Thread:User talk:Armondikov/Die Trans-Ubermensch/reply (2)

Yeah, it's an anachronism. I think these people are confusing the question of "Did Nietzsche influence transhumanism?" with "Would Nietzsche have been a transhumanist?" Check out this paper, though -- once you get past the fluff at the beginning, it's a searing take-down of transhumanism: This second self might count as the transhuman but this is not usually what we mean by it. And Kurzweil, like most rich men, simply would rather not give up the riches of his life, not now, not ever. The technological singularity is about not dying. Transhumanism is about not dying. Hence when we argue on behalf of transhumanism we argue as very dedicated devotees of a cargo cult that has yet to deliver the goods—which is why it is a cult. Just because, as the old New York City cum Eastern European Jewish joke argues on behalf of the neurosis of a relative who thinks he is a chicken: “we need the eggs.” We need, we want what transhumanism promises, and surely it will soon come to pass and inasmuch as we are persuaded that the only thing that holds science back from this windfall of technological add-ons and upgrades is some ethical aversion to, say, stem cell research, we argue for the “value” of transhumanism, just to quell such objections.