J.K. Rowling returns human rights award amid criticism from organization

[Labster]

I'm so glad I derailed this thread, this is way more interesting than talking about TERFs and transphobia and minority rights in general.  Sometimes it's worth it to take a step back and imagine what kind of society we want, and work backwards from there.

Actually I wasn't being entirely sarcastic.  Playing a bit of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Brian Reynolds spends an awful lot of time trying to make you consider Chairman Yang's position.  He comes from a collectivist and authoritarian background, sure.  But there's a strong transhumanist element as well.  It's not eugenics per se, it's the idea is not to create better humans but to create something else entirely.  There were lots of great techs in that game like Mind-Machine Interface that suggest other ways you could do it.

The Human Hive is a horror, if an understandable one. It's absolutely great when you are a talent, but when you are just one of its thousands of drones? Your entire existence is engineered to be the best slave you can be. Yang's the fellow who came up with the Genejack concept after all...

(Also, you have good taste in games.)

It's a horror because your values deem it a horror, not because people are actually unhappier in Yang's society.  I mean, the nerve stapling makes sure of that.  Miriam would think it equally a horror that people could change their sex to catgirls in violation of God's plan.  (Of course, as the canon story goes on, Miriam's enthusiasm for technology becomes less and less)

snip Lalist propaganda

I hear a lot of maybes and a distinct lack of concrete concerns. Transhumanism has the same problem as fusion power.

We'll have it. 50 years in the future. Just like we said for the last however many decades since we came up with the notion. We'll address it when it starts to become relevant, but right now? The closest we are getting is partial conversion cyborgs, and those are just flat out too expensive, limited and risky for anything other than assisting the permanently disabled.

Society changes slowly, then all at once.  Twenty years ago, did you think that everyone would willingly carry a microphone and camera around with them everywhere, even the bedroom?  And yet it has come to pass.  We all walked into the surveillance state willingly.

The human condition has changed, and it makes physical changes in our body and brain.  Tooth decay and obesity are almost unknown among ancient man, but they're widespread problems now because of vast changes to diet and habitat.  Addiction is a real problem, and there are so many things to get addicted to now.  Birthrate is falling, fast.  Our physical selves have been changed by society.  It started with the medical appliances: first eyeglasses, then hearing aids, then pacemakers and cochlear implants.  The process of becoming cyborgs began hundreds of years ago, but the pace is only increasing.