Declare Your Independence…from Evolution! Here Comes The Singularity and Transhumanism
RU Sirius and Jay Cornell have literally written the book on what's coming next in self-directed evolution.
Independence Day weekend seems like a good time to push the envelope on what is possible for human beings to achieve. Hell, if a rag-tag band of colonists could kick the mighty Brits' butts so long ago, how hard can it be for today's people to live to 150, use 3D printers to create new organs, and develop superpowers?
Earlier this year, Reason talked with RU Sirius (a.k.a. Ke Goffman) and Jay Cornell, the authors of the Transcendence: The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity. Click above to watch Zach Weissmueller's Q&A with them or go here to watch with text and links.
I also did a lengthy interview with Cornell and Sirius too, which is online here.
From the intro:
In Transcendence: The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity, authors R.U. Sirius and Jay Cornell don't simply map the history and future of everything from cancer-curing nanobots to 200-year lifespans to the outer reaches of the inner mind. They also bring a great deal of humor and warmth to transhumanism, or radical, self-directed human evolution, that typically conjures up images of people with giant heads wearing white jumpsuits in a sterile, passionless future.
Sirius and Cornell worked together at H+ magazine and have long and varied histories in various countercultural and tech movements. Sirius was one of the creators of the acclaimed Mondo 2000 which, along with Wired, helped define "cyberculture" in the early 1990s and stretch the limits of magazine design and content. He also collaborated frequently with Timothy Leary, most fully on 1997's Design for Dying. Cornell is aweb developer by trade and, prior to H+, worked on Gnosis magazine. He may be the only transhumanist to openly acknowledge his debt to Eleanor Cameron's incredible 1954 book The Wonderful Trip to the Mushroom Planet, the first in a series of kids' novels that are arguably more mind-blowing than the entire Philip K. Dick oeuvre.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Reason's Nick Gillespie, they explain what "the singularity" might look like, why they're not overly concerned with robots taking all the good jobs, why having your parents live to be 150 won't necessarily be an ordeal, and why now more than ever transhumanists and singulatarians need to get "a sense of humor."