Humanity 2.0
6th Oct 2011; 19:00
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Read Professor Steve Fuller's article on RSA Comment: Humanity 2.0
RSA Debate
How will we ascribe status to human life in a ‘post-human’ world? Should we take post-humanism seriously? If so, how do we define and value our humanity in the face of a future that will only otherwise confer advantage on the few? As we re-engineer the human body, and even human genome, are we attempting to realize dreams that hitherto have been largely pursued as social-engineering projects or are we doing something new?From traders and dreamers to technogeeks and philosophers, whose ideologies run the gamut from collectivism to libertarianism, a large constituency is already engaged with our enhanced future. This constituency may radically reconfigure the global political space.
The RSA gathers a high-profile panel of speakers to explore the hidden agendas behind our values and attitudes toward the place of ‘the human’ in today’s societies, and debate what must now be a key issue for the 21st century.
Speakers: Professor Steve Fuller, Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology, the Department of Sociology, the University of Warwick and author of 'Humanity 2:0'; Dr Rachel Armstrong, Senior TED Fellow and co-director, AVATAR (Advanced Virtual and Technological Architectural Research) in Architecture & Synthetic Biology, The School of Architecture & Construction, University of Greenwich; China Miéville, author of several works of fiction and non-fiction; and Dr Sarah Chan, deputy director, ISEI (Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation) & research fellow in Bioethics and Law, University of Manchester.
Chair: Dr Andy Miah, chair, Ethics and Emerging Technologies in the Faculty of Business & Creative Industries, the University of the West of Scotland.
Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #RSAhumanity
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