So we can finally define difference between transhumanist and non-transhumanist. Transhumanist is a person who believes that science and technology should be used to make humans happier, smarter and able live as long as possible. Non-transhumanist is usually a person who believes the same except that he technology used in that process should not be too strange compared to the one he is already used to.

Heh. This makes me define a transhumanist as someone who believes the Law of Unintended Consequences could not possibly apply to him.

By the time Farhad Manjoo's article (obnoxiously titled "You have no friends": lots of dark arts going on there) was published, Facebook was already winning; it was somewhat credible to suggest that non-Facebooking holdouts were isolating themselves from the Great Comforting Majority. And most of its force came, I think, from an argument that boils down to "Everyone else is doing this, and if you don't you'll be at a disadvantage as well as being a weirdo".

Transhumanism isn't like that. Most people are not transhumanists in the stronger senses of the word. You're right that many people are transhumanists in the weak sense that they would prefer their child to be made superhuman by weird technological means than to die in agony, but it seems to me that "you would prefer that, therefore you are really already a transhumanist" is a bit like "you have friends you talk to, therefore you are really already on Facebook".

Effective Altruism is also not like that. Smartphone ownership is already like that, at least among techy people in affluent Western countries.

I think "playing offence" can be effective in cases where the thing you're fighting for is already winning. Perhaps Farhad Manjoo's article gained Facebook a lot of new users (I have no idea). Perhaps an article saying "You are a Luddite" and making a similar argument for smartphone ownership would create a lot of new smartphone users (though actually I think smartphones are further along the path to near-universal use than Facebook was in 2009). But I very much doubt that similar articles for transhumanism or EA could be effective in the same way. The preconditions just aren't there.

can we fix the font of this? Thnx

But then in a real world you have a group of smart people who seriously argue that changing the human biology with various weird technologies would actually be a good thing and that we should totally work on reliable ways to increase longevity, intelligence and other abilities and remove any regulations that would stop it.

I think that's a pretty simplistic view. We want regulations that prevent Xrisk. We want resonable discussion about the merits of new technology and management of it's risks.

We don't have magic nanobots that make everything better without cost. That's the frame of fantasy. Debating new technology in that frame is unproductive.

I have a Facebook account, but I do not use it, for the same reasons I would not use email if there were no filter that could prevent me from receiving 99 junk emails for every real email.

I would be happy to have bio-ethicists become more broad-minded, btw. Come on, guys! Screw transhumanism! Don't you see ethical problems in non-transhumanism-related bio research being done today?

That identifying a living organism still often requires killing it doesn't raise your hackles?

That people insist on 'real' collections of preparations (e.g., of mites or butterflies) instead of virtual (digitized) collections?

That plants for herbarization are collected whole, but their root systems are mostly described very vaguely?

There is just so much waste in biological research, so much unforgivable lack of coordination. And they argue about genetic enhancements.