Nothing Is Wrong With Transhumanism In Theory

Sorry for your woes comrade.
I don’t think a technological solution is ever going to provide something preferable to the demiurge’s own mangled creation. You just end up with a multitude of demiurges and you can bet your life they and their archons will make sure that pain and lack will be introduced once they’ve trapped you in their Matrix.
Better to hope for extinction. If humans decided not to create new beings to suffer and be abused, that would make sense to me.

In the 50’s-70’s China made their rich/ruling class go work in the fields for a decade. Look how their country has turned out.
Now compare that to the West where the ruling class is so spoiled they consider paying a tax on their 4th vacation house brutal tyranny.
Sure suffering sucks but the results of a society ruled by people who’ve never experienced any speaks for itself.

Transhumanism isn’t about love and caring it’s about a visceral hate for the human condition and a desire to escape life. Look around you at the all the autistic children, sick, fat, miserable chronically I’ll people. That IS the result of transhumanism.

Can we stop with this superior than everything and everyone eco misanthropy. Its just such tried and pointless navel gazing of the worst kind. A total and complete nonstarter of a statement of the rhetorical potential of arguing to paint the sky purple. If humans are so awful and existence so bad , please follow your own advice and kill yourself. At least stop participating in the society you hate so much. You get that at most it provides fodder for the corpos that : look see the left are just human haters who literally want everyone to DIE!!!!

I’m with Bob, sensible as always. Let’s not forget Brion Gyson’s insight, “Man is a bad animal.” I wouldn’t go as far as voluntary extinction, though personally I’ve never been a Breeder, left no Spawn. Harper’s had a good piece on modern Don’t Breed people, they are not self-hating, they just have a philosophical committment, humans are evil, destroy their environment, flora, fauna and everything else, like the Ancient Essenes (the good, mystical Jews living in mountain caves) they feel Don’t Breed, don’t give up your Essence and create more miserable suffering. I’ll also agree, don’t serve the Demiurge, that never ends well.

Now I’m in my late 60s, trying to the extent I can Dylan Thomas’ Rage, Rage against the Dying of the Light!! I do need to excercise more, at times I do so, definitely walk a lot, most people who see me guess I’m in my mid- to late-40s, coz I still have a thick head of hair and most of my teeth, decent muscle tone. Rarely feel my full age, but Ian’s point is well taken, after hernia surgery in 2024, severe constipation from the opiate painkillers, 9 or 10 on the pain scale for 30-some hours, I wanted to die. BUT I found a solution, drove to the local grocery and bought a Green Apple, after 2.5 hours I was on the mend. (PS– Dylan T. didn’t practice what he preached. Hardcore alcoholic, he took like 18 whisky shots hanging out with friends at the pub, his last words were reportedly “18 shots!! A new record!!” before he hit the floor, ended the thread of living.)

But to the substance of Ian’s point, I will say being so old I still practice “Lifelong Learning”, do some reading and study nearly every day, a consitent program, keep my mind active, it’s a muscle like the other ones in the body.

I agree with Mary Shelley’s insight about Promethean excess, playing God also ends badly, see David Koresh and many others. Nonetheless I have made a serious study of Hermetic mythology, Qabalah, astrology, metaphysics (dangerous quicksand, be careful with it), yoga etc. It’s helped me over about 5 decades, but Your Results May Differ.

I think the one area where many people have innovated over the years is Culture. I’ll cite for instance Baudelaire’s poetic insight that the Dandy should be as “artificial” as possible, pursue Artificial Paradises via the Road of Excess. I’d also cite William Blake’s “Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” Now I’m not a clothes horse, Punk style was my 20’s-30s dress, but I very much enjoyed the Gay Friendly movie Velvet Goldmine, where the majority were style-plates with some exceptions. It’s a thinly-veiled roman-a-clef about an alleged torrid love-affair between the grungy, well-hung proto-punk King Iggy Pop and the more fey and elfin David Bowie. Great Sci-Fi Easter Egg, Aliens on a space ship drop a relic onto the baby Bowie character left on the street in a basinette for adoption, by Public School, age 7, he’s asked what he wants to be by teacher, “A Pop Star, sir!!” Gay journalist tracked the whole thing, the relic passes on to him.

To close, we all have different goals, and Transhumanist applications vary in their value and desirability. The “I want to live forever and never age, can replace all my organs on the black market,” etc. Deep State says that both Putin and Xi were caught on a hot mic talking about their Swapping out healthy young peoples’ organs, “plan to live forever,” etc. Just the usual State Dept. Hate spew, not very credible.

Playing sports well and keeping your body healthy could be good transhumanism. Bad transhumanism could be the James Dean thing, fuck lots of boys, girls, men and women, abuse some, kill yourself in a hot rod, leave a good-looking corpse. Be a Finance Ghoul, make billion$, buy high-priced Prostitutes, men or women. Drug addictions or other obsessions are bad transhumanism. Spiritual practices are good TH.

Speaking of Bad TH, I will link to a fun new Podcast I just learned about, “Hysteria”, their “This Fucking Guy” segments. One on Jared Kushner’s daddy and puberty-blocker use by the Ken Doll without genitals, Jared’s ownership of 666 5th Avenue. Dumb as Dirt, Ivanka is the only Jenius (Trump spelling) in that family, a complete mediocrity, sub-mediocrity on the level of his dad-in-law. WannaBe Antichrist, but as the 2 Ladies note, Daddy bought his way into top Academia, family are slumlords, daddy K. set up his sibling with a Prostitute to punish them for narcing on Daddy’s Financial frauds. Filth all the way down. Never punished, no suprise. (The Puberty blockers originally a Norm Finkelsteing joke. It’s why I call Jared the Gum Golem, looks like he is made out of melting wax.)

“The Best and Brightest?” Not hardly. Chris Christie did one good thing in his life, prosecuted Daddy K, sent to a Country Club Prison. Anyway, link to the “Hysteria” podcast here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqfcXBIyQOc

If you want to rise on the planes via Transhumanism, choose wisely. Every gift taken from the TH Demiurgos will have a curse equal in power in it as well, see the Fable of Pandora’s Box. No Wonder Obama lied about “Hope” & “Change.” A better scammer than even Donald J. Trump. Oh, and DJT has never “met someone smarter” than Jared!! Tells you all you need to know. (I’m sure his mentor Roy Cohen was WAAAY smarter, and likely more Evil as well.)

‘a nurse did once save my life (I wasn’t entirely thrilled at the time, but she gave a damn.)’

Ian, if this is too personal I understand. Just wondering if I’m reading this correctly as essentially saying you wanted to die at some level then?

I mean, that’s a stupid question. You have described in intimate detail the horror of what you have gone through.

What I am asking is, you know, how close – then or since even if not in actuality then ‘in mind’ where I myself have been more than once in the past – though not due to physical rather mental anguish which feels weaker on my part I do admit.

But I’m still here and so are you despite having the knowledge and wherewithal to off ourselves and ‘end the misery’ in any number of ways that we ourselves may find amenable to ‘do the job.’

I always think of the hose from the tailpipe with the car in the closed garage because evidently you just sort of drift away that away.

Give me the beach boys and free my soul.

Anyway, I’m not the kind of guy to jump off a fucking bridge.

I will shoot myself up with a pure speedball and exit thatta way if I could ever conjure the balls to do it in the first place and I ususally don’t want to these days but…

Thank god for marijuana.

Anyway, thank you as always for your writing.

Ian I remember when you wrote about that previously and I was shocked that it happened in Canada where you yourself have said things are generally better than the US.

I think Canada just announced some somewhat substantive stipends for various levels of lower and middle income households?

It is hard to see that in the US any time soon.

Earlier intervention with better treatment by not only competent doctors and nurses and what have you but also all of the above having ‘good bedside manner’ would produce different outcomes.

The rich and ‘well-to-do’ all have that.

You are questioning the wisdom of the all-powerful all-seeing god the creator?

The one who creates and sits back and watches wars and genocides unfold around the globe while simultaneously helping other peoples achieve great heights?

He helped the knicks win dude.

Thanks again Ian.

“slope” is an ethnic slur, and there are plenty of Asians in Silicon Valley. I imagine this was unintentional, but in any event it’s not up to your usual high standards.

A typo fix as the sentence should read,
… the quantity prescribes is an insufficient dosage over too short a period.
Pain sucks. I hate having difficulty concentrating and writing.

“The problem with transhumanism is transhumanists counting virtual people who don’t exist and pretending their making decisions which will make trillions of people in an imaginary future better off while hurting people living today.”

That is a description of “effective altruism,” not transhumanism.

I’m responding to a mago post where he calls out somebody going as warvigilant for dumb comments. I don’t think it’s entirely fair, I looked back to early this month and saw only 2 comments by him/her/them. They get a 50% approval rate from me, which even LAS earned at times (excluding the Kill All Russians vomit).

WV disagreed with me citing the Harper’s piece on Non-Breeders, well-reasoned, Human Life is Suffering, these people just have the Intellectual Integrity to admit it to themselves, which I respect. They’re not coercing others to their view, sneaking birth control drugs into the water supply, etc. I didn’t breed. I had one scare in my life where my lover missed her period, possibly pregnant, but then it just arrived late. We were both relieved, alike in most respects but it never would’ve worked long-term, Glass Half Full Me vs. Nothing is Good Enough for Me whining her (a Virgo Sun; the Zodiac’s perfectionists and believe they have all the answers, Nope!) wv did a sloppy broad brush; he’s free to reject this view, I have no problem with that, but uses a total Straw Man, bad faith argument.

And on the other hand, this response to KT Chong’s virulent intolerance and hatred of any- and everyone who’s not as hatefully bigoted and narrow-minded and patriarchal and Thomas Hobbesian as he is, believes the State is God, humans are worthless and should have no personal Agency, God-Kings (once in awhile I Queen I guess, see Katherine the Great) get to dictate social morality and sexual behavior, spy on you, and as in Texas, when the SCotUS Right Wingers finally said the fascists went too far, breaking into a house with 2 gay men in the midst of a consensual act, roughing them up and arresting them. More Fascist than the likes of Antonin Scalia? Wow!!

Here’s wv’s post from early in the month:

“Bunch of puritans….

Gender rights are human rights … do you need to be reminded that those icky minorities are human too?
parroting right wing bullshit but nothing new here. Lot of smart people but still a lot of bad thinking. The lesson of trump was that as a society , as a people we are a lot dumber than we thought or at least there isn,t anybody really smart in control anymore. But the positive takeaway is that the rich and their servants are absolute fucking morons.

Oh any one with the I predicted this… I predicted that blah blah,… yeah yeah nostradamas we all saw blade runner or anything cyberpunk, or tonnes of fantasy / sci fi that was just abstractions of our current world . Video games were great because they weren’t so afraid to say rich people bad. The fallout series some might know now originated in a games series in the 90s, the game called out a bunch of interesting bits, the rise of Scientology/ the popluarity and addictive potential of Magic the Gathering card game/ and that the us government is essentially deep state fascist dictatorship that serves only the rich. Hell tank girl is looking pretty accurate , sans kangaroo hybrids.

but yeah, everybody is special but your not that special.”

Okay, I’ll take spud’s correctly calling things as true, his record posting here supports that. BUT–

warvigilant spoke to me as an ally, he beat me to the punch on calling out KTC’s fascistic Sex Hate. Puritans indeed, somebody else is having fun, how dare they, jail or even kill them!!

KTC is practically Trumpist except for his Sinophilia, he’s entitled to that but Ian had to do a post rightly calling Bullshit on his Tribalist “China is greater than any other society that has ever existed,” by what metrics? Now a rational case could be made, no doubt, in terms of the amount of freedom Chinese have, the strong economy that actually benefits nearly all and not as in the West a tiny minority of predators, the sagacity of Chinese culture and leadership, etc. But this WE are the only good Civilization and everyone else lives in the Jungle, we are the Garden (pace Josef Borrell) is just sick racism. It’s very similar to the Ethno-Supremacist Settler-Colonialist Apartheid State that controls the US Congress, Media, Courts etc. and that is hated world-wide. Not a good look!!

Who died and declared KT Chong the Status of God, to determine how others live their personal lives? Nobody, obviously. Does he want to burn faggots and dykes at the stake, publicly? I don’t think I’m straw-manning here, I think such goals are implicit in his hate-spew.

He also extrapolates improperly from Chinese policy and grants to other Authoritarian States, specifically the U$A, to copy Chinese policies that simply don’t fit the multicultural society Round Hole into which this Square Peg must be Pounded, at the price of others’ rights to personal autonomy and basic choices, control of their own bodily autonomy, KTC thinks bitch’s wombs belong to Men, right to speak a “minority” language in areas (Texas, New Mexico, San Lorenzo and San Leandro, California, Miami, e.g.) where the language, Spanish, is spoken by majorities, large or small, and has been for just over a century longer than English in North American history. Fuck that fascist bullshit!! Thank you to wv for calling it out, beat me to it.

I practice the 11th Commandment, “Thou Shalt Mind Thine Own Business.” Okay, that doesn’t apply to the Epstein Class, or the Looters, but as to my neighbors’ daily life, it does. It doesn’t apply to Cannibals, serial killers, actual predators, it does apply to ordinary “deviants.” Get a fucking life!!

So I’m with mago on the projection viz non-breeders. I’m not on the live and let live, mind your own business, stop being a Hate-filled Puritan busybody stuff that KT Chong so proudly shrieks about. WV is a 45–60% ally of mine, I’m not a purity pony, I’d like to support real allies and not be isolated by “the tyranny of small differences.” I’ll even endorse about 8% of what KTC says that is rational, insightful and not hate-poisoned & fear-filled. Now I don’t just concede that China imposing one central written language over a vast territory with several hundred languages orally different and often incomprehensible was a stroke of genius. But KTC’s belief that if (his) “Daddy” Trump were to make the USA English Only (a centuries-old Republican, White Man Wet Dream) that’d be super-duper, is pathetic. (Okay, don’t want to strawman, perhaps he’d allow the Chinese diaspora alone to speak it inside the home, not out on the streets.) Newsflash, the 1493 Spanish Settler Colonialist occupation of Hispanyola, etc. was extra-territorial to modern US borders, let’s assume they got here late, 1500. That means Spanish has been spoken where I live, New Mexico, for 526 years, considerably longer than English has been spoken. And over half the populace here speaks Spanish, just some lazy Gabachos who prefer English don’t learn it. Oh, and see here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_colonization_of_the_Americas, it spread as far North as Canada and even Alaska briefly. . .

How long has English been spoken in current USA borders? Jamestown, Virginia, 1606, 106 years (roughly) fewer than Spanish. But as I said about sex, different strokes for different folks, live and let live, if you wanna speak English, it’s your right. It’s my right to prefer Spanish and speak both English and Spanish, as needed. It’s the right of Maori immigrants to the US to speak their language, etc.

Oh, and I have to correct something I said on an earlier thread. The perhaps departed (?) Troll Supremo, Lie and Suborn, falsely accused me of being a doctrinaire “Marxist,” Lol, swing and a miss. But I am not & never have been a Doctrinaire Marxist, as stated, Karl a great Economist, mostly, and great sociologist and pamphleteer with Engels as well, but “Dialectical Materialism” is bullshit. I don’t wish to throw out the Baby with the Bathwater, however, so will add what I should have. There are many clear-thinking, rational modern Marxists I admire greatly. Kshama Sawant, in Seattle, successfully raised the area Minimum Wage to $17.13 hourly when on the City Council, and the city still exists and is prospering, not destroyed and burnt to the ground per Randian-Hayek doctrines. Federal minimum wage in US remains $7.25 in shitholes like Alabama, hasn’t been boosted by Congress’ elites since 2009, not sure if last time was under Obama possibly, but he raised it only slightly if so (probably not under Bush first days of 09). I like Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith very good on MMT and most issues. Richard Wolfe and Michael Hudson, great populist economists, slant Marxist in my eyes. Podcasters who are Marxist and even Communist Adjacent who I respect are “Tusker” from Arkansas, a lady friend and sometimes substitute host on Due Dissidence, the great Garland Nixon and his friend Jodi Braer, Garland a retired Police Officer (might’ve been a Chief, I don’t know details), Braer a member of CPUSA, a bit far-out for me, but mostly right about economics and pushing for a brighter future.

I try to follow Frederick Douglass’ admonition, ally with anyone to do right and no one to do wrong. Seems mostly clear and sensible to me. There’s some real “Transhumanist” improvement, potentially. No revolution by an individual, it’s a group project.

If the narrowly-defined transhumanists . . . the Singularian seekers of the Omniscient Omnisentient God-Machine get their God-Machine created and get their consciousness uploaded into it , I hope it turns on them and fixes it so that they have no mouth and they must scream for all eternity.

Apologies for my more abrasive comments, invective might seem like an effective way to make a point but not often. My posts dont often pass the filter but i accept that as i will often not hold back my opinion on certain groups.

To the actual topic on hand, I look to gaming both digital and physical as a medium for thinking about and experimenting with where it goes. cyberpunk 2070 is a leading example of the genre and some of the themes of trans humanism via cybernetic and digital augmentation. from just neural link ports to full body replacement ( ala battle angel atlia) it is certainly trans human.

One aspect of trans-humanism that i think the common thought lines and the correspondent of mago in the second comment get absolutely wrong is the whole upload to the digital space and live forever thing.First : just simply, anyone here ever have to delete the original copy when they send a file or burn a cd ect. When you are digitized ( if that could every really work) , its just a copy of you at best, you are still alive and will still feel, die etc. The you who your felt existence is , is still stuck in the meat sack. Think the Arnold cloning movie where the gunshot villain brain scans himself into his clone but the clone was just a bastard like him and just took the clothes from the dying original, or the mercenaries in Avatar 2 , just copies put into hybrid bodies, the originals are dead.
So unfortunately methinks the worst for Mago’s friend, not to be dark but if he was right, he could still say hi digitally, and if I am then nothing to stop the original and clone from saying hi.
Me thinks any kind of brain upload is centuries away regardless, we just dont know enough about the human brain and how one could replicate that digitally. Even computers have a difficult time if not impossible time working with wrong hardware /software.
What exactly allows you to function digitally anyway? How do you not immediately go insane/brain dead .The physical human brain can do a decent job but still fails pretty hard, how is a system totally unlike an actual brain supposed to do a better job? Spoilers: the recent successful independent series the amazing digital circus essentially takes a look at this as says its pretty likely ,if not inevitable a digitized human brain will eventually crack and become unstable and dangerous.