Transhumanism: The Most Dangerous Idea? "What ideas, if embraced, would pose the greatest threat to the welfare of humanity?" That question was posed to eight prominent policy intellectuals by the editors of Foreign Policy in its September/October issue (not yet available online). One of the eight savants consulted was Francis Fukuyama, professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, author of Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics. In his Foreign Policy article, Fukuyama identifies transhumanism as "a strange liberation movement" that wants "nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints." Human liberation from our biological constraints began when an ancestor first sharpened a stick and used it to kill an animal for food. What is a human capacity anyway? Our ancestors had no wings; now we fly. Let's take their over-the-top scenario down a notch or two.
The Power of Technology Visit page > Big Think is a global forum connecting people and ideas. It may be a cliché to say that knowledge is power, but that doesn’t make the statement any less true. We know that there are just 24 hours in a day, that you are bombarded with information, and that the bombardment will only escalate. We believe that not all information is equal. We believe that expertise is invaluable and should be shared. Bostrom Responds to Fukuyama’s Assertion that Transhumanism is World’s Most Dangerous Idea Nick Bostrom (Sept 10, 2004) “What idea, if embraced, would pose the greatest threat to the welfare of humanity?” This was the question posed by the editors of Foreign Policy in the September/October issue to eight prominent policy intellectuals, among them Francis Fukuyama, professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. And Fukuyama’s answer? Transhumanism, “a strange liberation movement” whose “crusaders aim much higher than civil rights campaigners, feminists, or gay-rights advocates.” More accurately, transhumanists advocate increased funding for research to radically extend healthy lifespan and favor the development of medical and technological means to improve memory, concentration, and other human capacities. According to transhumanists, however, the choice whether to avail oneself of such enhancement options should generally reside with the individual.
A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) (A play in 4 acts. Please feel free to exit along with the stage character that best represents you. Take intermissions as you see fit. Act 1: Once Upon a Time... Act 2: Crypto Basics Act 3: Details Act 4: Math! Epilogue I created a heavily-commented AES/Rijndael implementation to go along with this post and put it on GitHub. The Design of Rijndael is the book on the subject, written by the Rijndael creators. Please leave a comment if you notice something that can be better explained. Update #1: Several scenes were updated to fix some errors mentioned in the comments.Update #2: By request, I've created a slide show presentation of this play in both PowerPoint and PDF formats.
Institute - Bioethics - Articles/News - The Transhumanists: By: Wesley J. SmithNational Review OnlineSeptember 20, 2002 Original article In recent years, scientists have mixed the DNA of a jellyfish with that of a monkey, creating a "transgenic" animal that glows in the dark. ("Transgenic" means possessing the genes of more than one type of organism.) Other researchers are creating transgenic animals that contain minute quantities of human DNA. But what about human transgenic research? Welcome to the surreal world of "transhumanism," a nascent and explicitly eugenic philosophy that advocates taking control of human evolution through gene modification. Transhumanists are breaking the intellectual ground they hope will eventually lead to public acceptance of genetic manipulation — not just to improve health, but to change our very natures. Transhumanists are biotech absolutists. Transhumanist theory has arisen in the context of a strengthening nexus between the views already popular in bioethics and animal-rights advocacy. — Wesley J.
University of South Carolina researchers convert T-shirt into energy storage medium - Images The researchers used a standard T-shirt purchased from a local discount store for their work Image Gallery (8 images) As manufacturers of smartphones and mobile devices strive to make their products increasingly portable, they repeatedly come up against the constraints of existing battery technology. However, Xiaodong Li, a professor at the University of South Carolina (USC) believes that we will soon be able to employ the clothes we wear to help overcome such challenges and to this end, Li has transformed T-shirt material into an energy storage medium which could one day be used to power portable devices. View all Beginning with a standard T-shirt purchased from a local discount store, Li’s team soaked the garment in a solution of fluoride, then dried and baked the fabric at high temperature in an oven, which is designed to exclude oxygen in order to prevent the fabric from igniting. Source: University of South Carolina About the Author Adam is a tech and music writer based in North Wales.
NATURAL BORN CYBORGS? NATURAL BORN CYBORGS? By Andy Clark We cannot see ourselves aright until we see ourselves as nature's very own cyborgs: cognitive hybrids who repeatedly occupy regions of design space radically different from those of our biological forbears. The hard task, of course, is now to transform all this from (mere) impressionistic sketch into a balanced scientific account of the extended mind. Introduction "As our worlds become smarter, and get to know us better and better," writes cognitive scientist Andy Clark, "it becomes harder and harder to say where the world stops and the person begins." Clark's examines the"potent, portable machinery linking the user to an increasingly responsive World Wide Web," as well as "the gradual smartening-up and interconnection of the many everyday objects which populate our homes and offices." ANDY CLARK is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex, UK. See Andy Clark's Edge Bio Page NATURAL BORN CYBORGS?
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Transhumanism For the United Nations, relevance may be almost as perilous as irrelevance. In the span of a year, the Bush administration went from taunting the world body to begging for its help. A beefed-up U.N. team will soon arrive in Baghdad to advise the Iraqi government on reconstruction, social services, and human rights and directly assist with elections. Although some U.N. backers revel in the growing global reliance on the world body, now is no time to get smug. The idea that the United Nations can stumble along in its atrophied condition has powerful appeal in capitals around the world -- and even in some offices at U.N. headquarters. Regrettably, most of those who could change the organization have an interest in resisting reform. Much U.N. Permanent membership on the Security Council -- granted to the Second World War victors (plus France) -- is woefully anachronistic. The Commission on Human Rights, the 53-state forum based in Geneva, has become a politicized farce.
Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived Additional notes from the author: If you want to learn more about Tesla, I highly recommend reading Tesla: Man Out of Time Also, this Badass of the week by Ben Thompson is what originally inspired me to write a comic about Tesla. Ben's also got a book out which is packed full of awesome. There's an old movie from the 80s on Netflix Instant Queue right now about Tesla: The Secret of Nikola Tesla. It's corny and full of bad acting, but it paints a fairly accurate depiction of his life. The drunk history of Tesla is quite awesome, too.
What does Oscar Pistorius’s success at the Olympics mean for the future of cybernetics? As someone who had to wear a prosthetic for 18 years before just plain giving up, I guess we might be concerned if they do manage to become good enough to warrant people wanting to replace biology with cybernetics. But considering that the prosthetic arm/hand I had could barely open/close and had a death grip that was utterly useless, I can't quite see this stuff happening anytime soon. People may think it'd be cool to have a robot hand but from what I've seen, it's really only useful for people who had to be amputated due to an injury or illness. Legs are a different story as clearly seen with the photo. Meditation found to increase brain size Kris Snibbe/Harvard News Office Sara Lazar (center) talks to research assistant Michael Treadway and technologist Shruthi Chakrapami about the results of experiments showing that meditation can increase brain size. People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don’t. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input. In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. “Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being,” says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. Controlling random thoughts
Singularity: Kurzweil on 2045, When Humans, Machines Merge On Feb. 15, 1965, a diffident but self-possessed high school student named Raymond Kurzweil appeared as a guest on a game show called I've Got a Secret. He was introduced by the host, Steve Allen, then he played a short musical composition on a piano. The idea was that Kurzweil was hiding an unusual fact and the panelists — they included a comedian and a former Miss America — had to guess what it was. On the show (see the clip on YouTube), the beauty queen did a good job of grilling Kurzweil, but the comedian got the win: the music was composed by a computer. Kurzweil got $200. Kurzweil then demonstrated the computer, which he built himself — a desk-size affair with loudly clacking relays, hooked up to a typewriter. But Kurzweil would spend much of the rest of his career working out what his demonstration meant. That was Kurzweil's real secret, and back in 1965 nobody guessed it. Computers are getting faster. True? Probably.