#85 - Transhumanism

Nailed it fully fully hit that Nailed it Fucking nailed it like a fucking Judas Not Judas got him nailed. He just didn't get crucified. He hung himself And but Judas got him nailed so he nailed it. He well he nailed him. That's true Do you think that's where that comes from that saying like hey, I nailed you like Just like Judas did to Jesus some dodge ball Hello, I'm gonna drug it philosophy. My name is Connor Holmes. I'm Danielin This is a podcast Did you forget that you have to say something after I say my name? I don't remember this is a podcast. Yes, what a podcast is how did you get here? Yeah? Did you accidentally stumble into the iTunes store? You're trying to buy that newest Josh Groban album and you somehow Completed into the podcast section Maybe you're in the words maybe you're in the car with your stepdad and he loves us Your number one demographic stepdads Stepdad's you got out of college. You want to go back? All right, well Shout out to stepdads. Shout out to stepdads. You know who you are. This is a podcast where we talk about philosophy and we get drunk and I just recently got back from Sonoma County because I wear a white tasting That's tasting them wines Which ones did you try do you try the reds? I tried all the reds. I tried about three whites Are you trying three the whites? Those are good and I am so I hope you got the three good ones Yeah, I got the three good ones and I tried one mosquito Well, that's a white, isn't it? Yeah, no, I didn't even try a mosquito. I just made that shit up Oh, I used to drink a lot of mosquito when I was 19. Yeah, I would assume I was a little girl Yeah, cuz you because you couldn't find any fucking Mike's hard lemonade. Yeah, exactly my parents were all out So I just drank barefoot Mascado and got a real sugar rush. Yeah, do you Mascado so disgusting? It's so sweet. All right. That's the wine corner of this podcast Never mind in your talk We try to educate our listeners a little bit about wine every week and that was your lesson for this week Mascado is pretty gross and it's very sweet So yeah, we get drunk every week. We talk about a different philosophical topic that I bring in I'm drinking a Pasta jar size vodka soda and sparkling grapefruit because we had some leftovers from Thanksgiving Dang, man, what did you do for Thanksgiving? We said Thanksgiving in our house so we just need like a shitload of food and Elizabeth's sister and our friend Chris came over Okay, that's pretty much it. Yeah, we played risk Elizabeth, hey you know Game I've been thinking about getting it's called Imperial assault. It's like a it's like one of those really expensive board games Mm-hmm, but that has like similar like it's got little fig greens and like is it basically risk or is it like closer to warhammer? Well, it's kind of somewhere in between risk and warhammer kind of It's like you know like is like just as committed to a game as I want to get where it's like You don't really need to know anything. You just roll a bunch of dice. Yeah As soon as the rule book is really complicated than that. Yeah, the rule book is like three pages Yeah, when when the rule book is like okay, so the bad guy has this rule book and then all the allies have this rule book Yeah, yeah, it's that's it becomes too much. I want to play one of those games at least once in my life I can't be any harder than warhammer. I already played that so I never I could never get into warhammer Well, you've got to be indeed. That's really fucking hard to Sort of I got into dnd like I tried to start two games once and it never happened We played we played a little bit We played a couple Knights and it was decided that I was the worst at dnd Like zero commitment. I just want to have a really good time which does not help the story progress whatsoever Anyways, we're not here to talk about nerd shit like that. We're here to talk about philosophy real cool stuff But this week we are going to be discussing some nerd shit because our Topic for this week which might turn into a two-part episode because there's a lot to sort of unpack here And it's very general for this episode, but we're going to be talking about transhumanism Which is a philosophical and intellectual movement that aims to transform the human condition by creating widely available Technology that will help advance intellectual physical and psychological capabilities So basically sci-fi shit where we put robots into our bodies. Yeah, we go into the future like I like Future tech Yeah, I figured you would like this because you hate old boring white dudes and you love computers Little nephew that I'm just trying to get interested in school Yeah, and as I'm just sucking on an e cigarette and like yeah, you're Yeah, it's just like the onion said you're like a bounty hunter from the future smoking your your vape pen So yeah, transhumanism which is sometimes stylized as just H+ Depending on where you're going. Okay, that's that's lame. I would never say that believe me. It gets a lot lamer So this is sort of like I said it's a it's this philosophical or intellectual movement There's a lot of different facets to it, but it's basically a directed or forced evolution of the human species Through the use of technology So whether that technology is you know eugenics and genetic engineering or The application of like bio or technological parts to like biotech like using technology and people's bodies to enhance our bodies Putting chips on our brains to make us think faster all that kind of stuff all falls under this transhumanist umbrella It's pretty well summed up in this quote by this guy Julian Huxley who I believe it's just a coincidence So he has the same last name as all this Huxley, but pretty crazy Pretty crazy stuff guys in 1957 So this idea of transhumanism dates back into like the 30s or 40s, but in 1957 Julian Huxley wrote this paper and this quote is from him says up until now human life has generally been as Hobbes described it nasty, brutish and short the great majority of human beings if they have not already died young have been afflicted with misery We can justifiably hold the belief that these lands of possibility exists and that the present limitations and miserable frustrations of our existence could be in large measure Surmounted the human species can if it wishes transcend itself not just sporadically an individual here in one way an individual there and another But in its entirety as humanity So he's not just talking about random one-off instances of people, you know creating a better life for themselves He's talking about the species as a whole moving forward beyond this Essentially terrible existence that we have now that sort of filled with suffering But what do they think back back then? Because they didn't have computers back in like the 30s. What do they think is gonna be back like eugenics? Yeah, there well there was a lot of eugenics stuff going on back then like in the 30s and 40s There was a lot of study because like the human genome sort of had just somewhat recently been cracked and they were sort they're very interested in that idea This idea of you know directed genetics. It's nowhere near as advanced as it is now But there was in clings up it back then and so they were thinking okay if we can start doing this then we can start You know taking an active role in directing the human species one way or another as opposed to just passively living through it and everybody suffering Yeah, but it wasn't like yeah, we're gonna put a computer chip in his head because that would have been kuku balls Well if they would have thought of that back then it would have been real nuts It's like one day in the future. We'll have these things called computers In your brain Anyway, so transhumanism is pretty closely tied to futurism or future studies Which is the study of possible or preferable futures? so a lot of Futurists are not a lot of but most transhumanists are futurists in some way or another they're they're thinking Into the future they're projecting into the future of what technology is gonna be like and they are often in very nostalgic for the future in weird ways where they they wish they had lived in the they were living in the future as opposed to living now Because they imagine all these technological advancements are only gonna make life better in the future And so it would have been so much better to live then then it would be to live now where we don't have that technology in our life sucks Yeah, but that never stops Yeah, of course everyone always wants to live in the future or live in the past nobody ever wants to live in the time period that they are Just just like we are me I love the the late 90s early 2000s. I was so glad that I could have been there. (laughing) I was big enough frosted tips and pukeshells, smash mouth records. So the term transhuman, as it pertains to a single person who could be a transhumanist or takes part in this movement, was used by a professor named FM2030, who taught at the fucking school. - Get the fuck out of here, really? - Yeah. - Was he a - He taught at the embounty hunter, like, (laughing) - He is this guy who taught, he taught at UCLA in the 70s and 80s, but before that, he taught at this place called the New School in New York in the 60s. And he was born, Faradone, probably Faradone, I don't know. He's Iranian. Faradone MS Fandieri, his fondieri. He was the son of an Iranian diplomat in New York. And he, when he was a teenager, he was actually an Olympic basketball player, but he was also super smart. And in the mid-70s. - For Iran or for the US? - For Iran. - Okay. - That's what I'm saying. - In the mid-70s, he legally changed his name to FM2030. And his reasoning is in this quote, he said, "Conventional names define a person's past, ancestry, ethnicity, nationality, religion. I'm not who I was 10 years ago and certainly not who I will be in 20 years." The name 2030 reflects my conviction that the years around 2030 will be a magical time. In 2030, we will be ageless and everyone will have an excellent chance to live forever. 2030 is a dream and a goal. So he was born in 1930. He wanted to live to be at least a hundred years old. So he could see 2030. And he died of pancreatic cancer in 2000. So on mere 30 years short, but he was cryogenically frozen. So you never know. He could, by 2030, we could figure out a cure for pancreatic cancer and just pop him out of that freezer. - That would blow my mind. The first time that ever happens, like all these psychopaths freezing themselves. And then one day, like. - It's a weird thing. Like I never really think about, but there are people who have definitely done that. Like I always just think of it as a sci-fi thing, but it does exist. Like there are plenty of places around the world where you can be cryogenically frozen. - Yeah. - Apparently this guy was one of the first people to go into this other process that wasn't just like pomp him in a freezer and freeze his body. It was like, they actually put things that are sort of anti-freeze in your body to protect your organs and stuff. Like it's a more advanced version of cryogenic freezing. And he was one of the first people to get that treatment. So. - Yeah, but that would also be such a mind-fucked to just be woken up from a very, very deep, deep slumber. - The ultimate one. - This guy would love it. If you woke him up in 2030, he'd be fucking stoked. (laughing) His name is 2030. There'd be no one happier than him. - I don't think so, man. I think he'd still be like, oh man, what have I done? - Yeah, it would probably freak his being. Also, he'd probably be brain dead 'cause he'd been frozen for 30 fucking years. - Yeah, that's also another thing. It's like, when do you pop these babies out of the freezer? It's not like, it's not like a chicken breast being like I wanna eat this for dinner. - Right? - It's like, it's like, okay, we do it. He might be brain dead. It's like, did he want us to do it first? Or would he want it to wait till we just did it to a couple other people, figured it out, and then do it to him? - Yeah, like when they unthought them, they just have a scientist standing by with a shotgun, like in case they wake him up and he's brain dead, like, didn't work, take him out here. (laughing) So, like I said, he started working UCLA in the 70s and 80s and it was around the 1980s that these transhumanists started actually meeting together and having like conferences, starting in UCLA and other places. The movement started to gain a lot of momentum and it stopped being sort of just this fantastic idea of people talking about, like future studies, talking about technology in the future and people actually talking about, okay, this is starting to happen now because technology was advancing. Computers were everywhere. In the 1990s, there were, you know, even more advancements in the transhumanist society there or some of the first gene therapy trials. The idea of designer babies became like an actual reality that you could do gene therapy on babies and sort of direct, like, eliminate certain things from your genome before you had kids. And of course, the internet being widely available to everybody now, like, people were communicating through technology without being feddered by their human physical identity, which is essentially transhumanism. Like, we were transcending these bodies and communicating purely through technology. So, yeah, that's pretty trippy, also like grunge or whatever. (laughs) Yeah, but it's all, I mean, it's just an extension of our own body. It's not really. I don't think it's kind of like, it's not like the singularity. We're not getting uploaded to do a computer but it's certainly the beginning for these guys. Like, the idea, like imagine if you were around in the '60s and you had these trippy ideas about transhumanism and then you lived to be in the 1990s when you could communicate with people through chat rooms and be whoever you wanted to be. I'd be a 23 year old lesbian from Cali. (laughs) A huge part of this transhumanist thing. I actually was a 23 year old lesbian from Cali. Multiple times. - Wait out yourself. You should save it for Cyber Monday. - Alright, okay, Jack, Dottry, '69, sorry, I lied to you back in the '90s. (laughs) - Oh man, what if he's listening right now? That would blow his mind. (laughs) Like, some '41 fan XXX. (laughs) But a huge part of this transhumanist thing is not just getting out of the suffering of human existence. It's not saving people in third world countries from these terrible conditions they're in by advancing technology. It's also doing away with like FM 2030 who is saying like this identity that you're tied to that doesn't really feel like who you actually are. When you exist as a human in a world filled with other humans, you're linked to a history, a personal history, communal history, all that stuff. And you can't escape it because that's what people see you as. And whether it results in stereotyping or prejudice or just assumptions that people make about you, there's no getting around it. And so a lot of these transhumanists want to not only save us from suffering, but also save us from, you know, these are what they see as archaic identities, where we can now evolve and exist in a way where we are just, you know, identityless consciousness. Like we are our thoughts as opposed to these bodies that were trapped in sort of. - I do think about this about how like VR and stuff like, we're gonna look back on this in 20 years and be like how fucking archaic was our technology back then that we were using to like, to like be virtually like in a world because like it's amazing to us now. And I still haven't done it. And I'm kind of waiting until it comes out like commercially for consumer instead of like a development kit. But like we'll go back and look at that. I mean like that looks so terrible. There is no input other than like an Xbox controller, you know, like how was that full immersion? But yeah, I think about 20 years. We'll look back at that and be like what? - Well it's the same way like people look back at stuff in like the 80s and 90s now. Like when you look at like computer video games from the 80s like text-based adventures that fit on a quarter of a floppy disk and you just put it in, you type in like, you know, go to the left of the wizard and it's like, okay. (laughing) - The text back is okay. And it's like, did I make it? Yep. - Oh yeah, sorry. - Sorry, you passed the wizard. What? - Oh yeah, no, you're way past the wizard man. Sorry, we forgot to update you. You gotta turn back and like five turns be gone. - You gotta do your work. (laughing) - Oh man, you should have gone to write it that wizard. - Sorry man. Whoops. - Well that, or like even if you look at like the cell phones from then like some of them, like the first cell phone was like in a briefcase. - Yeah. - Like a corded phone, like a tattoo to it. - Yeah. - It was like, I can make a call from the top of a mountain but I've also got a briefcase. - I was thinking about this the other night 'cause like last night we watched hackers 'cause it's on Netflix and they used to love that. - Oh shit. - I gotta watch that. - They're version of like the internet and computers and how hacking works is the craziest thing. Like everything is just this really intricate visual interface. Like that's how they thought people, or that's how they wanted to portray people interacting with computers. Like anytime a hacker opens up their laptop and they go like type in a command, like a giant rabbit bounces across the screen and like eat some code. And it's like, you know how much time that would consume? If that was actually how your computer ran, like that's the least efficient way to do it. - Or you could just highlight it all and hit the delete button. - Yeah, it just like doesn't make any sense. But that's how they like needed to portray it so people could sort of understand what was happening 'cause I would assume if they just showed up, what was actually happening when you're a hacker, where you're just going into code and deleting shit, like moving stuff around, it would probably look pretty boring, and also nobody would know what the fuck is going on. - Yeah, they're also. - I would also think that in the '90s, that would seem pretty impressive, 'cause computers were so minimal, like when that still seemed kinda cool, like someone doing anything on a computer, isn't that impressive? - Pretty much anybody doing anything on a computer would be like, whoa! - No, but there was a good video. I'll have to find it and link it when we put the episode up, but it was like called, real life hacking and mission impossible. And did you see that? - No, but I've watched all the mission and possible very recently, and their hacking is amazing. - No, but this is like, they took that scene from when he's going down from the ropes, and he's like on a computer from the first one. But then they spliced in like actual hacking, like on Windows 98 of like, instead, like if you can't get past the administration like sign in, you hit the like the troubleshoot button and like opens a lot of it. It was like, it was like a way people used to hack into computers back in the day. Like not like hardcore, but just like to get asked even just the sign in. But it was pretty funny. - My favorite part of the year, you know, Ed? - No, I don't have anything to say, really. - I was just gonna say, my favorite part of the original mission impossible is his use of the internet when he's like trying to solve the mystery, 'cause like his team gets like fucked over in the beginning of the movie, and then like the rest of it is him trying to figure out what happened. And to like solve the problem, he just like, he tries to contact a secret contact through the internet, and he just opens up like a chat window and just types in like the name of the secret contact in the message for them, and then just like sends it to the internet. (laughing) And then like 20 minutes in the movie, he gets another contact from them. It's like how did you even know like that was their handle? How did you know where to send that? Like what the fuck is going on? I don't know what people thought the internet was. Like it was just a giant bucket that you just like throw things into. And there's only 10 people using it, so they'll probably see it. - Yeah, and then every once in a while the bucket tips over and send you a message back. - Yeah, it's like, oh, I guess you must have seen that. Good thing I sent it to internet.com. Do you think that this is, we're starting to get into a point in our civilization where I gave in the idea of me thinking like, oh, this amazing brand new cutting edge technology that's coming out, you know, just like January, February. Even then I like knowing that I'll look back at that 10 years from now and be like, that was the shittiest thing ever. 'Cause that's really the, at least for me, like that didn't happen before. But like with the rate that technology is advancing, only like now I think people can look at that and be like, wow, this new cutting edge thing, this is gonna be super shitty way later. And I know it's going to be super shitty. This is not like the end of the road for this. - Great, I mean, it's definitely within our lifetime where you could see it, like when we were kids, like we had Windows 95 and then Windows 98 came out and like two years later we got Windows 98 and we were still had the best computer for at least another year or two until like XP came out or whatever the fuck was after Windows 98. - Windows me? - It me. - And then that was Windows XP. - Oh yeah, but nobody got me. - No, nobody got that. - No one would skip over me and went straight to XP which didn't come out until like 2002 or something. But yeah, you could track like, okay, we can buy this now and we'll probably be set for a couple of years. And now it's like, I don't understand the people like you or you used to be like this. I don't know if you're still like this, but it would buy like the newest iPhone like as soon as it comes out. Like I gotta have it. It's like why? Like literally in a year there's just gonna be another one and then you're gonna fucking buy that one. Like I get that you wanna see it, but just like Google, a video of it. (laughing) - I've started to do that a lot more. - I never understood that 'cause the technology moved so much faster now. - Yeah, no I started to, also with like video games and shit, it's like I don't need to spend $60 on that. I'll just watch a Twitch feed and like watch and play it and then it'll be just as much as enjoyment I would get out of it then if I got it, played it for an hour and been like, I hate this game. - Yeah, I remember like when I played bio-shock in like 2011. I was like this is just as fun as if I played it in 2008 when this game, I didn't lose anything from like sleep on it for three years. - That is true. Yeah, you could just, but yeah, that is the thing. But like the hype, the hype machine gets me. - It is. - It's like all my fun. - It's gonna be the best thing that's ever happened. - Right, yeah. This is gonna change everything and then you get it. - Yeah, like this game's frustrating and stupid. (laughing) - No, and I don't do it with phones anymore either 'cause it's like at this point, like the phone I have is fine. It's gonna be fine for a very long time. - Yeah. - Yeah, luckily I just dropped mine recently and broke the case or broke the screen, so I got a new one. - Wow. - 'Cause I broke up so bad they couldn't even replace the screen. They were just like, this is fucked up. Give us $70, we'll give you a new one. I was like, all right, cool. - Yeah. - Anywho, nanny. - Technology, crazy. Let's get back to transhumanism, which is about technology. So like I said, this is a very wide field. It's this sort of overarching field of study, this whole transhumanist movement. And there are many different facets to it and different tracks that people go down. They have very specific types of transhumanism that they like or specific missions and aims that their version of transhumanism has. So I'll just list off a few of those and we can talk about sort of what they are. Democratic transhumanism is the combining of socially democratic ideals and transhumanist philosophy. So it's this idea that technology is gonna make life better but we should use socially democratic programs to make sure that it's better for everybody. We can use this technology to raise everybody up to the same level so that we're all, the race of humans is advancing together. It's not just individuals who are succeeding while others are getting left behind. - That's not gonna happen. - Sorry folks. - Yeah, probably not. Very ideal. On the flip side of that is libertarian transhumanism, which is the belief that people have a right to human advancement. This, you know, the idea that we can better ourselves and better the human existence is a right that everyone has. And the best way for everyone to get that right is of course through the free market 'cause that's what libertarians love is the free market. So if companies create this technology and put it out there on the market for people to buy it unfettered, then it will all play out as it's supposed to, which is code for rich white people will succeed and everyone else gets left behind. (laughing) I'm not a huge fan of libertarians but they like technology sometimes apparently. Another track that you could go down is post-genderism. It's a type of transhumanism, which advocates for the voluntary elimination of gender through biotech and assistive reproductive technology. So it's basically humans saying, okay, we don't need men and women necessarily anymore because technology has advanced to a certain point. Obviously it hasn't yet, but if we work towards this, technology has advanced to a certain point where people can become surrogates, if they wanna be surrogates, and we or we could use machines like in the matrix to grow babies or whatever. And if we get to that certain point with our technology, then we won't have a reason to have gender anymore and how this gender fluidity will be to its most extreme where either there will be no gender or it'll be a totally fluid system of who gives a shit. - Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think just gender is like a core part of our like lizard brain. Like that's just-- - It totally is. I mean, it's a core part of our biology, but a huge part of this transhumanist thing is that we can move beyond our biology. That's where the implementation of technology comes from. - I mean, I can see that happening like online, but not like for all like conversational reality machines. You can be whoever you want. We could be all just like unisex, like it wouldn't matter. But I think like in real life, like if you actually just like meet people, like I don't know how that would work. Like no matter what happens, the first thing I recognize about another human being is is that a boy or is that a girl? - Right, but I think the point of this like futuristic transhumanist ideal is that in the future, those distinctions won't be as clear because of biotech and you know, other things like that. Like if we could change our appearance or man to a woman at the drop of a hat, then you wouldn't be making. People wouldn't make those immediate assumptions when they saw somebody anymore. - Oh yeah, that's right, because there's a patent on them. It's like the second skin that covers you, that you can switch stuff like that. Switch your facial features and stuff, so yeah, you could like become a man, you could become a woman at the drop of a hat. I remember reading about that and the singularity is near. That makes sense. There was a thing like that in the book of Scanner Darkly, in the movie, Scanner Darkly, it's a Philip K. Dick book. They have these things where like, 'cause everywhere in this future that he created, there's facial recognition technology. And so when people don't wanna be recognized, they wear these like morph suits. They're basically suits you wear of your entire body, where your features are constantly changing. So you're never a person, you're just like, just like a fluid person, a bunch of different people. So anyway, yeah, I thought that one was interesting 'cause that, like, I feel like that's not something people talk about enough when they talk about the internet age and technology, like in the early, like in the 90s internet age and the early internet, there was a huge culture, and there still is in certain parts of the internet, but there's a huge culture for transgendered and post-gendered people because of the anonymity of the internet. You could exist online, however you wanted to be, whoever you wanted to be. So like, when we were watching hackers last night, they read an excerpt from the hacker's manifesto, like the actual hacker's manifesto that they have from like the original DEF CON or whatever. Was it a PDF or was it an actual printout? Because it wouldn't make sense to be a printout. They were cops, so they were squares, and they were reading it on a printout that was in a stupid little binder. (laughing) But there is a point where one of the bad hacker or whatever gets handed a printed copy of something and he goes, "Ugh, hard copy." Like, he hates touching paper. Like, that's what hackers hate the most. But they read the intro to the hacker's manifesto and it says something along the lines of like, we exist without race, without gender, without sexuality, blah, blah, blah. Like, we exist as this anonymous force online beyond these sort of trappings of the world that creates conflict. Which I thought was kind of interesting. People don't really talk about that enough 'cause I think since the eternal September, or whatever it's called, the internet has been just like slowly flooded with fratty dumb college kids. And so when people think of internet communities now, they think of just like dumb jocks, making dick jokes. But there originally, there were a lot of these more subversive liberal groups of like, no, we're trying to exist in a world beyond the bullshit of the real world. Like this digital landscape is a safe place for us. - Well, not even that. It just even went like the, so it started with like, yeah, there's the anonymity of the internet. And where, like even, I mean, even like now, just even like the most base level of like, I wanna be, you know, like for me, like I wanna be a woman on the internet. I can get a couple pictures of some girl. I can make all my profiles that I can talk the way I want her to talk and stuff like that. And then if you go farther, like with V, like even just like second life, like if I wanted to be a girl in second life, like as in second life, I'm a girl and I sell shoes out of a little store that I run and I make fucking thousands of real dollars on the internet every day by selling models in a game. But then even go farther than that, like with VR, like when we start actually interacting with each other and VR, I can be whoever I want. And I'm not tied to a body at all. So, it's totally. And even like, and then like you can get like, like voice changers probably in the future that it would sound really, really fucking real. - You can be very real. - Well, it's like in Ready Player One. It's just like in Ready Player One, where like there's a whole, a huge thrust of that book is these people who their lives are somewhat terrible in the real world being able to live out like the best life in this online virtual community. Which I like, I don't know, I like it in some ways but then also in the same way with this transhumanist thing there's always part of me that's like, you should like focus on fixing your real life though. Like this computer life, yeah, is going fine. But like every time it flashed back to the real world in that book, it was just like, and then he shaved his head and he had, you know, peed his pants 18 times 'cause he hadn't got out of his chair while he was on the internet. And he's like, this isn't cool man. (laughing) Why you're okay with this? - Well, even spoiler alert, if you don't wanna hear the thing by the book, skip ahead 15 seconds, but even in that book his best friend who he thought was a guy is a girl the entire time. - Right, exactly. - He totally hook up. - Yeah. Yeah, we're the two Japanese guys who like aren't brothers and live, you know, pathetic sad lives in Japan. - Yeah. - Who they, who they assume they were. Anyways, so that's post-genderism. There's also a singularitarianism, which is just the people who believe that the singularity is gonna happen and that it's a good thing and that we should take action to ensure that it happens. There are pro singularity essentially. This is basically right. - How much action can we take? I mean, it's really, it's kind of just gonna go, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna do it itself. It's like, it's like, we, I mean, the only way we get affected is by stopping it really. It's being like, no more computers, guys. - Yeah, that's mostly what it is. It's like we should take action to ensure it's safety. Like we should make sure that people aren't, you know, on purpose, screwing things up so that we don't create a hard AI. And if you can do things to further advancements and artificial intelligence, then why not do that too? I guess. - Yeah. - Like nerds. - Like nerds? - No, I'm kind of in that camp and not like fully, but I can see the minority. - I can see it happening. - Yeah. - Maybe not exactly the way that they think it's gonna happen, but I could see it being very, a very similar, a similar situation. - Yeah. I mean, it's, the evidence for it is hard to ignore, just the idea of, you know, exponentially increasing technology and the speed in which we increase our technology, whatever. I saw some chart that was like the logarithmic graph of like technological advancement and it started with like life and like the, like then, okay, then cellular life and like started from the very beginning of the planet and the very end within a span of like a quarter of an inch was industrial revolution, computers, smartphones. And it's just like, oh shit, yeah, like that's all happened in this tiny little area. And then the entire history of the world is before that. - Yeah. - It's pretty crazy. - Okay, so then the last one, I mean, obviously there's tons more of these different like tracks for transhumanism, but the last one that I wrote down is techno-guionism. Guionism is the belief that, you know, the entire earth is sort of this ecosystem that we should be responsible for, you know, keeping healthy and keeping like, we should be responsible for the health of the earth 'cause that's where we live and we're all part of this giant biosphere. So techno-guionism is the idea that advancements of technology will be used or can be used to help save the planets and keep up the health of the planets. So that's where the investment in a future tech should be focused, which is like basically Elon Musk, I guess, like that dude. I don't know if he would call himself that. Has Elon Musk ever talked about the singularity before? Like what his thoughts are on it? - I'm not sure. I feel like I've seen something. I don't think he, I mean, he's no fucking Ray Kurzweil or anything. Like he's sure. I think he's talked about it, but I don't think he's banking on that. - Yeah, he's not like super fucking stoked for it. - Yeah, I think he's just like, yeah, that might happen and that might fix a lot of problems, but at the very least I can just try to start fixing some of these problems. - Yeah, and maybe-- - And it might be hard, that's good. - It might make a sick ass fucking car that goes zero to 60 and 3.2 seconds, like fuck it, man, let's just do it. - Let's make a rocket that flies up into the fucking stratus here and then lands back on the same pad. What's this fucking do it, bro? - How he talks it off? - That would be great if that's how we talked. - Now he kinda talks like a psychopath. He almost talks like, the only time I really so ever have any kind of emotion was when, when I think it was like, one of the guys that went to the moon said that they don't believe in SpaceX and it's, that shouldn't be in the hands of civilians. And it like fucking really broke him. I can't just cry, there's a video of him like almost crying saying like, one of his heroes saying, like your company's stupid and you shouldn't have that power. - That was the only time I ever saw him show any emotion. - That's awesome. - That's not awesome, that's sad. - It's kinda funny. I don't know why I find that funny, but I do. Anyways, so let's get to the criticisms of transhumanism now that we sort of sketched out some different ideas that are around it. - Okay, hold on, I wanna get a beer, once a second. - Okay. (murmurs) (murmurs) (murmurs) (door slams) (door slams) (door slams) (door slams) (door slams) - Silence. (murmurs) - Angle, at that point just go. (laughs) - Alright, so some criticisms against transhumanism. The first one is that futuristic predictions are often wrong, which is something that I feel like I've brought up in this podcast before, which is like, you know, whether it's a sci-fi writer or an actual scientist, people often make predictions about how technology is going to be used or how technology is going to advance in certain ways. And sometimes they're right, but the majority of the time they're wrong. And people always point to them being right as proof that we know how this is gonna play out. But there's plenty of evidence that these predictions can be incorrect, and there's absolutely no telling that our predictions about the future of technology are gonna advance in the way that transhumanists think they will. We don't know for sure that this technology is going to be used to our benefits. We don't know for sure that the singularity is going to happen. We don't know for sure that biotech is going to make everybody's life better, whatever. So that's it. Well, they already did. They already did. I was just reading an article about a robotic hand that is sensing like force feedback back to like the person's into their brain or their arm and just like being able to like feel things with a robotic hand. I feel that you're like gripping a ball and not just like, oh, I can see that I'm gripping a ball, but you can actually be able to have the sensory experience of it. I mean, yeah, there's some of that technology out there. I mean, I would say that there's a decent criticism of transhumanism. It's mostly just a pessimistic criticism that like, oh, you're probably wrong though. And especially with people like I remember when the great Kurzweil documentary came out, like the big thing about him, like in that trailer that everybody was saying was like he predicted that all these things were going to happen. And you know, he invented this technology that then led to all these major advancements or whatever. Like he's been on top of where technology is going and how it's going to be used for years, which is why him making this claim is way more respected than a lot of other people making this similar claim. Yeah. That's what I was going to say because I think Ray Kurzweil is one of those things that has made these really lofty fucking claims and then they all came true. And especially like within a year of when he said it was going to happen too. Right. It's pretty crazy. I guess you're going jeopardy. He's the piece of Watson. He created him. Another criticism is the hubris of transhumanists to think that basically that we can play God, that we can we have the power to take this technology and direct the course of human history and the course of humanity and that we not only can do it but have a right to do it and should do it. Which I think is kind of is something that a lot of people don't consider. I always faulted a lot of scientists for thinking that of not taking a moment and think with thinking whether they should do something and instead just going ahead and doing it because they can or because they have the means to that they should or whatever. There's a lot of hubris involved there being like, oh well we have advanced computers far enough. Like why shouldn't we just splice genes and make the perfect human. It's like, all right, well fuck it, pump the brakes. Yeah, I don't know. But the people that are like cutting edge of technology, they don't stop to think about that because they want it to be like how far it is as it's going to go. Just keep going, keep going, keep going. And I mean really I don't have a problem with most of it unless it comes down to quality of life. I mean if you create a fucking like a goat, you know, like cloning goats and shit like even all that, like if they all just keep dying of like horrible fucking diseases within like the next like four months or whatever. It's like, okay, well you keep creating these living things that have no chance at fucking having a good life at all. So maybe we should try to, you know, pause on that until we can figure out why that keep happening and not just keep doing it and trying to figure out that way. Right. It's like when I was reading about this, I learned this term called uplifting which is when you're in science when you want to or in science fiction mostly, it's basically this idea that you that an already self conscious being gives consciousness to another being like if we like if we created a goat that was like self aware and had consciousness and then tried to raise this race of goats or whatever, that would be an uplifting thing to that species where we were lifting them up to our level or above our level. And in transhumanism, that's usually an attempt to like, you know, rising tide lifts all boats. So if we were to create a species that also had consciousness or was more advanced than us as opposed to a hard AI, we created like a hard biology or something. Then we would also like the human species would go along with them and we would all advance. And what you're just saying kind of sort of remind me of like Island of Dr. Morrow, which is a science like a science fiction example of that uplifting idea gone wrong where you try to bioengineer the perfect species and instead you create this, you know, race of monsters that have a terrible quality of life all for the sake of you trying to perfect humanity because you like you want to play God under your little island or whatever. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I guess you need the data to try to fix it. I mean, but you also can't talk about the about that really because we get have fucking millions of cows live and pigs with this horrible, horrible quality of life. Right. And we don't stop that. We should give them consciousness though, probably, right? So they can tell us. Now we should give them fucking computers and then they can start the fucking technology revolution. That's what we should do. We should get rid of smart man. They find truffles like they do. We should get rid of call centers and just put a bunch of cows and pigs in there with computers and phones. That would be great. No, I'm telling you, I already restarted it. I need you to help me through this window box. Oh, that damn it. Comcast. Yeah. So anyways, hubris of humans. There's also criticism against transhumanism. The contempt of the flesh and the fear of death. This idea that most transhumanists want to get out of their bodies in some way. They're annoyed by the trappings of a human bodily existence and they want to get out of that somehow. Whether it's beyond it. It's supposed to be like fat, neckbeard weirdos and like going the internet all the time. I don't want to get out of that body too. I saw this stat though. It was on the, I don't know if it was on the Wikipedia page for transhumanism, but it was somewhere, but it was like not all transhumanists are interested in immortality. It was like talking about the singularity and being uploaded or whatever. And it's like a recent study in like 2013 said that like after interviewing a bunch of transhuman, like self-proclaimed transhumanists, only 23% said that they weren't interested in immortality. It's like, that means 77% were like that's a most human. You put that one. You can put that script. But it's still a book baby. Come on. Get out of here. Yeah, it's like not all of them, but like, yeah, good three quarters are mostly interested in living forever. And then they listed like the reasons for why they wouldn't be interested in immortality and the first one was boredom. I'm like, I don't know. I probably just get bored if I live forever. Yeah, that just sounds like one of those dicks on the internet. Just like because it's fucking boring, man. Yeah. It's so awkward. So yeah, this contempt of the flesh, this contempt of your body and what you're trapped in it like that dude, FM 2030 or whatever, like he didn't want to use his name because that placed him in a certain context in the world as a human. And a lot of people want to escape those things. They want to either be in a computer or they want to have technology implanted in them that gets rid of those things. It makes them more than human. And then the immortality thing is what I always think of when I think a rakeers well because that dude has like intense fear of death, like his like pill regimen or whatever so he can live long enough to see the singularity. Yeah, it's like 70, it's like 70 like different vitamins and shit. Yeah, like he clearly does not want to die, which is understandable. I mean, dying probably sucks. There's a first teacher for the podcast. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But it's like, yeah, the idea that you don't go on living, I guess, sucks if you really enjoy living, but it's also that's part of the human existence. Like that's all part of it. You don't just get to keep going and like, it almost feels like you're missing out if you don't die. Yeah, exactly. Like every, every party's got to end man. Yeah. That's the second t-shirt. No, it's in. Put that on the back. Dying sucks. Every party's got to end. Then another criticism, the trivialization of the human identity is the idea that like maybe you know, the struggle that we go through in life is part of what makes us human in some way or these identifiers that you know, yes, can result in prejudice or stereotyping or whatever. It's all part of who we are as human and who we are as individuals. And this transhumanist idea is almost always moving away from the idea of individuals. It's trying to get us far away from an individual consciousness as possible, which a lot of people don't really want. I mean, I guess if you think you're the smartest dude in the world, then yeah, you would join a think group and like you would just be in a pool with a bunch of other brands because you would see yourself as like the best brain in the pool. But most people like their brains and like that their individuals or some people, I won't say most people, probably most people hate themselves. But some people probably don't like it. like who they are. And like don't know any of them. But I sure they're out there. Yeah, I'm sure theoretically there's a person who doesn't completely hate themselves and would enjoy continuing to exist. A lot of this stuff I think like going back to just like living like living in VR. A lot of this stuff is still gonna be around. It's just human nature to do it because like even when I play like Call of Duty with Cam. I'm like dude your character looks like shit like why would you make them look? He's like because I like it. I'm like dude that helmet is stupid. You're like it's I think like all this shit he does is like it's stupid on his character. I don't you know I mean you can you can you can transform yourself into whatever you want to be but you're still people are still gonna have opinions on what looks cool. What doesn't look cool. You know that's true. I guess I mean the interesting thing about this is is what we're talking about is not just like technology advancing to the point where like people can be whoever they want to be. It's this idea of the entire human species evolving to a place where our ideas of identity are no longer consistent with reality. It's not just that oh you know you can put on a skin and be somebody else or whatever and so now we can't make assumptions about seeing somebody and thinking a certain thing. It's that all of our assumptions are completely out the window and seen as archaic because this technology is advanced to a certain way. I don't know if that'll I don't know if that can happen though. I mean we're always gonna have like that kind of mentality. Well that's the transhumanist thing. I mean that's the biggest issue I probably have with transhumanism is they're not talking about an advancement of humanity. They're not necessarily talking about making humanity better. They're saying that that's sort of like a stepping stone to moving beyond humanity. And that's why a lot of transhumanists are seen as sort of what's it called when you hate everybody? Like a my dad? No a miss and throat. There's missing throats because it's it's this idea that you know he they see humanity as flawed and they want to put all this technology into us and into our society to move us beyond where we are now and who we are now so that we'll look back at this period of history from now until you know way back until fucking I don't know we first gained consciousness in the same way that we look back at the monkeys and cavemen. That's where transhumanists want to go. I got yeah I guess I'm like thinking far enough ahead. I guess I'm only thinking of like the stepping stone before us and being like yeah that's not gonna work obviously because I still don't think your fucking avatar looks like shit. Right yeah I mean there's a difference between advanced technology and a guided evolution of the species. So it's a pretty intense move is what they're talking about and it's white so far off I mean it's technically far off in the future but also like we were just saying earlier with the you know exponential increase in technology it's probably not as far off as we think if something like this is gonna happen. Yeah and it's also like it's a whole idea of like as long as you don't fucking blow each other up before this happens everything. Right yeah of course that's what they think. Yeah that's what I'm putting my money on because we all just die in a fire before any of this cool shit ever. I could see that yeah when Turkey shot down that Russian plane I was like oh god oh man yeah this is also so the the final criticism that we'll talk about kind of touches on that which is the idea of a genetic divide which is if this advancement starts to happen the division between the rich and the poor will no longer just be a division of money it will but now be a division of technological advancement and genetic superiority. The people who can afford these technological advances because of course they're going to be sold through you know capitalism because that's how so far all of this stuff has been done. The people can afford the technology get the technology. Of course you know rising tide raises all boats people in Africa can now use you know shitty windows 98 laptops but they're nowhere near having the same technology that we do here as readily available. So as this technology continues to advance and things like biotech and genetic engineering start happening people who can afford those types of procedures will be up here in this class of people who are genetically superior and then everyone who can afford it will now be below. And that's the biggest danger I think with this sort of technology and I think that's where a lot of transhumanists and futures sort of have their head in the sand because some of them think about this movement and this philosophy as we're trying to help everybody but a lot of them are sort of ignorant to the fact that it's not going to be for everybody like the way that it's laid out right now not everybody will be able to have all these things unless we make some huge changes in our society and make some huge changes of how we you know distribute technology. Yeah it's doesn't yeah they're not the CEOs of this company that are pushing the brink with this technology. No they're just people who can afford it and like it a lot like it's something they're like once they get it they're not going to be like oh and we should give it to those people too right and then the CEOs going to be like uh no they can't afford it fuck them who gives it shit you can afford it you know the next one like it's it's the same people who you know anytime they have to do something like a utility on paper or something or like pay a bill on paper or something it's like oh why isn't this all on the internet like why isn't this whole system just automated on the internet it's like I don't know because there's like 30% of the population that like can't have good internet access and then they would be without power and water like there's a reason that some things are still analog not everyone lives in your exact same lifestyle that you do and I think people forget that a lot when they get wrapped up in this idea of the future and technology they think of like they they get into this headspace where they go oh the future is going to be this magical place where you know everyone can get I implants you know kids who are born with you know missing an eye or whatever from some genetic defect are going to get a new robotic eye and it's like really who's going to pay for that robotic eye because right now we can't even get fresh water to parts of Africa because nobody's willing to pay for it yeah America and also like the people that make your iPhone don't even own iPhones like it's right yeah so I think there there is this weird and I know a lot of transhumanists and a lot of futurists are aware of that and that's why there's like democratic transhumanism where people are trying to you know make sure technology advances in a way or society advances in a way where everybody's going to benefit from these new technologies but I don't know there there I think there's a lot of flaws in just trying to fast track humanity to this next step because I think a lot of people are going to get left behind yeah yeah the left behind yeah it is true as fast as you want it may not be the correct amount of time we should spend on thinking about it right and it's because like I don't know maybe it won't be in our lifetime and I'm okay with that I know that would bum you out but I think it'll be in our lifetime every part in the end every part is gotta end dying sex now I think it'll be in our lifetime I just I think it's going to be it's going to be a conscious decision on whether or not you you do it because of the shit we've been talking about before about how you know I can go into the matrix and go live my life in the matrix but while I'm in there I'll also realize that like there's fucking millions of people that don't have this opportunity and we're probably using them for power or something weird like that like they're all running on treadmills yeah cows answer no phones okay cows answer and phones for people who have windows 98 that came out 30 years ago why we why are we still often customers customers support you should get a new system yeah I think I think I would like to wait just as a decent human being till like we could all kind of at least get some but at the same time but now that doesn't count because I got the internet when I was a kid my parents got the internet right way to around till Africa got the internet to be like oh okay now I'll get the internet no but something like this like such a big shift in humanity I might want to wait around till everybody kind of has an option to do it yeah and it is going to be one of those things we're like it's going to be fast but it's still going to feel gradual when it's happening it's not like we're all going to wake up one day and be like oh the singularities here and then like oh tomorrow we're all uploaded like it's still getting me it's in gradual process of course so I don't know it's it's interesting and I think the the philosophical and ethical conundrums that come up around technology is one of the more interesting things happening in philosophy these days which is probably why if that's where almost all the money and philosophy is going is to people talking about that yeah you lay Whitney never thought hey if I make this cotton gin and everybody can be able to use it I'm gonna get everybody to use it maybe we should think about that he's like no I'm gonna fucking cotton jinks and we get my cotton way faster well you make some pretty wild claims about history but I think that one's 100% accurate but you know what definitely never was concerned with hey is everybody gonna be able to use my cotton gin I think he was mostly like I'm gonna make some sweet fucking dough off this cotton gin yep all right so one final question before you wrap up. When do you think we'll elect our first robot president? Um, our first robot president? Yeah, 2016 or 2020. What do you think? Uh, no, I think, I think, you know, honestly, I think, uh, something like second life, um, that will probably, I know I probably took this in a very serious, uh, direction, but I think like somewhere like, like, like if second life had presidents right now, I would not be surprised that they all elected like an actual like just algorithm to, uh, come up with the laws and, and rules and regulations of second life. Like, I wouldn't be surprised. They just kind of crazy that somebody hasn't created an online community like that. I mean, I'm sure they have, but like as big as second life, like I know the whole point of second life is you're, you know, you have freedom to do whatever you want or whatever in your life. So the idea of having a ruler and rules would kind of go against that. But creating a giant online virtual community like that and then having an elected user as the president, that's a foolish shit. I would totally take part in that. I would vote for that way more than I would vote in real life. Well, I mean, they kind of do that now. It's kind of like half-hearted with mods. Like, you don't like this. But the, but the mods that are there then say, hey, you're a cool guy. Why don't you come in and be a mod as well. Yeah, but that's why, that's why mods are like, you know, the biggest fucking, uh, pushers and hustlers of like early 20th century politics. They're like the fat, fat cats in New York that just like have money and power and just pushing other people around and then they elect their friends as other pushers to push other people around. Yeah. Like, I hate mods in general. Yes. Yeah. These powerful people and somehow put in powerful situations. And then everything like every once in a while, like even like, I think it was like last week, like, uh, I guess like the mods on like, uh, Reddit slash R slash like Star Wars Battlefront had been like getting paid off by EA so that when you would go there, you wouldn't see bad reviews. And so that's so then they all got booted. They're like, okay, like you're deleting my post, which is obviously within the rules and like guidelines of what stuff the subreddit is. And like everybody got mad and like all the mods got booted just for taking like, bribes from EA so that they could sell more games. Like so much drama on such a stupid website. So, yeah, except there's so much dumb drama that's just like, oh my god, does anybody care for re, I mean, I guess you do because you spend a lot of time here, but Jesus. So many people care. So many. If fucking Tony's always on the fucking Rome machine at your gym, just go to a different gym. Like, Tony's always going to be there. He loves the Rome machine. All right. Um, that'll do it for transhumanism for this week. Uh, maybe I'll get more specific on one certain aspect that we'll dig into next time. Uh, or maybe we'll have a totally new topic. Who knows? We'll mix things up. No, why don't you, why don't you fucking dummies let us know? I'm worth saying. Do it all work. And hit us on Twitter. Don't hit us through the Squarespace website. I, I only recently started looking at that because there's always the one idiot. He's like, well, actually, I'm like, okay, hit us on Twitter. I haven't looked at this in months. Yeah, tweet that means so I can hate your tweet, not so I can hate your stupid comment on our website that nobody goes to. So I can favor it and then destroy you in a intellectual battle of wit with some period at replies. Um, all right. Do you have anything you want to plug here at the end? Uh, yeah, plug my Twitter. So everybody knows how to get in contact with me. Pint me at pit me P I N T M E F. And then, uh, I also want to plug, um, there's been a lot of heated debate about it, but that vice documentary about the Eagles of Death Metal who, uh, I haven't watched it. Oh, man, it's rough. It's really good. Yeah, I would assume it's incredibly good, but it's very brutal. Yeah. Um, so are you saying people should watch it? I'm saying people should watch it. I really, I really liked it. It really brought the whole thing in perspective. Yeah, just at least for me because like when I happened, it was like, oh, there's a bunch of links about a attack on Paris, but when you hear like a story of just like, you know, five personal dudes who talk about how like what happened. Yeah, brings it a lot more into perspective than just like, oh, yeah, there's a like a number of like 130 dead doesn't affect me as much as watching Brad dudes that I listened to their albums say like it was fucked. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh, for people who don't know the Eagles of Death Metal or the band that was playing in the venue in Paris when the terrorist attacks happened a couple of weeks ago. Uh, anyways, uh, I'll plug this podcast. If you're listening to it this far, you should be subscribed. You'd already your dumb dingus. Fucking hate you. Uh, no, fucking idiot. You're great. And thank you for listening and tell your friends and leave us a comment on iTunes or like Connor said tweet at us at his handle or I'm at Danford and Sun. Look just like the TV show, but with my name. And uh, yeah, that'll do it. Do we let's have a sign off? The Chupa Cobra is real.