Transhumanism leading to a post-tribal world

Reading through everything so far we seem to have reached some agreement

If you've never existed, you cannot suffer or experience pleasure.

 

If you exist, your suffering is guaranteed but pleasure is not.

 

That's how we can say one is better than the other.

My position is that if we have not existed then suffering and pleasure do not exist and you can’t say that suffering or pleasure is worse or better than something that doesn’t exist.

 

However, I think we may be looking at existence from a different perspectives, what you say reminds me of an Anti-Natalist viewpoint and for me there are some logical arguments that do substantiate that viewpoint.

 

If you are not familiar Anti-Natalism, rather than doing a cut and past, here is link to an article on it. I would suggest you check out Benatar’s Asymmetry Argument, it is quite brief and I think it may corroborate what you are saying.

In the future, I'm going to make a more concrete post operationalizing some of the core arguments of transhumanism/posthumanism, so look out for that if you're interested.

It's funny that you're directing me to David Benatar because that's precisely whom I got the argument from :)

I won't mince words: unless humans can get their act together and bring about a far better existence for life (not just human life), I don't think life is worth continuing.

Anyway, as to your position, you say that if we have "not existed" and that "suffering and pleasure do not exist", then wouldn't this nothingness state be neutral? Obviously, there would be no one to judge this, but if people were to exist, we immediately enter a worse state (suffering).

I don't currently find myself able to agree it's objectively 'better though,

If a person values their tribe over other tribes, well, that's their value, above humanity.

Skin whiteners have not been very successful at ending tribalism among white nations. Whites have fought  2 world wars and now Russia invades Ukraine which could be a 3rd world war in the making.

Whites have to get to the root cause of their hatred for fellow whites.

"Morality is just your feelings. These feelings come from your evolutionary ancestry. They're nothing more." - Avery #56

And this bothers me 'greatly, though that's another discussion.

"You should see which tribes produce the more desirable environments -- that's how you know whose morality is better." - Avery #56

Not everyone's desires are the same, but that's a different discussion.

"It's just has to be done by changing the human brain. Thinking tribalism away has failed and will always fail with humans." - Avery #56

Well, there's 'less tribalism than in the past, I would think?

 Of the murder murder stab stab, bit I mean.

Not that conflict is 'all gone,

Or that people don't still form groups and work against other groups,

When you say tribalistic fighting, do you mean,

Groups fighting other groups over values?

Or groups fighting other groups because another group exists?

I wouldn't 'think groups fight 'just because another exists,

Just an additional thought,

Would you say you want to remove aggression towards other people,

Modifying the brain so one cannot act against other people?

Wouldn't it be good if there was no war, kind of thought?

As to whether life is worth continuing, I’m not sure how to evaluate “worth” I don’t think you can, we are simply animals and there is no more worth to our existence than any other living thing.

Our existence only matters to us and is of such importance many of us refuse to accept the finality of death, hence a belief in an afterlife.  That is why I think any attempt to realise David Benatar's argument would fail, because we are not totally driven by logic, we are driven by emotion and instinct, and our most basic instincts are to survive and procreate.

 Is non-existence neutral, I don’t see why not but if it is neutral then there is no better or worse.

I disagree that the function of continued existence is 'Morality,

Though I'd agree that it's often a consideration of people,

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs2 - Maslow's hierarchy of needs - Wikipedia

I'm doubtful about the Catholic Church suggestion,

Though I'd be willing to look at suggested source,

Not that nature isn't a component of an individual or people,

But Japan no longer has internal wars,

Is unification, shared moral values, tolerance, concern of humans, not a reason?

There is more food in world than past,

More explanations of events, weather, disease, rather than blame the unknown.

@NoOneInParticular

Noble lie - Wikipedia

Into The Unknown - Over The Garden Wall [Subtitulos en Español + Lyrics] - YouTube

Though perhaps a person or society could exist 'without such,

Though I view myself as a nihilist,

Well, I wake, eat, interact, experience outrage,

'Idea of nihilism, does not overcome habit and genetics,

No error, error, does not compute,

No strings cut, unmoving,

Yes, those are problems, but that does not affect the veracity of the Benatar's argument.

If you were able to step outside the maze of your personal life and the emotions involving it, and looked at all life in general, what would you conclude? Would you think 2 year olds dying from dehydration in Africa was good? How about prey, like rabbits and antelopes, living in fear most of their lives? That's the argument which should be addressed because it accounts for all life and objectively evaluates the situation.

Furthermore, you wouldn't need to convince everyone that life isn't worth living, in order to carry out its logical conclusion (cessation of reproduction). Not saying I'm about to do anything of that sort, but it's something to understand.

Re-reading older posts in topic as I think, noticed these posts talking about empathy for outgroup,

I'd argue that such empathy can be felt because the outgroup is 'also an ingroup,

Take soldiers of different countries at war,

Ingroup one first thinks of is their nations,

But they also have ingroups of their humanity, as fellow soldiers, as same ethnic group or culture at times.

Personally I would like to see the group identity encompass all humanity. I don’t know if it is possible, you would need to eliminate nationalism, racism and religious divide … not easy.

are you familiar with the story of the watchmen ?

What do you mean by better morals?

What is your definition of morality?

Fair point on Japan being a rather homogeneous country, though I'd imagine there 'are some differences in beliefs, people, culture,

It 'does seem to me that they would have 'less differences than some other countries, such as Brazil, South Africa and America.

But,

Something I've thought on now and then, I've British, Danish, Norwegian, and various other ancestors in my tree that I forget, many more I'm sure, the further back one goes,

X Color identity, is a fair bit odd I think,

For plenty of British, Danes, Norwegians fought against each other, likely dehumanized each other in conflict,

If there wasn't such an 'emphasis on this group or that group,

It'd often fade a fair bit, I think,

As I don't 'think white supremacists care about hair or eye color very much, yet many of our ancestors might have, I imagine.

People feel threatened when X group is identified, and they imagine some mass of them coming, changing one's everyday view, expectation,

But would it really matter if they were X ethnicity?

Surely a mass of blue or purple haired people would be scary to some people as well?

International law, conflicted nations becoming less conflicted, Japan 'might be homogeneous 'now, but internal wars aplenty in the past,

One can simply argue some diverse nations haven't found their footing yet,

Britain had wars aplenty in the past, massacres, English, Irish, Protestant, Catholic, yet is more at peace now than the past I imagine.

I would think given time, other countries, such as Brazil, South Africa and America, can also find less conflict between groups.

Though, maybe one can't even say we've lost our tribal sense, simply 'expanded our ingroup,

If purple skinned aliens appeared, would it matter to many people if they promised to share our values and laws, so long as end result was that what we identified as was replaced? As in all humans died, replaced by the aliens?

Re-reading older posts in topic as I think, noticed these posts talking about empathy for outgroup,

I'd argue that such empathy can be felt because the outgroup is 'also an ingroup,

Take soldiers of different countries at war,

Ingroup one first thinks of is their nations,

But they also have ingroups of their humanity, as fellow soldiers, as same ethnic group or culture at times.

Thanks for First Worldism Part 5: The European Revolution – The Alternative Hypothesis,

I'm still reading it, thinking on it.

I think the march of technology has already rendered tribalism to be much less relevant than it could be. I really don’t think a country like the US could exist in the Malthusian hellscape that was pre Industrial Revolution life (most people have absolutely zero clue what things were like in stagnant zero growth societies where every single niche was filled but that’s a different thread.) As soon as something bad happened like a famine the various groups that hate each other would relish the opportunity to fight about it. Nobody wants to admit it—see the endless retarded “We grow all your food and produce all your oil!” Vs “we pay the taxes for your infrastructure!” Country vs city bullshit—but at the end of the day there are extremely powerful economic incentives keeping New York City and somewhere like Oklahoma in a union. Without technology enabling almost immediate exchange of goods and the economies of scale and other economic terms I’m not smart enough to know the names for that make both places richer there would be no reason for places so different that low key hate each other to be in a union. This is without getting into any of the race/ethnicity stuff. 

One thing I think about often is how Hitlers philosophy of lebensraum was already obsolete by the time he came to power. Obviously agricultural land and territory are still important but they aren’t the end all be all. Germany came to dominate continental Europe anyway despite  sacrificing a generation of young men and having millions of Germans ethnically cleansed from places they’d lived for centuries. In a way the entire war was fought over false assumptions and the failure to realize that created a lot of lasting harm. I think a lot of modern politics is like that. We are fighting over these issues that probably aren’t going to be relevant very soon. Unless we hit a wall technologically things will change in ways we can’t really anticipate. To actually answer your question human psychology is tribal since that’s the state our ancestors were in for like 190,000 years so I don’t think technology can eliminate it but it can continue to marginalize it. If technology ever advances to the point it can eliminate tribalism and other negative aspects of human nature, that would be full trans humanism imo like your asking and we would’ve transitioned into something else. But is that type of change possible I’ve got no clue. I see a future of people seething at each other online and then not ever doing anything about it because they don’t want to go to jail

The groups that seethe at each other in 50 years probably won’t be the exact same ones that exist now btw. For example in the states liberals love to gloat that “non Hispanic whites” (one of the dumbest terms ever) are losing their numbers in the USA. But if you look under the hood what’s happening is that Hispanic people are becoming more like normie white people culturally through assimilation, and phenotypically through intermarriage, while white libs are self genociding through South Korea tier birth rates. Just another example of how some of the stuff we’re fighting over is kind of dated 20 or so years in the past 

are you familiar with the story of the watchmen ?

No, it isn’t a story I’m familiar with.

the conclusion is that in order for humanity to consider themselves as a single ingroup - they must perceive an alien threat

I’m sure we could invent something suitably nasty to scare people.

"climate change" is another attempt to do this

"climate change" is another attempt to do this

Well we certainly created it but unlike the alien invasion anthropogenic climate change is very real.

It's theoretically possible and desirable that the human brain could be redesigned to remove its tribal elements. Perhaps something as simple as removing the more ancient part of the human brain would suffice, maybe by manually recoding human DNA to make the RNA not produce it (or to have it non-functional). Although, it's likely (if possible) going to be rewiring many parts of the brain to ignore or circumvent the tribalistic parts (I'm not sure how integrated tribalism is in the human brain).

This should have drastic implications for politics, given that tribalism basically drives the voting decisions for most people. Ideas should become the leading way that politics is conducted, instead of group self-interest. This would allow for rapid, unified development in technology and critical thought as no time would be lost on race-based politics (and other tribal battles).

I do worry about the free-loader problem (i.e. people not contributing their part to group activity). Tribalism does seem to protect against it. I doubt making humans non-tribal would also make them selfless.

I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts on this. I'm not a neuro-scientist so I'm not sure how grounded in reality all of this is.

--> @Greyparrot

I don't think so myself,

To me it looks a troll post, placed intentionally to trigger people