The Politics of Transhumanism and the Techno‐millennial Imagination, 1626–2030

Abstract

Transhumanism is a modern expression of ancient and transcultural aspirations to radically transform human existence, socially and bodily. Before the Enlightenment these aspirations were only expressed in religious millennialism, magical medicine, and spiritual practices. The Enlightenment channeled these desires into projects to use science and technology to improve health, longevity, and human abilities, and to use reason to revolutionize society. Since the Enlightenment, techno‐utopian movements have dynamically interacted with supernaturalist millennialism, sometimes syncretically, and often in violent opposition. Today the transhumanist movement, a modern form of Enlightenment techno‐utopianism, has evolved a number of subsects, from the libertarian utopians funded by billionaire Peter Thiel, to religious syncretists like the Mormon Transhumanist Association, to the left‐wing technoprogressives and their bioliberal intellectual allies. In reaction to accelerating technological innovation and transhumanist ideas, apocalyptic Christians, and even secular catastrophists, have begun to incorporate human enhancement into their End Times scenarios. With all sides believing that the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, there is a growing likelihood of violent confrontation.

“White Crisis” and/as “Existential Risk,” or the Entangled Apocalypticism of Artificial Intelligence

“…In this connection, I suggest recourse to the idea of algorithmic racism , a methodological framework for conceptualizing the relationship between processes of racial formation (or racialization) within Western historical experience in relation to its (various) “other(s)” (Ali , , , forthcoming). Although algorithmic racism can be—and has been—understood as referring to algorithms as sites for embedding, and means for expressing, racial bias, it should be understood here as invoking the figure of the algorithm as a metaphor for thinking coherently about the relationship between different discursive formations—religious, philosophical, scientific, cultural, and so on—as race is paradigmatically articulated at different periods within the history of colonial modernity; in fact, such trans formations should be seen as constituting re‐articulations or “re‐iterations” of the difference between the European (white, Western) and the non‐European (nonwhite, non‐Western) along what decolonial scholars have referred to as the “line of the human.” While it is common among proponents of Apocalyptic AI—more specifically, transhumanists and technological posthumanists—to historically (and geographically) frame the category of the human with reference to European Renaissance and Enlightenment humanist thought (Hughes , 757; Ferrando 2013, 27; Bostrom , 1), I suggest that this move tends to obscure the origins of the human as a Eurocentric religious‐racial category forged through a process of hierarchical negative dialectics on the basis of an antagonistic relation with the non‐European “other” as the subhuman during the long durée of the sixteenth century, if not earlier (Wynter ; Mills ).…”

“…2121Against Hughes (, 771–72), I suggest that race war is both a real and extant phenomenon, and that this is not antiglobalist conspiracy theory, but rather a historically informed critical race theoretical/decolonial analysis of the modern/colonial world system as forged in and perpetuated through religion/race/war.…”

Beyond the Boundaries of Current Human Nature: Some Theological and Ethical Reflections on Transhumanism

“…Others are not so sure of that. 7 There are, as one would expect, differences among transhumanists. Not all, for example, share the Kurzweil's zeal for Singularity.…”

“…15:28). This is the arrival of the ultimate community of love already present to us in the reconciling work of Christ (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). In the anticipation of this future the Christian community is committed to justice.…”

Secularizing Demons: Fundamentalist Navigations in Religion and Secularity

“…This section introduces and analyzes the texts of one group—a loose network of post‐denominational evangelical bioconservatives in the United States. Although fringe, as James Hughes explores, groups like this one tap into wider concerns about emerging technology held by both the Christian right and secular bioconservatives (, 770). Moreover, the specificities of the group's works also exemplify contemporary cultural contestations around the relationship of religion and secularity.…”