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Comment by bufferoverflow | Hacker News Reader

No, it was not replaced by VR. I am a trans humanist. As soon as there's a better than natural artificial heart proven to work for decades and with low risks, I will happily undergo surgery. Major cause of death avoided.

My eyes are good for now, but I imagine in 20 years they will start really going downhill. If there's an artificial option, I will switch.

Same goes for most organs.

Unfortunately all these advances are decades away. Connecting to the nervous system isn't a solved problem, so no comparable arms or hands any time soon, even though they may be much more durable, strong, fast very soon. You still need the skin to feel. OK, maybe not "need", but really want.

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Transhumanism isn't just advanced medicine. The idea isn't to replace a human heart with an artificial heart that's mostly functionally identical (current-day technology). The whole idea is to transcend biological limits using technology, i.e. develop eyes, ears, and brains that are functionally different and superior.

Prolonging human longevity is just one of the (many) goals of the transhumanist movement). Its core definition (according to Oxford dictionary) is: "the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology."

The original transhumanist dream was that we would each gain more control over our biology (that sounds like freedom to me); the realities of today's world mean that we would instead gain marginally more control, while corporations and governments gain exponentially more control (that sounds like tyranny to me).

It's inevitable that artificial organs will be better than the natural ones. But you first have to reach parity.

> while corporations and governments gain exponentially more control

that is unavoidable. Transhumanism doesn't guarantee preserving full individuality. Achieving transhumanism most probably would require giving up significant degree of individuality as the tightly connected "collectives/hives" - once such possibility become practical - would outcompete individuals. I.e. Borg is one of the most probable and close description of the future transhuman society.

In every movement you have over-enthusiasts/utopists who don't see the challenges. But even in a game like Deus Ex you can see it's not difficult to see the utopia [0] from reality [1].

Now, like everything : no one will get a new limb if he knows a corp will make him a slave for life. So for these companies to succeed they must guarantee peace of mind to their users. You don't fear getting addicted to aspirin every time u take it. Perhaps open-sourced with generics parts.

On a more philosophical note, car makers gave us more freedom by transcending our biological limitations (higher speed, no tiredness) but in exchange of some loss of freedom (loan, accessible areas, time lost finding a parking spot, etc). Nothing comes without a cost.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG_oThcYsn0 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW1V1HQ5PDE

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