Wired Threat Level on Anonym
Wired Threat Level has recently posted a quick profile on Lepht Anonym, a Grinder and practical transhumanist:
Anonym’s vision of the transhuman is rather different. Less visionary, possibly, but more realistic. What she does is “grinding,” with homemade cybernetics and an intimate familiarity with medical mistakes, driven by a consuming curiosity rather than a philosophical creed.
She does her own surgery, with a scalpel and a spotter to catch her if she passes out, and an anatomy book to give her some confidence she isn’t going to slice through a vein or the very nerves she’s trying to enhance.
“The existing transhumanist movement is lame. It’s nano everything. It’s just ideas,” she says. “Anyone can do this. This is kitchen stuff.”
While we’ve mentioned Lepht here, before, the article is quick, and very much worth a read - especially to anyone interested in biohacking and homebrew enhancements who thinks they might be alone in poking at these boundaries.
[Via: Wired Threat Level]
The comments… Jesus. It's like the kind of nightmare Sartre would have, over there.
"I don’t see the benefits either. If anyone can explain them to me, and/or explain the appeal of posthumanism, immortality, or the desire to unite human beings physically with technology, please do."
I have a deep hope that this statement is made in irony, otherwise there's a fundamental disconnect between people who want to take their betterment and alteration into their own hands, at all costs, and those who do not.
Sadly, I detect no irony there. And yes, of course there is a "fundamental disconnect between people who want to take their betterment and alteration into their own hands, at all costs, and those who do not."
I was going to mention that the comments were horrible, but I left that bit out. I almost posted in response, but didn't even know where to begin.
Right. We somehow live in a world where "meh" is an acceptable and encouraged moral stance.
That comment is flawed on so many levels – not the least of which ignorance of the role that tool use plays in human evolution. I wanted to post THIS IS EVOLUTION in 10ft tall flaming letters as a response, but sadly Wired seems to have disabled that ability.
The comments frankly mortify me. The discrepancy between the actual intent of these acts and the interpretation by an “intelligent” audience is staggeringly large. This lady is a pioneer, she is, undoubtably, very slightly insane, but the actions she’s taking are, even if dangerous, inherently valuable.
The worst comment In my eyes was this : “It seems our attention spans have finally become so truncated and pathetic that we’re too impatient to even fucking evolve naturally.”
This just about sums up what is wrong with humanity. Apathy disguised as moral standpoints. We don’t need evolution, and I seriously doubt that we will, as a species will live here long enough to take advantage of it. What we have inherently, is a massive capacity for adaption, and that is what this lady is exemplifying, our will to further ourselves, is our most useful trait, and ultimately the one that will keep us in existance.
Not to mention the scientific disconnect. Individuals don't evolve at all. Species do. If we want to improve, we're damn well going to have to do it ourselves!
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