Transhumanism
April 28, 2026
Is humanity right in colonizing the stars? What are we optimizing for, and why? I used to subscribe to a utilitarian view, where happiness is fungible and quantifiable - it's neat, and allows for absolute condifence to hard questions, which itself is valuable, but the question of how to judge a moral system is circular, and no progress is made.
Nature gives us some direction: empathy, social awareness, beauty are some engrained goods, but these are only pointed towards a more successful machine - a Darwinian, hyper-capitalsit sense of correct - not even taking a stance at good. That we derive our sense of good on this base is worth noting. Should a creature pay no mind to their biases, and optimize for their engrained sense of good? Nature's sense can be overwritten, however.. we see this happening socially, although to what ends is to be seen, however theoretically our goals and beliefs could be manipulated at the physical level - a kind of wire heading. Would overwritting your current beliefs for easier to obtain ones be bad? Maybe, until you do it!
To address this progressive, anti-humanity-as-we-know-it stance: to reject it, you'd need to first consider our sense of good given by nature. Would it be hubris to assume that we are correct and optimized as-is, or would it be hubris to overwrite nature? As far as we can tell, nature was not trying to be good, so to overwrite her moves the question of hubris to understanding natures intent. A similar question is raised, however, when addressing the counterfactual: to assume we are correct and optimized, we would assume there is some system which values the good, and that we are its output, but getting a read on such a system is not realistic.
Looking back at the history of humanity, I disagree with my grandfather, who in turn disagrees with his. How can you think that humanity is optimized for good when we are divided on the issue? Our sense of good has been coerced by many movements: a capitalist drive for winning, an empathatic drive lead by (the need for society?, socialization?).. that these would be used as instruments to sculpt the real good seems unlikely?
But why would one need a sound theory of good to participate in it? A fairer retort would be that I act differently than my grandfather, who acts differently than his, but the reality is that as a species we are homogonizing rapidly - approaching a mono culture, hosted on the internet, which would be a point towards the possiblility of humanity being directed to the good?
If that were so, what's all this thinking good for?
My Current Stance
I find the thought that there is no good inherent in the universe convincing. This idea makes me sad, but I do believe it. There are some unfortunate corollary to this belief, but they don't need to be listed: the thought itself is depressing enough1. However(!): the sun is awesome, women are beautiful. I live a happy life, and enjoy my days. A utilitarian would accept this, and say: yes, that is good, and I think that this is noble. Us humans live a life molded by narrative, to abandon any would be miserable, and to accept one would make the pinwheel spin. What I have trouble seeing is how people will reach a similar conclusion, but oppose setting up a fan to spin the wheel, or making many wheels, or even making the wheels lighter and better engineered, so they spin more easily (in order: wirehead, colonize the stars, modify reward systems such that you desire currently-mundane and easily achieveable things).
- Happily, this depressive stance is mostly intellectual. I say that the sun and women are great, but that's life, and it's what I actually experience. Is this inconsistent?
