A New Transhumanism

On Saturday October 8th, David Pearce and I will be speaking on behalf of Zero State at Beyond Human: Rethinking the Technological Extension of the Human Condition (organised by Humanity+ UK and Virtual Futures, in collaboration with ZS). Below is an extended abstract of my talk:

 

Amon Zero is the founder and leader of Zero State: “A new Transhumanist movement, exploring the impact of accelerating technical growth on society, economics, politics, and the human condition through science and art”. Amon is also the founder of Xykogen, a London-based experimental electronic band, and a researcher in cognitive science at University College London.

At Beyond Human, Amon will be one of two speakers representing Zero State, and will be giving a talk entitled A New Transhumanism. He will be speaking about the current state of Transhumanism as a movement, the role of Zero State within that movement, and emerging modes of Transhumanist activism.

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A NEW TRANSHUMANISM

1. The bad guys are winning.

25!

Transhumanism is sometimes described as the practical or “nuts and bolts” wing of so-called ‘philosophical Posthumanism’. It is a branch of futurism in which improvement of the human condition is advocated and explored, with the general intention of improving quality of life and opportunity in ways that have never been possible before, through the considered and compassionate application of technology. As I have discussed elsewhere, however, the Transhumanist worldview has opponents drawn from the full spectrum of human belief and endeavour.

It is a common enough feature of talks by speakers discussing Transhumanism and Singularitarianism that we should avoid passivity and “inevitablism”. The reason this issue is frequently mentioned is that Transhumanism is more a collection of individuals with overlapping interests and values rather than an actual activist movement. There is a prevailing attitude that individuals needn’t do anything except occasionally comment on technological developments, advocate development within narrow fields, or work within science & technology-related fields. Any broader, political or social aspects of Transhumanism are often seen as a liability, to the point where a “stealth Transhumanism” approach is adopted. In this approach, all Transhumanist aims are considered to be implicit in – or at least compatible with – established technological institutions and debate held within a particularly mainstream, ‘status quo’ framework.

This ‘stealth’ approach is not only mildly deceptive (therefore being arguably unethical and playing into the hands of anti-Transhumanist conspiracy theorists), but also deeply flawed in the fact that it seems to ignore something every transhumanist knows; This is revolutionary stuff we’re talking about here! We envisage radical paradigm shifts which will entirely re-write the rules of the social, political, economic, and technological status quo, and so such issues are not being properly or fully addressed when discussed purely within the established frameworks of debate. We need to honour the early Transhumanist tradition, and think bigger (and stranger!) than that. In essence, Transhumanism seems to be working hard to neutralise itself as a political and social force, placing unwarranted faith in the idea that technology itself will see Transhumanist aims through, despite knowing perfectly well that technology can be employed in the service of any number of agendas.

As the old trope goes, technology is neither intrinsically good nor evil, oppressive or liberating. If you don’t want technology to end up being the tool of Transhumanism’s political and social opponents, you – and yes, I mean you – need to get personally active. Now.

2. Zero State & the New Transhumanism

I have made the case elsewhere that we are arguably now on the verge of a fourth phase in the development of the Transhumanist movement. To briefly summarise, the three stages so far have included an early ‘proto-Transhumanism’, the crystallization of a single, unified movement led by one of its factions (Extropianism), and reaction to the values and approaches of that phase in the subsequent rise of the World Transhumanist Association (now known as Humanity+). It seems to me that Humanity+ and various other ‘Stage 3′ institutions have made significant progress employing variations of the ‘stealth’ approach, but that the movement’s traditional roots – intelligent, wild-eyed young people with no particular stake in the status quo – has been allowed to wither. This approach seems calculated to cultivate subtle influence behind the scenes, while ignoring the idea of a mass movement altogether. The goal, if there is one, is then presumably to work toward a future in which the public simply uses technology, and overt Transhumanism is left to a select, manipulative elite. If I didn’t know better, that kind of thing would make me begin to wonder if maybe Alex Jones has a point!

Perhaps Transhumanism never was a mass movement, never intended to be, but then I would argue that times change, and success requires flexibility. Every successful movement is a mass movement, on some level. If your values and goals are such anathema to the public that they can’t be stated plainly, boldly, even assertively, then there is a problem. Solutions to this problem include:

• Play down the message. Spin it. Sell it. This is the Stage 3, “stealth Transhumanism” approach.
• Abandon your goals, because if people oppose them and are right to do so, then the goals are bad ones.
• Decide that your opponents are wrong, and work to change their minds and/or minimize their influence.

 

I believe that a new mood is in the air, which inclines people such as myself to adopt the third, proactive approach. Of course such trends will always overlap, or run in parallel, so to announce a new stage in the movement’s development is not to declare that its precursors are finished. To put it simply: I believe that the time is right to take our message to a much wider circle of people, and to apply Transhumanist logic to contemporary problems. The future is at the gates, and it is time for us to do something about it. Already this ‘new mood’ has taken a number of forms, generally quite sporadic, ill-formed, and short-lived so far. Paul Raven, in the ‘Futurismic’ blog, has commented that Transhumanism seems to be diversifying, and moving out of what he refers to as its “Classical” period.

The Zero State is one of the groups that represent this new stage, and the views I’ve expressed above. It is populist, with an emphasis on action (including projects and other initiatives), activity spread across scientific and artistic, technological and social areas of concern. We are working toward the establishment of a distributed, autonomous community or network run according to the Principles of Techno-Meritocratic Minarchy, while encouraging a “Third Estate” movement of support for democracy, freedom, minimal and fair government across the nations of the world, with our central meme being the Abolition of involuntary suffering by all means at hand, including the application of biotechnology. These are extremely ambitious core goals, crowning a network of practical projects and initiatives, and a vocal mass movement is the way we intend to gather resources to achieve them. If we fail, at least valuable lessons will be learned and shared with the transhumanist community.

3. Playing the Future: Game On!

“Playing the Future” was the American title of a book (also called “Children of Chaos: Surviving the End of the World as We Know It”) written by Douglas Rushkoff and published in 1996. The central idea of this pre-millenial book was that the world and its media had already accelerated past a degree of complexity where linear logic loses its utility, and instead (mathematical) chaos and ‘turbulence’ hold sway in a world of recursive reference and metatrends. Rushkoff says that instead of reacting in paranoid, fearful ways to this turbulent new world, people should look to children, and note the ways in which these young minds adapt to the situation (just as children are the first to learn the new language when emigrating). In short, a scary situation could best be dealt with by treating it as a game. As futurists with an increasingly complicated terrain to negotiate, I believe that we would do well to take Rushkoff’s lesson to heart.

So how might the creation of a new, pro-active Transhumanist mass movement play out as a game?

In addition to the better part of a thousand casual members (people on mailing lists and social network groups, for example), Zero State now has a ‘grid’ of 100 committed, ‘official’ members. Over the next two months, it is our intention for each member of the grid to coordinate groups of new members gathering in time for an event we will be holding on Saturday December 3rd, 2011. Official members will be organised into groups of five, and on December 3rd we will announce the details of a competition between all of the groups we’ve managed to assemble. It will be fun, attention-grabbing, and it will be like nothing organised under the aegis of the Transhumanist meme before. There will be a prize for the winning group.

If you want to know more, you’ll just have to come along to Beyond Human on October 8th, or watch my talk when it is posted on youtube after the event!

- A

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