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Notes -
Sam Altman and his husband had a kid.
Let me say outright I wish him, him, and the child well. Certainly growing up in a wealthy family affords a child many benefits that would not be had without that wealth, so good for the kid. Let me also say I am, as a person tangentially involved in medicine and medical science, not adamantly opposed to IVF, personally, though admittedly I have not spent a lot of time poring over the moral aspects of it. It seems like one of those things that generally contributes toward the good, inasmuch as it is creative, in the most literal sense of the word, and not destructive. My mind might be changed by a persuasive argument.
What irks me though, is that in the linked article there is no mention whatsoever of the mother of this child, the woman who carried the child in her womb, from whose egg the child generated (whether you view this as the mother or not is of course up to you.) It is as if the two men just somehow had a child, as if that is the most natural thing in the world, and there should be no questioning of it by anyone for to do so would be, I don't know, wrong or backward-ass.
Yet here I am, wondering. Should there not be at least a rhetorical nod toward the woman, a phrase in some sentence saying that the child was brought into the world via gestational surrogacy--a good way to introduce the term into people's vocabulary, the regular working men and women among us who may have never thought of the term. Yet there is nothing. Nada y pues nada. Can anyone steelman this beyond the assertion that it is a required newspeak in our Brave New World?
If I were to be dramatic, I'd say a woman has been literally erased here-- a maternal unpersoning. I know at least one woman (white, American) who "had" a child via gestational surrogacy--she is now both divorced and living about 4,800 miles (7,725 km) apart from her daughter. Life's a bitch. I never outright asked her about the woman who carried the child to term, though I know that this was a so-called "commercial surrogacy" and the woman who did carry the child was from India, probably without much financial means, and the whole affair was generally unpalatable to me. But I loved the (egg) mother as a sister, though she is unrelated to me, and still do, though she is a little nuts.
But Altman and Mulherin are both men, and thus the egg came from neither of them. I don't know, I just wish the goddam media would throw me a bone sometimes.
"Surrogacy" is a classic bioethics problem for a reason.
The question of the 21st century, and (hopefully!) beyond, is what role humans will play in the future. We are accustomed to using the word "dehumanizing" as a pejorative, as we treat pretty much everything else in the world worse than we treat one another (which is often saying something...)--so to be not human is by definition to be less than human. But "dehumanize" can be a purely descriptive term.
(This is also a big part of AI anxiety, I think--if there's something higher than us on the intellectual food chain, doesn't that make us food? See e.g. The Matrix as an early example of taking this somewhat literally...)
For hundreds of thousands of years at least, maternal affection has been a matter of life and death for our species. There is basically nothing more fundamentally human, except perhaps the act of heterosexual coupling that creates infants in the first place. And (perhaps contra some other commenters) I think there are fully human roads to practices like adoption (women have often shared the task of breastfeeding with other women, e.g.).
But artificial reproductive technologies--even as basic as your IUI "turkey baster" techniques"--head down a slippery slope. By applying technological progress to ourselves, we objectify humanity itself. We step outside our species, however slightly, and subject ourselves to egregorian evolution (usually, Moloch).
So my own perspective on this is that the problem isn't the womb rental (so to speak) per se. It's the fact that we don't approach it with a clear and widespread understanding that it is in fact transhumanist to do. That the resulting relationships are transhuman relationships. That the mother of this child has been used, for a time, as (spoilers for Dune):an axlotl tank (e.g.--mildly NSFW)
Is it wrong, to "rent out" the human body? Is it wrong, to deprive a human child of a mother? I'm open to the possibility, and doing such things has historically been closely associated with monumental evil, in the details even if not in the act itself. But I think the problem in the case of surrogacy for same-sex couples is precisely that we insist on pretending that there's "nothing to it," rather than observing that this is transhumanism in action, the activity of reducing our bodies to the level of chattel--to the level of moveable property, of mere technology. Philosophers have long observed that the body is mechanical in nature!
I consider myself fairly pro-transhumanism. I would like us to be more than we are, and I would like us to approach that in a careful and thoughtful way. But we don't actually have the technology to make that happen, yet, and if we ever do I think it will be an extinction-class event for our species. People who do transhumanesque things now--employ surrogacy for same sex "reproduction," have their sex organs removed to fulfill a personal aesthetic, etc.--are like small children "playing house" in alarmingly sexual ways, doing grown-up things without adult supervision or a mature understanding of what they do. It is a form of arrested development; unable or unwilling to accept the reality of the world they live in, gay men buy children so they can play house. But matters are not so simple, and the resulting child will be raised without some historically central human experiences. It is not nice to say that makes them "less than human," but in the fully transhuman sense, it clearly makes them less human. I hasten to add--there are many experiences we may all have, in this sense, that make us "less human!" But even so, it seems like a terrible thing to deliberately inflict such things on biological humans who have not chosen transhumanism for themselves.
I really don't see this as a compelling concern.
The 'Human Experience' is incredibly diverse, to say the least. Is an orphan, someone raised in an institution and lacking any parents, less human because of it?
I find that impossible to entertain.
Orphans do poorly mostly because of selection effects, especially if we consider extend our consideration to those who were abandoned by less than scrupulous birth parents but had the misfortune of still inheriting their genes (the only thing they got out of that bum deal).
Another illustrative case is that comparative studies show that most of the harms of not being raised with a father in the household arise from deadbeat dads, those who lost their fathers to sickness or accidents come out as normal as anyone else.
I have great contempt for most so-called ethicists, and as far as I'm concerned, mutually positive sum transactions between consenting individuals should be accepted, if not celebrated. Humans are finicky things, and the idea of surrogacy doesn't mean that the woman who bore the child escapes the hormonal and emotional consequences despite knowing on an intellectual level that the baby growing in their wombs isn't genetically related to them. But if they signed a contract accepting this, then that's that. I understand surrendering the baby might be immensely painful, and is an entirely legitimate feeling. After all, nobody is particularly surprised by adoptive parents being fond of their adopted children.
If this woman agreed to birth the child, even if it was her eggs that were used in the process, then I do not see any room for her to complain about handing the baby to Altman and his husband. Not that there's any evidence of this, I'm not aware of someone weeping and wailing on television, bemoaning that a cruel near-billionaire has snatched a waif away from her breast. She might not even want any publicity.
I fail to see much reason to care if future humans are gestated in the 'ol biological 3D printer, or in an external replica of such. At the very least, it's a technology with massive positive potential in a world with declining birth rates, and anything that makes the process of reproduction less of a hassle has its merits. I don't see the downsides as being worth much airtime in this case.
I think so, yes, but I think you have already used the phrase "less human" in a way that I was trying, however perhaps poorly, to move away from. I mean it in the same way that is meant when someone, after a long day of grimy work, emerges from a shower and says, "Ah! I feel human again."
Consider it this way: is it a tragedy, to be orphaned? Like--if there was a shortage of orphans, would it be okay to deliberately make some?
Because yes--yes, of course!--it is better for a child to be raised by loving and involved adopted parents (of whatever kind) than to be institutionalized, "raised" in the absence of intimate family relationships. Adoption is a little bit (if you're willing to limit the metaphor) like chemotherapy, or post-trauma limb amputation. You do it to save people from greater harm, but it's not the sort of thing you would do absent the initial tragedy. You don't adopt children because adoption is totally cool and we should make more orphans so more people can do it, you adopt children because something tragic has occurred that can't be perfectly fixed but maybe we can mitigate the harm.
Well, sure, probably she can't complain, at the personal level: she agreed to be used. She rented out her womb. But whether it's good public policy to let people rent out their wombs is not just a question of personal liberty. If we let people sell their organs, or become prostitutes, or replace their brains with digital machinery, that doesn't just change the lives of those who have consented to the change. It changes the cultural landscape. (If we allow people to sell themselves into slavery, this would be bad for society even if each individual involved was fully consenting.) Hence my reference to egregores like Moloch--everyone can individually be doing what is actually best for themselves, given the circumstances, and this can give rise to horrifying circumstances that no individual within the system can, or would even choose, to change.
I would like transhumanism to be deliberate, in other words, rather than allowing it to emerge accidentally.
I'm not saying you should be mad if future humans are bio-printed. I'm saying bio-printed people won't be humans, so it's a better future where our decision to bio-print transhumans fully accounts for the differences that will emerge between evolved beings, and designed ones. Especially if (when) the designed ones become noticeably superior in every way, given our own tendency to use as commodities those beings we regard as beneath us. If transhumans share this tendency, such future humans as may remain will be in some trouble.
Obviously not if the only way to manufacture orphans required their parents to be put to the sword.
But even today, that's not the case. Let's consider the entirely plausible hypothetical where someone's preserved eggs and semen outlasted them. There are couples who are entirely infertile, and unable to have biologically related children. Would I object if they wanted to create a child by going to a gene bank and getting a surrogate to birth a child whose biological parents were no longer alive?
Not at all. I see nothing wrong with that, everyone wins. Even the kid, because as far as I'm concerned, it's far better to be alive than not, and that's while grappling with severe clinical depression. Life is good! More lives are good!
Would anything change if instead of a surrogate, the couple seeking to adopt used an artificial womb? Not as far as I'm concerned, assuming mature technology with no deleterious effects on the child.
I hope that it illustrates that its possible, and good to at least sometimes create orphans when demand exceeds supply.
And I'm entirely fine with this change in the social landscape, or at the very least, I won't seek to oppose when it conflicts with my desire to maximize human liberty. I understand why people might disagree, I just consider it none of their business what I or other sane adults get up to in our spare time, of our own volition.
If someone tries to stop me from enhancing myself, with my own funds and my own body and mind at stake, then I'm not a man easily moved to violence, but I'd be looking for a gun.
The alternative to radical transhumanism is growing old and infirm, my brain rotting away and becoming riddled with holes like cheese gnawed by microscopic rodents. If the alternative is the same death that murdered the 97 billion anatomically modern humans before us, I am willing to fight to live. There is no way that is feasible without transhumanism.
Fortunately, as far as I'm concerned, this unlikely to come to pass, and the bio-chauvinists and luddites are unlikely to stop all progress.
I acknowledge Moloch as the Great Enemy. I do not think surrogacy or artificial wombs feeds it, and certainly doesn't strengthen it more than it strengthens us.
This is sadly a lost cause. But even I want transhumanism to be optional, and I have no issue with people who don't seek to embrace it. If people want to cling to the baseline human form, let them. I'm for being generous to them, giving them food and shelter, outright UBI. All I ask is that they don't get in the way of those with higher ambitions. And if their excuse is that they can't let me do as I wish, when it doesn't directly harm them, then the only option is war. I don't want that, but I'll do it if necessary. The tree of liberty might need regular watering.
I disagree that such people aren't human. I do, however, think that they are a better class of human than we are. Smarter, stronger, likely more moral and less prone to our failings. I seek to become them, and if that's not an option, ennoble my descendants.
Are baseline humans quite rightly concerned by the possibility of such a superior clade? Hell yes.
If they're not slightly anxious about potential replacement by beings smarter and more powerful than you, then they're a moron. You will inevitably find yourself at their mercy.
I, however, think it is possible to carefully engineer such posthumans, being they biological or otherwise, to still have empathy for their precursors. To actually extend us mercy, when we're at theirs. Any who can join them, should. We should also coordinate to prevent a Molochian tragedy where the universe is colonized by ever spreading swarms of minimally sentient Von Neumanns. But this doesn't stop me from being ready to fight to be better, and more free.
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