The Chase for Immortality-- An Ever Failing Movement
- ryleyms
- Mar 18, 2021
- 2 min read
The movement of transhumanism, which in the article is defined as “the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making technologies that greatly enhance longevity, mood and cognitive abilities.” In recent years, transhumanist thinkers have begun to think about the “what ifs'' with all the new emerging technology. The thinkers came up with an idea that one day all human beings could potentially be tampered with through technology in order to exceed the limitations of current mankind. This new group of people would be known as “post-human beings.” After reading the transhumanist article, there are just too many unknowns and potential dangers behind the transhumanist’s ideas. I believe that tampering with mankind is a waste of resources and a dangerous game to be playing.
Haven’t you ever read those science fiction books or watch movies like I, Robot or Lucy? Well to sum them all up, they are focused around manipulation of mankind and robots, and something always goes wrong! Furthermore, the article mentions, transhumanist ideas started to form all the way back to the age of Gilgamesh and his adventure to find immortality. Well, that obviously did not work out for Gilgamesh either.
Early thinker Noboru Kawazoe outlined in his manifesto how he wanted everyone to have a “brain wave receiver” planted into their ear, so they could know what other people were thinking of and speaking about them. First of all, this is an absolute waste of time and resources. With all the debt that we are in and all the problems we are currently facing in the world, should knowing what other people are saying about us be at the top? No.
The article mainly discusses the theories, aims, debates and ethics of the transhumanistic idea, but never discusses the resources or plausibility to actually follow through with their plan. These tactics and techniques could potentially be extremely dangerous or have long lasting negative effects. There is just too much unknown in this subject of research.
Thinking about the future, what is immortality going to grant someone? Well, more power and in turn we already know the tragedies that have occurred due to the struggle to obtain power. Some of the other potential dangers of turning someone into a “post human being” are the capabilities to successfully change people, loss of human identity, and the effects it would have on the economy and society as a whole.
Overall, the transhumanistic ideas are not supported or backed by enough research. The potential dangers of changing and altering human beings are too vast to actually follow through with this plan. Not only would this type of science be too dangerous, but it would also be too resource and time consuming in comparison to other major world problems.
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