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Nicholas Agar responds to students' blogposts
Sunday 18 Mar 2012 04:52 PM
| Masterclass:Transhumanism
I have to say that I really enjoyed reading these posts. When you write a book like Humanity’s End you hope that smart people will read it and engage with its themes. That’s obviously happened here. Congratulations to Chris on running what seems to have been a very successful course and thanks for inviting me to respond to some of your points.
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Opposing Radical Enhancement & the Status Quo Bias
Tuesday 13 Mar 2012 02:17 PM
| Masterclass:Transhumanism
Lifespans of over a thousand years, enhanced levels of perception, never failing memories and IQs that would make Einstein look like a primate—the apparent benefits of radical enhancement are great, and they are many. With the dawn of new enhancement technologies that enable us to augment an increasingly greater number of bodily functions, several scholars have expressed their hope and belief that
Negligible Senescence and its Implications
Tuesday 13 Mar 2012 12:39 PM
| Masterclass:Transhumanism
“Is SENS following Gandhi? First they ignore you (2000-2002). Then they laugh at you (2002-2004). Then they oppose you (2005-present). Then they say they were always with you.” Aubrey de GreySuch was the confidence that Aubrey de Grey, a Cambridge gerontologist, concisely displayed on a Powerpoint slide during a 2006 TED talk, in which he mapped out his Strategies for Engineered Negligible
And they lived happily forever after?
Monday 12 Mar 2012 09:07 PM
| Masterclass:Transhumanism
There are many debates going on about whether it will one day be possible for humans to live ‘forever’. Sure, this wouldn’t mean being immortal, and probably in the end all of us would still die. But it would mean that we would simply no longer die of natural causes, the only way to die would be by accident. So while this debate seems interesting and is getting more and more attention nowadays,
Ray Kurzweil: The Technologist
Monday 12 Mar 2012 08:22 PM
| Masterclass:Transhumanism
Written by Georgina Kuipers2nd year student LUCThis semester’s masterclass, as you may or may not know, focuses on transhumanism. Transhumanism is a movement that believes and supports the technological advancement of humankind, e.g. decreasing the effects of ageing or creating ‘superhumans’ that have computers instead of brains. Although this might sound quite fictional, the thinkers featured