What idea, if embraced, would pose the greatest threat to the welfare of humanity? This was the question posed by the editors of Foreign Policy in the September/October issue to eight prominent policy intellectuals, among them Francis Fukuyama, professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and member of the Presidents Council on Bioethics.

And Fukuyamas answer? Transhumanism, a strange liberation movement whose crusaders aim much higher than civil rights campaigners, feminists, or gay-rights advocates. This movement, he says, wants nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints.

More precisely, transhumanists advocate increased funding for research to radically extend healthy lifespan and favor the development of medical and technological means to improve memory, concentration, and other human capacities. Transhumanists propose that everybody should have the option to use such means to enhance various dimensions of their cognitive, emotional, and physical well-being. Not only is this a natural extension of the traditional aims of medicine and technology, but it is also a great humanitarian opportunity to genuinely improve the human condition.

According to transhumanists, however, the choice whether to avail oneself of such enhancement options should generally reside with the individual. Transhumanists are concerned that the prestige of the Presidents Council on Bioethics is being used to push a limiting bioconservative agenda that is directly hostile to the goal of allowing people to improve their lives by enhancing their biological capacities.

So why does Fukuyama nominate this transhumanist ideal, of working towards making enhancement options universally available, as the most dangerous idea in the world? His animus against the transhumanist position is so strong that he even wishes for the death of his adversaries: transhumanists, he writes, are just about the last group that Id like to see live forever. Why exactly is it so disturbing for Fukuyama to contemplate the suggestion that people might use technology to become smarter, or to live longer and healthier lives?

Fierce resistance has often accompanied technological or medical breakthroughs that force us to reconsider some aspects of our worldview. Just as anesthesia, antibiotics, and global communication networks transformed our sense of the human condition in fundamental ways, so too we can anticipate that our capacities, hopes, and problems will change if the more speculative technologies that transhumanists discuss come to fruition. But apart from vague feelings of disquiet, which we may all share to varying degrees, what specific argument does Fukuyama advance that would justify foregoing the many benefits of allowing people to improve their basic capacities?

Fukuyamas objection is that the defense of equal legal and political rights is incompatible with embracing human enhancement: Underlying this idea of the equality of rights is the belief that we all possess a human essence that dwarfs manifest differences in skin color, beauty, and even intelligence. This essence, and the view that individuals therefore have inherent value, is at the heart of political liberalism. But modifying that essence is the core of the transhumanist project.

His argument thus depends on three assumptions: (1) there is a unique human essence; (2) only those individuals who have this mysterious essence can have intrinsic value and deserve equal rights; and (3) the enhancements that transhumanists advocate would eliminate this essence. From this, he infers that the transhumanist project would destroy the basis of equal rights.

The concept of such a human essence is, of course, deeply problematic. Evolutionary biologists note that the human gene pool is in constant flux and talk of our genes as giving rise to an extended phenotype that includes not only our bodies but also our artifacts and institutions. Ethologists have over the past couple of decades revealed just how similar we are to our great primate relatives. A thick concept of human essence has arguably become an anachronism. But we can set these difficulties aside and focus on the other two premises of Fukuyamas argument.

The claim that only individuals who possess the human essence could have intrinsic value is mistaken. Only the most callous would deny that the welfare of some non-human animals matters at least to some degree. If a visitor from outer space arrived on our doorstep, and she had consciousness and moral agency just like we humans do, surely we would not deny her moral status or intrinsic value just because she lacked some undefined human essence. Similarly, if some persons were to modify their own biology in a way that alters whatever Fukuyama judges to be their essence, would we really want to deprive them of their moral standing and legal rights? Excluding people from the moral circle merely because they have a different essence from the rest of us is akin to excluding people on basis of their gender or the color of their skin.

Moral progress in the last two millennia has consisted largely in our gradually learning to overcome our tendency to make moral discriminations on such fundamentally irrelevant grounds. We should bear this hard-earned lesson in mind when we approach the prospect of technologically modified people. Liberal democracies speak to human equality not in the literal sense that all humans are equal in their various capacities, but that they are equal under the law. There is no reason why humans with altered or augmented capacities should not likewise be equal under the law, nor is there any ground for assuming that the existence of such people must undermine centuries of legal, political, and moral refinement.

The only defensible way of basing moral status on human essence is by giving essence a very broad definition; say as possessing the capacity for moral agency. But if we use such an interpretation, then Fukuyamas third premise fails. The enhancements that transhumanists advocate longer healthy lifespan, better memory, more control over emotions, etc. would not deprive people of the capacity for moral agency. If anything, these enhancements would safeguard and expand the reach of moral agency.

Fukuyamas argument against transhumanism is therefore flawed. Nevertheless, he is right to draw attention to the social and political implications of the increasing use of technology to transform human capacities. We will indeed need to worry about the possibility of stigmatization and discrimination, either against or on behalf of technologically enhanced individuals. Social justice is also at stake and we need to ensure that enhancement options are made available as widely and as affordably as possible. This is a primary reason why transhumanist movements have emerged. On a grassroots level, transhumanists are already working to promote the ideas of morphological, cognitive, and procreative freedoms with wide access to enhancement options. Despite the occasional rhetorical overreaches by some of its supporters, transhumanism has a positive and inclusive vision for how we can ethically embrace new technological possibilities to lead lives that are better than well.

The only real danger posed by transhumanism, it seems, is that people on both the left and the right may find it much more attractive than the reactionary bioconservatism proffered by Fukuyama and some of the other members of the Presidents Council.

[For a more developed response, see In Defense of Posthuman Dignity, Bioethics, 2005, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 202-214.]

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Transhumanism: The World's Most Dangerous Idea?

Barbara H. Peterson

Farm Wars

There is a move afoot to reprogram humanity. To redefine it in the limited terms of scientific understanding, place it in a box, and then, all wrapped up in a pretty package, attempt to deliver this convoluted mess to us as progress.

There are those who think that, given the chance, they could and should genetically manipulate the earth and the creatures that inhabit it, including man, to suite a purpose of their own imaginings. They want to experiment on all of our precious resources, turn our rivers into streams of pollution, and take each and every living thing on earth and use it to create something better.

According to whose design? Well, the so-called scientific one, of course. And if this means combining cows and humans, goats and spiders, man and machine in order to achieve the goal? Well, so be it. After all, the only thing that is important is the end result. And the end result is that a few will obtain immortality or so they think. And if a few eggs get broken in the process, well, that is the price paid for success.

This is Transhumanism the natural culmination of something called reprogenetics. Some call it designer evolution.

What is Reprogenetics?

In short, reprogenetics is the genetic engineering of man to create a human race according to scientific design. Here is a definition from Lee M. Silver, author of the book Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform the American Family (1998).

Reprogenetics will involve advances in a number of technologies not yet achieved, but not inherently impossible. Among these are improvements in interpreting the effects of different expressions of DNA, the ability to harvest large numbers of embryos from females, and a far higher rate of reinsertion of embryos into host mothers. The end result, according to Silver, is that those parents who can afford it will be able to pick out the genetic characteristics of their own children, which Silver says will trigger a number of social changes in the decades after its implementation. Possible early applications, however, might be closer to eliminating disease genes passed on to children.

According to Silver, the main differences between reprogenetics and eugenics, the belief in the possibility of improving the gene pool which in the first half of the 20th century became infamous for the brutal policies it inspired, is that most eugenics programs were compulsory programs imposed upon citizens by governments trying to enact an ultimate goal.

It becomes quite apparent, after reading the quote above, that the main difference between reprogenetics and eugenics is consent, according to Lee M. Silver. Eugenics forced. Reprogenetics consented to. Same thing, different mode of action. From the forced culling of those deemed inferior to creating a superior race through genetic engineering, the end result is the same. Those deemed inferior are eventually culled from the system using DNA manipulation techniques.

Eugenics renamed and defined as scientific progress. A life-saving technique that can reprogram the human race and create the ideal human family. Thats the spin. Im sure the promoters said the same thing about nuclear energy. Dangerous? Naw. We know what we are doing. Arrogance.

So, lets take this technique of reprogramming humanity through reprogenetics/eugenics and dig a little deeper, shall we?

Meet Genome Compiler

OUR STORY:

Genome Compiler is built on the idea that biology is information technology. We can design and program living things the same way that we design computer code. Genetic designers today are still writing in 1s and 0s they lack the missing tools to design, debug, and compile the biological code into new living things.

At Genome Compiler, weve built just that a simplified solution for designing DNA.

We are inspired by the breakthrough research done by the JCVI and Harvard with their achievement of whole bacterial genome engineering, as required for functional changes in the form of new codes, new amino acids, safety and virus-resistance and a vision of making biological design easier, cheaper, and open to people outside the research labs.

Genome Compiler Corporation New

After all, when all is said and done, DNA is simply DNA, and mixing it up has no inherent consequences, right? That is what we are supposed to believe. And who is to say what is human and what is not? Arent we all made of molecules?

The Transhumanist Agenda

The following quote pretty much sums up the Transhumanist attitude towards the relationship between you, me, the computer I am using to write this, and the chair I am sitting on:

Whether somebody is implemented on silicon or biological tissue, if it does not affect functionality or consciousness, is of no moral significance. Carbon-chauvinism, in the form of anthropomorphism, speciesism, bioism or even fundamentalist humanism, is objectionable on the same grounds as racism.

A Transhumanist Manifesto [Redux]

If we want to be half human, half frog, isnt that our right? If everything is the same, then anything goes. This is put forth in the guise of freedom of choice, freedom from disease, and freedom from suffering. Actually, this is a sure road to slavery, disease and suffering, and a path towards erasing who we are and simply becoming just another set of molecules on planet earth, much like a chair, or car, or vacuum cleaner.

The Transhumanist goal, based on this oneness of all things biologically and artificially created, is to use science and technology to control evolution of the species, because science is safer than nature.

Biological evolution is perpetual but slow, inefficient, blind and dangerous. Technological evolution is fast, efficient, accelerating and better by design. To ensure the best chances of survival, take control of our own destiny and to be free, we must master evolution.

A Transhumanist Manifesto [Redux]

This mastering of evolution is accomplished through a scientific dictatorship:

Scientific Dictatorship is the utopian concept of scientific managerism whereby all facets of political, social and economic life are managed solely by the scientific method and dictates of science. (Patrick Wood)

And precaution? Well, that goes out the window. Quote from Dr. Max Moore, a leader in Transhumanism:

Many factors conspire to warp our reasoning about risks and benefits as individuals. The bad news is that such foolish thinking has been institutionalized and turned into a principle. Zealous pursuit of precaution has been enshrined in the precautionary principle. Regulators, negotiators, and activists refer to and defer to this principle when considering possible restrictions on productive activity and technological innovation.

In this chapter, I aim to explain how the precautionary principle, and the mindset that underlies it, threaten our well-being and our future.

http://www.maxmore.com/perils.htm

Dr. Max More, the author of The Principles of Extropy, is one of the top leaders of the Transhumanist movement, and the two are tightly interconnected. One could consider Extropy as as the metaphysical backbone of Transhumanism. (Patrick Wood)

In other words, according to one of the top leaders in the transhumanist movement, the precautionary principle actually endangers us. How convoluted can you get?

So, throwing caution aside, onward we go by experimenting through DNA manipulation to create a world where the pseudo-science of a scientific dictatorship rules supreme.

Here are just some examples of DNA mixing going on right now:

http://s-special4you.com/10-insane-cases-of-genetic-engineering/

The future of war is going to look really, really weird. The super soldier research that DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is working on right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. If DARPA is successful, and if the American people dont object, the soldiers of the future will be genetically modified transhumans capable of superhuman feats.

http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/vanilla/discussion/322/u-s-super-soldiers-of-the-future-will-be-genetically-modified-transhumans-capable-of-superhuman-/p1

We are in for a lot more than those who actually believe in the medical benefits of DNA manipulation bargained for. All these examples are leading us down the road to the real Transhumanist agenda:

Transhumanism is the application of science to the condition of man to achieve characteristics of immortality, omniscience and omnipresence, among others, and to produce a God-like race of post-humans. (Patrick Wood)

Yes, there are people who are actively attempting a complete takeover of humanity in order to set themselves up as supreme beings. To transcend physical boundaries by intermixing any DNA that so-called scientists think is appropriate, discard the precautionary principle as too dangerous for proper evolution, full speed ahead, meld man, machine, computer, and eventually, transcend to Godhood. It doesnt matter if it works, it doesnt matter if it is sane, it is a plan in the works. And the people who are involved think that they know how to create a better man.

Here is a bit of the history of Transhumanism and its ties to eugenics:

Julian Huxley, brother of Aldous who authored Brave New World, first used this word (1957): Transhumanism. Huxley was a member of the British Eugenics Society, eugenics being the foundation of Transhumanism.

Quote:

Eugenics is a science dedicated to a Darwinist philosophy applied to humanity, that the strong should thrive and evolve, while the weak are culled and eradicated.

Eugenics rests on a necessity of there being superior and inferior genetic pools in the human population. It might be very socially unacceptable to speak publicly of there being some races, ethnic or cultural groups who are inferior to the rest, yet in secrecy this is exactly what elite Eugenicists believe.

The public is guided to love the idea of Transhumanism by being persuaded that it is not a goal attached to race or ethnicity, but simply a means of bettering all of humanity. This is quite untrue.

Elite Transhumanists have no desire to evolve all humankind, their goal is one which seeks to advance only their own bloodlines and to leave the rest in disadvantage to them so that these unfortunate ones have no choice but to become their slaves, their lab animals and their labor force.

The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilization.

Julian Huxley

http://www.zengardner.com/transhumanism-techno-eugenics-usurping-humanity/

And wouldnt you know it, the Rockefeller Foundation can be found providing funding for the eugenics movement:

In 1927, the Rockefeller Foundation provided funds to construct the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics in Berlin, which came under the directorship of the appropriately named Eugen Fischer. Adolf Hitler read Fischers textbook Principles of Human Heredity and Race Hygiene while in prison at Landsberg and used eugenical notions to support the ideal of a pure Aryan society in his manifesto, Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/topics_fs.pl?theme=41

What was termed in its early stages as a pure Aryan society, is now being repackaged as a pure Transhumanist society in which DNA is programmed to conform to the design of a scientific dictatorship, and sold as the salvation of man. The New Age of ascention. Same story, new box. When will we learn?

And the motivation for all of this? As usual, there are many:

Profit

Human transcendence

Control

Power

Eternal life immortality

The justification? Thats easy: Progress always requires sacrifice. To quote a famous activist:

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Even a superficial look at history reveals that no social advance rolls in on wheels of inevitability. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. Without persistent effort, time itself becomes an ally of the insurgent and primitive forces of irrational emotionalism and social destruction. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action. (MLK Jr.)

Except in this case, it is not the beneficiary of the technologys sacrifice that is required, but the sacrifice of dedicated and ignorant servants and an unwitting populace. We sacrifice our health, wealth, and minds to the slavery of junk science that says it is okay to maim, torture, and impoverish millions so that a few may gain. It is okay to run widespread experiments on humanity so that a few may benefit from those experiments and transcend to a God-like state and rule over the universe. It doesnt matter if you believe it, or if I believe it. It doesnt have to be rational or sane. What matters is that people with enough money and power to go forth with this agenda do believe it, are working steadily towards it, and know how to market it in order to get the public to accept it as beneficial.

Transhumanism is being sold to the public as bringing forth a new age of enlightenment. This story is as old as the Biblical account of the Garden of Eden, where Lucifer, masquerading as the angel of light, tells Eve that he knows a better way. It is also being touted as an extension of Darwinism: another step in the evolutionary process the better, scientific way, because the slow, biological way is simply too dangerous and inherently unpredictable.

Humans are about to decommission natural selection in favour of guided evolution. Darwinian processes gave humanity a good start, but Homo sapiens can be improved. Owing to advances in genetics, cybernetics, nanotechnology, computer science, and cognitive science, humans are set to redefine the human condition. Future humans can look forward to longer lives, enhanced intelligence, memory, communication and physical skills, and improved emotional control. Humans may eventually cease to be biological and gendered organisms altogether, giving rise to the posthuman entity. Human enhancement will irrevocably alter social arrangements, interpersonal relationships, and society itself. And theres also the added potential for nonhuman enhancement.

http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2007/01/must-know-terms-for-21st-century_11.html

Much better to trust in man and his scientific knowledge to create a better evolutionary path, and manipulating our DNA is that way. And just who comes to mind as an expert at manipulating DNA and public perception?

The Monsanto Connection

Remember when Craig Venture of Atlas Venture created Synthia, a synthetic life form, and partnered with Monsanto?

Monsanto and Atlas Venture

And now Monsanto has recently signed a deal with Atlas Venture for funding of, well, who knows? Monsanto does. And Monsanto isnt telling. But we do know that it will most likely be some sort of disruptive innovation because that is Atlas Ventures specialty. Atlas Venture is an early stage investment firm dedicated to financing disruptive innovation in Life Sciences and Technology.

In the Grip of Mad Scientists: Business as Usual for Monsanto, Fort Detrick, and Atlas Venture

Well, it appears that Monsanto and Atlas Venture are working on a new type of genetic engineering using RNA. Is this the disruptive technology that I mentioned in my article cited above?

Generations of high school kids have been taught that only about 3 percent of the human genome is actually usefulmeaning it contains genes that code proteinsand the rest is junk DNA. Cambridge, MA-based RaNA Therapeutics was founded on the idea that the so-called junk is actually gold, because it contains a type of RNA that can flip genes on inside cells, potentially offering a new approach to modulating diseases.RaNA is coming out of stealth mode today and announcing a $20.7 million Series A financing led by Atlas Venture, SR One, and agricultural giant Monsanto (NYSE: MON). Partners Innovation Fund also participated in the funding.

RaNA Raises $20.7M From Atlas, SR One, Monsanto, for RNA-Based Tech

What is RaNA Therapeutics?

RaNA Therapeutics is pioneering the discovery of a new class of medicines that target RNA to selectively activate protein expression, thereby enabling the body to produce desirable proteins to treat or prevent disease. RaNAs novel therapeutics work by precisely activating the expression of select genes within the patients own cells, increasing the synthesis of therapeutic proteins. The companys proprietary RNA targeting technology works epigenetically to make it possible, for the first time, to increase the expression of therapeutic proteins with exquisite selectivity.

Home

This has the potential to turn on and silence, with a great degree of accuracy, gene expression in anyones body. For example,

The patchy colours of a tortoiseshell cat are the result of different levels of expression of pigmentation genes in different areas of the skin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_expression

Monsanto is not working at Curing world hunger through biotechnology. That is a successful smokescreen and marketing slogan gone viral. Edward Bernays, the father of marketing propaganda to the masses, would have been proud.

The Inevitable Conclusion

Remember the definition of reprogenetics in the beginning of this article? Reprogenetics is the genetic engineering of man to create a human race according to scientific design. Well, it is 2013, and we now have the tools to silence and turn on genes through RNA manipulation. And its coming to us courtesy of Monsanto, the chemical/life sciences company that brought us Agent Orange, PCBs, and most of the genetically engineered ingredients in 80% of the processed foods we eat every day.

We know that a pseudo-scientific agenda called Transhumanism, which is bankrolled by some very rich and influential people, is intended to change us as a species, knows no bounds, is set to replace biology as we know it and is inexorably connected to eugenics. We know that this Transhumanist agenda is well on its way to changing the world in ways that we cannot fathom, and we know that Monsanto is involved through its research and application of DNA manipulation techniques in our food supply. Happy eating, America

2013 Barbara H. Peterson

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Transhumanism: Genetic Engineering of Man - the New ...

1.

Many philosophers argue that humans are a distinctive kind of creature and that some capacities that distinguish humans from nonhumans give us a moral dignity denied to nonhumans. This status supposedly merits special protections that are not extended to nonhumans and special claims on the resources to cultivate those capacities reserved for humans alone.

However, I will argue that if we are committed to developing human capacities and welfare using advanced (NBIC) technologies (see below) our commitment to other humans and our interest in remaining human cannot be overriding. This is because such policies could engender posthumans and the prospect of a posthuman dispensation should, be properly evaluated rather than discounted. I will argue that evaluation (accounting) is not liable to be achievable without posthumans. Thus transhumanists who justify the technological enhancement and redesigning of humans on humanist grounds have a moral interest in making posthumans or becoming posthuman that is not reconcilable with the priority humanists have traditionally attached to human welfare and the cultivation of human capacities.

2.

To motivate this claim, I need to distinguish three related philosophical positions: Humanism, Transhumanism and Posthumanism and explain how they are related.

Humanism (H)

For the purposes of this argument, a philosophical humanist is anyone who believes that humans are importantly distinct from non-humans.

For example, many humanists have claimed that humans are distinguished by their reasoning prowess from nonhuman animals. One traditional view common to Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Rousseau, Kant and others is that humans are responsive to reasons while animals respond only to sensory stimuli and feeling. Being rational allows humans to bypass or suppress emotions such as fear or anger and (for better or worse) cultivate normatively sanctioned forms of action and affection.

Responsiveness to reasons is both a cognitive and a moral capacity. The fact that I can distinguish between principles like equality and freedom, for example, allows me to see these as alternative principles of conduct: The power to set an end any end whatsoever is the characteristic of humanity (as distinguished from animality) (Kant 1948, 51).

Most humanists claim that the capacities such as rationality or sociability that distinguish us from cats, dogs and chimps also single us out for special treatment.[1]

For Kant, this capacity to choose the reasons for our actions to form a will, as he puts it, is the only thing that is good in an unqualified way (Kant 1948, 62).

Even thinkers who allow that the human capacity for self-shaping is just one good among a plurality of equivalent but competing goods claim that autonomy confers a dignity on humans that should be protected by laws and cultivated by the providing the means to exercise it.

Thus most humanists hold some conception of what makes a distinctively human life a valuable one and have developed precepts and methods for protecting and developing these valuable attributes.

At the risk of oversimplifying, the generic humanist techniques for achieving this are politics and education.

For example, in Politics 1 Aristotle claimed that virtues like justice, courage or generosity need a political organization to provide the leisure, training, opportunities and resources to develop and exercise these valuable traits:

Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, andthat man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and notby mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity;he is like the

Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,

whom Homer denounces- the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts

Rousseau and Marx, likewise see the political as the setting in which humans become fully human. Liberal political philosophers may be more wary of attributing intrinsic value to politics but most see the social goods secured by it as thesine qua non of a decent existence.

Transhumanism (H+)

Transhumanists share core humanist values and aspiration. They think that human-distinctive attributes like rationality and autonomy are good, as are human social emotions and human aesthetic sensibilities.

They also think that these capacities should be cultivated where possible and protected: e.g. by ensuring basic liberties and providing the resources for their fullest possible development.

However, they believe that the traditional methods that humanists have used to develop human capacities are limited in their scope by the material constraints of human biology and that of nature more generally.

Our biological and material substrate was not a political issue until relatively recently because we lacked the technological means to alter it. Although philosophers like Aristotle, Hume and Kant proposed theories of human nature, this nature was essentially an encapsulated black box. One could know what it did and why it did it, but not how it did it. Thus a basic cognitive function, such as imagination is described by Kant as ahidden art in the depths of the human soul, whose true operations we can divine from nature and lay unveiled before our eyes only with difficulty (Kant 1978, A1412/B1801).

Transhumanists believes that prospective developments in a suite of technologies called the NBIC technologies and sciences will at last allow humans unprecedented control over their own and morphology.

NBIC stands for Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science.

The smarter we are the more effectively we can develop techniques for developing human capacities: e.g. by eliminating starvation or scarcity with new agricultural and manufacturing techniques, finding cures for diseases or by becoming better democratic deliberators.

Thus if advancing human welfare is a moral priority, and extending human cognitive capacities is the best way of achieving this, we should extend our cognitive capacities using NBIC technologies all other things being equal (A supplementary argument for a transhuman politics assumes that certain capacities are necessarily characterized in terms of some end or fulfilment. Thus they are exercised appropriately when their possessor strives to refine and improve them See Mulhall 1998).

The exercise of rationality requires many cognitive aptitudes: perception, working and long-term memory, general intelligence and the capacity to acquire cultural tools such as languages and reasoning methods. There appear to have been significant increases the level of general intelligence in industrialized countries during the twentieth century particularly at the lower end of the scale. These may be explained by public health initiatives such as the removal of organic lead from paints and petrol, improved nutrition and free public education.

These increases, if real, are a clear social good. However, there seems to be a limit to the effect of environmental factors upon cognition because the efficiency of our brains is constrained by the speed, interconnectedness, noisiness and density of the neurons packed into our skulls.

Thus the best scientists, philosophers or artists currently alive are no more intelligent or creative than Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz or Kant. There are far more thinkers on the planet than in Aristotles time and they are better equipped than ever before but their minds, it seems, are no more able than those of previous artists, scientists and philosophers.

For transhumanist thinkers like Nick Bostrom and Ray Kurzweil, this suggests that many major improvements of intelligence will require us to escape our biology by outsourcing our thinking to non-biological platforms such as computing devices. The components of the fastest computers operate tens of millions times faster than the spiking frequency of the fastest human nerve cell (neuron) so this suggests an obvious way in which humans transcend the biological limitations on our brains.[2]

Many early 21st century humans offload the tedious tasks like arithmetic, memorizing character strings like phone numbers or searching for the local 24-hour dry cleaner to computing devices. Transhumanists claim that the process of outsourcing biologically based cognition onto non-biological platforms is liable to accelerate as our artificially intelligent devices get more intelligent and as we devise smarter ways of integrating computing hardware into our neurocomputational wetware. Here the convergence of nanotechnology, information technology and biotechnology is liable to be key.

Brain Computer Interfaces like the BrainGate BCI show that it is possible to directly interface computer operated systems with neural tissue, allowing tetraplegic patients to control devices such as robotic arms with their thoughts.

Transhumanists see future humans becoming ever more intimate with responsive computer systems that can extend physical functions using robotic limbs or arms well as cognitive functions such as perception or working memory.

Thus it seems quite possible that future humans or transhumans will be increasingly indistinguishable from their technology. Humans will become cyborgs or cybernetic organisms like the Borg in the TV series Star Trek with many of the functions associated with thinking, perception and even consciousness subserved by increasingly fast and subtle computing devices.

As Star Trek aficionados will be aware, the Borg do not seem to represent an attractive ideal for the humanist who values individual autonomy and reason. The Borg area technological swarm intelligence like an ant or termite colony whose individual members are slaved to goals of the Collective.

Collectively the Borg possesses great cognitive powers and considerable technical prowess though these powers emerge from the interactions of highly networked drones, each of which has its human rationality, agency and sociability violently suppressed.

However, many argue that it is nave to associate the status of the cyborg with that of dehumanized machines.

The cognitive scientist and philosopher Andy Clark has argued that the integration of technology into biology is a historical process that has defined human beings since the development of flint tools, writing and architecture. We are, in Clarks words, Natural Born Cyborgs whose mental life has always extruded into culturally constructed niches such as languages and archives:

The promise, or perhaps threatened, transition to a world of wired humans and semi-intelligent gadgets is just one more move in an ancient game. . . We are already masters at incorporating nonbiological stuff and structure deep into our physical and cognitive routines. To appreciate this is to cease to believe in any post-human future and to resist the temptation to define ourselves in brutal opposition to the very worlds in which so many of us now live, love and work (Clark 2003, 142).

If this is the case, then perhaps the wired, transhuman future that I am sketching here will still be inhabited by beings whose aspirations and values will be recognizable to humanists like Aristotle, Rousseau and Kant.

These transhuman descendants might still value autonomy, sociability and artistic expression. They will just be much better at being rational, sensitive and expressive. Perhaps, also, these skills will repose in bodies that are technologically modified by advanced biotechnologies to be healthier and far more resistant to ageing or damage than ours. But the capacities that define that humanist tradition here are not obviously dependent on a particular kind of physical form.

For this reason transhumanists believe that we should add morphological freedom the freedom of physical form to the traditional liberal rights of freedom of movement and freedom of expression. We should be free do discover new forms of embodiment e.g. new ways of integrating ourselves with cognitive technologies in order to improve on the results of traditional humanizing techniques like liberal arts education or public health legislation.

Posthumanism (SP)

As someone who shares many of the humanist values and aspirations that Ive described, Ill admit to finding the transhuman itinerary for our future attractive. Perhaps some version of it will also be an ecological and economic necessity as we assume responsibility for a planetary ecosystem populated by nine billion humans.

However, there is a catch. While the technological prospectus Ive given may result in beings that are recognizably like us: only immeasurably smarter, nicer, weller and more capable. It might produce beings that are not human at all in some salient respect.

Such technologically engendered nonhumans or posthumans may not be the kinds of beings to which humanist values apply. They may still be immeasurably smarter and more robust than we are, but also alien ways that we cannot easily understand.

I call the position according to which there might be posthumans Speculative Posthumanism to distinguish it from posthuman philosophies not directly relevant to this discussion.

The speculative posthumanist is committed to the following claim:

(SP) Descendants of current humans could cease to be human by virtue of a history of technical alteration.

Clearly, this is a very schematic statement and needs some unpacking.

For example, it does not explain what ceasing to be human could involve. If Clark and the transhumanists are right, then ceasing to be human is not just a matter of altering ones hardware or wetware. A human cyborg modified to live in hostile environments like the depths of the sea or space might look strange to us but might use a natural language whose morphology and syntax is learnable unmodified humans, value her autonomy and have characteristic human social emotions such as exclusive feelings towards other family members or amour-propre.[3] Thus many of the traits with which we pick out humans from nonhumans could well generalize beyond morphology.

Some argue that the self-shaping, reflective rationality that Kant thought distinguished humanity from animality is an obvious constituent of a human essence. An essential property of a kind is a property that no member of that kind can lack. If this is right, then losing the capacity for practical rationality by some technological process (as with the Borg) is a decisive, if unappealing, path to posthumanity.

It can be objected of course that members of the human species (very young children) lack the capacity to exercise reflective rationality while other humans (individuals with severe mental disabilities) are not able to acquire it. Thus that it cannot be a necessary condition for humanity. Being rational might better be described as a qualification for moral personhood: where a person is simply a rational agent capable of shaping its own life and living on fair terms with other persons.

If posthumans were to qualify as moral persons by this or some other criterion we appear to have a basis for a posthuman republicanism. The fact that other beings may be differently embodied from regular humans intelligent robots, cyborgs or cognitively enhanced animals does not prevent us living with them as equals.

However, it is possible to conceive of technological alterations producing life forms or worlds so alien that they are not recognizably human lives or worlds.

In a 1993 article The Coming Technological Singularity: How to survive in the posthuman era the computer scientist Vernor Vinge argued that the invention of a technology for creating entities with greater than human intelligence would lead to the end of human dominion of the planet and the beginning of a posthuman era dominated by intelligences vastly greater than ours (Vinge 1993).

For Vinge, this point could be reached via recursive improvements in the technology. If humans or human-equivalent intelligences could use the technology to create superhuman intelligences the resultant entities could make even more intelligent entities, and so on.

Thus a technology for intelligence creation or intelligence amplification would constitute a singular point or singularity beyond which the level of mentation on this planet might increase exponentially and without limit.

The form of this technology is unimportant for Vinges argument. It could be a powerful cognitive enhancement technique, a revolution in machine intelligence or synthetic life, or some as yet unenvisaged process. The technology needs to be extendible in as much that improving it yields corresponding increases in the intelligence produced. Our only current means of producing human-equivalent intelligence is non-extendible: If we have better sex . . . it does not follow that our babies will be geniuses (Chalmers 2010: 18).

The posthuman minds that would result from this intelligence explosion could be so vast, according to Vinge, that we have no models for their transformative potential. The best we can do to grasp the significance of this transcendental event is to draw analogies with an earlier revolution in intelligence: the emergence of posthuman minds would be as much a step-change in the development of life on earth as the The rise of humankind.

Vinges singularity hypothesis the claim that intelligence-making technology would generate posthuman intelligence by recursive improvement is practically and philosophically important. If it is true and its preconditions feasible, its importance may outweigh other political and environmental concerns for these are predicated on human invariants such as biological embodiment, which may not obtain following a singularity.

However, even if a singularity is not technically possible or not imminent the Singularity Hypothesis (SH) still raises a troubling issue concerning our capacity to evaluate the long-run consequences of our technical activity in areas such as the NBIC technologies. This is because Vinges prognosis presupposes a weaker, more general claim to the effect that activity in NBIC areas or similar might generate forms of life which might be significantly alien or other to ours.

If we assume Speculative Posthumanism it seems we can adopt either of two policies towards the posthuman prospect.

Firstly, we can account for it: that is, assess the ethical implications of contributing to the creation of posthumans through our current technological activities.

Vinges scenario gives us reasons for thinking that the differences between humans and posthumans could be so great as to render accounting impossible or problematic in the cases that matter. The differences stressed in Vinges essay are cognitive: posthumans might be so much smarter than humans that we could not understand their thoughts or anticipate the transformative effects of posthuman technology. There might be other very radical differences. Posthumans might have experiences so different from ours that we cannot envisage what living a posthuman life would be like, let alone whether it would be worthwhile or worthless one. Finally, the structure of posthuman minds might be very different from our kind of subjectivity.

Moral personhood presumably has threshold cognitive and affective preconditions such as the capacity to evaluate actions, beliefs and desires (practical rationality) and a capacity for the emotions, and affiliations informing these evaluations. However, human-style practical reason might not be accessible to a being with nonsubjective phenomenology. Such an entity could be incapable of experiencing itself as a bounded individual with a life that might go better or worse for it.

Read more:
Humanism, Transhumanism and Posthumanism

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Originally posted here:
A2 Yoga, 2030 Commerce Blvd., Ann Arbor, MI:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives, Annie Dillard wrote in her timeless reflection on presence over productivity a timely antidote to the central anxiety of our productivity-obsessed age. Indeed, my own New Years resolution has been to stop measuring my days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence. But what, exactly, makes that possible?

This concept of presence is rooted in Eastern notions of mindfulness the ability to go through life with crystalline awareness and fully inhabit our experience largely popularized in the West by British philosopher and writer Alan Watts (January 6, 1915November 16, 1973), who also gave us this fantastic meditation on the life of purpose. In the altogether excellent 1951 volume The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety (public library), Watts argues that the root of our human frustration and daily anxiety is our tendency to live for the future, which is an abstraction. He writes:

If to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are crying for the moon. We have no such assurance. The best predictions are still matters of probability rather than certainty, and to the best of our knowledge every one of us is going to suffer and die. If, then, we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are certainly not adapted to living in a finite world where, despite the best plans, accidents will happen, and where death comes at the end.

What keeps us from happiness, Watts argues, is our inability to fully inhabit the present:

The primary consciousness, the basic mind which knows reality rather than ideas about it, does not know the future. It lives completely in the present, and perceives nothing more than what is at this moment. The ingenious brain, however, looks at that part of present experience called memory, and by studying it is able to make predictions. These predictions are, relatively, so accurate and reliable (e.g., everyone will die) that the future assumes a high degree of reality so high that the present loses its value.

But the future is still not here, and cannot become a part of experienced reality until it is present. Since what we know of the future is made up of purely abstract and logical elements inferences, guesses, deductions it cannot be eaten, felt, smelled, seen, heard, or otherwise enjoyed. To pursue it is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead. This is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly anyone enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes, and assurances.

Watts argues that our primary mode of relinquishing presence is by leaving the body and retreating into the mind that ever-calculating, self-evaluating, seething cauldron of thoughts, predictions, anxieties, judgments, and incessant meta-experiences about experience itself. Writing more than half a century before our age of computers, touch-screens, and the quantified self, Watts admonishes:

The brainy modern loves not matter but measures, no solids but surfaces.

[]

The working inhabitants of a modern city are people who live inside a machine to be batted around by its wheels. They spend their days in activities which largely boil down to counting and measuring, living in a world of rationalized abstraction which has little relation to or harmony with the great biological rhythms and processes. As a matter of fact, mental activities of this kind can now be done far more efficiently by machines than by men so much so that in a not too distant future the human brain may be an obsolete mechanism for logical calculation. Already the human computer is widely displaced by mechanical and electrical computers of far greater speed and efficiency. If, then, mans principal asset and value is his brain and his ability to calculate, he will become an unsaleable commodity in an era when the mechanical operation of reasoning can be done more effectively by machines.

[]

If we are to continue to live for the future, and to make the chief work of the mind prediction and calculation, man must eventually become a parasitic appendage to a mass of clockwork.

To be sure, Watts doesnt dismiss the mind as a worthless or fundamentally perilous human faculty. Rather, he insists that it if we let its unconscious wisdom unfold unhampered like, for instance, what takes place during the incubation stage of unconscious processing in the creative process it is our ally rather than our despot. It is only when we try to control it and turn it against itself that problems arise:

Working rightly, the brain is the highest form of instinctual wisdom. Thus it should work like the homing instinct of pigeons and the formation of the fetus in the womb without verbalizing the process or knowing how it does it. The self-conscious brain, like the self-conscious heart, is a disorder, and manifests itself in the acute feeling of separation between I and my experience. The brain can only assume its proper behavior when consciousness is doing what it is designed for: not writhing and whirling to get out of present experience, but being effortlessly aware of it.

And yet the brain does writhe and whirl, producing our great human insecurity and existential anxiety amidst a universe of constant flux. (For, as Henry Miller memorably put it, It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis.) Paradoxically, recognizing that the experience of presence is the only experience is also a reminder that our I doesnt exist beyond this present moment, that there is no permanent, static, and immutable self which can grant us any degree of security and certainty for the future and yet we continue to grasp for precisely that assurance of the future, which remains an abstraction. Our only chance for awakening from this vicious cycle, Watts argues, is bringing full awareness to our present experience something very different from judging it, evaluating it, or measuring it up against some arbitrary or abstract ideal. He writes:

There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. But the contradiction lies a little deeper than the mere conflict between the desire for security and the fact of change. If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure. To be secure means to isolate and fortify the I, but it is just the feeling of being an isolated I which makes me feel lonely and afraid. In other words, the more security I can get, the more I shall want.

To put it still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.

He takes especial issue with the very notion of self-improvement something particularly prominent in the season of New Years resolutions and admonishes against the implication at its root:

I can only think seriously of trying to live up to an ideal, to improve myself, if I am split in two pieces. There must be a good I who is going to improve the bad me. I, who has the best intentions, will go to work on wayward me, and the tussle between the two will very much stress the difference between them. Consequently I will feel more separate than ever, and so merely increase the lonely and cut-off feelings which make me behave so badly.

Happiness, he argues, isnt a matter of improving our experience, or even merely confronting it, but remaining present with it in the fullest possible sense:

To stand face to face with insecurity is still not to understand it. To understand it, you must not face it but be it. It is like the Persian story of the sage who came to the door of Heaven and knocked. From within the voice of God asked, Who is there and the sage answered, It is I. In this House, replied the voice, there is no room for thee and me. So the sage went away, and spent many years pondering over this answer in deep meditation. Returning a second time, the voice asked the same question, and again the sage answered, It is I. The door remained closed. After some years he returned for the third time, and, at his knocking, the voice once more demanded, Who is there? And the sage cried, It is thyself! The door was opened.

We dont actually realize that there is no security, Watts asserts, until we confront the myth of fixed selfhood and recognize that the solid I doesnt exist something modern psychology has termed the self illusion. And yet that is incredibly hard to do, for in the very act of this realization there is a realizing self. Watts illustrates this paradox beautifully:

While you are watching this present experience, are you aware of someone watching it? Can you find, in addition to the experience itself, an experiencer? Can you, at the same time, read this sentence and think about yourself reading it? You will find that, to think about yourself reading it, you must for a brief second stop reading. The first experience is reading. The second experience is the thought, I am reading. Can you find any thinker, who is thinking the thought, I am reading? In other words, when present experience is the thought, I am reading, can you think about yourself thinking this thought?

Once again, you must stop thinking just, I am reading. You pass to a third experience, which is the thought, I am thinking that I am reading. Do not let the rapidity with which these thoughts can change deceive you into the feeling that you think them all at once.

[]

In each present experience you were only aware of that experience. You were never aware of being aware. You were never able to separate the thinker from the thought, the knower from the known. All you ever found was a new thought, a new experience.

What makes us unable to live with pure awareness, Watts points out, is the ball and chain of our memory and our warped relationship with time:

The notion of a separate thinker, of an I distinct from the experience, comes from memory and from the rapidity with which thought changes. It is like whirling a burning stick to give the illusion of a continuous circle of fire. If you imagine that memory is a direct knowledge of the past rather than a present experience, you get the illusion of knowing the past and the present at the same time. This suggests that there is something in you distinct from both the past and the present experiences. You reason, I know this present experience, and it is different from that past experience. If I can compare the two, and notice that experience has changed, I must be something constant and apart.

But, as a matter of fact, you cannot compare this present experience with a past experience. You can only compare it with a memory of the past, which is a part of the present experience. When you see clearly that memory is a form of present experience, it will be obvious that trying to separate yourself from this experience is as impossible as trying to make your teeth bite themselves.

[]

To understand this is to realize that life is entirely momentary, that there is neither permanence nor security, and that there is no I which can be protected.

And therein lies the crux of our human struggle:

The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the I out of the experience. We pretend that we are amoebas, and try to protect ourselves from life by splitting in two. Sanity, wholeness, and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate I or mind can be found.

To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, I am listening to this music, you are not listening.

The Wisdom of Insecurity is immeasurably wonderful existentially necessary, even in its entirety, and one of those books bound to stay with you for a lifetime.

Thanks, Ken

See the original post:
Alan Watts on how to live with presence - Brain Pickings

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Technology Sales Training | IT Sales Training | TSRI

Wednesday, April13

Keep abstaining ... from blood.Acts 15:29.

Any one of us could suddenly find ourselves facing the blood issue. Or a family member or dear friend could unexpectedly be confronted with the issue of whether to accept a blood transfusion or not. During such a crisis, decisions also need to be made regarding blood fractions and medical procedures. Therefore, it is very important to do research and prepare for a possible emergency. Along with prayer, such measures will help us to take a firm stand and avoid compromising on the matter. Surely we do not want to sadden Jehovahs heart by accepting something that his Word condemns! Many medical professionals and other advocates of blood transfusion appeal to people to donate blood in hopes of saving lives. However, Jehovahs holy people acknowledge that the Creator has the right to say how blood is to be treated. To him, any sort of blood is sacred. (Lev. 17:10) We must be determined to obey his law on blood. w14 11/15 2:10, 15

God made you alive.Eph. 2:1.

What a contrast there is between young servants of Jehovah and youths of this world! Many who do not serve Jehovah lead a self-centered way of life, focusing only on what they want. Some researchers call them Generation Me. By the way they talk and dress, they give evidence of disdain for the older generation, whom they view as not with it. That spirit is all around us. Thus, young servants of Jehovah find that it takes real effort to avoid it and to accept Gods view. Even in the first century, Paul found it necessary to urge fellow believers to avoid the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience and in which they at one time walked. (Eph. 2:2,3) Young ones who see the need to avoid that spirit and to work unitedly with all their brothers are to be commended. (Eph. 4:25) As we approach the end of this old world, working together unitedly will become ever more important. w14 12/15 3:3, 4

Those who [marry] will have tribulation in their flesh.1Cor. 7:28.

It is not unusual for married couples to experience some tribulation in their flesh. Why? Simply dealing with everyday troubles can strain marital ties. Hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and miscommunications caused by the imperfect tongue can be a challenge in the best of marriages. (Jas. 3:2, 5,8) Many couples also have difficulty in coping with demanding employment while caring for children. Stress and exhaustion make it difficult for some couples to take the time they need in order to strengthen their marriage. Their love and respect for each other may be eroded by financial difficulties, health problems, or other hardships. Furthermore, the foundation of what seemed to be a strong marriage can be undermined by the works of the flesh, such as sexual immorality, brazen conduct, hostility, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, and dissensions.Gal. 5:19-21. w15 1/15 3:2

See the rest here:
JW.ORG - Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

~ Team photo November 2013 ~

The W3C Team includes 71 people working from locations across the globe. W3C is hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory [MIT/CSAIL] in the United States, at the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics [ERCIM] in Sophia-Antipolis in France, at the Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus in Japan and at the Beihang University in China. With a truly international flavor, the Team includes engineers from more than 10 different countries. Read the Team planet, the aggregation of some of the staff's blogs.

Would you like to work for W3C? See the latest Job Postings -- join the W3C Team at MIT, ERCIM, Keio or Beihang!

Shadi Abou-Zahra works with the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) as Activity Lead of the WAI International Program Office, which includes groups that are responsible for education and outreach, coordination with research, general discussion on web accessibility, coordination with the WAI Technical Activity, and WAI liaisons with other organizations including standards organizations and disability groups. Shadi coordinates WAI outreach in Europe, accessibility evaluation techniques, and international standards promotion and harmonization activities. He chairs the W3C/WAI Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG), is the staff contact of the W3C/WAI Research and Development Working Group (RDWG), and participates in the W3C/WAI Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG). See W3C page for Shadi Abou-Zahra.

Phil Archer is the Data Activity Lead working to make ever more effective use of the Web as a platform for data.

He originally joined the team to work on the Mobile Web Initiative in February 2009, specifically to work on developing and delivering training in this area. Before joining the team he'd been a participant in the Mobile Web Best Practices working group (joining at its inception in June 2005) and was an editor of, or acknowledged contributor to, 6 of its documents.

Separately, Phil also had a long involvement with the Semantic Web activity, notably as chair of the POWDER working group. As part of this role he co-edited most of the documents and created one of the two reference implementations. It was this work that lead Phil to focus on the area of linked data and, via work on eGovernment and open data, eventually to take up his current role in the Data Activity.

Phil Archer maintains an active online presence through his personal Web site.

Maria Auday is assistant to Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe, CEO. She is part of the administrative team and organizes some of the annual W3C meetings that are lead by Jeff.

Tim is now the overall Director of the W3C. He is the 3COM Founders Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering, and at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT's CSAIL.

Tim founded and is on the board of the World Wide Web Foundation, whose mission is consistent with W3C's only broader. The Web Foundation will put the power of the Web into the hands of people around the world through effective, high-impact programs.

Tim invented the World Wide Web in 1989 while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. He wrote the first WWW client (a browser-editor running under NeXTStep) and the first WWW server along with most of the communications software, defining URLs, HTTP and HTML. Prior to his work at CERN, Tim was a founding director of Image Computer Systems, a consultant in hardware and software system design, real-time communications graphics and text processing, and a principal engineer with Plessey Telecommunications in Poole, England. He is a graduate of Oxford University. More...

Alan Bird is the Global Business Development Lead for W3C. In this role, Mr. Bird leads W3C staff efforts internationally to strengthen the W3C Membership program, identify business development strategies, and seek new revenue streams to support the organization. Alan joined W3C in January 2011.

Before joining W3C, Alan was a key executive in two small information security companies where he drove strategic business development. Prior to these appointments, he spent several years each with IBM, Compuware, Legent, and Cullinet in a wide variety of roles, many of which involved creating new business opportunities. Earlier in his career, he worked in the IT organization of Burlington Industries, AVX Ceramics, Family Dollar Stores, and Ingersoll-Rand. This combination of work experiences has provided Alan with a solid foundation from which to drive W3Cs business development activities.

Bert Bos completed his Ph.D. in Groningen, The Netherlands, on a prototyping language for graphical user interfaces. He then went on to develop a browser targeted at humanities scholars, before joining the W3C at INRIA/Sophia-Antipolis in October 1995. He is co-inventor of CSS and created & led W3C's Internationalization activity. After working on HTML and XML, he is now leading the CSS and Mathematics activities.

Carine joined the Sophia Antipolis W3C team in December 2001 as XML engineer, in the Jigsaw activity. She holds an engineer degree and a PhD in Computer Science. Her research area was distributed artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems. Since 2002, she has been working in the Web Services Activity and the XML Activity as staff contact, in some EU-funded projects, and in the Systems Team.

Judy Brewer joined W3C in September 1997 as Director of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) International Program Office. She is Domain Leader for WAI, and coordinates five areas of work with respect to Web accessibility: ensuring that W3C technologies support accessibility; developing guidelines for Web content, browsers, and authoring tools; improving tools for evaluation and repair of Web sites; conducting education and outreach; and coordinating with research and development that can affect future Web accessibility.

Judy is W3C's chief liaison on accessibility policy and standardization internationally, promoting awareness and implementation of Web accessibility, and ensuring effective dialog among industry, the disability community, accessibility researchers, and government on the development of consensus-based accessibility solutions.

Prior to joining W3C, Judy was Project Director for the Massachusetts Assistive Technology Partnership, a U.S. federally-funded project promoting access to assistive technology for people with disabilities. She worked on several national initiatives to increase access to mainstream technology for people with disabilities and to improve dialog between industry and the disability community. Judy has a background in applied linguistics, education, technical writing, management and disability advocacy.

Laurent joined the W3C team in September 2000 to participate in the development of Amaya. He is now part of the Sytems Team. Before joining the W3C, he worked as an engineer at INRIA Grenoble.

Laurent hold an engineering degree in computer science from the CNAM Grenoble (Conservatoire National des Arts et Mtiers) in 1997.

e-mailjerome@w3.org

Jrme joined the W3C Team in June 2006. Prior to that, Jrme worked as a researcher and research director at INRIA, France, in the areas of automatic VLSI design, software engineering, and knowledge-based systems. Jrme was the main inventor and developer of the programming language Le-Lisp. Jrme co-founded ILOG in 1987, taking on the roles of Chief Scientific Officer and Director. Up till 2000, he was a member of the French Co-ordination Committee for Science and Information Technology and Communication of the National Ministry for Education, Research and Technology. Starting in 1995, he was Chief Information Officer of the genomics company GENSET.

On May 2005, ERCIM's Board of Directors has nominated Jrme as Manager of ERCIM.

Yingying joined W3C at Beihang in August 2015. Her main focuses are Automotive and Web of Things in Ubiquitous Web Domain. Prior to joining W3C, Yingying worked for ten years for Nokia on development of Smart Devices. Before that she worked for several years for Motorola on development of Mobile Applications . Yingying received her B.S. and M.S. on Telecommunication and Information System from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

Franois takes part in on-going discussions and developments around the convergence between Web and TV, with a specific focus on multi-screen scenarios. He contributes to related EU-funded projects MediaScape and Global ITV.

Franois initially joined W3C in November 2007 from Microsoft where he integrated an on-portal mobile search engine called MotionBridge. From 2007 to 2011, he served as staff contact for the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group, the Web and TV Interest Group, the Web Real-Time Communications Working Group and was co-Activity Lead for the Web and TV Activity. He left W3C at the end of 2011 to develop cross-platform Web applications in a French start-up called Joshfire. Franois came back home on May 2014.

Franois holds an engineering degree from the Ecole Centrale Paris.

Daniel Dardailler joined the W3C team in July 1996 and after leading various technical projects, like the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) or the W3C QA activity, and serving as Europe operational manager for several years, he is now W3C Associate Chair for Europe and W3C Director of International Relations.

Prior to working for W3C, Daniel was already working for standard as a Software Architect for the X Window System Consortium, responsible for pieces of the Motif toolkit and the Common Unix Desktop.

Daniel holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Nice/Sophia-Antipolis (89) in the area of digital typography and X protocol network.

Marie-Claire Forgue now serves as Head of W3C Training and is a passionate advocate for the Web Developer community. She recently developed and launched the W3DevCampus portal where Web developers worldwide can sign up for W3C online training courses related to mobile Web and HTML5 technologies. Additionally, Marie-Claire continues to participate in the dissemination activities of European projects, such as HTML5 Apps and MediaScape. She joined W3C in 2001 and served as Head of W3C European Communications for over 10 years.

Marie-Claire received a Ph.D. degree (computer graphics and parallel processing) in Computer Science from the University of Nice and INRIA, France. After a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Dynamic Graphics Project Lab at the University of Toronto, Canada, she worked in NTT's Human Interface Lab, Japan, for two years. Her research interests were focused on illumination algorithms and scene modeling. After that, she studied filmmaking in Vancouver, Canada. She has directed several short films and documentaries, and got interested in interactive multimedia back in 1993.

Bernard Gidon joined W3C in 2011 to lead business development in Europe, Middle-East and Africa (EMEA). He is based in Sophia Antipolis, France. In the last 20 years, he has developed organizations and activities for hardware, software and telecom companies (Apricot,Softway, Retix, Vertel, AdvenNet, Plantronics) with channel and direct accounts activities. Bernard's background in business development and sales activities, brings to W3C growth capabilities in EMEA.

Ted joined the W3C in January of 2000. He comes to the Consortium from the corporate IT community having worked for a mortgage and investment company, a power utility, an internet service provider, and a marketing and communications company. He earned a bachelors in Russian from Hobart College. He also spent some time as an English as a Second Language and Mathematics instructor.

Harry Halpin is a W3C Fellow funded by Eduserv, working as staff contact for the RDB2RDF Working Group and co-chairing the Social Web Incubator Group. Previously he was Chair of the GRDDL Working Group that focused on combining microformats and XML with the Semantic Web. Guiding his work at the W3C is his commitment to keeping the Web an universal space of information for the development of collective intelligence. He enjoys working with diverse communities to make their data accessible on the Web.

He received his Ph.D. in Informatics from the University of Edinburgh under Henry Thompson and Andy Clark, with a thesis on theories of reference on the Web combining information retrieval and knowledge representation. Previously, he worked on the intersection of philosophy and literature with computing at Duke University and held a DAAD scholarship to Freie Universitt Berlin. He enjoys studying Web phenomena empirically, such as the development of consensus in collaborative tagging.

Shawn joined W3C in February 2003 to lead worldwide education and outreach activities promoting web accessibility for people with disabilities through the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). [Shawn Lawton Henry at W3C WAI] Prior to joining W3C, Shawn worked as a consultant with research centers, education providers, government agencies, non-profit organizations, Fortune 500 companies, and international standards organizations to develop and implement strategies to optimize design for usability and accessibility. She holds a BSc in English with focus on computer science and technical writing, and an MSc in Digital Inclusion. [About Shawn]

Ivan graduated as mathematician at the Etvs Lornd University of Budapest, Hungary, in 1979. After a brief scholarship at the Universit Paris VI he joined the Hungarian research institute in computer science (SZTAKI) where he worked for 6 years. He left Hungary in 1986 and, after a few years in industry, he joined the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Sciences (CWI) in Amsterdam where he has held a tenure position since 1988. He received a PhD degree in Computer Science in 1990 at the Leiden University, in the Netherlands. Ivan joined the W3C team as Head of Offices in January 2001 while maintaining his position at CWI. He served as Head of Offices until June 2006, then as Semantic Web Activity Lead until December 2013. Since June of 2013 he is Digital Publishing Activity Lead.

Before joining W3C Ivan worked in quite different areas (distributed and dataflow programming, language design, system programming), but he spend most of his research years in computer graphics and visualization. He also participated in various graphics related ISO standardization activities and software developments. Between autumn 2007 and 2014 he was also member of SWSA (Semantic Web Science Association), the committee responsible for the International Semantic Web Conferences series. He was the co-chair of the 9th World Wide Web Conference, in Amsterdam, May 2000. He is member of IW3C2, the committee responsible for the World Wide Web Conference series.

His professional home page contains a list of his publications and details of the various R&D projects he participated in before W3C. You can also look at his W3C or personal home pages.

Dr. Philipp Hoschka is a Deputy Director of the W3C. His current work focuses on the Web of Things, which is about leveraging open Web technology to overcome current silos in the "Internet of Things". In 2012, he launched W3C efforts on automotive, focusing on the use of HTML5 for in-car infotainment apps. Philipp also founded and leads W3C's Ubiquitous Web Domain which has the mission to bring the benefits of Web technology to the emerging "Post-PC" world, including mobile and television devices. In the past, Philipp created W3C's Mobile Web Initiative and pioneered work on integrating audio and video into the Web leading to the W3C Standard SMIL. Philipp has been principal investigator in six EC research projects supporting the Ubiquitous Web Vision (MWeb, 3GWeb, MobiWeb2.0, OMWeb, MobiWebApp, HTML5Apps). Philipp holds a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, and a Master's Degree in Computer Science from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.He was visiting scholar at MIT LCS from 1998 until 2002.

e-mailhucm@w3.org

Chunming Hu had worked for the ex W3C China office since 2006 and then he joint W3C team in Jan 2013 as the Deputy Director of W3C/Beihang. He has a PhD degree on computer science and currently works as an associate professor at Beihang University. Now he is the Vice Dean of School of Computer Science, Beihang University and his main research interests includes distributed systems, software middleware, system virtualization and resource scheduling in cloud systems.

e-mailishida@w3.org

Richard joined the W3C team in July 2002 to expand the work of the Internationalization Activity. He is attached to ERCIM in France, but based in the UK.

He is Internationalization Activity Lead and staff contact of the Internationalization Core Working Group. He also coordinated the MultilingualWeb initiative, and serves on the Unicode Editorial Committee, and the Unicode Conference board.

Richard has a background in translation and interpreting, computational linguistics, software engineering, and translation tools. Prior to joining the W3C, he was an internationalization consultant, evangelizing and educating people with regard to the international design and localizability of user interfaces and documents.

As of 1 Feb 2015, Ian is the lead of W3C's Web Payments Activity.

From September 2004 through January 2015, Ian became Head of W3C Communications. He managed the Consortium's Comm activities, including press, publications, branding, marketing, and some Member relations.

Ian began at W3C in 1997 and for 7 years co-edited a number of specifications, including HTML 4.0, CSS2, DOM Level 1, three WAI Guidelines (Web Content, User Agent, Authoring Tool), the TAG's Architecture of the World Wide Web, and the W3C Process Document.

Ian Jacobs studied computer science in France after college (Yale), and worked at INRIA for five years.

Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe became the W3C CEO on 8 March 2010.

Before joining W3C, Jeff served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Novell. He was responsible for Novell's technology direction, as well as leading Novell's product business units.

Prior to that Jeff served as president of Bell Labs Research and Advanced Technologies, where he established new facilities in Ireland and India, and served as chairman of the board of the New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium.

Early in his career, after receiving a Ph.D. in computer science from MIT in 1979, Jeff joined IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. During his tenure at IBM, he held a wide variety of technical and management positions, including vice president, Systems and Software Research, corporate vice president of technology, and general manager of IBM's SecureWay business unit, where he was responsible for IBM's security, directory, and networking software business.

Xueyuan Jia formally joined W3C administration and communication team in May 2015. Before joining W3C, Xueyuan worked in Beihang University as a research assistant and be voluntarily helping with administrative and financial work of W3C/Beihang host since April 2013.

Alexandra joined the team in September 2002 as a replacement for Caroline Baron and dealt with accountancy.

She joined the Administrative Team in September 2003 and is the primary meeting planner for European meetings.

Vivien joined W3C in May 2003 as the W3C Webmaster at the MIT/CSAIL host site in Cambridge, MA USA.

Since September 2004 Vivien is working as a Systems & Network Engineer for W3C Europe at the ERCIM host site in Sophia-Antipolis, France.

Vivien graduated in September 2003 from the Ecole Suprieure en Sciences Informatiques in Sophia-Antipolis, France. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science, specializing in Networks. In June 2000, he received a two year degree in Computer Programming at the University of Lyon, France.

Yves Lafon studied Mathematics and computer science at ENSEEIHT in Toulouse, France, and at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in Montreal, Canada. His field of study was signal recognition and processing. He discovered Internet Relay Chat and the Web in Montreal in 1993 and has been making robots and games for both. He joined the W3C in October 1995 to work on W3C's experimental browser, Arena. Then he worked on Jigsaw, W3C's Java-based server, on HTTP/1.1 and started the work on SOAP 1.2.

Yves is now the TAG Team Contact, WebApps Team Contact, HTTPbis editor and Web Services Activity leader.

Philippe Le Hegaret heads the W3C Interaction Domain, which produces frontend Web technologies including HTML5, CSS3, SVG, WOFF, or Web APIs. Until July 2008, Philippe lead the W3C Architecture Domain, which produced the W3C Core technologies in the area of XML, Web Services, and Internationalization. He is a former Chair of the Document Object Model (DOM) Working Group.

Prior to joining W3C, Philippe promoted the use of XML inside Bull in 1998, also focusing on the interaction between XML and object structures. He wrote the first version of the CSS validator in 1997.

Philippe holds a Master's Degree in Computer Science from the University of Nice (France).

Angel Li joint W3C China Office as the business manager in the year of 2006. Since 2010, she had been devoted to setting up the fourth host of W3C in China together with W3C team and Beihang University. In January 2013, as the Host of W3C in China was officially launched in Beihang University, Angel Li was assigned as the Site Manager of W3C/Beihang site. Now she is responsible for managing the W3C/Beihang site and W3C China activities including Member recruiting and other W3C related work. She is currently based in Beijing, China.

Coralie joined the team in January 1999, as W3C Europe administrative assistant, with a degree in secretarial work and English as a foreign language.

She became W3C Europe administration manager until five years later she joined the W3C Communications Team. Her duties include Advisory Board scribe duties and meetings planning, W3C press clippings, management of Supporters Program applications, monitoring translators' list, being contact person for authorized translations. She is also involved in community development and outreach (microblogging, W3C blog). She was Incubator Activity Lead and is now involved in managing W3C Community and Business Groups.

In February 2015, she took on the role of Head of W3C Marketing and Communications to develop messaging, Public, Member and internal communications.; manage the Consortium's Comm activities, including press, publications, branding, marketing, and some Member relations.

e-mailjun@w3.org

Dean / Professor, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University

In 1979, he enrolled in the Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science and Technology, of Keio University and obtained degrees of MS and Ph.D in Computer Science, specializing in Computer Science, Computer Network and Computer Communication, in 1981 and 1987 respectively, both from Keio University.

In 1984, he developed the Japan University UNIX Network (JUNET). In 1988, he established WIDE Project, of which he currently has the title of the Founder. In the 1990's, he focused on the research and development of computer networks, and worked as a member of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) (1993-1995), and a member of the board of trustees of the Internet Society (ISOC) (1997-2000), as well as a member of the board of directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) (1998-2000). In the 2000's, he turned his attention also to IT governance for national government, including Prime Ministers and global IT policy communities.

He is the recipient of many distinguished awards, including IEEE Internet Award (2011); the Okawa Publications Prize (1999); Funai Achievement Award (2007); Jonathan B. Postel Service Award (2005); the Okawa Publications Prize (1999). He was inducted in the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013.

e-mailkaren@w3.org

Karen Myers develops Membership outreach and manages media and analyst relations at W3C. She originally joined W3C July 2004 to support media relations, member communications, speaking engagements, and special assignments such as W3C10, the World Wide Web's ten year anniversary celebration. Prior to W3C, Karen ran her own company and also worked for marketing and communications agencies such as BrandEquity International and Leo Burnett Technology Group, where she established a ten-person strategic planning group in Boston, and managed a global client services team in Frankfurt, Germany. She has consulted for a diversity of technology clients including Akamai, Allaire, Aprisma, Axis, CMGI, Digital, Comdial,Computer Associates, Heidelberg, IBM, Information Builders, KPMG, and Unisys.

Hirotaka joined W3C in April of 2010 after graduating from Keio University, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies. Before joining W3C, Hirotaka worked at a number of startups and had a lots of experiences from them. Hirotaka holds a master's degree in computer Science from Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University.

Osamu Nakamura received a Masters degree and Ph.D from Keio University's Department of Mathematics. The research topics for his Masters and Ph.D dissertations were related to the operating system and computer networks. From 1990, he worked at the University of Tokyo's Computer Center as an assistant professor. Major projects at the University of Tokyo included designing and constructing the campus network of the university. He moved to Keio University in 1993. He has been working for the Internet in Japan as part of JUNET and the WIDE Project as a board member. He is now a Professor at Keio University at the Faculty of Information Environmental Studies.

Antonio is a member of W3C's systems team since the summer of 2014. He works from Keio University in Japan.

His professional interests include: internet standards, open systems and free software, interfaces and usability, digital imaging, 3D, data visualisation, mobile computing.

Gerald joined W3C in September 1997 as a member of the Systems Team. He helps maintain W3C's system infrastructure including the web and mail servers, mailing lists and publishing tools. He created W3C's HTML Validation Service based on an earlier validation service he began as a student.

Prior to joining W3C, Gerald worked at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He has also worked as a Web consultant for various companies in the Edmonton area, and as a technical writer for IBM Canada in Toronto.

In his free time Gerald enjoys travel, photography, and writing software.

Gerald has a Bachelor of Science with specialization in Computing Science from the University of Alberta.

Eric joined W3C again in February 1998 to provide system support and manage tool programming. He currently works on RDF and XML protocols.His primary goal is to see that information be easily and logically accessible.

Prior to joining W3C full-time, Eric worked as a contract programmer for various organizations, including W3C, where he worked on libwww and the client applications, a PEP model library, and several system-related projects.

Eric has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and is still baffled by the futility of a college education in determining one's fate.

Liam joined the W3C in 2000; he's been working with text-based markup and digital typography since nroff days (1981) and with SGML since 1987. He worked for Yuri Rubinsky at SoftQuad Inc. in Toronto, where he was involved in the development of SoftQuad's HoTMetaL, the first commercial HTML editor for the Web, and also with SoftQuad Panorama, a browser plugin to display SGML; this in turn demonstrated a need to standardise the use of SGML on the Web, and Liam was involved in the development of the XML specification.

Liam has been involved in free software since 1983, including lq-text, a text retrieval package for Unix, the GNOME and GIMP projects, a collection of royalty-free pictures from old books, and uses and contributes to Mandriva Linux, and many other open source and free projects.

At the W3C today, Liam is XML Activity Lead and W3C technical participant for the XML Query and XSL (XSL-FO) Working Groups, and alternate contact for several other Working Groups.

Liam's personal home page

Dave is the W3C Staff contact for the System Applications Working Group. He has been closely involved with the development of Web standards since 1992, contributing to work on HTML, HTTP, MathML, XForms, voice and multimodal interaction, ubiquitous web applications, financial data, privacy and identity. Dave is currently involved in two European FP7 research projects: HTML5Apps and COMPOSE, and before that webinos, Serenoa, and PrimeLife. He has a special interest in the Web of Things. In addition to work on standards, Dave is a keen programmer, and has developed experimental web browsers (e.g. Arena), a plugin for rendering math from natural language (EzMath), a tool for cleaning up HTML (Tidy), a web page library for HTML slide presentations (Slidy), a Firefox add-on for enhanced privacy (Privacy Dashboard), and most recently, work on customizable browser-based editing of HTML. He was educated in England and obtained his doctorate from the University of Oxford, and is a visiting professor at the University of the West of England. For more information see Dave's home page.

Doug Schepers became Developer Relations Lead in 2012. He also acts as project coordinator (staff contact) for the Audio, WebApps, and Web Events Working Groups, and Rich Web Client Activity Lead. He is also active in the SVG Working Group. He joined the W3C Team in June 2007 as a Compound Document Specialist, and was previously AC Representative for Vectoreal and has been creating Web Applications for many years.

Wendy is a lawyer and technologist who leads W3C's security and privacy work through the Technology & Society Domain. She joined W3C in 2012 after a tour of legal academia and, before that, Electronic Frontier Foundation. She was drawn into open code as a law student, as the first webmaster for Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and hasn't been able to escape since. Wendy's legal research focuses on "openness," in the law and technology of online expression, user-innovation, privacy, and anonymity.

Michael[tm] Smith is a W3C Deputy Director whose areas of expertise include pharmaceuticals transportation, cyber, and extremely compartmentalized information.

e-mailsam@w3.org

Osamu "Sam" Sugimoto is the Asia Business Development Leader at W3C Keio University. In 1993 while he was working as a visiting scholar at Stanford University Electrical Engineering Department, he pioneered eCommerce in Japan specializing in selling books and media products into the Japanese retail/wholesale market. Since then he was running various startup companies as a founder/co-founder/board of director until he joined W3C Keio in March 2013. He has given lectures at numerous Japanese government & trade meetings including METI, DA, and MAFF. Project Associate Professor of Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance. Former Associate Professor of Tohoku University.

Shigeya joined W3C team in November 2015. He is a researcher specializing in Computer Networks, Computer Communications, Real-space Information System including RFID technology and Quantum information system. He is an expert on systems architecture design and software development. He involved in Internet-related systems development and its operations since 1989. He received his Ph.D. from Keio University, Graduate School of Media and Governance, in 2012. He is currently a Project Associate Professor at Graduate school of Media and Governance at Keio University, and also a Board Member of the WIDE Project. He is a member of ACM, IEEE, IEICE and IPSJ. He is currently an editorial committee member of IEICE Journal (EB).

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