Ok, I don’t speak up too often in this blog. It’s not that I can’t write. I actually write fairly well. I just like to write many drafts of something before someone else reads it. That might be why I prefer writing news stories and essays as opposed to blogging.

[In truth I am currently editing this post the day after posting it, and I'll probably change it again later today]

I do feel that BTS makes a great weblog. It does a good job of logging our apparently accelerating ascent into a future that makes even the best crystal balls go static-y.

Now, if you want to read some really good blogwriting go check out Micheal Anissimov’s famous blog. Of course, most of you have read his work and many of you know him personally.

Micheal…you are my blog hero.

With that said I’d like to move on and let you know that I’ve been conducting an email interview with James Hughes, Secretary of the transhumanist organization Humanity+, formerly the World Transhumanist Association. Instead of waiting to finish the interview I will go ahead and post the first question and response today.

Before I launch into the interview, I’d like to mention that the new H+ magazine that Humanity+ is putting out is wonderful. RU Sirius and the copy editors have a done a great job and most of all I’d like to thank the donors that made it possible.

After reading the new H+ mag I’d have to say: “Wired is expired!”

Here’s the interview:

Chris Williamson asks:
What sparked the recent decision to change from the World
Transhumanist Association to Humanity+?

James Hughes replies:
In January 2008 we elected some new members to the Board who had experience with more sophisticated fundraising and marketing than the previous Board members had. Tyler Emerson, director of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, in particular had a very ambitious set of ideas about updating the transhumanist message to make it more broadly attractive.

We reflected on a lot of internal research we had done on how we were perceived by our members and fellow-traveling friends in that process that Tyler promoted. The first question was whether a new name for the WTA would be more inclusive, and sound less like a scary “ism” with a lot of baggage that people didn’t understand and might not want to associate with.

We had slowly adopted the shorthand of H+ to stand for “transhumanism” in our internal communications, so that led naturally to the decision to adopt the name Humanity+. It captured our central message of human enhancement, but was much more affirming of humanity than the initial impressions some had from “transhuman” or “posthuman.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 20th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under !Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.