Crazy transhumanist ideas to "eliminate suffering"

Monday, February 20. 2012

Crazy transhumanist ideas to "eliminate suffering"

The transhumanist will always insist that transhumanism is about healing. It is simply about eliminating suffering and so fear of the transhumanism movement is irrational and unfounded. And yet when you look at what the transhumanist actually proposes you find a bizarre mentality that everything found in nature, including humanity, is up for redesign.

Take this piece by David Pearce in H+ magazine, the magazine for transhumanists. He titled it "Five Top Reasons Transhumanism Can Eliminate Suffering" which sounds all fantastic. And then you get into the dirty details. The first suggestion to eliminate suffering is to "weed out" those of us who feel pain more acutely or genetically engineer ourselves to feel less physical pain. Pearce writes:

We’ll shortly be able to choose the genetically-shaped pain thresholds of our future children. Autosomal gene therapy will allow adults to follow suit. Clearly, our emotional response to raw pain is modulated by the products of other genes. But recent research suggests that variants of the SCN9A gene hold the master key. Thus in a decade or two, preimplantation diagnosis should allow responsible prospective parents to choose which of the SCN9A alleles they want for their future children — leading in turn to severe selection pressure against the SCN9A gene’s nastier variants.

This suggestion is actually a combination of transhumanism (the genetic engineering of adults) and eugenics (the screening of unborn part) which makes sense because transhumanism has its roots in the eugenics movement.

(Take careful notice of the "severe selection pressure" that Pearce mentions. I have had many transhumanists insist that transhumanism is all about the freedom of choice. They insist that no one will be coerced in the transhumanist utopia. And yet when transhumanists use phrases like "severe selection pressure" we had better listen.)

The problem with this suggestion to "reduce" suffering is that pain is a good thing. It lets us know when we are injured. There are people with a rare genetic disorder called congenital insensitivity to pain, sometimes caused by a SCN9A gene variant. The lack of pain sensitivity means these poor unfortunate sufferers have no idea when they injure themsleves. Many bite off their tongues or have other serious oral injuries inflicted by their own teeth. ABC news reported about one girl who had this condition. She had her teeth removed to prevent her from further injuring her mouth and hands. When she was 2, she broke her jaw and did not know it. She ended up on IV medication for 6 weeks due to the infection that resulted. She has also already lost her left eye.

At least Pierce has the sense to say that engineering the SCN9A gene to this level is not a good idea. But he goes on to suggest something even more outrageous. He wants to eliminate predatory carnivorism in nature to eliminate the suffering of prey:

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to phasing out suffering altogether is wild animal suffering. Right now, billions of sentient beings in the wild are dying of thirst and hunger, or being disembowelled, asphyxiated or eaten alive by predators. Jeff McMahan’s landmark article in the New York Times is the first print-published plea from a mainstream academic calling for predatory carnivorism to be phased out.

He wants to turn nature upside down and get rid of the predator-prey relationship? Seriously? And we are supposed to believe that transhumanism is a entirely benign endeavor that is going to create a utopia on Earth. Excuse me if I am not buying.

Posted by Rebecca Taylor in Transhumanism at 13:25 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)

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Doesn't the lamb lie down with the lion in your idea of paradise?

#1 J Hughes (Homepage) on 2012-02-20 14:22 (Reply)

Certainly. But not as the result of flawed and misguided human attempts to alter the delicate balance of nature.

#1.1 Rebecca Taylor on 2012-02-20 14:26 (Reply)

Let God reprogram the predators to not eat the prey, then.

#1.1.1 Michael Anissimov (Homepage) on 2012-03-01 02:21 (Reply)

We have found some common ground! I believe suffering is an important part of growth, and eugenics is not advisable, even with a better understanding of our DNA. I take issue with your critique of David's arguement being representative of all transhumanism however. Some transhumanists due take a Vegan perspective on suffering, most don't. Some of us encourage the utilization of eugenics, most of us would never do it themselves. The same variances apply to any category you assign to people. Mostly I find your arguement that transhumanism comes out of eugenics to be flawed. If anything it is the other way around, transhumanism has its roots in survival, clothing and tools being the beginning. Eugenics, enhancements and implants are just the velcro shoes and shock resistant hammers of tomorrow; the most current technology we incorporate into our lives (bodies if you so choose.) Our views on suffering, God, eugenics, politics... are determined by our personal experiences, not our acceptance of transhumanism.

#2 Gabriel (Homepage) on 2012-02-22 13:34 (Reply)

Rebecca, "severe selection pressure" can indeed sound awfully sinister - echoes of the Spanish Inquisition or coercive eugenics perhaps - until you thoughtfully consider what the term means. Almost all prospective parents would prefer not to pass on, say, the cystic fibrosis allele to their children. If preimplantation genetic diagnosis becomes the norm, then such parents-to-be will be able to avoid doing so - and their choices will entail severe selection pressure against the cystic fibrosis allele. Likewise with variant alleles predisposing to e.g. severe chronic pain syndromes or depressive disorder.

Now you might argue that it's ethically preferable to play genetic roulette as now. But the opposite case, namely that responsible parents should try and minimise avoidable suffering when creating new life, isn't so absurd it can be dismissed out of hand.

#3 David Pearce on 2012-04-16 12:25 (Reply)

The reality is that parents cannot choose NOT to pass these traits onto their children. With PGD they pass their genes, good and bad, on to several offspring. They choose to let those embryos deemed healthy enough to live and toss out those offspring deemed unfit. That is literally throwing the baby out with the dirty genetic bath water.

As for the coercive aspect, you naively believe techniques like PGD and eugenic abortion will remain voluntarily. But ethicists are already talking about making parents legally liable if they do give birth to a child with a genetic condition:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15265161.2012.656798

#3.1 Rebecca Taylor on 2012-04-16 13:43 (Reply)

I agree, it's crazy. That guy Pearce is either an idiot or has some hidden agenda.

#4 Quinn on 2012-06-10 15:23 (Reply)

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