Humanism

[narouz]

Humanism is simply the same old human centeredness that we have seen for the last few centuries and what has spurred our current scientistic disaster. It starts as a reaction to catholic dogmas and ends with what we see today:

On the other hand, Peat is scientific.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

Humanism is simply the same old human centeredness that we have seen for the last few centuries and what has spurred our current scientistic disaster.

I am interested in posthumanism/transhumanism ideas, which is a modern evolution of humanism that is more future oriented and less human-centric.

I see transhumanism more as a positive outlook on human potential than a 'human centeredness' or 'human superiority'. A positive outlook on human potential isn't at odds with a positive outlook towards all species, or nature in general.

I also participate in transhumanist forums from time to time, and I see a lot of parallels between their views and Ray Peat's. I have subtly tried to introduce some of Peat's ideas to these people, and thus far they have been extremely well received. One common goal in both communities is training yourself to be open minded, and understanding your own cognitive biases so you can think more rationally.

I think this quote more or less summarizes the entire idea of transhumanism to me:

When we realize that our human nature is problematic, we can begin to explore our best potentials.
-Ray Peat

 

[narouz]

Well..."humanism"...
extremely broad range of ways to define or understand the term.
Personally, I don't recall the last time I ever told anyone I was a humanist,
or the last time I ever sat around thinking of myself as one.
I daresay not too many of us do.

Everything you say about "trans-humanism" sounds fine to me.

My main interest here was just to put the brakes on the poster
asserting that all humanists are athiests, commies, and, uh, "evolutionists,"
with the assumption that all those kinds of people are heading to hell in a hand-basket
and taking the planet with them.

I don't know that it is very useful to come up with these new terms like "trans-humanism,"
posit it as the new kind of "good" belief system,
and then lump all the "old humanists" together as backward or evil.
Seems to me that most of people who have in the past been categorized as "humanist"
(like, in the Wiki example, Carl Sagan)
would also fit into your new category of "trans-humanist."

For instance: I don't think Carl Sagan
ran around shooting giraffes and monkeys for the fun of it
because he believed that humans are the only thing that matters.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

I agree, but I wasn't very clear in my post. Initially I wrote it just with the word 'humanism' and then changed to to transhumanism to be more specific, as that's what the people I'm talking about self-identify as. I don't see any clear cut differences.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Yes, post/meta/trans are shaping up some good ideas to move forward, and of course we will end up being more and more "self-built", whether people advocate it or not. Those forums are quite stimulating, but many of them are just mid-life crisis centers eating strange experimental substances (buckyballs in oil like it's salad dressing) to cling on to life one more (less) day.

You can call someone a humanist but I think the word was created for the historical phenomenon more than anything else. The mindset itself (with all its degenerative implications) is so basic to everyone now that it would be kind of pointless to call someone a humanist.

Rediscovering our human selves and ancient literature used to take some balls a few centuries ago ( it kinda kept happening every few hundred years). Now it's a justification for egocentrism.

 

[burtlancast]

My main interest here was just to put the brakes on the poster
asserting that all humanists are athiests, commies, and, uh, "evolutionists,"
with the assumption that all those kinds of people are heading to hell in a hand-basket
and taking the planet with them.

The point i was trying to make was how people have been attempting to disguise old ideologies into new attractive ones.

Whether communism, atheism and evolutionism are good or bad is for everyone to appreciate according to their life's experiences.

But i'm not really surprised you couldn't make the difference.