Transhumanism Has Already Won?

Michael Anissimov makes one compelling case, starting with Pocahontas Dances with Ferngully in Space:

The mainstream has embraced transhumanism. A movie about using a brain-computer interface to become what is essentially a transhuman being, Avatar, is the highest-grossing box office hit of all time, pulling in $2.7 billion. This movie was made with hard-core science fiction enthusiasts in mind. About them, James Cameron said, “If I can just get ‘em in the damn theater, the film will act on them in the way it’s supposed to, in terms of taking them on an amazing journey and giving them this rich emotional experience.” A solid SL2 film, becoming the world’s #1 film of all time? It would be hard for the world to give transhumanism a firmer endorsement than that.

I’d qualify the description of Avatar as SL2 by noting that the “alien” culture is aboriginal American with some unique Gaia theory bioconnectivity thrown in for fun. It isn’t that alien, but his point is well made nonetheless. The best counterpoint I can make at the moment is that people don’t know they already support transhumanist ideas, because they compartmentalize their ethics: for example, twins are “normal,” but a cloned child is scary. But on the whole, Anissimov is right about the societal and economic impacts that will emerge as transhumanist technology progresses. Much like the way the rise of deism and atheism lead to the increase in religious fundamentalism, I suspect the bioconservative and technopessimist movements will become more entrenched and vocal as transhumanism becomes more and more mainstream.