Dave and list:
I concur with your remarks and especially the final sentence. A
proposed corollary (adding four bolded inserts) to yours for a different class:
“Social acceptance of technologies that are non-threatening, and
potentially beneficial such as carbon dioxide removal (CDR), can be achieved by
credible assurances that the government and groups like NRDC and EDF will
establish safeguards that result in a much earlier and larger net positive
outcome.”
I’d have liked to have cc’d the un-named person from EDF (who used the
term “I”) in their message forwarded today by Andrew. Groups like NRDC and EDF
can play a big role in CDR. Thanks for your “geo” efforts and for alerting us
to transhumanism.
Ron
On Jul 28, 2015, at 8:20 PM, Hawkins, Dave <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ron,
> No fingers crossed. I do see a connection between this essay and
> geoengineering, even though the essay topic was about a different disruptive
> technology. Both technologies challenge our sense of what it means to be a
> human being. What the essay points out is that smart government responses
> can persuade societies there is more to gain from accepting sensible use of a
> "scary" technology than from banning it. My view of the likelihood of
> transhumanism is irrelevant and to my knowledge NRDC has no view on the
> matter. The relevant point is that societal acceptance of technologies that
> appear threatening can be achieved by credible assurances that the government
> will establish safeguards that result in a net positive outcome.
> David
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jul 28, 2015, at 8:33 PM, Ronal W. Larson
> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
> Dave, cc list
>
> 1. Thanks for this link.
> I think you might have had your fingers crossed re today’s message below.
> That is, despite your first sentence, I suspect you might really see a
> connection between geoengineering and transhumanism (TH).
>
> 2. Believing that to be the case, and this being the first time I recall
> ever seeing the TH term (and also knowing too little about NRDC and TH), I
> have spent the last several hours learning about it. I started with the
> Steve Fuller chapter you provided, surprised most by its recommendation to
> consider tying TH to the military.
>
> 3. Obviously we now have the question for this list whether there might be a
> favorable link between geoengineering and the military. I’m not willing to
> commit on that idea yet, but I can see some benefits for both the military
> and biochar with a global array of militaries favoring and working on biochar
> - presumably for TH reasons.
>
> 4. I got my best understanding on TH by investing $.99 in the book for which
> this Fuller chapter is the last. See
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010ODV0QK?ref_=kcp_mac_dp
> So far I have only read the Fuller chapter, and the first two chapters (can
> read these for free) - but so far believe the $.99 was worth it. I have
> already learned there is a US TH political party with a candidate. Later
> googling also showed quite a few connections (so far all positive) between
> biochar and TH.
>
> 5. For the benefit of the whole list, I hope you will expand on your own
> views on TH and geoengineering (and NRDC concepts, if you wish), perhaps with
> biochar as a “geo” example.
>
> Ron
>
>
>
> On Jul 28, 2015, at 1:12 PM, Hawkins, Dave
> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
> Not about geoengineering but relevant.
>
> IEET Link: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/fuller20150723
>
> Can transhumanism avoid becoming the Marxism of the 21st century?
> Steve Fuller
>
> Transpolitica
>
> http://transpolitica.org/2015/07/08/prolegomena-to-any-future-transhumanist-politics/
>
> July 23, 2015
>
> Is there any politically tractable strategy for transhumanism to avoid the
> Bismarckian move, which ultimately curtails the capacity of basic research to
> explore and challenge the fundamental limits of our being? My answer is as
> follows: Transhumanists need to take a more positive attitude towards the
> military.
>
> Revisiting Marx and Bismarck
>
> In ancient Greek tragedy, the term hamartia referred to a distinctive feature
> of the protagonist’s character that is the source of both his success and his
> failure, typically because the protagonist lacks sufficient judgement to keep
> this feature of his character in check. (Original Sin is the comparable
> Biblical conception, if Adam is seen as having overreached his divine
> entitlement.) The propensity for projecting the future, often with specific
> dates attached (as in the arrival of the Kurzweillian ‘singularity’), is
> transhumanism’s hamartia. But transhumanism is only the latest self-avowed
> ‘progressive’ movement to suffer from this potentially fatal flaw.
>
> Karl Marx notoriously predicted that the proletarian revolution would occur
> in Germany because its rapid industrialisation made it the most dynamic
> economy in Europe in the second half of the 19th century, housing the
> continent’s largest and most organized labour movement. However, the
> widespread publicity of this quite plausible prediction — starting with The
> Communist Manifesto — led Bismarck less than two generations later to
> establish the first welfare state, which exploited Marx’s assumption that the
> state would always support capital over labour, thereby increasing wealth
> disparities until society reached the breakpoint. Bismarck effectively
> refuted Marx by treating his prediction as a vaccine that enabled the
> political establishment to regroup itself – effectively developing immunity —
> through a tolerable tax-based redistribution of income from rich to poor that
> provided a modest but palpable sense of social security from cradle to grave.
> On the side of the poor, Bismarck capitalized on the tendency for people to
> discount risky future prospects (i.e. a Communist utopia) when given a sure
> thing upfront (i.e. social security provision).
>
> ----snip----
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
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