Radical Cyborgs's topics - tribe.net

OT: Call for Entries

2009-05-17T14:48:56Z

*Interesting* is an edgy new literary magazine with decided academic and mystical tendencies. It will come out as often as I feel like it, and its contents are limited to what I, the editor, personally find interesting. I'm looking for poetry, artwork, essays, interviews, book reviews... Anything is fair game but NOTHING BORING.

Here are some examples of things that interest me... The rising stars of contemporary American poetry. Controversies in the practice of anthropology. Exorcism techniques. The space where literary criticism meets psychoanalysis. Deconstructionism, and bad-mannered mockeries of deconstructionism. Practical Kabbalah. The causes of poverty. Theosophy. Shamanism. Unpredictable haiku.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

POETRY: No rhyming or metered verse. Previously unpublished only. Send up to three in the body of an email (no attachments).

NONFICTION: Send a brief informal email: just tell me who you are and what interests you (briefly). A writing sample would be helpful (no attachments!) I'm looking for engaging writing with a strong voice. I'm looking to provide a forum for work that doesn't fit anywhere: eccentric, highly personal pieces. Please send them to me.

FICTION: No fiction.

ARTWORK: I'm looking for all kinds of original artwork for use on the cover and as content. Graphic-designy, young, experimental a +, but nothing gross. Send links; if you don't have an online portfolio, snap some digital pics and upload them to flickr or photobucket and send me the url. Once again: no attachments.

All submissions and related correspondence to: editor@interestingmag.net. I can't currently offer compensation for accepted work, just publication.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

What cybernetic enhancement / device do you need?

2009-04-21T06:22:46Z

I bring from cyberpunk tribe this question: "What cybernetic enhancement/wearable device do you want?"

I think it would be very interesting to talk about it with radical cyborg folks and to listen your answers to that question.

My answer was:

"We are not free in this human society because we need to eat, to drink and to sleep. And even in a ideal techno-utopic society, it would be impossible to be free because we die.

If we want to be free, before thinking of other possibilities, we would have to remove those needs.

Think of alga, maybe you think it ’s a lower being, and it is in some ways, but it doesn ’t need to kill to live. Alga gets its energy directly from sun.

What kind of device would we need to insert inside of our human bodies to be a kind of intelligent seaweed?"

Jaffa sent a interesting comment:

“very cool thought strand there Nexus...

I'm not sure that it's just because of material needs that we aren't free. I'm not free to travel the world if I don't have money to pay the airlines. I'm not free to walk into any house I want because of social norms and laws.

However, I think you're right that the urgency to do many things, and the necessity of having to do anything would diminish a lot if we weren't constantly fighting just to stay alive. It would also reduce the ability some people to coerce or threaten other people into doing things out of fear... but it wouldn't remove that ability.

however there are other human needs such as avoidance of boredom (entertainment), social relationships, ability to inhabit space, etc. We would still need to preserve our freedom to do these things even with the bodily changes you recommend.”

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 19 replies

Sacramento comic creators make it to TOP 10 in Worldwide Competition!

2008-08-17T22:27:33Z

Hi, all. This is Ben Schwartz, a Sacramento comic store owner and small press comic publisher with ECV Press. I am also a co-writer with Hai-Na-Nu Saulque on our new project Hank Houston. We entered a worldwide competition to find the best new comic for Platinum Studios to produce and we have made it to the TOP 10.

From this point forward the winner will be determined by your votes. We need your support and help to spread the word! Please take a look at our website where you will find, concept sketches, alien designs, pin-ups, daily webcomics and a link to give us your vote! Give us a vote and tell your friends.

www.hankhouston.com

Thank you in advance for all of your support and help in taking Hank Houston to the TOP!

Ben Schwartz

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

who actually wants to be a cyborg?

2007-02-12T08:29:30Z

Hi there,
I'm actually doing some research which is looking at the increasingly blurred boundaries between humans and machines/technology and I need to know what people think about this area. Firstly I need to find out what definitions people adhere to such as what exactly is a cyborg. Can the definition only be extended to those that have artificial elements inserted into their body or should it be more relaxed and include all those that blur the boundaries by using wearable computers and the like? Also I would love to hear from anyone that wants to or is actually taking steps to become a cyborg.
It would be fantastic if you could help me out on this one,
thanks in advance,
Sarah

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 7 replies

Bjork...cyborg?

2006-12-09T00:55:38Z

Anybody see bjork's "All is Full of Love Video"? Crazy cyborg-sex...sooooo sweet!

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 2 replies

Borging it up?

2006-10-19T21:39:59Z

Just curious, what happened to this tribe?

Close to 200 members and no activity? O_o

(I screw robots)

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 7 replies

The Web of Dreams deserves your participation

2006-08-08T09:34:43Z

Sacred geometry, universal energy, IBVA experiments linked with real time video, the opportunity to study yourself and others in a lucid REM state with state of the art equipment, recorded experiences, thousands of lights, music and more create “The Web Of Dreams”! An Interactive art piece symbolizing the connection of all things and how what you choose affects everything. It is designed to generate life-changing breakthroughs!

Allow yourself while in the Web to work through your fear and be inspired to make new empowering choices that create more hope for your future! Those who choose to be wrapped and suspended in the Web may discover that resistance creates the persistence of fear but acceptance allows for the disappearance of fear. Shed your fixed beliefs and ways of being while inside the Web and step into a new world of increased hope and possibility!

The web will offer up personal truths, it will offer up hope and dreams, it will offer a true reflection of how what you choose (hope or fear) affects the outcome of your future in a clear representation in the present moment.

“The Web of Dreams” will be placed 1300 ft from the man at 1:30. We will be doing IBVA EXPEREMENTS ALL WEEK. This will give us a chance to look at what is going on in the brain as someone is experiencing what ever they might be experiencing, Think of the possabilities. If this intrest you at all I encourage you to look at our web site and find out more about what we are creating on the playa this year. please if you are interested RESPOND TO THIS POST. LET ME KNOW YOU ARE INTERESTED.

We got a late start on this idea but we know, with some help from the community, we can still pull it off (no fear only hope). We have most everything we need but if the opportunity to assist others in breaking through their fear and gaining more hope and possibility inspires you we invite you to become a part of the “Web Team” and help in anyway you can. We are looking for people to fill volunteer shifts, donate money (we still need over $1,000) or any supplies we still need please contact me on Tribe or directly:

CLAYTON AND TERRY ALLRED

801-523-7094

For more info on the “Web Of Dreams” or to donate few dollars today(every little bit will help)by Pay Pal check out the web site at: webofdreams.home.comcast.net/

I truly look forward to the most amazing experience on the Playa with you and may all of your fears serve you in the end to achieve all your hopes!

Love,

Clayton
posted by:

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 1 reply

when should we get cybernetic enhancements?

2006-07-09T19:58:54Z

So, judging from the popularity of the last thread, there's no doubt that the desire to be enhanced is there. The only thing is, what sort of time scale are you looking at? If you look at all the current technological devices that they impant in bodies at the moment (i'm tinking specifically of medical applications) they actually seem to impede human function rather than enhance it. Is this not just proof that you can never improve on the physciality of nature or is it just proof that technology isn't there yet?

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 1 reply

Urgent!!! Please help

2006-04-11T05:16:24Z

I am posting this everywhere I can, Please help us.
There are thousands of good people who could potentially lose their lives very soon.

Since the release of the information on the Sujiatun concentration camp in China, which is reported to do live organ harvesting on Falun Gong practicioners. More people have been stepping forward to reveal information. Recently, a veteran military doctor in the region of Shenyang said that the Sujiatun Concentration camp is just one of 36 such camps. Another camp in Jilin Province referred to as 672-S is said to hold over 120,000 people.

According to the Integrated Committee's announcement, transplant hospitals in China are now telling patients to "come in quickly" to get transplants. Patients are told that matching organs can be found at this time in as short as one or two days. The hospitals are also reported to say that, "it will be difficult after this batch of organs is used up."

We fear that there is going to be a mass execution to “hide the evidence” and get rid of witnesses. PLEASE HELP us, Falun Gong practitioners around the world are requesting an international investigation while there is still time.

This is the US petition, please sign it. It can save someone’s life.
http://www.fofg.org/act/act_petition.php?pid=1

you can also help by going here:
http://publicpetition.unvcc.com/UN/index.php
this is an easy, fill in the blank letter that with a click is automatically
sent to the senators and representatives of your choice
And it would also greatly help us if you would please pass this information on.

Thank you,
Joshua

You can learn more about this at:
The Epoch Times
http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html
Amnesty International
http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/chn-summary-eng
Falun Dafa Information Center
http://www.faluninfo.net/why/index.asp
or, you can ask me any questions you have by sending me a message.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence

2006-01-10T07:10:53Z

Hi
Just found out that GITS2 is to be released in the UK in Feb 06. Has anyone seen it?

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 5 replies

For Non Biocentric Transhumanists

2006-01-06T22:34:00Z

Please no biotech, genome obsessed transhumanists.

tribes.tribe.net/androidtheory

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 4 replies

Add yourself to frappr.com/transhumanists

2005-11-16T13:56:44Z

Frappr is a photo/Google maps mash-up that allows us to see where people are in our global community.

Take a second and add yourself: http://www.frappr.com/transhumanists

Its amazing where there appear to be a critical mass of transhumanists, with nothing happening on the ground (f-t-f) yet.

--------------------------------------------
James Hughes Ph.D.
Executive Director
World Transhumanist Assoc. Inst. for Ethics & Emerging Tech.
http://transhumanism.org http://ieet.org
director@transhumanism.org director@ieet.org
Editor, Journal of Evolution and Technology
http://jetpress.org

Mailing Address: Box 128, Willington CT 06279 USA
(office) 860-297-2376

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

igargoyle.com - cyborg and wearable computing news

2005-10-30T17:28:19Z

hey guys, just found this tribe! nice.

i run http://igargoyle.com/ which has news on cyborgs, cyberpunks, wearable computing, and robotics. check it out!

i'm also looking for other writers. let me know if you're interested.

nym

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 2 replies

Call for Proposals: Enhancement & Rights, May 26-28, 2006, Stanford CA USA

2005-10-28T03:19:37Z

"Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights"

May 26-28, 2006

Stanford University Law School, Stanford, California

http://ieet.org/HEHR/

Organized by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies http://ieet.org

Co-Sponsors*: Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences

*Sponsors list in formation

Much of the criticism of enhancement technologies has focused on the potential for increased discrimination against women, people of color, the poor, the differently enabled, or "unenhanced" humans. Some bioethicists have proposed a global treaty to ban enhancement technologies as "crimes against humanity."

Defenders of enhancement argue that the use of biotechnologies is a fundamental human right, inseparable from the defense of bodily autonomy, reproductive freedom, free expression and cognitive liberty. While acknowledging real risks from genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive enhancement, defenders of enhancement believe that bans on the consensual use of new technologies would be an even greater threat to human rights.

Health care, disability and reproductive rights activists have argued that access to technology empowers full and equal participation in society. On the same grounds a generalized right to "technological empowerment" might connect defenders of enhancement technologies with disability activists, reproductive rights activists with would-be parents seeking fertility treatments, the transgendered with aesthetic body modifiers, drug policy reformers and anti-aging researchers with advocates for dignity in dying.

Yet, what, if any, limits should be considered to human enhancement? On what grounds can citizens be prevented from modifying their own genes or brains? How far should reproductive rights be extended? Might enhancement reduce the diversity of humanity in the name of optimal health? Or, conversely, might enhancements inspire such an unprecedented diversity of human beings that they strain the limits of liberal tolerance and social solidarity? Can we exercise full freedom of thought if we can't exercise control over our own brains using safe, available technologies? Can we ensure that enhancement technologies are safe and equitably distributed? When are regulatory efforts simply covert, illiberal value judgments?

Between the ideological extremes of absolute prohibition and total laissez-faire that dominate popular discussions of human enhancement there are many competing agendas, hopes and fears. How can the language of human rights guide us in framing the critical issues? How will enhancement technologies transform the demands we make of human rights?

With the Human Enhancement and Human Rights conference we seek to begin a conversation with the human rights community, bioethicists, legal scholars, and political activists about the relationship of enhancement technologies to human rights, cognitive liberty and bodily autonomy. It is time to begin the defense of human rights in the era of human enhancement.

Examples of topics that might be addressed:

Day One: Human Enhancement and Control of the Body

For instance, papers might address:
- How much morphological diversity can the polity sustain?
- Animal-human chimeric enhancement and animal rights
- Reproductive cloning: Irrelevant, futile or an important battle?
- Disability rights and cyborg assistive technology
- Life extension and the right to die: Two sides of the same coin?
- Germline engineering and the consent of the future generations
- Procreative liberty and the genetic enhancement of children
- The medicalization of transgenderism
- Cosmetic surgery and future body modification

Day Two: Cognitive Enhancement Technology

For instance, papers might address:
- Enhancing capacities for citizenship
- Social equality and cognitive enhancement
- Freedom of thought as a basis for rights to use cognitive enhancement
- Psychoactive drug law reform
- Religious liberty and entheogens
- Regulating the risks of neural implants and brain machines
- The myth of the "authentic self"
- Challenges to human personhood and citizenship from cognitive enhancement
- Use of technologies of personality modification in criminal rehabilitation

Instructions for Submitting Presentations

Include all of the following information in a two-page proposal for your presentation

- Title of presentation
- Type of presentation: paper, panel, poster, workshop
- Abstract (25-100 words) for inclusion in the conference program
- Media to be used and audiovisual equipment needed (if any).
- Designated contact person (only one per proposal)
- Complete name, title, organization, address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address for each session presenter
- Brief biographical sketch of each presenter

Please submit your proposal electronically to the conference chair James Hughes at director@ieet.org

The presenters of accepted proposals will need to pre-register for the conference by April 15, 2006 at the reduced rate of $100 in order to be included in the program.

For more information please contact the conference chair James Hughes Ph.D., Public Policy Studies, Trinity College, Williams 229B, 300 Summit St., Hartford CT 06106, james.hughes@trincoll.edu, (860) 297-2376.

Timeline for Presenters

Proposals due by: January 1, 2006

Notification of acceptance: March 1, 2006

Deadline for pre-registration by presenters: April 15, 2006

Publications

You may submit your full paper for consideration for publication in The Journal of Evolution and Technology. A special issue on Human Enhancement and Human Rights will be published in the Spring of 2006 [http://jetpress.org/#Rights] but papers will also be welcome on these topics at any time.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Greetings

2005-10-06T17:44:37Z

fellow cyborgs. It warms my circuits to see other cyborgs here on earth engaging the political process. There is much humans can learn from us. Humans are doing a poor job of running things on this planet, and could use all the help we can give them.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Invitation to technoliberation list

2005-08-30T19:37:09Z

Some Radical Cyborgs, techno-progressives, democratic transhumanists and so on have started the TechnoLiberation list. Y'all are welcome:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/technoliberation/

Using technology to deepen democracy, using democracy to ensure
technology benefits us all.

The technoliberation list is a welcoming space for conversation,
collaboration, organization, and debate among liberal, social, and
radical democrats from around the world all of whom share the sense
that emerging, converging, disruptive global technological
developments threaten unprecedented harm while they promise
unprecedented emancipation for humanity. We want to think about the
ways in which technology provokes us to rethink and reimagine the left
wing of the possible.

Some of the list's principals are also involved in the Cyborg Democracy blog:

http://cyborgdemocracy.net/blogger.html

------------------------
James Hughes Ph.D.
Executive Director
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
http://ieet.org
Williams 229B, Trinity College
300 Summit St., Hartford CT 06106
(office) 860-297-2376
director(at)ieet.org

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Peak Oil?

2005-08-29T07:45:25Z

After picking up James Kunstler's "the long emergency", it forced me to consider how are we to deal with a peak in oil production and a resulting increase in energy costs. Unfortunately the continuing success of Moore's Law (and accelerating change in general) relies on cheaply available energy, so I believe it is vital that transhumanists become active in seeking and advocating for sustainable sources of energy.

Perhaps if more conservative american politicians were convinced of the possibility and desirability of life extension, they might be more willing to work towards sustainable energy policy. After all, if you believe you are going to be dead or raptured soon, why care about the environment and the future of human civilization. As Mr de Grey stated, a society with an expectation of indefinite life span is a more risk averse society, and I can think of no interest more dear to most politicians (and most people in general) than self interest.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

New Tribe: "Hardware"

2005-05-21T13:37:28Z

Hardware. Where our goal is to bring together people for the simple and elegant reason of building cool shit. Or just shit in general.

22gunsonfire.tribe.net

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 1 reply

New Tribe: "Polymaths: Universal Humans"

2005-03-22T20:37:57Z

universalhumans.tribe.net

A polymath (also known as a polyhistor) is a person who excels in multiple fields, particularly in both arts and sciences. The most common term for this is Renaissance man. Other terms for this are Homo universalis and Uomo Universale which in Latin and Italian respectively is translated as "Universal Man". Many notable polymaths lived during the European Renaissance period, and a rounded approach to education was typical of the ideals of the humanists of the time. A gentleman or courtier of that era was expected to speak several languages, play a musical instrument, write poetry and so on, thus fulfilling the Renaissance ideal. During the Renaissance, Baldassare Castiglione, in his The Book of the Courtier, wrote a guide to being a polymath. On the other hand "polymath" may be applied more strictly, taking Leonardo da Vinci or Goethe as prime examples, and requiring a universality of approach. A polymath may not necessarily be classed as a genius, which is a more debatable classification; and certainly a genius may not display the breadth to qualify as a polymath. Albert Einstein is a prime example of a genius who was not a polymath.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

my book More Than Human is now out!

2005-03-09T15:58:52Z

As some of you know, I spent a good chunk of the last two years working on a book. Well, it’s out! The book is titled “More Than Human” and it’s a non-fiction look at the potential to use biotechnology to make people stronger, smarter, and longer lived.

You can read about what's going on with the book, including recent reviews and upcoming events, at http://www.morethanhuman.org

Now I’m asking for YOUR help to make the book a success! There are five things you can do to help me:

1) BUY THE BOOK!

Click here to buy a copy of my book.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0767918436

The more you buy, the higher I’ll rate on Amazon and possibly on other lists. The higher I rank, the more other people will buy the book!

2) BUY RELATED BOOKS!

If you buy related books on Amazon, people who look at those books will see a link to More Than Human! So if you’ve been thinking about buying any of the following books, buy them now!

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0316172324/

Collapse by Jared Diamond
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0670033375/

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0393317552

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&path=tg/detail/-/076790818X/

The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0618005838/

or any of Amazon’s best selling popular science books
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=morethanhuman1-20&path=tg/new-for-you/top-sellers/-/books/75

3) SUBMIT A REVIEW TO AMAZON!

Once you’ve read the book (or now if you’ve read it already), go back to the Amazon page and write up a review. Don't feel obliged to make it a 5 star review. Users can sniff out phoney reviews. Just write what you honestly think.

4) POST TO YOUR BLOG!

If you have a blog, including a livejournal, post a link to the Amazon page for my book to your blog. That’ll cause the book to pop up on sites that track which books are being most discussed and most linked to in the blogosphere. (Like Technorati's BookTalk: http://www.technorati.com/live/products.html )

5) FORWARD THIS MAIL!

If you know others who you think would be interested in the book, tell them about it or forward this mail! Especially if they're people I don't know.

Thank you all for your help. With your help and a little luck, More Than Human may get out there in front of a lot of people.
mez

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Brainwave cap Success

2004-12-07T13:45:20Z

Well its getting closer all the time.

Here is another article from today's news on a new cap with as few as 64 electrodes. These are human trials, which show remarkable success with serious implications.

'Brainwave' cap controls computer
Tuesday, 7 December, 2004, 10:30 GMT

The cursor movements were recorded: blue is slowest, and red fastest.

A team of US researchers has shown that controlling devices with the brain is a step closer. Four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, successfully moved a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes.

Previous research has shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain.
{excerpt}
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4074869.stm

And this time the effort is in my back yard, very very cool. I may have to make contact.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/heal..._thought07.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci...ght7dec07.story

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

New movement to co-opt corporations for change

2004-11-14T14:53:13Z

New movement to co-opt corporations for change

I have a passion for life - for my life, my kids ’lives, and all of our lives …so I have to share my passion and my vision (that follows) with you …hoping that it might lead you to more hope-filled, joyful and sustainable lives.

First, for perspective, the next paragraph is the important part of world history in a single paragraph. Then, I hope to enlist you in joining the Aikido Activism Movement, a movement that can face today ’s deepest challenges with the most empowered approach to change.

THE IMPORTANT PART OF WORLD HISTORY IN A PARAGRAPH
Humanity has passed from a first great era of primarily physically-mediated conflict to one today of primarily economically-mediated conflict (see for example, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins - http://www.tinyurl.com/4tebc or http://www.tinyurl.com/5t8j9 ) and NOW we can and must advance to an era of primarily reason-mediated conflict. In each of the earlier eras people by and large did the best they could with what they had (as they will today and in the future only now with much better tools for communication which MUST be used for increased understanding, which -- fortunately -- can naturally translate to caring). The problem of capitalism today was less a problem when it was invented as a solution to feudal imperialism (with regular physical conflict). Economic imperialism has yet further removed the suffering from view of the beneficiaries of economic imperialism; but, in order to link with economic subjects, a global network has been built that can actually be used to bring people together -- and while inter-tribal, international, and intercorporate engagements in ages of primarily physically-mediated and primarily economically-mediated conflict have a history of being quite exploitive (if not deadly), engagements in the dawning age of reason can evolve to be much more like a dance, yet still a dance of joy or survival depending on one's viewpoint. The key should be seeing the power of inclusion, which can bring joy and unity -- replacing profit maximization with fruition maximization as a necessity for sustainability/survival and joy in a globalizing era.

My passions have been channeled into writing about a systematic solution to this systemic problem of today: that corporations do both the most good and the most bad, but it is their ability to hide bad things in the complexity of corporate behavior and in the popular but treacherous myth they promulgate -- "greed is good" -- that has led to essentially all major world problems.

Efforts to overpower corporations with grass roots public fervor or death-of-their-excesses by a thousand cuts from non-profits or NGOs appear to be having little effect, so why not turn the tools of corporations (and their economic might) against their regressive practices? This is Aikido Activism, my passion that I hope will become yours in a budding movement that everyone should want to join - and that anyone and everyone with a computer and Internet access is empowered to advance by sharing parts of the puzzle (how Aikido Activism can be applied in their field and applying it), supporting other Aikido Activists, getting the word out electronically, etc.

Change is possible. Find out who some Aikido Activists are who are working for progressive transformation of outworn social traditions –and please share any comments, ideas, connections, at the new wiki-website http://aikidoactivism.xwiki.com/ where there is a growing amount of information begun to be collected and organized online to advance the Aikido Progressive Movement – to understand our past and build a promising opportunity for our future.

Spidey

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

New Tribe: Existential Risks

2004-11-11T17:51:12Z

New Tribe: Existential Risks
existentialrisks.tribe.net

Because of accelerating technological progress, humankind may be rapidly approaching a critical phase in its history. In addition to well-known threats such as a nuclear holocaust, the prospects of radically transforming technologies like nanotech systems and machine intelligence present us with unprecedented opportunities and risks. Our future, and whether we will have a future at all, may well be determined by how we deal with these challenges.

This tribe is an open forum for a general discussion of human extinction scenarios - a discussion of all possible risks, their viability or implausibility, and what we can do to avoid them. Contributing tribe members are highly encouraged to read Nick Bostrom's essay, "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards" which can be found at http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Please help me promote Citizen Cyborg

2004-10-16T19:11:45Z

Friends,

As you may know, my book about transhumanism and democracy, Citizen Cyborg, is coming out in two weeks: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0813341981/

I'd like to request your helping in promoting it. A couple ideas:

1. I'll be traveling some in the coming months and I'm trying to set up book store readings/signings. In the NYC/NJ/New England area I could probably make an event with little advance planning. Outside of New England my travel plans currently are:

- October 23-24 - Washington D.C.
- October 28-31 - Philadelphia, PA
- November 6-7 - Chicago
- November 14-16 - Portsmouth NH
- November 25-28 - Washington D.C.
- January 13-15 - Santa Fe, New Mexico
- March 4-6 - New York City

So if you are in one of those places, and would like to help me arrange something, let me know.

2. The book's visibility on Amazon is partly determined by whether people have recommended it as an "in addition to" or "instead of" for other books. Citizen Cyborg's ISBN is 0813341981, and you just put it in the little box on another book's page, like Andy Clark's Natural Born Cyborgs http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195148665/ or Stock's Redesigning Humans http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/061806026X/

3. I'm a scintillating interviewee, full of pithy quotable opinions. If there is a local radio talk show that you think might be good call/email them the material below, and tell them to book me. Make sure to tell them about Fukuyama's assertion that transhumanism is the most dangerous idea in the world.

Thanks for your help. We have a couple explicitly transhumanist books coming out in the coming year, such as Ramez Naam's More than Human, so let's all help get them to the top of the charts. Starting with mine.
;-)

----------------------------------
Dr. J. Hughes
Author of Citizen Cyborg
(Westview Press, 2004)
http://cyborgdemocracy.net/citizencyborg.htm
(phone) 860-428-1837
jhughes@changesurfer.com

------------------------------------------------

SAMPLE EMAIL TO A LOCAL RADIO STATION

Dear (Program Director/Show Producer),

There is someone who I think would be great on [name of show]: Dr. James Hughes, the author of the book Citizen Cyborg thats coming out November 1.

His book is about the growing debate over "transhumanism," the idea that people should be allowed to become "more than human." Recently Francis Fukuyama, a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins who is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, wrote in the journal Foreign Policy that transhumanism was the most dangerous idea in the world.

I've heard Hughes speak (he produces a weekly radio program that's on the web) and he would make a great guest.

Here are the details about his book:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Title: Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future

Author: James J. Hughes Ph.D.

ISBN: 0813341981

Publisher: Westview Press

Release date: November 1

Book Website: http://cyborgdemocracy.net/citizencyborg.htm

Bio: Dr. Hughes teaches Health Policy in the public policy program at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut. Dr. Hughes received his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1994. He is a member of the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at Yale University.
Dr. Hughes has taught health policy at the University of Chicago and the University of Connecticut. He serves as Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association, an organization advocating the use of technology to transcend the limitations of the human body. He also produces the weekly public affairs radio show Changesurfer Radio, writes the Change Surfing column at Betterhumans.com, and contributes to the Cyborg Democracy blog.

Publicist: Jason Brantley Jason.Brantley@perseusbooks.com

Endorsements for Citizen Cyborg:

"A challenging and provocative look at the intersection of human self-modification and political governance. Everyone wondering how society will be able to handle the coming possibilities of AI and Genomics should read Citizen Cyborg."
(Dr. Gregory Stock, author of Redesigning Humans)

"A powerful indictment of the anti-rationalist attitudes that are dominating our national policy today. Hughes brings together ideas from religion, history, science, bioethics, and politics in a unique way. The book sparkles with insights, challenges, and new ways of looking at the problems our society is facing today. He is a worthy guide to a more humane future."
(John Lantos M.D., author of Do We Still Need Doctors)

"James Hughes is a sober, insightful, useful and optimistic thinker about the astonishing changes in store for human nature. Citizen Cyborg is an important contribution to the rapidly moving debate on human enhancement."
(Joel Garreau, author of While God Wasn't Watching: The Future of Human
Nature)

"A fascinating tour of the coming intersection of politics, nanotechnology, and biology, by the leading champion of Transhumanism.
Anyone who wants to understand the tumultuous bio-politics of the next decade should read this book."
(Gregory Pence, author of Who's Afraid of Human Cloning, Professor, Philosophy and School of Medicine, University of Alabama Medical
School.)

"Citizen Cyborg is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the dangers posed by radical transhumanism. James Hughes's passionate and skilled advocacy forces us to confront the kind of society we want for ourselves and our children."
(Wesley J. Smith, author of Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World and Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America)

Summary:

In the next fifty years, life spans will extend well beyond a century.
Our senses and cognition will be enhanced. We will have greater control over our emotions and memory. Our bodies and brains will be surrounded by and merged with computer power. The limits of the human body will be transcended as technologies such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering converge and accelerate. With them, we will redesign ourselves and our children into varieties of posthumanity.

This prospect is understandably terrifying to many. A loose coalition of groups-including religious conservatives, disability rights and environmental activists-has emerged to oppose the use of genetics to enhance human beings. And with the appointment of conservative philosopher Leon Kass, an opponent of in-vitro fertilization, stem cell research and life extension, to head the President's Council on Bioethics, and with the recent high-profile writings by authors like Francis Fukuyama and Bill McKibben, this stance has become more visible-and more infamous-than ever before.

In the opposite corner a loose transhumanist coalition is mobilizing in defense of human enhancement, embracing the ideological diversity of their intellectual forebears in the democratic and humanist movements.
Transhumanists argue that human beings should be guaranteed freedom to control their own bodies and brains, and to use technology to transcend human limitations.

Identifying the groups, thinkers and arguments in each corner of this debate, bioethicist and futurist James Hughes argues for a third way, which he calls democratic transhumanism. This approach argues that we will achieve the best possible posthuman future when we ensure technologies are safe, make them available to everyone, and respect the right of individuals to control their own bodies.

Hughes offers fresh and controversial answers for many other pressing biopolitical issues-including cloning, genetic patents, human genetic engineering, sex selection, drugs, and assisted suicide-and concludes with a concrete political agenda for pro-technology progressives, including expanding and deepening human rights, reforming genetic patent laws, and providing everyone with healthcare and a basic guaranteed income.

A groundbreaking work of social commentary, Citizen Cyborg illuminates the technologies that are pushing the boundaries of humanness-and the debate that may determine the future of the human race itself.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

www.nanoaging.com news about AI

2004-10-02T03:22:46Z

www.nanoaging.com news about AI

well sometime.. ;-)

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Smart Mobs for Parecon

2004-06-27T14:36:50Z

A scalable social network system using Smart Mobs infrastructure like phones and text messaging can be used for participatory economics:

1) In this system, goods and services are produced according to a plan developed by an iterative procedure of democratic, participatory consumers and producers councils. Smart mobs could optimize the communications and participation at this level.

2) Parecon businesses could use smart mobs by creating a pool of job offers and demands to distribute balanced job complexes in a decentralized way.

I would like to get in touch with people interested in making this an opensource sourceforge project so if you are, or know any one or any anarchist tech collectives that might be interested, let's talk about it/contact me/join the "Participatory Economics" tribe.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 2 replies

Transvision 2004 - Aug 5-8, 2004 - Toronto - Register Today!

2004-06-18T16:41:37Z

TRANSVISION 2004

Art and Life in the Posthuman Era

August 6 to 8, 2004

University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sponsored by the World Transhumanist Association

Co-sponsored by the Extropy Institute, Immortality Institute, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Longevity Meme, Changesurfer Radio, Betterhumans.com, Transhumanist Arts and Culture and The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology.

For more information and to register:
http://www.transhumanism.org/tv/2004/

Friday August 6, 2004 (JJR McLeod Auditorium)

1:00 PM to 3:00 PM - Introduction to Transhumanism seminar for journalists

3:00 PM to 6:00 PM - Registration

5:30 PM to 6:30 PM - Reception

6:30 PM to 8:00 PM - Buffet dinner

8:00 PM to 9:30 PM - Keynote address by Steve Mann (JJR McLeod Auditorium)

Saturday August 7, 2004 (JJR McLeod Auditorium)

8:30 AM to 9:30 AM - Registration and breakfast

9:30 AM to 10:30 AM - Opening Keynote Address:

Aubrey de Grey "The feasibility and desirability of indefinite youth: recent advances from unexpected quarters"

9:00 AM to 4:00 PM - Art exhibits and displays (Location: JJR. McLeod Auditorium Foyer)

10:45 AM to 11:45 AM

Panel 1: Managing Risks
- Mike Deering "Telluris of Cyborgs: Safety Passage through Great Filter of Evolution" (with Pavel Vassiliev)
- Michael Vassar "Nanotech Safety is AI Safety"
- Mark Walker "The Ship of Fools: An Argument for Surviving Apocalyptic Risks through Cognitive and Ethical Enhancements"

Panel 2: The Emerging Transhuman Culture
- Jende Huang "Humanism and The Culture Wars"
- Dale Carrico "Vulgar Biocentrism Among the Technophiles"
- Kip Werking "The Transhuman Condition"

Panel 3: Public Policy
- Anders Sandberg "Transformative Technology, Patient Culture and Health Policy"
- Robin Hanson "The Future of Debate"
- Simon Smith "Automatic for the People: How Humans Can Benefit from the Rise of Machines"

12:00 PM 1:00 PM - JBS Haldane Award Banquet

Address by Ron Bailey

1:15 PM to 2:45 PM

Panel 1: Nanotech
- Mike Treder "Making a Safe Transition into the Nano Era"
- Tihamer Toth-Fejel "Self-Replicating NanoMachines: A Kinematic Cellular Automata Approach"

Panel 2: Writing and Publishing Transhumanist Books
- Ramez Naam, author of More than Human (2005, Doubleday/Random House)
- Ron Bailey, author of Liberation Biology (2005, Prometheus)
- James Hughes, author of Citizen Cyborg (2004, Westview/Basic)

Panel 3: Babies and Puppies
- Linda MacDonald Glenn "Vexation of Viability: Arbitrary or Valid? (Legal and Ethical Issues in ARTs)"
- Jeff Medina "Transpuppyism? The Status of Non-Humans in Transhumanist Ethics"

3:00 PM to 4:30 PM

Panel 1: Social Change
- Phil Goetz "Calibrating Accelerating Change"
- Mark Hopkins "The Fourth Wave"

Panel 2: Art, Reproduction and the Future
- Linda Wallace "Female Infertility and Reproductive Technology: An Artist's Perspective"
- Monica Bock "Art and the Maternal Experience"

Panel 3: Human Enhancement
- Tihamer Toth-Fejel "A Critical Look at Leon Kass and Transhumanists on Ageless Bodies: Enhancement and Degradation of the Human Person"
- Natasha Vita-More "Posthuman Prototypes Debate Their Own Design"

8:00 PM to 9:30 PM - Keynote presentation by Stelarc (JJR McLeod Auditorium)

Sunday August 8, 2004 (JJR McLeod Auditorium)

8:30 AM to 9:30 AM - Breakfast

9:30 AM to 10:30 AM

Panel 1: Aging
- Joao Pedro de Magalhães "The genetic network of human ageing: a system-level approach"
- Rafal Smigrodski "How to buy new mitochondria for your old body"
- Aubrey de Grey "Removing toxic aggregates that our cells can't break down"

Panel 2: The Future of Intelligence
- Michael Anissimov "Enhancing Intelligence; from Neurohackers to Self-Improving Ais"
- Sean Kearney "Can Social Software Increase Human Intelligence?"
- Stelarc "Avatar and Machine Intelligence"

Panel 3: TBA
- Richard Maxwell "The Conscious Clock"

10:45 AM to 11:45 AM

Panel 1: The Future of the Body
- Kenneth Evans "Random Feed Switch Every Twenty Five: Gender and Technology in Transmetropolitan"
- Robin Zebrowski "Posthuman AI: How Recognizing the Importance of the Body Will Change Things"

Panel 2: Uploading and Immortality
- Ben Hyink "Toward Non-Fatal Uploading: A New Framework"
- Allen Randall "Quantum Miracles and Immortality"
- Peter Passaro "Reimagining Uploading"

Panel 3: Transhuman Art and Aesthetics
- Simon Levy "The Fractal Beauty of Emergence: Re-envisioning Intelligent Behavior in Man and Machine"
- George Dvorsky "The Impact of Enhanced Humans on the Future of Art and Expression."
- Jerry Paffendorf ”Digital Worlds: Networked Online Gaming as Extension Not Diversion”

12:00 PM 1:15 PM - Closing Address:

Nick Bostrom "Human Enhancement: Answering the Why Question"

------------------------
James J. Hughes Ph.D.
Executive Director
World Transhumanist Association
http://transhumanism.org
Box 128, Willington CT 06279 USA
secretary@transhumanism.org

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Transhumanism without transhumanists?

2004-06-15T14:32:11Z

It's interesting to note how more and more humanists (and some persons inside of transhumanist forums) think the so-called transhumanist movement is a hindrance and not a help for a evolution of human being.

Present spokespersons of transhumanism should be more aware of what kind of reactions provoke some eccentric attitudes able to get attention of media but giving to transhumanist project a *bad press* between potential allies as open humanists.

This article by Austin Dacey from *Free Inquiry* magazine is a example of a open humanist:

The New Perfectionism
by Austin Dacey

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dacey_24_4.htm

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

fzzzzz

2004-04-12T11:19:21Z

) (
) (
) # (
) (
) (

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 5 replies

Reconciling transhumanism with humanism

2004-04-01T02:38:21Z

Can someone please direct me to a philosophical delineation of transhumanism? Specifically I am looking for any sort of epistemic musing on the ontology of transhumanism and any potential conflicts in ideology or philosophy between contemporary humanistic principles and transhumanism.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 13 replies

TV04 Taking Shape

2004-03-23T22:54:13Z

TransVision 2004, the World Transhumanist Association's annual conference, is starting to take shape and it's looking to be an incredible event. The conference will be held this summer in Toronto from August 6-8 with this year's theme being "Art and Life in the Posthuman Era." Confirmed keynote speakers to date include Howard Bloom, a global brain theorist and well-known speaker on co-evolution and convergence of technology, art and culture, and Steve Mann, Canadian cyborg and the developer of the EyeTap wearable and mediated reality. Other confirmed speakers include biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey, erotic digital artist Tsubasa, transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom, our very own transhumanist bioethicist and activist James Hughes, Extropian artist Natasha Vita-More, developmental singularitarian John Smart, and the Center for Responsibile Nanotechnology's Mike Treder. We're also looking to get artist Stelarc and aging expert S. Jay Olshansky. And that's just the start, as we've got 5 months to go and we're sure to attract more notable speakers. For more information about TV04 visit the Website. If you'd like to present or perform, be sure to send in your proposal.
www.transhumanism.org/tv/2004/

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 1 reply

The Cyborg Mother: A Breached Boundary

2004-03-23T20:20:05Z

CTHEORY THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE
http://www.ctheory.net *** __________________________________________________

The Cyborg Mother: A Breached Boundary
========================================================
~Jaimie Smith-Windsor~

Why not tell a story in a new way? Why not think in unfinished ways?
Without fixity? Without finality? Ask questions without answers.
Without presuppositions and causes and effects and linear time. Why not. Why not "whisk yourself away from your comfortable
position?"[1] When we live in a world of fractured identities and broken boundaries, why not rebel against yourself, or the
technologies of "yourself" and discover new ways of being? Reconcile that everything is being shattered. Identity is being shattered and
technology is picking up the pieces, and there stands before us an infinitude of recombinant possibility. Rewriting history becomes possible:

The time of history passes through the stories of individuals:
their birth, their experience...[2]

Full at: http://rekombinant.org/article.php?sid=2251

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

human brains to mars

2004-03-20T23:21:44Z

this guy wants to pop the brains out of those useless body shells and hook them up to computers for the trip to mars.
I think he's actually serious:
http://marshallbrain.com/mission-to-mars.htm

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Pleasure, desire, transhumanism and cyborgs

2004-03-13T16:07:18Z

Following Dale Carrico' research, I miss to explore connections between transhumanism, cyborgs, desire and pleasure.

Technocentrism is doing we forget pleasure as a possible goal of cyborgization. It can be interesting to reread some of last Foucault writings from a cyborg point of view.

I have'not the original. I did a translation of a part of "Michel Foucault, an interview: Sex, power and the politics of the identity":

- You suggest in your books that the sexual release is not in such a way to place in game the private truths on itself exactly or on its desire of that an element of the definition process and construction of the desire. Which are the practical implications of this distinction?
- What I would like to say I am that, in my opinion, the homosexual movement today has more necessity of an art of living of that of a science or a knowledge scientific (or pseudoscientific) of that is the sexuality. The sexuality is part of our behavior. It is part of the freedom in our fruition of this world. The freedom is something that we ourselves we create - it is our proper creation, or better, it it is not the discovery of a private aspect of our desire. We must understand that, with our desires, through them, if they restore new forms of relations, new forms of love and new forms of creation. The sex is not a fatality; it is a possibility to accede to a creative life.

- In the deep one, it is the conclusion to which you arrives when he says that we must try to become us gays and not in contenting them in reaffirming our identity of homosexual.
- Yes, he is this. We do not have to discover that we are homosexuals.

- Nor to discover what this wants to say?
- Accurately, we must, before, create a life way gay. One to become gay.

- and he is something without limits?
- Yes, clearly. When we examine the different ways for which the people have lived deeply its sexual freedom - the way that they have created its works of art, forcibly we evidence that the sexuality such which we know it today becomes one of the sources most productive of our society and our being. I think that we would have to understand the sexuality in one another direction: the world considers that the sexuality constitutes the secret of the creative cultural life; it is plus a process that if she inscribes in the necessity, for we today, to create a new cultural life, under the conduction of our sexual choices.

- In practical, the one of the consequences of this attempt to place in game the secret she is that the homosexual movement was not more far of the one than the claim of relative civil laws or human to the sexuality. This wants to say that the sexual release if has limited to the level of a requirement of sexual tolerance.
- Yes, but it is a aspect that is necessary to affirm, of beginning, an individual to have the possibility - and the right - to choose its sexuality. The rights of the individual in that it says respect to the sexuality are important, and more still the places where they are not respected. She is necessary, at this moment, not to consider as decided these problems. Since the beginning of the Sixties, if it produced a true process of release. This process was very beneficial in that it says respect to the mentalities, still that the situation definitively is not stabilized. We must still give a step ahead, we think I. I believe that one of the stabilization factors will be the creation of new forms of life, relations, friendships in the societies, the art, the culture of new forms that if restored by means of our sexual choices, ethical and politics. We not only must in also defending them, but in affirming them, and not only affirming while identities to them, but while creative force.

- Many of the things that you say remember, for example, the attempts of the movement feminist, whom it desires to create its proper language and its proper culture.
- Yes, but I am not I hold of that we let us must create our proper culture. We must create a culture. We must carry through cultural creations. But there, we must in striking them with the problem of the identity. I am unaware of what we would make to produce these creations and am unaware of which forms take these creations. For example, I am not of all certain of whom the best form of literary creation that can reach the homosexuals is the romances homosexuals.

- In fact, we ourselves we would not agree to saying this. It would be to leave of a essencialismo that in them we must necessarily prevent.
- It is truth. What it is understood, for example, for "painting gay"? E, however, I am certain that from our sexual choices, from our ethical choices I can create something that has a certain relation with the homossexualidade. But this thing does not have to be a translation of the homossexualidade in the domain of music, of the painting - what I know, again? - that I do not think that this is possible.

- How you see the extraordinary proliferation, after the ten or fifteen last years, of the practical masculine homosexuals, the sensualização, if you prefer, of certain parts until then neglected of the body and the expression of new desires? I think, I am clearly, in the characteristics most surprising that we call films ghetto-pornôs, the S/M clubs [ sadomasoquismo ] or of firstfucking. Is this a simple extension, in one another sphere, of the general proliferation of the sexual speeches after séc. XIX, or before they are about developments of another type, proper of the current historical context?
- In fact, what we would like to speak here is necessarily, I think I, of the innovations that imply these practical. We consider, for example, "sub-culture S/M", to retake an expression expensive our friend Gayle Rubin[ 1 ]. I do not think that the movement of practical the sexual ones has that to see with placing in game the discovery of trends deeply hidden sado-masochists in our unconscious one. I think that the S/M is more than this, I am the real creation of new possibilities of pleasure, that had not been imagined previously. The idea of that the S/M is on with a deep violence and that this practical is a way to liberate this violence, to give solution to the aggression is a dull idea. We know very well that these people are not aggressive between them; that they invent new possibilities of pleasure using certain strange parts of the body - erotizando the body. I believe that we have a creation form, of deposit of creativity, which the main characteristic is what I call dessexualização of the pleasure. The idea of that the physical pleasure always provém of the sexual pleasure and the idea of that the sexual pleasure is the base of all the possible pleasures, has, thinks I, truily something of false. What these practical of S/M in show them is that we can produce pleasure from objects most strange, using certain parts tins of the body, in the situations inabituais, etc.

- the assimilation of the pleasure to the sex is then, exceeded.
- It is accurately this. The possibility to use our bodies as a possible source of a multiplicity of pleasures is very important. If we consider, for example, the traditional construction of the pleasure, evidences that the physical pleasures, or the pleasures of the meat, are always the drink, the food and the sex. He is ai that it is limited, I think I, our understanding of the bodies, the pleasures. Frustra me, for example, that if it always examines the problem of the drugs exclusively in prohibition or freedom terms. I think that the drugs would have to become element of our culture.

- While pleasure source?
- While pleasure source. We must study the drugs. We must try the drugs. We must you manufacture good drugs - susceptible to produce a pleasure very intense. The puritanismo, that places the problem of the drugs - a puritanismo that implies what if it must be against or the favor - is a errônea attitude. The drugs already are part of our culture. In the same way that it has good music and harm music, it has good and bad drugs. E then, in the same way that we cannot say we are "against" music, we cannot say that we are "against" the drugs.

- the objective is to test the pleasure and its possibilities.
- Yes. The pleasure also must be part of our culture. It is very interesting to notice, for example, that, after centuries the people in general - but also the doctors, the psychiatrists and same the release movements - they have always spoken of the desire and never of the pleasure. "We must liberate our desire", we say they. Not! We must create new pleasures. Then, he can be that the desire appears.

- He is significant that certain identities if constitute around new practical sexual such which the S/M? These identities favor the exploration of these practical; they also contribute for the right of the individual to deliver themselves. But they also do not restrict the possibilities of the individual?
- She sees well, if the identity is only one game, only one procedure to favor relations, social relations and the relations of sexual pleasure that create new friendships, then it is useful. But if the identity if becomes the problem most important of the sexual existence, if the people think that they must "unmask" its "proper identity" and that this identity must become it law, the principle, the code of its existence, if the question that if places continuously is: "This is in accordance with my identity", then I think that they had made a return to a form of ethics very next to the one to the traditional heterossexualidade. If we must in locating them in relation to the question of the identity, we have that to leave of the fact of that we are only beings. But the relations that we must establish with same us are not identity relations, them must before be innovation, creation, differentiation relations. He is very flat to be always the same. We do not have to exclude the identity if he is for the bias of the identity that the people find its pleasure, but we do not have to consider this identity as a universal ethical rule.

- But so far the sexual identity has been very useful politically.
- Yes, it is very useful, but it is an identity that in them limits e, I think that we have (and we must have) the right of being free.

- We want that some of sexual practical ours are practical of resistance in the direction social politician or. How this is possible, being that the stimulation of the pleasure can serve to exert a control? We can be safe of that it will not have exploration of these new pleasures? I am thinking about the way for which the advertising uses the stimulation of the pleasure as an instrument of social control.
- if it cannot never be safe of that it will not have exploration. Of fact we can be safe of that it will have one, and that everything what it has been created or acquired, all the land that if has earned will be, at a moment or another one, used in this way. It thus seems to be in the life, the fight and the history of the men. E I do not think that this is an objection to all these movements or all these situations. However, you have reason in designating that we must be cautious and conscientious of the fact of that we must follow ahead, to also have other necessities. Ghetto S/M of San Francisco is a good example of a community that has the experience of the pleasure and that it consists in lathe of this pleasure. This segregation, this identification, this process of exclusion produces return effect. I would not dare to use the word "dialectic", but he is not very far of this.

- You write that the power is not only a negative force, but also productive; that the power is always present; e that where it has to be able, has resistance, and that the resistance is not never a position of exterioridade in relation to the power. But as not to arrive at the conclusion of that we are imprisoned in the interior of this relation and that we cannot, in a certain way, to escape?
- About the reality, I do not think that the word "imprisoned" either a good word. One is about a fight, but what I want to say when I speak of relations of being able is that we are, ones in relation to the others, in a strategical situation. For being homosexuals, for example, we are in fight with the government and the government in fight with us. When we have businesses with the government the fight, it is clearly, she is not symmetrical, the situation of being able is not the same one, but we participate at the same time of this fight. It is enough that any one of us if raises on the other, and the prolongation of this situation can determine the behavior to follow, to influence the behavior or the not-behavior of another one. We are not imprisoned, then. It happens that we are always in accordance with the situation. What I want to say is that we have the possibility to change the situation, that this possibility always exists. We cannot in outside placing them of the situation, in no place we are free of all relation of being able. I did not want to say that we are always imprisoned, for the the opposite, that we are always free. At last, in few words, he has always the possibility to change the things.

- the resistance is, then, in the interior of this dynamics of which if it can remove it?
- Yes. He sees that if he does not have resistance, does not have relations of being able. Because everything would be simply an obedience question. From the moment that the individual is in a situation of não.fazer what it wants, it must use the relations of being able. The resistance comes in first place, and it it remains superior to all the forces of the process, its effect compels to change the relations of being able. I think that the term "resistance" is the word most important, the word-key of this dynamics.

- Politically speaking, the element most important can be, when the power is examined, the fact of that, according to certain previous conceptions, "to resist" it simply means to say not. It is only in negation term that if has conceitualizado the resistance. Such as you understand it, however, the resistance you are not solely a negation. It is a creation process. To create and to recriar actively, to transform the situation, to participate of the process, this are to resist.
- Yes, thus I would define the things. To say does not constitute the minimum form of resistance. But, of course, at some moments it is very important. She is necessary to say and not to make of this not a decisive form of resistance.

- This excites the question to know in which way, and in which measure, a citizen - or a subjectivity - dominated it can create its proper speech. In the traditional analysis of the power, the element onipresente on which if it establishes the analysis is the dominant speech, the reactions to this speech or, in the interior of this speech, only the subsidiary elements. However, if for "resistance" in the seio of the relations of being able we understand more than a simple negation, not if it can say that certain you practise - the lesbian S/M, for example - are truily the way in the which dominated citizens formulate its proper language.
- Of fact. I think that the resistance is an element of the strategical relations in which if it constitutes the power. The apóia resistance if, in the reality, on the situation to the which combat. In the homosexual movement, for example, the medical definition of homossexualidade consisted in an instrument very important to fight the oppression of the which age victim the homossexualidade in the end of century XIX and beginning of the XX. This medicalização, that was a way of oppression, has been also a resistance instrument, since the people can say: "if we are sick, then why in they condemn them, in they menosprezam them", etc. He is clearly that this speech in them seems sufficiently ingenuous today, but for the time it was very important.
I would say also, in that he says respect to the lesbian movement, in my perspective, that the fact of that the women have been per centuries and isolated centuries in the society, frustrated, rejected in some ways provided them a real possibility to constitute a society, to create a certain type of social relation between them, it are of a world dominated for the men. The book of Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the Love of Men*, is, to this respect, very interesting. It raises a question: That type of emotional experience, that type of relations can be established in a world where the women does not have to be able social, legal or politician? E Faderman affirms that the women had used this isolation and this absence of being able.

- the resistance is itself the process that consists of liberating the discursive practices, it seems that the lesbian S/M is one of the practical ones that, to a first sight, can be declared more legitimately practises of resistance. Where measure this practical and these identities can be perceived as a plea to the dominant speech?
- What me it seems interesting, in whom says respect to the lesbian S/M is that it allows to liberate itself of a certain number of estereótipos of the feminilidade that are used in the lesbian movement - this strategy if establishes on the oppression of that the lesbians had been victims, and the movement used it to fight against this oppression. But it is possible that today these tools, these weapons you are exceeded. It is clearly that the lesbian S/M tries to liberate of all the old estereótipos of the feminilidade, the attitudes of rejection of the men, etc.

- In its opinion, what if it can learn regarding the power - and in addition also, the pleasure - with the practical one of the S/M that is in deep a explicita erotização of the power?
- It can be said that the S/M is the erotization of the power, the erotization of the strategical relations. What it shocks me in the S/M is the way as it differs from the social power. The power if characterizes for the fact of that it constitutes a strategical relation that if established in the institutions. In the seio of the relations of being able, mobility it is what it limits, and certain ortalezas are very difficult to knock down for having been institutionalized, because its influences is sensible in the course of justice, in the codes. This means that the strategical relations between the individuals if characterize for the rigidity.
In this way, the game it S/M is very interesting because, while strategical relation, is always fluid. It has papeis, is clearly, but any one knows well that these papers can be inverted. To the times, when the game starts, one is the master and, in the end, this that is enslaved can become master. Or exactly when the papers are steady, the protagonists know very well that this if deals with a game: or the rules are transgressed or have an agreement, explicit or tacit, that certain borders define. This game is very interesting while source of physical pleasure. But I would not say that it reproduces, in the interior of a erótica relation, the structure of a relation of being able. It is a stage of structures of the power in a strategical game, capable to look a sexual or physical pleasure.

- Where this strategical game is different in the sexuality and the relations of being able?
- the practical one of the S/M unchains on the creation of the pleasure and exists an identity between what it happens and this creation. The S/M is the reason for which is truily a subcultura. It is an invention process. The S/M is the use of a strategical relation as pleasure source (of physical pleasure). This is not the first time that the people use the strategical relations as pleasure source. It had, in the Average Age, for example, the tradition of the love cortesão, with the trovador, the way that if restores the loving relations between a lady and loving its, etc. It was treated, also, of a strategical game. This game is retaken, today, between the boys and girls who go to dance Saturday to the night. They place in scene strategical relations. What it is interesting is that, in the heterossexual life, these strategical relations precede the sex. They exist following the purpose to get the sex. In the S/M, on the other hand, these strategical relations are part of the sex, as a convention of pleasure in the interior of a particular relation.
In one of the cases, the strategical relations are purely social and are the social being that is objectified; while that in the other in case that, the body is the implied one. E is this transference of strategical relations that pass of the ritual of the cut to the sexual plan, what it is particularly interesting.

- In a granted interview it has years to the magazine Gay Pied one or two, you said that what more disturbed to the people in the relations homosexuals is not in such a way the sexual act in itself, but the perspective to see the relations affective if to develop outside of the normative pictures.* The places and the friendships that if tie unexpected. You find that it is this unknown potential that the relations homosexuals carry, or you it would say that these relations are perceived as a direct threat in opposition to the social institutions?
- a thing is had that it interests me today is the problem of the friendship. In elapsing of the centuries that if had followed to the Antiquity, the friendship if constituted in very important a social relation: a social relation in the interior of which the individuals make use of a certain freedom, of a certain form of choice (limited, clearly), that it also allowed them to live very intense affective relations. The friendship also had economic and social implications - the individual had to assist its friends, etc. I think that, in séc. XVI and séc. XVII, this type of friendship was disappearing, about the way of the masculine society. E the friendship starts to become another thing. From séc. XVI, texts meet that explicitamente criticize the friendship, that is considered as something dangerous.
The army, the bureaucracy, the administration, the universities, the schools, etc. - in the direction that if has these words nowadays - they could not function ahead of so intense friendships. We can see in institutions a considerable effort for diminishing or minimizing the affective relations. In this in case that, particular, the schools. When if they had inaugurated the intermediate schools that had received some young youngsters, one of the problems was to know as if it could not only hinder the sexual relations, clearly, but also in hindering the friendships. On the subject of the friendship, it can be studied, for example, the strategies of the Jesuit institutions - they were cliente of the impossibility of suppression of the friendship, them they had tried then to use the paper that had the sex, the love, the friendship and to limit them. We would have now, after studying the history of the sexuality, trying to understand the history of the friendship. It is an extremely interesting history.
E one of my hypotheses - which would not present, if I tried to prove it, no difficulty - he is that the homosexualidad (for that I understand the existence of sexual relations between men), becomes a problem from séc. XIX. We see it to become a problem with the policy, with the legal system. I think that if it became a problem, a social problem, at this time, is because the friendship disappeared. While the friendship represented something of important, while it was socially accepted, was not important that the men kept between them sexual relations. If it cannot simply say that they did not have them, but that they did not have importance. This did not have no social implication, the things was culturally accepted. That they made love or that they hugged themselves did not have the lesser importance. Absolutely none. A disappeared time the friendship while culturally accepted relation, the question is placed: "what they make, then, two together men" At this moment the problem appeared. In our days, when the men make love or have sexual relations, this is perceived as a problem. I think on this, that the disappearence of the friendship while social relation and the fact of the homossexualidade to be declared as social problem, politician and doctor are part of the same process.

- what he matters today is to explore the new possibilities of the friendship, she is herself necessary to emphasize that in a wide direction, all the social institutions are made to favor the friendships and the friendships and the structures heterosexuals, with the disdain to the friendships and structures homosexuals. The true work is not to restore new social relations, new models of values, new familiar structures etc.? All the structures and the institutions that walk together with the momogamy and the traditional family are one of the things that the homosexuals access does not have easily. That type of institutions we must start to restore with the purpose to not only defend us, but also to create new social forms that will constitute a solution accomplishes?
- Which institutions? I do not have a necessary idea. Clearly, I think that he is total contradictory to apply for this end and this type of friendship the model of the familiar life or the institutions that walk together with the family. But it is truth that, in function of some relations that exist in the society are protecting forms of familiar life, if it evidences that some variants are not proteges, are at the same time, richer, more interesting and more creative of the one than these relations. But, of course, they are also well more fragile and vulnerable. The question to know which types of institutions we must create is a capital question, but I cannot bring the reply. Our work, I think, I am to try to elaborate a solution.

- Where measured we want or we have necessity of that the project of release of the homosexuals is a project that, far of if to content in considering a passage, intends to open ways? Said de.outra.forma, its conception of sexual politics refuses the necessity of a program to be followed, in function to praise the experimentation of new types of relation?
- I think that one of the great constatations that we have made since the First War she is this of the failure of all the social programs and politicians. We perceive that the things are not never produced as the programs politicians want to describe; e that the programs are always, or almost always, lead either the abuses, either to a domination politics on the part of a group, wants is technician, bureaucrats or others. But one of the accomplishments of the Sixties and seventy - that I consider as beneficial accomplishments - is that certain institucional models have been tried without programs. Without program it does not want to say blind person - while thought blindness. In France, for example, in the last times, if it has criticized sufficiently the fact of that the different movements politicians in favor of the sexual freedom, the arrests, the ecology, etc., do not have a program. But, I think, not to have program can be at the same time, very useful, original and very very creative, if this does not want to say not to have real reflection on what it happens or not to be worried about what is impossible.

[Michel Foucault, joins interview: sexe, to pouvoir et la politique of la identité, with B. Gallagher and Wilson, Toronto, June of 1982). The Advocate, n. 400, 7 of August of 1984, pp. 26-30 and 58. This interview was destined to the Canadian magazine Body Politic.
v Translated from FOUCAULT, Michel. Dits et Écris. Paris: Gallimard, 1994, pp. 735-746, for Wanderson Flower of the Birth.]

Full interview in Spanish at: www.hartza.com/fuckault.htm

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

a kinda crazy idea...

2004-03-08T13:12:56Z

i was thinking the other day on the fact that many insurance companies will cover hormone therapy and sex-change operations for transsexuals (under the rather skewed premise that transsexualism is a psychological disorder) and considering if i might try to present to them a request that they cover operations for transhumans as well (even if under the same skewed premise).

Any thoughts?

All I've come up with so far is that we should all start seeing therapists and getting diagnosed...

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 14 replies

robotic exoskeleton enhances human strength and endurance

2004-03-07T09:24:54Z

"The mere thought of hauling a 70-pound pack across miles of rugged terrain or up 50 flights of stairs is enough to evoke a grimace in even the burliest individuals. But breakthrough robotics research at the University of California, Berkeley, could soon bring welcome relief — a self-powered exoskeleton to effectively take the load off people's backs."

I just came across this, but don't have the time to read it all now. I could just bookmark it, but I thought, why not give the link to my fellow radical cyborgs as well?

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/article2402.html

Discuss ;-)

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 3 replies

Silicon vs Biological

2004-03-06T17:00:25Z

I've been pondering the notion of cyborg, and how it is typically visualized. Cyborgs as depicted in movies/books tend to have screens over their eyes, data slots in the back of their skulls, machine guns in their arms and silicon computers in their brains, etc.

So that's version 1 of the post-human - computer attached to human.

Version 2 is something I've seen more of recently and involves changing the human body through biological means. In these scenarios your body can last a long time without eating, or becomes immune to viruses or more intelligent, simply by being born with a gene-altered body. I'm currently reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. She's got a post-apocalyptic scenario where humans have be re-designed. They have their legs turn blue when they're ready to mate like baboons. They have their sex drive genetically manipulated to result in less jealousy and rape. They have their stomachs altered to be able to process grass and bark, and are vegetarians. Their urine is designed to have chemicals that ward off predators.

And then perhaps, is the middle-ground of nanotechnology. Where you still have machines running around in you, but they're so small you can't see them.

Is the notion of the computer-attached-to-human dying out in favor of the other technologies? Perhaps silicon will be an outdated medium for constructing technology by the time we really get around to augmenting ourselves?

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 9 replies

Reflections on sensory experimentation

2004-03-02T03:27:44Z

Sensory Experimentation Somatosensory Extension
Reflections by Todd M Huffman

Some time ago I was involved with a project involving cochlear implant patients. If you are not aware of cochlear implants, they are a medical device that bypasses damaged structures in the inner ear that directly stimulate the auditory nerve, allowing some deaf individuals to learn to hear and interpret sounds and speech. During my time on the project I became fascinated with sensory experience, specifically the ability to gain a completely new sense. Similar research is being performed in the visual system, bypassing a defective eye and allowing the blind to see.

Extending the sensory experience is not a new endeavor; it is done with night vision goggles, hearing aids, binoculars and so on. Yet there is something fundamentally different between a hearing aid and a cochlear implant, the hearing aid is conceived as separate from the body, whereas the implant becomes part of the person both physically and conceptually. An implant also stimulates the senses in ways an exogenous artifact cannot, the stimulus from an implant is perceived as a ‘natural’ extension, rather than by artifact.

Fortunately I possess all of my natural sensory abilities; I am not a candidate for cochlear or visual implants. Also direct neural manipulation, while not outside the bounds of physical law, is simply not an option for me at this time. As an intermediate step in sensory experimentation I have added an implant to extend my somatosensory capabilities, a magnet underneath the pad of one of my fingers.

The magnet is neodymium, coated in gold and then encased in implant grade silicon. It is a cylinder 1/32nd of an inch in diameter and 1/16th of an inch long. It was surgically implanted in the subcutaneous layer of the distal pad of my left ring finger. After a week the site completely healed without complications.

I am now able to perceive magnetic fields in ways not naturally possible. The sensation is different than holding a magnet, as the neurons are stimulated with a higher resolution. With the implant I can detect subtle changes in polarity and strength that I cannot when equipped with a magnet in the conventional manner. Yet the most significant observations have come from another property of implants, their relative permanence to exogenous artifacts.

Being able to perceive magnetic fields has expanded my conscious perception of magnetic fields ‘in the wild’. In one sensory incident, I was walking out of the library, and I sensed the inductive anti-theft device. I have walked in and out of dozens of libraries hundreds of times, and never once have I thought about the magnetic fields passed through me to prevent me from stealing a book. I have been intellectually aware of the mechanism, but never paid attention until now.

Another time I opened a can of cat food for my girlfriend’s pets, and I sensed the electric motor running. My hand was about six inches away from the electric can opener, and I was able to sense where the motor was inside of the assembly. Again it brought my attention to a magnetic source that I understood intellectually, but would have otherwise been unaware of. I feel I am one step closer to fully grokking the reality I inhabit.

I have not yet used my newly gained sense for anything significantly useful, but that is not the point. My desire was to expand the way I think about my current senses. The experience of my implant is not nearly as rich as my visual or auditory sensation, but nevertheless after a week it has dramatically changed the way I think about my daily sensory experience.

A small magnet embedded in a finger may seem like a trivial exercise. I find it difficult to explain the significance, somewhat akin to trying to explain to a blind person what it is to see. The problem isn’t defining the technical characteristics of the visual system, but one of trying to convey what conscious perception of certain wave frequencies does to the way a person conceptualizes the world. In modifying my body I have ever so slightly altered the way I organize the world in my mind.

I eagerly await the day in which I can integrate more elaborate senses into myself. With every passing minute I try to see radiant heat, hear radio waves, and think the thoughts of those that pass by. And by better understanding what I cannot feel, I can fully appreciate what I have now.

------
This is posted at www.vim-vigor.net/implant.html

For pictures of the magnets and the procedure, www.vim-vigor.net/implant.html

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 42 replies

rat muscles for bots

2004-02-28T08:54:30Z

'Musclebots' Are Coming
According to an article to be published by New Scientist on February 28, First robot moved by muscle power, a microrobot half the width of a human hair has been powered by living rat heart muscle. "It is the first time muscle tissue has been used to propel a micromachine."

http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2004/02/26.html

the line between 'artifical' and 'natural' is rapidly disappearing - if indeed it ever existed.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Cyborg 101: cult classic by Angus Wong online

2004-02-11T14:48:55Z

Cyborg 101

The Warrior's Guide to the Blackboard Jungle. Online book
by Angus T.K. Wong.

With the recent release of Terminator 3, we went back in time to retrieve this cult classic by Angus Wong. Unfortunately his original site has vanished. Some of the information is dated, but overall it stands as an inspiring journal of an intrepid explorer. It is too unique to let fade into the pixel dust of cyber-history so we've reproduced what we could, without modification; all rights are retained by Angus.

Introduction

Chapter 1
Making of a Cyborg

How it all began and why

shell shock / a personal quest / the secret to success / a critical difference / intrinsic motivation / paradigms and the world view / on becoming a cyborg

Chapter 2
A Better War Machine

Basic cyborg know-how

preliminary mission briefing / the art of war / maxok / enemy anniliation / the effects of synergy / concentration of power / some time travelling / feeling guilty and regrets in life / a summary

Chapter 3
Cybernetic RAM Upgrade

Tactical advantages through enhanced memory capacity

the ultimate weapon / sequential access / basic memory principles / random access / using weird stories / memorizing speeches or presentations / remembering people¹s faces / the best-kept secret to aceing exams

Chapter 4
Operating System

Debugging your environment

the power of organization / establishing the HQ / cleaning up your room / primary defense systems / minimizing multi-tasking in your life / worries and other useless thoughts / getting down to studying / cybernetic energy levels / sleep and brainwaves / internal clocks / the siesta / polyphasic sleep / Leonardo da Vinci¹s big secret / the CyberSleep method / the anchor method / the core method / induction of sleep / the organic connection / amazing facts about nutrition / exercise and the cyborg soldier / rebounding / rollerblading

Chapter 5
Hardware

Towards the winning edge

our personal assistants / the mighty organizers / keeping track of your life / the micro-cassette recorders / maximizing creativity / turn unproductive time around / the desk environment / orthopedic supports / lighting effects / putting personal computers to real use / buying a computer system / floppy disks / backing-up / finding support

Chapter 6
Input/Output

Your dialogue with the world

a brain age / the cyberspace / intelligence acquisition / putting modems to work / online services / communicating with the world / bulletin board systems / researching books / finding periodical articles / where no-one has gone before / using databases / consolidating information / writing the paper / prioritization and structure / presentations / the mother of all battles / teacher rapport / knowing the enemy / other friends and foes

Chapter 7
The Battlefield

Cybernetic military strategy and applications

the master plan / short term goals / the grandmaster of war / the thirty-six stratagems of Ancient China / the art of cyborg war / the highest of them all / know thy enemy / throwing bricks / a house on fire / the tragedy of the commons / sheep¹s clothing / interdependency / the Star Trek transporter/ beyond the stratagems / recharging / the shortest path / the best defense / commitment to battle / the ultimate resource / the mind of the strategist

Chapter 8
Video Acceleration

How to read at warp speed

speed limits / why you read slowly / basic concepts to rapid reading/ breaking the sound barrier / the CyberRead method / higher effectiveness / scanning books / vision training / greased lightning

Chapter 9
The New Edge

Further enhancements
a big controversy / how nootropics work / smart nutrients / the mighty vitamins / ginko biloba / gotu kola / coffee and cigarettes / chlorella / other smart nutrients / biochemical effects revisited / smart drugs / piracetam / hydergine / vincamine / vasopressin / the bottom line / redesigning the self / the subconscious / conditioned responses / modifying our programming / subliminals / mind machines

Chapter 10
Epilogue

Epilogue

endgames / the unification of the world / lamentations and responsibilites / roads ahead / the secret of true invincibility

Appendix A
Bugs in the System

The failure of modern education

a serious problem / student apathy / the classroom sweatshop / archaic technologies / a failure to update / subversive computers / the paradigm of the cyborg / how this book fits in / a bit of psychology / learned helplessness / the future of education / a call to arms

Appendix B
Sources

Appendix X
Documentary Evidence

http://www.grasshopper.com/cyborg101.htm

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 5 replies

human testing

2004-02-07T10:53:45Z

I mentioned this in another tribe, but it wasn't very productive. Surely everyone here is familiar with this study?
http://www.nicolelislab.net/NLNet/Load/Abstracts/ab2003_learning.pdf

The technology is here. It works. Human testing is the obvious next step. All that would be needed is willing subjects... such as myself. What are the obstacles, be they social, legal, moral, whatever? How long until it's likely to happen? And when it does, how can I get in on it?

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 2 replies

Singularitarianism

2004-02-03T04:11:21Z

I've been meaning to respond to Michael's very interesting and constructive post on "singularitarianism" for quite a while, but I've been really distracted with other writing commitments (my damnable dissertation!) -- so, sorry if this seems like too little too late. I've started a new topic heading to discuss this, since the interesting question of "radicalism" is separate from, though related to, the question of "singularitarianism." (The word "radical" -- if such things interest you -- initially meant "fundamental," was extended into political affairs in the late eighteenth century, almost exclusively to describe movements for the progressive reform of capitalist social relations, and only in the twentieth century came to mean something like a desire for "total revolution," which seems to be the unfortunate default usage under the other topic heading.)

Now, a few points from Michael's excellent and interesting post:

"I think it's unfortunate,” he writes, “that this controversial branch of transhumanism [singularitarianism] must be labelled "religious" by those who would rather not have it around. This is especially shocking considering that one of the founders of the World Transhumanist Association, Nick Bostrom (with more academic accomplishments than anyone else present) is a Singularitarian. I've been spending the last few years trying very carefully to determine *what exactly* is responsible for this widespread kneejerk revulsion to Singularity-oriented thinking, and I've got a few ideas, but for the most part I remain confused!"

Michael appears to worry that those of us who see in *some* versions of singularitarianism a quasi-religious character are simply *smearing* singularitarianism, or that our opposition to it on such grounds is ultimately unconsidered (ie, “kneejerk”). That may be true of some people who make this move, but surely not all?

I have often heard people describe the "singularity" as an impending apocalyptic event, one in which they have faith but few reasons that it will arrive within their lifetimes, that they desire its coming to pass "come what may," that they await it passively, finding it inevitable, rather than working to bring about through their own effort, research, or activism. Michael, can you honestly tell me you have not heard such things yourself?

It seems obvious that these attitudes and behaviors can be discussed in analogy to certain religious beliefs and behaviors. Michael's own version seems to me to be less vulnerable to these charges, but precisely because this is so it seems he should be just as concerned as singularity-skeptics are about the *versions* of singularitarianism that are less productive and reasonable than his own.

Also, while it is true that I am an atheist myself, the fact is nobody should simply assume that just because I compare a phenomenon to religion I mean thereby to malign it. I have a deep respect for many forms of religious and spiritual practice, even if they have no place in my personal life. Let a million flowers bloom, I always say! My belief is that the triumph of secular civilization is that it makes possible the co-existence of many forms of life, spiritual and materialist alike.

But my tolerance and even celebration of those who follow different paths from my own certainly does not require me to deny I believe what I believe, to refrain from sharing the reasons for which I believe as I do, and to draw connections between practices and consequences where I see them. People are free to do what they will with what I choose to share with them. Conversation is a way of getting along – but conversation is more than a monologue, after all.

Haven't Max More and Anders Sandberg and Tim May, among other very "prominent" transhuman intellectuals and fellow-travelers, also pointed out that *some* versions of singularitarianism look quite a bit like religions? If it really is true that Nick Bostrom is a singularitarian, this hardly suggests that it is "shocking" that not all transhumanist-types agree with him on this question. As you say, singularitarianism is controversial.

If you are honestly confused about why some people are skeptical about singularitarianism may I recommend the Whole Earth Review issue (111) on the Singularity? Jaron Lanier and Bruce Sterling, among others, address the question in a very provocative and useful way. I think this url will take you there: http://www.wholeearthmag.com/

You go on to say:

"The Singularitarian platform is pretty straightforward and simple:

1. Humans are not at the theoretical maximum of intelligence and compassion.
2. Transhumans can be smarter and kinder than humans are.
3. Once transhuman intelligence comes into being, we can safely predict that recursive self-improvement will carry it to superintelligence in a relatively short time, making the stakes very large.
4. If the first transhuman intelligence is kind, that could be very very good. If the first transhuman intelligence is not kind, that could be really really bad.
5. Why not be prudent and try to make the first transhuman intelligence a kind and volition-respecting one, since it could easily ruin all our previous accomplishments if it isn't, and our first step into transhumanity could very well characterize the rest of the journey?"

I think Cosmo makes a very important point when he says that your version of "The Singularitarian Platform" seems conspicuously more moderate than almost any other version I have ever seen. For the record, I agree personally with all five of your points here, but I remain a pretty conspicuous on-the-record anti-singularitarian nonetheless.

Three key points you do not mention in your Domesticated Singularitarian Platform (hereafter "DSP") are these:

[ONE: The Singularity as Singular Event]

We can agree that developmental trajectories imply a radical technological transformation is in the works in the future, and quite possibly within the lifetimes of billions now living -- and yet we should distinguish between those who assume that these developmental curves suggest necessarily that there will be a sudden and totalizing Event in which sweeping transformations of an unprecedented nature will occur.

This issue is often discussed under the terms of a debate about the inevitability (or not) of a "hard take-off singularity."

Vernor Vinge himself seems to assume a "singularity" will have this sweeping hard take-off character (indeed, it's kinda sorta built in to the term/metaphor itself, isn't it?) in this phrasing from his classic essay on the topic (reprinted, btw, in the WER issue I mentioned above), where he characterizes the singularity as "a throwing-away of all the human rules, perhaps in the blink of an eye -- an exponential runaway beyond any hope of control."

For myself, in general terms, I think of the singularity as (at best) a useful methodological fiction defining the limits of foresight in the face of techno-cultural transformation -- an ideal limit, not an actual instant at which we could somehow arrive -- where transformation is so widespread or totalizing that we cannot describe outcomes as either positive or negative because we have lost every frame of reference on the basis of which to make that assignment. I think it is useful to specify such a limit because it reminds us that straightforward extrapolation will rarely yield predictive successes, and ever less so with the passage of time so long as technological trends continue. But it is also useful to insist that the limit case is ideal rather than real, since the whole point of such an idea is surely to spur greater rigor and foresight and care in the face of these transformations, rather than panic or passivity.

I will note, for the record, that Eliezer Yudkowsky's more recent formulations of the singularity idea seem less about exponential development and more about the impact of the arrival of "superintelligent" post-biological competitors to human beings. His version appears more rigorous than the common or garden variety of singularitianism but I have real problems with it as well (about which, a little more in a moment), and in any case I think his version is (to put it kindly) a minority view among the already vanishingly small minority of people who take the singularity seriously in any form, however rigorous. My point is not to dismiss Eliezer's version due solely to its lack of adherents, but to say that I will take it more seriously as an object of my critique when I sense there are more people who take it seriously as an object of conviction in the first place. Consider it a matter of assigning priorities in the face of time constraints.

[TWO: The Singularity as a Proximate Event]

Even if I were to concede in principle (and I don't) that technological development might one day “eventuate” in a transformative Event in the future (either arising as a matter of course from exponential developments or from the particular development of non-biological "intelligence") it remains a real and important question just when such an event might reasonably expected to occur.

Progressive futurists, radical technophiles, cyborg democrats, and transhumanists must engage in political activism, outreach, and coalition building, as well as in educational efforts and research, if they want to have a role in actually bringing about the positive outcomes they claim to desire from ongoing technological development. For me, this means focusing our primary attention and strategic efforts on politically-relevant planning horizons, which means in turn a focus on developmental questions within the next fifty years or so at the latest.

It makes sense to think beyond these terms occasionally, not only because present day inspiration often arises from wild-eyed speculation but because we must keep our eyes on the prize (which may indeed be centuries away) even as we remain firmly on the road that leads so slowly here-and-now to that distant prize. Now, it is in fact a commonplace among advocates of “singularity” (whether in its majority exponential-trajectory form, or in the minority post-biological superintelligence form) to imply that this event will in fact occur within the time-frame of the next fifty years or so. For all I know we may already have passed the date when some of the early advocates for singularity promised we would have crossed over into the new regime. Certainly, we approach the due date proposed by some of the early enthusiasts of the singularity concept.

I would say, to be blunt, that there is little chance at all that we will arrive within the next fifty years or so at anything like a technological transformation of the world so sweeping as to deserve to be called a “singularity” – and that, in consequence, I hope most serious transhumanists, cyborg democrats, radical technophiles, and progressive futurists will devote their energies instead to other more productive pursuits. Do not misunderstand me: I am not saying that there is no place for wild-eyed singularitarian zealots. It’s just that I am saying their place should be comparable to that of people obsessed with planning for a near-term malign alien invasions or an extinction-level asteroidal impact.

In a nutshell, I believe that the technical views that tend to underwrite belief in a near-term singularity seem usually to: ONE: Underestimate the significance of political and cultural factors in technological development; TWO: Overestimate the smooth function of the postulated technologies along the developmental pathway they take to be "inevitable"; and THREE: pretend to know with confidence what they certainly do not know; namely, what exactly intelligence is in the first place and just what it would take to emulate it or augment it or compete with it or replace it.

I think the problem of building a generally intelligent entity is literally orders of magnitude more difficult than any engineering project human beings have taken on in our history. Those who believe that superintelligence will emerge spontaneously from Moore’s Law or the MIPS curve seem to me to be engaging in wishful thinking of the most absurd kind. The history of strong AI research amounts to a history of blithely confident predictions that failed to materialize. While these many failures certainly do not justify the presumption that non-biological intelligence will always fail to arrive, surely it implies that those of us who are skeptical of claims of the certain and immanent arrival of any kind of engineered intelligence are reasonable to doubt as we do. There are many reasons to believe that current understandings of biological intelligence are far too rough to justify claims that computer hardware will soon be powerful enough to model the intelligent brain. We have equally many reasons to believe that even if sufficiently powerful hardware were to arrive any time soon, that the software problems to emulate intelligence would be incomparably more difficult still.

Given all this, I believe that the fascination of some people with a near-term singularity tends to be a dangerous distraction away from more urgent and proximate matters of (a) supporting general scientific research and development, (b) creating a regulatory environment of reasonable funding and oversight to ensure the costs, risks, and benefits of technological development are fairly shared, (c) resisting bio-conservative and technophobic efforts to ban likely positive developments or to shift dangerous developments to rogue states where their dangers will be exacerbated, and (d) to promote genetic medicine and forms of morphological freedom through genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification as these become available.

It would not bother me so much that some people are inspired by the more escapist (and often explicitly anti-social) fantasies of near-term singularity if it weren’t for the fact that these are the very people who would otherwise likely be the best most informed and technically savvy allies in precisely these more urgent struggles. The fact is that these struggles, which may not be quite so sexy as the more totalizing visions of singularitiarians, are no less urgent and real for their “modesty” [!], and despite this urgency they sorely lack sufficient adherents and support here and now to the inestimable cost of us all. Meanwhile, the belief in singularity too often goes hand in hand with a kind of complacency that is just as bad as outright technophobia in its real-world consequences, and further encourages the ongoing circulation of pointlessly damaging apocalyptic rhetoric about technological development that alienates and panics people who might otherwise be open to working on these more moderate proximate and urgent struggles.

[THREE: Even if we do not understand Intelligence, we must value it.]

Finally, I don’t want my position to be mistaken as simply a prediction that singularitarians are too optimistic in their developmental projections. It’s true that I believe this to be the case, but I want to add that more than predicting that they are wrong in their estimates, I would actively fight against the achievement of the discontinuity they pine for if there were even the remotest suggestion that it really were immanent. Such a commitment is different from a prediction, and needs to be understood on its own terms.

I agree with Jaron Lanier that there is no such thing as a benign or best-case singularity. Singularity, to the extent that it names the arrival of a moment when our world becomes unintelligible to *ourselves*, a time
when the world can no longer be intelligibly assessed by our own standards -- that is a malign outcome *by definition*. It is an admission of *defeat*.

It doesn’t matter if you can characterize a post-singularity “society” as a long laundry list of abrupt changes, literally every single one of which on its own can be described as preferable to the state of affairs which immediately preceded it. If I am utterly and suddenly transformed then it is not me who arrives on the other side of the transformation, and it is therefore a matter of indifference to me whether anybody imagines the emergent being to be an improvement over me as I am.

I value intelligence as it is incarnated in human beings and in human societies right now – and though I am profoundly excited and inspired at the prospect of the augmentation and elaboration of my own intelligence, and the proliferation of forms of intelligence in the world, you better believe that I will never value a postulated and prospective superintelligence over real intelligence as it exists. Intelligence is to be cherished. Right here, right now. I am not hoodwinked by the language of those who claim to value supremely a superintelligence to come – any more than I believe that those who would control women’s lives by refusing them the right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy by abortion do so because they value “life.”

When singularitarians claim to “know” we will soon model intelligence on powerful hardware, even when it is conspicuous to even most specialists in the field that our theories are laughably inadequate to justify such immodesty, I believe that there is more than a dilettantish incomprehension of the difficulty of the field in play, but often a kind of hostility to life as it is, to the frailties and imperfections of our bodies and brains as they are, and too often an expression of a painful alienation from contemporary social life and an elitist impatience with the compromises required by legitimate democratic processes of reform (do a quick count to discover how often singularitarianism goes hand in hand with libertarianism and you’ll see what I mean).

It remains in my view an open question whether we will create superintelligent post-biological entities in the first place, even if we discover we can do so (an open question), and whenever these developmental possibilities present themselves (more open still). It seems to me we might do better to create slavish and monomaniacal pseudo- or sub-intelligences to ameliorate our burdens and facilitate our most grandiose visions of transhuman self-creation and re-invention. It is not clear to me that safeguarding against the dangers inherent in our intercourse with such not-quite-intelligences requires the rather torrid language of singularitarianism to address it. I think more modest versions of these questions actually already take place among computer scientists who would never dream of describing themselves as singularitarian. It is unclear to me that questions of these safeguards might not better take place under the rubric of similar discussions to prevent “grey-goo” in molecular nanotechnology – in fact it is probably more illuminating in a way to talk about the existential threat posed in general by the near-arrival of difficult to sequester replicative and recursively-developing technologies. Bill Joy has made this connection in his alarmist screed, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” but many others have reasonably proposed alternatives to his defeatist demand that we stem the tide technological development altogether without resigning themselves to riding the torrent in a barrel as the singularitarians would often seem to want to do.

Michael concludes his post with these words: “I can see why people would *disagree* with the above premises, but I can't understand why they would call it "religion". Even so, I'm not the slightest bit angry or disturbed, but would love to hear what you guys sincerely have to say (perhaps on another thread?) If I'm being a nutcase by wanting the first recursive self-improver to be kind rather than ambivalent (which could very well be the default), then I surely want to know about it, ASAP!”

I hope that I have gone some way toward explaining to you at least why some people would find singularitarianism to be a quasi-religious attitude, and why others (whether they find it to be religious or not) are disturbed by singularitarianism. I also hope you will recognize in the length and detail of this response the level of respect I have for your perspective and the seriousness with which I take it. I believe that there are many point of agreement between us, and that our differences are often differences in emphasis rather than detail. I also expect that you will not see in my own characterizations of the singularitarian viewpoint the image of your own beliefs in that name. To the extent that this is true, I hope you will see this as a possibility for continued agreement and constructive debate, and not as an effort on my part to distort your views or goals. As for you, there is nothing about this debate which enrages or deeply disturbs me in the way that seems to worry you. Indeed, I would hope we could discuss these questions with no implication that any of the participants are immoderate or mastered by emotions. You seem to me to be anything but a nutcase, and I hope, whatever our disagreements otherwise, I seem comparably reasonable to you. As you say, these are controversial questions. There is plenty yet that needs to be thought and said.

Best regards,

Dale Carrico
Department of Rhetoric, University of California at Berkeley
Researcher, Beatrice M. Bain Research Group
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~dalec/home.html

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 3 replies

My admitedly crude implants

2004-02-01T02:20:27Z

One aspect of the human experience that stands to be radically changed in the coming years is our sensory experience. Direct neural implants will allow us to extend our senses in ways previously unavailable to us.

Unfortunately direct neural implants are not available to a fellow like me. I did come up with an interesting sensory experiment, implant magnets under the skin. Doing so will allow sensation of magnetic fields in an intimate manner.

The implants were constructed out of neodymium rare earth magnets, coated in metal (stainless steel or gold) and then implant grade silicon. They were implanted last Friday and are performing well. One is in my left ring finger, and I can detect magnetic fields. I also implanted a stronger magnet in my left upper forearm, and it is capable of detecting interactions with ferrous objects.

Is anyone interested in the progress? I have further work planned with RFID tags and I would like to discuss them. Also I can post the notes I take on my experiences.

Pictures of the implant procedure can be found here… http://www.vim-vigor.net/implant.htm
(The pictures are a little large, so be patient)

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 6 replies

Mars

2004-01-31T06:12:51Z

Speaking of Bruce Sterling, did anybody else see this bit from his Well interview (boingboing posted it, too), on the question of Mars? I love the Robinson Mars trilogy too much to give up the dream up the dream without a fght, but you gotta admit Sterling makes (as usual) sobering sense --

"I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live. It's ugly, it's inhospitable and there's no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it's so hard to reach.

On the other hand, there might really be some way to make living in the Gobi Desert pay. And if that were the case, and you really had communities making a nice cheerful go of daily life on arid, freezing, barren rock and sand, then a cultural transfer to Mars might make a certain sense.

If there were a society with enough technical power to terraform Mars, they would certainly do it. On the other hand. by the time they got around to messing with Mars, they would have been using all that power to transform *themselves.* So by the time they got there and started rebuilding the Martian atmosphere wholesale, they wouldn't look or act a whole lot like Hollywood extras."

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 7 replies

New Procreative Liberty Tribe

2004-01-30T04:04:02Z

Join us at the new Procreative Liberty Tribe:
procreativeliberty.tribe.net

This tribe is for those in support of seeing reproductive freedoms maximized in a safe, ethical, and responsible manner. Topics open to discussion and debate include the right to initiate or terminate a pregnancy, assisted reproduction (e.g. IVF), genetic interventions and enhancements, genetic screening, embryo freezing, human cloning, fertilizing eggs without sperm, fertilizing two sperm, ectogenesis (artificial wombs), adoption, and alternative family arrangements (including same-sex marriages and polyamory)

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Interview on "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion"

2004-01-24T20:54:51Z

Interview to Brian Alexander about his book "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion" [From "Exponent Newsletter" (11/15/03)]:

___Brian, how did you become so interested in biotech?

___BA: Hmmm... Well, I've always been interested in biology -- it was the only science subject I ever did well in high school or college. I was an English literature major and political science major in college and it may seem as though writing about biotech is an odd area for me to work in. But
my overarching interest has always been the culture, and to me biotech is most certainly a real cultural phenomenon. It is literally changing the way we regard our futures, our religions, the natural world, and ourselves. So for me, this is a perfectly natural realm to work in. Professionally, I
first became interested in biotech in 1994, just as the book opens with the second A4M conference in Las Vegas. It really started with a question, which was, what is the real science behind any of this? And if there was any real science, wow.

___: . In your opinion, does transhumanity have a particular political line of thinking that is evident in the underlying values of transhumanists?

___BA: I do recognize that within transhumanism, and even within extropy, there may be a wide variety of views on political philosophy. Just have a look at the past year on the extrope discussion group! This is a very important question for transhumanists. (More on this in answer to later
questions.)

___? If you could separate out one element that keeps people from rushing to support transhumanity and donating money to Extropy Institute to further its goals, what would that be?

___BA: Just one? That's tough. Everything from people just not having the money to thinking that the money is better used for other causes, but if I had to pick just one, I would say that it is a lack of the overarching vision of what transhumanity means in the near term, as opposed to the far
future vision. Getting people to support a cause aiming to do something they can take part in the next five years is much easier than getting them to support a cause that looks ahead 100 years. Aubrey's Methuselah mouse is
a good example. other institutions are trying to do the same thing, but they place the work in a framework of understanding the diseases of aging.
That's something more concrete that everybody can relate to as opposed to saying you want to engineer a super-long-lived mouse for the sake of making a super long-lived mouse.

___? How did writing _Rapture_ change your mind about transhumanists?

___BA: well, it didn't really. I've always liked transhumanists, and enjoy spending time with them, though I am not a "transhumanist" per se and I disagree with a fair number of the predictions and with some -- not all by any means -- of the attitudes expressed by some transhumanists. A TV
interviewer asked me the other day if I didn't "feel sorry" for life extensionists. I said no, that life extensionists -- and I would say the same about transhumanism in general - - are actually being more honest than many of us about that they want. I admire people who can be unabashed about
their desires. Nobody, at least not anybody in good physical and
psychological health, wants to die. But saying so, or saying you'd like to be smarter, or improve your body in some fundamental way, is considered strange by many people because it seems so impossible, and so wanting the impossible can be seen as something odd or even pathetic. Well, I don't
think it is impossible in the very long term, and I think these are some of the most basic of human desires, expressed for thousands of years.
Improvement is the driving force behind much of human culture. It's who were are. now, one person's "improvement" is another person's danger, but the point is, we all want "better." Now, I will say that I always thought the transhumanist vision works better as a concept or an idea (hence the subtitle of the book) than as a practical path. That did not change with
the book. My research only confirmed my view. Transhumanism seems to me to be about propagating the idea that it's okay to favor change. The idea of transhumanism being "about" cryonics, or the singularity or merger with computers, or space colonization or germline engineering is, in my view, a
mistake. I've always thought that man himself is "transhumanist" and has been throughout history, as I try to show in "rapture." we all want to rise above our current station, whether that is in a spiritual, cultural,
physical, mental sense doesn't matter. We've always evolved. We've always been "trans."

___? What do you think is the most urgent issue to contend with regarding
Leon Kass and the anti- biotechnology swarm?

___ BA: Leon Kass is only one incarnation of anti- biotech, which is really about anti human improvement. My reading of the "bio-Luddite'" (as I call it in "Rapture") philosophy is that they believe that "human" cannot be
improved upon. I say that humans have always tried to improve upon themselves and that this is, in fact, human nature. Dr. Kass is expressing a view that has always been expressed about science and man's place in the
natural world. Most famously, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is just such a warning, but there have been such warnings about defying the natural order forever. I think the most important thing to contend with is the idea that
enhancement technology will, by its very nature, be de-humanizing.
Sometimes it might be, sometimes not. Personally, I think it is important to keep an open mind. I might add that this is why Dr. Kass and others use transhumanism, and the longing for some to have a "post-human" future, against biotech as a whole. Rhetoric about "post-humanity" doesn't really
do anybody any good. First, I think it's incorrect. We will always be human. Second, it makes people think that, say tomorrow, alien-like augmented species who used to be people will walk the earth. That won't happen but it makes for a great sound bite, a good headline, a scary scenario.

___? Do you think that transhumanism is more scientific than it is cultural? In other words, do you think that we should emphasize science or culture in order to prosper and elicit positive memes about transhumanism?

___ BA: I think you ought to give MORE emphasis on the cultural than the science. I know transhumanists will disagree with me here, but much of the science upon which the movements seem based is not only not yet ready for prime time, it may never be ready. Let the science takes care of itself.
The minds of people are what really count. I think transhumanists have done a generally poor job of addressing fears, concerns, apprehensions of the
general public about how biotech will affect people. There's a tendency to look down on such fears with disdain. But when Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama and others appeal to fears, they talk about culture, society, religion, art, and human relations. People understand these things. This is
what "Rapture" is about, really, the culture. The science places it in context but it is not, at heart, a science book. It's about hope. So if I were a transhumanist who wanted to make a difference, I'd research issues like population, resources, environment, social justice, human rights, art
and the ways these will or will not be affected. When I give talks, these are the questions people are most interested in.

___ ? Do you think Extropy Institute has succeeded in memetic engineering of "transhumanism? "

___ BA: Yes, but I do think transhumanism is now becoming bigger than Extropy or any one organization. I think this is a measure of Extropy's success, but also may mean that in the future extropy comes to be less and less important as the spawn swim on their own. As science catches up to Extropy's ideas, the ideas will spread outward into the general public, as
"rapture" shows they already have, and the need for an organization like extropy will pass completely. And by the way, let me say that I have always admired the very grown up way Natasha and Max and a few others have dealt with some of the snarkier writing about extropy and transhumanism,
including some by me about certain elements of transhumanism. (In a wired story I referred to extropians as "enthusiastic amateurs" and that pissed some people off so much that they couldn't see that the story was about how some of the ideas were being accepted by mainstream science and that
extropes were not as kooky as some might think.) That can be tough to do.
but by putting yourselves out there, by taking the good with the bad, you do get some of the message through.

___? Looking back, is there anything you feel you left out of your book that you would now expand upon?

___BA: If I thought anybody would read it, I would have liked to make the book about another 100 pages! essentially I would have gone into more detail about some of the things that are already in the book. I would have liked to have done more with how biotech actually works. I mean how drugs are made by engineering cells to produce human proteins. I would have liked
to have spent more time with Wally Steinberg, a truly fascinating character, or Deeda Blair. I would have liked to gone into much more detail about regeneration science (but look for that appearing somewhere soon).

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 1 reply

The Politics of Transhumanism

2004-01-23T03:27:19Z

I have been promoting a poll that measure ideology ins different terms than is normally understood by folks. The poll can be found at http://www.politicalcompass.org/ (for those of you that haven't already taken this poll and are unaware of it).

The idea is carried on in a tribe here called The Libertarian Left http://www.tribe.net/tribe/servlet/template/pub%2CTribeCard.vm?tribeid=d5f258aa-51b6-484b-a8e6-bfe9fab132be&_click_path=Application%5Btribe%5D.Tribe%5Bd5f258aa-51b6-484b-a8e6-bfe9fab132be%5D but also it is a backdrop I believe for understanding some important elements of a profound generational shift in thinking that is reflected in the Transhumanist Movement.

I suggest that reading about the poll is worth the taking of it because I see in a way that groups like this one can agree to disagree about left/right economic issues but are likely united on general libertarian versus authoritarian ideas. The degree to which we disagree left/right can undermine our ability to work efficiently together but it can also be a good start at negotiating synthetic alternatives to current trends.

So why are we radicals?

Just because we are unpopular? or just such a minority?

Or is because we represent change so profound that from the perspective of average people they have damn good reason to feel terrified of us?

Well defining that change in terms less threatening may mean packaging the memes as less "radically different" but perhaps that would also be less honest. As a true radical I prefer the truth to political convenience and Machiavellian means.

As we enter this ever so political season and most concern themselves with the personal plots of politics how about we address the introduction and integration of our goals into the mainstream rhetoric and polemic.

We cannot run and we really can't hide. Anyway it is counter productive to our intentions so we might as well enjoy and join the fray.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Consumer Brainwashing--Neuromarketing

2004-01-16T15:15:18Z

Cyborg Democracy Alert?

Commercial Alert Asks Emory University to Halt Neuromarketing
Experiments

http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/1201-01.htm>

The Latest in Consumer Brainwashing--Neuromarketing

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/neuromarketing.cfm

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Sterling on media, design, fiction, and the future

2004-01-16T12:16:58Z

Bruce Sterling on media, design, fiction, and the future

Interviewed by Mike Godwin January 2004

In the 1980s, Bruce Sterling became a leader of the "cyberpunk" revolution -- a literary movement that combined the artistic ambition of science fiction ’s 1960s New Wave with the hard-core speculation associated with Verne, Wells, Heinlein, and Clarke. Cyberpunk ’s chief theme was the way technologies evolve us even as we evolve them, and its influence can be seen in almost every science fiction writer of note today, from Ken MacLeod to Alastair Reynolds to Cory Doctorow.
Neuromancer author William Gibson may have been the best-known of the cyberpunks, but the movement’s chief theorist and propagandist was Sterling, whose writing covered far more territory than that of his peers. Sterling ’s books from the period -- Schismatrix, Islands in the Net, Crystal Express -- range so widely in settings and characters that it ’s hard to talk about them collectively. What they have in common is their author ’s willingness to stare uncomfortable truths in the face. His 1989 story "We See Things Differently," for example, eerily predicted and captured the jihadic Islamism of the 9/11 era.

In the late ’90s, Sterling launched another movement: the Viridian Greens. This one focused on how industrial design could be used to respond to global climate change. "Our society runs on fossil fuel," he wrote in an early manifesto. "We have a substance-abuse problem with carbon dioxide. This is a seemingly abstract issue now, but it ’s going to get very, very much livelier once we start having evacuation camps and dustbowls and so on. At that point, anyone who isn ’t talking about the Greenhouse Effect is going to seem very twentieth-century and extremely old-fashioned."

That proclamation in itself might sound old-fashioned -- not entirely out of place in a Greenpeace pamphlet -- but Sterling went on to classify his new cause as an art and design movement. He also gave it a built-in expiration date (2012). He named the movement the Viridian Greens because, as he puts it, "there ’s something electrical and unnatural about our tinge of green." Sterling ’s rhetoric is not the renunciatory language of back-to-the-land communal farmers or febrile eco-terrorists. We ’ve made this problem, Sterling tells us, and now it ’s up to us to design our way out of it -- not by denying ourselves modernity but by embracing a more intelligent version of it.

Sterling is no one-note activist. His mind buzzes with ideas about history, technology, art theory, politics, global cultural trends, and more. The best introduction to the scope of Sterling ’s interests is his recent non-fiction book Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years (Random House). The book is to typical futurist prognostications what jazz is to a symphony: Sterling riffs on what the present tells us about the world our grandchildren will inherit. But like all the best futurists, Sterling has his eyes set on the past as well. That may explain why, even as he describes the book as "an ambitious, sprawling effort in thundering futurist punditry," he frames it on a set piece from Shakespeare -- "The Seven Ages of Man," from As You Like It. Perhaps surprisingly, the Shakespearean trope works rather well as a way of outlining the oncoming histories, comedies, and dramas we ’re staging for ourselves.

Contributing Editor Mike Godwin talked with Sterling last summer, in the sprawling house the author designed for himself and his family in Austin, Texas.

Full Interview at:

http://www.reason.com/0401/fe.mg.cybergreen.shtml

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 5 replies

The Memetics of Transhumanism

2004-01-07T15:42:25Z

I just found this article by Anders Sandberg:

The Memetics of Transhumanism
Or: How is the Memetic Health of Transhumanism?

What memes are compatible with transhumanism and which are not? From a memetic standpoint, one should expect memes which occupy the same or a very similar "ecological niche" to feel threatened, and try to repulse transhumanist memes. On the other hand, memes whose niches are not threatened, or even helped, by the tranhshumanist memes to support them.

Transhumanism as a Religion
Transhumanism as Politics
Strength through Diversity

Full article at:

http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Cultural/Memetics/trans_meme.html

I think it is very interesting to include it at Cyborg Democracy' website and to talk about the Memetics of Transhumanism here...

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 5 replies

Radical

2004-01-05T16:33:53Z

I suppse the name of this tribe begs the question, is it possible to be a non-radical cyborg ;-) Further to the previous thread, what does the 'radical' in radical cyborgs imply?

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 17 replies

Our Technologies, Ourselves

2004-01-03T17:57:51Z

Our Technologies, Ourselves
Carl Elliott

Our Own Devices: The Past and Future of Body Technology
Edward Tenner
Alfred A. Knopf, $26 (cloth)

8 When I was a teenager in South Carolina in the 1970s, I once found an old 8mm
movie camera at a flea market. Even then the camera seemed ancient. It was
crafted out of steel, and to make it run you had to wind it up with a key on
the side. The lens had to be adjusted by hand, and so did the light settings,
which required a complicated set of calculations based on an unreliable meter
attached to the top. The film itself had to be ordered from special shops in
Philadelphia. Developing the film took at least several weeks, often months.
Each roll of film ran for a maximum of three minutes, unless several rolls were
spliced together, and all the splicing and editing had to be done by hand. We
had to show the films in a tiny, darkened room with no windows, often a closet
or bathroom, using an equally ancient projector which usually burned or ate the
film unless it was operated with expert technique. Learning how to deal with
that camera and projector was a kind of self-imposed torture, yet making those
films is among the best memories of my childhood.

Full text
http://bostonreview.net/BR28.5/elliott.html

Our Own Devices : The Past and Future of Body Technology
by Edward Tenner (Author)
Hardcover: 336 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.24 x 9.50 x 6.60
Publisher: Knopf; (June 3, 2003) ISBN: 0375407227
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375407227/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375407227/humannaturecom/

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Marshall McLuhan once described media as an extension of the central nervous
system. Tenner, a Princeton scholar and author (Why Things Bite Back), whose
work might best be described as an anthropological history of science, extends
the metaphor to even the simplest technologies-any "human modification of the
natural world," as he puts it-and examines the impact that technology has had
on human technique: the routine ways in which people perform everyday tasks.
In-depth chapters track key moments in the development of baby bottles,
sandals, athletic shoes, chairs for home and office, music keyboards, typing
keyboards, eyeglasses and helmets. If you've ever wondered how QWERTY became
the standard layout for typewriters and computer keyboards, or how touch typing
became formalized, this is the book for you. It's especially effective in
identifying the ways technology shapes the human body; the footwear different
societies favor, for example, affects people's stride, while regular use of
rubber bottle nipples causes infants to forget how to use their jaws and
tongues to breastfeed. The latter is an excellent example of one of the book's
persistent themes, the "machine for producing dependency on itself," changing
our lives so radically that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to go back
to the way things used to be. (Consider the discomfort Westerners accustomed to
a lifetime in chairs experience when they try to sit lotus-style.) Tenner's
erudite yet approachable style and his way with telling details keep his
potentially obscure subject from becoming dry and boring, and those in search
of a quirky but cerebral read will be delighted.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-From the effect of shoes, and the reasons for wearing them,
to the design of keyboards, Tenner traces the interaction between the human
body and technology, and how the tools we make change and affect us. The first
chapter provides numerous examples in brief, from speed skates to Glock
pistols. After that, the author gets into cases, devoting one chapter, for
instance, to thong sandals, or zoris, in different cultures, and another to the
faddishly popular athletic shoe. Surprisingly, for a work that covers such a
broad topic, this book is a page-turner, largely due to its clear prose and the
author's approach to the material. While not lavishly illustrated, there seems
to be a picture every time one is needed to illustrate the technology being
discussed. There is a good annotated list of books for suggested reading at the
end.
Paul Brink, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American
If Henry Petroski is the engineer interpreter of everyday technology, Edward
Tenner is its philosopher. This fascinating collection of essays delves into,
mulls over, and teases apart eyeglasses, shoes, chairs and other innovations
that have changed our bodies in unexpected ways. Tenner, the author of Why
Things Bite Back, is a researcher at the Smithsonian's National Museum of
American History.

Editors of Scientific American

From Booklist
Tenner, author of Why Things Bite Back (1996), offers a fascinating look at how
devices we have created have affected our development. He looks at everyday
objects (reclining chairs, thong sandals, running shoes, eyeglasses, musical
keyboards, and the typewriter) and explores how they were created, how they
have developed, and the often unintended ways they have influenced us,
including how we sit, stand, walk, and communicate. Technological advancements
have enhanced our comfort and expanded our capabilities, but they have also
prompted increased dependence and changed the way we evolve physically. For
example, the invention of the typewriter has increased reading material and
facilitated public education but weakened eyesight (a problem addressed through
the technology of eyeglasses). Tenner's lively writing style (as well as the
illustrations of early designs) and appreciation of the politics and economics
that accompany scientific developments help put everyday technology in
perspective. Tenner concludes with a chapter on trends and what we can expect
as we learn new body skills, ever-adapting techniques to match the technology.
Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Edward Tenner has been a visiting scholar in the Departments of Geosciences and
English at Princeton University. Recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim
Fellowship and a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars, he is currently senior research associate at the Jerome and Dorothy
Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National
Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
He lives in Plainsboro, New Jersey.

Book Description
From the author of Why Things Bite Back- which introduced us to the revenge
antics of technology-Our Own Devices is a wonderfully revealing look at the
inventions of everyday things that protect us, position us, or enhance our
performance.

In helping and hurting us, these body technologies have produced consequences
that their makers never intended:
. In postwar Japan traditional sandals gave way to Western-style shoes because
they were considered marks of a higher standard of living, but they seriously
increased the rate of fungal foot ailments.
. Reclining chairs, originally promoted for healthful brief relaxation, became
symbols of the sedentary life and obesity.
. A keyboard that made the piano easier to learn failed in the marketplace
mainly because professional pianists believed difficult passages needed to stay
difficult.
. Helmets, reintroduced during the carnage of World War I, saved the lives of
countless civilian miners, construction workers, and, more recently,
bicyclists.

Once we step on the treadmill of progress, it's hard to step off. Yet Edward
Tenner shows that human ingenuity can be applied in self-preservation as well,
and he sheds light on the ways in which the users of commonplace technology
surprise designers and engineers, as when early typists developed the touch
method still employed on today's keyboards. And he offers concrete advice for
reaping benefits from the devices that we no longer seem able to live without.
Although dependent on these objects, we can also use them to liberate
ourselves. This delightful and instructive history of invention shows why
National Public Radio dubbed Tenner "the philosopher of everyday technology."

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Blogs, >H & Activism

2003-12-31T14:58:05Z

Now some of you are writing your Cyborg Democracy Blog, it can be interesting to think about relationships between Blogs, Transhumanism and Activism.

A interesting thought-provoking read is:

Camile Paglia, Blogs and the Decentralization of Meaning
by Robert Chrysler

http://www.getunderground.com/underground/features/article.cfm?Article_ID=1431

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Basic Income video requested

2003-12-30T05:38:33Z

Hi folks,

On March 3rd 2004 I will be hosting a live, call-in cable TV program, and I've chosen Basic Income as the topic. If you know of a videotape which I can lay my hands, that I can play and discuss clips from on the TV show, I would appreciate it.

I know of the online video
http://www.oid.ucla.edu/Webcast/FRL/Pateman/
which I could use, but the quality is quite clunky.

Also, I want more details of the Brazil plan, and any other recommendations for material, books, webpages, etc. you may have.

If you or someone you know is in West Michigan and would like to appear as a guest on the show, let me know.

- John (SEE-TV)

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

past to preview

2003-12-27T23:51:53Z

wite to me if you think you are one too..

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Invitation to join the Virtual Greens

2003-12-27T14:46:17Z

You are invited to join the Virtual Greens e-group. The purpose of this group is to become a conduit for the coordination of a national effort to support the next Green presidential campaign in "safe" states using research, e-mail, bulk mailings and long distance telephone banks. By focusing a national campaign on the "safe" states we, as a third party, would be capable of putting our efforts exactly where we have the best chances of success.
We believe that the very existence of a successful Green cyber-campaign that is aimed at "safe states" in 2004 could break the barriers of distance that have historically held back the advancement of third parties in America.

We also intend to work in support of other campaigns where the Green Party has a real chance of achieving a significant political victory, such as the Matt Gonzolez campaign in San Francisco or the IRV referendum in Alaska. We believe that with a large enough active membership base we could take advantage of our numbers nationwide to conceivably overwhelm a political opponent and thus nullify the power of big money in certain key political campaigns.

To subscribe to this e-group please send an e-mail to:
virtual_greens-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Gargoyle!

2003-12-23T20:27:00Z

Merely a stopgap measure, of course, but what's the current state of technology re: HUDs? Google isn't telling me much.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

Announcing a new THst tribe: MetaBrain Growth Process

2003-12-02T08:22:41Z

Join it at: http://MetaBrainGrowthProcess.tribe.net

MetaBrain Growth Process tribe is dedicated to the exploration of processes to extend human cognition into alternative substrates.

From cyborg components for theraputic and augmentative ends to the ultimate goal of moving sentient entities into faster, more powerful, and more durable hardware (~5,000 ave. lifespan estimates) in a safe and effective manner, this tribe is intended as a center for discussion, networking, and collaborative effort.

(If you enjoy this topic, you should find the various other Transhumanist tribes of interest.)

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

So Quiet!

2003-11-25T03:33:57Z

So, I'm curious, what brings all of us here together, anyway? Here, in particular? For me, I'm a relatively conventional lefty / liberal / radical / democrat type who happens to believe that technological development will make possible what revolutionary politics has failed to deliver (if we play our cards right, that is). So, "radical cyborgs" was an appealing combination of words for me. It's a phrase to conjure with. But what does it mean to other people?

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 6 replies

TransVision 2004 Date Change

2003-11-22T04:11:54Z

Please note the date change for TransVision 2004: August 6-8, 2004

================================

TransVision 2004: Art and Life in the Posthuman Era
JJR McLeod Auditorium, University of Toronto
August 6-8, 2004
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Website: http://www.transhumanism.org/tv/2004/

Call for Proposals
Deadline: April 15, 2004

Include all of the following information in a two-page proposal for your presentation:

- Title of presentation
- Type of presentation (i.e. talk, performance, exhibit, video, etc.)
- Program track to which topic relates:
- Transhuman Art and Culture
- Transhuman Science and Technology
- Transhuman Ethics, Law, and Politics
- Other (see list of suggested topics for examples at the TV04 Website)
- Objective(s) of the presentation
- Description of the content and format (300 words or less)
- Abstract (25 - 50 words) for inclusion in the conference program
- Presentation space requirements, media to be used and audiovisual equipment needed (if any).
- Designated contact person (only one per proposal)
- Complete name, title, organization, address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address for each session presenter
- Brief biographical sketch (50-100 words) of each presenter

Please submit your proposals electronically to World Transhumanist Association secretary James Hughes Ph.D. at james.hughes@trincoll.edu. If necessary, you may submit your conference proposal to Dr. Hughes by mailing it to him at: Trinity College, 71 Vernon St., Hartford CT 06106, or by faxing it to: (860) 297-4079.

Deadline for submissions is April 15, 2004.
Please attach the paper the presentation is based on if it is already written.

After notification of acceptance of your paper, all presenters (at least one per presentation) will be required to pre-register for the conference. Presenters not registered by June 15, 2004 will not be included in the program.

For more information see the conference website at http://www.transhumanism.org/tv/2004/ or contact the conference chair, George Dvorsky at george@betterhumans.com.

Proposal Selection Criteria

Proposals will be selected based on the following criteria:

- A clear and concise description of the proposed presentation
- Relevance to conference goals and objectives
- Evidence of presenter experience with topic
- Completion of all information requested

Timeline

- Proposals due by: April 15, 2004
- Notification of acceptance: May 15, 2004
- Deadline for conferees to pre-register: June 15, 2004

Publication of Proceedings

If your presentation is accepted, you are strongly encouraged to submit it as an electronic text by June 15, 2004. Electronic contributions will be considered for one of the following publication venues:

- Academic papers will be considered for publication in the Journal of Evolution and Technology
- Non-academic essays and talks will be considered for publication in the online magazine Transhumanity
- Some of the audio, graphic and film material will appear in the WTA's online gallery of transhumanist art

Session abstracts and information about the presenters also will be included on the site.

Taping of the Proceedings

Conference panels and presentations will be audiotaped, and in some cases videotaped, and made available on the Web.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

TransVision 2004: Call for Proposals

2003-11-22T04:11:27Z

TransVision 2004: Art and Life in the Posthuman Era
JJR McLeod Auditorium, University of Toronto
July 30 to August 1, 2004
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Website: http://www.transhumanism.org/tv/2004/

Call for Proposals
Deadline: March 1, 2004

Include all of the following information in a two-page proposal for your presentation:

- Title of presentation
- Type of presentation (i.e. talk, performance, exhibit, video, etc.)
- Program track to which topic relates:
- Transhuman Art and Culture
- Transhuman Science and Technology
- Transhuman Ethics, Law, and Politics
- Other (see list of suggested topics for examples at the TV04 Website)
- Objective(s) of the presentation
- Description of the content and format (300 words or less)
- Abstract (25 - 50 words) for inclusion in the conference program
- Presentation space requirements, media to be used and audiovisual equipment needed (if any).
- Designated contact person (only one per proposal)
- Complete name, title, organization, address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address for each session presenter
- Brief biographical sketch (50-100 words) of each presenter

Please submit your proposals electronically to World Transhumanist Association secretary James Hughes Ph.D. at james.hughes@trincoll.edu. If necessary, you may submit your conference proposal to Dr. Hughes by mailing it to him at: Trinity College, 71 Vernon St., Hartford CT 06106, or by faxing it to: (860) 297-4079.

Deadline for submissions is March 1, 2004.
Please attach the paper the presentation is based on if it is already written.

After notification of acceptance of your paper, all presenters (at least one per presentation) will be required to pre-register for the conference. Presenters not registered by June 1, 2004 will not be included in the program.

For more information see the conference website at http://www.transhumanism.org/tv/2004/ or contact the conference chair, George Dvorsky at george@betterhumans.com.

Proposal Selection Criteria

Proposals will be selected based on the following criteria:

- A clear and concise description of the proposed presentation
- Relevance to conference goals and objectives
- Evidence of presenter experience with topic
- Completion of all information requested

Timeline

- Proposals due by: March 1, 2004
- Notification of acceptance: May 1, 2004
- Deadline for conferees to pre-register: June 1, 2004

Publication of Proceedings

If your presentation is accepted, you are strongly encouraged to submit it as an electronic text by June 1, 2004. Electronic contributions will be considered for one of the following publication venues:

- Academic papers will be considered for publication in the Journal of Evolution and Technology
- Non-academic essays and talks will be considered for publication in the online magazine Transhumanity
- Some of the audio, graphic and film material will appear in the WTA's online gallery of transhumanist art

Session abstracts and information about the presenters also will be included on the site.

Taping of the Proceedings

Conference panels and presentations will be audiotaped, and in some cases videotaped, and made available on the web.

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 1 reply

Is the love movement dead?

2003-11-08T01:30:13Z

Transexuality, boasting hyper-realism; a step towards a new reality, the duality of body and mind - the duality of computer and processor, has now conjoint into one full figured sum. Sexual machines; the improvidence of human nature impeding within its own right, upon the technological advance of sexuality and genderism, with an unseen lash of progression (evolution). The embodiment of eroticy, pleasure, and the circuitry between multilateral intimate actions and reactions. Sanctioning pleasure from love; to inure from mechanicism: without protocol, without a user, and without calculation. We are Artificial Intelligence, we are what we have created and cured ourselves to be, we are mechanical beings; as a once upon a time, we did have a protocol, that was reproduction. We have plagued the earth with our presence, so now, in turn we seek pleasure, and pleasure only in our transsexual state. We have become the hyper-real, situated is our lives within the simulations we have created as complete replications of our selves in hyper-real space. Though this goes further in that we can actually become someone else, become what we have always wanted to be, by replicating our fictional dreams into the hyper-real. It is only a matter of time until the dualities cross each others paths, becoming a unified being, a simulation who once was just that, now is...

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

California's Robot Parade

2003-10-23T15:17:59Z

I just back from voting to keep a real robot in the Governor's office. It seemed more radically cyborgic than picking some guy who pretends to be a cyborg in the movies. Still, ya gotta relish the ironies. Not a happy day. --Dale

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 1 reply

Bright Transhumanism

2003-10-23T15:10:15Z

I guess you already know "The Brights" [http://www.the-brights.net]. They just created a Forum at: http://www.brightrights.org/forum/

I think they are making a really interesting memetic operation. Transhumanist movements could learn a lot of them.

And what about to share the Bright agenda as a way to remove previous hindrances to >H?

And what about a visibility of a transhumanist group under WTA umbrella without supernatural and mystical leaps of faith in the visions of future?

Transhumanists without techno-utopian [Extropians, Libertarians, etc] & religious/finalist/faithful [Omeganists, Singularitians, etc] elements in their visions of >H should be in touch and/or in a memetic coalition with movements as The Brights and another humanist, posthumanist & social currents or movements [examples at "The politics of Transhumanism" by James Hughes at: http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/TranshumPolitics.htm] plus cultural groups a la Critical Art Ensemble [http://www.critical-art.net/]

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 6 replies

BOUNDARIES IN QUESTION

2003-10-16T17:11:42Z

Please forward this to any grad students you may know who would be interested in this -- Also, I would love to hear comments on the conference topics from tribe members, esp. the bits about biotechnology and the traffic in women, pro-choice and morphological freedom, and queerness as postbiological affiliation and/or medical subjection. Anyway, circulate the CFP as promiscuously as you like -- we hope for wide participation and attendance! Thanks, Dale

CALL FOR PAPERS
DEADLINE: MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 2004
THE 13TH ANNUAL
BOUNDARIES IN QUESTION
FEMINISTS FACE THE FUTURE:
NEW FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOETHICS

Current sponsors of the Conference include the Beatrice M. Bain Research Group, the Department of Women’s Studies, and the Designated Emphasis on Women, Gender, and Sexuality

THURSDAY, MARCH 11 AND FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2004
UC BERKELEY CAMPUS, 370/371 DWINELLE HALL
9:00 AM TO 5:00 PM

We are soliciting one page proposals for twenty minute presentations for the 13th Annual BOUNDARIES IN QUESTION Conference. The topic and title for the 2004 Conference is FEMINISTS FACE THE FUTURE: New Feminist Perspectives on Biotechnology and Bioethics. Boundaries in Question is a yearly symposium spotlighting graduate student work in feminist research, theory, and practice. The upcoming Conference will represent a multidisciplinary conversation of scientists, activists, artists, legal, literary, and cultural critics, all devoted to discussions of the ways feminism is transforming in the face of new developments in biotechnology. We want to think about ways in which feminist theories and practices can be brought to bear in articulating these developments.

POSSIBLE TOPICS AND THEMES AND GENERAL AREAS OF INTEREST THAT HAVE BEEN PROPOSED SO FAR INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, THE FOLLOWING:

How might the politics of choice be changing in response to newly emerging reproductive technologies and how might a pro-choice sensibility inform our understanding of morphological freedoms promised by genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification? Does the copyrighting of genetic information, the selling of gametes over the Internet, the multiplication of surrogate mothering services, and the existence of markets for human organs alter or expand the feminist critique of “the traffic in women”? Is the body of biotechnology more a promise of empowerment, a site of struggle, a recipe for market exchange and exploitation, a text for experts to read, or a poem we recite against the grain? How is technological development differently articulated across nations, regions, races, sexes, cultures, generations? Do we see in queer politics an anticipation of postbiological affiliation, or an intensification of medical subjection? Should ecofeminism find in biotechnology a threat to nature, an expression of nature, or possibly its proliferation? How does feminism shape perspectives on cloning, genetically modified crops, genetic medicine? How are and how should these developments be shaping feminist strategies, and feminism's sense of itself?

Proposals for papers and presentations should include:
Name, E-Mail Address, and Phone Number
Departmental Affiliation, Program, and Year
Title of Presentation and a One Page Abstract

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 2004

Please send your proposals to:

Dale Carrico
BOUNDARIES IN QUESTION
3415 Dwinelle Hall #2050
Berkeley, CA 94720-2050

Questions about the Conference, and electronic submissions should be sent to:
wgs@socrates.berkeley.edu

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 0 replies

is neil postman loaded..

2003-10-09T19:48:50Z

or what?

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 1 reply

Towards A Posthumanist International?

2003-09-23T21:53:34Z

posted in Radical Cyborgs - 4 replies

Radical Cyborgs's topics - tribe.net

OT: Call for Entries

What cybernetic enhancement / device do you need?

Sacramento comic creators make it to TOP 10 in Worldwide Competition!

who actually wants to be a cyborg?

Bjork...cyborg?

Borging it up?

The Web of Dreams deserves your participation

when should we get cybernetic enhancements?

Urgent!!! Please help

Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence

For Non Biocentric Transhumanists

Add yourself to frappr.com/transhumanists

igargoyle.com - cyborg and wearable computing news

Call for Proposals: Enhancement & Rights, May 26-28, 2006, Stanford CA USA

Greetings

Invitation to technoliberation list

Peak Oil?

New Tribe: "Hardware"

New Tribe: "Polymaths: Universal Humans"

my book More Than Human is now out!

Brainwave cap Success

New movement to co-opt corporations for change

New Tribe: Existential Risks

Please help me promote Citizen Cyborg

www.nanoaging.com news about AI

Smart Mobs for Parecon

Transvision 2004 - Aug 5-8, 2004 - Toronto - Register Today!

Transhumanism without transhumanists?

fzzzzz

Reconciling transhumanism with humanism

Other Radical Cyborg links

TV04 Taking Shape

The Cyborg Mother: A Breached Boundary

human brains to mars

Pleasure, desire, transhumanism and cyborgs

a kinda crazy idea...

robotic exoskeleton enhances human strength and endurance

Silicon vs Biological

Reflections on sensory experimentation

rat muscles for bots

Cyborg 101: cult classic by Angus Wong online

human testing

Singularitarianism

My admitedly crude implants

Mars

New Procreative Liberty Tribe

Interview on "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion"

The Politics of Transhumanism

Consumer Brainwashing--Neuromarketing

Sterling on media, design, fiction, and the future

The Memetics of Transhumanism

Radical

Our Technologies, Ourselves

Blogs, >H & Activism

Basic Income video requested

past to preview

Invitation to join the Virtual Greens

Gargoyle!

Announcing a new THst tribe: MetaBrain Growth Process

So Quiet!

TransVision 2004 Date Change

TransVision 2004: Call for Proposals

Is the love movement dead?

California's Robot Parade

Bright Transhumanism

BOUNDARIES IN QUESTION

is neil postman loaded..

Towards A Posthumanist International?