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POPSI am a transhumanist, thanks I say, fear not. If you have clearly transhumanist beliefs, like the notion that human enhancement is coming in the next few decades and will be a big deal, then don’t be afraid to call yourself one. As Dr. Wittgenstein, one of my favorite philosophers ever, used to argue, words are just labels we fill with our own content. To think that a word has any inherent meaning aside from its use in language is absurd.
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POPSThe Earth Will Be Just Fine, Thank You Despite its many flaws, I’m a big fan of human civilization. I marvel at our capacity to organize matter and information, at our ability to learn from mistakes and pass that learning down to subsequent generations. Civilization—writing, cities, trade, the whole lot of it—makes us unique on this planet and, as far as we can tell so far, in our part of the universe.
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POPSThe Crisis is Coming: How Peak Water Could Reshape Civilization With advanced technologies and more prudent water usage, the majority of Earth’s inhabitants will be able to continue to enjoy the luxury of clean water for a long time to come. Yes, we need to fundamentally rethink water usage and plenty of bigger changes are needed, but at least we’re heading in the right direction. With better stewardship and improved city planning, humans will likely be able to avert a good portion of the more disastrous scenarios.
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POPSDo we want a truly liberal society? A liberal society embraces pluralism, in the sense that it does not seek to impose any one vision of what it means to be virtuous or to lead a good life. Within such a society, approval is commonly expressed for John Stuart Mill’s view that “experiments in living” should not be merely tolerated, but actually welcomed and celebrated (Mill 1974: 120). As Max Charlesworth writes, “In a liberal society personal autonomy, the right to choose one’s own way of life for oneself, is the supreme value.” He adds that this includes what he calls ethical pluralism: members of the society are free to hold a wide range of moral, religious, and non-religious positions, with no core values or public morality that it is the law’s business to enforce (Charlesworth 1993: 1). Accordingly, a liberal society makes a sharp distinction between the sphere of personal moral views and that of the law; no one can use the law to impose their beliefs on others (16-20).
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POPSStep toward man-made lightning reported Lightning still isn’t fully understood, though it been studied since the times of Benjamin Franklin, who famously tied a key to the end of a kite string and flew the kite in a thunderstorm. When sparks leapt from the key, he correctly concluded lightning is an electrical current.
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POPSOne virtual step for man, one real leap for mankind Combining the CityEngine with CyberWalk will allow people to go beyond strolling through the streets of ancient Pompeii and Rome. Architects, for example, could transport customers into the future, and allow them to walk through buildings even before they have been built.
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