Do you belive in the tenets of Transhumanism, and the Extropian viewpoint?
Not surprisingly (since I’ve played a part in formulating them) I do agree with the tenets of transhumanism. We can’t imagine how wonderfully good life will become (if things go well..) when we succeed in overcoming many of our current biological limitations through technology. Material abundance, clean environment etc. are not that bad — but the really profound thing is when we improve ourselves. When we finally abolish aging and disease, when we expand our minds, when we step off the hedonic treadmill and get to explore new realms of well-being and emotional richness. Don’t think you can intuit what these things will be like “from the inside” because we have little clue. There are some problems that technology can’t solve. Many human preferences are for so-called positional goods, which are essentially scarce. For example, if two persons want the exclusive love of person X, at least one of them is going to be frustrated. Technology could give one the illusion of being loved by X, or
