Silicon Valley pro-extinctionists want to replace humanity with a new posthuman species. Here's how to understand the different kinds of pro-extinctionism circulating in Silicon Valley. (4,000 words.)
In your work have to you seen any indication that people with these views would entertain the idea that they are thinking in religious or cultish ways? For someone to state that it's not ethical to have babies, or that the good and right thing to do is replace all humans, they are staking out fringe ideological positions but speak as if they are the most obviously correct and logical positions to take. :-0
So if someone want humanity to remain as a same biological species, *and* current people alive today to stay so, *and* human values to remain recognizably so, they're still a pro-extinctionist? That doesn't seem a very standard definition of the term.
Well, short of immortality/radical life extension, any given human die within 80 years or so. And if a human is immortal then they're already "extinguished" (?) by your definition.
I think radical alterations would result in a new species of posthumans (this is the explicit aim of (most versions of) transhumanism). Once posthumans arrive, there's no reason to expect "unenhanced" humans to survive for long. Kurzweil makes this point in part 2.
Are you using the same definition of "species" as normal biologists use? I don't think most radical alterations one can imagine (short of changing substrate) would lead to fertile offspring with unaltered humans becoming impossible.
(And if they did, it would be most likely in the form of a species complex than two separate biological species, unless you posit some sort of coordinated conspiracy between all altered humans to form a separate interbreedable species.)
In your work have to you seen any indication that people with these views would entertain the idea that they are thinking in religious or cultish ways? For someone to state that it's not ethical to have babies, or that the good and right thing to do is replace all humans, they are staking out fringe ideological positions but speak as if they are the most obviously correct and logical positions to take. :-0
AFAIK Émile Torres believe it's not ethical to have babies.
I am referring specifically to people who feel it's unethical to have babies because having babies slows down the arrival of the AI posthuman utopia.
So if someone want humanity to remain as a same biological species, *and* current people alive today to stay so, *and* human values to remain recognizably so, they're still a pro-extinctionist? That doesn't seem a very standard definition of the term.
In practice, what do you think is going to happen to those "legacy humans"?
Well, short of immortality/radical life extension, any given human die within 80 years or so. And if a human is immortal then they're already "extinguished" (?) by your definition.
I think radical alterations would result in a new species of posthumans (this is the explicit aim of (most versions of) transhumanism). Once posthumans arrive, there's no reason to expect "unenhanced" humans to survive for long. Kurzweil makes this point in part 2.
Are you using the same definition of "species" as normal biologists use? I don't think most radical alterations one can imagine (short of changing substrate) would lead to fertile offspring with unaltered humans becoming impossible.
(And if they did, it would be most likely in the form of a species complex than two separate biological species, unless you posit some sort of coordinated conspiracy between all altered humans to form a separate interbreedable species.)