I think the summary of my position on this would be that when we talk about “extinction” we tend to imagine more a violent event. Even if what drove that extinction was a splinter of humanity (e.g. a branch of superhumans, either biologically or cybernetically enhanced), that would still be bad, not only because it implies a lot of death, but because it means the ones that are left are our murderers, and I have a hard time thinking of anyone who would murder me as a worthy successor. If instead humanity gradually all morphed into something else I suppose taxonomically that still counts as the extinction of the species Homo Sapiens, but it’s obviously not bad in any particular sense. We already do modify our bodies plenty: we do organ transplants, cosmetic surgery, birth control implants, Lasik, hormonal replacement and sex reassignment. We spend our whole life in a very out-of-distribution context compared to our ancestral environment. In all senses other than the genetic one, Homo Sapiens may already have gone extinct long ago, and we are already something else.
By the way, I am actually working on a post looking exactly at Jeremy England’s theory (and at what I would consider its overinterpretation on e/acc’s part) from a physics perspective. So look forward to that!
I think the summary of my position on this would be that when we talk about “extinction” we tend to imagine more a violent event. Even if what drove that extinction was a splinter of humanity (e.g. a branch of superhumans, either biologically or cybernetically enhanced), that would still be bad, not only because it implies a lot of death, but because it means the ones that are left are our murderers, and I have a hard time thinking of anyone who would murder me as a worthy successor. If instead humanity gradually all morphed into something else I suppose taxonomically that still counts as the extinction of the species Homo Sapiens, but it’s obviously not bad in any particular sense. We already do modify our bodies plenty: we do organ transplants, cosmetic surgery, birth control implants, Lasik, hormonal replacement and sex reassignment. We spend our whole life in a very out-of-distribution context compared to our ancestral environment. In all senses other than the genetic one, Homo Sapiens may already have gone extinct long ago, and we are already something else.
By the way, I am actually working on a post looking exactly at Jeremy England’s theory (and at what I would consider its overinterpretation on e/acc’s part) from a physics perspective. So look forward to that!