Transhumanism

This article or section is about a topic that is particularly prone to Skub (that is, really loud and/or stupid arguments). Edit at your own risk, and read with a grain of salt, as skubby subjects have a bad habit of causing stupid, even in neutrals trying to summarize the situation.

This page is in need of cleanup. Srsly. It's a fucking mess.

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A Sexy Cyborg Girl, benefits of Transhumanism!

"I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to."

– Willard Gaylin, Gattaca

"From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me."

– Magos Dominus Reditus

"Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences."

– Freeman Dyson

Transhumanism (with various substrains with more specific names; SJWs as H+, ancaps as Extropians, extreme Neckbeards as rationalists) is a movement that promotes or at least discusses the enhancement of the human race through science and technology. A transhuman society would have changed itself to the point where it would challenge the standard meaning of "being human" -- removing or changing some of the disadvantages of being human (sub-century lifespan, vulnerable to hostile bacteria) and improving what are the good parts of being human (thinking faster than the speed of chemicals, ceaseless endurance, capable of having an always-on smartphone in your head you can remove or disable at will).

Transhumanism threads on /tg/ sometimes get deleted by janitors, because the threads too often turn into pseudo-evangelical hugboxes that have nothing to do with tabletop games. When the Eclipse Phase RPG was published, the H+ fancreatures rallied as this was a way to cloak their preaching as talking about the game setting and fluff.

Don't confuse transhumanism for Cyberpunk. Transhumanism is an ideology about going beyond what nature has given us; Cyberpunk is about a world where advanced technology has failed to stop a dystopian society. They have a lot of overlap but they are not the same genre, Cyberpunk corporations are often transhuman but the technology is rarely available to all, and the industries which make some transhuman may well sentence everyone else to live in a crapsack world.

The Singularity

The transhumanism movement is usually associated with an anticipated event called 'the Singularity' To put it fucking simply, Humanity (or some other species) gets so fucking gud with its tech (or discovers some fuck off bullshit tech speed), they end up making something that sky rockets them through the tech tree at speeds that for many seem unimaginable. The causes can be super intelligent ai (that may also create even smarter super intelligences), transhuman super minds, super algorithms that are so impressive they can fucking research and develop shit ahead of human scientists and engineers, and other super bullshit. Its called 'the Singularity' because the original author said things are going to get so weird so fast there's no way to tell what any human culture will be like after this event, and it will serve as an unobservable "event horizon" just as with astronomical singularities like black holes. Some Transhumanists are convinced this event will usher in an ideal future, and some egotists amongst them will tell you at great length they know exactly what the future will look like post-Singularity. Because of this, it has also been sometimes deemed as a "nerd rapture".

Tl;dr: The Singularity is to transhumanists exactly like the End Times is for many Abrahamic faiths (i.e. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity).

How the hell can this be utilized

Transhumanism can be (and arguably is) a overwhelming. And for many, it's a balancing nightmare. Even outside the realm of table top gaming, the topic of transhumanism has treated as a difficult subject and is often restricted to a certain level, with many fictional settings straight up omitting the subject entirely. Cyberpunk 2020 for example utilizes a humanity system to cap augmentations so your characters don't turn into unstoppable cheese fests almost immediately.

But let's say you don't want Dune or Star Trek levels of transhumanism. What do you do? How do you manage this shit? Let me tell yah. You just "make everyone super" so no one is super. Augmentations and modifications that would topple capped settings become the bare minimum to stay in the game. A constant ballet of ridiculous power levels, where almost everyone constantly upgrades themselves to stay ahead of the competition, or at least survive. Unrestrained power that restrains itself.

And how do you make a conflict in a post Singularity/Transhuman filled setting without it "devolving" into total nerd rapture and utopian society? Toss in some corruptive extradimensional threats, utilize the usual psychotic intelligences running civilization trope, or just simply make everyone a goddamn asshole. Truly, your imagination is the limit here.

Science and possibility

After reading this far, you may be scratching your head and wondering "wait, so is this stuff just some nerds having wet dreams or is it actually possible...or even probable!?" The short answer is the latter, provided we don't nuke ourselves back into the stone age, devolve into a stagnant regime like that in 1984, flood ourselves to death from climate change, or just run out of the materials needed to make half the shit required for any of this.

Now, while our scientific knowledge and technological civilization already *somewhat* altered us by giving us greater height and longer lifespans, we are still basically (less)hairy monkeys, not that much different from our ancestors 10.000 years ago (sans the aforementioned achivements and some mutations).

In order for humanity to begin the actual journey to transhumanity and possible posthumanity, we need to develop technologies that will allow us to modify ourselves, with the most promising ones being genetics, cybernetics and computer technology.

Genetic engineering of humans has actually already been done to preemptively eliminate the development of some debilitating diseases and in one case a few babies were modded to be immune to HIV by a real mad chinese scientist. As of 2022 we can fiddle with our genome somewhat thanks to a technique called Cas-CRISPR19 which enables us targeted gene-editing in vivo (so even after one is born and developed), basically a holy grail of genetic engineering. Still, if we had some similar breakthroughs or the aforementioned (theorised) secret research were to bear fruit, we'd see such things as giving onself the ability to process cellulose, do photosynthesis, live to 120+ via telomeric prolongation, have natural super-senses and so much more. We would be able to engineer ourselves into super-humans, mythological creatures, furries or even alien-like beings if that strike one's fancy.

Cybernetics offer another pathway to trans-/posthumanity. The comparative advantages are that these are systems and mods would be much simpler to make - instead of fiddling with DNA to try and increase our heart efficiency or brain memory we could just chuck in the relevant cyber parts and have what trait we want. The downside is that as of 2022, we still have problems getting a meaningful man-machine interface beyond certain comparatively crude yet impressive things, like techno-telepathying a cyber arm or using the same technique to navigate a computer menu.

Finally, computer technology is the most versatile and as of this writing the most promising avenue of a big breakthrough happening. The ideal outcome is the development of a benevolent "strong AI" that would be able to think and act in novel ways while also being able to improve itself into a virtual demigodhood while taking us along for the ride. Barring that, a series of Expert Systems (pseudo-AI that are geniuses in a narrow field like driving or chemical research) would help accelerate our scientific progress by years or even decades. IRL this area is currently making the most progress with "Art AI" (which are actually closer to the aforementioned ES than a Hard AI) creating some jaw-dropping pieces of art after studying hundreds of artists for mere weeks. Funnily enough, some of the first things /g/ did was, first, spam the entirity of 4chan with art of not so jaw-dropping quality for some free thumbs up and second, bully /ic/ telling all of them were going to end up unemployed soon enough. Hey, as Commissar Gaunt said, god-like powers require god-like ethics.

The technologies that enable the leap to transhumanity thus do exist and if we can maintain the global high-tech civilization to at least ~2100, we should be able to achieve it even by the most conservative estimations, that we are morally prepared to deal with them without devolving into a nightmare is a completely different story.

To summarize: for transhumans to start popping up in your neighborhood, you need - well developed genetic, cybernetic and computer sciences. One is bare minimum, two will get you steadily on the road and three will be like a nitro boost.

Types of transhumanism

Transhumanism has a number of subsets and flavors for you to choose from, whether for your game or philosophy, these are:

• Transhumanism: Plain and simple enhancement of Humans until they can juggle dumpsters while feeding off the Sun with photosynthesis as they chat online via the implant in their head.

• Singularitarianism: The belief/assumption that an AI or a hyper-genius will usher in a veritable technological big-bang (referred to as Hard Technological Singularity) after which society will be so changed/advanced as to be unrecognizeable to anyone from pre-singularity.

• Extropianism; A subset of transhumanist thought that focuses primarily on immortality and then a general and endless growth of human potential.

• Posthumanism; Getting so altered and modded that you cannot be considered even partially human anymore, though you are still of far greater abilities than a human (think Dune's Navigators).

• Transxenoism; The same as Transhumanism, except when non-humans do it, a bit neglected in the past but has been appearing more often in science fiction recently.

Transhuman Skub wars and conundrums

Surprisingly (to some), this is a very skub filled topic for both sides of the topic. Mainly lots of false assertions and fanaticism involved. A large bottle of salt is recommended when delving into these "heated" discussions.

The Skub mostly stems from the clashes between those who's religion is opposed to human body modification and/or the concept of Singularity, and those who are the proponents of these concepts. We will of course NOT go into the arguments here since Skub, if you want examples just use google and take your pick on the gajillion religious & transhumanist forums that dot the internet.

Aside from the above, there are more practical concerns regarding the whole philosophy, namely:

• Who gets to use it and profit from it?: Transhumanism by it's nature would enable ordinary humans to enhance themselves until they are, and let's not mince words here, VASTLY superior to nonmodified humans, if this technology is not somehow made widely available the end result may well be a bifurcation of humanity into a demigod elite and the vast majority of baseline plebs, and all the delightful political and social developments this produces. Do we rely on the free-market approach similar to cellphone development to take place and hope that the tech to modify oneself eventually becomes cheap and readily available. Do we decide to subsidize certain mods deemed of public health importance or do we have a flat government discount and let the people decide what mods they want?

• How do we approach custom/copyrighted genes?: The USA already adopted the GINA (Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act) back in 2008. which protects one form genetic-based discrimination in regards to health insurance and job hiring. However as gene sequencing has become vastly cheaper and more accessible, do we also institute genetic copyright to protect ourselves from being cloned? Do gene-modding corporations have the right to copyright their custom-developed genes? How do we decide which genes are a part of a public domain?

• What research should be allowed and what should be banned?: Obviously, anyone with a functioning moral compass will agree that involuntary human experimentation deserves blamming in short order, but what about animals and plants? If cybernetic & genetic research makes some animals or plants sentient, do we have the right to keep experimenting on them or should we severely regulate/ban any research that may lead up to that? Should human embryos or body parts/tissues be free game or similarly regulated (imagine human cells develop sentience after some institute tried to make a biocomputer out of them)?

• How do we handle the existence and rights of new races/species of beings that will be created?: Related to the above, if we do grant sentience to plants/animals/machines, what rights (if any) should they have and how do we protect them? If a human achieves a trans-human status and becomes a cyborg, furry or something else completely, do we recognize them as a subclade of homo sapiens sapiens or do we deem them an entirely new species and do they have any say in the matter?

• How do we prevent deranged individuals from releasing doomsday tech on the world?: There already exist basic gene-editing kits using the Cas-CRISPT19 tech mentioned in the section above which allows people to make custom genes in their garage. What is there to sop some lunatic from engineering a virus to be far deadlier than it would have been, or give a new trait to an insect that turns it into a super-pest? Do we ban people from garage-editing their genes with only licensed corps and agencies doing the modding? How do we deal with gene-pirates? In fact, this is the reason why the entire planet has such strong regulations on nuclear and organ transplant technologies, it's something you simply can't let run amok, there is a major field ahead in terms of how you legislate transhumanist-creating technologies.

• What happens to our society and present socio-economic models if Transhumanism succeeds?: As demonstrated on none other that our good 'ol Warhammer 40k - the introduction of the 3D printing technology has sent GW into stealth-panic mode with ever increasing orientation towards Video Games as they fully realize that the ability to make your own minis will signal the death-knell of them as a company (while the hobby will likely only benefit from this on grassroots-level). With that said, how disruptive would genetic or cybernetic modification be? Would things such as hospitals and schools become obsolete due to improved health and intelligence? If a benevolent AI is developed that is far superior to us in intelligence, should we allow it to assume executive functions in our leadership structures? Should the state and society as we know it be abolished or should we try to modify it in light of these new developments?

• How can you prove a true continuity of consciousness?: Suppose someone claims that they've been able to successfully upload their consciousness into a machine and have effectively become immortal. One simple question: how do you know that the machine is really you and not just a copy? How do you know that the 'real' you simply died and the machine is just a simulacrum with all your memories and 'thinks' that its the same being as you? There's no real way to prove it, because the machine will believe itself to be the same being no matter what. So it may not be so much a transfer of consciousness, where you as an individual being continue existing from an organic body to a synthetic one, so much as, you die, and a machine programmed with your memories and personality takes your place; but until we have a better understanding of what consciousness even is, we will never know for sure. Lastly, digital processors fail and wear out over time as well and files on the same pc are not transferred from drive to drive either but just copied with the old ones getting written over, now imagine that happening to a mind on a computer.

As you can see, Transhumanism does raise plenty of legitimate and interesting questions which we will eventually have to deal with if the whole thing succeeds in real life. Nevertheless these also represent good plot points and setting focuses that can flesh out your game or a homebrewed version of a popular setting. The road towards a transhuman society may be just as exciting as playing within that society.

Games

• Transhuman Space is a setting in GURPS and a game of its own.
• Eclipse Phase where your body and attributes are just another inventory item.
• Shadowrun, for a world that is well on its way toward robotic/brain-in-a-jar body rebuilding and on the cusp of experiencing the Singularity: true A.I.'s have appeared but they aren't (yet) able to cascade themselves into better and better iterations.
• Deus Ex series, with Invisible war showing glimpses into post-human world.
• Sins of a Solar Empire, the Advent are transhuman to the t.
• Post-Human Republic who despite their name are actually transhuman.
• Hc Svnt Dracones, an example of transfurryism of all things.
• Warhammer 40,000 has many examples of transhumanism among the good, the bad, the ugly, and the pure evil in their factions. Space Marines, Navigator, Adeptus Mechanicus, Leagues of Votann Kin, Necron, etc.

See Also

• Cyborg
• Stellaris