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Steve Fuller - Humanity 2.0 - Part 3/4

1,225 views · Published 11 July 2013 · 26:32 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Science, Technology & the Future · 2013 · Science & Technology

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You already see the problem of smart drugs – people taking drugs to do well in exams or job interviews. The use of these substances is much more widespread than the official records indicate. People are taking the stuff and pretty soon people are going to feel they can't be left behind.

People who work within the disability sector talk about "able-ism" – the idea that we're going to be living in a world in the future where everyone will take having a disability as the normal state because you will never be doped up enough, you will always be worried about the next enhancement, about whether you have enough enhancement for your next job interview, or whether someone else has a smarter drug that you don't have access to. So people will feel that they have to somehow keep up. And that's a real issue, especially in an unregulated market environment.

So our ideas of what is normal change?

Yes, there does need to be wide-ranging discussion about what is means to be normal. To be in normal health – how does your brain or body have to function in order to be "normal"? We've had a fairly constant view of what normalcy is for quite a long time but I think we need to reopen this debate and then define the minimal requirements for medical care.

So you foresee an enhanced generation emerging because of their ability to take advantage of various drugs and treatments?

It's going to happen through individuals taking choices about getting treatments or not and then, within a generation or two, you'll start seeing interesting effects on society at large. What I can imagine is that life expectancy won't uniformly go up, it'll start to be bimodal distribution – some people will live beyond 100 and there'll be a large number of people who die under the age of 70. And that won't be because of some government mandate, that will be because people will definitely take advantage of the enhancements on offer, but others won't have those choices open to them.

The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/sep/25/steve-fuller-time-for-humanity

Steve's new book 'The Proactionary Imperative' is making headlines: New Scientist - 'A manifesto for playing god with human evolution', The Guardian 'Beyond the precautionary principle'

"Has the time come for a 'proactionary principle', as a foil to the power and problems of precaution? .. The proactionary principle valorises calculated risk-taking as essential to human progress." - The Guardian

Steve Fuller is the Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology at the University of Warwick. He is the author (with Veronika Lipinska) of The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for Transhumanism (Palgrave Macmillan).


http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/sfuller/fullers_index/ Fuller was admitted as a John Jay Scholar to Columbia University in 1976, from where he graduated summa cum laude in History and Sociology in 1979. He then studied at Clare College, Cambridge, on a Kellett Fellowship, from which he received an M.Phil. in History and Philosophy of Science in 1981. He then received a Ph. D. in the same subject from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985, where he was an Andrew Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellow. Fuller's Ph.D. was entitled "Bounded Rationality in Law and Science", which explored the implications of the views of Herbert A. Simon for political theory and philosophy of science.

In 2012, Fuller was made a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Division I (Humanities).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fuller_(sociologist)

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