Over the past few years I have had the great pleasure of participating in the transhumanist and related movements. I have learned so much about a variety of emerging technologies and their expected impact on humanity. I have met many fascinating people with labels like extropians, transhumanists, cryonicists, singularitarians, and immortalists. I have also met biogerontologists and other researchers, humanists, atheists, religious transhumanists, advocates, organizers, leaders, and critics. I spoke publicly about emerging technologies through online commentary, interviews and public speaking. I joined, supported, and helped organize emerging technology and transhumanist clubs, including the h+ clubs and affiliation, and I even held positions at Immortality Institute and Humanity+.
While these experiences have been overwhelmingly positive, there were negative aspects that eventually sapped my enthusiasm for group participation. Some things became very clear to me this year:
- I no longer want to spend time trying to convince people that emerging technologies will radically impact humanity. I do not feel the need to convince people of anything. People will react and adapt as they will.
- I have had enough of proponents of particular emerging technologies ridiculing other proponents of other emerging technologies. Our personal passions do not warrant mocking and dismissing the passions of others.
- I do not begrudge anyone their politics, but I do have issues with the rude, ignorant, and dismissive approach typical of transhumanist commentary and debate.
As important as group organizations are, I am not currently interested in participating in them. Instead, I celebrate a new focus on my education and my own personal relationship with science, technology, and transhumanism. My enthusiasm for emerging technologies has not wanned and my interest in the future has never been greater. However, I have also come to greatly appreciate the present, with all its animal joys and pains. I will fully experience today, in my modern human form, even as I anticipate the Metaverse, radical life extension, and the emergence of new intelligences.
Tomorrow is coming fast enough. For now, I am content with furthering my education, learning how to play the guitar, writing fiction, reading, and quietly contemplating technology trends over the next decade.
Nice post, Richard!
I especially like this: “I have also come to greatly appreciate the present, with all its animal joys and pains. I will fully experience today, in my modern human form.”
For what it’s worth, your efforts connected me to people who I value very much. Thank you for your efforts. Good things have come from them.
T
Good for you, Richard. Your talents, skills and drive will help build the future we both want. But your present focus on the present moment is just as important. The time is always now. This moment is all you really have.
You’ve expressed here some valuable insights, Richard. Quite a few self-identified “transhumanists” have reified their visions of “the future”, substituting their certainty and enthusiasm about that future, for the uncertainty and hard work involved in creating a future yet to be discovered.
Growth always involves letting go of the old (including its visions) to make way for the new.
Sadly, some have gotten their heads just a little above the mirage shared by much of humanity–they see the injuries and injustices due to religion, the inconsistencies and illogic of our present day heuristics and biases–and become so enamored of the improved view that they stay there and make it their own.
Glad you seem to have already transcended (that level), ready to discover anew.