Transhumans

for Jim Thomas
Jim's poetry blog

Nick Bostrom was recently appointed to Oxford University's new Future of Humanity Research Institute at the Said Business School. Nick Bostrom is is the founder and president of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA). Transhumanists assert that through genomic, nanotech, and robotic (GNR, note: not the Great Northern Railway!) technologies humanity can transcend the limitations of our biological substrate; we can become "better than well" .

This network of people who believe the human body is inadequate and needs to be enhanced through GNR technologies and uploading the brain into computers are (one of) the current bearers of eugenicist ideas (WikiPedia: Eugenics). These neo eugenicists have been strongly attacked by disability rights campaigners for wanting to "fix" and eradicate inferior, "unwell" human specimens. While this might appear benign to some, in whose image is "normal" made? Where does difference end and disability begin?. The 20th century was tarnished by many things, but one of the worst was the attempt through various technologies to rid the human species of "inferior" races: blacks, Jews, Australian Aboriginals, Native Americans, Gipsys, as well as people with mental and physical conditions that put them beyond the pale of normality were subjected to enforced sterilization, selective breeding, and mass slaughter in the name of improving the human race. What message is Oxford University giving to the world regarding tolerance and diversity with this appointment?


It’s hard work to be human and live in a body as well,
the touch of a hand on a cheek, the whisper of love
is so rare a treasure. Do we have to be better than best
as if we were blessed by the ugliest angel of death?
How do you measure the better than well? What well
do you dip for the water to wash you clean? What stream
of bits fits your chips to the spec of human.1?
I am a release candidate in beta test
better than the rest, my eduPerson
xml conforms. Synthetic macro
phages scour polyester veins
for fat. In kevlar skin I stroll the wastes
of sentient war machines and pick depleted
fissile stuff from the sub-standard earth.


George Roberts
7 June 2005