Fascists seem to believe that there once was a society that lived perfectly. Some of us can become these “Ideal Men” if we are spiritually pure enough (or maybe we can only set things up so that our descendents can be this way). Further, the importance of this spiritual purity justifies any violence in service of reaching this goal.
Fascists are wrong because the imagined past never occurred (like the country song that complains that Coke is a slang shortening for Cocaine—as if there was ever a time when Coke was not a reference to Cocaine).
Communists have the same belief in an “Ideal Man,” but they think that no one has ever lived that way. With sufficient mental purity, we might be able to become “Ideal” (again, we might only be able to cause this for our descendents). Once we are all ideal, we will be able distribute resources “fairly” and avoid the social problems we face today. Again, achieving that ideal justifies any violence.
Communists are wrong because the existence of scarcity guarantees that schemes of wealth distribution cannot solve every social problem.
Transhumanist look forward, not backwards. But they don’t say that all social problems will go away. Only that technology will make us so rich that all our current problems will be gone. There’s the joke of the person revived from suspended animation in the distant future who asks if there was still poverty, disease, hunger, wars or crime and is told that no, those problems were solved long ago. Then he asks, then why doess everybody seem so nervous? “Well, you see—we have REAL problems.”
Fascists seem to believe that there once was a society that lived perfectly. Some of us can become these “Ideal Men” if we are spiritually pure enough (or maybe we can only set things up so that our descendents can be this way). Further, the importance of this spiritual purity justifies any violence in service of reaching this goal.
Fascists are wrong because the imagined past never occurred (like the country song that complains that Coke is a slang shortening for Cocaine—as if there was ever a time when Coke was not a reference to Cocaine).
Communists have the same belief in an “Ideal Man,” but they think that no one has ever lived that way. With sufficient mental purity, we might be able to become “Ideal” (again, we might only be able to cause this for our descendents). Once we are all ideal, we will be able distribute resources “fairly” and avoid the social problems we face today. Again, achieving that ideal justifies any violence.
Communists are wrong because the existence of scarcity guarantees that schemes of wealth distribution cannot solve every social problem.
Transhumanist look forward, not backwards. But they don’t say that all social problems will go away. Only that technology will make us so rich that all our current problems will be gone. There’s the joke of the person revived from suspended animation in the distant future who asks if there was still poverty, disease, hunger, wars or crime and is told that no, those problems were solved long ago. Then he asks, then why doess everybody seem so nervous? “Well, you see—we have REAL problems.”