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Monday, March 13, 2006
  Am I a Transhumanist...?
Need a new badge to stick on your sleeve? How's this one:

Transhumanist

from Wikipedia:

Transhumanism (sometimes abbreviated >H or H+) is an intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies to increase human physical and cognitive abilities and improve the human condition in unprecedented ways.

Am I a Transhumanist? I think so yes... After reading Kurzweil's Singularity, and following-up by reading a number of other articles, I am absolutely excited about the future, about the changes that the progress of technology will cause. I'm very excited to think that assuming I don't get hit by the proverbial bus, I won't die anytime soon (Geez, I might even live long enough to see Newcastle win something! ha!), I certainly don't want to get zealous over all of this, but anyone who knows me knows that I do tend to get obsessive about things, I like to use the word passionate... Whether it be about Technology, or a Band, or Newcastle, or whatever, I don't tend to just get a little interested in things, I go whole hog...

In the same way that it's fun and exciting to watch a Science Fiction movie, and see all the cool gadgets, I'm finding it enthralling reading about and thinking about these possibilities that don't appear to be fiction, but appear to be increasingly likely within my lifetime...

About Desktop Fabrication / Molecular Assembly...

I was trying to describe some of the concepts of things that will happen in the near future recently, and how with molecular assembly we'll be able to build 'stuff', pretty much anything we need ourselves, and therefore the cost/value of 'stuff' will be insignificant. It's sort of hard to fathom, especially in this current land of consumerism, if you can't get a decent 'shopping high', you'll need to just get a 'fabrication high', whip off a new set of duvet covers or martini glasses... then when I was in the Dollar Store, picking up a cable (to connect my iPod to my car stereo), I realized that dollar stores are in some way one step towards that... I'm still AMAZED when I see the variety of products that are now available in these places... Many of these items of similar quality would have (and in some cases still do) cost easily $5-$10... So despite inflation, the cost of manufacture, and of transport, has fallen 90%... Sure, some of these products are liquidation, but from what I can see the bulk of the stuff is probably able to be purchased wholesale and sold for $1 and a profit still be made... That's what really blows my mind, that these products are PROBABLY manufactured for closer to 10-25 cents... By the time the manufacturer makes his money, then the product is packaged, shipped (99% of the time from China), trucked across the country, held in a Warehouse somewhere, transported again to individual stores, placed on shelves, then sold, and a profit made by each of these parties - again, has to be a minimum of 3... AMAZING! I'd love to see the numbers... Anyhow, what I'm getting at is we're already moving towards a world where material things will become more or less FREE, the information, the designs, the intellectual property will still have value, but stuff will become incredibly cheap, there will be abundance, and this will be a good thing...

The tres cool image above is from Mondolithic Studios -> http://www.mondolithic.com/galleries.htm
 
Comments:
Welcome to the movement!

Take a minute to add yourself to the World Transhumanist Association mailing list:

http://transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/join/

Let's make the future.

--------------------------------------------
James Hughes Ph.D.
Executive Director
World Transhumanist Assoc. Inst. for Ethics & Emerging Tech.
http://transhumanism.org http://ieet.org
director@transhumanism.org director@ieet.org
Editor, Journal of Evolution and Technology
http://jetpress.org

Mailing Address: Box 128, Willington CT 06279 USA
(office) 860-297-2376
 
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A personal blog by John Walter.

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I think a lot. Some people say I think too much... However, I don't want to be seen as being aloof or pretentious, it's just that I really enjoy philosophical questions and deep thoughts. That's not to say that I don't find pleasure in more down-to-earth or trivial things, like beer and soccer :) I'm happily married with 3 wonderful children. I'm a partner in a technology services company based in Toronto. Myers Briggs says I'm an ENTJ

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