One of my favorite shows growing up was Lab Rats on Disney XD. Its plot revolved around bionic super-humans, highlighting their ability to use their bionic abilities to conduct life-saving missions, while also being normal high schoolers going about their lives. I was reminded of this show when reading this piece. Pilsch frames transhumanism as the first movement to legitimately promise transcendence via technologies that make us “gods.” Literalization may literally strip transcendence of its very meaning. I appreciate how Pilsch traces the concept back further than most assume, rather than attributing it as a Silicon Valley invention. The quantified self movement logic landed well for me as well. Tracking sleep or steps already reflects a transhumanist logic - effectively where humans are boiled down to data to be optimized. I myself am one of such with my Whoop. This raises a practical question about where the line sits between self-improvement and self-replacement. At what point in life does optimizing the body stop being care and innovation, and start being redesign? Also, who in practice genuinely has the resources to determine what an optimized human can look like? I am also curious about the ethical concerns of over-optimization.

Farman’s ethnographic approach are grounds for what could be considered abstract arguments in real communities of people. Sitting in the Church of Perpetual Life, interviewing cryonicists, and attending Terasem colloquia all shame Farman’s perspective. He observed that the in a science-based church where only 1/3 of the attendees are ageists, the director describes it as feeling “closer than a club, like a family.” This is exactly reminiscent of how religious congregations are described. Farman’s point is, to me, that transhumanists end up recreating the social structures of religion even while rejecting it. To this point, I believe the reason so is because having such social structures provides a perspective to view the world and attribute a sense of faith to their lives. To what extent does the community aspect of these organizations matter more to their members as compared to the actual science?

Beckstead’s claim that saving lives in richer countries is more important than saving those in poorer countries due to the wealthy having more long-term influence is striking. To make matters worse, Ord praised Beckstead’s claim as one of the most important contributions to he literature. We can extrapolate this concept to things which impact our daily lives. When we consider the future of AI regulation, “longtermist” assumptions are already baked into how DC thinks about AI risk. In DC’s case, priority is given to super intelligence to optimize for the long term, over present harm. I wonder how do you engage seriously with AI governance when the dominant framework contains such reasoning underneath it? Also, how do we hold moments accountable when most do not seem to care? Is awareness generally enough?

I relate deeply with Singh’s upbringing. In my religion and faith, death is a part of a cycle, rather than a malfunction. One can only truly be liberated once they are free from the cycle of life and death. I found it interesting how Singh does not share the death anxiety driving many people in the field, yet believes mind uploading is plausible. This distinction was significant, nonetheless. Growing up between cultures that have entirely different perspectives to morality, I recognize how much starting assumptions of death shape what solutions even seem necessary. Also, Ellis’s example of Xing checking a death countdown on his browser every day is interesting because it begs the question at what point does it stop being research motivation. However, if we reframe aging as a disease (how Xing advocates for) does that change what we are morally obligated to fund? Who gets to be in the deciding rooms?