Darwin's Long Shadow: Social Progress and the Posthuman Transition

It is impossible to speak of real human progress without acknowledging the need for radical redesign and enhancement of our biology. No matter how much we improve our external quality of life through social and economic reform, we will never stop the hedonic treadmill. Permanent gradients of bliss and universal empathy were, for most of biological history, maladaptive traits. The fact that human civilization is wrought with so much suffering is not solely a result of the inhumane economic and political systems in place all over the world. In truth, our neural hardware is designed for misery, pain, hate, and selfishness, as these experiences have been critical to survival. This is not limited to humans, wild nature itself is a permanent state of immense suffering. Predation, disease, and fear are woven into the fabric of every animal's life. At the same time, the institutions we have created are largely a manifestation of the very worst attributes of human nature. The most immense suffering could certainly be abolished through social change. It is undeniable that starvation, genocide, repression, and alienation contribute to a state of human misery that is far greater than it should be or would be otherwise. Indeed, the other side of human nature is love, empathy, justice, and altruism. But even if all the oppressive forces in the world were destroyed and replaced by open, participatory democratic institutions with a robust regard for human rights and social justice, the dark side of our nature would not simply disappear, and the aggregate increase in human happiness would be confined to its biological limits. Even given a society that heavily favors the more noble attributes of human beings to the point that behaving according to these attributes becomes a far superior reproductive strategy, it would take hundreds of thousands of years at the very least to affect a genetic change. No matter what we do, or how grand our visions of human potential, our own biology remains--the most oppressive institution of all.

I would post the rest of the essay but YouTube won't let me.

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• Class Struggle
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• Hedonic Treadmill
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[jdunbaugh]

@jessesainthimmel yea I'm sorry for the rudeness. It's just that in my experience, facing these ideas scares people, and I'm worried about the growth of an anti-intellectual movement based on fear and willful-ignorance. Many of myown friends and family reject transhumanism or the post-darwinian transition, (some rejecting darwinian evolution in the first place), thus I'm worried about presentation. It's very important that these ideas insight the hope they truly represent.