The Proactionary Imperative with Steve Fuller and Veronika Lipinska

Today I went to see a presentation hosted by the London Futurists at Birbeck regarding a new book about transhumanism.

The book is written by Steve and Veronika, two academics, one on science and philosophy, the other in law.

Their idea is that there is a trend in society of being over precautionary (the example was given of the Bush government's restrictions on stem cell development, severely inhibiting biotechnology in the 'States). Their counter to this is to examine the current state of transhumanism and to make some recommendations based on an idea proposed by Max More called the Proactionary Principal. This is to say that instead of trying to avoid the consequences of change by not changing, the risks should be managed on a national or even global scale, underwritten by governments and the benefits distributed by the same to all. They also propose an idea of "hegenetics", which is a portmanteau of genetics and hedge-fund, that when a person, or group, have their DNA exploited they can benefit from it. It's a bit like you or I copyrighting our own DNA.

The presentation was very engaging and the discussion afterwards lively, Steve noting that the Futurists aught to be more politically engaged than currently, and that it seemed to be more of a hobby than a movement.