The Politics of Transhumanism

[gjc8]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Basically, there should be quality assurance, but a consenting sophont should be free to modify its body (including brain) as it sees fit, as long as it does not infringe the rights of others. If Michael Jackson wants to look like X and Y, then it's Jackson's right, even if others don't like the looks. Same with other modifications that do not infringe the rights of others.

Not to draw to far down a tangent, but would you apply the same rules to current procedures? Should mind-altering drugs be freely available (to adults)? Does "quality assurance" including meeting a certain standard of safety (which heroin et al. presumably don't meet)?

Also, I'm looking at the converse. Supposing there was an immune system boost that rendered people highly resistant, but not immune, to most transmissible pathogens. Could such a treatment be compulsory, based on herd immunity/public health concerns?

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

If the government allows a citizen to choose between a retirement pension from 60 onward and a 'free' anti-agathic treatment from 45 onward, then I agree this is okay. However, requiring such treatment (incl. through coercion of all sorts) would be an infringement.

Life extension (at least indefinite life-extension) may make "retirement" obsolete, or at least not universal.

That aside, what if state-subsidized medical care was conditioned on life-extension treatments?

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

2. Children* are non-sophonts, but are covered by the 'No Cruelty to Sub-Sophonts' clause. This is a slightly more consistent variant than what we have today.
4. Children* are non-sophonts, and The Big Uncle has a list of explicit definitions of illegal treatments of children.
5. Children* are sophonts, but second-class citizens, and The Big Uncle has a list of explicit definitions of illegal treatments of children and behaviors illegal for them to engage in.

Mandatory treatments are even thornier than risky, forbidden ones. Especially if treatments MUST be given prior to puberty (or even in utero, or as part of conception) to be effective. Should immune-system boosts be mandatory? Life extension? Intelligence enhancement?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I often think that Transhumanism should be treated like other philosopho-religious issues: [list][*]No government activity for or against Transhumanism.

Meaning of course, that people will be using the exact same discretion when genetically engineering their offspring that Americans exercise when they name their children Sue Aside, Pearl Harbor, and Proton Kebewbew.

[*]A person should be free from discrimination based on his opinions and/or practices related to Transhumanism (so no 'Bioroids only!' schools/bars/jobs and vice versa).

Why hire a normal when you can hire a person genetically engineered to be healthier and smarter and equiped with a data jack?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Why hire a normal when you can hire a person genetically engineered to be healthier and smarter and equiped with a data jack?

Why hire anybody when you can purpose build to task?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by gjc8

Not to draw to far down a tangent, but would you apply the same rules to current procedures? Should mind-altering drugs be freely available (to adults)? Does "quality assurance" including meeting a certain standard of safety (which heroin et al. presumably don't meet)?

Why not? As long as it won't harm others.

Originally Posted by gjc8

Also, I'm looking at the converse. Supposing there was an immune system boost that rendered people highly resistant, but not immune, to most transmissible pathogens. Could such a treatment be compulsory, based on herd immunity/public health concerns?

That would still be coercion.

Originally Posted by gjc8

Life extension (at least indefinite life-extension) may make "retirement" obsolete, or at least not universal.

That aside, what if state-subsidized medical care was conditioned on life-extension treatments?

That would be discrimination. Either the care is subsidized, or it isn't. You wouldn't want government-funded doctors to refuse to treat you if you had, e.g., cancer, would you?

Originally Posted by gjc8

Mandatory treatments are even thornier than risky, forbidden ones. Especially if treatments MUST be given prior to puberty (or even in utero, or as part of conception) to be effective. Should immune-system boosts be mandatory? Life extension? Intelligence enhancement?

Coercion.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Meaning of course, that people will be using the exact same discretion when genetically engineering their offspring that Americans exercise when they name their children Sue Aside, Pearl Harbor, and Proton Kebewbew.

Depending on the legal status of children, this may or may not fall under Cruelty to Non-Sophonts, Coercion or the like.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Why hire a normal when you can hire a person genetically engineered to be healthier and smarter and equiped with a data jack?

Males are 'genetically engineered' (by natural selection, creator, whatever) to be stronger than females, females - to have better linguistic potential, and lots of other factors. Still, choosing whom to hire based on sex, as opposed to based on the relevant 'stats' is generally considered discrimination.

Unlike a dog, a human is a very unlikely candidate for a customs drug sniff-detector. But if a human with Discriminatory Smell applies for the job, it would be silly to deny him/her/it such a chance.

[gjc8]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

That would be discrimination. Either the care is subsidized, or it isn't. You wouldn't want government-funded doctors to refuse to treat you if you had, e.g., cancer, would you?

Unlike cancer, the refusal of life-extension treatments is a choice. Depending on the economics, it could be a costly one, given the increased medical needs of the elderly. I'd argue that if the government is paying for healthcare, it has a certain amount of discretion in treatment options, in order to control costs.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Coercion.

Not if children aren't sophonts. You can't coerce a sub-sophont because it lacks the ability to make rational decisions in the first place. Even if you go for the "children are sophonts" model, surely there's some point along the line where they aren't. Clearly, a fertilized egg isn't a sophont.

Or do you mean that it's coercive to the parents?

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

Transhumanism will change things, but unless aliens arrive and suddenly drop future tech into our laps, those changes will be evolutionary instead of revolutionary. You will not be able to pick any specific point and state "Society X ended and Society Y began in the year 20XX."

As was stated before, the people and societies that feel like something suddenly happened will be the ones who don't like change already, and aren't following what is already happening in their drive to resist it.

The Moble Type Printing Press was a human invented technology. Once it was invented in Germany (I won't get into were it was invented before that and if that influenced the Germany inventor) it radically changed the world. Anyone with a solid grasp of what Europe was in 1300 and an equal understanding of Europe in 1600, will know that the Printing Press brought revolutionary changes.

If I got hold of Aladin's lamp, and wished up a corperation for myself with the resorces to build and operate TL8 Airships (the only things happening by magic are the financing, the engineering, and the crew training) it would cause big political changes. If for no other reasons than the USA would suddenly be a major shipping power again (with effects on the balance of trade), and Airships use less energy than trucks to carry bulk goods. Old technologies, in this thought experiment, would alter the ecconomic environment. Which has political consequinces.

Airships could ship California produce to east Asia quickly and cheaply enough to compete with east Asian Farmers. The Somalia Pirates would become irrelavent. Egypt would be plugged into Chaos (the Suez Cannal is the main source of income for the national government of Egypt to feed its poor people). Large sections of Africa would be open to the world market in ways the locals will cheer and the African government will scream over.

A revamped TL6 technology would have provablly radical effects.

TL8 genetic technologies, and other transhuman technologies as well, will have unforeseen and unforeseeable effects. They will seem revolutionary the moment they are noticed.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by gjc8

Not to draw to far down a tangent, but would you apply the same rules to current procedures? Should mind-altering drugs be freely available (to adults)? Does "quality assurance" including meeting a certain standard of safety (which heroin et al. presumably don't meet)?

I like your questions. They certainly prove that the biological is political.

Also, I'm looking at the converse. Supposing there was an immune system boost that rendered people highly resistant, but not immune, to most transmissible pathogens. Could such a treatment be compulsory, based on herd immunity/public health concerns?

Certain health and safety procedures are only viable if everybody has to accept the rules. Vaccinces, because almost all children take them, defend the whole society. In Japan, were all school children must be vaccinated for flu, they almost never have flu epidemics. So yes, Public Health can, within reason, requier treatments. If the treatment protects the wider comunity if you get 90% or better of the populace treated, and foriegn as well as domestic comunities benefit if you get 99% or better of the populace treated, then only a truely profound excuse could reasonablly exclude someone from participation.

Life extension (at least indefinite life-extension) may make "retirement" obsolete, or at least not universal.

We might move to a Travis McGee sort of retirement ideal. Everybody would take sabaticals durring their life. In fact, if everybody have the equivellent of Life Extention-2 (Early Maturation +0%), which would mean most folks would see their 200th birthday, you'd need to retrain people every few decades anyway. Periods of "retirement" instead of on retirement.

That aside, what if state-subsidized medical care was conditioned on life-extension treatments?

I got to say this seems totally reasonable to me. Like saying, we don't want you poisoning or straving yourself.

Mandatory treatments are even thornier than risky, forbidden ones. Especially if treatments MUST be given prior to puberty (or even in utero, or as part of conception) to be effective. Should immune-system boosts be mandatory? Life extension? Intelligence enhancement?

Much of this would be in demand. I remember an old Film, it was called The President's Analyst. In the film, the Phone company wanted to inject telephones into everybody's brains. They were the villains. These days, all the kids would call intracranial phone injection a basic human right. What might fear today, can be a fad tomorrow.

[Tyneras]

1300 to 1600 was 15 generations, sure the printing press printed lots of stuff, but only the same number of people could read, it took a while for literacy to become an advantage and become widespread.

Take the internet, it has existed for roughly a generation and is only now really becoming integrated into every day life for the general population. Evolution, not revolution, unless you were hiding in an isolate society since the 1970s, then I guess it would feel like a sudden shift.

Personally, I think THS is overly optimistic on how fast anything physical will be distributed and integrated into society at large. The only people undergoing revolution will be the have-nots who suddenly get flooded with a cheap finished product that the early adopters have been fiddling with and perfecting for 20+ years in various forms. Of course, in a society with very uneven wealth distribution, both of those can happen inside the same nation.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Depending on the legal status of children, this may or may not fall under Cruelty to Non-Sophonts, Coercion or the like.

And yet nobody saved Pearl Harbor from her fate.

Males are 'genetically engineered' (by natural selection, creator, whatever) to be stronger than females, females - to have better linguistic potential, and lots of other factors. Still, choosing whom to hire based on sex, as opposed to based on the relevant 'stats' is generally considered discrimination.

The differences between male and female would be miniscule by comparison with those between humans and anything we could justifiably call transhuman. Despite anti-discrimination laws, nobody is hiring women to be professional football players, or men to be Sports Illustrated swimsuit models.

Unlike a dog, a human is a very unlikely candidate for a customs drug sniff-detector. But if a human with Discriminatory Smell applies for the job, it would be silly to deny him/her/it such a chance.

Case in point, or would be if such a job existed.