Even if the contrast is “transhumanist social reality”, I ask how did that social reality come to be and how did people join it? I’m pretty sure most transhumanists weren’t born to transhumanist families, educated in transhumanist schools, or surrounded at transhumanist friends. Something at some point prompted them to join this new social group
This isn’t necessarily a point in transhumanism’s favor! At least vertically-transmitted memeplexes (spread from parents to children, like established religions) face selective pressures tying the fitness of the meme to the fitness of the host. (Where evolutionary fitness isn’t necessarily good from a humane perspective, but there are at least bounds on how bad it can be.) Horizontally-transmitted memeplexes (like cults or mass political movements) don’t face this constraint and can optimize for raw marketing appeal independent of long-term consequences.
“Terrible” is a moral judgment. The anticipated experience is that when I point my “moral evaluator unit” at a morally terrible thing, it outputs “terrible.”
I think moral judgements are usually understood to have a social function—if I see someone stealing forty cakes and say that that’s terrible, there’s an implied call-to-action to punish the thief in accordance with the laws of our tribe. It seems weird to expect this as an alternative to social reality.
This isn’t necessarily a point in transhumanism’s favor! At least vertically-transmitted memeplexes (spread from parents to children, like established religions) face selective pressures tying the fitness of the meme to the fitness of the host. (Where evolutionary fitness isn’t necessarily good from a humane perspective, but there are at least bounds on how bad it can be.) Horizontally-transmitted memeplexes (like cults or mass political movements) don’t face this constraint and can optimize for raw marketing appeal independent of long-term consequences.
Isn’t this kind of circular? Compare: “A Vice President is anyone who’s job title is vice-president. That’s a falsifiable prediction because it constrains your anticipations of what you’ll see on their business card.” It’s true, but one is left with the sense that some important part of the explanation is being left out. What is the moral evaluator unit for?
I think moral judgements are usually understood to have a social function—if I see someone stealing forty cakes and say that that’s terrible, there’s an implied call-to-action to punish the thief in accordance with the laws of our tribe. It seems weird to expect this as an alternative to social reality.