Human, More Human

Human, More Human: "Transhumanists strive to humanize–the opposite of “dehumanize.” We want everyone to be as human as possible.

What does “being human” mean? Whatever you want it to. But since you’re human, I’ll bet that it includes some or all of life, love, family, beauty, dignity, sexuality, creativity, freedom, learning, and the like. There are also other, less important values: To scarf a boxful of PopTarts, to see our enemies suffer, or to watch soap-opera reruns all day.

All these desires, the elevated and the base, were sculpted by evolution, hundreds of thousands of years ago on the African savanna. And in the millennia since we developed intelligence, we have also been shaping new values on top of this ancestral set. The elevated ones, the “true” values, are those which we want to keep when we reflect on our evolution-driven and societally-built urges and select the best."