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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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Wow, few things:

  1. Paragraphs help most writing by breaking it up into readable chunks. I'm not saying this will help here, but it does seem like the most easily addressable aspect of this ... thing?

  2. I'm not sure why you think you are liberal. Do you just like the way the word sounds? I can't figure it out. You are at most a "progressive" but I don't want to insult all progressives by lumping them in with you. I think you fit in best with communists / maoists / stalinists / etc. They share your belief in "everything will be great once I kill all the people on the right that disagree with me".

  3. Its always possible that you are a troll, and that is what some people will think here. I've become a big believer in a variant of Poe's law: doesn't matter how crazy it sounds there is someone out there that believes it. I'll treat the views you espouse seriously, even if the actual person writing them doesn't see them as serious.

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Most of the arguments I’ve read against transhumanism seem to boil down to some variant of:

I find that distasteful on a gut level.

I don’t find this convincing? If your best argument is “I don’t like it,” you may want to reassess your position.

If your best argument is “I don’t like it,” you may want to reassess your position.

"I don't like it" is the only argument ever uttered against any political position by the nature of political positions.

Any political statement is ultimately a moral statement about what ought to transpire which is ultimately an aesthetic statement about what good circumstances and good lives look like.

All of the arguments that could possibly exist for trans-humanism boil down to "I like it" and vice versa.

Wars have been fought over lesser sentiments than disgust.

All of the arguments that could possibly exist for trans-humanism boil down to "I like it" and vice versa.

Ah, but you forget the «otherwise you're getting made obsolete and reduced to praying for generosity of your superhuman overlords» argument, which is a pragmatic appeal to values of self-determination and self-preservation the other party plausibly (and in most cases, including this one, obviously) shares.

Transhumanism proper isn't about fetishistic bullshit like embedding chips into the skin, nor is it analogous to casual sex. It's not merely a moral hazard to conservatives, and doesn't really allow for smug prudish attitude.

It doesn't really matter that little people find transhumanism icky, except for those unfortunate enough to depend on their goodwill. The class that holds power will be augmented, by more or less icky technical means. One can argue it already has been.

The idea that normative beliefs are ultimately founded on aesthetic instincts is a strangely exuberant and infantile one to be proposed by a conservative. Maybe that's a stage preceding acknowledgement that your worldview has been deboonked in your own mind and only hinges on obstinacy. Generally, people think their oughts are derived from what is, and I'd charitably assume they are informed at least by what these people believe is factual truth.

I think IGI would say: What exactly is wrong with being "made obsolete and reduced to praying for generosity of your superhuman overlords", other than us not liking it?

For what it's worth, I agree with you that this is the likely consequence of avoiding transhumanism, but I think IGI is saying that both sides of the argument are simply pointing to consequences and pointing out how undesirable they are.