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The Transhumanist Future of a Radical Identity with Zoltan Istvan & David Wood #3

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ABOUT THIS EPISODE

The Transhumanist Future of a Radical Identity with Zoltan Istvan & David Wood #3

What does it mean to be human in a society in which we can use technology to modify our bodies beyond our normal capabilities, and how does that change our sense of self?

Transhumanism is a futuristic movement, and we’re joined this week by David Wood (Chair of London Futurists) and Zoltan Istvan (Founder of the Transhumanist Party in the US), two leading figures with unique foresight into our transhuman future.

How might we modify our bodies long into the future? Do we have the right to immortality and a duty to ‘fix’ disability? Should we be afraid to change into a different version of ourselves? We tackle all this, and so much more intriguing debate, on this episode of The Future of You.

This episode of The Future of You covers:

  • The traditional definition of transhumanism, and the form into which the movement might evolve
  • Maintaining our personal sense of identity in a society capable of collective consciousness and hive minds
  • Possible reasons for fewer prominent female figures in transhumanism
  • How we define our bodies, and at what point they should be considered to be failing
  • Whether we should allow ourselves to be immortal

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Links and references at: https://www.traceyfollows.com/

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TRANSCRIPT 🔗

WEBVTT
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Welcome to the future view.
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Today I'm joined by Zoltan Ishtvan and David Wood.
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Zoltan is an American transhumanist, journalist, entrepreneur, political candidate and futurist.
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Formerly a reporter for the National Geographic Channel, he now regularly appears on television himself discussing futurist topics.
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He's the author of The Transhumanist Wager, a philosophical science fiction novel.
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And in 2014, he announced that he was going to run for US president.
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He then publicised his campaign in 2015 by driving a bus shaped like a casket, the Immortality Bus, all across the United States.
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His journey is captured in the documentary film Immortality or Bust.
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And I last spoke with Zoltan on the eve of the film's release in summer 2020.
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So I'm really looking forward to hearing how he thinks the last two COVID years have influenced transhumanism.
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He now spends much of his time studying philosophy and ethics at Oxford University, where he's doing his masters and nurturing his nootropic-infused wine at his vineyards in France, Napa, and Argentina.
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David Wood is another prolific futurist.
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As the chair of London Futurists, he's well known to many of us and regularly gathers together future thinkers for discussion and debate on every topic under the sun, from anti-aging, nanotech, synthetic biology and personalised genetics to superintelligence, robotics and geoengineering.
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He's the author-editor of 10 books, including The Abolition of Aging and Sustainable Superabundance.
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And his new book called Vital Foresight makes the case for active transhumanism and advocates for us to adopt key values that will avoid the civilisational risks we face.
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And I'm sure he'll tell us more about that in a moment.
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Now transhumanism is a vast topic.
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Way too much to cover in an hour-long discussion.
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But we did cover quite a bit of ground.
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We talked about what the definition was of transhumanism and tried to get some clarity about identity and transhumanism.
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And I talked with David and Zolton about their views on the perception of transhumanism, specifically over the last two COVID-era years.
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And we talked really around the issue of whether transhumanism is now perceived as a public good or a public harm.
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And much of that, of course, is about whether governments should either intervene in these sorts of areas or whether they should be pushing mandates on people when it comes to medical improvements, enhancements, or perhaps in the future, augmentation.
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And we had a good healthy debate around that.
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We also talked about how many women are or aren't involved in transhumanism and what the reasons for that might be.
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And we had some pretty different explanations for that, which means again for an interesting discussion.
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And we ended up talking a little bit about longevity and the right to a long life, the right to possibly an immortal life, and what we thought the ramifications and consequences might be, not for just personal identity, but for social identity and community in general.
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We talked a little bit about cryonics, but I'd love to return to that in another future episode.
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And of course, we ended on what actions we might want to take for identity from a transhumanist point of view.
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So if you are enjoying this podcast, please do subscribe, share, download, and even leave us a rating.
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It really helps us spread the word.
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Meantime, will transhumanism define and reinvent identity?
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Let's have a listen to find out.
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Hello to David and Zoltan.
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Thank you so much for joining me here today.
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So we're going to talk about transhumanism.
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I wonder if we could start by just defining what we mean by transhumanism.
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I know you probably get asked this all the time on every single interview, and apologies, but I think there might be some people listening who um are not that familiar with the concept.
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So I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of clarity on it.
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Saltan, should we start with you?
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Sure.
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You know, I take the formal definition, which is transhumanism means beyond human, uh especially in the Latin.
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But, you know, I guess when you talk about it from a technical side of things, I like to think of it as the top 10% of the most radical technologies that are being applied to human beings right now.
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So the top 10% of most radical technologies out there.
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So what would be an example of a really radical technology that's in the top 10%?
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Something like exoskeleton technology, where uh you know a person in a wheelchair, quadriplegic, is able to put on an exoskeleton suit and is therefore able to walk.
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Um, that is something that you know most people don't have access to yet, but is being applied and certainly makes them more than just uh being a normal human being.
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David, do you agree or do you have a slightly different um take on it?
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That's a good definition.
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We can take the word trans meaning transcend.
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We're transcending human limitations which we have inherited from evolution, from culture, from the philosophies that we grew up with, but all of these things in various ways hold us back.
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They lead to the deterioration of our bodies, the problems in our minds, the difficulties in our social structures and in our emotions.
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And with the technology used wisely, not only can we improve our muscles and our mobility with exoskeletons, but we can address these other age-old limitations and go to places where humanity has never been before.
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Not just physical spaces, but spaces in identity, in capabilities, in experiences.
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Do you think those spaces where we've never been before, do we have a good idea of what they might be?
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Or do you think what lies ahead is pretty much unknown and this is about experimentation?
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Well, I think we can discern the broad shape of the landscape, but my goodness, there will be surprises ahead.
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And after all, if you had managed to get a whole bunch of uh apes together in a podcast eight million years ago and said, what's going to happen when uh brains are enhanced, they would not have managed to say, hey, we're going to experience the Mozart's beautiful music and Pythagoras's theorem and speculate about how many moons there are in Jupiter.
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That would be beyond their conception.
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They would only be able to think of maybe we'll have more bananas, more kinds of sex, more kinds of monkey business.
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But in the same way, we are limited in what we might imagine we'll do with much greater mental capabilities, but we can see some limits that we will transcend.
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That's the limitations in our bodies that lead us to age and die, the limitations in our mind that often cause us to make really bad decisions, the limitations in our emotions which cause far too many of us to be depressed, suicidal, egotistical, divisive, and so on.
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So these things we can be confident we have a possibility of leaving behind.
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So you mentioned there identity, and of course it's it's the main topic that we're going to discuss in relation to transhumanism today.
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And I was looking at um at the transhumanist Bill of Rights that Zoltan is obviously very familiar with because presumably he was the author of it.
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And I was looking earlier at the um level five awareness, as you talk about it, obviously being sort of sentient, and it it talks about any given animal is meta-aware to any extent, it can therefore make lucid decisions.
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Level five capabilities would include the sense of self, complex learned behavior, ability to predict the future emotional states of the self, and the ability to make motivational trade-offs.
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So I guess the question of you, Zoltan, really for me, is what uh is this sense of self in the transhumanist political philosophy or just philosophy in general?
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What do we mean by sense of self and identity in a transhumanist's world?
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Well, when I think when we talk about, you know, the transhumanist bill of rights, we're talking about arguably entities that might be able to vote in the future.
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And I, for Scientific America, I'm not sure if it was for them, but it was for someone.
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I wrote a significant essay about robots voting in the future.
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It's actually new scientists.
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And the idea is, though, that with so many devices around the world, almost 100 billion maybe now, one day those things might want to vote.
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And so we're trying to create, at least when it's from a political philosophy, a bill of rights that could kind of somehow encompass that type of idea that one day a democracy will be much bigger than just the 8 billion human beings on the planet.
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It might be a whole bunch of very smart animals, very smart devices, and whatever else people can create.
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But I think the longer-term future is really about getting outside of the box of the human brain and its, you know, 100 million connections, and getting into something that's dramatically larger and more complex than that.
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Something probably synthetic, artificial intelligence-based, but it could also be uh, you know, what we call meat, the three pounds on our head, just something that's maybe combines hundreds of them together so that it's just more complex and smarter.
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And I think when we talk about what's identity, certainly our identity will probably dramatically change as we move from, you know, just like I said, this uh this kilo and a half of meat on our head to something that's dramatically more complex and we'll have connections that uh, you know, that are probably thousands of times more uh than what we have right now, creating the level of complexity that'll be dramatically more uh, you know, complex in our identity.
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Yeah, so you talk about then level six, which is sort of paraphrasing, but the dynamic sense of self that can be expand from like a small self, by which you mean directed consciousness, to the big self, which is the social group dynamics, which am I guessing that is like a connected consciousness or something?
00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:23.360
You do talk about it um including, as you just said, sort of cross barriers between biological and non-biological, but is that what your vision is of a sort of interconnected collective consciousness?
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Well, it is, and I think you know, we call that most likely the hive mind, kind of a general popular term.
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And I mean, I hate, you know, uh don't hate to say it, but this let's be honest, that the hive mind, what we're doing this moment on this podcast is already existing to some extent.
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That's what this is.
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And but as the future, you know, goes further, it's gonna be in our heads directly and uh and maybe connected to millions at once in a way that social media is where everyone has access and can interact with it.
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So uh that it's written for those kinds of things.
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I'm not sure the hive mind is a good thing, I just want to say outright.
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Oh, I'm glad you said that because it terrifies me.
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I'm not that thrilled because of the privacy issues, but I do see it as maybe when you talk about terms of evolution of where transhumanism is going, we're not, you know, the individual might not want to give up its power, but the collective might take that power and become a greater transhuman entity or civilization.
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So, you know, it's not really for me to necessarily decide those things, but uh, it's for kind of the all-powerful uh whoever becomes most powerful will probably decide those things.
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It probably won't be a person, it'll be a collective.
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Is it the collective conscious Tao?
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Yes, it could be something like that.
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You know, I mean who knows?
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But uh it's certainly going to be uh, you know, probably AI-based and synthetic based, and uh and the individual probably uh pushed to the to the bottom.
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Yeah.
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David, what are your views on this sort of personal identity versus group or social identity?
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Or will it all become the same thing?
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Well, I'm very keen to emphasize that transhumanism does uphold individual identity.
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Morphological freedom is very important, and the right to life for individuals is paramount.
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You know, in previous uh philosophies, previous religions, previous cultures, people were often expected to lay down their life for some imagined cause.
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Lay down either your life for your king or your country, dulci et decorumes propatria mori, if I remember my uh Rupert Brooks.
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Uh it's sweet and honorable to die for your country.
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Well, transhumanists say, hang on, no, individuals are paramount, and the well-being of individuals must never be subservient to some collectivist goal.
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So I want to emphasize that, but on the other hand, I also believe that we are intrinsically social beings.
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Seventeen months ago I became a grandfather for the first time, and I was reminded of the saying it takes a village to raise a child.
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Each of us are often uh utterly dependent on each other.
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When I went into hospital for a minor operation not so long ago, I was again completely dependent on others.
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So there is this intrinsic social dimension to the transhumanist vision of better flourishing as well.
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And we need to keep both these visions in mind.
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We must not lose individuals to some uh imagined greater cause unless they are fully uh aware and fully conscious and fully agreed with such a transition.
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And for the time being, I'm certainly not signed up to have my individuality merged into any as yet on uh not understood uh collective consciousness.
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Yes, I agree with that.
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And um, I'm reminded of the Roger Scruton saying that unless we can be clear about personal identity, in that we can't afford to treat personal identity as illusory, then we won't be able to define who the person is, that the duties or rights or responsibilities, or indeed actually the emotions that you mentioned earlier can be ascribed to.
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It's very important that we can differentiate and make it clear who the person is so that we can ascribe whether it's love or anger or frustration or envy, whatever the emotion is.
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Otherwise, we're going to be in quite a messy place if we can't do that.
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And to some extent, I think sometimes on social media we see a little bit of that, where we don't necessarily really know who is behind the avatar.
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We don't really know if it's the same person that we think we were speaking to in real life.
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So I think those sorts of things are incredibly important.
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And um it's it's interesting to hear you say that we need the demarcation, but I think it's quite difficult to know how we would create that demarcation.
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And perhaps that's only something we'll know as we go along this journey into into more transhumanism, because we'll be kind of feeling our way and experimenting.
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But you mentioned morphological freedom, David.
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Can you just define what that is for people who don't know?
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Because it is a very important tenant, isn't it, to transhumanism?
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Well, it's an extension of something that's already been a core part of human society.
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You know, people have put uh on uh makeup, people have uh put on uh things in their hair, in their clothing, people have had tattoos, people have worn jewellery, and that's just the start of what may be possible when we move from wearables to embedded or implantables.
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We may have things, part of our bodies, which uh shock the previous generation, you know, just as uh generations are often shocked when the youngsters get strange uh piercing and so forth.
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Why did you get this kind of tattoo?
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Well, it's probably going to be more of that, and people will have uh smart tattoos and they will have clothing that adapts as well.
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And more than that, we will have the extension of what's happened already.
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If we think of the letters L G B T, this was uh raised as uh variants on sexual identities and gender identities, and then it became L G B T Q I A plus, with lots more, and I think that's only the start of what will happen.
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People may experimentally change their gender for a while, and they may form into different groupings as well, different ways of living their life.
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So it's not just morphological freedom, there may be social freedoms too, uh, which may shock people, maybe of a conservative disposition, but I think uh that's to be tolerated, that's to be supported.
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Which begs the question, I think, to both of you, which is how much of the self, how much of you can you change and still retain you ness?
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So, where does the augmentation or enhancement uh stop maintaining you or enhancing you and turning you into something different?
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Do we have any thoughts on that?
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Because it is a philosophical question, I know, but um Zaltan is obviously doing his philosophy PhD, so well, right now it's just uh a master's degree uh might lead to the PhD.
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So, you know, I I think when it comes down to identity, you know, when you go to sleep and then you wake up, you you kind of assume you're the same person when you wake up.
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But the truth is your cellular nature has already changed.
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There's different brain things going on, firings and your neurons and whatnot.
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And sometimes you get really sick, you you know, you also change your personality.
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Or, you know, you have a child, a grandchild.
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That can change your personality.
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I think when people get married, there are all sorts of hormonal changes.
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So I I don't think we should be afraid of changing into something else significantly, and and saying that that would actually be a different version than us.
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We're certainly different versions than we were two years ago, let's say even pre-COVID.
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I mean, uh, it it really is a different world and a different uh I feel different because of the things that I've done.
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So I feel like in terms of transhumanism, whether I accept a cyborg body or even uh connect my brain to an AI, even if it is fundamentally different than myself, it's totally acceptable because change and evolution was always part of this whole process of who we are.
00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:49.599
Yeah, because I wonder whether it's actually not so much about whether you recognize or feel the same core self or authentic self as you did before or will again, but it's whether other people recognize you as the same person.
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And maybe that's the test.
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But um, I don't know what the elements of that test would be.
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But it to me it feels very important in a society that we can recognize the individual as being the same person at uh you know, in the past as the present and potentially in the future, otherwise there's no continuity, is there?
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I wouldn't want to lose my memories.
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Um I think my memories are important to define who I am.
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I wouldn't want to go through some procedure that suddenly I couldn't remember who I'd been before 30.
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And I wouldn't want to do things that would change some of my fundamental values.
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I mean, I might take some nootropic wine or some other substances that might give me some extra creativity, some extra focus, but I wouldn't want it to change the kind of fundamental attributes that I would suddenly stop caring about individuality, which I mentioned earlier, or stop caring about the social dimension, or become a nastier person, uh however I've defined nasty.
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So I'd be happy to change myself in some ways, uh, to accentuate the parts of me that I thought were important, but I wouldn't want to indulge in any transformation, either by my own choice or by somebody enforcing it on me, that would change my character in a way that uh at that time I thought would be uh really detrimental to my core being.
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I'm really glad you've mentioned that about enforcing it on you, because uh this was why why I wanted to get the clarification around the definitions and be um as clear as we could about what we thought transhumanism was, because I don't know if you'll agree, interested uh in your opinions, both of you.
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Um, but I think there's been a bit of um a shift in perception around transhumanism.
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I mean, I'm fairly positive about it, and I think it's really exciting, and I want to live long enough to see what's going to happen.
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But over the last two years, I've become a little bit more suspicious around some of the changes that we might find that perhaps are mandated of us.
00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:46.559
Um so let me just explain.
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I think some of the COVID-era rhetoric and policy making, not just about the virus, but about um mandatory vaccines and about vaccine passports, for example, have scared people.
00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:09.599
And I think a lot of people feel like, well, if we lose our bodily autonomy on something like that, what else would we lose our bodily autonomy on in the future?
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And I've always thought that transhumanism is very much about morphological freedom and bodily autonomy and those important values and principles.
00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:19.920
And I just wonder whether you think there has been a shift.
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I I certainly noticed that there's um there's more negativity in the mainstream media around transhumanism, and you could argue that it's like uh revolves around a misunderstanding or not.
00:20:32.319 --> 00:20:39.680
Um, but I would really like your opinions on where you think we are now, sort of, I won't say post-COVID, I'll say mid-COVID, because I think that's where we are.
00:20:39.839 --> 00:20:44.559
But what your thoughts are around this public perception and whether it has shifted.
00:20:44.960 --> 00:20:49.200
Well, I'll start, uh, you know, I was against government enforcing vaccines.
00:20:49.359 --> 00:20:55.759
I even though I think vaccines are great and I have as many as I can as do my children, I just think it's not the government's business to enforce things.
00:20:55.839 --> 00:20:59.440
If people want to not do it and they want to die, then that's it.
00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:03.359
I mean, it just, you know, because it's just too much of a slippery slope.
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:14.400
Uh when you start doing that, you start doing other things, and pretty soon you end up in uh something that resembles China where you can't even walk out your door without, you know, being followed and or an AI is uh spying on you.
00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:16.000
And just you lose too many civil liberties.
00:21:16.079 --> 00:21:26.400
And as a as a civilization, we've built uh a lot of centuries of these civil liberties up, and we want to keep them because people had to die for them, our ancestors and grandfathers and whatnot.
00:21:26.559 --> 00:21:37.200
So I, you know, I think that is uh you know, it's key not to be forcing those things on people, especially in terms, I mean, look, if if COVID was killing 50% of the population, it might have been different.
00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:42.480
But given that it killed such a small amount of people, you know, it was not something that we should have been.
00:21:42.559 --> 00:21:52.559
And don't get me wrong, it's sad people have died, of course, but it's it's um, I think uh when you look at what the destruction of civil liberties can do, that leads to civil war.
00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:57.759
And as you can probably see from the news, I mean, the civil war is on the lips of everyone in America these days.
00:21:57.839 --> 00:21:59.839
You know, every every few days I see an opinion piece.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.759
About it in the New York Times.
00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:09.680
And that's because they have if these kinds of things have divided countries and places like America where nowhere, you know, there's just too much division.
00:22:09.839 --> 00:22:14.319
So I think it would have been best just to leave it alone and let people make their own um decisions.
00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:24.559
And that has given a bad name to transhumanism because people have taken uh these mandates and what whatever mandatory ideas and uh thought that that's what transhumanism is about.
00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:33.599
When transhumanism is really this this great, uh, I don't want to say libertarian philosophy, but it's certainly based on a lot of traditional libertarian values like morphological freedom.
00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:41.440
Just do what you want to do, and if you find better technologies to put in your body to become a better person or a greater person or whatever you want to be, do it.
00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:43.759
And that's really the foundation of transhumanism.
00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:49.279
Of course, it's being skewed by COVID and the modern media and social media and things like that.
00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:51.839
And we'll see what the long-term effects of that are going to be.
00:22:51.920 --> 00:22:54.400
But I guess I can assume they're not gonna be very good.
00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:58.400
And you're right, uh, transhumanism is getting a worse reputation.
00:22:58.880 --> 00:23:01.839
So I'm cautious about these slippery slope arguments.
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:04.640
I mean, there are many people who say, oh, there's a slippery slope.
00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:14.319
If you allow people of the same sex to form relationships, then there's a slippery slope and we'll end up with adults having sexual relations with children all being legal as well.
00:23:14.559 --> 00:23:15.599
And I want to say no.
00:23:16.079 --> 00:23:24.160
There are degrees in which we can take decisions without committing ourselves to going further down into dangerous territory.
00:23:24.400 --> 00:23:34.160
So I'm for having a good, grown-up collective discussion about which limits we collectively agree to accept.
00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:38.799
In the sense that if we all agree to accept various limits, it will be better for all of us.
00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:47.599
For example, some people may say they should be trusted to decide by themselves how much uh alcohol they can drink before getting in a car and driving it off.
00:23:47.680 --> 00:23:48.559
It's their own choice.
00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:49.759
They are adults.
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:55.759
And I want to say, and most of the society says, hang on, no, we don't allow that kind of uh freedom.
00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:59.200
There's a very successful group, mothers against drunk driving.
00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:04.960
And the argument is it's not just uh what will you do to yourself if you crash, you may crash into other people.
00:24:05.119 --> 00:24:07.599
And to an extent, it's the same with uh vaccines.
00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:17.119
Vaccines aren't just preventing you from dying, it's preventing health resources being tied up trying to treat you later on if you get seriously ill.
00:24:17.279 --> 00:24:21.119
It's about inflicting pain on your families and others who will have to care for you.
00:24:21.359 --> 00:24:32.079
So I am in favor of people having an honest discussion and deciding, hey, actually we're going to strongly encourage something or even in some cases mandate things.
00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:34.799
But the there needs to have a grown-up discussion.
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:43.759
And I fear these uh arguments to say, if, well, if we have some limitations, we're giving power to governments to limit more and more things.
00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:54.480
No, we must have uh constant vigilance on government, but that doesn't mean we're going to stop government uh creating laws, because actually we are better in many cases for the laws that are made.
00:24:54.640 --> 00:25:15.039
If I look at what has extended the lifespan over the last few centuries, a lot of it has been government initiatives, government initiatives to ensure that milk is pasteurized, to ensure that water is sanitized rather than people drinking dirty water or milk that have come straight from cows and cause large numbers of childhood diseases.
00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:22.559
Governments got involved there and mandated things, and society, all of us, had more freedoms as a result of that imposition.
00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:25.920
Now each decision needs to be looked at individually.
00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:27.279
It's tough, it's hard.
00:25:27.519 --> 00:25:33.119
It's hard, after all, to create technology, and it's equally hard to figure out how to apply technology.
00:25:33.359 --> 00:25:38.400
And we should realise it will be difficult and we should not shy away and have too simplistic an answer.
00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:58.319
Yeah, I mean I take that point, but I think at the same time as that mandatory, well those mandatory diktats were coming down from governments or some governments in the world anyway, we there were there was also the case that wisdom, or what I would call science, built up over years, was being sort of undone somehow.
00:25:58.400 --> 00:26:05.519
So the the idea of natural immunity was just pushed to the side and the definition was completely changed and rewritten.
00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:13.680
And I think the two things happening at the same time meant that a lot of people felt like, oh, it's got to be the technological solution and that's going to be mandated on us.
00:26:13.759 --> 00:26:23.359
And I think that I think that turned what I think, you know, transhumanism as a public good into a public harm in many people's minds, which actually I think is a shame, actually.
00:26:23.519 --> 00:26:25.039
I I don't know how we come back from that.
00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:41.920
But the question I it kind of leads on to was one of the things I think about build back better, I certainly wonder about is whether it really means now in this kind of COVID era, if it if it's not so much about building a better environment for humans, but building better humans for the environment.
00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:56.720
And um Steve Fuller sort of alerted me to this in I think one of the talks I saw him at when he talked about the converging technologies for improving human performance report that came out during the Bush administration, where he, I think he even says it's the transhumanist moment.
00:26:56.799 --> 00:27:14.799
I don't know if um either of you agree with that, but it obviously talked about these converging technologies of biotech, infotech, cognitive science, and uh nanotechnology as being converged for the first time, but also being put to use to improve our mental and physical performance as citizens.
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:37.519
And I just wondered what you thought the sort of legacy of that is, whether it is still for us as individuals to um to get on the transhumanist bus, and we know Zolton has a bus, so to get on that bus, or whether it is actually going to come down to the government incrementally um introducing some of these converged technologies, you know, for the public good.
00:27:37.759 --> 00:27:39.599
So uh just comments on that really.
00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:47.920
Well, I mean, I think uh people are gonna embrace transhumanism for capitalistic reasons and for reasons of opportunity.
00:27:48.079 --> 00:27:51.440
And I think the government shouldn't force anything really on anyone.
00:27:51.599 --> 00:28:02.400
Maybe, I mean, you shouldn't be allowed to drive drunk or something like that, but uh that that's quite different, I think, than saying, you know, people need to have bionic eyes because they're gonna be able to see better.
00:28:02.559 --> 00:28:06.160
You know, I think people have to make those personal decisions themselves.
00:28:06.319 --> 00:28:24.240
But I can tell you that if they don't have a bionic eye and they're trying to get a job that deals with uh, you know, looking at landscapes or doing uh architecture or something like that, where a bionic eye can immediately do those things and you know, read the configurations and understand all these things, for example, and makes you that much better of an employee.
00:28:24.319 --> 00:28:25.839
Well, you're gonna take the bionic eye.
00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:35.440
And I think that's what's happened, you know, in the modern world is capitalism has pushed a lot of the reasons we embrace things, because you want to stay ahead or you want to get ahead.
00:28:35.599 --> 00:28:44.319
And I think that's why transhumanism will succeed ultimately, is not because it's necessarily the right philosophy, or uh even though I think it is, or or the best philosophy.
00:28:44.400 --> 00:28:55.839
I think it's ultimately just going to succeed because there's a lot of opportunity to improve your livelihood, uh, whether it's economic, it's social, it's philosophical, whatever, even religious.
00:28:55.920 --> 00:29:02.079
I mean, people can use religion, they can combine with their mind with AI, discover God, new ideas of being meditating.
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:06.319
I mean, there's all sorts of ways to use technology to improve all the things that humans value.
00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:08.720
So that's why I think humans will embrace it.
00:29:08.799 --> 00:29:21.200
Uh, and I'll be very skeptical if the government, uh, although I would love the government to be more involved in pushing these technologies, but right now it's kind of like they might do uh a worse job of it and then they kind of screw up everything.
00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:25.599
So I'd probably prefer just companies themselves to uh push this stuff forward.
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:30.799
And the government maybe to be there to provide anti-monopoly practices and things like that.
00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:36.400
So there's a lot of new startups because the last thing we want also is Facebook and Google and Apple to run everything.
00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:41.920
And that's why I think um, you know, it's good the government maybe polices that a little bit, and that's fine for me.
00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:46.160
But um I don't want the government itself pushing these things down people's throats.
00:29:46.559 --> 00:29:49.519
But presumably, I mean you you ran for office, didn't you?
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:53.680
Would you have been pushing these things in office or what would your approach have been then?
00:29:54.079 --> 00:30:04.480
Well, my approach was really to take a lot of the defense spending of the United States, which is massive, like, you know, so, so many trillions of dollars, and put that into science and healthcare.
00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:10.799
And just to say, look, let us try to develop things that actually help the citizenry, their health.
00:30:10.960 --> 00:30:21.359
Because, you know, it's like we spend 20% of the GDP in America on far-off wars and stuff like that, instead of the and just 2% on healthcare in science in the United States.
00:30:21.440 --> 00:30:23.119
And so I just want to reverse that.
00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:26.960
And I thought that was a very simple way to help the people.
00:30:27.039 --> 00:30:30.720
Um, instead of building bullets, we design cures for cancer.
00:30:30.880 --> 00:30:33.359
And, you know, it's not that governments have to do that.
00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:46.880
They could just be sponsoring companies that want to do it, giving incentives, lowering taxes, which is what they're doing for the electric uh vehicle market right now, which I think, you know, is is a pretty smart racket for both for both business and for the government to kind of give those incentives.
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:54.720
So that's how I would have run the country, is really just saying, let's make turn ourselves instead of a military-industrial complex into a science industrial complex.
00:30:54.799 --> 00:30:56.720
I'm happy with everyone making a fortune.
00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:07.119
I just think that uh I can't believe that we've become a nation that built it on the military as opposed to science that would actually help humans overcome things like cancer and diabetes and Alzheimer's.
00:31:07.519 --> 00:31:13.599
Is that what you would do in the UK if you were in charge of the transhumanist party was in charge in the UK, David?
00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:19.519
Well, I think capitalism has done lots of remarkable things, but it's not all powerful.
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:24.480
There are various things that capitalism has not managed to do and probably cannot manage to do.
00:31:24.559 --> 00:31:27.200
It gets into various failure modes from time to time.
00:31:27.359 --> 00:31:32.720
Zolten mentioned the drawbacks when monopolies arise and they clamp down on innovation.
00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:38.240
But that's only one of many failure modes of free markets from time to time.
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:42.559
Lack of attention to externalities, asymmetry of information.
00:31:42.720 --> 00:31:52.240
And the key thing, and Zolton's already mentioned this, is sometimes you need more investment in longer-term projects than the private funders are willing to do.
00:31:52.400 --> 00:32:00.720
And the venture capitalists, the big corporations, they are sometimes very cautious about putting longer-term investment into what would be public goods.
00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:02.720
They may say, why should I invest in this?
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:06.960
We won't be able to make a profit out of it, even though it will benefit everybody.
00:32:07.119 --> 00:32:09.440
So that is what government spending has done.
00:32:09.519 --> 00:32:17.680
And one thing that government spending and defense spending achieved is it built the smartphone, controversially, but uh this is uh interesting analysis.
00:32:17.839 --> 00:32:31.839
Many of the technologies in the smartphone, such as GPS, such as the touch screen, such as the internet, such as many of the wireless protocols, or the whole host of them, actually came about because of funding from governments and from research.
00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:36.880
And of course, there were brilliant capitalists who built exothinks on top of that.
00:32:37.119 --> 00:32:42.079
But until the underlying technologies had reached a certain maturity, it would not have been possible.
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:51.440
And sadly, to come back to your question about NBIC, we have not had the progress in the N part that we clearly could have had.
00:32:51.680 --> 00:33:04.480
The nanotechnology that was envisioned in that report isn't just nanomaterials such as graphene or even some of the 3D printing on smaller and smaller scales.
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:11.359
It's something much more remarkable than that, that uh Richard Feynman in 1959 foresaw, and then Kay.
00:33:15.039 --> 00:33:17.119
It's molecular scale machinery.
00:33:17.279 --> 00:33:27.839
And that has not happened, and we have not done anything like as much as we could have done, because it would have taken much longer-term research with than uh private companies were willing to do.
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:36.160
Governments should have got behind that much more thoroughly, and if they had, we could have had so many better technologies today than we actually do have.
00:33:36.319 --> 00:33:46.319
So I would join with Zolton and encourage governments to alter how the wealth of the country, uh wealth of the world is deployed.
00:33:46.559 --> 00:33:57.200
Lots of wealth is tied up very unproductively, and it can be applied for collective good with uh a better transhumanist vision of what's possible.
00:33:57.359 --> 00:34:08.000
You know, the super longevity, the super intelligence, the super happiness achieved via truly advancing NBIC web convergence, nanotech, biotech, infotech, cognotech.
00:34:08.960 --> 00:34:10.320
I think we're all in agreement there.
00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:21.679
We're gonna talk about longevity in a minute because obviously it's a massive investment area with VCs and private funding right now, and it could be, potentially it could be an investment area for more governments, of course.
00:34:21.760 --> 00:34:27.760
But just before we go on to that topic, I wanted to ask you a very specific question, which I was just chatting with David about actually.
00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:31.519
Something I noticed about the transhumanist publicity, if you like.
00:34:31.840 --> 00:34:36.239
There aren't that many women talking about transhumanism in mainstream media.
00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:42.880
I I to me there don't seem that many involved in it behind the scenes, but I might be wrong, and you can correct me on that.
00:34:43.119 --> 00:34:50.960
I wondered if you agreed with that and uh why you thought, or if you do agree with it, why you thought that might be the case, and does that need addressing?
00:34:51.199 --> 00:34:52.639
What what do you think on this?
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:54.639
So there are some women active.
00:34:54.719 --> 00:35:12.960
Uh there's Natasha Vitamore, the Executive Director of Humanity Plus, and on the board of Humanity Plus, the secretary is another woman uh based in Northern Ireland, Nell Watson, and the treasurer is Amy Lai, who is uh originally from China and grew up in North America.
00:35:13.280 --> 00:35:23.679
But you're right, if we have a typical transhumanist meeting, I was in one yesterday, I would say probably three-quarters of the participants are male and only one quarter are female.
00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:26.159
As it turns out, it's not the same all over the world.
00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:32.400
If you look at Russia, for example, there were many women at that conference who were Russian or from Russian background.
00:35:32.639 --> 00:35:34.239
So it's a different culture there.
00:35:34.559 --> 00:35:35.679
Japan, it's the same.
00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:41.280
There aren't many transhumanists in Japan, but there seem to be as many women transhumanists as men.
00:35:41.440 --> 00:35:43.840
So I think it may not be a global thing.
00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:55.920
I think it may be an attribute of something that's uh in the Western world, where we often encourage women too early to make a decision about their careers and we push women away from the technical career path.
00:35:56.159 --> 00:36:07.840
But that's a great shame because of course we should have more women engineers, but also we need more of careful what I say here, we need more of the softer skills in the transhumanist discussions.
00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:11.760
And so uh we have to figure out how to resolve that.
00:36:11.840 --> 00:36:15.039
And it is a question that comes up in transhumanist areas from time to time.
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:17.360
Zolton, can you rescue me from this?
00:36:18.239 --> 00:36:19.360
Well, I'm not going to.
00:36:19.679 --> 00:36:22.719
No, no, I mean I'll try to be uh fully honest.
00:36:22.880 --> 00:36:25.360
There's not enough women, in my opinion, transhumanism.
00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:35.920
There's a couple reasons that I think women may not be as inclined to take such a jump away from traditional lives than I think men.
00:36:36.079 --> 00:36:42.320
And uh that makes them a lot better housekeepers in terms of taking care of the world we are in.
00:36:42.480 --> 00:36:47.519
Uh, like my wife thinks I'm, you know, that shit crazy half the time.
00:36:47.679 --> 00:36:50.480
And she's a medical doctor with many research degrees.
00:36:50.800 --> 00:37:02.880
But the reality is that she wants to keep my life with our children here, and I'm talking about joining artificial intelligence and beaming myself up to space and things like that.
00:37:03.119 --> 00:37:09.840
Now, I think a lot of women don't have that desire to leave behind the community.
00:37:10.159 --> 00:37:14.719
When I when I say housekeeping, I mean in terms of a community, a society, a world.
00:37:14.960 --> 00:37:19.199
And I don't know if that's a biological propensity or if that's just what's it.
00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:22.000
But I can tell in my wife's case, it's definitely biological propensity.
00:37:22.079 --> 00:37:22.880
I mean, she's right.
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:32.079
I would probably go to space, leave my children behind, and try to become a transhuman entity somewhere far off because I'm driven to that kind of exploration.
00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:34.000
That's not good for society.
00:37:34.159 --> 00:37:36.320
That's not good for community, that's not good.
00:37:36.480 --> 00:37:39.920
I mean, it's good in terms of one of us going, but it's not good for my children.
00:37:40.079 --> 00:37:44.320
So I think that's the discrepancy that I have found in transhumanism.
00:37:44.480 --> 00:37:49.360
And so, how do we make it appeal more to people who are more grounded?
00:37:49.519 --> 00:37:51.280
And I know I may have gotten myself in trouble here.
00:37:51.360 --> 00:37:52.559
I'm happy to get myself in trouble.
00:37:52.639 --> 00:37:54.800
I'm looking to looking for the cancellation.
00:37:55.679 --> 00:38:12.719
You know, no, but I I mean, the reality is that, and I deal with this all the time with my wife, where she doesn't um she has real solid values and she doesn't want to throw them away for these grandiose kind of dreams that I have about merging with robots and brain implants and things like that.
00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:16.079
She wants to see my kids go off become doctors like she is.
00:38:16.239 --> 00:38:34.480
And that's a much more grounded philosophy, and I think that's where women really come into play is they are sensible in that very sense, whereas I think a lot of the transhumans that I know are truly innovators in the grand sense, willing to destroy some of the things they've created in order to innovate more.
00:38:34.559 --> 00:38:36.719
And that's a, you know, there's a balance there.
00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:50.159
And in fact, that's why I think, in my opinion, raising a child, you know, you have the two different, you know, yin and yang has always been really good for the children as you create these two different models that come and hit your child and they grow up having a really good balance.
00:38:50.239 --> 00:38:53.360
And when it doesn't have that balance, it can go, I think, a wrong way.
00:38:53.440 --> 00:38:56.079
And I think uh, you know, that's what's happening in transhumanists.
00:38:56.159 --> 00:39:01.679
I'd love to see more women, though, and I have made it a huge point of writing about and also just trying to get more women in.
00:39:01.840 --> 00:39:09.599
But um I think that fundamental part, what I just mentioned, is really uh what's sort of holding a lot of women back from being more involved.
00:39:09.920 --> 00:39:11.039
Yeah, it's very interesting.
00:39:11.119 --> 00:39:12.559
I hadn't thought of it like that.
00:39:12.719 --> 00:39:28.800
I had well one of the things I had observed was that I think every time transhumanism comes up, certainly in the UK, and this might be to do with the historical perspective of it, and there's a bit of a resurgence around, but it tends to end up in exogenesis and artificial wombs.
00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:34.239
And I think there's a a lot of women who kind of look on that maybe a bit with a bit of suspicion.
00:39:34.400 --> 00:39:37.840
Not that, I mean, lots of women use surrogacy and and other sorts of things.
00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:40.880
It's not to not to make any value judgments about any of that.
00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:52.719
But I think some do worry that it's not just a biological thing, it has the potential to do something to the female, to the women's social status almost, you know, as a woman and as a mother.
00:39:52.960 --> 00:40:03.280
And so I I think um I think there is a bit of a discussion to be had about what is the transhumanist belief system around motherhood, you know, in the traditional sense and in a more modern sense, maybe.
00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:21.280
Yeah, and let me just say, you know, when I take my children out for a walk in the woods and we see a really I see a high tree that I want to climb, and I immediately want to push my daughters to climb it with me, it's always my wife who's kind of pulling back and saying, and I think that's hopefully why those kids don't get hurt and can put on the next generation of kids.
00:40:21.360 --> 00:40:31.280
I really do think there's a strong biological reason for women keeping the family unit together and being the kind of stronger part of the nucleus than the man in terms of that.
00:40:31.440 --> 00:40:35.519
And that's uh, you know, everyone brings their advantages, you know, to the table.
00:40:35.599 --> 00:40:40.079
And I think that's really the core of what's going on here with why there's not enough women in transhumanism.
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:42.639
They're holding the human fort together.
00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:45.199
I'd like to say something about ectogenesis.
00:40:45.360 --> 00:40:55.920
There was a London Futurist meeting uh a few years back in which the speaker made an offhand remark who says, Oh, Ectogenesis is clearly a technology that nobody really wants.
00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:58.159
It's just uh technological fantasy.
00:40:58.320 --> 00:41:05.119
And in the pub, he was surrounded by three quite upset women who all said they they were quite interested in this, you know.
00:41:05.199 --> 00:41:12.880
They they've they had made their personal choice and they they they wanted the option of having such a child by such a mechanism.
00:41:13.119 --> 00:41:23.440
So maybe the majority of women wouldn't think that way, but there was a significant number of women in that meeting who were adamant that this was a technology that ought to be explored.
00:41:23.599 --> 00:41:28.719
And yes, of course, there will be social implications, just as the social implications of contraception.
00:41:28.800 --> 00:41:36.000
You know, some people said if this contraception is going to cause the downfall of civilization, but you know, we figured out how to cope with it.
00:41:36.159 --> 00:41:37.679
It's the same with online dating.
00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:38.960
You know, it used to be an embarrassment.
00:41:39.119 --> 00:41:42.480
You say, Oh, I met my partner via an online dating site.
00:41:42.559 --> 00:41:43.840
Oh, how weird are you?
00:41:44.079 --> 00:41:45.840
And then uh we got used to it.
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:56.159
And so it may be that in the future we will take it for granted that it's uh a valid mode of being a mother to have uh a child born in a synthetic woman.
00:41:57.119 --> 00:41:57.840
Uh no, I agree.
00:41:57.920 --> 00:42:12.079
I think it's down to personal choice again, but it'd be interesting to interrogate what the philosophies are behind it, rather than just thinking about sort of a traditional view of like family structures and motherhoods versus a technocratic version.
00:42:12.239 --> 00:42:15.679
I think there's something more nuanced and interesting discuss in the middle.
00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:18.480
I don't know if either of you have read um Dr.
00:42:18.559 --> 00:42:25.039
Claire Chambers has got a new book out, I think it's this week actually, called Intact, A Defense of the Unmodified Body.
00:42:25.199 --> 00:42:29.679
And actually she was talking about it a couple of nights ago on a webinar.
00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:39.920
It's not an attack on augmented or enhanced bodies at all, but she is she does seem to be saying that we shouldn't be experiencing our bodies as something that's failing.
00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:45.280
And if we are, I mean, David, you mentioned the idea of um limitations of our body.
00:42:45.519 --> 00:42:50.000
I think I'm paraphrasing it, so I hope I get this correct, and this is what she meant.
00:42:50.079 --> 00:43:04.559
But she seems to be saying that if we feel like uh bodies are failing, it's not a personal thing, it's down to societal norms and the judgments that are handed down on the way we perceive our bodies and what is a failure and what is a limitation.
00:43:04.639 --> 00:43:16.639
Um, because maybe it isn't a failure or a limitation, it's just that we are societally putting some, and she would say political stances around the way we think of the body, you know, in terms of shaming it.
00:43:16.800 --> 00:43:18.639
I thought it was very, very interesting.
00:43:18.800 --> 00:43:25.440
And she was really saying it in any sense that you feel like you lack something in in your body, it's a political stance more than a personal thing.
00:43:25.519 --> 00:43:34.239
And I thought, particularly, well, for both of you, really, but particularly Zoltan, because you were a politician, or nearly were, or perhaps still are, or maybe even have those ambitions still, I don't know.
00:43:34.400 --> 00:43:35.840
But um, what do we say to that?
00:43:35.920 --> 00:43:42.639
Is the way we think about the body and the modification or the non-modification of the body a political stance?
00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:50.480
Well, I I I absolutely think it's a political stance, and I disagree with anyone who says uh, you know, that the body is not failing.
00:43:50.639 --> 00:43:52.960
The body is failing in a comparative way.
00:43:53.119 --> 00:43:59.360
You know, when you compare it to a calculator that wants to do uh, you know, arithmetic with numbers that, you know, run to 20 or something.
00:43:59.440 --> 00:44:03.280
You it Our brains just can't do it that quickly, at least most brains can't.
00:44:03.519 --> 00:44:12.639
And therefore, uh, we have some kind we're lacking something compared to this device that can do it, or the same thing, you know, with a computer, or the same thing with a robot that or planes that can fly.
00:44:12.719 --> 00:44:14.239
I mean, why can't we go fly that fast?
00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:16.159
Well, we don't have wings, we don't have these things.
00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:17.440
We need to improve ourselves.
00:44:17.599 --> 00:44:26.400
I mean, and and I think it just it comes down to a personal philosophy of do you believe that the body is the best design that we can do?
00:44:26.480 --> 00:44:30.239
If you were God, you had all the power in the world, would you create a human being?
00:44:30.400 --> 00:44:38.239
And then the answer is no, you would never create something that gets cold or that that needs air to survive, that that needs to go poo in the mornings after coffee.
00:44:38.320 --> 00:44:40.480
You know, I mean, there's there's none of these things you would do.
00:44:40.639 --> 00:45:00.719
You would create something much stronger, maybe something more AI-based, maybe something more synthetic, but whatever it would be, it would not be this frail human body that we have where, you know, hundreds of thousands of people, or at least 150,000 people die every day, and um, you know, about a fifth of the world is uh disabled in some sense and people starve all the time.
00:45:00.800 --> 00:45:04.239
You know, I mean, nobody would create this kind of terrible tragedy.
00:45:04.320 --> 00:45:05.519
I think the body is the tragedy.
00:45:05.679 --> 00:45:14.880
Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful in the sense that we're here and at least we exist, but we're gonna look back in a thousand years and just say, oh my God, we were it's almost like looking at ants.
00:45:15.119 --> 00:45:20.400
That's what we're gonna look back and see the human body today, and we're gonna say, why didn't we move to the future faster?
00:45:20.639 --> 00:45:23.360
The body was always a failure, the human body.
00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:36.239
Unmodified body would result in uh most people dying before the age of five, involve uh the average uh person dying at the age of 30, women would have one pregnancy after another, after another.
00:45:36.639 --> 00:45:38.000
I had my body modified.
00:45:38.239 --> 00:45:42.079
My eyesight wasn't great from the age of nine until the age of fifty.
00:45:42.239 --> 00:45:44.159
My eyes got worse and worse and worse.
00:45:44.320 --> 00:45:48.719
Should I have just said, hey, I'll cope with these uh awkward glasses and so on?
00:45:49.039 --> 00:45:52.880
I'm very glad I had my eyes lasered by laser surgery.
00:45:53.039 --> 00:45:54.559
It's been uh something I'm very happy with.
00:45:54.639 --> 00:45:59.039
Could I have just grinned and bared it and bore it as accepting it?
00:45:59.199 --> 00:46:03.280
I think accepting things that don't need to be accepted is foolish, frankly.
00:46:03.360 --> 00:46:06.000
You know, we should accept things that we have to put up with.
00:46:06.400 --> 00:46:18.320
It's one of the great sayings in life, God give me the grace to accept the things I cannot change, but also give me the courage to change the things that I can change, and give me the wisdom to know the difference.
00:46:18.559 --> 00:46:27.920
Well, maybe in the past, you know, we had to put up with uh lots of uh deaths and childbirth and uh long strings of pregnancies and bad eyesight and all the other issues.
00:46:28.320 --> 00:46:29.760
And maybe we had to accept it then.
00:46:29.840 --> 00:46:34.159
Maybe the Buddha was right at that time, but now I say we no longer need to accept it.
00:46:34.239 --> 00:46:42.960
And if we don't take advantage of this, we are inflicting unnecessary pain, limitations, and restrictions on people around us.
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:47.440
Instead, we should know the wisdom as to what is possible to change.
00:46:48.079 --> 00:46:58.159
I think to be fair to her, I just say that um I think she makes a distinction between functional enhancements and sort of enhancements are done for emotional reasons.
00:46:58.320 --> 00:47:00.559
I think um to concentrating more on the latter.
00:47:00.719 --> 00:47:07.519
Sorry, Zoltan, you're gonna say Well, what David said at the end, when you when you don't do these enhancements, and this is where I agree disagree with that professor entirely.
00:47:07.599 --> 00:47:12.880
In fact, my last uh paper was on disability, and there's so many people that are justifying disability.
00:47:12.960 --> 00:47:20.159
And I feel that we have a moral obligation to totally fix, totally cure, totally upgrade all and any disabilities.
00:47:20.239 --> 00:47:33.920
Um, I and I'm not saying you know we should force that on people at all, but what I'm saying is that if you're just an individual and you are suffering from something or you can't reach the apple in the tree because your legs don't work, you have a moral responsibility to try to become your best self.
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:40.239
And the best self is always evolving into something stronger, better, um, you know, more transhuman, essentially.
00:47:40.400 --> 00:47:50.000
And I think that's really what it comes down to with transhumanism is that we all believe that there's a core motivation in us to become better, and we're gonna use science and technology to do it.
00:47:50.079 --> 00:47:52.480
And anyone that says, and that's the politics of it.
00:47:52.639 --> 00:48:01.199
The politics says that if you support transhumanism, you're gonna try to support improving your life and the lives of others through science and technology.
00:48:01.360 --> 00:48:04.559
And anything else is really supporting it the other direction.
00:48:04.639 --> 00:48:13.039
I want you to suffer, I want you to become worse, I want you to, you know, when you say I want someone to be content with their disability, you know, I know people are saying, oh, Zoltan's an ableist.
00:48:13.119 --> 00:48:14.239
They've been saying that forever.
00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:17.199
But ableism is something that leads to suffering.
00:48:17.360 --> 00:48:19.920
And, you know, as transhumanists, we want to overcome suffering.
00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:21.119
That's kind of the core part of it.
00:48:21.199 --> 00:48:28.159
And so you need to utilize science and technology to become the strongest, best, and uh most prolific person that you can be.
00:48:28.239 --> 00:48:34.400
And that's certainly not uh a negative or an evil thing to ask of people or to say you have a moral obligation to.
00:48:34.880 --> 00:48:40.880
So if we can only live to 120 or 150, is that a failing body?
00:48:41.119 --> 00:48:42.800
Is that a disability?
00:48:42.960 --> 00:48:45.039
Is that less than perfect?
00:48:45.119 --> 00:48:46.559
And we should be striving for more?
00:48:46.719 --> 00:48:47.760
Tell me about longevity.
00:48:48.719 --> 00:48:53.119
I think people should be able to live healthily for as long as they wish to live.
00:48:53.519 --> 00:49:00.079
Eventually, uh people may get bored and have nothing more to do and may decide to term it.
00:49:00.320 --> 00:49:09.440
But even then I think uh cryonic suspension would be more sensible because there might be incredible things that happen in the future that might cause one to want to be reanimated.
00:49:09.760 --> 00:49:12.000
But uh this is about freedom.
00:49:12.079 --> 00:49:16.559
And if we our bodies are constrain constraining us to die at any age, it's a tragedy.
00:49:17.119 --> 00:49:21.679
You might say, well, he's lived 120 years, uh, that's a fool life, there's nothing more to do.
00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:32.960
On the contrary, I would say somebody who had 120 years worth of wisdom would be incredibly valuable, and it's a great tragedy when that effectively library of knowledge burns down and it's all lost.
00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:42.159
When we talk about defying aging or the end of aging, etc., does that mean there will never be an old person?
00:49:42.400 --> 00:49:44.960
Because I was thinking about this from the point of view of identity.
00:49:45.039 --> 00:49:57.840
I was thinking if we could live either forever or for a very, very long uh life, presumably if we're not aging, certainly at the rate that we do today, we won't be considered old, will we?
00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:01.840
So then as my identity, what what does that do to my identity?
00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:06.079
Am I always young, or am I sort of in a limbo land where I'm not neither young nor old?
00:50:06.320 --> 00:50:09.840
You know, can someone who is defying aging ever be seen as old?
00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:11.920
If not, what are they?
00:50:12.159 --> 00:50:14.239
How do they identify, for example?
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:18.880
Well, that'll be a part of our uh definition, which is less interesting.
00:50:19.199 --> 00:50:24.079
You know, nowadays uh we we try to transcend many uh pigeonholing.
00:50:24.320 --> 00:50:32.880
We we try to think, well, regardless of uh somebody's ethnic background, that shouldn't uh force us to think of of them in particular ways.
00:50:33.039 --> 00:50:38.400
We should be much more fluid in how we accept people from different backgrounds into totally different roles.
00:50:38.639 --> 00:50:44.719
So in the future, we won't care so much whether somebody is 80 or 60 or 120.
00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:48.239
We won't take that into account when evaluating them for things.
00:50:48.480 --> 00:50:50.400
And that will be a less important aspect.
00:50:50.559 --> 00:50:52.000
It's still there in our background.
00:50:52.079 --> 00:50:58.639
Like I I may like to tell people I grew up in the northeast of Scotland, I may like to tell people I went to university here and I had this job.
00:50:58.880 --> 00:51:03.679
That's not the most important thing about me, and in the future my age won't be a particularly important thing about me either.
00:51:04.239 --> 00:51:11.039
So do you think that we will become a collection of attributes and credentials rather than value judgments?
00:51:11.440 --> 00:51:12.639
Well, I'm not sure about that.
00:51:12.800 --> 00:51:15.360
I think we will have the credentials and the experiences.
00:51:15.599 --> 00:51:18.000
But I think we will still be making hard decisions.
00:51:18.159 --> 00:51:20.960
There'll be different kinds of hard decisions from the ones today.
00:51:21.119 --> 00:51:30.719
There will be hard decisions that don't involve so much terrible suffering and despair, but there'll still be challenges and uh difficult uh things to weigh up.
00:51:31.199 --> 00:51:33.360
Zoltan, how how long do you want to live for?
00:51:33.679 --> 00:51:37.360
Well, I would love to live indefinitely, and certainly I would probably say forever.
00:51:37.440 --> 00:51:43.519
I mean, I think when you say I don't want to live, if you want you want to die, I mean you're actually it's a philosophical question.
00:51:43.840 --> 00:51:44.159
Why?
00:51:44.320 --> 00:51:45.440
Because you don't like your life.
00:51:45.599 --> 00:51:54.639
So I say I want to live forever, but I you know, more importantly is really this, you know, this fundamental belief of why we're trying to extend lifespans.
00:51:54.719 --> 00:51:56.320
It's because we love life.
00:51:56.480 --> 00:52:00.800
We want to see our children grow up and love life and and all these other things.
00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:11.920
And uh, so to say in any sense that I'm willing to die or I want to die or I'm ready to die means that your love of life has turned to negative in a real sense.
00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:16.159
And you can say, oh no, no, I enjoyed my life for however long I wanted, but no, no, no.
00:52:16.239 --> 00:52:20.239
If you have the real choice in front of you, you push the button that says die, it means you don't want to be alive.
00:52:20.400 --> 00:52:27.840
And I think that's really where transhumanists are all pushing the button that says we want to live longer because we like this thing called existence.
00:52:28.239 --> 00:52:31.280
Do you think that disrupts the natural cycle of things?
00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:34.000
I have a suspicion you'll say no.
00:52:34.400 --> 00:52:35.119
No, no.
00:52:35.679 --> 00:52:40.960
But let me, this is the one of the most fundamental questions I get asked about about transhumanism and longevity.
00:52:41.199 --> 00:52:47.679
And people seem to think just because you don't die, there'll be no more creativity, there'll be no more visions and no more innovation.
00:52:47.760 --> 00:53:01.360
And but people forget that technology is growing so fast that we're gonna be not only merging our brains with AI, but merging our brains with each other and having totally different feeling senses, maybe 20 senses, I mean hundreds of senses, who knows, what the future really brings.
00:53:01.519 --> 00:53:16.480
There's so much, the expansion of the universe, the expansion of the intelligent part of the universe is gonna be so amazing that the fact that we don't die has nothing to do with the sense of drama or death or or making our sense that we're missing out on something.
00:53:16.639 --> 00:53:27.360
There's gonna be complexity that comes from the expansion of AI and things like that, that constantly changes, that constantly keep us innovating, that constantly keep it rejuvenating.
00:53:27.519 --> 00:53:35.280
And I think when people say, oh, you must die so that the next generation comes in and they do something different, there's plenty of difference in the universe right now.
00:53:35.440 --> 00:53:38.400
There's plenty of creativity coming through science and technology.
00:53:38.480 --> 00:53:44.480
So I don't buy that argument that we need to die to make room for the next generation so that there's more innovation.
00:53:44.960 --> 00:53:53.360
Innovation comes from the, you know, we've taken evolution because of AI and silicone and whatnot to a whole different level.
00:53:53.519 --> 00:54:00.480
And so we're gonna be occupied, we're never gonna be, in fact, be able to keep up with all the trend, you know, the change that's happening in the world.
00:54:00.559 --> 00:54:11.679
So death is no longer even needed from that simple philosophical point because it seems like so many non-transhumists like to say, oh, we need to die in order to have the change of the guard.
00:54:11.760 --> 00:54:21.679
Well, the change of the guard is coming from the innovation we're creating right now, and that's gonna go uh, you know, crazy once AI really starts hitting the picture 10, 15, 20 years, and then we have quantum computing.
00:54:21.760 --> 00:54:23.440
I mean, who knows how much creativity?
00:54:23.599 --> 00:54:24.559
We're gonna be way overwhelmed.
00:54:24.639 --> 00:54:32.000
The singularity is gonna be something completely like way beyond what our kind of brains can understand right now.
00:54:32.079 --> 00:54:36.800
So we're never gonna ever get bored and we don't need new generations to create for us.
00:54:37.199 --> 00:54:48.159
And would you be happy to carry on almost just as a mind, as cognition, or does it have to be uh a continued longevity in a in an embodied form?
00:54:48.400 --> 00:54:53.599
Can you split the two, or is it is it does it all come as a package, this this long life?
00:54:54.159 --> 00:54:56.639
Yeah, well, I think I think first off, it's not just splitting.
00:54:56.719 --> 00:55:00.800
Like people seem to think like once you download your consciousness to computer, it's just gonna be you.
00:55:00.880 --> 00:55:06.079
I mean, the very first thing David and I are gonna do when we upload our minds is make more Davids and more Zoltans.
00:55:06.239 --> 00:55:09.679
And then those Zoltans and Davids will probably evolve into other beings.
00:55:09.760 --> 00:55:16.079
And I mean, you know, it's like that that's the natural thing how a virus would do, and that's how a human being would do it if they were able to do it.
00:55:16.159 --> 00:55:18.639
So it's not, I don't even see myself as just one person.
00:55:18.800 --> 00:55:26.800
I see myself as spawning an entire new generation of different types of people that might end up being very, very different from me and just entities.
00:55:26.880 --> 00:55:30.480
Some are digital, some decide to go, you know, grow bodies, some decide to grow tails.
00:55:30.559 --> 00:55:32.159
I mean, who knows what it'll be like.
00:55:32.320 --> 00:55:36.239
So, you know, it'll be kind of a clone, but it'll be such a diverse world.
00:55:36.320 --> 00:55:39.840
So I don't even see the question in terms of just myself.
00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:46.400
I see it as how many billions and billions more of the life force that I have in me can evolve.
00:55:46.719 --> 00:55:48.639
Transhumanists do differ on this.
00:55:48.880 --> 00:55:56.320
Most transhumanists say, well, for the short term at least, we want to have continuity within biological bodies, improved biological bodies.
00:55:56.480 --> 00:56:05.840
And then the question is, well, if we have the option to move our minds into computers, into virtual reality systems and destroy our original bodies, would we do that?
00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:09.440
And some people take it for granted, hey, that would be fine, that would still be me.
00:56:09.679 --> 00:56:12.079
Others say, no, it wouldn't be me at all.
00:56:12.159 --> 00:56:15.679
I'd be dead, and it would be some copy of me, and it wouldn't be the same thing.
00:56:15.840 --> 00:56:19.519
And I don't know how to make my mind up about that philosophical question.
00:56:19.679 --> 00:56:26.960
So I'm waiting for the singularity or whenever when an AGI, artificial general intelligence, is going to explain to me what consciousness really is.
00:56:27.119 --> 00:56:32.320
And then I might be happy to be uploaded, or I might decide that no, uploading wouldn't be good.
00:56:32.480 --> 00:56:38.079
So for the time being, uh, I think that's one of the questions that remains open in the philosophy of consciousness.
00:56:38.559 --> 00:56:46.639
Maybe you have to wait until you have more versions of yourself, and then you can hold a symposium and uh debate and discuss it and decide.
00:56:46.800 --> 00:56:52.800
I mean, maybe that's one of the ways that we will make rational decisions in the future with versions of ourselves almost.
00:56:53.119 --> 00:56:55.599
Well, and they're they're already working on that with social media.
00:56:55.679 --> 00:57:00.559
I mean, there are, in fact, for example, there was that German pilot who apparently committed suicide and killed himself.
00:57:00.639 --> 00:57:08.480
And I wrote an article about that saying that there are devices out there in Google tracking things that are designed to actually try to make it so that you don't do that.
00:57:08.800 --> 00:57:15.280
You know, Abraham Lincoln, our one of our former presidents, would have said those are the better angels of our nature that'd be watching over you.
00:57:15.440 --> 00:57:17.599
And so, yeah, I think in the future we're all gonna have that.
00:57:17.679 --> 00:57:22.639
I mean, the same thing with uh driving a car in the already my BMW won't let me hit a deer.
00:57:22.719 --> 00:57:24.400
It stops, you know, in the road.
00:57:24.559 --> 00:57:26.800
So there are already these things already happening.
00:57:26.960 --> 00:57:29.519
And can you imagine what it's gonna be like in 25 years?
00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:32.960
Yeah, I definitely want to be around to experience it.
00:57:33.039 --> 00:57:41.920
Because I do actually think that all of these innovations, the enhancement or augmentation, will enable us to sense a different kind of world around us.
00:57:42.239 --> 00:57:49.280
I do think that we have a limitation in the in the way that we can sense the world and therefore the reality that we can perceive.
00:57:49.440 --> 00:57:55.280
And when we have these extensions or augmentations or enhancements, they will affect our sensory capabilities.
00:57:55.360 --> 00:57:58.639
So we'll probably it'd be like the doors of perception, won't it?
00:57:58.800 --> 00:58:04.559
We'll have we'll have a new reality perhaps dawning on us, I guess, but uh want to watch out for.
00:58:04.960 --> 00:58:08.639
Well, this has been incredibly illuminating, and I hope it has to the audience as well.
00:58:08.719 --> 00:58:18.719
And I hope we've not only explained more about transhumanism, but where it could go and where we have similarities and differences and some of the areas that still need uh debate and discussion, which of course there are many.
00:58:18.800 --> 00:58:32.239
Um but just before we go, we're gonna have a quick sponsored message, and then I'm going to ask you what you think the action for identity that you would most like to see happen over the next sort of, I don't know, 10, 20 years, what should that be?
00:58:32.480 --> 00:58:33.760
So we'll come back to you in one second.
00:58:34.559 --> 00:58:36.880
The Future of You is sponsored by FutureMade Consulting.
00:58:37.360 --> 00:58:44.639
Writing for outlets like Forbes, Reuters, Cool Hunting and Wired means I'm always on the lookout for those who can inspire me on alternative futures and work with me to activate them.
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That's why I tap into the brains at FutureMade, a network of established professionals in research for strategic thinking.
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They help me spot trends, roadmap innovation, and fully prepare for what comes next.
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They've worked with a host of global brands, businesses and organizations, whether it's consulting, speaking, or curating future on projects that are big and small.
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Find out more at future made.consulting or made with a future in mind.
00:59:18.639 --> 00:59:21.360
So Zoltana David's action for identity.
00:59:21.599 --> 00:59:22.719
What should we be thinking about?
00:59:22.800 --> 00:59:30.239
What should we want to happen now to improve our future in terms of our own identities from a transhumanist point of view?
00:59:30.960 --> 00:59:35.519
We need to understand a heck of a lot more from an authentic point of view.
00:59:35.679 --> 00:59:38.000
There is so much distortion, so much hype.
00:59:38.559 --> 00:59:47.280
One of the uh drawbacks of some of the Silicon Valley culture is an uncritical extrapolation sometimes of things that aren't for real.
00:59:47.840 --> 01:00:09.519
So I am working on a project called the Vital Syllabus, which aims to gather reliable, free, no access issues, engaging and authoritative information that will help people to understand fully what the possibilities of these new technologies are, and to evaluate them from a variety of different philosophical points of view.
01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:16.880
And unless we have that better understanding, frankly, we're likely to make bad decisions about the future of identity.
01:00:17.679 --> 01:00:21.039
And is that um syllabus an extension of your book, Vital Foresight?
01:00:21.199 --> 01:00:23.039
Because I'm reading that and enjoying it immensely.
01:00:23.679 --> 01:00:24.400
Well, it is indeed.
01:00:24.480 --> 01:00:33.679
So I wrote this rather thick book, you know, Vital Foresight, the case for transhumanism, which is five hundred, six hundred pages.
01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:45.039
And basically it makes the case that unfortunately we do need to understand lots of different angles, otherwise we will be misled in our uh predictions, uh expectations for the future.
01:00:45.280 --> 01:00:59.360
So we need to understand a lot about economics, a lot about technology, a lot about the social aspects, a lot about business, the strengths of businesses, the strengths of capitalism, the weaknesses of businesses, the weaknesses of capitalism, the legal issues, and yes, the philosophical issues.
01:00:59.519 --> 01:01:01.199
There's a lot to be brought together.
01:01:01.599 --> 01:01:10.400
But if we can hold it all together, we are more likely to perceive accurately the threats to our future, but also the wonderful opportunities that are there.
01:01:10.960 --> 01:01:13.199
It's synthesis as well as analysis, is it not?
01:01:13.760 --> 01:01:14.079
Exactly.
01:01:15.599 --> 01:01:19.280
Well, when I think it comes to identity, I I you know I give a little bit of a warning here.
01:01:19.440 --> 01:01:28.000
I have increasingly over the last few years discovered that I think social media is probably very akin to smoking cigarettes.
01:01:28.239 --> 01:01:32.800
Something where we didn't know it at first, what it was doing to us.
01:01:32.960 --> 01:01:38.880
We thought we could just all do it, and all of a sudden we're realizing that society is breaking down on multiple levels.
01:01:39.039 --> 01:01:54.800
And when I think we uncover all this, we're probably going to find out that social media was broadly responsible for various uh things, including insurrections, civil wars, and just people acting very bombastically, people starting to, you know, take themselves too seriously and things like that.
01:01:54.880 --> 01:02:10.960
So if I was talking about one thing about identity, when I talk about where civilization is going, I think people have to take a very critical look at what social media is doing to their mind and how it's making them perceive who they are, because I think a lot of what's happening is it's not real.
01:02:11.199 --> 01:02:18.639
It's not actually the way it is when you go to like a party and you meet 20 people as the same thing as meeting 20 people on Facebook.
01:02:18.800 --> 01:02:30.320
So when it comes to identity, people be very critical, overly critical about how their behavior and how their influence on social media is actually uh related to who they really are in the real world.
01:02:30.719 --> 01:02:36.639
Is that not what we're going to experience, though, when we are disembodied versions of ourselves in some of these worlds?
01:02:36.800 --> 01:02:43.519
It's going to be very difficult to navigate, isn't it, without psychological help or other kinds of help that we perhaps haven't anticipated.
01:02:43.840 --> 01:02:44.000
Yes.
01:02:44.079 --> 01:03:05.599
In fact, I think, and and I'm not saying this is a good option right now, but I think what's going to come down, there's going to be a lot of AI bots that do things like in very similar to what I said with the uh the German pilot who committed suicide as the uh with the passengers on board, is we're gonna have a lot of people overlooking at us, but not necessarily people, but programs that we set ourselves to say, we're not allowed to do this or we can do this.
01:03:05.679 --> 01:03:10.559
But there are just so many people that react so crazy and then they become more crazy and it feeds off itself.
01:03:10.719 --> 01:03:27.679
I think there have to be mechanisms in place that actually allow people to try to find the deeper truths about themselves and how to become a better person rather than fall into this just void of emotionality where sometimes they just end up breaking and uh and society is breaking down as a result of it.
01:03:27.760 --> 01:03:36.880
So I think uh we better figure that out before we get into the hive mind where we can't stop ourselves from really becoming a full-on chaos, uh, you know, world of chaos.
01:03:37.440 --> 01:03:46.079
Looks like China are going to avert that by banning the use of some of these um virtual worlds and gaming and social media, though, yeah?
01:03:46.400 --> 01:03:49.760
Yeah, no, and I mean I'm not in favor of banning anything yet.
01:03:49.840 --> 01:03:57.280
I'm in favor of those big giant companies, uh Facebook and Google, working out things that actually uh help people understand things.
01:03:57.360 --> 01:04:04.079
And uh, you know, it it's uh banning almost never works, anyways, when it comes down to things like this.
01:04:04.320 --> 01:04:10.960
So it's really more a matter of how can we use social media for instructional purposes that actually benefit humanity.
01:04:11.039 --> 01:04:12.400
And there's got to be a formula.
01:04:12.559 --> 01:04:14.159
We just haven't figured it out yet.
01:04:14.559 --> 01:04:16.719
Okay, well, I think that's a brilliant note to end on.
01:04:16.800 --> 01:04:21.920
Thank you so much for joining me to talk about transhumanism and um an identity.
01:04:22.000 --> 01:04:28.400
I hope I can get you back again, both of you, at some point in the future, because there's so much to talk about, but we managed to cover quite a lot here.
01:04:28.559 --> 01:04:29.760
Thank you so much for your time.
01:04:30.079 --> 01:04:30.880
Thank you so much.
01:04:31.039 --> 01:04:31.840
Thank you.

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