Whats the deal with the Whole Transhumanism/Singularity malarky?

(This is a "overspill" to the Cryonics Thread - which keeps coming back to Transhumanism philosophy.)

"As soon as you take issue, you're quickly labeled a Luddite,'' said Jennifer Lahl, national director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network in Oakland. "But transhumanism begs the question: What needs to be improved upon, who gets to decide and where does it end?"

Richard Hayes, executive director of Oakland's Center for Genetics and Society, likened modern transhumanists to the early 20th-century futurists who were fellow travelers with the fascist movements of that era.

"The transhumanists are fundamentally elitists," Hayes said. "Once they start enhancing themselves toward post-human status they will have little concern with the rest of humanity."

(TY Stioc)

What gives me pause regarding the ideas of Transhumanism is that the movement has very definite echoes of the discredited 'science' of Eugenics, which enjoyed considerable credibility, even in progressive modern nations, until it snowballed into wholesale 'ethnic cleansing'.

Its ok if its just sold as speculation or science fiction.
But some of the big players immediately move to selling Supplements, cryonics, and various devices.
The Demon Haunted World book [en.wikipedia.org] speculates about the far future, but its just speculation, contrasted with actual science.

Most of the big names in "Singularity" [en.wikipedia.org] are a bunch of self-promoters and hucksters...sell sell sell...their books, speeches, pills and potions...



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CARGO CULT SCIENCE by Richard Feynman [www.lhup.edu]
Adapted from the Caltech commencement address given in 1974.

QUOTE: "So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and
science that isn't science.

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are
examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the
South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw
airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same
thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like
runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a
wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head
like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's
the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're
doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the
way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So
I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the
apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but
they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land." ...

"In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to
help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the
information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or
another."
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Ever since fire was invented 2 million years ago, people have worshipped man’s inventions this is called Technophilia. Imagine what it was like on the African Savannah all those years ago when one of our ancient ancestors worked out how to harness the flame! All of a sudden people had something to scare away the most threatening predators in the dead of the night. It was probably the case that until fire was tamed that the weakest and youngest disappeared in the night but not anymore as a big fire now kept the tigers at bay. Not only that our ancestors could preserve foods by smoking, they could cook meats that were maybe inedible before and all sorts of other benefits from spear sharpening to cleaning wounds with ash. It is no suprise to me that these ancient people worshipped fire, it could be argued that without fire no technological progress is possible at all. Thanks to these now extinct hominids harnessing this energy our line of great apes has conquered the world. Later this led to making metals and machines till we get to the point of technology where we are today, its a humbling thought that none of this would be possible without taming the flame. Fire-worshipping is probably the oldest religion we have in the human world, it precedes even our line of humans (homo sapiens), possibly even predating languagues and culture. I would guess that until people started sitting around the fire there was probably not much in the way of cultural exchange which is needed to have a human society.
Today Technophilia is alive and well and it is my argument that todays over-enthusiasm for technology is just the updated form of fire-worship. Today’s technophiliacs call themselves Transhumanists or Singularitarians and have amassed a range of prophets and scriptures which even predicts a christsian like rapture! These people belive that through technology we will better the human race, live indefinite lifespans, banish aging, achieve immortality and cure all sorts of other human problems. They believe that sometime in the near future there will be a “singularity” of technology and some kind of super artificial intelligence or something will come into being and then everything will be very different.

Its interesting that no-one (not even its enthusiasts) can really agree on what the nature of the Technological Singularity even is.
1. We know it can't be because technology gets faster and faster because that simply insn't true - just a a few days researching at the libary shows that idea is largely marketing hype.
2. Nanotech is very much in its infancy and making bold claims about what it may or may not be capable of is more hype - some proposed ideas may not even be possible (Damn you laws of physics - the ultimate bubble burster)
3. We are going through a internet revolution but it still hasn't given us anything really new - just made doing certian things a lot faster and given idiots like me a platform to shout their crazy ideas which they would not have had before.
4. The idea that we can build a AI that is smarter than us which can then go on and build its upgrade and so on - well seems the most possible but we have been listening to the promise of AI for over 60 years and its still just around the corner...
5. Computing processing power does not double every 18 months but the number of transistors on a chip does double - Computer processing does not measure anything but speed of calculating something that is not intelligence thats just speed - there are some problems that can;t be solved by brute force calculations sometimes you just can;t build the software
6. Humans improving by incorporating technology - is again very long way off we can barely make replacement body parts let alone devices which are a improvement on what we are born with. Cochlear implants are a good example, contary to popular belief you don't "hear" you have to learn to interpret the signals which the cochlear implant gives - A lot of Deaf people remove them even if they get implanted at a young age - its a big mistake to think that a disability makes somebody less than a human. I think the same goes for hypothesised improved humans thinking they are more than human.
7. Intelligence explosion - Again this is subjective how do you measure intelligence? Is intelligence just being able to manipulate technology? Is Wayne Rooney a genius because he is a expert football player? When we have a definition of what intelligence is prehaps we can understand how it may be improved.
8. Humans get scanned into a computer - this is weird its just like thinking that humans have a soul and it can be digitalised (Neither of which I buy). Even if it was possible to make a prefect digital representation of you it would not be you, so why would you choose let your digital representation be you and live your life in virtual reality. Its like deciding that you want to die or hide inside your technology? That seems to be a very strange choice and in a way quite sad like giving up on existance.


Majority of text taken from my personal blog - no link supplied as I am not "marketing" my blog it just fits in with the forum -