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A lot of humans are feeling very down on humanity these days. Maybe you’ve met them. Or maybe you’re one of them.
I’m talking about those who look around and say: Humans are destroying the planet — causing climate change, making other species go extinct. Soon enough we’ll be mucking up the cosmos, too — polluting it with still more space junk, colonizing the moon, even exporting data centers into the heavens. The world would be better off if we ourselves just go extinct!
One reader recently exemplified this rising anti-humanism by writing in to my philosophical advice column, Your Mileage May Vary, and telling me bluntly: “I’m disgusted to be a human.” I responded by reminding them that hating on humanity is neither a new nor an enlightened position. It lets us off the hook too easily, because it expects nothing of us.
But I’m also aware that this distaste for humanity isn’t only motivating old-school misanthropy these days.
It’s also motivating transhumanism, the movement that says we should use tech to proactively evolve our species into...