I skimmed through the article and it kind of reminded me of „Transhumanism: The most dangerous idea“ [1] by Francis Fukuyama. Turns out Nick Bostrom —- the fou

I skimmed through the article and it kind of reminded me of „Transhumanism: The most dangerous idea“ [1] by Francis Fukuyama. Turns out Nick Bostrom —- the founder of the „Future of Humanity“ institute and who is mentioned several times in this piece — grew out of the fin-du-siècle “Transhumanist” movement (I actually met him in 2000 in London at a European Transhumanist gathering) and I guess many people inside “longtermism” also happen to be “Transhumanists” in the broadest sense. Fukuyama warned about the dystopian and self-destructive potential of Transhumanists accepting (and wanting) to change our human nature through individual technological modifications extending the human life-span and, ultimately, transcending us into post-human almost god-like beings. Now Torres warns us the same ideology (if becoming wide-spread) with its vision of human grandeur will marginalize the concern about present environmental dangers. I think, ultimately, this debate boils down to a conflict of two word views. You either are techno optimistic or techno pessimistic. The former camp will perceive climate change not as a huge threat and present well-founded arguments why humans will most likely overcome the „climate crisis“ with their technology irrespective of the prevailing politics. The latter camp present (also) well-founded arguments why human technology will likely destroy our civilization and propose a life-style that is more aligned with nature. If you take a step back, human technology has indeed improved our living condition massively: Never in the history of mankind so many people have lived so comfortably and also so healthily [2]. This is also proven by the fact that there never have been so many people alive at the same time. Of course, now we might face the consequences of our species thriving so well and multiplying in numbers. That does not need to be the end of the world though if we as human beings stick to the facts, act accordingly and don’t commit to an ideology blatantly telling you either the future is bright or dark. To live a meaningful live and help humanity to survive it is important to stay open-minded and regularly take a reality-check. That’s all I want to say as an old bloke directed at the younger generations. [1] https://www.au.dk/fukuyama/boger/essay https://www.au.dk/fukuyama/boger/essay [2] https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better