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26+ Works 459 Membros 3 Reviews 2 Favorited

About the Author

Obras de R. U. Sirius

Associated Works

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Nome padrão
Sirius, R. U.
Nome de batismo
Goffman, Ken
Data de nascimento
1952
Sexo
male
Nacionalidade
USA
Ocupação
editor
talk show host
Organizações
Mondo 2000 Magazine (Editor-In-Chief|1989–1993)

Membros

Resenhas

As w/ so many of these bks that I'm hereby reviewing for GoodReads, I read this many yrs ago & only vaguely remember it. Its physical design is taken from Chariman Mao's famous Little Red Book of Quotations. I might've started reading it thinking that it wd just be flippant parody (wch I often like but wch can also be too much of a cheap shot) but ended up thinking that it was actually pretty sensible & clever.
 
Marcado
tENTATIVELY | Apr 3, 2022 |
What is Transhumanism? That's what I asked myself when I saw this book at the library. I only had a vague understanding of it from books and articles I'd read before. Now, I know a bit more.

What I came away with was that transhumanism is an umbrella term that includes different people with different focuses, but all seem to embrace a line from the old TV show The Six Million Dollar Man. 'We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better, stronger, faster.' Transhumanists are looking for miracles in chemistry, biology, and technology that previous generations looked for by falling to their knees before altars. The details of their search aren't clear from this book, but some seem to be going about it rather scientifically. Others seem about as credulous as their ancestors with sore knees.

I suppose we all share the transhumanist vision to some extent. Who wouldn't want to find ways to cure diseases, repair injuries, extend lifespans? But there are also those who dream of adding abilities, either through technological or biologically engineered enhancements. There are some who envision people becoming completely digital and 'living' in virtual worlds. None of these ideas bother me, as such, but they all seem highly speculative for the moment. That doesn't mean the ideas shouldn't be explored, but whereas overcoming disease, injury, and the devastating effects of aging are (I think) achievable in this century, the ability to upload a mind into a virtual world needs a much better understanding of several things first, not least of which is what a 'mind' is.

Transcendence is more of a dictionary than it is an encyclopedia. The alphabetically arranged entries are long enough to provide definitions but not really detailed enough to provide much understanding. It is, however, a pretty good guide to future reading on the subject, if you're interested.

… (mais)
 
Marcado
DLMorrese | Oct 14, 2016 |
LOL.

It's a little dated by now, but still very funny. A good book to have to show the grandkids what hacker life was like in the 90's.
 
Marcado
lunaverse | Sep 17, 2007 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
26
Also by
2
Membros
459
Popularidade
#53,510
Avaliação
½ 3.4
Resenhas
3
ISBNs
18
Idiomas
2
Favorito
2

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