A blog focusing on some of the most prominent “-isms” surrounding humanity’s technological future: extropianism, transhumanism, posthumanism, the mouth-filling Singularitarianism, and others in that constellation.
August 8, 2012
Aside from the opportunity to watch the ever-delightful Emma Stone, The Amazing Spider-Man may not be one of the great superhero reboots. But it is an interesting movie nevertheless for what seems like some thoughtful consideration of transhumanist themes. “A world without weakness” may not be the explicit motto of any transhumanist...
August 2, 2012
If you read this blog you may well have already come across the wonderful short film “Sight.” But just in case not: (hat tip: Ted Rubin)
July 26, 2012
Can even the best parody ever surpass self-parody (here or here)? Tell us what you think.
July 5, 2012
This summer, Brian Hoffstein is attending the Singularity University Graduate Studies Program, and over at the Singularity Hub, he writes that they are “thinking exponentially,” and that this is exciting stuff: “participants have hit the ground running,” and are being repeatedly assured that amazing things are already possible,...
June 11, 2012
I came across an amusing juxtaposition recently on the subject of the brain. The first part comes in the form of this video about neuro-enhancement, basically a clever advertisement for the new novel Amped by Daniel H. Wilson (of Robopocalypse fame): The video is about a hypothetical brain implant that will increase focus, and...
May 31, 2012
A love pill Julian Savulescu and Anders Sandberg have an article in the New Scientist (subscription required) talking about how we need to start taking control of romantic love by pharmaceutically enhancing marriages. By infusing our brains with neurotransmitters like vasopressin and oxytocin, we may be able to “tweak” these...
May 24, 2012
One of our crew here at The New Atlantis celebrated a birthday this week, and we were discussing the question of whether transhumanists — especially of the Eliezer Yudkowsky, hyper-rationalist variety — should celebrate birthdays. On the one hand, from a philosophical perspective, they are a barbaric concession to arcane rituals of...
May 14, 2012
On a Mothers’ Day trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo yesterday, I had the pleasure of watching the antics of a baby sea otter. The docent explained that it had been found on an Alaskan beach along with its two dead parents, nursed on Pedialyte to stabilize it, and then shipped via FedEx to Pittsburgh, where to all appearances it is thriving....
April 30, 2012
I just recently got around to seeing Andrew Niccol’s 2011 movie In Time. In the dystopian world the film depicts, people are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, but they will die by 26 unless they can earn enough time to keep living, with this living-time also serving as currency. Why and how this system was established are...
April 6, 2012
Over at Forbes, Alex Knapp has taken a look at Ray Kurzweil’s technological predictions for 2009 from his 1999 The Age of Spiritual Machines. This is something we were planning on doing last year here on Futurisms, but never got around to — so we’re glad now that we don’t have to, thanks to Mr. Knapp! He finds most of...