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In the next fifty years, life spans will
extend well beyond a century. Our senses and cognition will
be enhanced. We will have greater control over our emotions
and memory. Our bodies and brains will be surrounded by
and merged with computer power. The limits of the human
body will be transcended, as technologies such as artificial
intelligence, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering converge
and accelerate. With them, we will redesign ourselves and
our children into varieties of posthumanity.
This prospect is understandably terrifying
to many. A loose coalition of groups -- including religious
conservatives, disability rights advocates, and environmental
activists -- has emerged to oppose the use of genetics to
enhance human beings. And with the appointment of conservative
philosopher Leon Kass (an opponent of invitro fertilization,
stem cell research, and life extension) to head the President's
Council on Bioethics, and with the recent high-profile writings
by authors like Francis Fukuyama and Bill McKibben, this
stance has become more visible -- and more infamous -- than
ever before.
In the opposite corner, a loose transhumanist
coalition is mobilizing in defense of human enhancement,
embracing the ideological diversity of their intellectual
forebears in the democratic and humanist movements. Transhumanists
argue that human beings should be guaranteed freedom to
control their own bodies and brains, and to use technology
to transcend human limitations.
Identifying the groups, thinkers, and arguments
in each corner of this debate, bioethicist and futurist
James Hughes argues for a third way, which he calls democratic
transhumanism. This approach argues that we will
achieve the best possible posthuman future when we ensure
technologies are safe, make them available to everyone,
and respect the right of individuals to control their own
bodies.
Hughes offers fresh and controversial answers
for many other pressing biopolitical issues -- including
cloning, genetic patents, human genetic engineering, sex
selection, drugs, and assisted suicide -- and concludes
with a concrete political agenda for pro-technology progressives,
including expanding and deepening human rights, reforming
genetic patent laws, and providing everyone with healthcare
and a basic guaranteed income.
A groundbreaking work of social commentary,
Citizen Cyborg illuminates the technologies that
are pushing the boundaries of humanness -- and the debate
that may determine the future of the human race itself.
James Hughes, Ph.D., teaches Health Policy
at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut, and services
as Trinity's Associate Director of Institutional Research
and Planning. The executive director of the World Transhumanist
Association, Hughes produces the weekly syndicated public
affairs talk show Changesurfer Radio, writes the Change
Surfing column for Betterhumans.com, and contributes to
the democratic transhumanist Cyborg Democracy blog. He lives
in rural eastern Connecticut with his wife, the artist Monica
Bock, and their two children.
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