Transhumanism Conference

I just got home from a transhumanism conference (“Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights”)being held at Stanford through tomorrow (Sunday). Among the items I learned today are: Feminist bioethics supports genetic engineering so that men can be altered to have babies and women can be freed from the tyranny of menstruation; animals should be enhanced to permit them to become equivalent to humans, including the ability to use the Internet—before, that is, all animal life is transformed into non biological states of existence, which apparently the living planet Gaia requires in order to survive; funding anti-aging research is more important than funding treatment for fighting disease in Africa; we probably should permit people who want to be amputees to achieve their desires; and, freedom requires a maximum morphological license to enhance our biological units.

I covered the conference for the Weekly Standard and will be writing about what it all means in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Will Saletan from Slate is also in attendance, and I have no doubt he will be weighing in with his impressions soon. When he does, I will link it here.