Is the Future Transhuman? | Guest: Joe Allen | 5⧸28⧸24
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 19 minutes
Words per Minute
165.70872
Summary
Joe Allen, author of the new book, Dark Aeon, joins me to discuss the concept of transhumanism and how it relates to our understanding of what it means to be a human being. We discuss the role of technology in shaping our perception of who we are and how we are shaped by it.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
00:00:10.720
Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.
00:00:25.260
Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on Equipped Flight.
00:00:41.380
we often, I think, don't really evaluate the path
00:00:46.240
The world changes, technology seems to go ahead and evolve,
00:00:52.700
but we're not very intentionable about the path that we're on.
00:00:58.720
to stop and think about the way that we are either embracing
00:01:02.240
or rejecting or developing alongside technology,
00:01:08.700
whether it's something that might even be inevitable,
00:01:11.100
and we simply don't have control over parts of it.
00:01:16.900
the transhuman editor over at Steve Bannon's War Room.
00:01:20.720
He's an author of the book, Dark Aeon, addressing this idea.
00:01:35.400
I guess that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people,
00:01:38.440
not to hit too much on the obvious at the outset.
00:01:46.560
I don't know, wiring a microchip into the human brain?
00:01:53.980
or does it involve the spiritual or the psychological as well?
00:02:02.120
You know, given the range of angles that you just presented,
00:02:06.340
I would say that you've captured most, if not all of them.
00:02:09.520
You know, it begins, I think, at a spiritual level,
00:02:32.800
and kind of simultaneously or independently coined
00:02:42.400
For Max Moore, the idea is just simply using science
00:02:46.460
and reason to, in essence, enhance the human being.
00:02:50.900
And, of course, technology is a large part of that.
00:02:57.480
And so it would be a mistake to say transhumanism
00:02:59.940
is just about chipping the brain or injecting nanobots,
00:03:18.420
the label of transhumanist are indeed transhumanist.
00:03:24.900
more naturalistic or, you know, even right-wing thinkers
00:03:30.240
and even religious, a lot of religious thinkers
00:03:46.940
So when do you feel like this shift really takes place?
00:03:52.860
to some degree, been a part of the story of humanity.
00:03:58.300
we start using technique, it starts to shape us.
00:04:14.980
the way that European nobility is able to go ahead
00:04:22.760
where he tried to ban the crossbow at one point.
00:04:35.620
where you feel like we move to a trans-human moment
00:04:39.320
where it's about transcending the ability of the humans
00:04:43.020
not by just augmenting it with something like a spear
00:04:46.600
or a crossbow, but altering the human themselves
00:04:58.520
I think it's more just touchstones along the way
00:05:02.960
You know, arguably, and many make this argument,
00:05:05.660
you know, it began with the transition of humanity
00:05:12.660
or Australopithecine state into hunter-gatherers
00:05:25.940
I think that maybe a point that is really important
00:06:07.500
really laid the foundation for what has occurred
00:06:20.720
around the same time that transhumanism was coined.
00:06:36.360
driving everything from just the bacterial engineering
00:06:42.580
that were forced upon most people on Earth very recently.
00:07:40.460
I do think that when I first got turned on to Ray Kurzweil,
00:08:05.980
that shapeshift and augment our bodies at will,
00:08:45.780
who are so thoughtful and experts on this issue