I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that the philosophies of transhumanism and posthumanism are going to win the day once the current spasm of our nation’s self-consciousness relaxes. It will be the late- to post-green era, once some giant Global Warming/NWO computer will be able to automatically regulate output of all the little sustainable permaregional biohamlets, and in effect program the ecosystem on a global and supra-global scale.
The point I’m trying to make with all that jargon though is simple: super smart rich people who made their money off of computers think of the world through the lens of computers. Transhumanism and posthumanism, the idea that human limitations can be pushed or eliminated altogether, is - if not the natural outgrowth - then at least tightly connected to computer science and simply the systemic type of thinking shift that one undergoes in dealing with complex technological systems on a daily basis.
The ability to program a computer came about because certain people had developed the ability to program their minds - meta-programming - which eventually allowed them the clarity and ability to concretize those interior functions into usable artifacts for themselves and other people to manipulate that set of knowledge.
Computing, in essence, revolutionized world technology and economics, giving political and business advantage to countries which could create the most conducive legal environments in which to do business. Computer companies have become a magnet for the top intellects around the world, companies aggressively competing for the most skilled computer scientists and programmers.
What few people are directly talking about though is the philosophical orientations of the average - nevermind the well-above average - programmer/computer scientist. For obvious cultural reasons, most were raised on a steady diet of science fiction, a genre of melodrama which allows for the imaginative exploration and advancement of human technology, identity and its outer limits.
Transhumanism is an outgrowth or some kind of marriage of not only sci-fi, but of the human potential movement of the 70’s, and the autognostic drug explorations of far-out thinkers like Timothy Leary: who himself was heavily interested in computers and the internet as psychedelic tools towards the end of his life.
Transhumanism will be the philosophy upon which widespread public acceptance and use of augmented, virtual and non-local reality systems and the electronic paradigms which they represent will ride into existence.
By writing this, I don’t intend to necessarily endorse or villify transhumanism or posthuman philosophical worldviews. I simply want to open up a dialogue about them in terms of their intimacy with the emotional life of “hardcore computer nerds” and the rising importance of technological wizardry in our world.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
- Transhumanism: Excuse for Euthanasia?
- Transhumanism Can Eat a Dick!
- I call it “Liberated Computerism”
- Parasitic Computing
- Quote on the Day
