"Savage Reservations" the Only Refuge from Transhumanism?
This column in the Guardian (by college lecturer Dylan Evans) about the supposed inevitability of transhumanism is, I think, overly pessimistic. Evans worries that the social pressures set in motion by transhumanist technologies will one day force most people to enhance their children genetically and to modify their bodies with biotech, nanotech, and every other kind of tech. In an interesting touch, Evans suggests that the only way to preserve lives of free will, will be for those who want to live and die naturally to create "savage reservations" as described by Huxley in Brave New World.
I don't believe most of the "miracle" technologies will really bring the near immortality or ability to enhance progeny that transhumanists yearn for--at least not within our lifetimes. For my money, it is the value system of transhumanism that is the real problem, as I have written.
Check out Evans' piece. It is worth pondering.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:37 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Has a law been enacted that prohibits the introduction of nonhuman DNA into human embryos, as you suggest in the 2002 essay? Anywhere?
No. Even that simple idea can't get "consensus." The scientists scream that some good could one day come from it. It will be introduced in the US Congress, I have heard.
The NAS voluntary ethical (anything goes) guidelines only suggest that human ES cells not be placed into primate embryos.
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