R.U. Sirius in conversation with Brian Alexander

R. U. Sirius talks to Brian Alexander about his most recent book, Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion. Says Alexander:

Medicine is changing. In our increasingly secular world, it is shifting from only trying to cure obvious disease to making us better than we might otherwise be. Most people don’t really believe in paradise after death and we never have, no matter what we might say or what church we might attend. If we did, why would we try to stave off death at all? If we have raised our children, and have no more responsibility to our offspring, why not accept death with gratitude, a speedy way to enter a better place?

Instead, we rail against it. We fight to achieve more and better. We’d like to have sex into our 90s. We’d like to not just stay sharp, but to be smarter. We want more understanding, more wisdom, more strength. Given the lack of any real evidence for another source for those things, we have pinned our hopes on religions to show us the way toward them. Biotech is now saying “Hey! Maybe we can make it this way. Maybe there is a new alternative.” It is a profoundly disruptive idea.

Quotes about Buddhism's influence and place in the West

I'm currently reading Lama Surya Das's "Awakening the Buddha" and it's got some great quotes in it:

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description....If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism." -- Albert Einstein

"The coming of Buddhism to the West may well prove to be the most important event of the Twentieth Century." -- Arnold Toynbee, Historian

"Buddhism has transformed every culture it has entered, and Buddhism has been transformed by its entry into that culture." -- Arnold Toynbee

"The Dalai Lama seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the foreigners who had recently come to Buddhism; he said he thought Americans and other Westerners had an affinity for Buddhism because they didn't believe anything until it was proven. The Buddha, he reminded me, told people not to follow anything blindly, for Buddhism is not based on belief so much as rational experiment. If, like a scientist, you replicated the Buddha's experiment, you should get the same good results -- enlightenment." -- Lama Surya Das, "Awakening the Buddha," 33.

Protests now flourish in China

Wow, the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre passed yesterday. In some respects it feels like it was just yesterday, and in others, because of its indelible mark on culture and society, it feels much longer than that. I certainly remember it very clearly. I was getting ready for my highschool graduation when I heard the news. I was devastated, particularly after the seemingly encouraging news of student protests. For me personally the moment marked a kind of political loss of innocence, and I my take on many things have never been the same since.

But 15 years later, it would appear that the grassroots urge to democratize China is still strong.

Murray Scot Tanner reports in the International Herald Tribune that Beijing is again confronting a growing volume of popular protest. Interestingly, reports of this widespread protest are being confirmed by China's own police forces, which used to routinely deny permission for most protest demonstrations. Tanner writes:

Recent official police statistics are striking. The number of demonstrations increased from 8,700 to 32,000 from 1993 to 1999 - an increase of 268 percent. The number probably swelled past 40,000 in 2000. In no year during this period did protests increase by less than 9 percent, and in the financial crisis years of 1997 and 1998 they spiked by 25 and 67 percent, respectively.

Though we lack nationwide data for the years since 2000, Chinese government reports indicate that the number of public protests has probably risen each of the last three years. Sichuan, China's largest province, apparently saw an increase in protests of almost 20 percent last year, to nearly 1,500.

In particular, the Chinese are protesting a number of things, including the undemocratic communist regime, "grievances against rapacious managers and corrupt local officials," and unfair working and economic conditions.

Tanner shows how Chinese protesters are getting more sophisticated in their tactics, showing a brave kind of maturity in the face of severe reprimands.

Transhumanism continues to spread as a cultural phenomenon

There's an article in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune about transhumanist Matthew Gress, 34, an independent computer contractor and a member of the World Transhumanist Association. Here's an excerpt from the article, "Minneapolis Transhumanist Hungers for Eternal Life."

"People are very afraid of technology. They're afraid they're going to break it, do something wrong or seem stupid," Gress said. "We're a nation full of people who want the neat, fast thing, but we all have 12 flashing on our VCRs."

That will change as we develop computers that we operate just by talking and that talk back in the languages our minds use.

"It turns out that there are several parts of our brain, and they all talk to each other really fast. Because they talk to each other so fast we think we're one person. The question is, 'When my Palm Pilot goes from being able to talk to me in regular language to talking to me via my nervous system in the same language that my brain uses, what happens to my perception of self?' "

Most exciting to Gress is the idea of extending life indefinitely -- restoring people to whatever degree of youth they desire and keeping them there for as long as they want.

"I'd like the option to live as long as I care to," Gress said. "And I believe that if technologies appear to do that, if you are a religious or spiritual person you are morally required to pursue them."

Gress was raised Catholic and educated by Jesuits. While he values that moral code, he's not involved in organized religion. But he believes these changes are consonant with the Christian idea of bringing heaven to Earth. Given the chance, Gress would keep the mind he now has but store it in the body of a 20-year-old.

Enforcing death

I'm currently hacking away at my next column for Betterhumans. This one is tentatively titled "Deathist Nation" and it's a critical examination into how death would have to be enforced in the future if the bio-Luddites were to have their way. I surmise that, given the certain inevitability of life extension technologies, it would take a rather authoritarian iron fist to ensure that people die in a timely fashion. I pretty much focus on the US situation, mostly because of its outspoken and prominent Bioethics Council.

And I'm not really exaggerating. The scary part is, Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama seem convinced that this is the way to go. When recently asked by Wired's Brian Alexander if the government has a right to tell its citizens that they have to die, Francis Fukuyama answered, "Yes, absolutely."

Here's a brief excerpt from my article, which should be ready by early next week:

As I consider their arguments and look deeper into what they're saying, I have come to the realization that their propaganda campaign is more than just a battle for hearts and minds. One gets the distinct impression that, should radical life extension technologies start to become available, these detractors would go much farther than just a war of words in their attempts to ensure that we never become an immortal species.

Owing to the grim seriousness of this Bioethics Council, I am forced to consider what it would take to stop the coming anti-aging revolution -- and as I think about this I truly fear the kind of future they have in mind.

Aubrey in Fortune Magazine, Slashdotted

There was some excitement today in the transhumanist community arising from a Fortune article about Biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey and a subsequent reference on Slashdot. Reason, a life extension advocate and the founder of Longevity Meme, was the man responsible for having the article picked up by Slashdot. Reason's slashdot blurbage:

"Biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey has put forward a biological engineering plan to end human aging and co-founded the Methuselah Mouse Prize in recent years. Now he is finally getting some of the public recognition he deserves in an excellent David Stipp article at Fortune Magazine. If you ever wondered exactly how to go about engineering away the 50 million deaths due to aging that occur each and every year - and how to bring about a sea change in the scientific establishment - then this is the place to start. As an added bonus, I don't think you'll find a more succinct (and utterly British) answer to overpopulation objections to life extension than the one at the end of this article!"

I sent off a quick e-mail to Reason congratulating him, to which he slyly responded:

I think the lesson learned here is that if you want to be slashdotted, mention engineering.

Heh, sad but true. Linux geeks. Hey, wait a minute, I'm a Linux geek ;-)

Future Pundit posted an interesting blog entry about the Fortune article:

It is great that a mainstream business magazine is publicizing these ideas. As anyone who has been reading FuturePundit for a while must know by now, I share Aubrey's views about what is possible to achieve in human rejuvenation. Also, he is right to argue that we are not trying anywhere near as hard as we should to develop rejuvenation therapies given the excellent prospects for success within the lifetimes of many people now alive. So big is the potential pay-off that the failure to make the big push for rejuvenation is surely the biggest mistake in science policy now being made by the United States and the other developed countries.

On the bright side, some of the problems being worked on with the goal of treating various diseases are going to contribute toward the set of therapies that Aubrey has outlined as Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. For instance, all the work on stem cells and tissue engineering builds toward the ability to grow replacement organs and to send in stem cells to replace cells lost from the accumulation of damage that comes with aging. Also, the continued development of a large range of technologies that accelerate the rate of advance of biological science and biotechnology are making it easier to develop rejuvenation therapies. So there are rays of hope in spite of the pessimistic and obviously wrong conventional wisdom that still guides biomedical researchg funding policy in the United States and other developed countries.

Aubrey will be joining us at TransVision 2004 later this summer. He'll be launching the conference with a talk on the morning of Saturday August 7.

Boards of Canada

Several months ago I discovered the Scottish electronic duo, Boards of Canada. I can't stop listen to these guys. I'd say they're the most interesting electronic music act to come along in the past 5 years, certainly the best since Aphex Twin hit the scene early last decade. If you like bands such as Casino Versus Japan or Marumari you'll totally get into these guys.

I would describe their music as Brian Eno meets Aphex Twin and Autechre. There's a minimalism to their music that I am particularly drawn to. Some Kraftwerk and very early Vangelis can also be heard in their music. But that's not to say that their stuff isn't highly distinctive and original -- which it is in droves.

BoC provide a very lo-fi sonic experience. They mesh beautifully crafted synth melodies with haunting soundscapes. At some times their tracks are earthy and organic, while at other times spacey and other worldly. Never before has 1970s futurism sounded so cool. Listening to their tracks takes me back to a time when I watched Science International and Dr. Who on television.

Another thing that gives their music such a unique flavour is that their music sounds de-tuned with warbling tape effects. It often sounds like their tracks are being played out of a film projector taken directly from my grade 6 geography class. And in some of their tracks I think they might have even sampled some of the dialogue from films shown to me in my grade 6 geography class!

Anyways, if you haven't heard their stuff yet, be sure to check them out.

Current interests

Current playlist includes:

Duane Eddy: Misc
Bob Dylan: Highway 61
Velvet Underground: Misc
Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
Queen: A Night at the Opera
The Who: Who's Next
Doves: Lost Souls & The Last Broadcast
Beta Band: Heroes to Zeros
Tool: Aenima & Lateralus
Ron Sexsmith: Retriever
Sasha: Airdrawndagger
Boards of Canada: Geogaddi, Music Has the Right to Children, Hi Scores, Boc Maxima
Casino Versus Japan: Misc
Marumari: Misc
Koop: Misc
Zero 7: Misc

Movies and videos I've seen recently:

Silent Running
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Logan's Run
Vanilla Sky
Leaving Las Vegas
Shrek 2
Woodstock
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Off the Map
Led Zeppelin: DVD Boxset
Reservoir Dogs

Latest books:

The New Humanists: Science at the Edge, edited by John Brockman [just finished it]
Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion by Brian Alexander [almost finished]
Natural Born Cyborgs by Andy Clark
Children of Choice by John Robertson
Nano by John Robert Marlow

Accelerating Change 2004

Looks like John Smart is busy organizing Accelerating Change 2004, the 2nd annual conference hosted by the Institute for Accelerating Change:

On September 10 to 12 at Stanford University, the Institute for Accelerating Change hosts its second annual conference, Accelerating Change 2004. AC2004 provides a unique opportunity to learn from and network with world-class thinkers discussing today's most important trends in the science, technology, business, and humanism of accelerating change.

This year's theme explores the intersection of three key trends: the accelerating interconnectivity of the physical world, the increasing accuracy of the simulated world, and the growing importance of the physical-virtual, human-machine interface. Each of these trends alone is profoundly impacting society today. Together, they paint a revolutionary picture of the future.

AC2004 features engaging interactive debates, a virtual world demonstration session, a collective intelligence dinner, among other events and activities.

We will continue with last year's successful format of analysis, speculation, and action themes, using both transdisciplinary inquiry and a synthesis of material, ethical, and spiritual dialog.

I'm seriously thinking of attending. We'll have to see how things go for me over the next several months.

Canadian Conservative party would ban embryonic stem cell research for 3 years

With less than four weeks to go before the federal election, the Conservative Party of Canada has announced that if elected it would invoke a 3-year ban on embryonic stem cell research:

"We...call on the federal government to encourage its granting agencies to focus on the more promising adult (post-natal) stem cell research," it says. "This field should be governed by principles that respect human individuality, integrity, dignity and life."

Of course, this would actually be an affront to human dignity and life as the plight of real persons would be set aside in favour of cell clump fetishizing.

A number of the recently announced stances are an amalgamation of the policies of the former Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties; both have a tradition or conservative policies and heavily religious agendas.

The current policy in Canada in regards to stem cell research is that it is allowed under certain conditions, while therapeutic cloning is strictly forbidden. While still very conservative in its approach, the Conservatives would make the Canadian situation potentially stricter than it is the United States (where they're currently debating whether or not to add additional embryo lines) which would an unbelievably disappointing turn of events.

And in typical Canadian fashion, this type of news and election promise goes utterly unnoticed....

"I'm not suicidal," he said. "I'm sane."

John Schwartz and James Estri have penned a New York Times article about Orgeon's assisted suicide law, "In Oregon, Choosing Death Over Suffering."

In Oregon,

The state's law allows adults with terminal diseases who are likely to die within six months to obtain lethal doses of drugs from their doctors. In the six years since it went into effect, surprises have been common, including the small number of people who have sought lethal drugs under the law and the even smaller number of people who have actually used them. In surveys and conversations with counselors, many patients say that what they want most is a choice about how their lives will end, a finger on the remote control, as it were.

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld Oregon's assisted suicide law, ruling that Attorney General John Ashcroft had overstepped his authority in trying to punish doctors who prescribed suicide drugs under the law.

There has been strong opposition to law's like Oregons, but support within the state has grown over the years -- even though only 1 in 100 people who begin the process of asking about assisted suicide will carry it out. Since 1997, only 171 patients with terminal illnesses have legally taken their own lives using lethal medication.

Moving from Catholicism to Zen Buddhism

In this Cross Currents article, Janet Abels writes about her discovery of Zen Buddhism and her subsequent rejection of Catholicism. Abels's story is particuarly pertinent for me as both of us are currently discovering Buddhism as ex-Catholics with Czechoslovakian backgrounds -- although, she takes her Zen practice farther than I would ever dare. In "How Zen Found Me," Abels writes:

How did I break through my stone wall? The first opening, and therefore the most crucial one, came about six weeks after I began daisan with Roshi. I was sitting in his zendo, waiting to go in for my interview, when suddenly, just suddenly, God dropped off. God as other, as concept, as object disappeared, and what "remained" was a vastness, a spaciousness, a fullness beyond any words. There was terror too but it did not dominate. On looking back on that moment (which Roshi helped me to hold at the time it happened), I realize it was the experiential awakening to everything I had always longed for but could never quite grasp because of a kind of scrim separating myself from "it." When the "other" dropped off, what remained was ONE. And ONE is always "just this." So in that moment, I was literally pushed off my safe map of certainty and knowledge and concepts and doctrines for the first time, pushed into a place of not knowing. My Zen journey has since been a continuing walk into that vastness of UNKNOWING that surely must be what mystery is all about.

Limit to computation determined

[via Charlie's Diary] Charlie Stross has a great post about there being a possible computational limit in the universe. According to a paper by Lawrence M. Krauss and Glenn D. Starkman, there's a hard limit to the amount of computation that can be done in the universe if -- as currently observed -- it is expanding at an accelerating rate:

The duo calculated that the total number of computer bits that could be processed in the future would be less than 1.35x10x120. This means that the effective information available to any observer within the event horizon of an expanding universe will be significantly less than the total so-called Hawking-Beckenstein entropy -- the entropy that is associated with a black hole -- in the universe.

As Stross correctly points out, there's no need to panic about the prospect of an upper bound:

Let's not rush around screaming just yet: the universe isn't about to halt on us. To put this in human terms, Hans Moravec expounds an estimate for the computational complexity of a human brain of around 10x14 ops/sec. I'm inclined to think he errs on the optimistic side by at least 3, and more likely 6-9, orders of magnitude, but it's hard to see a human brain requiring more than 10x17 MIPS to simulate accurately down to the synaptic level. Elsewhere, speculative posthumanists as Robert Bradbury discuss the amount of computation you can do with the entire mass of a solar system -- it's only about 10x20-25 times higher than my upper (conservative) limit for a human brain. And by the time we move on to discussions of the computational bandwidth of a Kardashev Type III civilization some really big numbers are flying around. But we're still about 10x60 step-units below the upper bound derived by Krauss and Starkman. That figure of 1.35x10x120 corresponds to about 10x40 times the number of elementary particles in the observable universe. So we aren't going to run out of bits any time soon, at least not in human terms.

Computer viruses continue to evolve

Symantec recently announced that it has detected the first 64-Bit virus. Called W64.Rugrat.3344, it's a virus that targets PCs running the 64-bit Windows operating system. Interestingly, while the virus is written to infect 64-bit Windows, a true 64 bit machine is not required for this virus, as it can be run on a 32 bit machine using 64 bit simulation software. It also uses the Thread Local Storage structures to execute the viral code which is an unusual method of executing code.

Discrimination against the non-religious

Margaret Downey takes exception to DJ Grothe and Austin Dacey who argue that atheism is not a civil rights issue. Grothe and Dacey write:

To our knowledge, there is no such thing as “atheist bashing.” If there were cases of such harm, one would expect to hear about them in the media and the courts, or at least in the common knowledge of unbelievers. So, where are the cases? On many occasions we have put this question to leaders in the nonreligious community and have never been presented with a single compelling example.

Not so fast, argues Downey, who provides evidence to the contrary and writes:

I greatly respect Grothe and Dacey, but in light of my own research I believe that they provided a misleading perception of the nonreligious community and its predicament. For almost a decade, I have been documenting acts of discrimination against the nonreligious through the Anti-Discrimination Support Network (ADSN), a committee of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia.

Pethokoukis addresses >H

James Pethokoukis of USNews talks to James Hughes about how technology should be regulated: [right on, J -- two significant articles in one week, the other being Free Inquiry]:

Next News: What's your perspective on the precautionary principle as applied to genetic engineering and other medical technologies?

Hughes: The "precautionary principle" is generally used by Luddites to say "we shouldn't do X because we don't know what its long-term implications will be." We think technological regulation should respect individual rights to control our own bodies and only interfere with those rights when there are clear and immediate harms to public health. For instance, we think human reproductive cloning should be illegal until it has been proven safe in animal studies. Then it should be considered a reproductive right since all the blather about the deconstruction of family ties and so forth aren't legitimate reasons to interfere in intimate decisions about reproduction.

Next News: What is the role of government, as you see it, in advancing these technologies?

Hughes: Transhumanists are divided on the best ways to advance technology innovation and access. Some of us, like me, are strong advocates of expanding government funding of basic science and creating a universal healthcare system that makes enhancement technology available to everybody. Others think a minimalist government, both in funding research and ensuring universal access, is the best way to ensure the rapid development and broad accessibility of good tech. Similarly, we are divided about the legitimacy of government regulation for safety. Some think that safety regulations are killing innovations and generally oppose new regulation. I and others support all legitimate regulation that is strictly intended to ensure the safety of technologies. What we are united on is our opposition to Luddite and religious fundamentalist bans on promising technologies based on worries about "playing God" or open-ended anxieties about the long-term implications of technology.

Dr. J Comments on Free Inquiry's Treatment of >H

[via WTA]James Hughes had this to say in response to the Free Inquiry article, "The New Perfectionism":

Free Inquiry Gives Back-Handed Salute to Transhumanism
Sometimes siblings are a little jealous of one another. Perhaps that explains the recent back-handed compliments for the transhumanist movement from Free Inquiry magazine, published by the Council for Secular Humanism. Secular humanism is kind of like a bigger, older brother to the tranhumanist movement in the larger family of humanist movements. In the editorial "The New Perfectionism" in an issue with a cover title of “Upgrading Humanity: Are People Obsolete” the editor Austin Dacey (also a philosopher) opines that one of the weaknesses of transhumanism is that it is a movement and not just a philosophy:

"One obstacle to discussion is that transhumanism is not just a philosophy; it is also a grassroots movement. The movement, which has gathered force in the last ten years and coalesced around organizations like the Extropy Institute, the online magazine BetterHumans, and the World Transhumanist Association, is a motley crew of serious academics, journalists, and scientists, cyber self-help gurus, nanotech venture capitalists, polyamorists and gender-benders, cryonics freaks, and artificial intelligence geeks."

As opposed to brie-eating, NPR-listening, PhD-holding, Volvo-driving, suburban, 50-80 year-old secular humanists? This is fun.

But Austin makes a good point about the way movements sometimes portray an argument as an all-or-none matter, when there are actually a lot of flavors and places for gray:

"Additionally, the prominence of organized transhumanism in the debate reinforces the illusion of an all-or-nothing choice between the bio-Luddites and the Borg. Grand Zarathustran dreams of becoming posthuman may leave you cold, though you might nonetheless favor some of the specific developments being proposed. You might be for life extension and gene therapy while being indifferent to whether nanotechnology will ever materialize and opposed to colonizing Mars. Unfortunately, this moderate, piecemeal approach is seldom represented by the ideological camps now squaring off."

In the end, this piece is really a surprising positive piece for the “t” word because it prefaces an article by J. Hughes, WTA Executive Director, on the the philosophical continuity between humanism and tranhumanism in their emphasis on the person as opposed to humanness, which Austin heartily endorses:

"Presumably, the fundamental point of posthumanism is that the humanness of a trait is simply irrelevant to whether it ought to be valued or pursued."

"Understood as the body of intellectual and moral ideas that united Renaissance classicists, Enlightenment rationalists, and twentieth-century scientific naturalists, Western humanism was a great and necessary thing. But its moment may have passed, if only because its anthropocentrism accords too little concern to nonhuman animals and too much to human non-persons. The moment may be right for a posthumanist philosophy, if it can be articulated and ethically defended by enough clever and resourceful—you guessed it—human beings."

The fact that the rival American Humanist Association decided to run a much more positive cover article the very same month in their magazine The Humanist, and also include a piece on transhumanism by transhumanist George Dvorsky, shows that transhumanism has definitely been recognized as a new member of the humanist family this month.

McLuhan Program Sponsors TV04

The McLuhan Program In Culture and Technology agreed today to be an official organizational sponsor for TransVision 04.

The McLuhan Program's mandate is to encourage understanding of the impacts of technology on culture and society from theoretical and practical perspectives, and thus to continue the ground-breaking work initiated by Marshall McLuhan.

The Program offers courses, conducts and supports research, and draws together members of the worldwide community whose interests lie in the inter- and trans-disciplinary studies of culture, communications, technology and gaining new awareness of the actual effects of all of these.

Through its research, course offerings, publications, speaking engagements, and experimentation in new and old media, the Program also provides a nexus among the University of Toronto, other institutions throughout the world, all levels of government, industry, educators, artists and the general public.

Transhumanism in Free Inquiry Magazine

Austin Dacey has published an article in Free Inquiry Magazine titled "The New Perfectionism." The June/July 2004 issue has a cyborgesque figure on the cover and reads: "Updating Humanity: Is Man Obsolete?"

Dacey briefly characterizes transhumanism as a fairly homogenous philosophy and makes a number of sweeping generalizations about the movement -- claiming in fact that its weakness resides in the fact that it is a movement. Interestingly, Dacey lists Betterhumans among the major players in transhumanism today, the other groups being Extropy and the World Transhumanist Association:

One obstacle to discussion is that transhumanism is not just a philosophy; it is also a grassroots movement. The movement, which has gathered force in the last ten years and coalesced around organizations like the Extropy Institute, the online magazine BetterHumans, and the World Transhumanist Association, is a motley crew of serious academics, journalists, and scientists, cyber self-help gurus, nanotech venture capitalists, polyamorists and gender-benders, cryonics freaks, and artificial intelligence geeks.

Freaks? Geeks? Whatever, Austin.

While somewhat sympathetic to transhumanist goals and perspectives, Dacey is clearly uncomfortable with some of the more extreme or unconventional cultural aspects of the movement -- Extropy in particular and its libertarian and Randian flavorings:

Like other iconoclastic movements, organized transhumanism attracts its share of sheer goofiness. The co-founder of Extropy Institute, a Southern California body-builder and Ayn Randian named Max, had his last name changed from ’Conner to More, because “I was going to get better at everything, become smarter, fitter, and healthier.” The co-mingling of serious theory and policy consideration with a grab bag of techno-utopian projects makes for easy targets for the biocons, diverting the debate from core substantive issues.

Additionally, the prominence of organized transhumanism in the debate reinforces the illusion of an all-or-nothing choice between the bio-Luddites and the Borg. Grand Zarathustran dreams of becoming posthuman may leave you cold, though you might nonetheless favor some of the specific developments being proposed. You might be for life extension and gene therapy while being indifferent to whether nanotechnology will ever materialize and opposed to colonizing Mars. Unfortunately, this moderate, piecemeal approach is seldom represented by the ideological camps now squaring off.

And in tune with what I've been saying for some time now, most humanists should have no trouble with transhumanist ideals. In fact, a case can be made that traditional humanism runs the risk obsolescence (and even orthodoxy) should it ignore the changing landscape of technological capabilities and its relation to the human condition. Dacey and other humanists are catching on to humanism 2.0.

Dacey closes by offering a challenge to transhumanist thinkers:

Understood as the body of intellectual and moral ideas that united Renaissance classicists, Enlightenment rationalists, and twentieth-century scientific naturalists, Western humanism was a great and necessary thing. But its moment may have passed, if only because its anthropocentrism accords too little concern to nonhuman animals and too much to human non-persons. The moment may be right for a posthumanist philosophy, if it can be articulated and ethically defended by enough clever and resourceful—you guessed it—human beings.

Matrix: Revolutions: Revisited

I watched Matrix: Revolutions for the second time last night. My conclusion after a second viewing is that.......it still sucks.