Tag: Transhumanism
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Immortality and infrastructure
Every technology requires a physical infrastructure in order to operate. But this infrastructure depends on social institutions, which are frequently subject to breakdown. I made this point when I bumped into some ardent advocates of cryonic suspension in California in the 1980s. How long would it take to develop the technologies that were needed to…
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Cool your head
Another day, another minor mention of immortalism in the mainstream media; this one’s rare in that it mentions the really important element of the business model of Alcor and other such cryogenics “service providers”: The majority of patients choose to take out life insurance policies naming Alcor or the Cryonics Institute as their beneficiary. Read that again. Let the implications…
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Pirates of the Plastic Ocean, plus LonConnery
I can finally fully announce some very agreeable publications news: my story “Los Piratas del Mar de Plastico” appears in this year’s Twelve Tomorrows, which is MIT Technology Review‘s annual all-fiction special. (On Stateside newsstands in August, I believe — though I know next to nothing about UK/Europe/global availability. You can sign up on that…
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The unexamined sociology of transhumanism
One of the reliable bright lights in the gloom of my January is the annual Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky show, a.k.a. their State of the World conflab at The Well. All sorts of chewy futurism and near-field hindsight going on, as always, but sometimes it’s a minor aside that snags my mind, like this…