Luis <[address removed]> writes:
> The philosophy of intergralism we are discussing certainly sounds
> like an ideal worth striving for in an ideal world.

It sounds like a horrible nightmare to me, not an ideal worth striving
for. All the descriptions I've been able to see make it sound like yet
another variation on collectivism, the same philosophy that has
already resulted in the deaths in the hundreds of millions in the last
century alone. Regardless of how many tassels and bows you put on a
knife at your throat, it is still a knife at your throat.

> What we need to remember is that there is alot of fear and ignorance
> regarding this movement. In the real world, there is a large
> conservative and religious segment of the population that considers
> transhumanism and it's related technologies to be unnatural and an
> abomitination against god.

There is a large fraction of the "real world" that thinks that a woman
walking down the street without a burqa is an "unnatural abomination
against god", too. Shall we advocate for their position in order to
make them more comfortable? The "reality" about 50 years ago was that
many people in the south felt offended by the idea of black people
marrying white people. Should the bans on that been maintained in
order to make such people feel better?

> There is also a legitmate concern about the stratification of
> society as we enter the posthuman era.

The posthuman era is as comprehensible to us today as calculus is to a
flea. Worrying about "stratification of society" utterly misses the
point.

> Ray Kurzweil predicts that these technologies will come to maturity
> within the next two to three decades. Will the rich and powerful
> have access to these technologies first and will they share it with
> the rest of us?

You are not asking the right questions.


Perry