Revolution is a queer thing

[Summerspeaker]

Greetings from sunny New Mexico, home of delicious green chile and the nuclear bomb. I can't believe I just stumbled across this forum. I'm excited to see such an active leftist community. At present, my internet adventures focus on critiquing the transhumanist movement from queer anarchist perspective. In my waking life I attend the University of New Mexico, give out free food on the streets, watch cops, protest war, help maintain progressive community spaces, and so on. All the typical wonderful, desperate, and pathetic stuff we radicals do. The left scene here - such that it is - pulsates with animosity. We seem to hate each other more than we hate the bosses. It's struggle just to get by. Too many of us are traumatized the pervasive violence of this society, be it rapists, abusive family members, or the insane medical system. This world is a nightmare right now but that doesn't mean it has to stay this way.

I look forward to learning from y'all and contributing to the discussion. Best wishes to everyone in the struggle.

[Q]

Welcome :)

Yes, the left does seem to hate eachother quite a lot. A lot of it you'll also find here on the forum. Just ignore it as best as you can :)

[Blackscare]

What an uncommonly interesting and well thought-out introduction.

Welcome :)

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

Welcome to Revleft:)!

[revolution inaction]

hi wlecome :)

what do you mean by "critiquing the transhumanist movement"?

[Widerstand]

Welcome :)

[Sasha]

At present, my internet adventures focus on critiquing the transhumanist movement from queer anarchist perspective.


well that makes promise for an nice change of all the boring orthodox-marxist vs technocrat flamewars we normaly have. *grabs popcorn*

welcome aboard btw :)

[Summerspeaker]

what do you mean by "critiquing the transhumanist movement"?

On my blog I call out the reactionary positions and themes within transhumanism. Of these there are many. While I agree with the transhumanist vision in theory, that's only if it directed for radical social change across the board. Merely providing rich people with better toys doesn't cut it. Assuring us ever-advancing corporate research will inexorably end poverty doesn't cut it. I'm particularly interested in the relationship between gender and technology. Transhumanists have fairly progressive views but we're still talking about a bunch of bourgeois straight dudes. I base my revolutionary dreams off of Shulamith Firestone's work. Transhumanist enthusiasm for enshrining the oppressive gender distinction in sexbots and snazzier capitalist pornography makes me a sad panda.

[gorillafuck]

Welcome!:)


In my waking life I attend the University of New Mexico, give out free food on the streets, watch cops, protest war, help maintain progressive community spaces, and so on.
That's pretty cool.

[Blackscare]

Transhumanists have fairly progressive views but we're still talking about a bunch of bourgeois straight dudes. I base my revolutionary dreams off of Shulamith Firestone's work. Transhumanist enthusiasm for enshrining the oppressive gender distinction in sexbots and snazzier capitalist pornography makes me a sad panda.

As a queer and a transhumanist, I have to say you've been talking to some really boring/uncreative transhumanists :P


Not that I'm particularly interested in the sexual uses of transhumanism. Seems so mundane.

Anyway, I don't really see the connection between transhumanism and heterosexuality, although I'd be happy to hear more of your arguments in detail.

[ContrarianLemming]

On my blog I call out the reactionary positions and themes within transhumanism. Of these there are many. While I agree with the transhumanist vision in theory, that's only if it directed for radical social change across the board. Merely providing rich people with better toys doesn't cut it. Assuring us ever-advancing corporate research will inexorably end poverty doesn't cut it. I'm particularly interested in the relationship between gender and technology. Transhumanists have fairly progressive views but we're still talking about a bunch of bourgeois straight dudes. I base my revolutionary dreams off of Shulamith Firestone's work. Transhumanist enthusiasm for enshrining the oppressive gender distinction in sexbots and snazzier capitalist pornography makes me a sad panda.

awe and behold, before you, a working class anarchist transhumanist!

socialism first, or it's meaningless.

communism to fix the animal problem of man, transhumanism to fix the human problem!

[revolution inaction]

On my blog I call out the reactionary positions and themes within transhumanism. Of these there are many. While I agree with the transhumanist vision in theory, that's only if it directed for radical social change across the board. Merely providing rich people with better toys doesn't cut it. Assuring us ever-advancing corporate research will inexorably end poverty doesn't cut it. I'm particularly interested in the relationship between gender and technology. Transhumanists have fairly progressive views but we're still talking about a bunch of bourgeois straight dudes. I base my revolutionary dreams off of Shulamith Firestone's work. Transhumanist enthusiasm for enshrining the oppressive gender distinction in sexbots and snazzier capitalist pornography makes me a sad panda.


what do you mean by transhmanism?

[IndependentCitizen]

Welcome aboard, Comrade!

[Summerspeaker]

As a queer and a transhumanist, I have to say you've been talking to some really boring/uncreative transhumanists :P

Perhaps so. But there are bunches of them across the internets. Consider the key figures of the movement: Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Max More, and Aubrey de Grey. As far as I know, they all fit my description.


Not that I'm particularly interested in the sexual uses of transhumanism. Seems so mundane.Have you read Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex? Using technology for feminist revolution strikes me as plenty exciting.


Anyway, I don't really see the connection between transhumanism and heterosexuality, although I'd be happy to hear more of your arguments in detail.I invite you read my blog. In theory, transhumanism lends itself to gender radicalism. There's some of this around, but also buckets of patriarchy-affirming evolutionary psychology and porn/sexbot cheerleading.


awe and behold, before you, a working class anarchist transhumanist!

I am a graduate student from a middle-class family background. Déclassé intellectual might be more appropriate. ;)


socialism first, or it's meaningless.Wait, you're saying we shouldn't let the open free market handle technologies like artificial intelligence as Ray Kurzweil recommends? But the system worked for him! He's rich enough to pop over two-hundred pills a day. He literally pays somebody to sort supplements for him. How can you disagree with such a successful guy? :lol:

[Queercommie Girl]

Welcome to RevLeft!

As you can see from my profile, I'm also a radical queer activist who is influenced by transhumanism. However I am a Marxist not an anarchist, and I don't think transhumanism is a pressing matter in the world at the moment, nor does it objectively aid the LGBT/Queer movement, which is much more direct in the socio-economic sense. Furthermore, I believe that science and technology is intrinsically a neutral force rather than a progressive force. The fundamental problem facing humanity today is not a technological one relating to productive force, but a socio-economic one relating to productive relation.

[4 Leaf Clover]

i don't understand those radical gender politics. doesn't it represent chauvinism. i mean why making such divisions

[Jimmie Higgins]

Welcome!


i don't understand those radical gender politics. doesn't it represent chauvinism. i mean why making such divisionsWhat do you mean? The divisions already exist and these categories are placed on people by capitalist society.

I don't know much about transhumansim, but I guess if people focus on this idea as the way to "solve" problems in society, I strongly disagree with that. The problems most of us face are not primarily biological or from something wrong with the present human form - most of our preventable problems are from the way society is constructed and run (and who runs it and what their interests are).

Beyond, that, altering or modifying the human body or ability to communicate or whatnot does not seem wrong to me on an abstract level. It's like any other technology - it can be used in a way that can improve things for everyone, or it can be used to make profits for some and reinforce or compound existing inequalities and so on.

[Queercommie Girl]

i don't understand those radical gender politics. doesn't it represent chauvinism. i mean why making such divisions

Are you stupid or what? How is radical gender politics chauvinist? If anything it is anti-chauvinist since it is the rigid gender norms in class society that is culturally chauvinist.

[Summerspeaker]

Furthermore, I believe that science and technology is intrinsically a neutral force rather than a progressive force.

I completely agree with this. The traditional narrative of progress has a whole host of flaws. My interest in transhumanism comes from a desire to reclaim technology for the radical cause. I hold no illusions of inevitability. What happens in the future depends as much on the social struggle as technical innovation.


i don't understand those radical gender politics. doesn't it represent chauvinism. i mean why making such divisions

For me, the long-term goal of radical gender politics is to abolish the gender distinction itself.


The problems most of us face are not primarily biological or from something wrong with the present human form - most of our preventable problems are from the way society is constructed and run (and who runs it and what their interests are).

Why choose when you can have both? Getting sick or injured, for instance, would not become magically wonderful under socialism. It'd be better, thanks to universal health care and such, yet still decidedly unpleasant. We've ample reason to transform the body as well as society.

[Red Future]

Welcome:)!

[Queercommie Girl]

I completely agree with this. The traditional narrative of progress has a whole host of flaws. My interest in transhumanism comes from a desire to reclaim technology for the radical cause. I hold no illusions of inevitability. What happens in the future depends as much on the social struggle as technical innovation.

For me, the long-term goal of radical gender politics is to abolish the gender distinction itself.


I agree in principle but transhumanism is simply not the primary concern facing socialists in the world today.

Furthermore, gender can only be abolished on a democratic basis, otherwise it will indeed be chauvinistic. Some people may wish to have more traditional forms of gender differentiation, and it is bureaucratic to impose transhumanist and post-genderist doctrines from above.

I don't actually have a problem with people who prefer more "traditional" gender norms at a purely personal level, as long as they don't affect general policy and don't impose it on other people.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Why choose when you can have both? Getting sick or injured, for instance, would not become magically wonderful under socialism. It'd be better, thanks to universal health care and such, yet still decidedly unpleasant. We've ample reason to transform the body as well as society.Who said anything about choosing one over the other? My point was that whatever advance of technology or whatnot that happens will not benefit most people unless it is in the context of a reorganization of society along cooperative and democratic lines. Advances in GM food or just basic selection of food under capitalism do not help feed more people really, they are there primarily to increase profitability by making apples easier to ship or last longer on the shelves. Without the profit motive, then advances would be focused on goals that people want, not companies and so we would all be able to benefit from new advances as long as they system is run by people themselves in their own interest.