Tbf the people in ~2001 who were saying “[AI] is going to eliminate all our jobs and we will serve our innocent robot overlords” are literally the same people at the fore-front of saying it today, and spent the last 20 years building the social & economic capital to get the business world to listen
nobody was like “this is going to eliminate all our jobs and we will serve our innocent robot overlords” in 200x when we were already doing neural network/machine learning stuff, because, I assume, the people trying to figure it out weren’t deluded marketing dorks
The idea that AGI is the final answer to all of the social, administrative, and political challenges of humanity is a spiritual and ideological belief and always has been, and now it has a lot of powerful adherents who were woo’d into believing it by people often described as wannabe cult leaders
have worked in tech for over a decade & i can confirm many of the loudest AGI nerds are absolutely a fucking tech cult.
they used to be mostly trans humanist, but a bunch of them are now unfortunately fashy after efforts from Thiel & his ghouls.
Imo the “they aren’t real transhumanists” line is similar to christians saying “well christian nationalists aren’t real christians”. This is, in fact, a real form of transhumanism as it is actually practiced by one particular network or community.
yeah i guess it’s just odd because my interest in transhumanism was entirely based in radical bodily autonomy & self determination.
it was also informed by queer, feminist, & class theory, however, which is def the bigger influence for me. i just find it bizarre so many tech bros went rightwing.
like i can track *how* it happened. utopianism untempered by any class consciousness is going to eventually result in reactionary brainworms.
i just… it’s a testament to the power of class systems as ideological reinforcement mechanisms. extremely harrowing.
you need to believe a better world is possible & that we can build it. you *also* need to understand that humans are flawed, we have centuries of corruption & systemic oppression to dismantle, & a better world will take many iterations to get to.
if you ignore material conditions, shit gets weird.
i came to transhumanism the same way you did, after a while I began to see this weird shape of the idea where biotech wasn’t seen as valid unless the body was digitally augmented in some way which led to some really shitty views held towards trans people, it’s as if we are lesser for using biotech.
cishet transhumanist dorks be like: “am i using the language of science fiction to justify my mundane bigotries?? hmm… no it is the trans people who are wrong.”
take this how you will, but i said literally the same thing before i transitioned about wanting to have the body of a hot transhumanist babe.
the future is now & we have the technology. it is literally never too late.
The really telling detail: I kind of just assumed I’d be able to replace my body eventually because I wanted out of this one so badly that futures where I was trapped in it simply weren’t worth planning for.
(still cis tho, I had *totally different* reasons to hate my body)
Literally me when I first heard about transition. "Well, I'd try being a woman for a bit if it were cheap, safe, and reversible, but I don't hate my body *that* much..." (she did, in fact, hate her body that much 🙃)
Naw, Ive considered it and its not for me. I like being a he/him/them, exploring my idea of masculinity. I think it’s absolutely incredible what we can do now though and I like being in a world where I could transition if I wanted. I have folks like you to thank for opening my eyes to possibilities.
tbf that literally just describes gender dysphoria. 🙃
in my case, i have a good amount of gender fluidity & am frequently annoyed i can’t shape-shift at will like Mystique from xmen lol
Now THAT'S a mood. I don't want to be human shaped today! Why can't I just be an otter? Why can't I grow wings and fly? Why can't I just change what I see in the mirror to something that fits???
--Reaching over to pick something up, once again annoyed that I can't sprout tentacles at will.
Would I actually like having tentacles? I dunno, but seems like they'd be fun to try out.
I haven’t figured out if my fluidity is tied to plurality or not, and being fluid was definitely a LOT of interference in figuring out who I was.
Also my path is kind of a fish-hook shape, going all the way over to femme and then approaching nb form that direction. Gender is complex, yo!
I had a recent interesting experience where I absolutely loved going out in a tshirt that definitely shows what the HRT has been up to, but also not bothering to shave, because fuck, I make a much better guy than I did before I was a girl.
I might be…genderfae?
