@H+ :: Anarcho-Transhumanism

Over at Open the Future, Jamais Cascio was recently talking about inevitable near-future events that have the capacity to radically transform our society:

You don’t have to believe in incipient singularities to recognize that 2028 — just twenty years from now — will bear very little resemblance to 2008.

A small cluster of rapidly-accelerating drivers promises to dominate the first quarter of this century. Each of these drivers, alone, has the potential to remake how we live; together, the likelihood of a fundamental transformation of our lives, our politics, our world, becomes over-determined. Moreover, these drivers are distinct but interdependent: each one exists and would be transformative on its own, but how it plays out — and the choices we’ll face when confronting it — will be contingent upon how the other drivers unfold. Twenty years isn’t a long time to make the needed changes to turn potential disaster into a new world; we have all of five US presidential terms — maximum — to completely transform, globally, every significant aspect of our material civilization.

The specific drivers he notes are:

• Climate Chaos
• Resource Collapse
• Catalytic Innovation (transformative technologies)
• Ubiquitous Transparency (surveillance state vs. sousveillance)
• New Models of Global Development
• The Rise of the Post-Hegemonic World (the weakening of American power)

As I’ve discussed in previous posts (see Will Robots Spark the Revolution?), the point behind anarcho-transhumanist projects shouldn’t be just to advocate and fight for open access to and liberatory uses of technology. One of our main priorities should be to evaluate futurist scenarios for transformative drivers like those mentioned above that have the capacity to not only shake up the world, but to create crisis points within capitalism — stages where capitalist hegemony is weakened and possibilities for revolutionary alternatives are increased. There is far too little discussion in anarchist scenarios about the future — and what is out there tends to be formulated as dire warnings of impending apocalypse or Big Brother scenarios. The primitivists, perhaps, discuss these matters, but only with a callous eye towards how they can exploit tragedy to achieve their fantasy tribal lifestyles.

What revolutionary-minded anarchists should be doing is evaluating these drivers noted above and creating a game plan. What outcomes are likely? How can we position ourselves to affect them, to strive towards outcomes we’d prefer? How can we take advantage of the weaknesses these changes will bring to the status quo? What political stances should we be making and clarifying now, in preparation for future ideological battles? What sort of movement infrastructure should we be seeking to establish, in order to create a counterpower best prepared to deal with these future scenarios? Where should we focus our organizing efforts? Our direct action?

Our movements spend far too much time trying to fight a monolithic capitalism system head-on right now, while glorifying the past, without realizing that both are going to have very little relevance on how the next 20-50 years play out. The world is going to be changing quite rapidly, and if we’re not prepared to deal with it, we’re going to have no chance in fighting for a better future. It’s adapt or die time. So let’s get to it.

Open source biological engineering takes another step forward with a newly released Open Biohacking Project kit — everything you need to start your own DIY biology lab.

From Bryan Bishop:

The open biohacking kit project contains information on important protocols in genetic engineering, stem cell research, microbiology and other fields of related interest. Additionally, the archive file — ready for immediate distribution and diffusion — contains numerous articles and designs for cheap DIY hardware such as incubators, centrifuges, oligonucleotide machines, microarray chip schematics, and so on. An integral part of the entire package is a cached copy of the BioBrick Foundation and synbio websites, such as OpenWetWare and the Parts Registry — some may know about these groups from the International Genetically Engineered Machine competitions. Short introductory files are also being included regarding methods of artificial gene synthesis, using online bioinformatics databases, transfections, running ecoli farms, synthetic biology (synbio), ES cell harvesting procedures, quick “where to buy” guides, and one-page documents introducing newbies into the arts.

Available via torrent or direct download. Talk about it on the hplusroadmap mailing list.

The good thing about projects like this is that they help counter corporate control of biotechnology, in particular attempts to patent life. The drawback, of course, is that they could lead to anti-social use of biotech, such as biowarfare weapons, misuses of the technology, or simply contagious mistakes — but these are possibilities that exist anyway. In fact, attempts to control such technologies (and take note that most transhumanists and technoprogressives advocate government oversight here) are certain to fail, given the exponential growth of this field and the lowering threshold for access, and are also more likely to lead to situations where black market — and potentially dangerous — biotech thrives. This is, however, a situation where a decentralized and anarchist approach to technology — one where technology is universally accessible and the tools to deal with problems are widespread — could prove most beneficial. To quote Eudoxa:

The threat from biohacking is manifold and distributed. The real risks are not likely escaped modified E coli making cocaine in the gut, bioweapons or glow-in-the-dark aquarium fishes but something completely unexpected not in anybody’s contingency plan. The best way of dealing with such threats is also a distributed and manifold approach - a diversity of researchers sharing information, alerting each other about threats and discoveries, trying different approaches and competing at being the first to find solutions.

So the previous owner of the anarcho-transhumanism.com site (not to be confused with this blog, anarchotranshumanism.com, no hyphen) has passed it over to us. We’re contemplating transforming it into a general resource site, focusing on both anarchist and H+ interests, and of course pushing a specific @H+ perspective. We’re also considering adding forums to the site (a free feature, unless we start exceeding bandwidth limits) to open up the discussion of @H+ and get more people involved. We’ve also discussed having an email list for that in the past, but forums may be better.

We’d like to hear what you, our relatively small audience (so far!) has to say. Would you be interested in a general resource site? Would you help build it? Are you interested in forums or an email list? Have any other ideas? Our ears are open. Please leave a comment.

* The Great Firewall: China’s Misguided — and Futile — Attempt to Control What Happens Online

Today, anyone in China can send a sensitive message if they are minimally savvy, and that fact is transforming the political discourse. True, technology has not led to the overthrow of the Communist Party, as some had predicted — the party has even harnessed the Internet for its own purposes. But this does not mean that Beijing has insulated itself against political change driven by technology. Its critics have unfettered access to mass communications, and the Internet — not the Communist Party — is the main influence on public opinion. No shield, golden or otherwise, can protect them from the public. China’s leaders should know this.

* Swarm Intelligence

Swarm intelligence, not just as a way of coordinating street battles, is a rich field of study for anarchists. The notion that highly complex projects and behaviors can be coordinated without any centralized authority has been an article of faith for anarchists for a long time.

* Who Makes the Rules?

Which scenario is most likely? It depends a bit on how fast the truly disastrous manifestations of climate change hit. Climate catastrophe happening earlier than currently projected would push towards the more proactionary worlds. It also depends a bit on whether governments and corporate leaders continue to lag community and activist groups in terms of willingness to embrace big changes to fight environmental risks. Centralized responses may end up being too little, too late if wide-spread bottom-up models take root.

* I Spy With My Orbital Eye

One of my favorite early pieces for WorldChanging was the essay Greens In Space, arguing that space exploration, particularly robotic exploration, is ultimately in support of the Bright Green future. Of particular importance are the satellite systems used to observe changes on the Earth’s surface.

* CRN Task Force Scenarios

For the year 2007, the major project of the CRN Task Force was to begin producing a series of professional-quality scenarios of a near-future world in which exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing becomes a reality. The purpose is to offer plausible, logical, understandable “stories” that illustrate the challenge of contending with the implications of advanced nanotechnology. What will that future look like? What can we learn from picturing it now that might help us avoid the worst pitfalls and generate the greatest benefits?

* Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial — and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive.

* Biowar for Dummies

Brent is one of a growing number of researchers who believe that a bioterrorist wouldn’t need a team of virologists and state funding. He says advances in DNA-hacking technology have reached the point where an evil lab assistant with the right resources could do the job.

I decided to call him on it. I hadn’t set foot in a lab since high school. Could I learn to build a bioweapon? What would I need? What would it cost? Could I set up shop without raising suspicions? And, most important, would it work?

* The EDGE Annual Question -2008

This year’s question: What have you changed your mind about? I particularly like the responses by Sam Harris (Mother Nature Is Not Our Friend) and Stewart Brand (Good Stuff Sucks).

* Overcoming Gender

Your gender assignment and sense of sexual identity is an imposition. Like many of your other characteristics, you are largely the result of a genetic lottery that happened beyond your control. Consequently, you are in no small way predetermined. Your physical and psychological capabilities are very much constrained and dictated by your genetic constitution.

* DIY Guide to Rebuilding Civilization

A new zine project:

We’ve all wasted enough time reasoning with the primitivists. It’s time for less talk and more action. Say that the Collapse does come–just as hard as Derrick Jensen and John Zerzan have salivated–I don’t want us sitting around, ringing our hands and dumbly staring at suddenly useless anarcho-syndicalist union cards. I want us prepared.

* WTA Matching Grant Drive

The immediate objective is to upgrade our communications to give transhumanist opinions a stronger voice. The generous matching grant by the Life Extension Foundation and Cartmell Holdings means that if we raise $25,000 independently we will secure a total of $50,000 in funding for the WTA, enabling the organization to shift into a higher gear… Any gift you make to the WTA will be matched dollar-for-dollar until January 31, 2008.

So it appears that Case Western has created ’super mice’ by way of a genetweak. Full article here.

The article itself makes for some interesting reading. The mouse is stronger, faster, more durable, lives longer, eats more but is less fat and, as the talking bobbleheads on CNN pointed out, it is sexually active longer into its lifespan. And best of all, the gene that was tweaked is one that is also present in humans.

But not to worry, say the researchers, this would never be done on humans! Bullshit. It’s fucking intellectually dishonest to present this as something that these scientists did “just for funsies and only for mice.” What kind of fucking moron actually buys that? You don’t do biomedical research on mice because you’re interested in making mice live longer, eat better, and have great sex in their old age. You just don’t. You do it because you want to improve humans. Improve them in the way you improved the mice.

By avoiding the question of whether these techniques can be developed for humans, or worse still claiming that they would never do that is utter bullshit. It’s dishonest and tries to preempt a legitimate discussion on this technique. Claiming that something is unethical and shouldn’t be used to enhance people merely ensures that discussions about the technique don’t take place in the public. And this is a discussion that should very much take place in public. Are you honestly telling me that everyone in the world is bound by the same morals as the CWRU scientists? That China, or Russia, or even DARPA isn’t creaming themselves over the idea of soldiers or workers who can work longer, live longer, are more durable? Considering all the crazy shit that DARPA has done in the past (for example check out Sharon Weinberger’s stuff or the Danger Room blog) this is basically a slam dunk homerun touchdown.

Not talking about techniques like this openly and publicly only feeds the conspiracy theory trolls of the bioconservative movement. Pretending we would never-ever seek to do something like this to humans just reinforces the paranoia that scientists are lying to us and are making a seekrit army of clones in underground bunkers somewhere. Sure, a public debate is gonna bring out the crazy, but last I checked crazy still got to participate in public debate (see: Presidential Election). Crazy is gonna sound off anyway, we may as well have a more open and honest discourse.

And sometimes it’s both. Rather than bore you with the whole ‘where have you been, why don’t you write me anymore’ I’m just gonna jump in with the word-ifying.

There’s a new article in the American Journal of Bioethics by Moreno and Berger on the roots of the neocon opposition to biotech (tip of the hat to Kelly over at IMAARS for bringing the article to my attention). Basically the article is about what intellectual frauds most neocons are in their inability to own up the inherent problems in capitalism and the fact that they basically act like frightened children at the prospect of scientific progress, particularly in the area of biotechnology.

The article itself is excellent and does a good job calling out neocon bioconservatives for both ignoring their own intellectual roots in Marxism and for playing fast and loose with philosophy. All that is fine and good but what struck me was something else entirely.

What really jumped out to me was that the philosophical argument being presented by both the bioconservative right and the bioconservative left is that there is something inherently human in being human and that any sort of modification is a discarding or at the very least a modification of this humanity into something else, something less than human in the minds of the bioconservatives. This is truly frightening since it opens up all sorts of possible nastiness. If I get a genetweak and I’m no longer human in the way that the scared masses whipped into a fervor by the bioconservative crowd define ‘human,’ then I automatically become a target for persecution. This can be ‘mild’ in nature — I don’t get full legal rights, I have to register myself with local gov’t agencies, I have special sections reserved for where I can sit/eat/excrete/etc (because it could be contagious you know) — or it could be more repressive. Pogroms, deportations, killings, etc. The first step to creating a despised minority has always been to make them less than human. It seems to me that’s exactly what the bioconservatives are attempting to do, preemptively, to those that seek positive self-enhancement or to use genetic means to address human frailties.

Please note that this entry originally appeared about two weeks ago but due to technical errors got deleted and it took me a bit to get back around to it.

* Our Biotech Future — Freeman Dyson

Many of the people who call themselves green are passionately opposed to green technology. But in the end, if the technology is developed carefully and deployed with sensitivity to human feelings, it is likely to be accepted by most of the people who will be affected by it, just as the equally unnatural and unfamiliar green technologies of milking cows and plowing soils and fermenting grapes were accepted by our ancestors long ago. I am not saying that the political acceptance of green technology will be quick or easy. I say only that green technology has enormous promise for preserving the balance of nature on this planet as well as for relieving human misery. Future generations of people raised from childhood with biotech toys and games will probably accept it more easily than we do.

* Openness and the Metaverse Singularity

If the singularity is as likely and as globally, utterly transformative as many here believe, it would be profoundly unethical to make it happen without including all of the stakeholders in the process — and we are all stakeholders in the future… We may not have an answer now as to how to do this, how to democratize the singularity. If this is the case — and I suspect that it is — then we have added work ahead of us… My preferred pathway would be to “open source” the singularity, to bring in the eyes and minds of millions of collaborators to examine and co-create the relevant software and models, seeking out flaws and making the code more broadly reflective of a variety of interests. Such a proposal is not without risks.

* Will Super Smart Artificial Intelligences Keep Humans Around As Pets?

Ron Bailey reports on the Singularity Summit.

* What Killer Robots Say About the State of Social Activism

Engineering is the plain, reliable, and boring cousin to science, and has been ignored by progressives who don’t think about designing technologies that further their goals. That’s unfortunate, because the work of engineers—nearly everything that you can touch or that you use—profoundly affects all of our lives.

* “Enough is Enough” — A Thinking Ape’s Critique of Trans-Simianism

The most shocking of Klomp’s predictions, however, is that we apes will have little or no place in the post-simian world.

“As technological progress outpaces biology, new selective pressures will arise that will force our species to evolve mentally and physically beyond what we are now. This is the same trend that gave rise to our own intelligent species, but it will only accelerate in the coming generations. Our new environment increasingly favors higher dexterity and intelligence, and so the true post-simian will not be an ape at all. It will share some similarities with the modern ape, but at the same time possess capacities far beyond our comprehension. The thought capacity of a single post-simian could be greater than the combined brains of every ape in the world.”

* The Top 10 Transhumanist Technologies

A response to this list that we mentioned in the last Quick Links post. 

* OLPC XO - Give 1, Get 1

Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give 1 Get 1 Program for a brief window of time. For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home.

* Is That Big Brother In Your Pocket?

This morning, you left the house tagged with a tracking device that the government can use to find out where you have been and where you are going.

*  DIY Hi-Def ReCon

Chris Anderson (the editor of Wired magazine) has been pushing the envelope of do-it-yourself reconnaissance using low cost UAVs, stitching software (in conjunction with Google Earth), a GPS datalogger ($99), and digital cameras (the Canon PowerShot SD650, at 6 MP). 

* Monkeys Show Sense of Justice

Scientists say this work suggests that human’s sense of justice is inherited and not a social construct… “One of the most interesting areas is the recent suggestion that human cooperation is made more effective by a sense of fairness.”

* Tens of Thousands of CCTV Cameras, Yet 80% of Crime Unsolved

These figures suggest there is no link between a high number of CCTV cameras and a better crime clear-up rate.

Sorry about the long silence — both of us were hit by some life-changing events and other business this summer. We’ll be getting back on track here shortly. In the meantime, here are some collected items to get you started.

* Top 10 Transhumanist Technologies

Good list.

Transhumanists advocate the improvement of human capacities through advanced technology. Not just technology as in gadgets you get from Best Buy, but technology in the grander sense of strategies for eliminating disease, providing cheap but high-quality products to the world’s poorest, improving quality of life and social interconnectedness, and so on.

* Sam Harris: The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos

One cannot criticize religious dogmatism for long without encountering the following claim, advanced as though it were a self-evident fact of nature: there is no secular basis for morality. Raping and killing children can only really be wrong, the thinking goes, if there is a God who says it is. Otherwise, right and wrong would be mere matters of social construction, and any society would be at liberty to decide that raping and killing children is actually a wholesome form of family fun.

* The OUT campaign

Richard Dawkins and his supporters launch a campaign for atheists to out themselves and take a more vocal stance:

It follows that a major part of our consciousness-raising effort should be aimed, not at converting the religious but at encouraging the non-religious to admit it – to themselves, to their families, and to the world. This is the purpose of the OUT campaign.

* Religious “priming” promotes cooperation

Interestingly, subjects who had identified themselves as non-religious weren’t any less giving than believers. Also significant is that another group, primed instead with “civic responsibility” concepts, were as generous as the group primed with religious thoughts.

* First Armed Robots Patrol in Iraq

Robots have been roaming the streets of Iraq, since shortly after the war began. Now, for the first time — the first time in any warzone — the machines are carrying guns.

* Armed Robots Pushed to Police

Armed robots — similar to the ones now on patrol in Iraq — are being marketed to domestic police forces … None of the gun-toting ‘bots appear to have been deployed domestically, yet. Both cops and company officials say it’s only a matter of time, however.

* Scientists Apply for First Patent on Synthetic Life Form

We think these monopoly claims signal the start of a high-stakes commercial race to synthesize and privatize synthetic life forms. And Venter’s company is positioning itself to become the ‘Microbesoft’ of synthetic biology. Before these claims go forward, society must consider their far-reaching social, ethical and environmental impacts, and have an informed debate about whether they are socially acceptable or desirable.

* Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of “wet artificial life.” … “We’re talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways - in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict.”

* Security-Theater Cameras Coming to New York

Steve Swain, who served for years with the London Metropolitan Police and its counter-terror operations, doubts the power of cameras to deter crime. “I don’t know of a single incident where CCTV has actually been used to spot, apprehend or detain offenders in the act,” he said.

* Popular Arguments For and Against Longevity

George Dvorsky covers the pros and cons.

* Why Progressives Should Care About Human Destiny In Space

“From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty,” said Edgar Mitchell, one of only 12 humans to have walked on the surface of another world. “You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”

* Green Junta? Avoiding an Authoritarian Military-Environment Elite

Wells warns that of a Green Junta that could bring about a right-wing agenda by stealth, in the name of environmentalism.

* The Napster Pirates of Transgenic Biotech (click-thru ad)

The first in a new breed of Biotech Pirates:

To the farmers of Gujarat, he’s Robin Hood, the man who took genetic modification technology from the rich, and gave it to the poor. Because while the dispute as to the origin of the seeds hasn’t been settled, there’s been little doubt as to their effectiveness. Yields are up, pesticide use is down, a state of affairs that continues to the present.

* Charlie Stross: Shaping the Future

Meet your descendants. They don’t know what it’s like to be involuntarily lost, don’t understand what we mean by the word “privacy”, and will have access (sooner or later) to a historical representation of our species that defies understanding. They live in a world where history has a sharply-drawn start line, and everything they individually do or say will sooner or later be visible to everyone who comes after them, forever. They are incredibly alien to us.

* Jamais Cascio on Car Nav Hack News

Italian hackers at a group calling itself Inverse Path have figured out how to spoof the radio signals used by car navigation systems.

* Toy Planes, Real Threat

It doesn’t take a genius to see that an remote-controlled aircraft can be an effective flying suicide bomber, one that cannot be stopped by any wall, fence or security barrier.

* Why Working Less Is Better for the Globe

“In order to reduce our ecological footprint, we have to take working less very seriously.”

* Robo-quandary: Using technology To Enhance Humans

Although many Americans don’t realize it, a major debate is under way over transhumanism - a movement that endorses using new technology to expand the capabilities of the human mind and body.

* Spy Drones Added to Britain’s Surveillance Society

“Once you feel the screws are being turned, that your every move is being pinned down, you actually start trying to find ways to get around what’s become a pervasive system.”

* City Planet

For the first time in history, more people live in cities than in rural areas. This is, in many ways, the single most important indicator of whether we’ll survive this century.

* New AACS Processing Key Leaked to Net

45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2

From the better-late-than-never file, I’m finally writing the post I’ve been wanting to on the FDA approving the new birth control pill Lybrel.

As Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon points out, this has all kinds of people up in arms — though “all kinds of people” in this case is the predictable list of pro-lifers, religious nuts, and women who’s idea of feminism is being properly submissive to men.

Why does this matter to us? Well part of the transhuman agenda is gaining greater control over our bodies. Anything that helps us do this is good. Looking at the types of resistance to new drugs like Lybrel can also give us an idea about how other therapies are likely to be viewed in the future.

As we move forward and start to see new gene therapies, procedures derived from stem cells, and increasing use of pharma for control of our bodies and biological futures, expect to see a corresponding ratcheting up of the shrill protests. These will probably come from both the religious nuts out there who see these techniques and technologies as interfering with “god’s plan” and primitivists who see this as tampering with our “natural selves”–which is like “god’s plan” but for the faithless.

This has the potential to turn into an uphill struggle and poses a danger of slowing progress. While I’m skeptical of unrestrained progress, this is not a good reason for it to slow down. Slowing progress for safety concerns is one thing. Slowing it because your magical imaginary sky god told you to or because you believe in some fairy-tale magical world where we live in harmony with nature is fucking stupid and should be resisted.