The link apparently doesn't work.
Are You A Transhuman? (AYAT) is insightful, fascinating & deeply flawed. I was already familiar with FM-2030 under his name F.M. Esfandiary. I had read two of his earlier books, published in the 1970's, titled
Optimism One &
Up-Wingers around the time I was an undergrad in college. I ran across a copy of
AYAT in a bookstore in Tulsa in January, 1989, and recognized the author from the photo on the back cover. I bought the book on the spot, and by an amazing bit of synchronicity I heard FM on a local radio talkshow that very night. I still have an audio tape of that broadcast.
I've read
AYAT several times over the years, and I've come to see some deficiencies in FM's view of dealing with change and the future. To his credit he does promote immortalism, cryonics, Secular Humanism and some other right ideas. But he mixes them up with proposals that sound a lot like political correctness, along with unrealistic or wrong-headed notions about living.
For example, in Monitor 10, "How Affluent Are You?" FM muddles the vital distinction between wage income & wealth income. Ideally we should become
wealthy, which means we should be flush with income we no longer have to work for, coming from interest, dividends, rents and so forth. FM confuses that sort of affluence with high wages, which we do have to work for and which are conditional on our bosses' competence and willingness to keep us on the payroll. Clearly the wealth-based form of affluence is superior. Your wealth, unlike your boss, can't fire you, much less surveil, scapegoat, sexually harass or otherwise humiliate you.
Similarly, in Monitor 3, "How Information Rich Are You?" FM doesn't consider whether you need all the information he would have you constantly absorb. Being confronted all the time with information you don't need and can't really use can make you unnecessarily anxious. In Monitor 4, "How Time Rich Are You?" FM doesn't take into account that unless you're financially independent, you are going to have to spend a good part of you life having to trade time for wages. Similarly, in Monitor 5, "How Fluid Are You?" FM doesn't take into account the need for financial independence for your ability to change jobs, nationalities, lovers and so forth. People usually stay in ruts because they can't afford to make changes. And in Monitor 6, "How High Tech Is Your Attention Span?" FM doesn't take into account that a lot of hard but important tasks take long attention spans to master. You need to apply yourself single-mindedly to make careers in fields like science, mathematics & engineering, for example.
Now I would argue that
AYAT's greatest weakness is its naive model of human behavior. Evolutionary psychology has only become popularized in the last dozen years or so, so FM probably wasn't aware of the empirical evidence that human behavior isn't infinitely malleable. Human behavior certainly isn't consciously rational. There is no necessary trajectory towards the Transhuman because humans are neurologically predisposed to use new technologies as surrogates for showing off their reproductive fitness to potential mates, not to keep themselves alive past their normal life expectancies.
AYAT tries to push the human species in the right direction, from the Transhumanist perspective, but it leaves much to be desired.
Edited by advancedatheist, 05 March 2003 - 02:59 AM.
