DOCSLIB.ORG

Design for Dying

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Design for Dying : A'X^' .-'- W'^^ 1f :- TliVIOTHY LEA^Y I M C T l-i Y TIMOTHY LEARY IS DEAD. As the fringe guru himself put it, "Mademoiselle Cancel moved in to share [his] body." But in the days before he died, Leary never one to miss an opportunity for a party- used his approaching death to create an Optimism, courage, joy, and spirituality were central to Leary's final days and his death. for I Design Dying Pary' last book shows us how we too can make dying the high point of life. Irreverent /'s parting shot new for ways the living us to take contro! of jrmine when and how we plan for "directed Drchestrate to reflect continued on back flanl Design for Dying ^D E S I G^ FOR lOYING, TIMOTHY LEARY WITH R. U. SIRIUS ^^JW3 Harper<^ge ^w Imprint o/HarperSanFrancisco DESIGN FOR DYING. Copyright 1997 by Futique Trust. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. H2irperEdge Weh Site: http://www.harpercollins.com/harperedge HarperCollins, HarperSanFrancisco^'^, and HarperEdge^"^ are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. FIRST EDITION Designed by Laura Lindgren Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Leary, Timothy Francis Design for dying / Timothy Leary with R.U. Sirius. 1st ed. p. cm. Parts of this book are paraphrased from previous writings by Timothy Leary. ISBN 0-06-018700-X (cloth) ISBN 0-06-092866-2 (pbk.) 1. Death. I. Sirius, R.U. II. Title. BD444.L415 1997 128'.5 dc21 97-6846 97 98 99 00 01 (RRD) 10 987654321 Contents Credits u vii INTRODUCTION by Timothy Leary u 1 INTRODUCTION by R.U. Sirius u 7 PART ONE: LIVING 1 . What Is the Meaning of Life? u 1 3 2. Cybernautics: Modern Alchemy u 45 3. Language u 59 4. Drugs u 67 5. Psychology u 73 6. Mutation u 83 PART TWO: DYING 7. Dying? Throw a House Party! u gg 8. One Last Taboo for the Road u 1 07 9. Design for Approaching Death u 121 1 0. Death Is the Ultimate Trip u 1 31 PART THREE: DESIGNER DYING 1 1 . Picking an Alternative Tech(nique) from the Evolutionary Menu u 143 12. The Cryonics Option u 153 13. Nanotechnology u I6I 14. The Twenty-first Century: Cyborgization and Postbiological Immortality Options u 167 1 5. Timothy Leary 's Final Escape u 1 75 addendum: Timothy Leary's Dying Performance as Remembered by His Friends u i7g CREDITS We were assisted in this book tremendously by Eric Gullichsen. Also by Mary Dowd, Michael Horoxvitz, Vicky Marshall, and Douglas Rushkoff. Parts of this book are paraphrased from previous xvritings by Timothy Leary. Design for Dying Introduction BY TIMOTHY LEARY IN January 1995, 1 was told by two wise and SOMETIMEgentle medical doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles that my prostate gland had become the host of a healthy, robust, spectacularly ambitious cancerous tumor. It turns out that I am not alone. A cover story in the April 1, 1996, issue of Time entided "The Man's Cancer" placed my face alongside a group of illustrious and infamous men who have recently overcome or currently suffer this mal- ady. Pictured were General Norman Schwarzkopf, Bob Dole, Sidney Poitier, Jordan's King Hussein, Jesse Helms, Jerry Lewis, Michael Milken . and me! Rumor has it that 80 per- cent of males between the ages of 75 and 90 develop prostate cancer. And I'll speculate that 101 percent of males over age 101 end up playing host to this illness. Before my diagnosis I was unaware of these vital facts. I was also ignorant of the function of this interesting gland, the prostate. Why was I so ignorant? After all, I am a medically trained psychologist. I have taught at two prestigious medical INTRODUCTION schools. I have written more than forty books about the human condition. And still I knew nothing about my prostate gland. The dictionary defines the prostate as "a gland that surrounds the urethra of males at the base of the bladder, comprising a muscular portion that controls the release of urine, and a glandular portion that secretes an alkaline fluid that makes up part of the semen and enhances the motility and fertility of sperm." What a busy little organ! The prostate is called to duty only at those engrossing moments of male orgasm. It facili- tates male fertility. The prostate contributes very little to the plumbing, metabolism, or survival of my body. It serves only a genetic function. DNA has designed this complex gland as a procreative tool for the reproduction of the species, with no regard for my personal health! These thoughts led to a humbling conclusion. DNA apparently uses me and my body as a lumbering, complicated vehicle to carry around the precious, delicate genetic code locked in my sperm. She (DNA) has cunningly located her fertility and sperm-mobility equipment in a protected and bustling area of my body. It makes sense, then, that prostate cancer occurs when men age and their frequency of orgasm decreases. The func- tion of the prostate is to squirt out its sperm-carrying alkaloid at the time of ejaculation. Clearly, infrequent orgasms result in a backed-up puddle of precious fluid in the swollen prostate glands of the elderly. As I puzzled over these spooky thoughts, another emo- tional event occurred. One of my closest friends, a charming, intelligent, postmenopausal lady, discovered that she had breast cancer. Since neither of us had any desire to play the passive- patient/victim role, we scoured the available literature about INTRODUCTION our illnesses. We were charmed to note that breast cancer, one of the most common lethal diseases for women, might be con- sidered a close cousin to cancer of the prostate. The mam- mary glands apparently play no role in the survival of the woman. They can be removed with no threat to the body. Like the prostate they serve the species, not the individual. It's not surprising to learn that women who do not bear children have a significantly higher rate of breast cancer. Our attempt to combine scientific fact with rumina- tion about genetics led us to wonder about the mysterious demonization of cancer. I find it fascinating and scary that I had docilely accepted the scenario that the cancer, like com- munism, was the ultimate "evil" threat to life. Why are so many of us uninformed about this disease? The answer is obvious: denial/taboo. Most human beings don't want to think or talk about death. The taboo is understandable. None of us primitive primates knows why we're here or where we're going. These issues are scary. Each human being is equipped with a 120-billion-cell brain, but we haven't yet learned how to use it. Few of us are aware of our neural ineptness. The organized religions have comforted us by provid- ing infantile fairy tales about God and promises of discarnate immortality. Pray and obey, keep your legs crossed, avoid orgasms, and you'll get the one-way ticket to heaven. But perhaps by making close and intimate acquain- tance with our hard-working body parts and by nobly taking control of the operation of our brains, we may be able to soothe our ancient fears with common sense. Designer Dying Personally, I've been looking forward to dying all my life. Dying is the most fascinating experience in life. You've got to INTRODUCTION approach dying the way you live your life with curiosity, hope, experimentation, and with the help of your friends. I have set out to design my own death, or de-anima- tion as I prefer to call it. It's a hip, chic thing to do. It's the most elegant thing you can do. Even if you've lived your life like a complete slob, you can die with terrific style. I call it "Designer Dying," and it involves two basic principles by which I've lived my life: think for yourself and question authority. Related to the many problems one faces in maintining a life characterized by self-reliance and personal growth and anticipating an educational and self-fulfilling death are five challenging questions: 1 . Where is personal consciousness located? Answer: One's personal consciousness is stored in the nervous system. The brain is the hardware the biocomputer that fabricates and navigates the realities we inhabit. The soft- ware systems that operate the brain are a combination of your genetic makeup and your experience these programs, direc- tories, files, and personal operating systems define the individ- ual soul. 2. What happens to personal consciousness when bod- ily functions cease? Answer: Unless scientific methods of preservation and/or reanimation are employed, when the body dies the brain rots. Your personal software systems crash. Your hard drive is destroyed. If you choose to ignore the preservation/reanimation options, there are two ways to deal with your defunct software: you can be passively buried in a coffin and let it rot in the landfills we call cemeteries, or you can be cremated. Cremation is more dignified than rotting. Cremation is a choice made by the owner/manager of the brain and is approved by the polytheistic-pagan-humanist religions that glorify the individual's gods-within and encourage reincarna- INTRODUCTION tion or reanimation planning.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT This Copy of the Thesis Has Been
    University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2012 Life Expansion: Toward an Artistic, Design-Based Theory of the Transhuman / Posthuman Vita-More, Natasha http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/1182 University of Plymouth All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent. 1 Life Expansion: Toward an Artistic, Design-Based Theory of the Transhuman / Posthuman by NATASHA VITA-MORE A thesis submitted to the University of Plymouth in partial fulfillment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Art & Media Faculty of Arts April 2012 2 Natasha Vita-More Life Expansion: Toward an Artistic, Design-Based Theory of the Transhuman / Posthuman The thesis’ study of life expansion proposes a framework for artistic, design-based approaches concerned with prolonging human life and sustaining personal identity. To delineate the topic: life expansion means increasing the length of time a person is alive and diversifying the matter in which a person exists.
    [Show full text]
  • Humana.Mente Complete Issue 26.Pdf
    EDITORIAL MANAGER: DUCCIO MANETTI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE Editorial EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: SILVANO ZIPOLI CAIANI - UNIVERSITY OF MILAN VICE DIRECTOR: MARCO FENICI - UNIVERSITY OF SIENA Board INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL BOARD JOHN BELL - UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO GIOVANNI BONIOLO - INSTITUTE OF MOLECULAR ONCOLOGY FOUNDATION MARIA LUISA DALLA CHIARA - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE DIMITRI D'ANDREA - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE BERNARDINO FANTINI - UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE LUCIANO FLORIDI - UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD MASSIMO INGUSCIO - EUROPEAN LABORATORY FOR NON-LINEAR SPECTROSCOPY GEORGE LAKOFF - UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY PAOLO PARRINI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE ALBERTO PERUZZI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE JEAN PETITOT - CREA, CENTRE DE RECHERCHE EN ÉPISTÉMOLOGIE APPLIQUÉE CORRADO SINIGAGLIA - UNIVERSITY OF MILAN BAS C. VAN FRAASSEN - SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY CONSULTING EDITORS CARLO GABBANI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE ROBERTA LANFREDINI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE MARCO SALUCCI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE ELENA ACUTI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE MATTEO BORRI - UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE ROBERTO CIUNI - UNIVERSITY OF DELFT Editorial SCILLA BELLUCCI, LAURA BERITELLI, RICCARDO FURI, ALICE GIULIANI, STEFANO LICCIOLI, UMBERTO MAIONCHI Staff HUMANA.MENTE - QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Fiorella Battaglia, Antonio Carnevale Epistemological and Moral Problems with Human Enhancement III PAPERS Volker Gerhardt Technology as a Medium of Ethics and Culture 1 Nikil Mukerji, Julian Nida-Rümelin Towards a Moderate Stance on Human Enhancement 17 Christopher
    [Show full text]
  • 149-Page PDF Version
    By Bradford Hatcher © 2019 Bradford Hatcher ISBN: 978-0-9824191-8-2 Download at: https://www.hermetica.info/Intervention.html or: https://www.hermetica.info/Intervention.pdf Cover Photo Credit: Found online. Appears to be a conception of an evolved Terran reptilian life form. Table of Contents Part One 5 Preface 5 Puppet Shows 7 Waldo Speaking, Part 1 11 Waldo Speaking, Part 2 17 Wilma Speaks of Spirit 24 The Eck 30 Gizmos and the Van 34 Growing Up Van 42 Some Changes are Made 49 Culling Homo Non Grata 56 Introducing the Ta 63 Terrestrial and Aquatic Ta 67 Vestan, Myco, and Raptor Ta 72 Part Two 78 Progress Report at I+20 78 Desert Colonies 80 The Final Frontier, For Now 85 The Stellar Fleet 89 Remembering Community 94 Prototypes and Lexicons 99 For the Kids 104 Cultural Evolution 112 Cultural Engineering 119 Bioengineering 124 The Commons 128 The Tour 132 Mitakuye Oyasin 137 A Partial Glossary 147 Part One It gives one a feeling of confidence to see nature still busy with experiments, still dynamic, and not through nor satisfied because a Devonian fish managed to end as a two-legged character with a straw hat. There are other things brewing and growing in the oceanic vat. It pays to know this. It pays to know that there is just as much future as there is past. The only thing that doesn't pay is to be sure of man's own part in it. There are things down there still coming ashore. Never make the mistake of thinking life is now adjusted for eternity.
    [Show full text]
  • Cryonics Magazine, Q1 1999
    Mark Your Calendars Today! BioStasis 2000 June of the Year 2000 ave you ever considered Asilomar Conference Center Hwriting for publication? If not, let me warn you that it Northern California can be a masochistic pursuit. The simultaneous advent of the word processor and the onset of the Initial List Post-Literate Era have flooded every market with manuscripts, of Speakers: while severely diluting the aver- age quality of work. Most editors can’t keep up with the tsunami of amateurish submissions washing Eric Drexler, over their desks every day. They don’t have time to strain out the Ph.D. writers with potential, offer them personal advice, and help them to Ralph Merkle, develop their talents. The typical response is to search for familiar Ph.D. names and check cover letters for impressive credits, but shove ev- Robert Newport, ery other manuscript right back into its accompanying SASE. M.D. Despite these depressing ob- servations, please don’t give up hope! There are still venues where Watch the Alcor Phoenix as the beginning writer can go for details unfold! editorial attention and reader rec- Artwork by Tim Hubley ognition. Look to the small press — it won’t catapult you to the wealth and celebrity you wish, but it will give you a reason to practice, and it may even intro- duce you to an editor who will chat about your submissions. Where do you find this “small press?” The latest edition of Writ- ers’ Market will give you several possibilities, but let me suggest a more obvious and immediate place to start sending your work: Cryonics Magazine! 2 Cryonics • 1st Qtr, 1999 Letters to the Editor RE: “Hamburger Helpers” by Charles Platt, in his/her interest to go this route if the “Cryonics” magazine, 4th Quarter greater cost of insurance is more than offset Sincerely, 1998 by lower dues.
    [Show full text]
  • Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition
    Tf Freewheel simply a tour « // o é Z oon" ‘ , c AUS Figas - 3 8 tion = ~ Conds : 8O man | S. | —§R Transhu : QO the Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition Science Slightly Over the Edge ED REGIS A VV Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. - Reading, Massachusetts Menlo Park, California New York Don Mills, Ontario Wokingham, England Amsterdam Bonn Sydney Singapore Tokyo Madrid San Juan Paris Seoul Milan Mexico City Taipei Acknowledgmentof permissions granted to reprint previously published material appears on page 301. Manyofthe designations used by manufacturers andsellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Addison-Wesley was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters (e.g., Silly Putty). .Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Regis, Edward, 1944— Great mambo chicken and the transhuman condition : science slightly over the edge / Ed Regis. p- cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-201-09258-1 ISBN 0-201-56751-2 (pbk.) 1. Science—Miscellanea. 2. Engineering—Miscellanea. 3. Forecasting—Miscellanea. I. Title. Q173.R44 1990 500—dc20 90-382 CIP Copyright © 1990 by Ed Regis All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. Text design by Joyce C. Weston Set in 11-point Galliard by DEKR Corporation, Woburn, MA - 12345678 9-MW-9594939291 Second printing, October 1990 First paperback printing, August 1991 For William Patrick Contents The Mania..
    [Show full text]
  • 2016-2017 Report
    The Society of Fellows in the Humanities Annual Report 2016–2017 Society of Fellows Mail Code 5700 Columbia University 2960 Broadway New York, NY 10027 Phone: (212) 854-8443 Fax: (212) 662-7289 [email protected] www.societyoffellows.columbia.edu By FedEx or UPS: Society of Fellows 74 Morningside Drive Heyman Center, First Floor East Campus Residential Center Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Posters courtesy of designers Amelia Saul and Sean Boggs 2 Contents Report From The Chair 5 Special Events 31 Members of the 2016–2017 Governing Board 8 Heyman Center Events 35 • Event Highlights 36 Forty-Second Annual Fellowship Competition 9 • Public Humanities Initiative 47 Fellows in Residence 2016–2017 11 • Heyman Center Series and Workshops 50 • Benjamin Breen 12 Nietzsche 13/13 Seminar 50 • Christopher M. Florio 13 New Books in the Arts & Sciences 50 • David Gutkin 14 New Books in the Society of Fellows 54 • Heidi Hausse 15 The Program in World Philology 56 • Arden Hegele 16 • Full List of Heyman Center Events • Whitney Laemmli 17 2016–2017 57 • Max Mishler 18 • María González Pendás 19 Heyman Center Fellows 2016–2017 65 • Carmel Raz 20 Alumni Fellows News 71 Thursday Lectures Series 21 Alumni Fellows Directory 74 • Fall 2016: Fellows’ Talks 23 • Spring 2017: Shock and Reverberation 26 2016–2017 Fellows at the annual year-end Spring gathering (from left): María González Pendás (2016–2019), Arden Hegele (2016–2019), David Gutkin (2015–2017), Whitney Laemmli (2016–2019), Christopher Florio (2016–2019) Heidi Hausse (2016–2018), Max Mishler (2016–2017), and Carmel Raz (2015–2018).
    [Show full text]
  • Where's My Jet Pack?
    Where's My Jet Pack? Online Communication Practices and Media Frames of the Emergent Voluntary Cyborg Subculture By Tamara Banbury A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts In Legal Studies Faculty of Public Affairs Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2019 Tamara Banbury Abstract Voluntary cyborgs embed technology into their bodies for purposes of enhancement or augmentation. These voluntary cyborgs gather in online forums and are negotiating the elements of subculture formation with varying degrees of success. The voluntary cyborg community is unusual in subculture studies due to the desire for mainstream acceptance and widespread adoption of their practices. How voluntary cyborg practices are framed in media articles can affect how cyborgian practices are viewed and ultimately, accepted or denied by those outside the voluntary cyborg subculture. Key Words: cyborg, subculture, implants, community, technology, subdermal, chips, media frames, online forums, voluntary ii Acknowledgements The process of researching and writing a thesis is not a solo endeavour, no matter how much it may feel that way at times. This thesis is no exception and if it weren’t for the advice, feedback, and support from a number of people, this thesis would still just be a dream and not a reality. I want to acknowledge the institutions and the people at those institutions who have helped fund my research over the last year — I was honoured to receive one of the coveted Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships for master’s students from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
    [Show full text]
  • 321444 1 En Bookbackmatter 533..564
    Index 1 Abdominal aortic aneurysm, 123 10,000 Year Clock, 126 Abraham, 55, 92, 122 127.0.0.1, 100 Abrahamic religion, 53, 71, 73 Abundance, 483 2 Academy award, 80, 94 2001: A Space Odyssey, 154, 493 Academy of Philadelphia, 30 2004 Vital Progress Summit, 482 Accelerated Math, 385 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, 257 Access point, 306 2011 Egyptian revolution, 35 ACE. See artificial conversational entity 2011 State of the Union Address, 4 Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, 135, 2012 Black Hat security conference, 27 156 2012 U.S. Presidential Election, 257 Acxiom, 244 2014 Lok Sabha election, 256 Adam, 57, 121, 122 2016 Google I/O, 13, 155 Adams, Douglas, 95, 169 2016 State of the Union, 28 Adam Smith Institute, 493 2045 Initiative, 167 ADD. See Attention-Deficit Disorder 24 (TV Series), 66 Ad extension, 230 2M Companies, 118 Ad group, 219 Adiabatic quantum optimization, 170 3 Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 21 3D bioprinting, 152 Adobe, 30 3M Cloud Library, 327 Adonis, 84 Adultery, 85, 89 4 Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, 401K, 57 38 42, 169 Advice to a Young Tradesman, 128 42-line Bible, 169 Adwaita, 131 AdWords campaign, 214 6 Affordable Care Act, 140 68th Street School, 358 Afghan Peace Volunteers, 22 Africa, 20 9 AGI. See Artificial General Intelligence 9/11 terrorist attacks, 69 Aging, 153 Aging disease, 118 A Aging process, 131 Aalborg University, 89 Agora (film), 65 Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, 135 Agriculture, 402 AbbVie, 118 Ahmad, Wasil, 66 ABC 20/20, 79 AI. See artificial intelligence © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 533 N.
    [Show full text]
  • Restoration of Identity from Space in Alastair Reynolds's Chasm
    Restoration of identity from space in Alastair Reynolds’s Chasm City Ville Heikkilä University of Tampere School of Literature, Language and Translation English Philology MA Thesis November 2013 Tampereen yliopisto Englantilainen filologia, FM Kieli-, käännös- ja kirjallisuustieteiden yksikkö HEIKKILÄ, VILLE: Restoration of identity from space in Alastair Reynolds’s Chasm City Pro gradu – tutkielma, 65 sivua. Marraskuu 2013 Analysoin pro gradu – tutkielmassani tilojen vaikutusta ja suhdetta identiteetin jälleenmuodostumiseen Alastair Reynoldsin science fiction -romaanissa Kuilukaupunki. Tutkimuskysymykseni hakee vastausta siihen, millä tavoin romaanin esittämät tilat vaikuttavat romaanin päähenkilön identiteetin palautumiseen ja eheytymiseen muistinmenetyksen ja persoonallisuuden vaihtumisen jälkeen. Romaanin tiloilla ja paikoilla vaikuttaa olevan voimakas kytkös päähenkilön edellisen identiteetin tallentamiin muistoihin, ja työni tavoitteena on havainnollistaa ja tuoda näitä kytköksiä esiin. Tilallisuus on noussut eri tieteenaloilla vuosituhannen vaihteessa ja sen jälkeen suureen rooliin; puhutaan ’tilallisesta käänteestä’ tutkimusparadigmassa. Pro gradu – työni pyrkii tuomaan Reynoldsia esiin paitsi arvokkaana tutkimuskohteena tieteiskirjallisuuden osana, myös hedelmällisenä maaperänä tilateorian kehittämiseen. Kuilukaupunki valikoitui tutkimuskohteeksi romaanin erittäin omalaatuisen nimikkokaupungin tarjoaman ympäristön vuoksi, sekä siksi, että identiteetin pysyvyys on romaanissa vahvasti esillä. Postmoderni käsitys identiteetistä
    [Show full text]
  • Transhumanism
    T ranshumanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=T ranshum... Transhumanism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia See also: Outline of transhumanism Transhumanism is an international Part of Ideology series on intellectual and cultural movement supporting Transhumanism the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics Ideologies and capacities. The movement regards aspects Abolitionism of the human condition, such as disability, Democratic transhumanism suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary Extropianism death as unnecessary and undesirable. Immortalism Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and Libertarian transhumanism other emerging technologies for these Postgenderism purposes. Dangers, as well as benefits, are Singularitarianism also of concern to the transhumanist Technogaianism [1] movement. Related articles The term "transhumanism" is symbolized by Transhumanism in fiction H+ or h+ and is often used as a synonym for Transhumanist art "human enhancement".[2] Although the first known use of the term dates from 1957, the Organizations contemporary meaning is a product of the 1980s when futurists in the United States Applied Foresight Network Alcor Life Extension Foundation began to organize what has since grown into American Cryonics Society the transhumanist movement. Transhumanist Cryonics Institute thinkers predict that human beings may Foresight Institute eventually be able to transform themselves Humanity+ into beings with such greatly expanded Immortality Institute abilities as to merit the label "posthuman".[1] Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence Transhumanism is therefore sometimes Transhumanism Portal · referred to as "posthumanism" or a form of transformational activism influenced by posthumanist ideals.[3] The transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives.
    [Show full text]
  • Angela Moira Delaware's Copy of the Eclipse Phase Character
    Angela Moira Delaware’s copy of the Eclipse Phase Character Questionnaire By ShadowDragon8685 1: How did the Fall affect you, and where were you when it happened? I both was and wasn’t extant at the time, though I have full recall of those days. I’m a fork (of a fork,) of the original Angela Moira Delaware who wasn’t forked until afterwards. Not that I’m not Angela Delaware - I am. We all are. Anyway, I remember it well. I remember being terrified, because one of the things they don’t tell you about sleeving into a Neotenic is that you get back the full range of childish wonder - including childish fear. Which, let me tell you, was in hyperdrive given there was enough fear going around in those days to make grown people scream and weep. I was safe from the Fall - I had a nice vantage point from my hab in the Saturnine Trojans. We didn’t get any TITAN greebliness out where we were, but it was an immense relief when everybody agreed more or less that the TITANs were gone and we could get back to the business of being alive. Being afraid didn’t stop us from taking advantage of the chaos on New Humanity - we were still ostensibly a hypercorp social experiment hab at the time, but with all the shaking up that was going on, we took the opportunity to cast off our corporate overlords and declare ourselves an Anarcho-Collectivist habitat. I still checked under my bed for TITANs for a year afterward, though.
    [Show full text]
  • Making Human Rights Fit for the 21St Century: the Challenge of Morphological Freedom1 Jessica Tatchell, University of Warwick M
    Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 8, 34-39. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-2e5 Making Human Rights Fit for the 21st Century: The Challenge of Morphological Freedom1 Jessica Tatchell, University of Warwick Many strong and valid arguments against the idea of human rights exist. Is it right, for example, to assume universality; that is, do all human beings in all societies require and/or desire the same rights? Are these universal rights predicated on Western values and norms, leading to discriminatory behaviour towards those who do not fit this Christian ideal of human nature (Walker 2015)? Furthermore, is it feasibly possible to legally enforce and protect the rights of individuals on a global scale without contradicting principles of national sovereignty (Fagen 2009)? These are indeed pressing issues worthy of consideration. However, this essay aims to present the argument that our contemporary notion of human rights is not fit for the 21st century. It is not an argument against the idea of a system of rights that morally and/or legally has the intention of protecting humanity, but rather, human rights as it exists in its present form needs to respond and adapt to the emerging needs of present and future generations. A truly effective and valuable system of rights should be capable of reflecting and adapting to increasingly fluid notions of how we understand ourselves, others and (post/trans) humanity in general. For example, blurring boundaries between human- animal-machine raises questions about the extension of rights beyond the human (Fuller 2014). Additionally, a recent Human Rights Watch report (2015) asks how humans can be protected against fully autonomous weapons (“killer robots”) when no one can be held personally accountable for any unlawful harm caused by these machines.
    [Show full text]