Beyond our 'ape-brained meat sacks': can transhumanism save our species?
Celina Ribeiro
Fri 3 Jun 2022 16.00 EDT
The 21st century will be make or break for humanity, says Oxford University transhumanist Elise Bohan. If we get it right, she thinks we might find something better
Ageing cured. Death conquered. Work ended. The human brain reverse-engineered by AI. Babies born outside of the womb. Virtual children, non-human partners. The future of humanity could be virtually unrecognisable by the end of the 21st century, according to Elise Bohan – and that’s if we get the transition right. If we get it wrong, well.
“The future is wildly scary,” says the young philosopher-macrohistorian-futurist with a smile. “I can’t lie to you about that. In ten years time it’s all going to look pretty different, and in another ten years that’s a total event horizon for me … I think it’s eminently plausible at that point that the game has changed in some very fundamental way, whether for good or bad.”
Bohan, 31, is speaking from a sunny Mosman apartment, where she is house-sitting and looking after the plants. It’s a distance away from the Hawkesbury river on the outskirts of Sydney where she grew up; a place with pretty spots but where it was tough to be a smart kid. And it is a half world away from Oxford University where she forms part of the Future of Humanity Institute.
She’s in Sydney seeing family and promoting her new book Future Superhuman: Our Transhuman Lives in a Make-or-Break Century. The subtitle isn’t a gambit. “I believe that,” she says. “We are in the century that defines the future of humanity like no other.”
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/04/beyond-our-ape-brained-meat-sacks-can-transhumanism-save-our-species
= new reply since forum marked as read
where are the flying cars? 
