What Have We Done To Our Own Pandora?

[Tsyal Makto]

I've been a transhumanist. That basically means altering what we are, changing our bodies and minds to suit our own ends. I used to read Orion's Arm, a major transhumanist fiction collaboration.

And though Avatar hit me hard, it clicked for me, I still have this ambition, this desire to shift shape. There's still this part of me that thrilled to science fiction, the desire to know and control. I know that this drive is what led to the state Earth is in.

So how does one kill the ego?

I'm a transhumanist too, and Avatar only made me even more dedicated to it. The Na'vi form is the ideal posthuman form IMO, it combines everything we would need to survive, without the aid of artificial technology!

I'm what you could call a very bright green transhumanist, believing that transhumanism will allow us to return to nature by changing our biology. We wouldn't need buildings if we had trees the size of skyscrapers, and we wouldn't need airplanes if flying animals were large enough to ride. We wouldn't need lights if everything around us was bioluminescent. Everything we could ever need could be natural. Sound familiar?

I'm torn, I guess.

[Zapgun]

I am sad to say so, but.

Things will never get better until people learn to work together and get along, and I can say with certainty that that point is a very very long way off. People learn to be contrary before they walk, it is how we develop our identity and sense of self. Infants learn to lie before they learn to talk, they reject doing things they like if someone else and not them is doing it, as part of their development of the concept of I, and once they develop that they learn about ownership, then they develop the concept of someone else, and so on and so forth.

Children have to be taught how to be honest, however lying is instinctual.

Until we can learn to overcome instinctual aggressiveness and unnecessary independence (while it is good, there is a point were it is too much, like saying no just for the sake of being contrary), we will never be able to make the world a better place.

And on that note, isolating ones self from the rest of society in order to live out your version of the ideal lifestyle only exacerbates the problem :/

I am not saying you shouldn't do it, nor am I saying its bad, but isolation wont help others learn to set aside differences and work together for the common good.

[tm20]

What have we done to our Pandora? Well we took it for granted and although it's not completely gone, it is dissapearing. Fortunately there are many people around the world who are working hard to preserve and even restore our Pandora. But it's not enough.

However eventually it will all be gone (or most) due to the natural processes of the world and will most likely come back and it starts all over again. We are just speeding things up. Let's not! It would be great to have your grand kids witness beauties of this world.