I first heard about transhumanism, (sometimes abbreviated as H+) through cultural critic and all-around weirdo Rachel Haywire. I use the word weirdo as a compliment – she is part of my tribe. People like us don’t just think outside the box. We took the box out to an abandoned parking lot, chopped it up with an axe, and then set that motherfucker on fire. Refusing to see things as Right or Left, we began abandoning traditional politics in favor of a third way. We didn’t see things as black or white or in shades of grey. We saw things in a way that resembled Skittles shit out by rainbow-colored unicorns.
Yet these transhumanists were something else. They just couldn’t seem to agree on anything!
The idea of transhumanism is that humans will be transformed through technology into super-intelligent Übermenschen. How exactly this will happen is the great debate among transhumanists. They all seem to await the coming of something they call “The Singularity” which is supposedly the moment when technology will supersede human intelligence and transform society. Some say that nanotechnology will allow human beings to increase their intelligence, sort of like the drug NZT from the movie Limitless. Others believe this technology will only be available to a select few, who will selfishly use it to enhance themselves and leave the rest of us wallowing in ignorance.
The Wikipedia page for transhumanism does not mention Robert Anton Wilson, yet he was one of the first proponents of transhumanism. Wilson states that the time it takes for scientific knowledge to double has been getting shorter and shorter, and that the acceleration of knowledge is a continuing and evolving process. I heard about this during a speech of his called The Acceleration of Knowledge, many years before the Internet was even a thing. So why so much focus on “The Singularity” and so little focus on the the acceleration of knowledge through non-technological means?
I do indeed believe that “The Singularity” is coming. I just don’t believe that it’s coming to America. We allow the mainstream media to spew blatant lies without fear of being shut down, and their brand of “news” plays to our emotions rather than our intellect. For all intents and purposes, while most of Europe and Japan are evolving, Americans are devolving into the stupidest culture on Earth. We celebrate the worst qualities in people, and view dumb celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West as people to be admired. Our educational system whitewashes the past by erasing important events from American history books, such as the fact many white immigrants between the 1630s and American Revolution came under indentured servitude. Not to mention that many of these whites were actually treated worse than blacks because they were loaned out while blacks were property that had actually been paid for.
You can’t take a real photograph of America, because the studio in which America is posing has some really bad lighting. If the world were a runway, the European and Asian models would all be gorgeous and healthy. The American supermodel would look like an anorexic starved dog with bad teeth and brain damage. There are intelligent people in America, but we are not living in anything like a posthuman society. We live in a society where celebrity gossip is more important than the truth. We live in a society where outraged idiots want to replace the constitution with a 6000-year old book written by deranged sand people.
If “The Singularity” occurs, it will occur somewhere else. People like Robert Anton Wilson and Rachel Haywire will be forgotten. Nobody wants to just watch a simple concert here. They need to film it with their phones and then take a selfie afterwards. There’s outrage on the Left, but it’s not the good kind. It’s all tied up in sexual identity politics which confuse things to the point of ridiculousness. Terms such as pansexual, polysexual, queer, polyfidelitous, ambisexual, or personalized identities such as byke or biphilic are the product of sheltered people with too much time on their hands. They cling desperately to this form of identity politics like a life preserver, thinking that this kind of personal revolution is more important than an actual revolution:
“I got fucked in the ass last night by an African-American trans-woman! I’m so politically radical!”
No.
No you’re not. You just got buttfucked by a black chick with a dick. It’s not a political statement. It was a hot Saturday night, so get over yourself.
No.
“The Singularity” is not coming to America.
What’s coming is a sad age of willful ignorance and stupidity. What’s coming is the end of scientific facts and methodology - a populace proud of its rampant illiteracy and its suspicion of any kind of logic, reason, or intelligence. What’s coming is a screaming embarrassment to every thinking person. Posthuman society has devolved. What’s coming is an Idiocracy.