this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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I can't boil augmentation down to materialism. Think further than chopping off your limbs and replacing them with sweet robot arms, you'll find a world of questions that are hard to answer and put you face to face with what it means to be human - something we are often too comfortable in our daily lives to do.
Too little to gain? There is everything to gain. Human capability is what brought us this magic rock in our hands that we poke to operate every part of our lives from finances to relationships to shopping and we use it to communicate with the world. With the internet, cheap mobile phones, and wireless tech, humanity has given itself a global consciousness through sheer ingenuity and genius, and now we're on the precipice of the AI age. Significantly enhancing human capability isn't mind blowing to you? It's just materialism? The good and bad that may come from augmentation... It's overwhelming, honestly.
Well... yes. I don't see it as much more than simple materialism simply because I don't think that humanity in general is anything close to equipped to make much more of it.
Yes, and that global consciousness has revealed itself to be to some significant degree petty, ignorant, self-absorbed and mean-spirited.
I think that at this point in time, humanity is far more in need of philosophical and sociological advancement than technological.
I'll stand by my original point, but I do agree that the global consciousness is everything you stated. It's also young. It skews hard toward the younger generation who grew up with it currently. Very interested to see what it's like in the future when everyone uses it grew up with it. Probably still shit TBH - humanity really sucks ass in a lot of ways - but I do think it will mature somewhat.
I'll also agree that we are in desperate need of philosophical and sociological advancement. I think it's important to keep in mind they're not mutually exclusive; we can and are working on both at the same time, and technological advancement can help or eliminate issues in the other areas mentioned.
You can't stop progress. And we shouldn't try to. We do need to address serious, solvable social issues in the world though, and technology can and has facilitated that in the past. Medicine is technology, remember. Humanity is absolutely equipped to make much use of augmentation, but I will not pretend there are no downsides. The tech will be used for both good and evil and that's just nature. In all things, balance.