Should We Re-Engineer Ourselves to Phase Out our Violent Nature?
David Pearce reflects on the motivation for human enhancement to phase out our violent nature. Do we want to perpetuate the states of experience which are beholden to our violent default biological imperatives .. or re-engineer ourselves?
Crudely speaking – and inevitably this is very crudely speaking – that nature designed men, males, to be hunters and warriors – and we still have to a very large degree a hunter/warrior psychology. This is why men are fascinated by conflict & violence – why we enjoy watching competitive sports.
Now although ordinary everyday life for many of us in the world is no longer involves the kind of endemic violence that was once the case (goodness knows how many deaths one will witness on screen in the course of a lifetime) one still enjoys violence and quite frequently watch men being very nasty towards each other – competing against each other.
Do we want to perpetuate these states of mind indefinitely? Or do we want to re-engineer ourselves?David Pearce
Now although ordinary everyday life for many of us in the world is no longer involves the kind of endemic violence that was once the case (goodness knows how many deaths one will witness on screen in the course of a lifetime) one still enjoys violence and quite frequently watch men being very nasty towards each other – competing against each other.
Do we want to perpetuate these states of mind indefinitely? Or do we want to re-engineer ourselves?David Pearce
