by Elixxir (Mar. 8, 2023)
The only trenchant and systematic immortalist critique of Industrial Capitalism is in The Immortalist Manifesto by Elixxir. Its first edition and version was in 2001. But why do we need to trouble ourselves with an immortalist critique of Industrial Capitalism?
Why? Because alongside its modern Science, Medicine, Technology, and Biotech, this economic-political system called 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, the threat of World War Three and the specter of a nuclear holocaust.
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 at all. In fact, they think it’s the best of all possible worlds.
Despite their claims, neither the transhumanists nor the cryonicists have managed to create anything that’s even remotely near to a real movement. Just browse the history of the civil rights, feminist, suffragette, anti-war, counterculture, gay, religious right, and anti-AIDS movements, and you’ll see.
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.
Transhumanism’s leading lights like Ray Kurzweil who see no reason to reform Industrial Capitalism at all, much less fundamentally change it, are techno-utopians. Kurzweil and company are like the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand.
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 trenchant and systematic critique of Industrial Capitalism explains partly 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, and why it very likely would never become one.
As for those few who understand our desperate need for a compelling and comprehensive critique of Industrial Capitalism, the good news is there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Just read The Immortalist Manifesto, its latest edition, and you will see that 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.
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