Meetup : Vancouver rationality practice case: Evaluating Transhumanism

"is transhumanism true?"

I don't understand what "true" means in this case. (And this is not meant as a trick question, nyan.) Do you mean "Are its goals self-consistent and/or feasible"? Or do you mean "true" as "ethical"? Or something else?

I mean that that's the question that came up.

Obviously the first move will be "does that even mean anything?" (no), and then maybe an attack on coming up with some questions we can answer.

But rationality sometimes has to start from meaningless questions, so we are going to start the practice from a meaningless question that actually came up and we actually failed at.

Hmmm. My guess is that it's 'Correct or not?: Humans can use tech to improve ourselves and end death, and should do so.' But still, wtf.

shhhh, don't give away the answer.

That's the idea, though.

"I don't get transhumanism because..."

Hmm, I've held many transhumanist ideas as far back as I remember, without knowing the term, so it'd be really hard for me to play an honest Devil's advocate in this situation. Maybe someone can start right here, without waiting for a meetup.

Last week, someone brought up the question of whether transhumanism was true. Our meetup regulars are mostly transhumanists or very familiar with it, but we totally fumbled the question and didn't get anything like conclusive answers or even enlightening discussion. I pronounce that to be a rationality fail.

Therefor, this week we will be applying all the rationalist techniques from the sequences to answer the question "is transhumanism true?". The focus will mostly be on the application of the techniques and ideas, but I also expect some good discussion and clarification on actual transhumanism.

So come on out for some concrete application of LW ideas! We will meet at Benny's Bagels in Kitsilano at 13:00 on Saturday. As usual, join us on the mailing list.

See you there!

(Yes I know that the question is meaningless. That's part of the excercise. Don't work on the problem/dump spoilers in the comments please.)

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

5

Meetup : Vancouver rationality practice case: Evaluating Transhumanism

5

5

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver rationality practice case: Evaluating Transhumanism

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver rationality practice case: Evaluating Transhumanism