Best products from r/Transhuman

Have you read HPMOR or Rationality: AI to Zombies? Might help.

You have a moral worth and value as a human being beyond your intelligence and work ethic. Being smart and productive makes you useful to a capitalistic society, but you don't need to be useful in order to have a right to exist. You don't have to continually prove your worthiness or value. The idea that you have to is super toxic.

Those qualities might make you better able to help people (perhaps by helping with the Value Alignment Problem). If so, you should take advantage of the fact; if the fast-takeoff theories of AI are correct, you are living in the time between us identifying the value alignment problem and it being too late to do anything about it. Living in this time, we have a chance to shape the future of humanity; to save it, or destroy it, depending on whether or not we solve value alignment or not. Or, if the hard takeoff theory is wrong, then you probably don't have much to worry about, research will be the last thing to be replaced.

And if you help successfully shepherd humanity through a hard AI takeoff, you can retire afterwards fully confident in your contributions to the human race.

Even if it turns out that's not where your talents lie, there is a lot of suffering in the world right now, and no automation here to save us all yet.

More likely, though, you will eventually have to adjust the way that you value yourself and derive your self-esteem. I planned on going into research; in retrospect, not because I wanted to, but because it seemed like the thing to do. Turned out I suck at research; I spent a couple of years depressed in a PhD program, escaped with a Masters, taught for a bit, and then went out and got a programming job. And man, it turns out that being intelligent isn't worth jack flipping squat if you don't do anything with it. And I enjoy building and improving software way the heck more than toiling in a lab all day, especially when I get to hear the people using the software thank me for making their lives easier. It still aches a bit that I didn't finish the PhD; some part of me still wants to prove how smart I am. Getting paid a bunch of money is it's form of respect, and I'm way happier now. It was extremely not fun at the time, though.

On a more mundane note, I really don't expect anyone to automate away programming or research any time soon, and as a former cell biology student and programmer, I think Elon Musk underestimates how hard getting real utility out of neural laces is going to be by at least an order of magnitude.

Yes, investment/career/lifestyle advice. There's more than just my humble predictions and advice though, I plan to include data and anecdotes from industry leaders from each technology and I'm going to be reading a lot of source books. Here's the first one I'm going to be reading: https://www.amazon.com/FINTECH-Book-Technology-Entrepreneurs-Visionaries/dp/111921887X

For section 1 I've also downloaded some others for research on blockchain, big data, internet of things... still need to find one on machine learning and self-driving cars

for section 1 im most interested in agricultural tech I think, maybe that will aid with overpopulation and impact from pollution and global warming. also want to study megacity trends!

For section 2, likewise, going to be reading a lot of books but shifting more towards studies and recent articles, I'm going to be needing to read up on cryonics, crispr/cas9, 3d organ printing, etc. There's a cool course on future learn on 3d bioprinting ill have motivation to finish now! What would advice for those areas look like? Mostly laws on them, countries with more or less lax laws, current technological trends, key players, relevant career info and business/investment opportunities (I plan to focus mostly on broad sectors when possible and large companies and popular startups as somewhat of a last resort when it's a few key players and not a huge trend (ie with self-driving cars a comparison between google, nvidia, and tesla, or something to that effect))

Omega Force - Great sci-fi read in the same vein as firefly/guardians of the galaxy, with a lead who's augmented his body with tech and genetic modifications to become something other than human.

Star Trek: Cold Equations Trilogy Picks up the storyline regarding what happened to Data as well as his father from the television series and movies. Very interesting exploration into transfering consciousness, life as an AI, etc.

Hopefully the book appeals to some in the transhuman reddit; transhumanism is only one aspect of the overall story, but it's a crucial one.

Influenced by Ray Kurzweil's 'The Singularity is Now,' I crafted a villain whose goal is to go ahead and expedite the Singularity, by essentially 'becoming' it (along with his partner-in-crime, the A.I. virus "Integer."

Meanwhile in the book, the protagonist, a young kid named Hector, is one of those typical unwitting superhero types who stumble into their new powers ill-prepared for how the real world will accept them. What ends up happening is the military (or a branch of it, aka the Fin) decides to run a few experiments on him, modifying his already superpowered self using nanobots to completely replace his DNA.

So now he's augmented from both his lame superpowers and the intelligent hive of nanobots which make up his body. The effect of this blend of abilities is cumulative; his once useless powers begin to allow him to do things which people hadn't thought possible.

Meanwhile the villain, of course, wants these powers for himself...

As for the Fin, their interest is in an experiment undertaken decades prior by the electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, and in exploring alternate dimensions in hopes of finding the displaced remains of Yddlin Tesa (aka the isles of Atlantis), using Hector as a key to both objectives.

I think transhumanism is interesting in part because it removes limitations, or perceived limitations, on human potential, especially augmented potential. We don't know what is around the corner...and this book is an exploration of several possibilities...
https://www.amazon.com/Haveck-First-Transhuman-Matt-Cates-ebook/dp/B0151TVBES/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466881618&sr=8-1&keywords=matt+cates#navbar

A recent (and I think the best yet) book on what a smarter-than-human AI should look like: Superintelligence

It's more about society changing (like the book Abundance, which is a great read) than people, but I think a lot of use share some of these visions. Thoughts?

I feel rather conflicted about Zoltan Istvan. One one hand his book's reviews on amazon make him sound like an awful writer (due to problems and facts which could've been eliminated with the help of an editor) with admiration towards Randian Objectivism.

On the other hand his bio on that website and wikipedia make it seem possible that to some degree he is as unabashedly awesome as his characters. That book, or potential future novels, have the potential to attract a cult following for transhumanism and its ideals. If he ever makes a comment about wishing the future and the events of his story to be similar...he would rightly and deservedly be called a delusional madman.
As much as I support transhumanism and the progression of science, I would not support the political advance of someone that wrote such a hateful work. I want to buy his book to discover if I am actually way off-base with my accusations towards him and his work, but the thought of financially supporting that man... terrifies me.

http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640

best hard sci-fi novel I've read in the last few years

This one was a pretty good read.
The Singularity Is Near

Perhaps books like The Art of Memory, The Logic Of Failure, Prometheus Rising, Finite and Infinite Games could offer some new perspectives.

Edward De Bono's work on lateral thinking might also be of interest.

The post-human series is one of my all time favorite tanshuman series. It's got some good character development, A.I., most may consider it leaning towards fantasy in some aspects. I always just remember the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00H0D5NTI/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488172906&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=post+human+omnibus&dpPl=1&dpID=51nKxcjtmcL&ref=plSrch

I've been working though this great collection of essays on transhumanist science, technology, and philosophy.

Thanks! Added to my reading list:
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Jokes-Using-Humor-Reverse-Engineer/dp/026201582X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332584216&sr=8-1

I'm surprised nobody has pointed you to Ray Kurzweil's book on this exact subject: Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever

The Quiet War is my favorite piece of transhuman sci-fi.

Hi, You can read the first 10% or so for free to see if you like it from this Amazon link. There's both a paperback and Kindle version.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Transhumanist-Wager-ebook/dp/B00AQQSY60/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382043084&sr=8-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+wager

Amazon uses different pages for different regions.


Here's the UK store page:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Solipsis-Escape-Comatorium-ebook/dp/B008E7JZMK

Here's the International page:
https://www.amazon.it/dp/B008E7JZMK

If you have your amazon settings updated and you search for the book, it should send you to the appropriate page.

I design Cyborg Minds and publish the AI details in e-books such as Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FKJY1WY with 25 Chapters: Introduction; Function; Code; Purpose; Logic; Belief; Volition; Robots; Synergy; Forth; JavaScript; Troubleshooting; AI Minds in English; Wotan AI in German; Dushka AI in Russian; Polyglot AI Minds; Porting; History; Future; MasPar; Superintelligence; Singularity;
Links; Glossary; Variables.

amazon.ca link for any other cannucks http://www.amazon.ca/Post-Human-Books-1-4-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI/