posted March 02, 2010 02:47 AM         

I disagree that transhumanism is "necrophilia." One could easily turn that around and say by rejecting transhumanism one is embracing death rather than potential immortality.

I'm surprised that 14 Mormons were enough to make their own faction.

And gods, J. Maxwell sure takes forever to make a point because he repeats himself over & over again without saying what he needs to say. It was an act of resolve to listen to that for 10 minutes when he could've probably said it in like less than 2. Thank gods for Alex Jones there who'd occasionally jump in and verbally push him to make a point (or even make it for him) or I wouldn't have lasted the entire 10 minutes.

And I've been in occult groups and I've been around transhumanist (my BFF is fascinated with the latter, but only briefly dabbled in the former) and those are 2 different subcultures that take a very different approach to understanding the world, and I mean that for every occult variation and transhumanist variation I can think of. I've met individuals who mixed both, but even then one or the other view predominated. (Granted, some neopagans see computers as another type of elemental spirit and show an affinity for them...)

I certainly don't accept on his say so that Stalin and people earlier were for transhumanist concepts. Occult ones, maybe, but frankly what they can use can also be used against them (and I've heard concepts that the medieval & Ren nobility were crawling with ceremonial mages who were waging a war against the peasant witches & shamans of various cultures & such as they were too much a threat as they knew how to fight fire with fire). I've heard some interesting ideas that the death camps (Nazis and others) were also "fueling" occult experiments, too.

posted March 02, 2010 04:39 AM         

Perhaps we will find much better ways of improving our bodies in time...by harnessing the power of our consciousness and of energetics....we need wisdom before we have use of knowledge...for technology without wisdom has been used in far too many monstrous ways.

We as a race have little respect or understanding for our own species....and we think we are ready to begin altering ourselves physically with technology and creating new life-forms?

posted March 02, 2010 07:39 AM         

And I don't mean to race into transhumanist tech myself. Even if the motives are pure there are all kinds of unintended side effects. It's still pretty far ahead in the future as far as I can see anyway.

But those I know into this aren't against life or the flesh. They're hopeful because they love life and don't want to lose it and want to be able to live it even more than they're capable of right now.

I don't think it's good or evil, it's just a possibility that can be used either way and will likely be used for both. And at some point it may be necessary to fight fire with fire.

posted March 03, 2010 04:32 PM         

if it is true that we are crossbreeds with alien races+humans, that is over and done with (i hope) but the idea of a new, part-robot breed of humans? N.O. !

posted March 03, 2010 04:58 PM         

and i always wonder about this chip paranoia...though i would not accept one while conscious! i wonder what exactly people think chipping us is going to do for the NWOs? apart from telling them where we are if they can keep track of all the info?

i know icke talks about chips planted in the brains of chosen puppet/assassins. perhaps they mean to make us all kill each other?

and what good would it do them to eliminate us? aren't we the hamsters that keep the wheels spinning? and buy the cwap that makes them rich?

or are they planning on making steaks out of us?

posted March 03, 2010 05:40 PM         

The AIs could become a problem. There have been some fascinating (IMO) experiments with "fuzzy thinking" computers rather than the standard binary and it does look like computers can THINK. So far, true AI (that is, self-aware) isn't known to exist, but when it does it will likely be trouble. And frankly I can't say I'd blame them for making trouble. Things that are likely to make it even worse is that the true AIs will almost certainly be military computers (think Skynet from the Terminator movies) or those who build space stations and may decide not to care for us biologicals (and be prone to insanity, etc). Furthermore, they're likely to have puppet robots, even if they have to build their own.

Some transhumanists, btw, look to the day they can actually upload their consciousness into machines that can forever be repaired. Not all, mind you, but some think this would be perfect. What effect this would have on the said consciousness is anyone's guess, especially as right now we can't say what it would do for memory, ability to sense & interact with the world, etc.

JM himself seemed to imply there would be government cybernetic people killing the rest of us, though my memory is vague on that (his rambling where he doesn't make a point is what's most imprinted in my memory). I recall being skeptical over his exact point, though I could see the more unintended consequences doing the same thing.

For example, cybernetic enhancements that speed up & strengthen the human through brain interfaces (which, btw, some success with animals has already been done, so it will almost certainly happen--oh, and some pilots in the recent wars have been fed a meth-like drug, too, which caused at least a couple of them to open fire on allies as well as enemies, btw) would be popular with special agents & special forces (and maybe even infantry). The problem no one thinks about is that these would play on the parts of the brain that focus on anger, fear, and righteousness (probably the very same spot in the brain IMO), and while that would probably be seen as a plus as it would inspire the ultimate patriots, what happens when those people start having VISIONS (as some especially righteous people do when exposed to their fears & angers for too long--and they're not pleasant, calling for torture & murder in the name of their vision/holy war)?

I imagine they'll turn on their creators and probably everyone else, and quite possibly in factions. And if they refuse to "switch off" (and fail safes can always be undone) and suddenly you have well-trained combat specialists with cutting edge cyberware and access to military weapons who are faster & stronger than the rest of us who may become fanatic destroyers of the rest of us, including of the governments that created them. ('Course if there is an alien shadow government, especially the one capable of shaping visions of military cyborgs, this might be what they're hoping for which would make JM's prediction pretty accurate...granted, that's a big IF, but I wouldn't call it impossible.)

Another potential "transhumanist" dream turned nightmare would be the creation of nanite diseases. Currently biological warfare is too problematic, striking back at those who use it. But nanites could (in theory) be switched off at will, or could be repelled by counter nanites (AIs might even create their own...). Meanwhile, the body would find it impossible to fight off such microscopic robots--especially the self-replicating kind--as it does viruses. So I could see a government working on developing this and it getting out of control and killing us all. Or of their using it and finding too late that the "off switch" doesn't work for some reason (people keep forgetting that technology isn't perfect).

But I always figured our world would end by some top secret weapons TEST anyway, our tax dollars at work. Back when the first atomic tests were done there were even bets on whether or not it would create a permanent sun (as some thought might happen) or even destroy an entire continent, but the tests proceeded anyway...