We've seen each version of transhumanism play out in different ways.
The most prominent one at the moment is "radical humanism", which was emblemized when the World Transhumanist Association changed their name to Humanity+
humanityplus.org
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Radical humanism is also what people like Elon Musk are promoting. We need to become an interplanetary species to save and expand the human race.
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This has largely supplanted radical egoism among transhumanist ethical ideas, with some notable exceptions.
Zoltan Istvan's transhumanist campaign explicitly promoted radical egoism as a governing ethic—for both humans, and AI.
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Radical environmentalism plays a quieter, but significant role in the transhumanist movement.
David Pearce is co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, and a strong proponent of eradicating the suffering of all sentient life.
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Interestingly, both the founders of the World Transhumanist Association seem to be more aligned towards the Life+ angle.
While David Pearce has focused on the ethics of biosphere suffering, Nick Bostrom has focused on the possibility space of non-human intelligence.
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Replying to @micahtredding
Life+ sounds like posthumanism...
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Nick Bostrom’s orientation towards expanded possibilities of non-human life is often identified as “posthumanism”.
nickbostrom.com
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Posthumanism tends to be more of a research program, while transhumanism tends to be more about advocacy directed towards research programs.
Meaning that posthumanism (I think innately) has less of an ethical axis.
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However, posthumanism also exists as a way to expand our imagination about future possibilities.
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A great example of the transhumanist framing I call “Radical Environmentalism”—which sees a potential ethical duty to the natural world, that demands technological work on our part.
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In the wild, animals live in continual life-defining fear pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vide If, as most people suspect, animals have corresponding qualia, our long-run duty isn't to restore fear but to abolish the wild—or to control it in tremendous detail, way beyond present technology.
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Linking ethical declarations here, for easy access:
Radical Egoism ethics:
psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-tr
Radical Humanism ethics:
humanityplus.org/philosophy/tra
Radical Environmentalism ethics (negative utilitarian version):
hedweb.com/abolitionist-p
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Replying to
I’m just linking versions of transhumanist ethics in this thread.
I’m calling them radical, because regular egoists, humanists, and environmentalists wouldn’t recognize them.
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