The swedish url http://www.transhumanism.se is redirected to this site, could anyone give a brief explanation? I don't want to bother Anders Sandberg with such a minor question...

That's a fair question

I bought the domain name on a whim while researching the transhumanist subculture. At the time I didn't know that the domain had been used by the the Swedish Transhumanist Organization.


Regards

/Patrik

heh, ok. It's still the official url for us in Sweden; http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/ ... uages/C43/

But as I understand there is no contradiction between transhumanism and biopunk so might as well lead here. I will begin research on transhumanism for a Bachelor of teologie next year. Mostly because I have been interested in the scientific fields of genetic/nano/cybertech evolution but really don't have any free time to research new fields on (working full time and studying double credits on the university in political science, teologie and computer science).

I am here to learn, to discuss and hopefully evolve. If I find ideas to involve in a paper for a master in political science the better. And as Anders nowadays work in England maybe bring new life in biopunk/transhumanism in Sweden.

That sounds like a good idea. I think transhumanism can use some new blood and fresh views. Kanzure keeps an irc channel on freenode called #hplusroadmap which is quite active. They are running about 5 projects concurrently every night(European time) there. Kanzure may be one of the most active transhumanists out there. I think was a webmaster for the transhumanism.org site for a while too btw, maybe he still is.

Personally I don't consider myself a transhumanist. I do consider myself a biopunk. And the meaning of being a biopunk is still evolving for me the more I explore and learn.

Welcome to the board btw.

/patrik

After reading some statements by mostly kanzure and splicer, in my theoretical somewhat universitydamaged point of view Transhumanism seems like the bigger frame where Biopunk is an important discipline along with instance nano- and cybertech.

However when putting science on one side and political goals on the other some members of the Biopunk culture seem to don't agree with the politics in Transhumanism and I guess there might be Transhumanists that may have the attitude whet biological research should be done in proper labs (unconfirmed at the moment in my research)?

What are the core issues where some Biopunk and Transhumanists disagree?

And do you have some suggested reading that isn't a thousands pages that explains more details around the subject?

I think there is a difference in focus between transhumanists and biopunks. The transhumanists are traditionally heavily invested in the singularity, cyborgs, nanobots, cryonics and so on. Things that were hightech in the early nineties. If computers are your hightech then your future will look like today only with more computers.


No one wants unsafe biohacking. I'm not sure there is an official unified transhumanist policy. Kanzure got grief from a group calling themselves 'The lifeboat foundation' when he published his open biohacking kit(one of his many works in progress). He actually tried to talk with them prior to publishing but the idea of a teenage biohacker wasn't on their radar. They looked at his age, laughed, he published, they got upset. I don't think biology is their thing, not something they could be expected to know anything about. They are probably more a grey goo or evil superbrain crowd.

My impression is that there aren't that many transhumanists left and many of the older ones still in business spend a lot of energy on turfwars or waiting for the future to happen while making predictions. The biopunks are almost too few to mention still. I think the transhumanists and biopunks are interested in different things.

Sorry, whish I had something

cu

- Splicer

This thread inspired me to look into the Transhumanist movement. I would not consider myself a transhumanist, but I am fascinated with the ideas they discuss regarding mind uploading, radical life extentison, cybernetics, etc... Of course, I don't personally believe that we'll see any tech like this in our lifetimes, but it would be awesome to be proved wrong.

Genetic Engineering may be a common thread between the two, but that science is still in its infancy (imho) and there won't be any application for Transhumanists for a long time to come. Other than that, I don't see too many similarties between the two groups either. But they have really different goals in mind (at least for now) so this doesn't really surprise me.

After a quick wikipedia scan of the Lifeboat Foundation, I am kind of surprised to see them take that stance against Kanzure. It seems like they would support this kind of movement. I'll have to do some research on them.