transhumanism / transhumanismus » Critics

Wenn Technik Lösungen, aber keine Antworten bietet

rheil — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:29:14 +0000

Wenn Technik Lösungen, aber keine Antworten bietet

Jörg Auf dem Hövel 20.08.2010 (telepolis)

Interview mit dem Philosophen Oliver Müller über chemo- und neurotechnologische Umbaumaßnahmen an Körper und Geist

„Der Philosoph Oliver Müller arbeitet am Institut für Ethik und Geschichte der Medizin und jetzt hat ein erhellendes Werk über den Einzug technischer Optimierungen in Lebenswelt und Körper des Menschen geschrieben. Im Interview beschreibt er, welche Auswirkungen diese Technisierungsprozesse auf Selbstsein und Selbstverständnis haben können.“ [zum Originalartikel]

Abschied von der “Nanotechnologie” (Von Niels Boeing, Technology Review, 04.11.2009)

rheil — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:16:03 +0000

Abschied von der “Nanotechnologie” (Von Niels Boeing, Technology Review, 04.11.2009)

„Vor kurzem meinte ein Journalisten-Kollege, er wundere sich, dass der ganze Diskurs über potenzielle Risiken der Nanotechnik, pardon “Nanotechnologie”, aus Politik und Wirtschaft selbst angestoßen worden sei – und nicht etwa von technikkritischen Organisationen. An diesem Diskurs haben sich die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften insgesamt doch eher konstruktiv beteiligt. Joachim Schummer, Philosoph an der TU Darmstadt und zugleich Chemiker, geht nun gegen die versöhnliche Stimmung an: Mit seinem Buch “Nanotechnologie. Spiele mit Grenzen” hat er eine fulminante Streitschrift vorgelegt.“ [zum Originalartikel]

Woe, Superman?

rheil — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:36:29 +0000

Woe, Superman?

Oxford Today, Volume 22 Number 1, Michaelmas 2009

„Artificially engendered humans have long been a science fiction staple – from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Huxley’s Brave New World and, most recently, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island – their heroes dehumanised figures depicted amid bleak, biotechnologically devastated landscapes.

But in the year of Darwin’s bicentenary, science fact presses hard on the heels of science fiction. Three decades since Louise Brown, the first ‘test tube baby’, woke to the world, breakthroughs are now trumpeted almost every month. Chinese scientists recently announced that they had cloned the first animals from skin cells. Earlier, British scientists revealed they had manufactured artificial sperm using stem cells from a fiveday- old male embryo.

Human enhancement provokes violent controversy: the American writer Francis Fukuyama branded ‘transhumanism’ (the radical enhancement of humanity by technological means) ‘the world’s most dangerous idea’. But genetic technologies are only one, if perhaps the most controversial, sector on the enhancement front.“ [read original article]

On the Importance of Being a Cyborg Feminist

rheil — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:09:26 +0000

On the Importance of Being a Cyborg Feminist (written By: Kyle Munkittrick, h+ magazin, July 21, 2009)

„Transhumanism’s relationship with postmodern philosophy and critical theory is a strange one. For example, Nick Bostrom’s influential “A History of Transhumanist Thought” spans centuries, covering the gamut from Utnapishtim to the President’s Council on Bioethics, but makes little mention of those who radically challenge the core Enlightenment narrative upon which he builds his history. Figures like Nietzsche, Marx, and Donna Haraway do all receive a nod in Bostrom’s essay, including Haraway’s cyberfeminist motto, “I’d rather be a cyborg than a goddess,” but their ideas go unanalyzed. Of course, the context for these thinkers is often ignored and their works simply mined for epigraphs and potent, argument-punctuating lines such as Haraway’s. Make no mistake: Bostrom’s essay (indeed, his entire corpus of work) is essential reading for any serious transhumanist. But there are gaps in his history that are reflective of a larger dismissal of certain philosophers by transhumanist intellectuals. Among those neglected, I would list Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Jurgan Habermas. Clearly there is insufficient time and space to even begin to discuss all of these figures properly, so I would like to draw your attention to just one in particular, Donna Haraway, and her work with cyberfeminism.“ [read original article]

Singing the Singularity

rheil — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:20:29 +0000

Singing the Singularity

Mike Treder (posted on IEET, Jul 16, 2009)

„Like many a useful concept, the Technological Singularity has become over-invested with emotion, ideological leanings, and tangential agendas. Can its value be recovered?

On October 3, 2009, the fourth annual Singularity Summit will convene, this time in New York City. Among the speakers featured in the two-day event are IEET fellows Ben Goertzel and Aubrey de Grey, along with Ray Kurzweil, Anders Sandberg, Robin Hanson, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Greg Benford, and many others.

So what’s it all about?“ [read original article]

If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution!

rheil — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:42:12 +0000

If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution!

Athena Andreadis (Sentient Development)

„Those who know my outermost layer would consider me a science geek. I’m a proponent of genetic engineering, an advocate of space exploration, a reader and writer of science fiction. However, I found myself unable to warm to either transhumanism or its literary sidekick, cyberpunk. I ascribed this to the decrease of flexibility that comes with middle age and resumed reading Le Guin’s latest story cycle. […]

And I finally realized why I balk at cyberpunk and transhumanism like an unruly horse. Both are deeply anhedonic, hostile to physicality and the pleasures of the body, from enjoying wine to playing in an orchestra. I wondered why it had taken me so long to figure this out. After all, many transhumanists use the repulsive (and misleading) term “meat cage” to describe the human body, which they deem a stumbling block, an obstacle in the way of the mind.“ [read original article]

Singularly silly singularity

rheil — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:34:13 +0000

Singularly silly singularity (PZ Myers, Pharyngula, Feb. 09. 2009)

„Since I had the effrontery to critize futurism and especially Ray Kurzweil, here’s a repost of something I wrote on the subject a while back…and I’ll expand on it at the end.“ [read original article]

Cognitive enhancement

rheil — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:55:59 +0000

Cognitive enhancement

By Judith Warner (Herald Tribune), Published: December 30, 2008

„What if you could just take a pill and all of a sudden remember to pay your bills on time? What if, thanks to modern neuroscience, you could, simultaneously, make New Year’s Eve plans, pay the mortgage, call the pediatrician, consolidate credit card debt and do your job – well – without forgetting dentist appointments or neglecting to pick up your children at school?

Would you do it? Tune out the distractions of our online, on-call, too-fast ADD-ogenic world with focus and memory-enhancing medications like Ritalin or Adderall? Stay sharp as a knife – no matter how overworked and sleep-deprived – with a mental-alertness-boosting drug like the anti-narcolepsy medication Provigil?

I’ve always said no. Fantasy aside, I’ve always rejected the idea of using drugs meant for people with real neurological disorders to treat the pathologies of everyday life. [...]“

Better than human

rheil — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:38:00 +0000

Better than human – Why is the world’s most prestigious science journal peddling the snake oil of cognition-enhancing drugs? (Michael Cook, Mercator Net)

Publication in the British journal Nature is the acme of academic achievement, a byword for quality and the touchstone of scientific opinion. So when its editor co-authors an article putting the case for a technology which has been called the world’s most dangerous idea, you’ve got to ask: what have these dudes been smoking? […]

Die Vervollkommnung des Menschen

rheil — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:09:58 +0000

Oliver Krüger

Die Vervollkommnung des Menschen

Tod und Unsterblichkeit im Posthumanismus und Transhumanismus

Der Mensch ist unvollkommen. Neben den vielen kleinen körperlichen und geistigen Grenzen und den krankheitsbedingten Leiden haftet ihm vor allem ein Makel an: der Mensch ist sterblich. Seine Tage sind gezählt – herausragenden Exemplaren der Gattung Mensch gelingt es heutzutage immerhin, bis zu 38.000 mal das Werden und Vergehen eines Tages zu erleben, aber dann ist Schluss. Das wusste schon der mythische König Gilgamesh, der sich auf die Suche nach einem zauberhaften Unsterblichkeitskraut machte, und auch aus der Sicht des Soziologen Max Weber offenbarte sich im Faktum des Todes “die Sinnlosigkeit der rein innerweltlichen Selbstvervollkommnung zum Kulturmenschen”, die prägend sein sollte für eine sich säkular verstehende Moderne – denn trotz aller Sublimierungsversuche blieb der Tod. […]