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Eta: Jeffery Epstein identified himself as transhumanist and has been talking about ‘seeding human race with his DNA’ because of his alleged transhumanist belie

Eta: Jeffery Epstein identified himself as transhumanist and has been talking about ‘seeding human race with his DNA’ because of his alleged transhumanist beliefs acc to NYT. I honestly don’t understand why I’d be downvoted for identifying as a transhumanist. Sometimes downvoting because of a headline kind of defeats the purpose of discussion any topic. I wish people would read the article before flagging/downvoting/deleting threads. I think discussion of transhumanism and what it means to different people..and how it would be accepted is a valid topic for discussion.

dang 7y ago
Although I don't know exactly what you mean by transhumanism, I'm sure that it's a topic that HN can discuss. But Jeffrey Epstein is surely one of the worst contexts to discuss it in. Is it likely that the discussion will focus on the fine points of transhumanism, or get sucked into the lurid details of the case? Surely the latter.
- jelliclesfarm 7y ago
  I don’t know how to frame it outside the Epstein case if the title is to be used. Perhaps the title can be amended. @dang, if you read the NYT article, it has nothing to do with Epstein’s lurid activities but about how he conned some of the greatest minds in science to join him and lavishing money to universities and research projects to entirely poison the pond. By association, he has assassinated the transhumanist movement. I think this is an important thing to discuss. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism : generic wiki entry on transhumanism Everything from eugenics to AI/tech singularity can be said to have emerged from transhumanist ideas. It’s discouraging to see it constantly battered by the villains and being made more fringe’y/weird when most of the things we identify as longevity, robotics, ai, singularity, nanotechnology, cybernetics..all emerge from the need to ‘transcend the limits of the condition of humanity’.. Maybe amending the title would help?

dang 7y ago

Although I don't know exactly what you mean by transhumanism, I'm sure that it's a topic that HN can discuss. But Jeffrey Epstein is surely one of the worst contexts to discuss it in. Is it likely that the discussion will focus on the fine points of transhumanism, or get sucked into the lurid details of the case? Surely the latter.

jelliclesfarm 7y ago
I don’t know how to frame it outside the Epstein case if the title is to be used. Perhaps the title can be amended. @dang, if you read the NYT article, it has nothing to do with Epstein’s lurid activities but about how he conned some of the greatest minds in science to join him and lavishing money to universities and research projects to entirely poison the pond. By association, he has assassinated the transhumanist movement. I think this is an important thing to discuss. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism : generic wiki entry on transhumanism Everything from eugenics to AI/tech singularity can be said to have emerged from transhumanist ideas. It’s discouraging to see it constantly battered by the villains and being made more fringe’y/weird when most of the things we identify as longevity, robotics, ai, singularity, nanotechnology, cybernetics..all emerge from the need to ‘transcend the limits of the condition of humanity’.. Maybe amending the title would help?