Transhumanism?

Transhumanism is generally defined as human enhancement, in a scientific or technological sense. The issue of course is much deeper than just "enhancement", and that's what I've been trying to make sense of recently.

In a much broader sense, transhumanism could be looked at as the pursuit of the escape of human instinct in one form or another. A good example to start with is the urge to procreate.

Mating and procreation might once have been looked at as one single act. The process of finding a mate, the act of sex, and eventually childbirth, were all one continuous process. It is easily noticed that this one coherent process has since been bastardized, and abstracted into many different acts that do not necessarily follow from one to the next.

The physical desire for sex, and the emotional desire to have children are both still very present in all societies, for obvious reasons. But these acts are no longer coupled in much the same way. Sex is pursued entirely outside of the context of procreation, and in doing so we have, in a very ironic way, ruined the entire biological purpose of sex in the first place. Now, while I can't cite the actual inception of the use of sex as a form of recreation, it still serves as a good example of escaping instinct. For where the instinct to reproduce and the physical need for sex were once essentially the same instinct, they now exist in discreet forms. People are choosing not to have children as a result of sex.

One could easily state the case that one of the first examples of transhumanism was the domestication of animals, and the invention of agriculture. Both of these are clearly technologies, and both of them allow us to prolong life, enhance our well being, and gain very real control over the way we live. Transhumanist opponents often fail to look at the full scope of what "technology" really encompasses: anything from simple tools to modern computers. In reality, long ago did our societies begin our transhumanist evolution, it is just now with the possible technologies in the foreseeable future that it is really starting to worry a few people.

I understand that comparing agriculture and medicine to advanced cybernetics and human modification is somewhat dangerous, as the implications of these two worlds of technology are seemingly different. However the only real difference is that one of these technologies is extremely well established and present, and the other exists only in the world of science fiction at the moment. It is important to understand however, that radical opposition to transhumanism is not only a hopeless battle, but very dangerous as well.

Whether or not people are on board with the technologies being developed right now, there isn't much we can do to stop the work being done, in much the same way that the bush administration can't really stop stem cell research. What we should hope to do instead, is to help, with extreme caution and care, the development of these technologies, so that they are to be used under the same principles we guide our societies with today.

Without care, these technologies will immediately, and obviously, end up in the hands of the wealthiest persons across the globe. This doesn't mean much for the short term, but if genetic superiority is determined exclusively by wealth, there lies an incredibly pressing concern that these new strata of society will dominate, and eventually out breed the rest of society. I think GATTACA provides a better critique on this possible future than I could ever hope to. We have to keep in mind that this isn't just a work of science fiction, but a possible future that is becoming more real every day.

If used right, and used fair, these technologies could be used to improve the lives of everyone living on the planet, but this can only be achieved if we actively aid and monitor the development of these technologies. Opposition in this case doesn't provide a solution, it merely sets the path for a more dystopic future.