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    Goodbye h+, Hello H+!

    January 2nd, 2009 by Richard Leis, Jr.

    January 02, 2009

    Hello,

    The h+ organization is no longer accepting new chapters and further development of the h+ website has come to an end. However, h+ Phoenix, h+ Tucson, and the Life Extension Club are still active and will continue to be hosted on this website.

    I am joining Humanity+ (formerly the World Transhumanist Association) to help promote the ethical use of emerging technologies to radically benefit the human condition.

    I want to thank the local club leaders I have come in contact with, the club members of h+ Phoenix and h+ Tucson who helped me develop our particular h+ concept and branding, and all the enthusiastic and supportive visitors to this website. Thank you! I hope you will join me over at Humanity+ as we get to work implementing a shared vision of the (near) future of humanity transformed by emerging technologies and scientific discovery!

    Sincerely,

    Richard Leis, Jr.
    Founder - h+
    Adviser - h+ Phoenix and h+ Tucson

    Posted in Chapter News | No Comments »


    Links – 11/11/2008

    November 11th, 2008 by Richard Leis, Jr.

    Recent links passed around by h+ chapter members:

    Posted in Links, News | No Comments »


    Friend of Chris Heward, Friend of Your Own Life Extension

    November 8th, 2008 by H+ Administrator

    Chris Heward of Kronos Science Laboratories is a well-known researcher in life extension and transhumanist circles. He was recently diagnosed with cancer with little hope of surviving more than one year. There is currently no cure for this type of cancer.

    However, there is hope, and with your support not only Dr. Heward but all of us could benefit from a research project using Leukocyte Infusion Therapy (LIFT). More information about this project at Kronos can be found here. You just might discover that you have natural cancer resistance while participating in this groundbreaking research project!

    Posted in News, Research Opportunity | No Comments »


    Heading to Singularity Summit 2008

    October 22nd, 2008 by Richard Leis, Jr.

    I will be leaving early Thursday morning to drive to San Jose and Singularity Summit 2008. I will be covering the event for Frontier Channel. I cannot promise live blogging, but I will take copious notes and update Frontier Channel as frequently as possible.

    Posted in Links, Media, News | No Comments »


    Intel: Yep, It is Coming, and by 2050

    August 22nd, 2008 by Richard Leis, Jr.

    The technology blogs and news sites are buzzing (Newspond's Buoyancy Rating for this story is currently +131.7 and has risen 13% in the past hour) today about statements made by Intel CTO Justin Rattner at the Intel Developer Forum, including:

    "The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago," Rattner said. "There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason, in the not so distant future."

    This is copied and pasted directly from an Intel news release titled "Intel CTO Says Gap between Humans, Machines will Close by 2050". The release goes on to describe a few of the research projects Intel is undertaking, including human-machine interfaces. While a list of current research projects is not all that unusual in company releases, for such a well-known corporation to precede their list with a definition and acknowledgment of the Singularity most certainly is. That the definition is provided by Rattner, and by extension Intel, so nonchalantly and with no critique is frankly a little frightening. "Yep," they seem to be saying, "it is coming."

    Rattner's comments are not merely passing quotes picked up by various news outlets, but part of a formal news release by the speaker's employer. Intel is backing his comments and even highlights them in the headline. Intel is announcing to the world that the Singularity is near.

    I missed the obvious mistake in Rattner's statement until another h+ club member pointed it out: exponentials do not have inflection points. However, that this mistake is included in Rattner's statement suggests something about the larger impact of his message. We WANT there to be an inflection point, as some sort of guide, milestone, handhold, starting point on this shocking theory. He makes the same mistake many singularitarians make because the idea is grander than the movement. We are left fumbling with human words to try to describe this concept called the Singularity.

    I do not want to suggest that Intel's news release is in any way "proof" that a Singularity will occur. According to some, the word "Singularity" has lost all meaning. I do think it is significant that a version of this idea has taken hold at one of the most closely followed industry drivers, it is informing their current research activities, and they are acknowledging it! If Intel is exploring within a framework that includes the idea of the Singularity, then it is time we sit up and pay attention.

    CNET News Daily Debrief: Smart humans, smarter machines?

    Posted in Commentary, News | No Comments »


    Support Undergraduate Research!

    August 18th, 2008 by Richard Leis, Jr.

    This is an important way to support undergraduate research into aging.

    1. Go to this page as a guest to register: https://www.membersproject.com/registration/guest_signup.html
    2. Go to the "Undergrads Fighting Age Related Disease" page and nominate the project: http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/BVVE2C

    AMEX will award US$2.5 Million to the winning projects! Is there anything more important than this research?

    Posted in Research Opportunity | No Comments »


    The Human Dolphin

    August 15th, 2008 by Richard Leis, Jr.

    If Michael Phelps is human, then we transhumanists have our work cut our for us. Un-freakin-believable! This is human excellence, and the bar is set high.

    Posted in Commentary | No Comments »


    Recent Interviews

    August 14th, 2008 by Richard Leis, Jr.

    Ben Scarlato, who is currently forming an h+ Hartford chapter, was recently interviewed, along with Aubrey de Grey and James Hughes, by the Hartford Advocate:

    I was interviewed by Irene Messina of Tucson Weekly about immortalism, transhumanism, and other related topics. Her commentary about what we discussed:

    Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »


    Why Are We Here?

    July 31st, 2008 by Neo

    [Previously published on the Neosapiens website.]

    It has been a long while since I have blogged. Sorry to all, I have been working on several projects. I will do a better job maintaining this blog. Anyhow, I have been working on how to popularize the transhumanist belief through music, video, and wear. I don't know if it will be successful but I will do my best. I hope to find others to work with.

    Back to the question. Why Are We Here? As many transhumanists believe its up to us to answer that question. We will decide our fate. When I was seven years old I looked at my grandmother who was the dearest person in my life and I started to cry because I knew that she would one day die. I made her promise that she would not. She promised she wouldn't. She died 5 years ago. She was very religious and at peace with her beliefs. I was ok with it because I knew nothing could be done. We did not have the knowledge we have now. People accepted death because they had to.

    My point, we have to popularize transhumanism because this is our fate. Some of us will not make it through this battle but we will at least have had the ability to push humanity forward. I use the term "Neosapien" because to the word means "New Human". I'm not saying we are more special or elite than others, but we will be judged as having those beliefs and I say let it be. I am a member of the World Transhumanist Association and I see the ability the organization has in making a great impact. I believe Transhumanists will work together in the coming years and will popularize this idea. Why? Because this is why we are here.

    Neo

    Posted in Commentary | No Comments »


    Overdue State of the TH/h+ Union

    July 31st, 2008 by meawoppl

    [Previously published on the h+ Tucson website.]

    There is an interesting current forming in otherwise largely stagnant TH/h+ community (th+?). It seems the WTA is making somewhat of a land grab to try and unify the whole bit. I have been privy to a good amount of the discussion between all those folks, and it is my general opinion that the lack of movement does not so much represent any lack of drive on the part of all the folks involved. While there is a large number of big thinkers and leaders out there (Bostrom, De Gray, Thiel, Kurzweil, Smart, etc), they have all made systematic departures from parts of the movement as a whole, and carved their own niches. Resultantly, their success does little to support local groups with a wide breadth of ideas.

    Let's face it, a lot of the memes presented by the community are controversial and largely counter-current to religious, political, and arguably ethical norms of today's day and age. Whatever gains can be had by presenting yourself as a local leader, are nearly nullified by the fear of being misconstrued as in some way socially or intellectually deviant. I myself have frequently opted to leave my (admittedly limited) leadership experience in h+ off many an application and resume. It was a choice easier than facing the possibility that a potential employer sees the little h+, does some research, and draws conclusions that don't in any way truly represent the kernel of who I am and what I believe in. I am certain that I am not the only one with that fear. You may notice our previous leadership is largely undocumented at the request of the people involved. (To everyone who knows them and may not have been updated in a while as to their condition, they are well and active in their goals)

    This practice of secrecy is fundamentally intellectually dishonest. I do not begrudge anyone who makes that choice, but no matter how you cut it you betray your own ideology. I see parallels in this practice with how many followers of less accepted belief systems "pass" as conforming to expectations. Study of race and ethnicity contain similar ideas of "passing", but the point I am trying to get to is the following:

    Given the nature what we believe, it becomes hard to cultivate any sort of leadership, and thusly difficult to perpetuate the ideas and organizations that support them. Correspondingly, there remains a real leadership vacuum at many levels in the community as a whole.

    I don't know if anyone really reads these blog posts, but I think that the WTA role in the whole movement ought to be consciousness raising. Working on mergers and groups is really just drawing a circle around a group of people who are already close anyway.

    h+ is beautiful, and is a natural extension of love for the world. We need to be courageous about saying what we think and advertising the ideas we represent. With increased awareness and understanding of the ideas there will come a systematic decline in the social stigma associated there with.

    So with that in mind, I want to set what I hope becomes an example to others. Here is what I believe about some of the h+ contemporary issues:

    The h+ meme - We can do more. We can be more. The possibilities of the future grow every more numerous every day. The idea that we can be more than the sum of our parts is an idea I have seen forming in the minds of many unacquainted with the meme. We are already in peoples heads, they just don't have a name for it :)

    The Singularity - Having seen the process by which simple machines can be used to refine themselves with the application of human intelligence, gives me an incredible yearning to see what the future holds. Did you know that saw-mills scan incoming logs and apply complex algorithms to simultaneously minimize the cost of cutting, the wasted wood, and time? Its a computationally trivial task that saves _large_percentages of wood from being scraped and energy being wasted. This is happening in _every_ industry. The power of computers to impact the world around us is simply staggering and is growing. (I will write a whole post about this in the not to distant future)

    Radical life extension - It is a good idea. Emphasis on idea. Arguably we have already accomplished this (look at the average neolithic life span), but the idea of entitlement to longer, healthier life spans is a good one. I think that SENS is doing good work in the right places, ditto to all the interesting biochemistry and medical research going on out there. I think the really radical thinkers are overly optimist about the speed at which it is happening, but correspondingly, the medical and biological community displays a similar magnitude of pessimism. It is my belief however that there are so many hurdles even over the horizon of our grasp I give it odds of 5:1 against within our lifetimes. Please don't let that discourage anyone! I myself like the idea that even if I don't beat the curve, that I will be helping those in the future toward that point.

    Cryonics - Total BS (at the moment). I am sorry to all or any of you who think otherwise, but solidification/vitrification of geometrically and chemically simpler objects of _far_ lower sensitivity and information density (not to mention huge commercial relevance) remain unsolved problems. The concept is absolutely solid (every pun intended), but it is my belief that about 3 orders of magnitude more research would have to be poured into the problem before it would be in any way realistic.

    AGI - It coming. Be nice to your hardware. See Singularity above.

    So in conclusion, be courageous. I want to support this idea and spread this meme with all of my heart.

    Lastly, don't let your fear decide how you act, your beliefs deserve better.

    The world is beautiful place, and it deserves more h+.

    -Matthew Goodman

    Posted in Commentary | No Comments »