Posthuman

What Ever Happened to the Transhumanists?

The once-vibrant transhumanist movement doesn’t capture as much attention as it used to, but as an idea it’s far from dead.

Post-Scarcity Societies (That Still Have Scarcity)

One of the most alluring dreams in science fiction is the post-scarcity society — a place or time where nobody goes without, because technology has improved. But when you dig deeper, most post-scarcity worlds still have some scarcity, because otherwise it’s hard to tell a story about them. See for yourself! The Jump 225 trilogy…

What if the cost of uploading your brain is giving up your body? Forever? That’s just one of the thought-provoking questions raised by Erin Biba’s piece on the ethics of uploading yourself, over at Tested.

An Exclusive Look at How Bryan Singer’s H+ is Reimagining Transhumanism

It’s like something out of your Cyberpunk dreams — a painlessly injected implant that connects your nervous system to the internet. But in Bryan Singer’s new webseries H+, which just launched recently, it all goes horribly wrong. This brain implant kills. But even before everyone’s implants get infected with some kind of virus, what does…

Read 2 more chapters of Daniel H. Wilson’s Amped!

Yesterday, we brought you the first three chapters of Daniel H. Wilson’s Amped. But how much worse can it get for Owen, the cybernetically enhanced main character in a world that hates and fears cyborgs? Much, much worse, as it turns out. Check out chapters four and five — where Owen is not only on…

The First 3 Chapters from Daniel H. Wilson’s Thrilling New Novel Amped

First he gave us helpful advice for the robot uprising, then he wrote the robot war novel Robopocalypse. Now Daniel H. Wilson is turning his attention to the plight of cyborgs and posthumans, with his dystopian new novel Amped. And we’ve got the first three chapters right here! Come back tomorrow for chapters four and…

The First Transhumans, or Why Doc Savage Lost His Superpowers

Transhumanism is a popular movement to convert ordinary humans into superhumans, using technology. For 20 years, transhumanism has been a favored topic of futurists, who see it as a possible salvation for humanity. But we’ve already seen one attempt at transhumanism, and it failed – badly. The Victorians and New Athleticism The British took great…

Rudy Rucker explains why the quest for immortality is a waste of your limited time

Over at Boing Boing, there’s a must-read interview with rebel author Rudy Rucker, in which he reflects on weird physics and his various storytelling inspirations. And he delivers this gem, about the widespread obsession with living forever: When I was younger I was more attracted to immortality than I am now. I think I was…

Amber Case: Technology has reversed the isolation we experienced from the Industrial Revolution

Core77 has a nice interview with “cyborg anthropoloigst” Amber Case, who claims that “Good technology should make you superhuman.” She makes an interesting case (no pun intended) that the Industrial Revolution disconnected people from each other, when “everyone was distributed by highways and cars and stretched out into the suburbs.” But now, newer technology has…

How should Christians feel about Transhumanism?

Christianity teaches that the saved will live together, and many Christians believe in the Rapture, when the chosen few will be lifted up, leaving just their clothes behind. So how should Christians feel about ideas like Transhumanism and the Singularity, which involve another way to transcend your physical form and possibly live forever? These are…

Future humans with algae implants could breathe underwater

Ever wonder how we’re going to create humans who can breathe underwater? Of course you do. Now a study published this week about how algae insinuate themselves into salamander embryos (and DNA) could provide the beginnings of an answer. We know that viruses can invade an organism, and eventually wind up integrating into that organism’s…

A Brilliant Posthuman Website, Preserved For The Ages

Posthuman Blues by Mac Tonnies was one of our favorite blogs. Since Tonnies’ untimely death in 2009, friends and fans have gone to great lengths to preserve a copy of the entire site, showing how digital creations can live on after their creators. The New York Times Magazine has the thought-provoking story.

One of the best comic books of the 1990s is coming back at last

The mid-1990s was the heyday of Vertigo Comics, DC’s trippy, grown-up imprint. But one of the best Vertigo-esque comics appeared instead, almost unnoticed, on DC’s Milestone Imprint. And after 14 years, the unsettling supernatural nanotechnology tale XOMBI is coming back. XOMBI is definitely in my top 10 favorite comics ever, and might be in the…

Cyborg astronauts will be needed to colonize outer space

Humans are built to thrive on Earth, but even a yearlong round-trip mission to Mars could pose major medical risks. If we want humans to colonize the solar system, we may have to fundamentally alter our biology and become cyborgs. That’s the argument put forward by Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum senior curator Roger…

In a post-human solar system, two robots take the ultimate road trip

Long after the last human has died off, most robots continue to perform the functions for which they were built. But sometimes an illegal bohemian chip sends a robot in search of more, across the Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life. In a distant future, robots attended to all of human’s needs until they slowly and…

Who’s more posthuman: Zombies or Vampires?

We all dream of upgrading beyond Human 1.0. But meanwhile, our fantasy worlds are full of creatures who’ve already become superhuman and semi-immortal. Which deathless creatures are closer to our cherished posthuman ideal: vampires? Or zombies? We already wrote recently about how zombies are eerily similar to posthumans in some ways. But really, any undead…

Your Posthumanism Is Boring Me

Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2009, Jamais Cascio is a futurist who writes about the environment, technology, and culture. Here he argues that yesterday’s posthumanism is today’s boring quotidian. We will never be posthuman, because we have always been posthuman. “Posthuman” is a term with more…

Michael Jackson’s Science Fictional Life

With Michael Jackson dead, we’re at the end of an era. But even though we have to hustle into the future without him, nobody will ever forget Jackson’s strangely brilliant contributions to science fiction and fantasy. It’s no secret that Jackson always loved fantasy, and he turned to one of the masters of scifi/horror, John…

Michael Moorcock Can’t Read “Transhumanist” Fiction Because It’s Not About People

Interviewed by BoingBoing’s readers, New Wave legend Michael Moorcock says he’s disconnected from science fiction that gets too abstract: “I’m not entirely sure about transhumanist fiction. It holds no attractions for me. Assuming I really know what it is. I’ve only really ever been interested in ‘humanist’ fiction. That is, fiction about people. As I’ve…

Find Out How Old Your Body Is: Scientists Can Measure Your Actual Molecular Age

You might know your chronological age, but do you know your “molecular age”? A newly found chemical in the human body could indicate how old your body actually feels, acting as a marker for aging in the body. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found a protein, called p16INK4a, that is tied to…