Bruno Lederer: Introduction

[Radivis (Michael Hrenka)]

Welcome to the Fractal Future Forum, Bruno!

@Hiro_Protagonist

I aim to achieve my higher education entrance qualification in the year of 2018 and to study molecular genetics and/or biomedical engineering in order to found a company specialized in human enhancement later on.

It’s very inspiring to read that you already plan founding a company providing human enhancement services, even though you are still visiting school. Such ambitions are very commendable!

@Hiro_Protagonist

I’ve been interested in scientific topics since I was a child, which, in the end, led me into questioning the logic behind religion.

Well done! Questioning the logic of religion is a harder path than accepting it. It’s still too convenient to blindly buy into religious reasoning, due to social norms.

@Hiro_Protagonist

Since I didn’t believe in higher powers anymore, I realized the problem of mortality, which I think isn’t inevitable.

Mortality is certainly a complex problem, which has many different layers to it. One could start with arguing about what it actually means to be alive, but that would probably lead us to a tangent that won’t help us much.

@Hiro_Protagonist

One of the biggest problems in our current civilization, in my opinion, is the infatuation of those people who believe death is inevitable, or, in fact, their unwillingness to tinker themselves with the scientific aspects and causes of death (which indeed could be treated with future technologies), which could lead them into drawing the same conclusions, I, and many other scientists have achieved.

There are of course different causes of death. There are ageing, diseases, accidents, violence, suicide, or even the end of the universe if nothing else goes wrong. I guess you are focusing on ageing, because that seems to be the cause of death that looks very inevitable to most people. But even if we “fixed” ageing, the other causes of death would still be a big issue. So, I find it problematic to find the right words to talk about this. “Fixing death” sounds inappropriate. “Fixing ageing” is something that’s more realistic, but it treated with general suspicion. There are of course reasons for why people aren’t comfortable with the idea of fixing ageing, so I think it’s very important to address them openly and comprehensively.

@Hiro_Protagonist

That leads to the problem, that those people prevent the political system from seeing the necessity to advance the scientific efforts in that field.

Indeed. Politics is usually not being done by the most forward looking individuals.

@Hiro_Protagonist

The same goes with our economy, which is forced into acting inhuman, in order to preserve their profit focused interests.

True. Especially in the health industries there are a lot of perverse incentives at work:

Perverse incentive

Patients produce most profits when they are sick, but buy treatments that fix their symptoms. Completely healthy people, especially those who don’t age are the nightmare of the health industry. So, curing people, and doing preventive and regenerative treatments is something that big pharma is incentivized to prevent. This is stuff that happens, though the actual mechanisms can be very subtle at times.

@Hiro_Protagonist

Since this altogether interferes the overall progress in healthcare and life-extension, there seems to be a certain necessity to inform people and to get them involved themselves, for example by providing open access to academically insights, as well as creating a both social and progress oriented economic system.

Great! You have come to the same conclusions as I have! Open DIY science, open knowledge, and a better economic system are very necessary to reach the dream of human enhancement any time soon, and in a way that is actually in the best interest of most people. My approach is to develop a digital abundance economy and to support the basic income movement. That should make citizen science much easier and more effective.

@Hiro_Protagonist

My interest in transhumanism and related topics evolved probably around two years ago and was inspired by the Deus ex series, which led me to conceive the idea of modifying and upgrading healthy humans (human enhancement) for the first time.

It’s really interesting that this really great computer game series has such an effect on people. When I was about your age I have played the first Deus Ex game, but I didn’t know that there was an active transhumanist community out there. I only found it years later via an indirect route over the humanist movement here in Germany.

@Hiro_Protagonist

For example regarding the security in the case of cybercriminals achieving access to one’s personal system and being able to “remotely control” any individual which is vulnerable to a zero-day exploit for example.

Yes, the future holds very scary security problems for us. If this topic interests you a lot, you might want to read the book “Future Crimes” by Marc Goodman. I haven’t read it myself, yet, but I listened to the Singularity 1on1 interview with the author and it sounded extremely fascinating:

FBI Futurist Marc Goodman on Future Crimes

@Hiro_Protagonist

Also the acceptance of those who are augmented, or, in a posterior phase of those who aren’t, confronts the government and the society with new challenges, since in no case the hostilities between different social classes should be enhanced as well. Still naturally they would, because with our momentarily healthcare system only the rich could afford their augmentations which would make them even “superior” to the other parts of the society. In order to prevent that from happening, it is necessary to make augmentations affordable to everyone by adapting the healthcare system and boosting the research by subsidizing it from governmental side.

What you write is in perfect alignment with the political direction called Technoprogressivism and which is promoted by the IEET. Of course, we should make medical advances, especially when they concern general longevity, as available as possible! It’s not only the morally right thing to do, it would also save health cost further down the line, because people’s health would deteriorate much less with old age. This is sometimes referred to as “longevity dividend”.

@Hiro_Protagonist

At a certain point I started to realize, that the progress being achieved sooner or later in any way, can only be in the interest of mankind if a responsible government takes care of the challenges coming with it. Considering that, I decided to participate in the founding of a transhumanist party in Germany, where I live.

Well, that’s very rational and forward looking of you. It’s certainly alienating to notice that people of your age (or any age) are occupied by very different things. We futurists need to stick together and support one another. Otherwise things will stay the same, which would be quite a shame. And a big disappointment for everyone.

Thank you very much for your introduction! It’s very encouraging, and shows that we have a lot in common.