Lifeboat Foundation

We often hear this word used in Transhumanist (H+) discussions, but what is meant by it? After all, if H+ is about using scitech to enhance Human capabilities via internal modifications what does it mean to go beyond these? In the following I intend to delineate possible stages of enhancement from what exists today to what could exist as an endpoint of this process in centuries to come.

Although I have tried to put it in what I believe to be a plausible chronological order a great deal depends on major unknowns, most especially the rapidity with which Artificial Intelligence (AI) develops over the next few decades. Although AI and biotech are at present evolving separately and in parallel I would expect at some point fairly soon for there to be a massive crossover. Exactly how or when that might happen is again a moot question. There is also a somewhat artificial distinction between machines and biology, which exists because our current machines are so primitive. Once we have a fully functioning nanotechnology, just like Nature’s existing nanotech (life), that distinction will disappear completely.

This bionic skin lets amputees feel their prosthetic limbs.

Pick of today’s crop of random items in Posthuman Daily https://www.academia.edu/34665732/Nietzsche_s_Posthuman_Impe…nshumanism https://paper.li/e-1437691924

Babette Babich, “Nietzsche’s Posthuman Imperative: On the Human, All too Human Dream of Transhumanism,” in: Yunus Tuncel (ed.) Nietzsche and Transhumanism: Precursor or Enemy? (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2017), pp. 101–113.

Transhumanism can mean uploading one’s mind into cyberspace. But some transhumanists hope to slowly morph into “immortal cyborgs” with endlessly replaceable parts.

Five years ago, we were told, we were all turning into cyborgs:

Did you recently welcome a child into the world? Congratulations! An upstanding responsible parent such as yourself is surely doing all you can to prepare your little one for all the pitfalls life has in store. However, thanks to technology, children born in 2014 may face a far different set of issues than you ever had to. And we’re not talking about simply learning to master a new generation of digital doohickeys, we’re talking about living in a world in which the very definition of “human” becomes blurred.

Researchers develop bionic body parts that work like the brain to sense texture, temperature, firmness, location of objects.

Wow, the shit flies are flying out of the trash cans of Earth… I myself do not desire the thought of man and machine becoming one literally bolted together. But only as Singularity has been now for centuries.

For centuries every technological marvel of the era man became the brain of the covered wagon the bicycle the car the train the Plane now Rocket ships.

Each machine man had to become one with it for it to work. Mans brain became machine like-calculating to operate these miracles of each generation.

Continue reading “The Cancer Within Modern Medicine Part 5: Transhumanism” »

Last week, the transhumanist activist Zoltan Istvan announced his candidacy for President of the United States in next year’s elections. The writer, humanitarian and outspoken advocate of radical science is no stranger to the issues surrounding Longevity, and has spoken widely on subjects including AI, genetic editing, technology policy, and futurism.

In 2016, Istvan ran as an independent presidential candidate and travelled across the United States, spreading his message from a coffin-shaped bus, known as the “Immortality Bus.” This time he’s on the ballot, running against Donald Trump as a candidate for the Republican party in next year’s primaries. Things are a bit more serious this time.

Among his key policies, Istvan includes transhumanism, universal basic income and the need to beat China in the global innovation race – an issue we addressed in our Jamie Metzl interview. We spoke to him to find out more about his views on the Longevity sector.