Bioethics Blogs

Humanism After All

Zoltan Istvan is a self-described visionary and philosopher, and the author of a 2013 novel called The Transhumanist Wager&nbsp;that he claims is a “bestseller&rdquo; because it briefly went to the top of a couple of Amazon&rsquo;s sales subcategories. Yesterday, Istvan wrote a piece for the Huffington Post&nbsp;arguing that atheism necessarily entails transhumanism, whether atheists know it or not. Our friend Micah Mattix, writing on his excellent blog over at The American Conservative, brought Istvan&rsquo;s piece to our attention.

While Mattix justly mocks Istvan&rsquo;s atrociously mixed metaphors — I shudder to imagine how bad&nbsp;Istvan&rsquo;s&nbsp;“bestselling novel&rdquo; is — it&rsquo;s worth pointing out that Istvan actually does accurately summarize some of&nbsp;the basic tenets of transhumanist thought:

It begins with discontent about the humdrum status quo of human life and our frail, terminal human bodies. It is followed by an awe-inspiring vision of what can be done to improve both &#8212; of how dramatically the world and our species can be transformed via science and technology. Transhumanists want more guarantees than just death, consumerism, and offspring. Much more. They want to be better, smarter, stronger &#8212; perhaps even perfect and immortal if science can make them that way. Most transhumanists believe it can.

Why be almost human when you can be human? [source: Fox]

Istvan is certainly right that transhumanists are motivated by a sense of disappointment with human nature and the limitations it imposes on our aspirations. He&rsquo;s also right that transhumanists are very optimistic about what science and technology can do to transform human nature.
