Martine Rothblatt is very impressive

[El_Machinae]

I've recognized her face for some time (as long as I've been a transhumanist), but I didn't listen to any of her talks until this TED interview. Quite a resume.

A founder of Sirius Satellite radio (which I've heard of). She started a drug company to save her daughter's life, got very lucky on that front, and now the company has a multi-billion dollar revenue. The orphan disease used to have a few hundred sufferers before, now there are thousands 'cause they're not dying. She was the highest paid woman CEO in (I think) 2013. Her current goal is the creation of transgenic pigs to act as organ donors, which is one of those potential breakout technologies that will save a lot of lives.

On top of that, she used to be male but she's still married to the woman he married. That's a kudos all on her own.

I didn't realize that us H+ers had such an ally.

http://www.ted.com/talks/martine_ro..._wife_our_robot_and_the_quest_for_immortality

 

[Lohrenswald]

What is this transhumanism?

 

[Gary Childress]

Wow! That is a an amazing story.

Now is she literally talking about a transmigration of the soul or human consciousness or whatever into a computer or computer program? Meaning that she could somehow retain her consciousness after death within a computer? If so, I find that sort of trans-believable. Of course there would be no way for an outside observer to determine the truth of the matter. But I'm very, very skeptical.

 

[El_Machinae]

To be honest, I don't really understand her bit about the robot sidekick. To me, it seems ... kinda useless. I'm not really judging hard, since I am not sure I get her goal.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I didn't either. I thought we were going to go the route of human immortality, instead she seemed to veer off into... an eternal friend? Having grandkids talk to a robot version of us when we're dead? Eh.

The rest of it was pretty cool.

 

[Gary Childress]

I didn't either. I thought we were going to go the route of human immortality, instead she seemed to veer off into... an eternal friend? Having grandkids talk to a robot version of us when we're dead? Eh.

The rest of it was pretty cool.

I see. I was thinking in terms of literal immortality. Having the grand kids talking to a robot simulation of their dead grandparents almost could have a spooky side. I can almost hear the Twilight Zone theme in the background.

 

[Birdjaguar]

For me the best part was deal with Glaxo where she took their failed drug and made it real.

Thanks.

 

[Kozmos]

What is this transhumanism?

For most people it's a trip to fantasy land where no one ever dies, we have plenty of everything and we are spreading like cancer through the universe for whatever reasons. I'm not sure what is the point of it though. At least in human terms. It is much more likely we'll become something else due to merging with technology that we won't have anything much resembling human motivations of today.

 

[classical_hero]

Transhumanism is man's attempt to try and not go through the penalty of sin, which is death. Basically a pointless exercise.

 

[Kyriakos]

I've recognized her face for some time (as long as I've been a transhumanist), but I didn't listen to any of her talks until this TED interview. Quite a resume.

A founder of Sirius Satellite radio (which I've heard of). She started a drug company to save her daughter's life, got very lucky on that front, and now the company has a multi-billion dollar revenue. The orphan disease used to have a few hundred sufferers before, now there are thousands 'cause they're not dying. She was the highest paid woman CEO in (I think) 2013. Her current goal is the creation of transgenic pigs to act as organ donors, which is one of those potential breakout technologies that will save a lot of lives.

On top of that, she used to be male but she's still married to the woman he married. That's a kudos all on her own.

I didn't realize that us H+ers had such an ally.

http://www.ted.com/talks/martine_ro..._wife_our_robot_and_the_quest_for_immortality

To save her daughter's life? And she used to be male? Did she conceive after stopping being male, or is there an 'adopted'' missing there by chance? Or did she get her wife pregnant and only later decided to become female, due to great reason?

Transhumanism is a lowly goal in my view. It shows you just want to save your parents or whatever, and couldn't care less about humans in general. It is nepotism turned surreal.

 

[Tahuti]

What is this transhumanism?

A movement to make this world match the Deus Ex universe.

 

[Kyriakos]

A movement to make this world match the Deus Ex universe.

No. The WH40K one

 

[Kozmos]

Transhumanism is a lowly goal in my view. It shows you just want to save your parents or whatever, and couldn't care less about humans in general. It is nepotism turned surreal.

Not sure where you got that. It's mainly about transcending the natural, quite boring limits placed on the human body and cognition. From that point of view, it's interesting to me. However the end result where we become this monstrous amorphous intelligence or get subsumed by one is something people fear for some reason.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not sure where you got that. It's mainly about transcending the natural, quite boring limits placed on the human body and cognition. From that point of view, it's interesting to me. However the end result where we become this monstrous amorphous intelligence or get subsumed by one is something people fear for some reason.

Going by El Machinae's posts on Transhumanism for years now, and his stated claim that the human population should be greatly minimised while keeping some humans alive forever (like his own family, because they are more important), it is not a leap of logic to assume that mass population shrinking along with nepotist-guided attempt to make pseudo-immortals out of some millions is a rather core part of this cool idea of becoming more than just human.
Maybe currently the attempt should be to actually climb back to the level of being at least human

 

[Kozmos]

All what we are doing now is very human. Looking after your own, ensuring reproduction and increasing the chances of the next cycle. Following that train of thought that can include lowering population of those outside your what shall we call it...pack? and engineering people for increased fitness in various environments.

 

[Kyriakos]

All what we are doing now is very human. Looking after your own, ensuring reproduction and increasing the chances of the next cycle. Following that train of thought that can include lowering population of those outside your what shall we call it...pack? and engineering people for increased fitness in various environments.

As well as needing more living space for the... pack, richtig?

 

[Kozmos]

As well as needing more living space for the... pack, richtig?

Well...I'm really not sure what the demands of future society will be. It could be living space, but more like just space for equipment, power generation, computing farms, strip mining. There might be even enclaves where people will live like in the olden times. It might be terraformed back to a more pristine state or turned into a barren wasteland.

Personally I'm leaning to the scenario where given enough time it will look something like Cybertron. Entire planet drained and converted into number crunching tools. Humans in that scenario are either dead or are those number crunching tools.

 

[El_Machinae]

I didn't realize the question needed answering. Kyr is misrepresenting my position very much.

Transhumanism is the understanding that there are many human weaknesses that can be reduced by augmenting people with technology, and that repeated iterations of this will result in us being increasingly augmented.

Many of us are Immortalists, hoping that death can be defeated. Many of us think that post-humanism is the next goal, where we're so transformed that our capacity is incredibly greater than what we have now.

The big thing is that lives are important. Defeating polio is incredibly important. Getting affordable medicines is important. Beating Alzeimers is important. Human sentience is morally significant. So is animal. So is machine.

There are many things that improve the human condition that aren't benefitted by technology. There are others that are. We think this second category will eventually transform the human race.

 

[Kyriakos]

I didn't realize the question needed answering. Kyr is misrepresenting my position very much.

Transhumanism is the understanding that there are many human weaknesses that can be reduced by augmenting people with technology, and that repeated iterations of this will result in us being increasingly augmented.

Many of us are Immortalists, hoping that death can be defeated. Many of us think that post-humanism is the next goal, where we're so transformed that our capacity is incredibly greater than what we have now.

The big thing is that lives are important. Defeating polio is incredibly important. Getting affordable medicines is important. Beating Alzeimers is important. Human sentience is morally significant. So is animal. So is machine.

There are many things that improve the human condition that aren't benefitted by technology. There are others that are. We think this second category will eventually transform the human race.

Machine sentience is not even in existence, how can it be 'morally significant'?

(noting that i never mean to attack you, sorry if i did sound agitated. Ongoing eurozoo crisis does not help there that much )

 

[El_Machinae]

My grandkids don't exist yet, either. But their sentience would be morally significant.

The big error you presented was that we think the human population should be trimmed to a few million. That's not my, or even a common position. I'd say the average transhumanist thinks of pan-galactic humanity.

There's no doubt there's a narcissistic component. But it also tends to be synergistic. Mrs. Rothblatt up there has prevented thousands, maybe eventually millions of deaths.