by Elixxir (Mar. 8, 2023)
Alongside its modern Science, Medicine, Technology, and Biotech, Industrial Capitalism has also brought the human species and our planet Earth to the edge of the abyss, thanks to its byproducts–global heating, climate crisis, biodiversity collapse, and the specter of a nuclear holocaust.
The only immortalist critique of Industrial Capitalism–and as trenchant and systematic as any–is still to be found in The Immortalist Manifesto (2001) and in Cure Disease, Old Age, and Death (2010). Both by Elixxir.
The Problem with Kurzweil & Transhumanism
But how about the “transhumanists” and their prophet Ray Kurzweil? How about the “cryonicists” and their late founding prophet Robert Ettinger?
They don’t have any critique of Industrial Capitalism, and they never will. Why? Because they think Industrial Capitalism is the best of all possible worlds.
If the need to critique Industrial Capitalism, an economic-political system that so obviously threatens our individual and collective lives and future, has never occurrred to anyone in Transhumanism or Cryonics, then they cannot possibly be the world-changing life-saving immortalist movement that we so urgently need.
Despite their claims to being a “movement,” neither the transhumanists nor the cryonicists have managed to create anything that’s even remotely near to a real movement. Just look at the Civil Rights, Feminist, Anti-War, Counterculture, Gay, Religious Right, and ACT-UP movements, and you’ll see why this is so.
Transhumanism’s leading lights like Ray Kurzweil see no reason to reform Industrial Capitalism at all, much less fundamentally change it. After all, they are in bed with it.
They are techno-utopians. They believe that capitalist science and technology will automatically and inevitably solve all of capitalism’s most intractable problems. Everything from poverty to inequality, from climate crisis to biodiversity collapse, and most of all, mortals’ need to be freed from Disease, Old Age, and Death.
Why Transhumanism Pales in Comparison to Other Movements
As true believers, they insist against all evidence, all reason, and all logic that the global heating, the climate crisis, and the biodiversity collapse spawned by Industrial Capitalism will be solved inevitably by Industrial Capitalism. And it would be just in the nick of time, and painless and cheap too. Now that truly is deus ex machina.
Since they have so much faith in that winged golden chariot descending from heaven at the last minute to rescue us from climate change and biodiversity collapse and all other existential threats, why bother with the hard and thankless task of coming up with a critique of Industrial Capitalism? It’s hardly going to get them more gigs on the lecture circuit, or make their books easier to publish, or increase their likelihood to get invited to sit on some cushy boards, is it?
The bottom line: this lack of a compelling and systematic critique of Industrial Capitalism partly explains why Transhumanism is not a real movement. Certainly not the world-transforming immortalist movement we need to save us from Disease, Old Age, and Death.
As for those who understand the need for an immortalist critique of Industrial Capitalism, the good news is there already is one. It’s called The Immortalist Manifesto, by Elixxir.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Elixxir has already come up with the trenchant and systematic ImmorTalist critique of Industrial Capitalism needed for a life-saving, world-transforming, and earth-shaking immortalist movement to arise, thrive, and cure us mortals of the yoke of Disease, Old Age, and Death, once and for all time.
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Elixxir is the Immortalist philosopher and author of Cure Disease, Old Age & Death: The ImmorTalist Manifesto. Elixxir is also an anti-aging guru and immortalist icon.
© 2023 Elixxir. All rights reserved.