Talk:Libertarian transhumanism

message: Natasha Vita-More has said: "ExI is not a political organization.  Extropians were and are libertarians, democrats, upwingers, non-partisan and whatever else they are.  
Years ago, most "extropians" were libertarian in Silicon Valley and LA.  Some of them have not been around for about seven or more years.  But even if they were, when ExI kept growing, (in the mid to late 1990s) more and more people came on board who were interested in transhumanism, the future, technology and they brought with them their own political views.  ExI has never stated that it is a libertarian organization and never required its members to be libertarian.  I was a Green and now non-partisan.  My artist friends were/are democrats or progressives.  My transhuman friends were/are upwingers.  My academic colleagues were/are non-partisan or progressives.  They were and are all members of ExI.  So you can see why they and I do not like being pigeonholed as being members of a political viewpoint that we do not share.  
If you want to do something to separate out your groups from ExI to make a statement and show people that you are the more inspiring and beneficial group, then just respect Dr. More and his writings and all else will follow suit.  I will quote him in an interview he did for you:
"
NeoFiles: The Extropian movement encloses a strong belief in a libertarian pro-free enterprise politics within its basic principles. Do you feel that this is a necessary part of any transhumanist paradigm? Conversely, do you feel that it might unnecessarily exclude potential compatriots? (I, for instance, have basically non-ideological, ad hoc, situational, pragmatic politics – I can, in fact, be rather left wing – depending on the situation.)
Max More: The first sentence is incorrect. It’s a relic of a decade or more ago, and is deliberately perpetuated by some transhumanists (mostly, but not exclusively, socialistic ones) and accepted by those who haven’t checked for themselves. Even the earliest version of the Principles did not, in fact, “enclose a strong belief in a libertarian pro-free enterprise politics.” Granted, the early principles and the tone of our first publications certainly favored a strongly libertarian approach.
Things change. That fact is inconvenient to two groups of people: Critics who are too intellectually dishonest or lazy to tackle extropic transhumanism as it has evolved. And transhumanists who seek to misrepresent extropic transhumanism in order to build their influence over a movement they’re so desperate to control.
I am not a libertarian, unless you take a generously broad view of the term. I’m hardly an exception these days. Even going back a few years, a survey of Extropy Institute members showed that a substantial proportion did not describe their political views with the l-word. When it comes to politics and economics, a high degree of pragmatism (in the skeptical and empiricist sense) is healthy, and ideology is problematic. But you can also go too far with situational pragmatism.
If I must be branded with some label, let it be something like “principled pragmatism.” It may take an apparent oxymoron to convey the tricky and ever-evolving balance between theoretical, principled understanding on one hand, and raw, situation-specific perception on the other."
--Loremaster 03:13, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Natasha Vita-More was not aware of the article on libertarian transhumanism when I posted her comments here. These are from an email conversation she had with a colleague of mine for educational purposes. That being said, I agree with the rationale of your edit. --Loremaster 00:29, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I've edited the article to take into account Vita-More's objection. --Loremaster 09:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Extropianism

message: I deleted the following text from the Beliefs section, which was added by anonymous User:137.163.19.100: 
:Contrary to Klaus-Gerd Giesen, many libertarian transhumanists do not consider themselves inegalitarians, meritocrats or biological determinists and do not reduce everything to the hereditary gene and do not have a fantasy of omnipotence.
First of all, this text should have been in the Criticism section not the Beliefs section. Second, it isn't enough to simply state that libertarian transhumanists do not consider themselves the things they are being accused of. The counter-criticism must provide convicing arguments which explain why they are not. Also, please cite sources. --Loremaster 15:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Although eventually this article should include a counter-criticism section. SpaceTycoon 02:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Only if notable self-described libertarian transhumanists can be cited as providing one. We can't write the counter-criticsm we presume they would say. That would go against Wikipedia: No original research policy. --Loremaster 04:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticisms

message: Perhaps we should use Ronald Bailey's Liberation Biology: The Scientific And Moral Case For The Biotech Revolution as the main source for this article. This might entail rewriting the Beliefs section. --Loremaster 21:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References and Sources 

message: I am always suspicious when I find a "criticisms" section that is longer than the descriptive portionn of the article. It does not seem very appropriate to an encyclopaedia to write articles in this way. The "criticisms", being at the end, acts as a "last word" and is thus inherently presenting a point of view. It does not present discussion, it simply presents a "takedown" of the thing the article is supposed to be about. One could do this to any subject. It creates a false view for the reader.
The criticisms section here presents various views from various opponents of, it seems, libertarianism in general. Why are the views of these people particularly significant? To argue that libertarian transhumanism is inegalitarian is obvious; since libertarianism itself is not egalitarian in the way social authoritarians use the term- though libertarians may argue that the actual consequence of libertarianism is ultimately a society with less privelege which thus becomes more equal in the longer term. Whether this is true I do not know. The point is, it's a general argument between libertarians and authoritarians, not specific to libertarian transhumanism.
Anyway, the main point I'm making is that use of a "criticisms" section seems like an underhanded way for opponents of the subject in the article to get in a "last word" to rubbish the thing being described. That's not what encyclopaedias are for. They should describe the subject for the interested reader, not attempt to influence their opinion- that is beyond an encyclopaedia's remit. Isn't there some kind of "NPOV" rule here?82.71.30.178 (talk) 18:03, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As the person who created, expanded and improved this article, I can assure you that all your impressions and accusations are mistaken. (I made sure that all the criticisms are specifically about libertarian transhumanism and its related subcultures not libertarianism in general) That being said, I agree that the criticism section being longer than the descriptive section is a problem. I've tried to expand but I haven't found the time to read enough libertarian transhumanist essays and books to do a good job. If you want to help me with that, you're more than welcomed. :) --Loremaster (talk) 18:14, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biased? 

message: I do think the need to make it known as to whether the transhumanists being discussed on this page are right wing "libertarians", and maybe expand this article to include Anarchist-Libertarian transhumanists. Some of the key philosophies of transhumanism according to Max More (ie. anti-authoritarianism, individual freedom, and anti-hierarchy) fit in to Anarchism/Libertarian Socialism quite well and have been adopted by some futurist minded Anarchists. JanderVK (talk) 12:34, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Anarchism/Libertarian Socialism & Transhumanism

message: Should Democratic transhumanism and libertarian transhumanism be merged and redirected into Transhumanist politics? It seems unnecessary to split three articles that fall under the same subject. Combining the articles may increase the number of readers who access this information and resolve the notability challenge that has been on Democratic transhumanism since 2013. Waters.Justin (talk) 14:25, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge and redirect to [[Transhumanist politics]]?

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