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Fragile Reasoning in Nassim Taleb’s “Antifragile”: An Enlightenment Transhumanist Critique – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Fragile Reasoning in Nassim Taleb’s “Antifragile”: An Enlightenment Transhumanist Critique – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
January 10, 2013
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Never before have I set out to read a book with such high expectations, only to encounter such severe disappointment. As an admirer of Nassim Taleb’s earlier books, Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, I expected to find insight and wisdom along similar lines in Antifragile. While Taleb’s latest book does contain some valid observations and a few intriguing general strategies for living, the overwhelming thrust of the book is one of bitter distaste for modernity (and, to a significant extent, technological progress), as well as an abundance of insults for anyone who would disagree with not just with Taleb’s ideas, but with his personal esthetic preferences. While sensible in the realms of finance and (mostly) economics, Taleb’s prescriptions in other fields venture outside of his realms of mastery and, if embraced, would result in a relapse of the barbarisms of premodernity. Perhaps as the outcome of his own phenomenal success, Taleb has become set in his ways and has transitioned from offering some controversial, revolutionary, and genuinely insightful ideas to constructing a static, intolerant, totalistic worldview that rejects deviations in any field of life – and the persons who so deviate.

I am saddened to write this, but I am convinced that Nassim Taleb would find me to be personally repulsive. Not only am I a technology-embracing transhumanist ( a “neomaniac” per Taleb’s vocabulary), and a person who embraces the “nerdification” of society – but I am also an explicit representative and promoter of the legacies of the 18th-century Enlightenment – and a proud suit-and-tie wearer besides. Taleb seethes with contempt for the very trappings of modernity – even for modern formal wear – and repeatedly asserts that nothing valuable can be gleaned from those who wear neckties. As in many other areas, his conclusion-jumping pronouncements exclude the possibility of the world not fitting into his invented categories (with their associated normative spin). On the necktie question, he seems to rule out the very existence of persons like me, who wear neckties not out of any compulsion (my office dress code does not require them), but rather as an esthetic statement arising from sheer personal choice – including, not infrequently, on weekends.

After reading Antifragile, and finding so much of the content in need of a thorough refutation, I have vacillated between writing a book review and a more comprehensive treatise. A short review, I realized, would not do this book justice – but I also did not wish to run the risk of writing a refutation as long as the book itself. The result is this – one of my longest book reviews to date, but written as concisely as the subject matter allows. Here, I seek to comment on many of Taleb’s areas of focus in Antifragile, highlighting both the book’s strengths and its egregious errors.

Antifragile was one of the very few books I ever pre-ordered, as Taleb, until about a month ago, held a place among my most admired contemporary thinkers – along with such luminaries as Steven Pinker, Ray Kurzweil, Aubrey de Grey, Max More, and Ron Paul. Taleb’s writings on the fragility of the contemporary financial system were simply brilliant and highlighted the systemic weaknesses of a “house of cards” built upon highly sophisticated but over-optimized models that relied on the unrealistic stability of the status quo and the absence of extremely disruptive “black swan” events. I expected that Antifragile would discuss ways to survive and prosper in a black-swan-dominated world – a question that has been at the forefront of my mind since at least 2006, when I personally observed some “six-sigma” events on the stock market and – after reducing my losses to manageable levels – have refused to participate in that particular economy-wide casino since.  While Antifragile does provide skeletal discussions of some valuable approaches (such as the “barbell” strategy, on which I will comment more below), the majority of the book’s focus is negative: a harsh criticism of the institutions, ideas, and people whom Taleb considers insufficiently antifragile or “fragilizing”. One of Taleb’s favorite terms throughout the book is “fragilista” – used to describe financial modelers, politicians, and intellectuals of a rationalist frame of mind. The term – aside from creating vague and completely irrelevant associations with left-wing Nicaraguan terrorists – also poisons the metaphorical well with regard to the people and approaches criticized by Taleb.

More generally, the book is pervaded by an undercurrent of anti-intellectualism, mocking those who use structured, explicit knowledge to interpret the world. This is rather odd, because Taleb himself is clearly an intellectual and a “nerd” of the sort he derides; his philosophical and historical allusions – and his expertise in mathematical finance (despite his criticisms thereof) – give away that fact. Fat Tony of Brooklyn, Taleb’s fictional representative of the non-intellectual person who relies on “empirical” heuristics and is able to become rich by occasionally betting against “suckers,” would not have kept the company of people like Taleb. No matter how much rhetorical contempt Taleb shows for those who engage in abstract reasoning, he cannot escape being one of them – and no amount of insults directed at his own kind will get him an iota of respect from those whose character traits he glorifies.

An antifragile system or entity, per Taleb’s definition, is one that benefits from volatility instead of succumbing to it. Beyond mere robustness, which withstands volatility intact, antifragility is the derivation of advantage from volatility. The concept itself is an intriguing one, but Taleb makes a crucial error in assuming that most antifragility is normatively preferable. He does make an exception for “antifragility at others’ expense” – but only in a limited context. For instance, he is outraged at career intellectuals who do not have “skin in the game” and do not suffer for making wrong predictions or recommendations (more on this later) – but he explicitly praises the antifragility of biological evolution, a process that has resulted in the brutal deaths of most organisms and the extinction of about 99.9% of all species in history. Even within his premise that modernity contains “fragilizing” elements, Taleb presupposes that fragility is necessarily undesirable. Yet a beautiful vase is fragile – as is, for that matter, an individual organism. Fragility is no justification for dismissing or opposing an area of existence that has other intrinsic merits. Perhaps the proper response to certain kinds of fragility is extra care in the preservation of the fragile – as shown, for example, in the raising of children and small animals.

When Taleb argues that post-Enlightenment civilization is fragile, he may be partly right – at least in the sense that such civilization requires the steady, conscious application of human intellect to maintain. Every generation must master the scientific, technological, and ethical accomplishments of the generations before it and amplify these accomplishments; this is the essence of progress. This mastery of civilization entails precisely the “nerdification” (i.e., sophisticated, refined, self-aware intellectualism) that Taleb scorns in favor of “empirical” heuristics that may have arisen out of premodern superstition in as great (or greater) a proportion as out of practical wisdom passed down throughout the ages. Steven Pinker, whose magnum opus The Better Angels of Our Nature I would glowingly recommend (and whose work Taleb has unfairly maligned, though Pinker’s response to Taleb is worth reading), illustrates convincingly that not only peacefulness but virtually every other characteristic of civilized human beings has improved dramatically over the past several centuries – and most remarkably over the past several decades. Nothing suggests that this improvement is an inexorable law of history, however; it is possible for anti-civilizing influences to take hold and for humanity to degenerate into the barbarism that characterized much of its past. In that sense, civilization may be considered fragile – but so eminently worth preserving and expanding, for it makes possible the good life for good individuals.

Unfortunately, Taleb has included himself among the influences that would undo many of the essential gains that humanity has achieved since the 18th-century Enlightenment. Taleb repeatedly references the “wisdom of the ancients” (the stoic Seneca is his favorite) and conflates the “natural” (a term from which he excludes human design and technology) with the desirable. Taleb praises the heuristics he sees in traditional religious systems (e.g., elaborate Greek Orthodox fasting rituals) while completely overlooking the massive horrors many traditional (i.e., premodern) religious systems perpetrated when persecuting dissenters, inspiring bloody wars of conquest, and establishing totalitarian regimes when combined with secular authority. The Enlightenment brought about a conscious questioning of religious (and all authority-based) traditions and commandments and resulted in the adoption of rigorous scientific inquiry in the pursuit of discovery and innovation. Taleb is wary of modern medicine because of possible “iatrogenic” effects (where the treatment itself causes most of the harm), and he even questions the genuineness and desirability of massive rises in life expectancy during the 20th and early 21st centuries. While there is some merit to balancing the anticipated benefits and possible side effects of medical treatments – and while Taleb may be right that certain fields may take treatment too far, especially as regards overprescription of psychotropic drugs to children – Taleb’s discussion of “iatrogenics” is mostly anecdotal and reliant on studies from much earlier periods in medicine (e.g., the death of George Washington in 1799 and a study on children in 1930).  The virtual eradication of smallpox, polio, tuberculosis, cholera, and the bubonic plague from the Western world by scientific medicine are utterly ignored by Taleb – as are the substantial declines in cancer death rates over the past 50 years, and the accomplishments of the Green Agricultural Revolution in averting the starvation of billions, which would have occurred if only “natural” agricultural techniques (i.e., techniques employed before some arbitrary historical cutoff date) had been utilized.

There may be some merit to Taleb’s advice of avoiding medical treatment for minor conditions (where the iatrogenic effects of treatment allegedly predominate) and letting the body heal itself, while being willing to undertake radical treatments for extreme, life-threatening conditions. However, context in medical care matters too greatly to make sweeping generalizations. A fairly small skin lesion, which does not interfere with day-to-day functioning, may, after all, be the beginning of a deadly cancer, for which no self-healing mechanism exists. In medicine especially, the “empirical” heuristics championed by Taleb must give way to careful and systematic scientific study. After all, most premodern cultures relied on “traditional” heuristics for millennia, with disastrous results; such reliance can be called folk medicine. One only needs to consider the “traditional” Eastern “remedies” based on the superstition that one will become like the creature one eats – or “traditional” Western Medieval bleeding and surgical practices – to realize how much progress modern scientific medicine has actually made.

While a reader of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan might have inferred libertarian and individualist tendencies in Taleb’s writing, Antifragile, unfortunately, sets the record straight: Taleb opposes “too much” individual flourishing and freedom. He reserves his bitterest venom for transhumanism, which is the logical outcome of a libertarian society in which technological progress is given free rein. Taleb’s reverence for “nature” and “the ancients” trumps his skepticism of centralized regimentation – as his ideas on life extension and freedom of speech illustrate. He writes, “I felt some deep disgust – as would any ancient – at the efforts of ‘singularity’ thinkers (such as Ray Kurzweil) who believe in humans’ potential to live forever. Note that if I had to find the anti-me, the person with diametrically opposite ideas and lifestyle on the planet, it would be that Ray Kurzweil fellow. It is not just neomania. While I propose removing offensive elements from people’s diets (and lives), he works by adding, popping close to two hundred pills daily. Beyond that, these attempts at immortality leave me with deep moral revulsion.” Taleb says little of substance to support this “deep moral revulsion” – beyond repeating the same tired, hackneyed old arguments about “making room for others” by dying – as if the life of the individual had no inherent value and could be justifiably expended for an alleged greater good. Taleb does not address Kurzweil’s arguments about the exponential progress of computing and other technologies, and the logical extrapolation of such progress within the coming decades. In short, he says nothing about why he would consider Kurzweil to be mistaken, or what about Kurzweil’s lifestyle and ambitions he considers destructive. Taleb’s rudely expressed opposition to transhumanism seems to be primarily driven by emotional revulsion or, to be more charitable, a conflict of values. Additionally, Taleb does not seem to understand the movement that he criticizes. He assumes that extended longevity would be accompanied by extended frailty and senescence, whereas true radical life extension would only be possible if biological youth could be prolonged through periodic rejuvenation of the organism. Moreover, Taleb is, at heart, a collectivist who embraces the sacrifice of the individual to the tribe. He writes, “I am not here to live forever, as a sick animal. Recall that the antifragility of a system comes from the mortality of its components – and I am part of that larger population called humans. I am here to die a heroic death for the sake of the collective, to produce offspring (and prepare them for life and provide for them), or eventually, books – my information, that is, my genes, the antifragile in me, should be the ones seeking immortality, not me.”

The biggest disappointment I experienced when reading Antifragile was the realization I came to upon reading the above-quoted passage. This book was never about helping make the individual antifragile. The preservation of a human being in a volatile and uncertain world – and the attempt to equip a human being to flourish in the face of such volatility and uncertainty – were never Taleb’s key aims. Taleb’s views on antifragility are, indeed, not particularly helpful to me in my goal to discover strategies that would preserve, fortify, and enrich the individual in an often hostile, and, in many ways, fundamentally unpredictable world which lacks any manner of built-in justice outside of what humans, through their ingenuity and will, can implement. Taleb would have both of us (and everyone else) be sacrificed for the sake of an unspecified “collective” – as if some abstraction, be it “nature”, evolution, or “the whole”, has value in and of itself, apart from its constituent individuals. Yet it is precisely this sort of collectivism that enables inhuman atrocities, from mass executions of “the other” to suicide bombings for a “greater cause”. Taleb does not intend to advocate armed violence, but his rhetoric on heroism, “dying heroically”, and self-sacrifice eerily resembles the pronouncements of many a totalitarian regime, inquisitorial sect, or band of nationalistic or religious terrorists. The good life – the comfortable life of peace, productive work, and self-fulfillment – does not seem to be his objective.

In several sections devoted to having “doxastic commitment” or “soul in the game”, Taleb glorifies the idea of leaving no way out in the event of one’s failure – forgetting that much true learning is iterative and often occurs through a trial-and-error process. If one is not allowed to recover from failure and change one’s approach (without crippling personal cost), then this learning will be preempted, and the individual will be destroyed instead. Taleb glorifies, for instance, the poet Almutanabbi, who died senselessly in the attempt to realize the ideals about which he wrote. But it is far more impressive to live in furtherance of one’s ideals than to die for them – particularly since living requires one to reevaluate one’s views in light of emerging evidence and continual reflection.

Taleb is no more a friend of individual liberty than of technological progress. As a consequence of his view that intellectuals should have “skin in the game”, he insists that they should personally suffer the adverse consequences of their recommendations. Indeed, he would implement his scheme of penalties to the detriment of legal protections for freedom of speech. While criticizing the financial rating agencies’ misclassification of toxic assets as “AAA” securities, he remarks that “they benefit from the protection of free speech – the ‘First Amendment’ so ingrained in American habits. My humble proposal: one should say whatever he wants, but one’s portfolio needs to line up with it.” Elsewhere, Taleb proposes that individuals be held legally liable for the damage that their predictions and recommendations result in if followed by others. He ignores that not all individuals have the assets to even invest in a portfolio. Are the poor and middle class to be deprived of the ability to express their opinions or speculate about the economic future (even if such speculation is without much basis), simply because they do not have much “skin” to put into the “game”? Furthermore, establishing any legal liability for expression of opinion would have a chilling effect on legitimate and valuable ideas – since the very threat or prospect of a lawsuit may serve as a deterrent to publishing or even verbal expression in front of someone who disagrees. For someone so insistent on individual moral responsibility, Taleb ignores the responsibility of the recipient of ideas to actively judge and interpret them. Just as there exist sleazy marketers, so there exist peddlers of philosophical falsehoods, and sometimes those falsehoods result in personal gains for their advocates. Yet the responsibility of the sensible, rational individual is to filter out truth from falsehood using his own mind. No prohibition, no regime of penalties, no prior restraint can protect people from themselves. Such restrictions can only prevent people from cultivating the habits of autonomous thought which are the surest safeguards against charlatans and demagogues of every stripe. Taleb is too concerned about punishing the false prophets, and insufficiently concerned about elevating the general level of reasoning and discourse by means of positive persuasion, dissemination of true information, and technological innovation that alters people’s incentives and the balance of power.

Taleb even departs from the libertarian advocacy of free trade and (genuine) globalization. While he acknowledges the theoretical validity of some specialization and the law of comparative advantage, he sees the global division of labor as vulnerable to volatility in the system. He argues that a change in conditions in one part of the world now has a far greater ability to adversely impact all other parts of the world – because the division of labor is so finely tuned. This is a fair argument for redundancy in economic systems – e.g., having “backup” institutions which could supply a good or service if the original supplier is unavailable due to an unexpected disruption. However, Taleb errs when assuming that businesses pursuing their rational self-interests under a truly free arrangement of global commerce would not already attempt to implement such redundancies. Supply-chain risk, for instance, is commonly discussed by representatives of multinational businesses and their insurers, who have a stake in preventing supply disruptions. Overreliance on any one economic partnership may indeed be imprudent – but does Taleb believe that businessmen with true “skin in the game” – billions of their own dollars – would be oblivious to the need for redundancy? Taleb makes no case for why free trade – in essence, the voluntary exchange of goods and services among individuals without regard for national origins or boundaries – would create a systemic lack of redundancy. A stronger argument could be made for how the current politicized environment of trade – a mixture of freedom and elaborate controls achieved by means of treaties and retaliatory protectionism – would produce insufficient redundancy and overdependence on those precious channels of international trade that remain permitted. But the solution to this problem would be more options – more channels for foreign trade – not fewer. Autarky certainly will not do, as it brings about its own massive vulnerabilities. One only need consider the consequences of a famine in a region which is not allowed to import food from abroad. Trade creates redundancy by allowing access to goods and services from all over the world, instead of just one minor segment thereof.

The nonlinear responses to volatility described in Antifragile are valid in principle. A system responds in a concave fashion if the harm to the system from a change in conditions is more than linear relative to that change (i.e., an accelerating harm). A system responds in a convex fashion if it is able to reap benefits from volatility in a more-than-linear accumulation. Taleb proposes that it is possible for certain systems to be concave or convex in both directions – being harmed by or benefiting from a shift in conditions either way. It is also possible for systems to be convex over some regions of inputs, and concave over others – e.g., a human immune system or a body engaging in exercise. Taleb does not, however, provide many tools to actually determine the inflection points within any particular system. Although he praises “empirical” heuristics for doing so – especially heuristics passed down through the ages – he provides absolutely no support to conclude that those heuristics do not overshoot the desirable levels of any given characteristics. To use the example he provides of religious fasting customs, even if one can be generous and suppose some benefit to the fasting (of which I am not altogether convinced), what evidence is there that the specific schedule and duration of fasts is optimal? Could not scientific investigation uncover a better way, and explain its workings in a rational, evidence-based manner, without recourse to superstition or ancestral hand-waving?  Furthermore, Taleb does not consider that the “wisdom of the ancients” may not have developed through the careful evolutionary process he describes – but rather comes to us as a warped reflection of some very recent generation’s interpretation of ancient practices – which themselves were altered by numerous political authorities, ideological movements, and idiosyncratic historical events in order to fulfill some very context-specific (and not necessarily virtuous or life-affirming) aim. To get a sense of how this has happened to distort prevailing conceptions of the past, one needs only to consider the early history of Christianity – where doctrine was often promoted or suppressed based on the temporal interest of Roman and Byzantine emperors and their officials – or the extensive revisionism performed by the 19th-century Romantics with regard to the Middle Ages. Taleb himself romanticizes antiquity (including the ancient Middle East), overlooking the incessant wars, disease, filth, vulgarity, persecution, and ideological totalism that characterized many pre-Enlightenment societies (e.g., the totalitarianism of Ancient Sparta or Calvin’s Geneva – which made even the USSR seem like a paragon of liberty and progress by comparison).

Taleb’s contempt for wealth, and praise for attitudes that part with wealth lightly, betray the fact that he has never been in danger of losing his material comfort. Growing up in a prosperous , respected, and intellectual Lebanese family, Taleb moved to the United States and made a fortune as a trader, which he later magnified by selling his books. If he expresses contempt for the material well-being he sees around him, and a nostalgic longing for an idealized past, it is because he cannot truly envision what premodernity was actually like. Perhaps, because he greatly underrates the transformative effects of technological progress, Taleb’s image of premodernity is of a slightly rustic incarnation of our present world – except one in which people mostly avoid doctors and editors, walk on rocky landscapes in foot-shaped shoes, eat “paleo” diets, quote from Seneca’s dialogues, and occasionally engage in bloody contests over fine points of poetry, philosophy, and theology – just to show how much “skin in the game” they have with regard to their beliefs. Taleb neglects the possibility that only recently has life become remotely comfortable and quasi-meritocratic, while premodernity was a mostly uninterrupted stretch of miseries, cruelties, superstitions, prejudicial hatreds, and filth (punctuated by a few refined characters like Aristotle – whom Taleb maligns – and Seneca – people who were remarkable for their time and are remembered precisely because they stood out so far above their contemporaries). A small elite has always been super-wealthy (by the standards of their time) in every era and in every society, but it is an all-too-common mistake to imagine oneself in the position of a historical member of the elite (e.g., someone who would have read Seneca, or Seneca himself) rather than a common peasant or slave – which is the far more probable fate for a randomly chosen premodern person. The casual dismissal of wealth as not particularly important would not have been articulated by people toiling from sunrise to sunset in order to grow crops for their feudal overlords and be given a small fraction of the resulting harvest in order not to starve. Nor is this attitude particularly helpful to people who might have been interested in cultivating personal antifragility so as to prevent themselves from becoming poor.

The most useful personal advice in Antifragile concerns the so-called “barbell strategy” for minimizing the downside of volatility while benefiting from the upside. The strategy involves putting most of one’s resources into an ultra-safe, ultra-conservative course of action, while devoting the rest to a diversified speculation, but in such a manner that the entire speculative amount can be lost without significant harm. An example of this approach would be keeping 90% of one’s money as cash or gold, and investing the remaining 10% into five different startup companies; each startup firm could fail – and many do – but it is also possible for a startup company to succeed tremendously and bring orders of magnitude of profit. If all the startup firms fail, then one has had a 10% loss – but this does not have to be ruinous if one is not hyper-leveraged. Taleb is also correct about the highly fragilizing effects of debt and recommends avoidance of indebtedness where possible. This is sound advice, greatly needed in a country where everything from everyday consumption to the purchase of big-ticket items to intangible “investments” such as formal education is often purchased on credit. Debt introduces fragility by amplifying the financial pain of volatility. A marginal drop in income could be endured by a debt-free person with savings, but would result in a leveraged person losing everything. Taleb’s advice here may not always be perfectly realizable – as not every person can afford to invest any percentage of his assets with the ability to continue living well if those assets were lost. Furthermore, mortgage debt is extremely difficult to avoid for a person without sizable initial wealth; other debt, however, is generally avoidable.

While Antifragile has some virtues, Taleb should not have dismissed or derided his editors. If carefully confined to the realms of finance and economics, Antifragile might have been an illuminating and positive book on net. As matters stand, however, Taleb has managed to gratuitously insult practically everybody who might have been sympathetic to his previously articulated views – including the libertarians, transhumanists, and rationalist natural-law thinkers who would have found much to agree with in Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan. Taleb even classifies Friedrich Hayek among the rationalists whom he dismisses: “We may be drawn to think that Friedrich Hayek would be in that antifragile, antirationalist category. […] But Hayek missed the notion of optionality as a substitute for the social planner. In a way, he believed in intelligence, but as a distributed or collective intelligence – not in optionality as a replacement for intelligence. […] Finally, John Gray, the contemporary political philosopher and essayist who stands against human hubris and has been fighting the prevailing ideas that the Enlightenment is a panacea – treating a certain category of thinkers as Enlightenment fundamentalists. […] Gray worked in an office next to Hayek and told me that Hayek was quite a dull fellow, lacking playfulness – hence optionality.” And there was the gratuitous insult again. Very well. We Enlightenment rationalists and technoprogressives will be happy to accept Hayek as one of us – along with Socrates, Aristotle, and Ayn Rand (for whose fan Taleb should not be mistaken, as he tells us in a footnote). Taleb can have Seneca, Almutanabbi, John Gray, and Fat Tony. We remain in good company without them.

Non-Apocalypse, Existential Risk, and Why Humanity Will Prevail – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Non-Apocalypse, Existential Risk, and Why Humanity Will Prevail – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Doomsday predictions are not only silly but bring about harmful ways of approaching life and the world. Mr. Stolyarov expresses his view that there will never be an end of the world, an end of humanity, or an end of civilization. While some genuine existential risks do exist, most of them are not man-made, and even the man-made risks are largely in the past.

References

– “Transhumanism and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics” – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Transhumanism as a Grand Conservatism – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Transhumanism as a Grand Conservatism – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
November 25, 2012
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For anyone interested in the history of life-extension ideas, I highly recommend Ilia Stambler’s 2010 paper, Life extension – a conservative enterprise? Some fin-de-siècle and early twentieth-century precursors of transhumanism. This extensively researched and cosmopolitan work explores the ideas of five proto-transhumanist thinkers who embedded their future-oriented thoughts in extremely different intellectual frameworks: Nikolai Fedorov, Charles Stephens, Alexander Bogdanov, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean Finot. Mr. Stambler considers Finot’s thought to most resemble the ideas of today’s transhumanist movement.

The conclusions of Mr. Stambler’s research are profound and interesting to explore. One of the main insights is that it is possible to arrive at support for radical life extension from many different ideological frameworks. Mr. Stambler writes that “In different national contexts, different ideological schemes – secular humanism or religion, discrimination or egalitarianism, idealism or materialism, socialism or capitalism, liberalism or totalitarianism – appear to yield different justifications for the necessity of life prolongation and longevity research and to impact profoundly on the way such goals are conceived and pursued. As the works of the above-said proponents of human enhancement and longevity exemplify, the authors adapt to a particular national ideological milieu and serve as agents for its continuation.”

This is a welcome insight in the sense that it should be possible to attract an immensely intellectually and culturally diverse following to the cause of indefinite human life extension. However, it is also the case that some political and cultural environments are more conducive to rapid progress in human life extension than others. I have recently articulated my view that a libertarian set of policies will, by unshackling competition and innovation by numerous entities on a free market, result in the most rapid advent of the technologies sought by transhumanists. That being said, I still perceive much common ground with non-libertarians to be achievable on the issue of life extension – for instance, in the realms of supporting specific research, spreading public awareness, sharing information, and coming together to advocate for policy positions on which we can agree. Also, it is possible that non-libertarian transhumanists might benefit their own intellectual traditions by steering them toward more technology-friendly and life-respecting directions. As an atheist libertarian transhumanist, I would greatly prefer to be debating with transhumanist environmentalists, transhumanist socialists, and transhumanist Christians (yes, they do exist) than their mainstream counterparts of today.

Another key insight of Mr. Stambler’s paper resonates with me personally. Mr. Stambler ventures to “suggest is that the pursuit of human enhancement and life extension may originate in conservatism, both biological and social. There is a close conjunction between the ideas of life extension, transcending human nature and creating artificial life, in Finot’s writings and those of present-day transhumanists. The connection (and progression) between these enterprises may appear logical: the means initially designed to conserve life may exceed their purpose, and beginning as a search to preserve a natural bodily status quo, the aspirations may rapidly expand into attempts to modify nature. It appears to me that these enterprises evolve in this, and not in the reverse order. The primary aspiration is not to modify nature, but to preserve a natural state.

Anyone who has followed my work over the years would be unable to avoid my generally conservative esthetic, my strong interest in history, and my admiration for the achievements and legacies of prior eras. I am mostly not a conservative in the American or even European political sense, but I am conservative in the sense of seeking to preserve and build upon the achievements of Western civilization – including the development of its logical implications for future decades and centuries. Technological progress and the achievement of indefinite life extension are very much the direct extrapolation of the desire to preserve the historical achievements that enable our unprecedented quality of life today. Furthermore, my transhumanism grows out of a desire to preserve my own body and mind in a youthful state – so as to maintain a life driven primarily by my own choices and the manner in which I set up the environment around me. In order for me to remain who I am, and to do what I wish to do, I need to support radical technological change and changes to our society in general. However, those changes are fundamentally aimed at supporting that pattern of life which I consider to be good – and which today, unfortunately, is far too subject to destructive external influences over which no individual yet has sufficient influence or control. Unlike some transhumanists, I have no ambitions to have my mind “uploaded,”  to lead a non-biological existence, or “merge” my mind with anyone else’s. If I obtain indefinite life, I will spend it indefinitely looking the way I do (while remedying any flaws) and focusing on the perpetuation of my family, property, esthetic, and activities – all the while learning continuously and becoming a better (and more durable) version of the person I already am. For the true stability of home, family, property, and patterns of living, there must be individual sovereignty. For true individual sovereignty to exist, our society must improve rapidly in every dimension, so as to facilitate the hyper-empowerment of every person. Ironically, for one’s personal sphere to be conserved and shaped to one’s will, a revolution in the universe is necessary.

Cultural and historical preservation is also a major but seldom appreciated implication of transhumanism. By living longer and remaining in a youthful state, specific individuals would be able to create and refine their skills to a much greater extent. Imagine the state of classical music if we could have had hundreds of years for Mozart and Beethoven to compose – or the state of painting if Leonardo, Vermeer, or David had lived for centuries. Every time a creator dies, an irreplaceable vision dies with him. Others might emulate him, but it is not the same – for they do not have his precise mind. They can replicate and absorb into their own esthetic what he already brought into this world, but they cannot foresee the new directions in which he would have taken his work with more time. Each individual is precious and irreplaceable; the loss of each individual is the loss of a whole universe of memories, ideas, and possibilities. Transhumanism is a grand conservatism – an ambition to conserve people – to put an end to all such senseless destruction and to keep around all of the people who build up and beautify our world. The proto-transhumanist Nikolai Fedorov (one of those Christian transhumanists who ought to be much more prevalent among the Christians of today) even took this idea to the point of proposing an ultimate goal to physically resurrect every person who has ever lived. While, as I have written earlier, this would not resurrect the “I-nesses” of these individuals, achieving this goal might nonetheless give us the benefit of recapitulating their memories and experiences and seeing how their “doubles” might further develop themselves in a more advanced world.

It is precisely the conservative sensibility in me that recoils against “letting go” of the good things in life – whether they be my present advantages or the positive legacies of the past. It is precisely the conservative part of me that hates “starting from scratch” when something good and useful is no longer available because it has fallen prey to damaging external events. To allow the chaos of senseless destruction – the decay and ruin introduced by the inanimate processes of nature and the stupidity of men – is a sheer waste. Many put up with this sad state of affairs today because it has hitherto been unavoidable. But once the technical possibilities emerge to put an end to such destruction, then leaving it to wreak its havoc would become a moral outrage. Once we are able to truly control and direct our own lives, the stoic acceptance of ruin will become one of those aspects of history that we could confidently leave in the past.

An Atheist Transhumanist Critique of TheThinkingAtheist’s “Afterlife” Video – Video by G. Stolyarov II

An Atheist Transhumanist Critique of TheThinkingAtheist’s “Afterlife” Video – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Mr. Stolyarov, an atheist and transhumanist, critiques the video “Afterlife” – is a compilation of remarks by Seth Andrews (TheThinkingAtheist) and other famous YouTube atheists regarding the religious concept of life after death. However, the video goes beyond merely (correctly) critiquing ideas of the afterlife, and reflects an unfortunate acceptance of human mortality itself. The “Afterlife” video does present many interesting and valid insights, but it unfortunately throws the metaphorical baby — indefinite human life extension, driven by scientific discoveries and technological innovation — out with the bathwater — religious myths of an afterlife, unsubstantiated by evidence and arising out of a desire to attain comfort in the face of mortality.

Commentators to whom Mr. Stolyarov responds include DarkMatter2525, DPRJones, Evid3nc3, HealthyAddict, Laci Green, Thunderf00t, Mark Twain, and Vladimir Nabokov. He invites any of these commentators (except, of course, Twain and Nabokov) to discuss these ideas further.

Remember to LIKE, FAVORITE, and SHARE this video in order to spread rational discourse on this issue.

Support these video-creation efforts by donating at The Rational Argumentator: http://rationalargumentator.com/index.html

References:
– “Afterlife” – Video by TheThinkingAtheist
– “An Atheist Transhumanist Critique of TheThinkingAtheist’s ‘Afterlife’ Video” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II
– “The Movement for Indefinite Life Extension: The Next Step for Humankind” – Article by G. Stolyarov II
Resources on Indefinite Life Extension (RILE)
– “The Real War – and Why Inter-Human Wars Are a Distraction” – Video by G. Stolyarov II
– “How Can I Live Forever?: What Does and Does Not Preserve the Self” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II
– “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs” – Wikipedia

An Atheist Transhumanist Critique of TheThinkingAtheist’s “Afterlife” Video – Article by G. Stolyarov II

An Atheist Transhumanist Critique of TheThinkingAtheist’s “Afterlife” Video – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 21, 2012
******************************

The video “Afterlife” is a compilation of remarks by Seth Andrews (TheThinkingAtheist) and other famous YouTube atheists regarding the religious concept of life after death. However, the video goes beyond merely (correctly) critiquing ideas of the afterlife, and reflects an unfortunate acceptance of human mortality itself. As a lifelong atheist and transhumanist – a resolute foe of senescence and death and a seeker of indefinite life extension – I offer my critiques of the statements and quotations made in this video. The video does present many interesting and valid insights, but it unfortunately throws the metaphorical baby – indefinite human life extension, driven by scientific discoveries and technological innovation – out with the bathwater – religious myths of an afterlife, unsubstantiated by evidence and arising out of a desire to attain comfort in the face of mortality. As much as I respect Mr. Andrews and others quoted here, I must regretfully conclude that “Afterlife” embraces the other side of the religious coin: the premise that the only way to try to beat back the alleged inevitability of one’s eventual non-existence is through an unsubstantiated fantasy. But there is another, fully secular, fully human-centered option: the progress of our civilization and its eventual ability to conquer the age-old (and old-age) perils plaguing humankind.

I would welcome an in-depth discussion with Mr. Andrews or any of the other commentators in the video regarding this alternative to the religious afterlife – an alternative that can affirm and extend the precious, only life that each of us has. I hope that more atheists can recognize that transhumanism is the logical implication of rejecting a teleological, theistic worldview and amplifying all that is best about us as humans, so that the purpose of the universe can be what we make of it.

Vladimir Nabokov: Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats at hour).

My Response: In the “prenatal abyss”, one has never been alive, so one does not know what one is missing – or that one is missing, in fact. But once one is alive, one is able to anticipate one’s own non-existence – which is the worst fate of all for an individual, worse than eternal torture or eternal boredom (neither of which is realistic in any case). Furthermore, when one is alive, one has the ability to discover the history that came before one’s time. One has no way of knowing or observing the future after one’s death.

Mark Twain: I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

My Response: Being dead presupposes having once been alive. Having never existed makes one a mere potential among trillions of possible beings. Having existed once but not anymore means that one’s entire self – a fully formed universe of memories, sensations, thoughts, and aspirations – has become snuffed out. For each of us, there was a time when we did not have all that we have now: our lives. But, now that we have it, to lose it would be intolerable. It would literally be the undoing of everything we have ever been or done or aspired toward.

DarkMatter2525: The universe would continue in its ways if humanity weren’t here to witness it.

My Response: True, but to the individual, it is the same as if the entire universe has been extinguished. Whatever goes on after one’s death, one cannot experience it or be aware of its existence – and hence the only significance it might have is in terms of one’s anticipation of how it might be. That anticipation can only take place while one is alive and is necessarily fraught with extreme uncertainty. It cannot compare to the real thing – to living in the future. I want to live a millennium from now, not merely speculate about how it might be.

HealthyAddict: The universe is absolutely massive, and we are virtually insignificant in it.

My Response: The vastness of the universe in no way diminishes the significance of the individual. What is valuable, what is important is a function of entities that can pursue values or make judgments of importance. Only living, conscious entities can actively pursue values – and the very idea of values only makes sense in the context of the survival and flourishing of such living, conscious entities. The universe is vast, but the lives of humans and possibly other sentient beings are still of the ultimate importance – since it is the human scale on which valuation occurs. Size and importance are not related.

Another sense of the term “insignificance” might simply be “powerlessness” or “vulnerability” – without a moral judgment attached. It is true that humanity is still in its infancy, and still extremely fragile. Numerous natural disasters, originating on earth or in outer space, could severely damage or destroy our species. But this should only motivate us to expand our sphere of influence through technology and its application to the colonization of space and the enhancement of our bodies. If we are weak relative to the inanimate forces of the universe, then we must become stronger – as individuals and as a species.

Evid3nc3: I see no evidence that the rest of the universe cares that we exist or is even capable of caring. But I don’t really need validation from the rest of the universe to find my own life important.

My Response: I agree. There is no teleology built into the universe. What this means is that we must do our own caring; we cannot rely on the universe as a crutch – except in that we should utilize the laws of nature as instruments to advance our well-being. It is up to us to protect ourselves and expand our sphere of influence in the universe. And we should all, like Evid3nc3, find our own lives important – which is precisely why we should make every effort to prolong our lives – which are the source of that ultimate importance for us.

Laci Green: It’s just absurd to me how many people live for dying.

My Response:  I agree that it is wrong to live for dying or to anticipate that one’s individuality and vantage point into the world will persist after one’s physical body is destroyed. Rather than live for dying, one should live for living – and act to keep on living. To do so, one should support (at least morally) the emerging efforts to prolong human lifespans. One should also educate oneself about the possibility of indefinite life extension within the coming decades, as well as the developments that are occurring today to help bring this goal closer to reality.

Seth Andrews: I think fragile, fearful humans were terrified of death, and so they wrote their own ending to the story – this happy fantasy, a place where they’ll be reunited with people they’ve lost, they’ll experience constant joy, and of course they’ll never, ever die.

My Response: I think this is indeed the predominant motivation behind the origins of religion. People who could not hope to avoid death through technology sought to comfort themselves and to make everyday pursuits more tolerable by convincing themselves that their existence does not cease at death. In effect, religion is ersatz-immortality: a poor substitute for the real thing, but enough to trick many people into not realizing the grave implications of death. But in an era when technology is advancing so rapidly that there is hope for us and our contemporaries to live indefinitely – there are two main attitudinal dangers. The first danger is continuing to believe that the ersatz-immortality is good enough and that it justifies not striving hard for the real thing. The second is the other side of the same coin – unfortunately embraced by too many atheists: rejecting both the ersatz-immortality and the real thing, abandoning the most profound triumph for our species, when we are – in historical time – on the verge of achieving it. I support abandoning the fantasy, but I do not support relinquishing the reality – literally – and acquiescing to becoming food for worms.

DPRJones: The concept of an afterlife diminishes the value that we place on our lives and the here and now.

My Response: I agree that this could be the case, if the expectation of an afterlife discourages people from striving to both improve and prolong this life. As an atheist, I hold that this life is the only one there is – and it is indeed the most precious life there is and could be. Therefore, to lose this life is to lose everything, and so the foremost ethical objective should be to hold onto this life.

DarkMatter2525: An unlimited supply of anything, including life, means that its existence cannot be appreciated.

My Response: For all practical purposes, the air on Earth is inexhaustible by humans. Does that mean that we do not appreciate the ability to breathe and sustain our lives in that way? Does this mean that air is not essential to us or any less important to our lungs than if we had to ration it or purchase canisters of oxygen to carry around? Certainly not. While scarcity of a resource is a key determinant of its monetary price, the idea that scarcity is somehow necessary for mental appreciation is highly flawed. Use-value (utility) and monetary “value” (price) are not the same. We should – and can – appreciate a thing or a condition for its own qualities qua thing or condition – and the benefit those qualities confer upon us. How many of those things or conditions exist or are going to exist does not matter.

Furthermore, the fact is, we still live one moment at a time. We do not have all of eternity at our disposal at any given moment, no matter how long we live. We only have the given moment, and a limited range of possibilities for what we can do right then. Thus, a kind of temporal scarcity will always exist – in the sense that some activities and satisfactions will always be more remote in time than others, and we will have to wait and strive for the ones that are more remote.

DarkMatter2525: If life is eternal, then there should be no sense of urgency.

My Response: Value is not derived from urgency, but from improvement of the human condition and, subsequently, from enjoyment of the fruits of that improvement. A work of art or music is not any more beautiful because of the urgency with which we experience it; it is beautiful because of its intrinsic constituent characteristics – the brushstrokes and notes that comprise it. Indeed, urgency detracts from value by inducing a stressed, rushed, crazed, and hectic experience where we miss important aspects of life because we worry that we will not have the time to do whatever we consider to be higher on the priority list. With less urgency, we could partake of more of the good things in life and have a longer-term perspective – planning for the future and treating ourselves and others with more respect and consideration. We could be more frugal, since we would enjoy the fruits of saving directly. We could take better care of our living spaces – both locally in our homes and on the scale of planets. We could still fulfill all of our highest priorities – and more of them, too, since we would have more time. But longevity itself would reshape our priorities and enable us to gain a more balanced, deliberate, and sophisticated perspective on our lives.

For me, the greatest happiness comes from those serene moments where I do not have to rush anywhere and do not have to worry about falling behind. It comes from having accomplished and from having done something good that could later – with purpose and deliberation – be the stepping stone for something even better. In the midst of intense work, happiness is that plateau of leisure between the past and the future, the reaffirmation that life can be good when it amounts to a progress that never hits a permanent wall. Urgency detracts from happiness by preventing one from truly enjoying life in a leisurely fashion – as opposed to trying to cram in as much as possible now, now, now – expecting (fearing, perhaps) that there might not be much time left.

Thunderf00t: I do not fear being dead, but the concept of the alternatives offered by the religious do trouble me. [Regarding Heaven], there does appear to be one constant: It will last for eternity. Imagine that. Imagine eternity. […] The first hundred years may be possible; the first thousand – more painful; the first ten thousand – insufferable. But this is just the start. An eternity in heaven would be hell for me.

My Response:  I agree that Heaven as imagined by the religious would probably be a somewhat uninteresting place, since one would spend all of one’s time in it “glorifying God”. But this problem has nothing to do with experiencing an indefinite existence. It is a great poverty of imagination to be unable to think of what one could do with ten thousand years, or a much longer timeframe. Think: could you even consume all of the literature, music, art, and culture that humankind has created up to the present if you had ten thousand years? Indefinite longevity would bring about unprecedented richness, depth, and breadth of experience – as well as the immensity of individual learning and refinement, and the possibility to pursue multiple careers and many more hobbies than one currently can.

Furthermore, if Thunderf00t dislikes the prospect of an eternal existence, why would an eternal non-existence be any better or more preferable? Once you are dead, you are dead forever – and cannot choose to go back to not being dead. On the other hand, if you are alive indefinitely, and you feel tired, you could choose to take a nice long non-lethal nap or vacation and resume your activities when you are refreshed and in a better mood. Those who feel tedium or boredom now might later feel more like finding something meaningful and interesting to do in this vast universe. To die is to deny oneself this ability for an improvement in one’s outlook and enthusiasm.

The great and all-too-common error made by Thunderf00t is to see all of an individual’s life as a simultaneous totality rather than the way it is actually experienced: one moment at a time. While Thunderf00t might be unable to conceive of what he would do with ten thousand years, he probably knows what he would like to do the next minute, or the next day, or the next week. If he could live and work in this way – experiencing one day at a time – while remaining at his physical and intellectual prime – would there ever be a day when he would consciously decide that he would rather die tomorrow? Only a person in tremendous suffering could conceivably make such a choice. With technological and moral progress taking away ever more of that suffering, the desire to keep on living should become strengthened until no sane, rational person would ever want to die.

DarkMatter2525: Given eternity, anything that can be accomplished, will be accomplished. Beyond all achievements, there would only be limitless, pointless existence.

My Response: Considering that over a thousand new books get produced every day, doing or accomplishing “everything” would be impossible – since our minds’ conception of the possibilities will always outpace our ability to actualize those possibilities. DarkMatter2525 is assuming a finite, static set of possible accomplishments. In reality, the scope of possible accomplishments and activities grows every day at much faster rate than any given human has the ability to pursue those accomplishments and activities. One cannot experience today all that has been created even today by the billions of people now alive. The longer we live, the smaller will be the fraction of available pursuits in which we will be able to engage at any given time. Even if humans are able to enhance their minds radically in order to process and memorize as much text as a computer can – the human creative faculty would be able to generate proportionally more text as well, so that the volume of available output would still accelerate away from the ability of any human to process all of it. And books are just one subset of human activity – which will become increasingly diverse and multifaceted as our civilization advances. And think of all those billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, that we have yet to explore and colonize!

Laci Green: When I think about my own death, I used to feel scared, but I don’t think I do anymore.

My Response: I hypothesize (though I cannot be sure) that Ms. Green only sees death in the abstract for now. She is young and healthy, and it is easy to rationalize away the significance of death when it is remote. This is a coping mechanism that many people have, and it works particularly well when everyday life is reasonably good. But how many people can have this equanimity when death approaches – when it is too late to do anything about it? If Ms. Green does not wish to experience fear regarding the prospect of her eventual death – fine. I have no problem with people choosing to focus on other matters in an everyday context. However, I sincerely wish that she and others who do not feel scared would nonetheless have an intellectual awareness of the great destruction wrought by senescence, decay, and death. Then they could – calmly or cheerfully, as they please – support research and advance moral arguments that assist humankind in beating back this menace. I advocate not fear, but action.

AronRa: I’m not afraid of being dead. After we die, we will not know the truth at that point. We will not know, wish, think, remember, dream anything.

My Response: Precisely, and that is the worst possible fate. Our very being, our “I-ness” – that which makes all other experiences possible – will be extinguished, and not even the memory of our once having existed will remain with us.

Seth Andrews:  I don‘t really find this sad or tragic either. I don’t really welcome death, but I don’t live in fear of the end. And I’ve come to see it as just another part of the natural world.

My Response: Not all that is “natural” is good – and, indeed, nature offers ways out of the problem of senescence by showing us numerous species that do not experience the ravages of biological aging or experience them at a much slower rate than we do. Since, in its truest sense, the word “natural” is just an expression for “what is” – Mr. Andrews is committing the Panglossian fallacy – the view that “whatever is, is right.” Cancer is natural, and it is brutal. Also natural is the fact that 99.9% of all the species that ever existed are now extinct. Just because this is natural, does not mean that we should accept it for ourselves. We can remake the outcomes of nature by studying the laws of nature and harnessing them for our own benefit. Once we have secured our continuing existence, we can work to eventually create a more humane, less predatory environment for all life forms that deserve it. We already do this to some extent with domestic pets and certain other useful animals – though, arguably, not to the extent that a more morally developed and resource-rich society might accommodate.

Thunderf00t: In some respects, we never die. Our lives are entangled with those who come after us, just as our lives are entangled with those who came before us. [Faraday, Newton, and Pasteur affect everyone’s lives today.] Death is not the end. We are intertwined with both lesser and greater things.

My Response: It is true that our lives have an impact on others, and that impact can extend beyond the lifespan of the individual. It is also true that we sometimes do not even perceive all the ways in which we impact others and others impact us. However, while our influence on the rest of the world might be a source of pride or reassurance to us in life, in death it means nothing – because we would not be aware of it even as a general concept without any particular details. Others who remain alive might still hazily and incompletely remember the dead individual, of course – but that memory is an asset to them, not to the dead. I benefit from the existence of Faraday, Newton, and Pasteur – good for me. But they are oblivious to this at present.

Laci Green: Just because there is no grand scheme it plays into does not mean there is not something beautiful about what is going on here.

My Response: I agree that the universe, or existence, has no grand scheme. But it is not clear to what “beautiful” phenomena Ms. Green is referring. There is true beauty in existence, but there are also true nastiness and cruelty and injustice. It is important to recognize the beautiful and good elements of the world, while struggling to eradicate or reform the bad. The real war we must fight is against the forces of ruin, and we should not lapse into the Panglossian fallacy of accepting absolutely anything that occurs on a regular basis as somehow “beautiful” or even remotely palatable.

ZOMGitsCriss: Ironically, the only part of me that is immortal is my material body. […] Every atom of me will be recycled back into the universe.

My Response: A long time ago (when I was fourteen), I tried to find consolation in that idea as well. It worked for about two hours. But then I realized that what matters is the arrangement of those atoms and the temporal continuity of that arrangement. I gain and lose atoms all the time, but each individual atom is not what makes me who I am. The essence of who I am, rather, is the manner in which those atoms interact with one another within the overall structure of my body – including my mind. When that is gone, I am gone.

DarkMatter2525: Even though a cell might not last forever, the role it plays in the larger organism is important, and that is how I see myself – as a part of something bigger.

My Response: But that “something bigger” does not care about DarkMatter2525, by his own earlier admission! So why should he care about it enough to be willing to be a mere cog in it? And if, as Laci Green says, there is no grand scheme to it all, then what exactly is he a part of? In terms of purpose, the only alternative to a teleological worldview, where purpose is “built into” the universe, is a humanistic worldview where purpose originates from the self – based on the biological requirements of one’s own survival, which, once sustained at a certain level, enable the individual to use his will to shape the universe to give it purpose. But in order to confer purpose upon an initially purposeless cosmos, one has to exist and to keep existing. Once existence stops, the purpose-giving process also stops, and so the “something bigger” is also no more.

ZOMGitsCriss: Knowing that this life is the only one I have makes me a lot more conscious of my actions, makes me want to do something with this short life I have.

My Response: I agree that knowing that this is the only life we have should make this life the greatest value to us – to be treated with the utmost seriousness and respect. We should seek to do great things with our time – but we should also seek to prolong our time, which is in itself a monumental and glorious undertaking.

Seth Andrews : There’s too much to learn, too much to see, too much to know, too much to experience. I’m not just going to exist. I’m going to live.

My Response: Certainly, some conditions of existence are better than others, and mere survival is not all there is to life. Flourishing can occur when life is lived in a way that fulfills an increasingly sophisticated series of human needs – ranging on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from basic material sustenance to self-actualization. But pursuing the higher needs by no means undercuts or conflicts with the more basic needs. Indeed, the higher needs are largely unattainable unless one already lives in a prosperous, peaceful civilization where the basic needs are so easily fulfilled that one almost takes them for granted.

All too many people perceive survival as somehow antithetical to enjoying life – but in fact enjoyment of life is not possible without being alive. Therefore, if one wishes to do more of the things that make life enjoyable, one should strive to live as long as possible – far beyond the paltry eighty or so years that comprise the current average life expectancy in the Western world.

The Real War – and Why Inter-Human Wars are a Distraction – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The Real War – and Why Inter-Human Wars are a Distraction – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The Real War – and Why Inter-Human Wars Are a Distraction

G. Stolyarov II
March 12, 2012
***

As a libertarian and individualist, I am thoroughly opposed to the inherently unjust killing of any innocent person. Yet war – organized, armed conflict within a nation or between nations – unavoidably causes the suffering, maiming, and deaths of innocents. I have argued in my videos “A Complete Denunciation of War” (here and here) and “Refuting Ayn Rand on War” that whatever the ostensible abstract aims any war might have, the end result is always the concrete suffering of those who deserve it least: the innocent victims for whom the injustices that brought about the war (such as an oppressive dictatorship) are compounded by the destruction and carnage inflicted by the war itself. The human and economic tolls of war are alone enough to fully justify a complete opposition.

But there is a further reason to oppose wars among human beings: they distract us from the real war that we should all be fighting, against the real enemy that threatens us all. By killing and injuring one another, by destroying the property and infrastructure on which our fellow humans rely, we only clear the way for our mutual enemy to destroy every one of us.

It is difficult to find a single name by which to refer to this mutual enemy, for it consists of many elements with distinct modes of operation. Yet the result of each of these modes is the same: our destruction. While the enemy is difficult to name, it is not difficult to identify in our daily lives.

War among humans is just one of the ways in which the real enemy manifests itself. The cousins of war – murder, theft, rape, political oppression, and plain destructive inanity of a million petty sorts – are ongoing even during times of ostensible peace. But the real enemy’s tactics are not so limited as to rely on destruction inflicted by men alone.

Myriad diseases afflict humans – diseases of infection, internal breakdown, senescence, and self-inflicted folly. Natural disasters – earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, blizzards, volcanoes, and tsunamis – inflict colossal damage so often that news of some such calamity occurring somewhere in the world are almost uninterrupted. And then there are the grave existential threats to all humankind: the possibility of a massive asteroid striking the earth and obliterating most higher-order life forms, the possibility of a new ice age imperiling agricultural production and dramatically shrinking the range of habitable land, the possibility of a major epidemic akin to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 killing hundreds of millions of people, or more. And, in the face of the tremendous damage and threats from all of these perils, what do humans do? They turn on each other and amplify the damage over petty geopolitical and ideological quarrels? How bizarre and absurd!

And even in eras where, by a stroke of luck, some humans in some parts of the world enjoy a welcome reprieve from some or even many of these perils, the real enemy manifests itself in more mundane ways. Machines tend to break down; structures tend to break; information tends to be forgotten, lost, or destroyed; food tends to rot and spoil; humans and their animal companions tend to senesce and die – unless something is done about it. In “Progress: Creation and Maintenance” I explained that human creation and creativity are not sufficient for civilization to flourish and advance. We must also preserve and maintain what has been created in the past – or else we shall return to using our unaided minds and bodies against the full range of horrifying perils that surrounded our primeval ancestors.

What is this enemy? While it works in ways that are both sudden and gradual, manifest and insidious, broad and targeted – perhaps the best name for it is ruin. The forces of ruin are the forces of death and decay; they are the many processes by which living organisms and their creations – in their beautiful and immense sophistication – are erased and decomposed, dissolved into the jumble of primitive elements whence they arose. For everything that aspires to be higher and greater, the forces of ruin act to bring it down, to rot in the earth. Everything that is built, grown, and nurtured, the forces of ruin threaten to weaken, diminish, crush, and demolish. Wherever and whoever you are, whatever means are at your disposal, the forces of ruin are targeting you using any vulnerability they can exploit. Will you acquiesce to your annihilation, or will you resist and strive to win back the ground that ruin has conquered and to defend what it has not yet despoiled?

Each human being possesses an intellect that can be harnessed as a weapon of immense power in the war on ruin. Technology and reason are the two products of the intellect which can be deployed as tactics and strategies and win battles against the forces of ruin. Over the long, arduous ascent of man, some of these destructive forces have already been diminished or even eradicated altogether. Smallpox, typhus, and polio are among the minions of ruin that humankind has vanquished. Humans are making gradual but significant inroads against crime, diseases, and even human war itself on many fronts – but the present rate of advancement will not be enough to save us (rather than some remote descendants of ours) from ruin. To save ourselves, we will need to greatly accelerate our rate of technological and moral progress. To do this, we will need to think more creatively than ever before, utilizing all of the hitherto discovered valid technological, economic, political, ethical, and esthetic insights at our disposal and launch a multifaceted bombardment of human ingenuity to eradicate one peril after another. This program cannot be centrally planned or coordinated; it requires the independent, highly motivated action of millions – and hopefully billions! – of autonomous human intellects, each willing to wage a guerilla war against the forces that have held all of us and our ancestors as their slaves and pawns since time immemorial.

To embrace the challenge, in all of its urgency, enough of us need to be free to do so – unbound by the constraints imposed by other men who think they know better and who would wish to keep us in line to serve their momentary interests, rather than the paramount interests of our own perpetuation. Those who wish to impose their vision of the good life through regimentation upon the rest of us overlook the vital fact that, with human independence and creativity thus shackled, entire societies have become sitting ducks – waiting for the forces of ruin to sweep away static, inflexible, primitively “engineered” communities of men. Only the liberty of each of us to act and innovate can lead to a sufficient variety and intensity of ideas and approaches as to keep ruin at bay.

Ruin is deadly serious, but it receives precious little human attention. It is the proverbial elephant in the room (except, unlike an elephant, far more vicious and deadly) which most people have been culturally taught to ignore, so as to maintain comfort and a more immediate focus – so as not to let massive threats interfere with their everyday pursuits. During most of human history, this enemy was so powerful that humans had no real chance against it, and their religions, philosophies, and social norms evolved to teach them that they might as well not try. They might, like the Stoics, decide to accept their inevitable destruction with grace and equanimity – or they might, like the Christians, convince themselves that their destruction would not be ultimate and that they would persevere in another form. In practice, these invented consolations served to capitulate our ancestors to the enemy. We can forgive our ancestors for devising these coping mechanisms in the absence of any real hope. But we cannot forgive ourselves if we, in our more advanced technological and intellectual condition, abandon the fight only because our inherited norms suggest it to be useless to begin with, or even undesirable to pursue.

There are many perils that each of us can choose to confront, and many tactics that we can begin to actualize. One size does not fit all, and the struggle against ruin should be waged by each individual unleashing his or her strengths in the area where he or she thinks them to have the greatest impact. But a good beginning would be to stop undermining and destroying one another. The pettiness and absurdity of human wars in both their causes and in their methods (as if men with guns on a field somewhere, or explosives dropped from the sky onto a city would ever solve any serious problem in a meaningful way!) would be laughable if it were not so tragic in its toll. The same goes for the intellectual, economic, and political straitjackets that humans in virtually every society create for themselves – artificially restraining meaningful exploration of ways to conquer ruin instead of just succumbing to it in a structured fashion, with a privileged few at the top maintaining the illusion of control. An anthill, after all, is powerless before the magnifying glass and the rays of the sun – no matter how much absolute power the ant queen perceives herself to have over her minions. We must be more than ants to win this war. We must all be individuals and recognize each of our individual lives as sacrosanct. We must direct all of our anger and hatred not toward other men – but toward the menace of ruin. The more of us do this now, the greater our likelihood of winning not just some remote bright future for our descendants – but our very lives from the ravages of senescence, disease, and calamity. I can imagine no greater victory or more glorious objective. The spoils of any inter-human war are supremely uninspiring and meritless by comparison.

G. Stolyarov II is an actuary, science-fiction novelist, independent philosophical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician, composer, contributor to Enter Stage Right, Le Quebecois Libre, Rebirth of Reason, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Senior Writer for The Liberal Institute, and Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, a magazine championing the principles of reason, rights, and progress. Mr. Stolyarov also publishes his articles on Associated Content to assist the spread of rational ideas. He holds the highest Clout Level (10) possible on Associated Content and is one of Associated Content’s Page View Millionaires

Mr. Stolyarov holds the professional insurance designations of Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Associate in Reinsurance (ARe), Associate in Regulation and Compliance (ARC), Associate in Insurance Services (AIS), and Accredited Insurance Examiner (AIE).

Mr. Stolyarov has written a science fiction novel, Eden against the Colossus, a non-fiction treatise, A Rational Cosmology, and a play, Implied Consent. You can watch his YouTube Videos. Mr. Stolyarov can be contacted at gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com.