The Trouble with H+

The Spring issue of Humanity Plus’ magazine, H+ is out. My review, in a word: meh.

I respect H+ and its goals. I respect that two of the major contributors are (self-) named RU Sirius and Surfdaddy Orca. I respect that Humanity Plus is finding its feet and we’ve got to give them a chance to grow. But this was a pretty mediocre effort for a group talking about the most interesting and comprehensive philosophy to come along since (because of?) critical theory.

At least, that’s how I felt at first. Then I thought more about it.

When you look at it, there are lots of things to complain about, but, for me, the major frustration of the magazine (aside from being a friggin’ magazine) is the utter lack of depth. Yes, I know, we live in the postmodern condition where no one can pay attention to anything for more than thirty seconds and that large glossy pictures of red-blood cells and double-helices are interesting, but somehow I just am never impressed by two-paragraph articles. This lack of depth in H+ exposes a much deeper, overarching problem with a large part of the transhumanist community and movement: namely, it can’t take itself seriously.

There are perhaps, five major thinkers directly related to transhumanism that aren’t either pure futurists or gadget fetishists: off the top of my head, Ron Bailey, James Hughes, Donna Haraway, Nick Bostrom and N. Katherine Hayles. Even I am guilty of this behavior, talking about arcologies and nanotech. When a movement is entwined with technology and science, it’s hard not to talk about the steady incremental improvements and latest gee-wiz designs. I try to combat this tendency by at least writing a bit about why the technology is meaningful and how it fits into the larger construction of transhumanism. I don’t think H+ even makes a serious effort to do that.

And how could it? Half of the posts on this blog are longer than a lot of the articles in the magazine. Even RU Sirius’ opening essay on rights is only two pages. An essay on rights, as in fundamental values regarding relations with the state and society, and transhumanism, a movement of indefinite and perplexing scope, was two pages. What!? How, how does one name an article “Solutions & Rights” and then write two pages? RU Sirius’ answer seems to be by writing in generalities and platitudes. Perhaps I should forgive him because he is introducing the topic of the Spring issue (yet the cover deals with the economic downturn, so maybe not.) Even the good articles – a health piece by Alex Lightman and a transhuman army piece by Woody Evans – are brutally truncated. Other articles, like Jamais Cascio on energy and RU Sirius on solar power and the economy, are, at the very best, only related to transhumanism because they deal with the future. Almost no mention is made of the transhuman aspect of these technologies and events. Worse, almost no mention is made of the human element. The bulk of H+ articles are just current event pieces related to futurism.

And there in lies the problem. Transhumansim has more in common with science fiction than it does with futurism because, like science fiction, transhumanism is a critical look at where we are now as a species. Futurism is a game, a hypothetical, asking, ‘what will it be like?’ and ‘how do we get there?’ Transhumanism is the logical extension of critical theory, specifically of biopower (cyborg politics), posthumanity (personhood, embodiment), and postmodernism (concatenation, bricollage, reflexivity, incompleteness). If Humanity Plus and Betterhumans want to be taken seriously, they need to stop gushing about Spore and water wars and start talking about Foucault, Baudrillard, and Butler. My readings in French feminism this week had more to do with transhumanism than both issues of H+ combined. I mean, the word humanity is implicit in the title H+ and RU Sirius is trying to calm us all down over the economic crisis. Leave to Tyler Cowen what is Tyler Cowen’s.

What I’d like to see is an article by RU on his name, where he discusses the way in which the ‘U’ hails both the speaker and the referred, why he spells ‘Sirius’ like the dog star instead of the synonym for ‘earnest,’ ‘thoughtful,’ ‘weighty.’ Perhaps it’s because he’d rather write fluff pieces on ‘rights’ instead of engaging Jurgen Habermas’ critique of genetic engineering? Even the gimmick of his self-renaming is more worthy of discussion than everything he wrote in the Spring issue combined.

And Habermas brings up another point of frustration. Big names, big thinkers, important people are talking about transhumanism and the transhumanists aren’t talking back. The discussion, obviously, isn’t one way. The five big thinkers, Bailey, Hughes, Haraway, Hayles, and Bostrom mentioned above are doing the work of ten each. Bostrom did an extensive history of the transition from Renaissance humanism through Nietzsche and Marx to current theory and spoke to TED about the ability to conceptualize big problems. Haraway took Foucault and cranked him up to 11, called Derrida out when he misanalysed his cat and struggled with E.O. Wilson. Hayles did a genealogy of cybernetics and information theory, undermining the big names and putting the ‘liberal humanist subject’ to blows. Bailey and Hughes took on The President’s Council on Bioethics, which was headed by more Very Important People than I care to mention, as well as Habermas and C.S. Lewis and the Pope in their respective books. These thinkers and writers and transhumanists are up to their armpits in intellectual struggle and are confronting some of the greatest minds, quick and dead, in Western thought.

All Humanity Plus has got to tell us about an absurd Dick Tracy watch.