What About Time Travel?
Transhumanists believe that all you have to do is think of a technology and that means it is not only possible but inevitable and (usually) immanent. This is the belief at the heart of the SENS ideology, Molecular Nanotechnology and Genetic Engineering. There are even some Transhumanists (like Moravec) who believe that we will one day use our technology to create new Universes!!!
But in reality, technologies are really hard to develop. Hundreds of competing factors can go into a technology’s development making it unpredictable. At the end of the day, the vast majority of technologies flop usually for reasons that no one ever thought of when the technology was first being planned.
So, if all technologies are inevitable, then what about Time Travel? Rather than convening a Commission on Bioethics to discuss the implications of Genetic Engineering or Immortality, shouldn’t we be discussing Time Travel? It seems to me that Time Travel is far more dangerous than, say, Molecular Nanotechnology.
I totally agree with you that just because something is proposed doesn't mean it is imminent. MNT is not imminent, and careful study must be given to the feasibility of mechanosynthesis. But for some reason I doubt you've studied it at all. You should, if you're going to talk about it like this. Right now, I could probably argue against MNT on a technical level better than you could.
But SENS research and genetic engineering are already taking place today... so I'm not sure why you're picking them as examples. How can you say genetic engineering is impossible when it's already been demonstrated?
It's embarrassing when the people who you're criticizing can probably criticize their own ideas better than you can.
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"Genetic engineering" is a mainstream scientific concept. Has been since Cohen and Boyer 1973. Recombinant DNA. Molecular cloning. GENetic ENgineering TECHnology. GEN - EN - TECH is a serious biotech company (or was last time I looked).
Likewise Nanotechnology as opposed to (Drexlerian molecular manufacturing which usually involves what the Drexlerians call machine phase chemistry) is also a bona fide area of research and technology. Carbon nanotubes - Richard Smalley. Before he died recently Smalley was one of Drexler's biggest critics and a nobel laureate in physics.
All nanotechnology per se is not pseudoscience. Buckyballs. Labels on biomolecules. Last I looked there was a growing number of fairly mundane technological products that were genuinely nanoscale like powders in paints etc. Careful you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Nanotechnology and genetic engineering certainly aren't exclusively transhumanist terms.
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