior among Transhumanists that you give me, I’ll give you two prosocial and altruistic examples.
I don’t understand why you attack Transhumanism as indiscriminately as you do. Does it increase blog traffic?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 17th, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Hardly indiscriminate. I criticize transhumanism because I think it represents a dangerous and anti human ideology. If I wanted merely to generate blog traffic, I’d constantly write about circumcision and Sarah Palin.
July 17th, 2011 | 7:10 pm
Transhumanism is dangerous, at least as dangerous as the history of human evolution, but that does not make it wrong. To the contrary, it is an affirmation of all that has been, is and will be good and beautiful in real living humanity – in ironic contrast to the dead abstractions that some would impose dogmatically on humanity in its name.
Dave "Dblade" Dutcher Reply:
July 18th, 2011 at 11:20 am
@Lincoln Cannon, It has nothing to do with this. Transhumanism is based on the idea that “technology is magic.” As the linked article shows, to almost absurd levels.
It’s a religion based on faith in technological progress that simply isn’t warrranted. And in the name of that religion, people warrant some pretty awful things.
HistoryWriter Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 9:21 am
@Dave “Dblade” Dutcher, Not unlike most (if not all) other religions, no? What your argument comes down to is “mine’s better than yours.”
HW
July 17th, 2011 | 7:32 pm
But Wesley, isn’t religion all based on getting to heaven, damn the consequences, and convert everyone at the point of the sword (or condom)?
That, to me, is the very definition of selfishness and being callous.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 17th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
No. And even if it were, your anti religion diatribes are growing wearisome. This isn’t a place for just lashing out. If you can’t get a grip, don’t comment. Unless you want to be sent to the corn field from whence there is no return.
HistoryWriter Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 9:26 am
@Wesley J. Smith,
That’s the kind of response one might expect from someone who works for a Creationist organization, not someone who’s supposed to welcome reasoned arguments to his blog. Your double standard is showing: the “religion” matter wasn’t raised by HCM; it was raised by Dblade.
HW
July 17th, 2011 | 11:11 pm
The author of the Discover article describes a society just like H.G. Wells’ “modern” world in Things to Come.
Meet the new fascism, same as the old fascism.
July 18th, 2011 | 12:49 am
Anarchic? I don’t think that many real anarchists are in favor of parental licensing.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 18th, 2011 at 9:26 am
That’s a good point, but I was thinking about the radical libertarian ideas.
July 18th, 2011 | 1:35 pm
I agree that technology is magic. Look at how it has transformed the world. It is nothing short of magical. It is not, however, supernatural. I also agree that transhumanism is (or at least can be) a religion, and I think that can be a good thing. Power, whether it be that of technology or ideology, is not inherently good or evil. Power can be used for good or evil. Wesley’s recognition that not all religion is evil is entirely applicable to Transhumanism. I wish he would recognize that.
Dblade Reply:
July 18th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
@Lincoln Cannon, Lincoln, but they somehow expect supernatural effects from it. without any realistic sense of what it means. It’s magical in the sense of a wizard pointing at a tree and turning it into a bird. Read this:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/pace/pace_lifestyle.html
This is the closest we as a society have achieved to the transhumanic ideal-we have created a technological replacement for part of the human heart. Yet it has many of its own drawbacks, and requires fairly extensive care just to duplicate what we have naturally.
There’s little of the realistic sense of the transhumanist ideals. It’s magic-technology will one day let us do these incredible things, yet the incredible things we can do often have so many side effects that caution is warranted.
July 18th, 2011 | 2:26 pm
While I appreciate the yearnings for people like Lincoln for a better society, unfortunately, the entire problem with utopian systems that promise paradise on earth is this right here: “Power, whether it be that of technology or ideology, is not inherently good or evil. Power can be used for good or evil.”
Unfortunately, even if the utopian is a relative saint in treating others with respect and dignity, he forgets the most demonstrated fact of human existence constant at every phase of human civilization, power tends to corrupt. Power may be neutral, but those employing it are not.
Karl Marx thought the world would reach a time when all were treated as equals. Would he shudder and be surprised to find his supposed disciples dooming millions upon millions of people to imprisonment, impoverishment and death at the hands of their own countrymen? The only real question to ponder, if Munkittrick’s world comes to pass, is what the body count will be.
July 18th, 2011 | 2:52 pm
You know I find human exceptionalism solipsistic and unnecessary, but how about we live up to “human” before thinking about going beyond (trans) it?
July 18th, 2011 | 4:27 pm
My question for the first point: How should doctors deal with a person that does not appear emotionally disturbed, yet still want to lop off a limb and replace it with a prosthetic superior one?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 18th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Say no.
Josh Reply:
July 18th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, While I support a timely and diplomatic use of the word ‘no’, unfortunately, you cannot realistically expect every doctor to stick to it. People have a right to, arguably, do anything to their bodies, plastic surgery, tattoos, piercings, make-up. How would you, how could you, even begin to tell people they shouldn’t?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 18th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Josh: Doctors are not order takers. They are supposed to be professionals with ethics and duties beyond giving the customer whatever they want. Doctors treat PATIENTS. Any doctor who would cut off healthy limbs on demand will have sacrificed his/her professional status.
However, I think this would be an area that could be effectively policed, by both ethical rules of the prefession and the law. Think about it: Amputation and adding a prosthesis would require high expertise. I think a combination of threat of discipline and illegality could do easily dissuade the few physicians who might be tempted by the money. Most doctors wouldn’t want to risk it, and those that might would mostly be bottom feeders or in foreign countries with a weak rule of law. Can’t control everything.
HCM Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 2:07 am
@Zak, I would say no, at least until we have cybernetic technology that surpasses biological limbs (assuming they do not cause any psychoses or neuroses, of course).
Dave "Dblade" Dutcher Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
@HCM, No one can even define what superior means. Human beings aren’t cars where you can just swap out a leg and see our top speed increase by ten miles per hour.
Prosthesis are designed only to replace what is lost. No prosthesis will improve the human being, because human performance is due to a tremendous amount of linked factors. Zak is indulging in a “What if” that we probably will never see for hundreds if not thousands of years, if at all.
July 18th, 2011 | 10:46 pm
Dblade, through tech we’ve accomplished far more magic than artificial hearts. I won’t bother making a list. It would just go on and on. You and I are communicating magically now. To the extent a self-identifying Transhumanist associates the supernatural with Transhumanism, that person is not doing so as a Transhumanist.
JustChris, power will certainly corrupt, and it will certainly exalt. Clearly you are far more powerful than your distant ancestors. Is that an inherently bad thing? Should we have not progressed to this point because it would inherently corrupt you? No. Instead, we invite each other to make ethical use of our power. In fact, that’s essential to Transhumanism.
Dave "Dblade" Dutcher Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
@Lincoln Cannon, Except that we had a transhumanist fad surrounding this very thing we are using to talk to each other: it’s called cyberpunk, and it’s a dead genre.
People predicted these wild utopian ideas that had nothing to do with how the net actually worked, or how people would use it. Who actually cares now about surgically altering people to be able to jack into a three-d representation of data when you can just turn on your mobile phone?
Transhumanists don’t have that sense of reality or humanity about tech. This is why I say its magical thinking. They’ll talk about cognitive enhancing drugs, but none of them ever talk about what as simple an enhancing drug as anabolic steroids can and will do to a person.
Lincoln Cannon Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
@Dave “Dblade” Dutcher, web and mobile tech has hardly reached the end of its evolution. Unless you’re quite senior, you’ll see persons integrating their minds with the Internet. In simple forms and to a limited extent, it’s already happening. That aside, if you don’t know Transhumanists that care about the practical application of present tech then you don’t know many Transhumanists. I’m a Transhumanist, and my livelihood depends on the practical application of present tech.
Dave "Dblade" Dutcher Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 11:46 pm
@Lincoln Cannon, Look, a person who thinks people are going to amputate their limbs for prosthesis doesn’t really know much about them today, or thinks much about the side effects of doing so. If they think drugs are going to enhance cognitive functions, they really don’t understand them now, or they’d be more worried about thinks like drug side effects or interactions.
They never say in real terms “how is this going to work?” They just say “Some day we’ll download our brains into computers” or “some day we’ll create humans that can breathe methane to live on Jupiter”-things that are closer to religion and only seem realistic because we use computers instead of heaven.
I’m a heavy reader of SF myself, but you have to realize its the easiest thing in the world to make that kind of claim sound plausible. William Gibson didn’t even own a computer when he coined the term cyberspace.
Lincoln Cannon Reply:
July 20th, 2011 at 12:34 am
@Dave “Dblade” Dutcher, religion can be a good thing, so charging Transhumanism with religiosity doesn’t necessarily sound like a problem. Certainly not all of our expectations regarding the future will be realized, but some will be and some aspects of the future will far surpass our expectations. Your perspective reminds me of these: http://lincoln.metacannon.net/2007/07/skeptical-of-ideas-proposed-by.aspx
July 19th, 2011 | 7:25 am
Utopia in a nutshell:
The goal is never the problem.
It’s the violations en route, and how they are justified, that is always the problem.
Arguing about whether or not the world can or should be made “better” is futile, since “better” always involves an appeal to authority (who gets to be the one who decides “better”?)
The right to live one’s life one’s own way is never possible for all. Look at the spots where your right to live your life your way clashes with my right to live my life my way, and there you have the real problem with Utopias in general – and transhumanism in particular.
If they can do what they want without any human rights violations, anywhere, would that be okay?
The real conflicts boil down to far more interesting questions, like “how can one guard one’s right to hold and believe and practice and live in accordance with one’s values when other people are defining those values as obstacles to be overcome?”
HistoryWriter Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 9:37 am
@Blake,
“How can one guard one’s right to hold and believe and practice and live in accordance with one’s values when other people are defining those values as obstacles to be overcome?”
You raise an interesting question — one that’s interesting to people on all sides of all debates, including transhumanists, advocates of assisted suicide, advocates for the disabled, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, and all the rest. The answer is that we ultimately learn to live in a pluralistic society in which a wide spectrum of views is accommodated, or we end up living under a Big Brother of the right or left.
The moment we admit neither side has all the right answers is the moment we’ll have taken the first big step toward a rational society.
HW
July 19th, 2011 | 9:28 am
Any ethical system that demands the right to define what a person is, as some subset of human beings, is to be instantly distrusted.
Preferably, reviled and drummed out of the public sphere…but that is perhaps hoping for too much now.
July 19th, 2011 | 11:03 am
Regarding point 6: I think education is the answer here, especially regarding recreational drugs.
Once the public knows that crack cocaine can make even the most peaceful individuals violent, very few will use it (and even then, probably only when they’ve locked themselves in a secure location, alone).
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 11:08 am
Dream on, HCM: People know what Meth does–have since the 60s (“Speed kills!”), and now we have to show our driver’s licenses just to by Sudafed.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 11:09 am
Yes, Martin Luther King did not write, “Letter From Anonymous Activist Avoiding Jail.”
HCM Reply:
July 20th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, And criminalising pot and marijuana simply encourages children to try those things.
And don’t forget all the drug money that goes to Al-Qaeda et. al.
C’mon, Wesley. When are you going to tell us where you draw the line on capitalism?
July 19th, 2011 | 12:14 pm
Wesley, thank you so much for such an intellgent response to this manifesto-and you’re right on. Hello Brave New World, indeed!
C.S. Lewis commented on this in the Abolition of Man written way back in 1943-that if we ever get the power to make our decendants what we please, all men who come after are going to be slaves to that power(I’m quoting this from memory). I see TH as an assault on human dignity.
Lincoln Cannon Reply:
July 19th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
@DeeDee, many Transhumanists reject the notion of controlling our descendants in the way you describe. Many will also argue that artificial general intelligence may require degrees of relinquishment rather than control. Transhumanism is hardly the bogey man so many in this thread want to evoke.
July 20th, 2011 | 7:09 am
You raise an interesting question — one that’s interesting to people on all sides of all debates, including transhumanists, advocates of assisted suicide, advocates for the disabled, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, and all the rest. The answer is that we ultimately learn to live in a pluralistic society in which a wide spectrum of views is accommodated, or we end up living under a Big Brother of the right or left.
Ethics is the difference between the bright future vs. the dystopia.
Technological progress without ethical progress is the stuff of nightmare.
The key to ethical progress is recognizing that our current ethics is hamstrung by its inability to recognize and describe all of the things a person has reason to value.
Failure to recognize things of value is what leads us to ethical mistakes. We fail to value things like a healthy environment, or a climate of trust. We fail to value all the aspects of human dignity that make for human dignity. We overvalue things like the so-called “right” to choose things that are not actually within our power to choose.
It takes time and it takes the willingness to be open to what is true and it takes talking (& listening). This blog does a great contribution by providing a place where this talking can take place in an environment that is civil yet open.
July 20th, 2011 | 8:08 am
Lincoln, human beings were designed to exist within family, or community. I see no room in the transhumanist future above for love, family, caring ,campassion,extended family, it all seems to be about radical autonomy and being subject to the state(#5)
I have no trouble with medical technology-I think it would be cool if we could regenerate lost limbs or damaged organs (if done ethically)and cure alzeheimers and cancer and other old age diseases,and all live to a healthy ripe old age-but immortality? Nah, not for me in this imperfect existence.
There seems to be no room in this future for those who want to live and love the old fashioned way.
HCM Reply:
July 20th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
@DeeDee, Actually, DeeDee, many humans are islands unto themselves, and are naturally reclusive. It’s called Asperger’s.
July 20th, 2011 | 10:59 am
Lincoln, human beings were designed to exist within family, or community. I see no room in the transhumanist future above for love, family, caring ,campassion,extended family, it all seems to be about radical autonomy and being subject to the state(#5)
Some people want to belong to the state in the way that we currently belong to our family.
What’s sad is that they don’t seem to realize the full consequences of what that would mean.
They seem to believe that because the state is devoid of love and caring and personal relationships one associates with families, the state will also be free of all the dysfunctions associated with families.
July 20th, 2011 | 7:57 pm
@DeeDee, I can easily point you to dozens of Transhumanists that will tell you love, family, caring, compassion, and extended family are essential to their identification as Transhumanists. Also, we don’t want to live indefinitely in the world just as it is, but rather increasingly as it can and should be. Nihilism is in putting our hopes elsewhere rather than seeking to enjoy what we’ve got while making it better.
July 21st, 2011 | 7:24 pm
[...] http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2011/07/17/transhumanisms-solipsistic-utopianism/ This entry was posted on Friday, July 22nd, 2011 at 12:24 am and is filed under Transhumanism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...]
August 4th, 2011 | 11:17 am
[...] they won’t be “post human” exactly. More current tortoise. From theTelegraph story: Jonathan, the tortoise, is believed [...]
August 9th, 2011 | 3:55 pm
[...] back, I posted on a blog article written by Kyle Munkittrick for the Discovery magazine Website that info…. It was an important piece because it clearly and succinctly illustrated the subversive values [...]
August 10th, 2011 | 3:08 pm
I did not know Wesley is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. That really puts this blog in perspective now.
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