A Brief Class Analysis from an Anarcho-Transhumanist Perspective

Just like other schools of anarchist thought, anarcho-transhumanists would (or ought to) understand that a just society demands that everyday people control the means of production. I am definitely of the opinion that the means of production and the most advanced technologies are in the hands of a small minority. Technology won't set us free, we have to do that. In fact waiting or doing nothing is the most dangerous thing we could possibly do.

I consider myself a transhumanist first and an anarchist second. Frankly I am very selfishly motivated, yet what I understand as necessary to achieve my own goals demands a just society for all. Anarchy is a necessary condition for transcendence, hence anarcho-transhumanism. As far as I can tell, there are two primary causes for this.

1) It is impossible for any one person to discover their most ideal trans/post human existence. The best way for each of us to find the most fulfilling existence is to allow people to have an enormous variety of experiments in living. Watching and learning from others provides the best opportunity to find the life I want, thus maximum liberty for all is necessary. Hence, anarchy.

2) I find the implications of singularity combined with current power structures to be unbelievably terrifying, far more horrific than anything I have ever learned or thought of.

Consider the current power structures of today. I tend to divide them into three categories; physical control, informational control, and resource control. Physical control refers to policing and military forces. Information control refers to propaganda and restrictions on the availability of information. Resource control refers to restricting or specifying what resources are available, who can obtain them, and how they are obtained.  These three work as a tripod to support each other; when one starts to fail the other two attempt to prop it up but this can only do so much. As of now, if one arm fails then they all fail so power structures are strongest when all three are maintained more or less equally. Modern advanced technology greatly improves two of these means of control yet is undermining a third. However, given enough advancement, any single arm could support and permanently enforce a power structure.

Physical control has been improved via modern military weapon systems (drones) and crowd control (LRAD and ADS). These are terrifying means of physically forcing compliance while far more effective and terrifying ones are being sought out and developed.

Resource control we see through our capitalist economy. With the means of production in the hands of a small minority, compliance can be demanded at the expense of going hungry. As economies of scale continue to shift in favor of greater and greater consolidation, the means of production will be further consolidated into the hands of a smaller minority. This could be counteracted by technologies like 3D printers but we're a long, long way, from being able to print food. Even then, there have even been calls by some to require federal registration of all 3D printers. Typically this is where many transhumanists like to claim that technology will set us free, they could not be more wrong. Mainstream usage of 3D printers and similar technologies is prohibitively expensive and will continue to be long before they can supplant our current economic systems. Thus through the near future, if not longer, resource control will continue to be a very effective means of controlling people.

Information control is beginning to fail, thanks to the advent of the internet. It is making huge waves and this form of control is the most likely arm to collapse. The power elites know this, that's why there have been so many attempts to control the net. Propaganda is no longer as effective as it once was and people are constantly being exposed to 'dangerous ideas,' such as anarchism. Corruption is more and more apparent and discontent is rapidly spreading. Attempts at censorship will continue until they succeed or one of the other arms of oppression attains a certain level of advancement.

This is where it starts to get terrifying. Imagine any one of these types of control taken to an extreme.

Physical control could be enforced via robots and drones. I've seen proposals where a fleet of microdrones would be dropped over an area to search out and eliminate a target(s). Big Dog and others (such as Petman) are getting very rapid improvements as well. Streets policed by platoons of terminators may be impossible to overrun. Unless people maintain the right to bear arms, which is one of many reasons I support 2nd amendment rights, this would be the end of civil disobedience, permanently.

Resource control could be total via extreme vertical integration. As efficiency ramps up via technological improvements to production, it becomes increasingly prohibitively expensive to enter a market. If a single organization, or oligopoly of organizations, control food production then they could demand obedience by not providing food. We're already seeing this start to happen. Include in this control of money, paper money could be deemed obsolete in favor of credit cards. These cards could be turned off at a whim by a totalitarian system, preventing anyone deemed undesirable from obtaining food through established means. Compliance would be guaranteed by the need to fulfill the basic necessities of life. The only possible counter to this would be farming cooperatives, which are far less efficient than factory farms and could easily be shut down with the excuse of having committed some minor crime.

Information control has the most horrific implications. Consider smartphones today, we are all carrying microphones and cameras which constantly transmit their location. At any time someone could be listening in. This serves primarily as an augment to physical control though can easily be used to discredit and outmaneuver any political dissident. Now imagine the trend of increasing integration taken to a greater extent, implants. Contact lens like interfaces (the natural extension of Google Glass) and cochlear implants (the natural extension of many bluetooth devices) could be hijacked for direct control over sensory input. At an extreme, they could be used to cause temporary blindness or deafness. More realistically they could serve as direct delivery of propaganda. Now take this just a little bit farther, brain implants. These could be imposed under the guise of security, or they could simply be sold to us as the new hot thing. They could directly interfere with signal processing or cognitive functioning. Say goodbye to free will, you are now a semi-autonomous cell of The Borg.

Granted each scenario is a very extreme case but it only takes one to pan out, or some combination to pass a threshold, for control to be total.

So, back to the connection with anarchism. The above scenario must not be allowed to happen. Yet it is inevitable if the current power structures persist for just a couple more decades. I don't need to convince you how hard the power elites will try to stay in control. They will use whatever means necessary and will never draw a humane line. More than I want to transcend, I want to avert this outcome. It terrifies me more than I can express.

A total dismantling of all power structures is the only way I can think of to make sure this does not happen. This clearly requires an egalitarian distribution of the means of production, among many other things. As far as I can tell, there is no anarcho-transhumanist theory on how to go about this but the 'technology will set us free' attitude is dangerously naive. There must be an anarchist revolution before transhumanist ideals can be truly achieved.

On a relevant side note, I think anarchism and transhumanism are intricately linked. If we manage to have an anarchist society then there will be people who seek transcendence. That would catalyze a transhumanist revolution and the continued liberty from anarchy would allow it to continue to the furthest extend I can imagine.

Anarcho-transhumanism; my interpretation of what that means

It all comes down to liberty and what that means for humans living in this world. Before I became interested in anarchy, I was fascinated by the implications of the technological singularity. It directly implies that we humans can evolve to the point where the reality we experience would be radically different from the one we live in today. This can be relatively simple, such as enhanced senses (hearing, vision, etc.), or it could manifest as radically reimagining the conscious experience. (Enhanced memory, cognitive processes, etc.) If it is possible for us to experience existence in an unimaginable variety of ways, then how is that different from the possibility of living any of a huge variety of possible lifestyles?

I consider the human form limiting, a temporary stepping stone towards a much broader and vast state of being. Our persistent dependence on very specific physical conditions becomes in itself oppressive given that it is possible for us to be free of those limitations. Any limitation or arbitrary restriction of liberty is offensive to me, including things such as my need for a certain ambient temperatures or organic chemical energy. In this sense, anarchy takes precedence as capitalism and statism directly impact my ability to meet physical needs. My current dependence on certain means of satisfying those needs is restricting, and oppressive in the context that there are many ways of meeting those needs. Anarchists seek to end the oppression and restrictions imposed by our current social systems but, for me at least, that is a means to post-human existence.

I define liberty as the ability to act upon will. As an anarcho-transhumanist, I seek to maximize liberty for all. This directly aligns with most of the goals of anarchism and transcends them. If it is my will to shape the physical world into a certain form, any conditions which prevent the implementation of my will are restrictions which ought to be overcome. 3D printing is an excellent example, having a 3D printer which can create an unimaginable variety of objects increases my ability to shape the world as I desire. Therefore having greater access to 3D printers maximizes my liberty. Today, the greatest restrictions on my liberty come from capitalism and the modern state but, once those are overcome, the struggle to end restriction imposed by my physical form will take priority.

I cannot speak for other anarcho-transhumanists but, for me, anarchism is a means to the next step of human evolution. Anarchy is the necessary condition to transcendence; I want to transcend therefore I am an anarchist.

The simplest possible society

I am defining society as the system of rules we follow or are expected to follow when relating (socializing) to others. These might be laws, customs, norms, speech, etc., but they are rules we use to navigate the complexities of living with other humans. The term society might include the people who abide by those rules but I will not use it as such, for the individual exists as separate from the community they are a part of. They can abandon it, adopt another, create their own, and it is even conceivably possible to resurrect a society when all of its members are now deceased. Imagine imprinting all of the customs, laws, norms, etc., all of the characteristics of a deceased society save the particular individuals that were a part of it onto the minds of a different group of individuals. These individuals would then follow the exact same rules of the deceased when relating to each other. If they were placed in the same town as the deceased an outsider would be unable to tell the difference, aside from different faces.  Thus I restate my definition of society: the rules that are followed or expected to be followed by a group of human individuals when relating to others.

Human societies are incredibly complex, truly so vast and deep that no individual can hold the whole in mind. When attempting to understand any difficult or complex concept it is often helpful to simplify it as much as possible and then apply those principles to more complex instances. For this reason I will imagine the simplest possible human society in attempt to discover principles upon which a society ought to be based.

-

To begin, imagine a single individual human in nature. Clearly there is no society here, the very word implies social relations to others and there are no others. This may appear trivial but note how the concept of human rights no longer applies. This person may have a right to life, liberty, property, or a right to anything, and it would not matter. No other person exists who would have to respect those rights. If their rights do exist, then they do so in exactly the same way a lone island exists on a planet composed entirely of ocean. This island is land, the entirety of it, there are no other land masses from which to differentiate it from any other. The concept of islands being separated from continents does not apply as there are no continents, indeed we can only identify the concept ‘island’ from experiences on our planet. Similarly, rights do not exist for an individual person when no other persons exist.

Now we shall add a second person, and imagine that both of these people live on an island with no natural predators and more than enough evenly distributed natural resources for both to live a life of luxury. Additionally, assume that these individuals are each rational and self maximizing. As they will at least on occasion meet we can see how a society will inevitably form. Let’s assume that they only desire totally isolated lives, as in separate from one another, and self preservation. When they meet they will state these desires and, as rational beings, will come to a mutually agreeable way to satisfy them. The simplest way would be for each to stay on their respective half of the island. This agreement is the creation of their society. Arguably this is no society at all as they are choosing to not be sociable yet they still have an arrangement between them. This would be their social contract, the rules they follow when relating to each other. It may seem irrational, paranoid, and notably anti-social, but is a society nonetheless. This is the simplest human society that I can conceive of.

The properties of the simplest instance of a concept or object can be assumed to apply to more complex instances unless proven otherwise. Thus it would be worth examining the properties of this society. Conveniently it only has one rule, each person will stay on their respective side of the island, so I will use the word society as a proxy for this one rule until stated otherwise.  This society has characteristics that are implied in the manner of its formation; it is mutually agreeable and mutually understood. Without either of these qualifiers the society could not form. Without agreement the two individuals would be at odds and would be in a de facto state of war until they found an agreeable arrangement, or one is killed by the other thus making society impossible. Without mutual understanding one might inadvertently violate the rule and give the appearance of disagreeing, thus leading to the previously stated enmity until understanding is established. Thus this two person society can only exist if both conditions, that of mutual agreement and mutual understanding, are met.

There is an additional condition implied by breaches of the social arrangement. To explore this, imagine that one is physically stronger than the other, so much so that a fight would certainly lead to the stronger’s victory. Each still has the desire for isolation, thus the stronger would be rationally fulfilling their desire by killing the weaker. This makes any society they might form unsustainable as the stronger would simply kill the weaker, leaving a single human in isolation and thus dissolving society.

Now imagine that the difference in strength is less drastic. Most fights would lead to the stronger’s victory but not all, they would still have a significant risk of dying in conflict. The weaker would know that they are disadvantaged but still lethal, thus would desire a mutually agreeable and understandable rule to stave of a fight. The stronger would desire an agreement as well because their chance of victory is not high enough to warrant immediate attack. Any agreement reached between the two would be upheld only so long as the stronger felt the possibility of their own death was too high to risk attack, or until the weaker found an opportunity for a decisive preemptive attack (as they would know that eventually the stronger would attack, thus in the interest of self preservation they must each go on the offensive). This effectively imposes a half life on the existence of any society they might form; society would continue to exist until one found a way to kill the other.  Yet if they have equal force they are least likely to risk attacking as their chance of victory is equal to their chance of death.  As a total imbalance of power would immediately dissolve society and a lesser imbalance of power would eventually dissolve society, it follows that the closer the balance of power is to equilibrium then the longer their society will last. Thus the third necessary condition of this society is found, its rule must be mutually enforceable.

-

In summation, this two person society is most sustainable if three conditions are met. The rules of the society must be mutually agreeable, mutually understood, and mutually enforceable. The extent to which these conditions are met determines the sustainability of their society.