HEADER

Fighting the Commercialization of Childhood

Join us on Wednesday, July 14, 2010, at 11 AM Eastern time, as we continue our conversation with Dr. Susan Linn, Director of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. We’ll be delving more deeply into the question of what parents and other concerned adults can do to protect children from the excesses of corporate marketers.

Becoming More Than Human?

And tune in at 11 AM Eastern time on Wednesday, July 21, 2010, for a conversation with Ramez Naam, author of More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, a book described by ecologist Bill McKibben as “a reliable and informed cook’s tour of the world we might choose if we decide that we should fast-forward evolution.”

I just spent two days at the Humanity+ Summit at Harvard.  Now that I'm back home, I keep wondering what I would say if someone asked me if I'd like to live longer (maybe forever), be healthier, smarter, and happier? What if in order to reach these goals I'd have to use technologies that would change my human nature and make myself what some people call "post human?" My answer to the first question is yes, probably, and no to the second. Maybe your answers would be different. Whatever your point of view, it's crucial for all mothers to have answers to these questions--and soon.

The answers matter. At the Summit, I spent time with a community of brilliant people who say "yes" to both questions. They call themselves Transhumanists and they are anticipating and working toward a future in which a range of new technologies combine to enable human beings to transcend the constraints of our biology and expand our capacities. The Humanity+ Summit was a marathon session of more than fifty, mostly ten-minute, highly informative presentations by leading experts in genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology, among other fields--all exploring ways in which the accelerating pace of technological change might transform the human condition.