Foreign Policy asked eight leading minds to name the world’s most dangerous ideas. Francis Fukuyama chooses transhumanism.
For the uninitiated, transhumanists want to liberate the human race from its biological constraints. As transhumanists (who are naturally hopping mad at their inclusion in the ideological axis of evil) see it, humans must wrest their biological destiny from evolutions blind process of random variation and adaptation and move to the next stage as a species.
It is worth mentioning only because many transhumanists see nanotechnology as a means to achieving this end, and some of these ideas often wind up getting confused with nanoscience, futher complicating the legal and ethical issues.
Fukuyama concludes the environmental movement has taught us humility and respect for the integrity of nonhuman nature. We need a similar humility concerning our human nature. If we do not develop it soon, we may unwittingly invite the transhumanists to deface humanity with their genetic bulldozers and psychotropic shopping malls.
For the record, the other seven most dangerous ideas were:
Robert Wright – War on Evil
Paul Davies – Undermining Free Will
Samantha Power – Business as Usual at the U.N.
Eric J. Hobsbawm – Spreading Democracy
Martha Nussbaum – Religious Intolerance
Alice M. Rivlin – Free Money
Fareed Zakaria – Hating America