10 ms·

We’re treating self-improvement like a software upgrade

101 points by tomhoward 6y ago

micdr0p 6y ago
requires account?
bpatel576 6y ago
True
tomrod 6y ago
I played Gris recently. An absolutely artistic, captivating platformer. But it was still deterministic along several dimensions. I feel that it is a counterexample to the all-encompassing claims made by the article. Why can't parts of self improvement be like a software upgrade?
ecmascript 6y ago
> Self-improvement of the transhumanist sort requires that we adopt an entirely functional understanding of who and what we are: All of our abilities can be improved upon and all of our parts are replaceable. Upgradable. Yeah right, but we're so far away from creating even a single "upgrade" that's comparable with the human body. For example, even the best cameras would never even be in the same competing arena as the human eye. No sensors come close to our sense of touch. The transhumanist ideology is nothing else but some kind of perverted ideology that we somehow would be upgraded with a usb port sticking out from the skin. Even the very best tools we have today to save lives and help our bodies sucks in comparison with the biological counterpart. Sure there may be a future that we would "upgrade" ourselves, but when that time is here (which would be very, very far into the future) everyone will instantly do it because it will be so much better. There wouldn't be some kind of discussion about it since the result is so obvious. For it to happen, whatever we replace something with will have to have all the features that we currently enjoy + a lot more.
- scoutt 6y ago
  > everyone will instantly do it With the current state of software development, I'd wait at least a year, like when a new Windows version comes out (or less in case of iPhone iOS). I don't like to beta-test with my HW; I wouldn't do it with my body.
- classified 6y ago
  Transhumanism is just a poor copy of christianity where deliverance is an npm module hosted on GitHub, accepting pull requests from the enlightened priesthood and deployed to the cloud. If you don't have at least a wireless transceiver implanted, downloading timely updates, then you're a heretic. After all, you also have to upload yourself so you can live on in purity after you cast off your biological remnants, for as long as the subscription fees are payed. Christianity has invented all this much earlier, and it was dubious then already.
  - glouwbug 6y ago
    This reads like it was written by a neural network
- aesclepius 6y ago
  Think about insulin pumps, cataract surgery, LASIK/PRK, or any type of surgical augmentation for disability (limb replacement or hip replacements) - we are definitely improving and upgradeable, it's only a matter of degree.
- ggggtez 6y ago
  > even the best cameras would never even be in the same competing arena as the human eye All it takes is looking at photos from space telescopes, or electron microscopes... It should be obvious that technology can make better cameras than human eyes. Or slow motion video cameras... Infrared cameras... The only thing about human eyes that is superior is that they come connected to the brain. For now, technological augmentation is "air-gapped". It's incorrect to ignore air-gapped augmentations. Hell, even glasses could be considered the first step, and have existed for hundreds of years. Using glasses is essentially the "no brainer" conclusion that you are looking for. People already accept that it's ok to try to do better than nature provided for you.
blueyes 6y ago
When really it's more like a SaaS product. You need to keep paying for the self-improvement, month after month, with your time...
- elchin 6y ago
  Yes, success is rented, not bought, and the rent is due every day.
  - thealienthing 6y ago
    Never heard this before. Good rule of life.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jungletime 6y ago
On the specific mechanism of self improvement. Cycles of Intense focus, activity, followed by deep rest. Checkout Andre Huberman's podcast "a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine" http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/andrew-huberman http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/andrew-huberman
- drivers99 6y ago
  Video version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJowTOkZVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJowTOkZVo
- omniscient_oce 6y ago
  I think anyone who has trained to a relatively high level in a sport can relate with that. I've often come back after a long break playing better than before. Also sometimes you just get a click a-ha moment and you've suddenly gotten past a plateau that had been plaguing you for ages.
awillen 6y ago
There are a lot of leaps of logic here - somehow he jumps from the fact that wristbands that count our heartbeats and footsteps are trying to improve health to the idea that our humanity is reducible to a bunch of data points. Then somehow we've jumped to digital implants that don't exist yet and some extremely theoretical ideas of how they might be terrible for society. Just a whole lot of doom and gloom with no real substance behind it.
antonzabirko 6y ago
> Your value is not utility. Lol let your value feed you when you run out of money with that line of thinking. Once you are wealthy, then sure; but not till then do humans have value in these systems were born into.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
The anti-self-improvement arguments usually devolve into weird strawman arguments and non sequiturs. In this case, the author is trying to portray modern technology and companies as the enemy because he wrote a series of books on the subject. > It’s that we humans should be making active choices about what it is we want to do to ourselves, rather than letting the machines, or the markets propelling them, decide for us. Self-improvement isn't synonymous with buying products or following companies. In fact, two of the most common self-improvement goals are to reduce the amount of time spent in front of screens and to spend more time with friends and family. This article reads more like an anti-technology or anti-corporate piece disguised as a criticism of self-improvement. Ironically, the author of this post would like to sell you his thinly-veiled self help books such as "Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age" and "Get Back in the Box: How Being Great at What You Do Is Great for Business". This blog post is marketing material for his specific brand of self-improvement.
- m0xte 6y ago
  Nailed it. There are so many ideological knowledge and mindset cults out there competing for attention. I could probably come up with one and make millions just from looking for drifters after the first several failed for them.
- m463 6y ago
  "The Rise of Fake Gurus - The Dark Truth Behind Making MILLIONS from Online Courses." https://youtu.be/L9Gpr7PEnbs https://youtu.be/L9Gpr7PEnbs
- crispyambulance 6y ago
  Rushkoff has been a digerati pundit for a very long time. He is definitely NOT a self-help guru. He's a legit academic at CUNY/Queens who has written quite a few books, writes articles, has a podcast, and gets paid to give talks when invited. Yes, he can get preachy sometimes, but he's not part of what I call "the self-help-industrial-complex". He doesn't use ponzi-like levels of ever more expensive training seminars, that garbage people like Tony Robbins and all their ilk on youtube use to make money. Rushkoff makes compelling and sincere arguments, he admits it when he's wrong (eg like the "Program or be Programmed" book) and, yes, he's certainly a lefist. He puts himself out there and isn't afraid to break consistency with his previous views. I admire all of that. This particular article makes some good points. I don't agree with all of it, but it's a solid point of view and not disingenuous marketing.
noble_pleb 6y ago
Off-topic but medium has almost turned into a paywall these days, it won't allow you to read more than 5 articles without subscribing to their paid service. Should HN and Google be promoting such a walled garden, especially when creative commons content is found aplenty on the interwebs?
- robynsmith 6y ago
  Agreed. This is becoming a pet peeve of mine. When I run into my limit I just skip the read or find a way around it :) Wish people would just stop posting to or linking to medium.
- erikerikson 6y ago
  They kept bugging me to log in. When I did, they started throwing things about limits around. So I deleted data related to the site and never log in. Since then I get to read as much as I want.
sidkhullar 6y ago
We are objects. Our humanity comes from how we're used and for whom. One of the purposes of meditation is to separate the ego from the self and be able to look upon ourselves dispassionately and objectively, for the purposes of improving both, the spirit and its current vehicle.
- xg15 6y ago
  Yeah, I'm very happy to be using myself for myself (and for others), thank you very much.
ggggtez 6y ago
> gender fluidity would disappear Transhumanism would result in the opposite. The very idea of a gender binary should be called into question when you reach the level of augmenting and transcending the limits of your flesh. The author seems to have a very narrow understanding of Transhumanism.
maerF0x0 6y ago
in a sense it's really hard to create a being that is superior in all scenarios rather than superior in specific scenarios. For example, roughly speaking, being a tall and very muscular person can be a disadvantage in a famine. Or being much much smarter than your peers can be a disadvantage in certain social scenarios that get you expelled for non-conformity... I imagine we will see a similar issue with transhumanism, where the resultant products are better in some scenarios, but also worse in others.

101 points by tomhoward 6y ago

micdr0p 6y ago

requires account?

bpatel576 6y ago

True

tomrod 6y ago

I played Gris recently. An absolutely artistic, captivating platformer. But it was still deterministic along several dimensions. I feel that it is a counterexample to the all-encompassing claims made by the article. Why can't parts of self improvement be like a software upgrade?

ecmascript 6y ago

> Self-improvement of the transhumanist sort requires that we adopt an entirely functional understanding of who and what we are: All of our abilities can be improved upon and all of our parts are replaceable. Upgradable. Yeah right, but we're so far away from creating even a single "upgrade" that's comparable with the human body. For example, even the best cameras would never even be in the same competing arena as the human eye. No sensors come close to our sense of touch. The transhumanist ideology is nothing else but some kind of perverted ideology that we somehow would be upgraded with a usb port sticking out from the skin. Even the very best tools we have today to save lives and help our bodies sucks in comparison with the biological counterpart. Sure there may be a future that we would "upgrade" ourselves, but when that time is here (which would be very, very far into the future) everyone will instantly do it because it will be so much better. There wouldn't be some kind of discussion about it since the result is so obvious. For it to happen, whatever we replace something with will have to have all the features that we currently enjoy + a lot more.

scoutt 6y ago
> everyone will instantly do it With the current state of software development, I'd wait at least a year, like when a new Windows version comes out (or less in case of iPhone iOS). I don't like to beta-test with my HW; I wouldn't do it with my body.
classified 6y ago
Transhumanism is just a poor copy of christianity where deliverance is an npm module hosted on GitHub, accepting pull requests from the enlightened priesthood and deployed to the cloud. If you don't have at least a wireless transceiver implanted, downloading timely updates, then you're a heretic. After all, you also have to upload yourself so you can live on in purity after you cast off your biological remnants, for as long as the subscription fees are payed. Christianity has invented all this much earlier, and it was dubious then already.
- glouwbug 6y ago
  This reads like it was written by a neural network
aesclepius 6y ago
Think about insulin pumps, cataract surgery, LASIK/PRK, or any type of surgical augmentation for disability (limb replacement or hip replacements) - we are definitely improving and upgradeable, it's only a matter of degree.
ggggtez 6y ago
> even the best cameras would never even be in the same competing arena as the human eye All it takes is looking at photos from space telescopes, or electron microscopes... It should be obvious that technology can make better cameras than human eyes. Or slow motion video cameras... Infrared cameras... The only thing about human eyes that is superior is that they come connected to the brain. For now, technological augmentation is "air-gapped". It's incorrect to ignore air-gapped augmentations. Hell, even glasses could be considered the first step, and have existed for hundreds of years. Using glasses is essentially the "no brainer" conclusion that you are looking for. People already accept that it's ok to try to do better than nature provided for you.

blueyes 6y ago

When really it's more like a SaaS product. You need to keep paying for the self-improvement, month after month, with your time...

elchin 6y ago
Yes, success is rented, not bought, and the rent is due every day.
- thealienthing 6y ago
  Never heard this before. Good rule of life.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jungletime 6y ago

On the specific mechanism of self improvement. Cycles of Intense focus, activity, followed by deep rest. Checkout Andre Huberman's podcast "a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine" http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/andrew-huberman http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/andrew-huberman

drivers99 6y ago
Video version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJowTOkZVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJowTOkZVo
omniscient_oce 6y ago
I think anyone who has trained to a relatively high level in a sport can relate with that. I've often come back after a long break playing better than before. Also sometimes you just get a click a-ha moment and you've suddenly gotten past a plateau that had been plaguing you for ages.

awillen 6y ago

There are a lot of leaps of logic here - somehow he jumps from the fact that wristbands that count our heartbeats and footsteps are trying to improve health to the idea that our humanity is reducible to a bunch of data points. Then somehow we've jumped to digital implants that don't exist yet and some extremely theoretical ideas of how they might be terrible for society. Just a whole lot of doom and gloom with no real substance behind it.

antonzabirko 6y ago

> Your value is not utility. Lol let your value feed you when you run out of money with that line of thinking. Once you are wealthy, then sure; but not till then do humans have value in these systems were born into.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

The anti-self-improvement arguments usually devolve into weird strawman arguments and non sequiturs. In this case, the author is trying to portray modern technology and companies as the enemy because he wrote a series of books on the subject. > It’s that we humans should be making active choices about what it is we want to do to ourselves, rather than letting the machines, or the markets propelling them, decide for us. Self-improvement isn't synonymous with buying products or following companies. In fact, two of the most common self-improvement goals are to reduce the amount of time spent in front of screens and to spend more time with friends and family. This article reads more like an anti-technology or anti-corporate piece disguised as a criticism of self-improvement. Ironically, the author of this post would like to sell you his thinly-veiled self help books such as "Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age" and "Get Back in the Box: How Being Great at What You Do Is Great for Business". This blog post is marketing material for his specific brand of self-improvement.

m0xte 6y ago
Nailed it. There are so many ideological knowledge and mindset cults out there competing for attention. I could probably come up with one and make millions just from looking for drifters after the first several failed for them.
m463 6y ago
"The Rise of Fake Gurus - The Dark Truth Behind Making MILLIONS from Online Courses." https://youtu.be/L9Gpr7PEnbs https://youtu.be/L9Gpr7PEnbs
crispyambulance 6y ago
Rushkoff has been a digerati pundit for a very long time. He is definitely NOT a self-help guru. He's a legit academic at CUNY/Queens who has written quite a few books, writes articles, has a podcast, and gets paid to give talks when invited. Yes, he can get preachy sometimes, but he's not part of what I call "the self-help-industrial-complex". He doesn't use ponzi-like levels of ever more expensive training seminars, that garbage people like Tony Robbins and all their ilk on youtube use to make money. Rushkoff makes compelling and sincere arguments, he admits it when he's wrong (eg like the "Program or be Programmed" book) and, yes, he's certainly a lefist. He puts himself out there and isn't afraid to break consistency with his previous views. I admire all of that. This particular article makes some good points. I don't agree with all of it, but it's a solid point of view and not disingenuous marketing.

noble_pleb 6y ago

Off-topic but medium has almost turned into a paywall these days, it won't allow you to read more than 5 articles without subscribing to their paid service. Should HN and Google be promoting such a walled garden, especially when creative commons content is found aplenty on the interwebs?

robynsmith 6y ago
Agreed. This is becoming a pet peeve of mine. When I run into my limit I just skip the read or find a way around it :) Wish people would just stop posting to or linking to medium.
erikerikson 6y ago
They kept bugging me to log in. When I did, they started throwing things about limits around. So I deleted data related to the site and never log in. Since then I get to read as much as I want.

sidkhullar 6y ago

We are objects. Our humanity comes from how we're used and for whom. One of the purposes of meditation is to separate the ego from the self and be able to look upon ourselves dispassionately and objectively, for the purposes of improving both, the spirit and its current vehicle.

xg15 6y ago
Yeah, I'm very happy to be using myself for myself (and for others), thank you very much.

ggggtez 6y ago

> gender fluidity would disappear Transhumanism would result in the opposite. The very idea of a gender binary should be called into question when you reach the level of augmenting and transcending the limits of your flesh. The author seems to have a very narrow understanding of Transhumanism.

maerF0x0 6y ago

in a sense it's really hard to create a being that is superior in all scenarios rather than superior in specific scenarios. For example, roughly speaking, being a tall and very muscular person can be a disadvantage in a famine. Or being much much smarter than your peers can be a disadvantage in certain social scenarios that get you expelled for non-conformity... I imagine we will see a similar issue with transhumanism, where the resultant products are better in some scenarios, but also worse in others.