Are you asking why the elitist, mostly white male, mostly upper middle class, nerd culture on steroids with a side helping of pseudo science, has a tendency to be a bit shrill and rabid in their claims of validity and entitlement to the future, despite the majority of breakthroughs happening not by "transhuminists" but by normal scientists and engineers that don't usually maintain that particular party line?

I've always felt like that's one of the things that tends to define the separations between griders and transhumanists. Transhumanism seems to sprout from the 'top' of society where money, time, and resources are overflowing. Meanwhile grinding is more of a roots based effort, where I see a lot of people aiming to broaden a shared pool of knowledge and lower the barrier of safe access for others.

I feel like a lot of transhumanists also already see themselves as 'more than human' and start from a place where they already reassure themselves that they're already at or near the top of humanity. Grinding however seems to start from being just human and building on that, grinding away and upgrading as new knowledge is shared and new techniques are forged. Including actually doing that forging and research to bring new tools and techniques to the community. Not just ourselves. The community. I think that's a big part of it.

It's something I've definitely noticed, and part of what puts me off on the former, but draws me into the later.

Edit: Glims... that opener right there is 100% wonderful!

I should say, I'm not insisting that everyone wielding a scalpel and a magnet should have a stated position on the ethics and impact of ferro-philic fingertips; but I am curious as to why whenever transhumanists do venture into philosophy, they always reveal themselves to be Randian types. 

If the authors are aware how their plans might sound to vulnerable populations, to disabled people or ethnic minorities, they don't give much evidence of it. Yet it was in response to abuses of these populations that we developed the current research regulation. 

For example, the Nuremberg Code, an early set of research ethics principles, was adopted in response to medical experiments on Jews and other prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. And some years on, in 1974, came the National Research Act, which led to federal guidelines governing medical research in the US. This act was a response to outrages including the Tuskegee syphilis study of impoverished African-American men, and the Willowbrook hepatitis study, which was conducted on institutionalised disabled children.

My experience has been pretty similar. The Silicon Valley/H+ mag/Zerzan crowd seems pretty Randian or at best right-Rothbardian. Down here in the slums of the movement we get libsocs/anarchists, people who just don't give a shit, and Pinky & the Brain (I'm looking at you Rich. Whatcha wanna do today? ;) )

ZING! Well, guilty as charged.

I think it might have to do with the idea of transhumanism itself lending well to the idea of being better than others- completely missing the point, which is to advance and transform humanity as a whole. When a lot of the more self centered people call themselves transhumanists, I imagine they see it as they themselves being more than human, leaving everyone else in the dust.

But here, we're doing things for the community. We report our findings, we do proper experiments, and most importantly, we share how to do it safely and learn from one another's mistakes.

Basically, we're not rude and help one another.

This is interesting. I guess I always felt that grinding could be considered a part of transhumanism. If not, then a starting point.

Well you can have extreme research that is ethical Frank. For example if someone gives there informed consent to an extreme augmentation then there is no ethical breach. At least in my opinion I haven't taken classes in ethics.

You're not wrong, DEL - the Ebola vaccine being fast-tracked (and given immunity from prosecution under US medical negligence laws) is a good example. (though I'd argue informed consent is not by itself enough to make something ethical)

While I agree that some ethical lines need to be drawn, it can be very hard for even a small group of people to come to a clear consensus of where those lines are.  It just isn't possible to please everyone, and because of that, we err on the side of caution and at times overly restrict what we will and will not allow.  I worry that often times we end up with laws and regulations that hold us back and ultimately cause far more harm than the few "broken eggs" we would get along the way to the omelet.  Sure, not too many people would want to be the broken egg, but that's partly where grinders come in.

I would dare say that many grinders feel like we ARE the disenfranchised.  There are so many possibilities just beyond reach, so many things that a bit of money or crossing a few "ethical" lines would yield.  For our own benefit, sure, but for all of humankind as well.  Because of this feeling of disenfranchisement, we're willing to risk being that broken egg.  It's an informed decision and one we actively seek.  To push boundaries, to reach for a future that we know is just over that next rise.  And if when we top that rise, should we see another "unreachable" goal (and we surely will), so much the better.  Every time we tell a person about our implants spreads information, makes them look at the world a little differently, brings them a little further up the ladder of transhumanism themselves.  Every failure we make that we share with the world helps to increase our knowledge base and helps us advance.  In essence, every step we take that we share with others is advancing the human condition.

I love this thread. The title is clickbait, but bait I am happy to take. 

I too have noticed that many of the more vocal, self-described transhumanists tend to espouse political ideologies that strike me as ethically repugnant, so much that I hope they are simply politically ignorant. "The Transhumanist Wager" terrified me. Spend some time on the poorly-named facebook group "Scientific Transhumanism" for plenty of examples of either willful ignorance or disgust of identity issues (gender, race, and disability politics). @Frank 's story about the eugenicist is no longer surprising, or the horrifying Proactionary Transhumanist article @Frank also exampled. 

And it maybe it shouldn't be a surprise. There are multiple societal factors contributing to the sharing of extreme libertarian views, conservative social values, and transhumanism. The first is as @Glims pointed out. To put that point another way, ""The most obvious answer is that there is an even more pronounced bias among longevists (or indeed transhumanists in general) towards IT professionals, mathematicians and similar professions, and there is of course also a strong gender bias in those professions" (Aubrey de Grey...I think). That gender bias and political bias has appeared numerous times in recent media. Remember, it's all about ethics in video game journalism. See also the rise of the neoreactionary ideology, and look at the majority of it's subscribers.

There is a seductive intellectual ease to transhumanism. Transhumanists is concerned with future of all humanity (or just a few lucky immortals), that sticky and squishy issues like the poor, the environment, or politics and identity in general are just not a concern. Certain transhuminists have an ultimate goal, one that is on intellectual level that transcends traditional humanity and thus traditional morality, and the ends justify the means.

However I do think transhumanism is an apolitical ideology (disregarding Mr Istvan and a handful of others), thus it intersects with all sorts of ethical persons. IEEET, The Mormon Transhumanist Association (bare with me here), for example. There was an organization seeking to crowdfund a feeding the hungry program called "Transhumanists against hunger." The work of Kate Darling discussing the ethical and empathetic issues between robots and humans. They all share transhumanist values along with a more empathetic and collectively-centered values than the "transhumanist dicks" first mentioned. 

Assholes are everywhere. I do wish there were louder organizations of ethically and politically-minded transhumanists, but the argument could be made they'd fail because they'd only appeal to a certain class of liberal, intellectual elite (like me). 

@avinn Interesting view that grinders themselves feel disenfranchised!(compared to a future version of themselves...)

Funny thing though, from what I heard from another transhumanist the ones that are currently holding sway in the movement are what he termed "transhumanist left": people who are more about "people should be allowed to do what they want and we should not judge what they think their 'improvements' are (he believes that sex change itself is already part of transhumanism: you're altering your human condition to suit what you need)" as opposed to "we should all upgrade ourselves and cane everyone else's arse!" 

Transhumanism at its core is just acknowledgement that humans use tech to evolve. Its just human evolution.

Humans are human, Transhumans are human. Posthumans are human... We're all transhuman. Preaching it is like telling humans to be human.

"Posthumans are human"?

"giving up on the traditional method of preffix usages completely?"

We could have a little latin throw down right here but it's off topic. Suffice to say, your point is technically valid, but contextually, as the word is commonly used, not so much. A post operative patient is no longer being operated on, post natal recovery is definitely after natessence (is that a thing in english, i forget). language is funny that way.

I'm with @Glims on this one - sometimes I remind people that literacy is an augmentation (we're not born with it, and it doesn't develop naturally). And it's widespread and has big social, political and personal impacts, so it's useful to hold up as an augmentation for study. Of course, nobody thinks being able to read makes you some kind of post-human ubermensch.

I think it comes with it. Entitlement. Chosen, Living forever, Smarter, Better. Posthuman as in what comes after human. The common phrasing thrown up is that a posthuman is to a human as a human is to an ant / flatworm / whatever. So how do you engage in that narrative without using that as your base metric? Thinking about people as ants...

Well, I don't agree with the "flaws give character" argument. Flaws create problems that is ultimately to our detriment.

Hey, character doesn't mean positive character ;) It was a play on words not meant to be taken too seriously.

I have also plugged that gender fluidity is the closet thing to transhumanism we have. While it's not as hot swappable as (some) people would like, the ability to have ones body altered to such a degree is pretty awesome. However, it is at the core level, just surgery. There is no lasting effects, as in, on a long term biological level. Like any other alteration, it is merely as transitory as the person how has it. It may have more sociopolitcal ramifications than a facelift, but they are still within the same scale as compared to genetic alteration etc.

Transexualism as a frame for transhumanism is super-interesting... And yet in a weird way I think that Randian ghost is hovering in it. The triumph of recreating yourself in your true self-image, refusing to be constrained by society/biology, etc etc.

Well, I do identify myself more as a machine than human, so there's that. :P

"I think that Randian ghost is hovering in it. The triumph of recreating yourself in your true self-image, refusing to be constrained by society/biology, etc etc."

Also, just cause Ayn went the distance and ruined the concept of self sufficiency and independence for a lot of us, doesn't mean that those concepts are inherently "Randian". You could just as well say that they are "American" or any other number of philosophies. I don't see anything particularly Randian in wanting control of your body. Or are you to lead me to believe that everyone who says a woman should have control of her body re birth control and abortion is a secret libertarian?

I'm just gonna smack this in here. Saw it on my news feed this morn and figured that I was relevant to this topic of self-centeredness and technology...

Well, I wouldn't consider that to be self-centeredness. More like human beings only care about human beings and all other life-forms take a back seat. It's not just about technology but just about everything in terms of human behaviour, from the way that we get our food to the way we change the environment to suit us.

I wholeheartedly agree. However, you can't really separate humans from their tools. Maybe human centric technology is the problem. I mean, when we as a species figured out how to make sharp rocks and attach them to sticks was right around the time that 60-70% of the macro species on this planet died. It's only gotten worse since then. What's the latest numbers? We reduced the number of animals, just like straight up moving biomass by 50% in the last century or something like that. Human centered, species centered, self centered, call it what you will. 

Well, the fact that we are having this conversation is already a big difference.

Pff, the malaria parasite is not trying to kill us. That's anthropomorphization.

Now you're arguing semantics. The fact that the malaria parasite have no intention of killing us doesn't mean it doesn't leave people any less dead. Are all those "smoking kills" ads anthropormorphising smoking too? You know what I mean.

And you're avoiding talking about the "no way out" situations which does not make them disappear or any less real. Yes, they are negative examples, but they exist. Can you look into the eyes of a parent whose child had died of a disease that would've been prevented had we allowed animal clinical trials because they should not be so selfish and need to think of other animals as well? You can't. Not to mention I don't see how you're going to find the line of functionality and where self-centered-ness begins without talking about controversial, borderline example. I mean, do you really want this thread to be a series of "Ok, we all agree with that. Next item that everyone will agree with"?

Now, I'm going to work backwards through this, by paragraph, but I may lose track a bit. Stick with me.

Yes, of course we should stop extinction level activities provided that doing so won't be causing major harm to us

Fair enough.

@glims Do you think it's sensible to talk about a code of ethics for grinding? Or is the practice of biohacking too piecemeal to make that worthwhile?

Also, given the amount of self-experimentations that is going on at the moment (for new stuff as opposed to pretty established ones like magnet implantation) I doubt that a code of ethics is necessary or useful yet (if someone is determine to chop their own arm off without surgical training it's rather hard to stop them as opposed to them trying to do this to other people, and I don't think that people here are stupid enough to do that). And people here seem pretty aware that they are not professionals with lots of resources (as in, teams of researchers plus equipment plus...) at their disposal so I don't see people going to do something real dangerous anytime soon.

@IvoTheSquire I wouldn't be so sure... I mean, sure, we know we're not professionals, but I know of a few people here, myself included, who have done some stupid/risky self implantation experiments. so far we have been lucky there have not been any really bad outcomes.

Not that I want a code of ethics, I'm going to keep experimenting on myself no matter what anyone else thinks.

Hence why I said it's rather hard to stop self-experimentation. On top of that on the agency/ autonomy side of things (you know better than anyone when the risks to your own body are too much etc).

All great points - I agree it's not useful to try and pass "rules" on biohacking. But what I'm wondering is whether it's possible to semi-formally state some set of values that define grinding. 

@Frank part of the inspiration for Grindhouse came when I saw a clip of Max Moore talking about life extension technology, and when he was asked about the obvious disparity this could cause between have's and have-not's he simply replied "Aww capitalism should take care of it". I was like "Oh Fuck! This shit cannot be delivered by Apple or Haliburton, This needs to come from a place of lifting up the everyone not causing MORE disparity"

The fact that we're already talking about the possibility of inequality before we have human enhancement tech means to me that such tech is going to do to the current capitalist system what nuclear weapons did to world peace wars, ie it's going to either radically alter it for the better (eg it becoming something like universal healthcare) or completely replace it with something else.

And the thing is that you cannot really stop it. Eg say for example life extension technologies: any opposition have to answer the morally thorny questions "When does the human being cease to have the right to live and the right to well being and who gets to decide that?"

I think the main reason transhumanism has such a individualistic philosophy, is simple all talks that spoke about enhancing a group of people or a society has ended in fascism. I think every one know the Uberman by Friedrich Nietzsche's , that was the philosophical standing for both Hitler and Mussolini, and helped to shape the fascist mentality. By speaking only for them self detach of society they avoit getting to close to Nietzsche. ( I find it a smart move)
And for why the look all coming from the liberal or randian, is that both philosophy are descendent of Rationalists and empiricits. That both expect to have a clear and objective view of reality, it is obvious to that a clash with other mentalities will happen and that they make it clear they are not going to back down. There is always the cache hat some idiot goes to government and decide to slow down progress out of the "ethical " concern. biohacking is at it infancy and has in small part  become main stream in just few nation and you have media discussing it far consequence  in inequality and social life.
We are dealing with something new standing around and asking ourselves to predict the far future is pointless we have a really bad track record of it.

Oh look! We're Boing Boing famous. Which tbh, is one of the better types of internet famous...