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Defasher OP wrote (edited )

Okay, one more question. If the only way to counter fascist transhumanism is for people to be anarcho-transhumanists, doesn't that mean everyone is forced to upgrade their bodies or else risk being seen / treated as an inferior race?

If the rich stop being the only immortal cyborgs, and allow anarcho-transhumanists to all become immortal cyborgs too, but I decide to remain a mere mortal, doesn't that put me at a serious disadvantage?

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kaiakerno wrote (edited )

We are anarchists. We are, by definition, against the concept of inferiority of one being to another. This can be said for all branches of anarchism, even anarcho-capitalism subscribes to this in principle. So, in principle, the answer is "No".

In practice I can speak only from the anarcho-communist perspective, and the answer is still "No".

Even with the current level of production, our civilization can already provide necessities (water, food, shelter, safety, medicine, education, technology, communication and complete access to culture) to all persons on Earth, and demand much less of their time than now -- as soon as we transform competition of enterprises into cooperation of workers and direct democratic control by both workers and consumers, eliminating a lot of useless and harmful jobs in the process. With the rise of transhumans (and don't forget AIs), productive capacity will increase further, but the demand on worker time will (unlike under capitalism) shrink, not increase. Pretty soon we'll reach a point where all the work that needs doing is performed either by passionate humans that genuinely want to do it or by AIs that are either also self-determined passionate persons or enjoy it by definition in their programming, or simply don't care. Probably that is the moment when we can finally let go of money and whatever remained of economic inequality will be gone.

Of course, by choosing to pass augmentation, you are limiting your ability to contribute to the society to a degree. But this won't reduce your worth as a human being and won't impede your access to goods and services. Except, of course, there might also be forms of leisure requiring augmentation, but this future society will probably deeply care about accessibility as well.

So, you choose to remain a pure human? Your loss. IMHO, you'll miss out on a lot of good stuff. But things that are valuable to you won't be taken away. You will not be looked down upon, and will not be at an economic nor social disadvantage.

Besides, it's never too late to change your mind.

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ziq_TNG wrote (edited )

That's a whole lot of speculation that all depends on anarchism becoming the worldwide system of choice and capitalism ceasing to exist. It's a nice idea, but it's really very unlikely anarchism will gain a foothold. The rich aren't about to just release their grip on the world and give us universal equality. Just the idea of 8 billion people and their offspring being made immortal and using up resources for eternity is enough to send the rich into genocide mode.

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[deleted] wrote

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ziq_TNG wrote

I don't want to be rude but other forms of anarchism don't create hierarchies by their very design..

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kaiakerno wrote

There's a long way to that kind of future, and maybe it will never come.

And yes, it will unlikely happen with one sudden revolution. I personally think it will be cooperatives and small communities providing for themselves, then cooperating with each other and uniting together to provide for themselves better. Until they reach critical mass.

But that is beside the point. How exactly does TH create hierarchy by design?

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ziq_TNG wrote (edited )

It creates a superhuman class. It would be like living in an X-Men comic where some humans are all-powerful but most are defenseless.

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kaiakerno wrote

If anyone can become a "superhuman", then there is no border between those classes. And remember, anarchy is about "no leaders" rather than "no rules", and it is not anarchy if oppression of a regular human by an augmented one is tolerated.

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kaiakerno wrote (edited )

Besides, there are all kinds of potential augmentations. Some augmentations, those that enhance physical strength, are likely to be considered weapons and be treated as such. (I honestly haven't made up my mind on weapons yet: I used to consider gun control a necessity, and now that I noticed many anarchists to be against it, I'd like to examine that other point of view before I form a strong opinion on this.)

But these are unlikely to be very popular in a healthy society. I was thinking more in line of upgrades that allow you to interface with computers to control them and receive their output by thought. Or those that restore vision to vision-impaired or fix any other kind of disability.

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Chomskyist wrote

I'm going to start a thread asking what augmentation would be the best.

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Defasher OP wrote (edited )

I have the same critique of anarcho-communism as I so with AT. Individualist anarchism isn't utopian, however. I exist in anarchy right now.

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kaiakerno wrote

Anarcho-communism works: there have been functional countries like this, for example, Catalonia in 1936-39 and maybe Makhnovist Ukraine in 1917-21. They worked very well for their people, and were both destroyed mostly by the external forces.

So, it's hardly utopian.

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Chomskyist wrote

No... because we're anarchists, we don't believe in hierarchies.

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ziq_TNG wrote

Whether you believe in them or not, they'll still exist.

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kaiakerno wrote

That's why as anarchists, we identify them, evaluate whether they are justifiable and dismantle them if they are not.

Dismantling doesn't need to happen by taking the advantage away from somebody: making that advantage universally available is much better.

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