transhumanism

Rachel Haywire on Singularity 1 on 1: Art is Intellectual and the Intellect is Artistic

by Socrates
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A couple of months ago I interviewed Rachel Haywire for Singularity 1 on 1. I had some dificulties in posting this interivew but, since those were eventually resolved, better late than never… Rachel Haywire is a multi-media artist and writer currently residing in Los Angeles, California. She is the founder of The Human 2.0 Council which is a Transhumanist network of artists and students on the edge of society and media. Known for bridging the gap between the counterculture and academia she founded the Extreme Futurist Festival which is a 2 day entertainment and tech convention focusing on radical performers and voices of the new evolution. Rachel is known as an “antisocial media coach” and considered a leading voice in digital media. She is credited for bringing DIY Transhumanism into the mainstream. I have to admit that I worked for 10 hours before my interview with [...]

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Do We Need to Have a “Future Day”?

by Nikki Olson
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“In thinking about how to get people interested in and excited about Transhumanist ideas explicitly, one idea I thought about was to create a holiday for the future. You think about all these holidays we have they are all about past events, but what if there were a holiday specifically oriented towards future events. So you could have many of them, you could have a ‘Singularity Day’, an ‘Artilect War Day’ for the future war, or simply a ‘Future Day’, to try and bring people together around the idea of creating a better future” The remarks above were made by Ben Goertzel during the question and answer period of last week’s H+ Leadership Summit (see the full video at the end of the article), a discussion held in virtual world Second Life on leadership and the realization of Transhumanist goals. Author [...]

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Deus Ex: The Eyeborg Documentary

by Socrates
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It has been some time ago that I first posted the Deus Ex: Human Revolution original trailer about the stunning video game from Eidos. The clip is so visually captivating that I am forced to re-watch it every once-in-a-while and ponder the myriad of profound issues that it touches on. Even more so, a reader of this blog once told me that it was seeing the Deus Ex trailer for the first time that made him aware of transhumanism and consequently pushed him to devote his life to studying it. Enter Rob Spence. Those who missed my interview with Rob should know that he is known as the Eyeborg – a self proclaimed cyborg who lost an eye in an accident and replaced it with a wireless video camera. Rob is a wacky documentarian and recently joined forces with the gang [...]

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Visual Culture and Transhumanism

by Nikki Olson
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‘Visual Culture’ has to do with the creation, transmission and perpetuation of ideas in culture by visual means. Imagery, including shapes, colors, logos, fonts, apparel, and more broadly, ‘styles’, become symbols acting to carry and transmit meaning in a particular culture, and communicate ideology. A culture’s symbols can originate in that culture, or be a combination of new and borrowed ideas and meaning from others. For instance ‘tie-dye’, although dating back to ~500 AD, in the West is seen primarily as a symbol of hippie culture, communicating a particular set of social, political, and lifestyle beliefs. What can we identify in the Singularity and Transhumanist community as playing this particular role, and what ideology does some of the present visual culture communicate? Transhumanist visual culture can be characterized broadly as forward looking imagery that captures Transhumanist concepts, such as augmented [...]

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X-Men First Class: Transhumanism for the Masses or Aren’t We All Mutants?

by Socrates
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Have you ever felt lonely, struggled to fit in and be normal or been rejected just because you’re different? Have you ever sought to find out who you really are? Have you ever wondered if there are others who feel like you? If you have, then, you will probably like the new X-Men: First Class. The fifth and, in my opinion, best installment of the series, is not a movie about being a comic superhero endowed with amazing powers. It is a movie about being human and facing all the accompanying eternal questions of the human condition. A movie about feeling different and trying to find your place. About striving to fit in, be accepted and normal. (Whatever that may mean?!) About finding out who you really are and embracing it all – the amazing as well as the imperfect [...]

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Who are the Heroes of Transhumanism?

by Nikki Olson
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Transhumanists identify scientists and theorists that have been especially important to the development of the movement. Among these are Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Richard Feynman. But could we identify hero figures that have done the same? And, what is the relationship between Transhumanism and heroism? I came to this question after learning of Australia’s recognition of Julian Assange as a heroic figure, awarding him the Australian Peace Prize for “exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights.” Assange is a live, modern day Prometheus figure, thought to have ‘stolen fire from the Gods.’ By demonstrating computer security weaknesses in bureaucratic systems, he stole the presupposition of secrecy, and hence power, from government authorities; an act, most unanimously considered ‘heroic’ by hacking communities. Arguably, Assange’s goals are consistent with, but not a major component of Transhumanist goals more generally. Could there [...]

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Enough Is Not Enough: The Integration of Transhumanism into Pop Culture

by CMStewart
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“Hi, Silimary. I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you’d be at your feminist group. Don’t you guys meet on Saturday nights?” “Oh hi, Thrust. I quit that group. Outgrew it. They’re determined to let outdated, defeatist mindsets rule their bodies and minds.” “Really? That’s odd – for a group that claims to be about equality between the sexes.” “Yes, it’s absolutely nonsensical. Would you believe everybody else in that group believes biotech a male-driven boogeyman? That’s the reason I quit.” “Does this have something to do with the new Pink Viagra?” “Yep. They say it’s not normal to artificially increase their libidos. I say if they want to fit into the norm, that’s their business, but they’ll be left behind. Real feminists will embrace biotechnology’s empowering benefits, because the future belongs to the empowered female. Check out [...]

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R.U. Sirius on Singularity 1 on 1: Question the Authority of Your Brain

by Socrates
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Today my guest on Singularity 1 on 1 is digital culture and cyberpunk icon R.U. Sirius. (As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full.) During our conversation we discuss issues such as: R.U.’s early life and Yippie years; his multiple identities and personal motivation; his views on cyberpunk, counter-culture, psychedelic drugs, transhumanism and the technological singularity; the importance of questioning everything, and especially The Authority of Your Brain. Who is R.U. Sirius? R.U. Sirius (born Ken Goffman) is a writer, editor and digital culture iconoclast. He was Editor-in-chief of Mondo 2000, the popular and influential cyberpunk magazine of the early 1990s. More recently, he was Editor-in-chief of the transhumanist magazine H+. In addition, R.U. Sirius is the author or coauthor of numerous books including A User’s [...]

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