"...we can’t think capitalism is the end of history. We will need rules to constrain the dark sides of our nature. The market is not going to solve our biggest problems."

Indeed! Thank you for this share.

I have no doubts that genetic engineering will eventually become as popular as plastic surgery, if not more so. I would consider transhumanism as a far more important thing though, because when humans can completely connect up to computers, there is very likely to be a huge paradigm shift . . . . we are talking about switching on an extremely powerful, extremely fast (exponentially faster than the pee-brains we have now) and about as purely logical part (of the future brain) that will revolutionize practically everything, so much so that there will be some extremely serious contention between those who do and those who do not. If humans are to survive, transhumanism absolutely must be embraced . . . . . all it takes is a glance back at all of the ignorant blunders humans have made in the last 8,000 years to see that if we stay on our current path we are doomed.
Additionally, humans, for the last 5000+ years have not been so good a predicting the end results of some of their actions. Everything hinges on what makes humans stronger, more logical, and more able to change that. Humans today are not only horrible at trying to predict the future, but also horrible at acting in a way that anticipates the future and prepares for it. I do not think artificial intelligence is dangerous to man as many people claim it is . . . . . I would choose it over repeating the same old mistakes over and over again, as humans have done for as long as they have existed. If I were some immortal who waged bets with some other immortal, I would wager against humans ultimately surviving. The universe is not teleological, many species have ceased to exist, and humans are well-positioned to follow down that same path.

Great article. Thanks for sharing!
I agree with him for the most part. If we can genetically engineer babies so that they have a happier life, we should. What is "happier" though? Is it genetic fitness? Or is it something more esoteric which goes beyond our biological nature? I think it is a good discussion to have, but I am not sure we will ever have a definite answer. Ultimately, these questions are resolved as they always are - the strong impose their will on the weak.

I agree with him, we as humans are the big elephant in the room.

More discussion about theses issues is needed. And less objections based on "religious morality". We have seen religions object to every scientific advance in this area. Time to have some common sense.

Interesting and worthwhile.

"Reasoned argument?" According to whose sense of reason? His 'reasoning' simply means better humans which will mean more polarization but no idea of how overpopulation will affect any and all ideas of future life. I was a board member of ZPG but after that crashed because they sold out to industry I joined Negative Population Growth NPG [npg.org] and also Overpopulation Project [overpopulation-project.com]

I find myself in agreement with most of his views and I think we need more people like him to counter the hysterical religious right and their imposition of their pseudo morals based on the belief in a creator. Human intelligence and the ability to genetically engineer human and other life forms has long outstripped the biblical notions of an infallible god whose creations cannot be altered ...even when they are defective, and end of life must be endured even when all meaningful quality has been stripped out. We need to have serious debate around these issues and not have them shut down because they are too difficult for people to grapple with.

I don't agree with much of what he says. I think he is just trying to be controversial. eg Thomas Hobbes statement is known to be nonsense and to use the phrase "playing god" is a bit silly.
An interesting comment by a senior member of WWF. " Since inception we haven't managed to protect a single animal species. We would have been better spending all the money on condoms"

I said "you are elohim"

anyway, havent finished the article yet, but ty