From: Medbh Clay (pollyjumped@eircom.net)
Date: Sat Mar 08 2003 - 11:10:36 MST
Hello everyone,
I was wondering if any of the list members had a chance to look at the
following book, and if so what did they make of it? How should
singularitarians respond to the concerns of individuals like Mr McKibben?
Are such concerns legitimate?
Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age
by Bill McKibben
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Times Books; 1st edition (April 2003)
ISBN: 0805070966
Book Description
>From the bestselling author of The End of Nature comes a passionate plea to
limit the technologies that could change the very definition of who we are.
We are on the verge of crossing the line from born to made, from created to
built. Sometime in the next few years, a scientist will reprogram a human
egg or sperm cell, spawning a genetic change that could be passed down into
eternity. We are sleepwalking toward the future, argues Bill McKibben, and
it’s time to open our eyes.In The End of Nature, nearly fifteen years ago,
McKibben demonstrated that humanity had begun to irrevocably alter—and
endanger—our environment on a global scale. Now he turns his eye to an array
of technologies that could change our relationship not with the rest of
nature but with ourselves. He explores the frontiers of genetic engineering,
robotics, and nanotechnology—all of which we are approaching with
astonishing speed—and shows that each threatens to take us past a point of
no return. We now stand at a critical threshold, poised between the human
past and a post-human future. Ultimately, McKibben offers a celebration of
what it means to be human, and a warning that we risk the loss of all
meaning if we step across the threshold. His wise and eloquent book argues
that we cannot forever grow in reach and power—that we must at last learn
how to say, “Enough.”
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