We've been exploring examples and debating the relationship between humans and technology over the last few weeks. As we saw in the Facebook hearings, and the episode of Black Mirror there are often unintended consequences we are often blind to.
http://bigthink.com/articles/10-human-body-modifications-you-can-expect-in-the-next-decade
"Transformative technologies have always been accompanied by optimistic and pessimistic visions of how they will change humanity and society. Socrates worried that the invention of writing would have a deletrious effect on the memories of young Greeks who, he predicted, would become : the hearers of many things and will have learned nothing."
"But it is clear that we are heading in a direction that has no broader comparison in terms of it's impact on humanity as a species itself. For instance take Zoltan Istvan. He wants to live forever. Not in the metaphysical sense (books or memories) but in a very real, practical sense. And he believes technology will soon make it possible. Zoltan is planning to upload his brian and all its billions of unique synaptic pathways to a computer server. He's part of a growing community of people who believe technology can make us physically, intellectually, even morally better. They call themselves transhumanists. Transhumanists seek the continued evolution of humans beyond its current form."
Now meet John Zerzan. "He's one of the world's most famous anarcho-primitivist who believe that technology is at the root of many, if not all, of today's social problems. He wants to jettison Facebook, computers, telephones, electricity, steam-powered engines and more. He believes technology tends to distract us from our natural state, pushing us further away from what it really is to be free humans."
For this post I want you to research Transhumanist and Anarcho-Primitivism and inform yourself on the debate. Then write about which side of the debate do you find yourself. Provide a link to one of your sources that you found convincing.
Credit: The Dark Net, Inside the Digital Underworld. By Jamie Barlett
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Both Transhumanist and Anarcho-Privitist are radical groups in great opposition. I believe that we need a bit of both of their ideologies to be put into practice. Transhumanists envision a robotic future. With computer chips in our bodies, mechanical members, and the internet to do our thinking for us, we cannot call ourselves human. According to the Transhumanist Party official website (http://transhumanist-party.org/), they are doing good by promoting health, education, and proper living in poor countries. However, that extra use of technology is not neccessary everywhere. It an become addictive, abused, and dangerous. Anarcho-Primitist, as described by John Moore (http://www.eco-action.org/dt/primer.html), seem to be like cavemen. They want to go back to a relatively primitive lifestyle because technology is considered a pest to humanity. I agree that technology can harm us and that we as humans are earthly people - the word "human" is related to the word "humus" meaning dirt. The simplicity of that is destroyed by chips we could insert into our brains or special contact lenses we can use to see people's social media profiles. These are two extremities. We should not let technology take over us - it already does because human beings zone out when they go online and are not experts at interacting in person. It hurts our ability to think and to relate to one another.
ReplyDeleteAfter researching both sides of the Transhumanist and Anarcho-Privitist debate, I found a rather convincing article- (https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nzeqak/transhumanism-versus-anarcho-primitivism) This article discusses the two sides of the everlasting debate and proves just how ridiculous Anarcho-Privitists sound. Their beliefs on this matter is that we should reverse all modern ways and go back to a pre industrialization era. Transhumanist's on the other hand believe in the future of technological advancement and how it is for the greater good of society. With this debate I would have to side with the Transhumanists because I feel as though despite the drawbacks, modern technology has so many benefits when look at how it completely changed things such as modern medicine and even in our day to day lives. I feel like a reversal of all technology would help us get back our "humanity", but it would be a great misfortune to how far we've come as humans.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.eco-action.org/dt/primer.html is my article and i believe that both sides are equally a bit extreme. i find myself being mostly a transhumanist because i can see technology being the main focus of our future but also our downfall.
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ReplyDeleteupon reading this article i realized that transhumists, are people who believe that technology is a great deal to the progressing of humans, and anarcho- primitivists are those that believe technology should not progress and that humans should go back to how it once was before technological advances. both Transhumanists and anarcho-primitivists are extremsist groups that are polar opposites in beliefs towards technology. I feel that I agree more with the ideas of transhumanist because I am all for technology and it's advices. I don't necessarily agree with regressing as humans .
ReplyDeletehttps://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoltan-istvan/a-stanford-university-deb_b_6186982.html
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