The imperfections we see in the body and mind are largely due to the malign influence of capitalism. Capitalism is a socio-economic system based upon selfish-greed, not love. The idea of capitalism is to earn more money than other people, which logically entails a significant amount of people being poor to enable huge riches for a minority of people. Capitalism causes suffering and disability on many levels.
The capitalist system of exploiting fellow humans for profit is enormously debilitating regarding the human organism. Capitalism creates imperfections which are not natural aspects of the human organism.
1. Our current motivations for success are fear-based, greed-based, profit-based, monetarily orientated. We live in a negative social situation where we are motivated via fear (fear of poverty, crime, war, oppression) anxiety, pain, and domination. The human body and mind function with vastly greater efficiency when people are positively motivated. Lack of resources (scarcity) creates our fear-based civilisation.
2. The idea of the human organism currently being imperfect is a biased viewpoint based upon the current debilitating capitalist milieu. Notions of perfection are currently skewed inline with the capitalist warping of natural humanitarian sensibilities.
Having stated this premise I must also state I am not techno-phobic. I feel strongly technology is the way forward. Technology combined with perspicacious awareness has the potential to liberate our repressed natural human condition, our humanity, which has been suppressed by the inhumanity of capitalism. Science and technology are the only solutions to all the problems we are facing in the world. The human race has progressed too far along a specific route therefore technology is now our only option; but it is very important to realise there are numerous ways technology and science can be manifested.
Via awareness of our current biased ideas of imperfection/perfection, based upon the capitalist viewpoint, we can ensure we are not overly quick to eliminate aspects of the human organism which we assume are imperfections but in fact those imperfections are merely symptoms of a perfect organism reacting adversely to the toxicity of capitalism.
We must not be overly quick to transform the human species based upon the injuries capitalism is currently inflicting upon us. We must be careful not to lose aspects of ourselves which are highly beneficial. Due to the current capitalist warping of our sensibilities we often do not realise the human organism is perfect in many aspects.
My conclusion:
The way forward, to counteract the negativity of capitalism, must entail focusing on the looming Post-Scarcity era where everything is free. Technology and science will soon create Post-Scarcity therefore we can now begin, preparatorily, to change our socio-political-economic motivations. Everything in the future is free.
Instead of existing in a fear-based, pain-based, greed-based, dominance-based inhuman culture we can replace these negative motivations with positive humanity-based motivations. Greater awareness of Post-Scarcity will allow us to eliminate, without direct technological intervention, many of the sociological maladies (imperfections) induced by capitalism, and then from an enlightened worldview we can consider how to redesign the human mind and body.
I'm not stating ALL body or mind imperfections are due to the malign influence of capitalism.
I appreciate capitalism is only a reflection of human selfishness (collective selfishness) but there is a Feedback Loop occurring, whereby capitalism enhances individual selfishness. Capitalism enhances selfishness to a greater degree than the initial selfishness which created capitalism. Capitalism allows negativity and it creates negativity. Capitalism is negativity; it perpetuates negativity.
Individuals (the electorate) have no tangible real-power over political systems therefore it is fair and logical to cite capitalism (the systemic selfish power structure) as the source of selfishness. When only a minority of people wield power; and their power structure is a selfish and cruel power structure, it is then appropriate to cite the power structure (capitalism) as the source of suffering. We must look to the heads of capitalism regarding the suffering inflicted upon the body. Capitalism should be blamed. Capitalism resembles a Weapon of Mass Destruction which is detonated daily thereby creating negativity. Capitalism is a distillation (concentration) of negativity. Capitalism is synonymous with politicians and businesspeople (tycoons, moguls) therefore when I blame capitalism I blame the architects of capitalism: the people in charge of the toxic-structure.
What I'm stating is that capitalism inflicts a LOT of pain upon humans (we live in an almost constant state of anxiety: fearing governmental austerity cuts, fearing economic collapse, fearing theft and violence, therefore everything is locked/password protected: we lock cars, homes, bicycles, computers, offices, email accounts etc). Is has been proven how continually subjecting an organism to stress/anxiety has a negative impact upon the physical and mental health of the organism. Capitalism is a hostile social structure, which is why we must lock everything, and it is why we live in continual fear. Current capitalist motivations are fear/pain/negativity based.
Capitalism is a type of toxicity that causes severe imperfections within the human body and mind. Capitalism resembles cancer, it is carcinogenic. The solution should NOT be to make humans immune to carcinogens (poisons); the solution should be the elimination of poisons/toxicity from the environment.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/scientists-suggest-that-cancer-is-purely-man-made
What I am stating is that currently what we perceive to be imperfections may actually be a perfect organism reacting to an imperfect toxic-situation. I am not stating this is the case with all imperfections such as the unneeded human appendix or death due to old age. My point is that we shouldn’t rush to radically redesign the human body and mind based upon the current socio-economic system. Some of the imperfections (and our need to eliminate them) are probably merely symptoms of painful-capitalism. We could engineer humans to be able to easily tolerate toxicity (extreme pain) but this may not be a good situation unless you enjoy kinky S&M perversity.
You may disagree that capitalism is a stress/anxiety/fear based social system. You may feel capitalism doesn’t induce excessive pain, so let’s simplify things and only look at the issue of pain irrespective of economics/sociology.
Everyone feels pain, and we generally dislike pain. If we have the power to totally eliminate all pain via rewiring our minds then how would we know if something is good or bad? Pain allows us to evaluate the benefit of things. Pain is a strong and sharp message informing us something is wrong. Pain needs to be painful otherwise the message would not be acted upon with such vigour.
If we are currently experiencing excessive pain due to a selfish social structure then we could overreact to pain when we redesign the human mind/body, thus we could create and flawed new-human-design... we could discard aspects that we assumed were imperfections. We need a more balanced and wider worldview before me make radical changes. I suggest we change our environment and socio-economic structure before we radically change the human mind and body.
Rigid philosophy is NOT enough to give value to things. Philosophy arises from feelings: pain, unhappiness, dissatisfaction etc. The entire history of philosophy (rigid or otherwise) has been dependent upon rationalisation of feelings, solutions to feelings.
You can speculate about how mere philosophy without feelings would be enough to ensure values. You can talk about pure logical deductions, but I am sure that without pain (and pleasure) there would be no motivation to have logical deductions because people wouldn't feel it was necessary. Self-aware (sentient) logic without feelings is slightly reminiscence of a deaf person trying to talk clearly, if you can't hear yourself speaking it is difficult to know what you are saying therefore you will struggle to speak clearly. If you cannot feel emotions regarding your thoughts it is difficult to feel what you are thinking therefore you will struggle to think clearly. Things do have the potential to advance forward VERY rapidly: don't underestimate the speed of accelerating progress.
I have no love for socialism. Don't assume my criticism of capitalism entails I love socialism. Post-Scarcity is neither socialism nor capitalism. I am not suggesting capitalism be immediately replaced. I am simply suggesting people should be aware that current problems (imperfections) may not be inherent to the human body/mind and they may merely be symptoms of capitalism. I want people to be aware of the coming age of Post-Scarcity because such awareness of Post-Scarcity will allow people to plan rationally for the future.
there has never been a society without scarcity before. We will be the first; pioneers; like Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon.
Prior to the Moon-landing humans had never set foot on the Moon.
Merely because something has never happened before this does not mean it is impossible.
We are reaching beyond our limitations. We have previously reached beyond what we thought was possible. We can achieve the impossible; we continually prove this. There is actually nothing that is impossible. We only think things are impossible. The future is a place of limitless possibilities.
Technology today is a highly proprietary business?
Many things today are open source. I am typing this via OpenOffice a free piece of word processing software. Firefox is an excellent browser - free and open. The OpSys UBUNTU is also a good example of the direction things are heading in.
There is no private ownership with exclusive rights or copyright protections regarding the Rapid Replicating Prototyper:
http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
Self replicating machines will abolish copyright, ownership, exclusive rights etc: we are already seeing this with file sharing where data is copied endlessly around the net free from usual costs.
Everything is converging: the end of politics, the rise of technology, the age of Post Scarcity, the age of utopia, the Singularity; everything will be free.
The most high-tech product in the future will be very cheap (available to all) and shortly after that it will cost nothing. The circle is not vicious. The circle is either eccentric or concentric therefore it will diminish into nothing because we are moving towards an explosive utopia point, a singularity.
This info-graphic highlights how technology improves rapidly AND it gets cheaper:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/x1brett/4742540168/
We will get to a Post-scarcity situation, it simply takes time, in 2020 it will be easier to see how Post-Scarcity will eventually occur: it will happen by 2045 at the latest.
See also: http://singularityhub.com/2010/09/28/ten-years-apple-infographic-moores-...