[video] "Transhuman", featuring Sandberg and Bostrom

post by Pablo (Pablo_Stafforini) · 2013-06-16T18:59:57.994Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 11 comments

Transhuman, a 20-minute Dutch documentary about Anders Sandberg, is now available online.  From Sandberg's blog:

Here is the chance of see my beetle collection, my grubby kitchen, and an absolutely stunning combination between a supercomputer center and an oxford library. Oh, and some discussion about transhumanism and the meaning of life too.

The documentary features Nick Bostrom at 9:23-10:32 and at 19:28-19:37.  There's also a cameo appearance of Eliezer Yudkowsky, Carl Shulman, Anna Salamon, Toby Ord, William MacAskill, David Pearce and Stuart Armstrong.

11 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.

comment by Mestroyer · 2013-06-17T01:20:26.030Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Why is this downvoted? Is it not worth watching?

Replies from: tofu257
comment by tofu257 · 2013-06-17T16:59:41.383Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

While I didn't downvote, I didn't really enjoy it or learn from it - it would be useful to show to people if you wanted to get the idea of "death is bad, let's fix this problem" across and give it some legitimacy (since these Oxford people are saying it).

Replies from: RainbowSpider, Yosarian2
comment by RainbowSpider · 2013-06-20T14:15:33.038Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

it would be useful to show to people if you wanted to get the idea of "death is bad, let's fix this problem" across and give it some legitimacy

Yes, the sight of a beheaded dog kept alive by experimental medical devices should bring them around.

comment by Yosarian2 · 2013-06-17T20:01:36.824Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think it's also helpful just to have more reasonable and rational movies about some transhumanist ideas on youtube, and for those videos to get more views and upvotes and all that; if someone who didn't know anything about the subject were to go on youtube right now and search for transhumanism, 95% of what they see are insane anti-transhumansits, usually with an apocalyptic/religious point of view. Anything that's either pro-transhumanist or at least neutral and rational is a helpful addition at this point.

Replies from: tofu257
comment by tofu257 · 2013-06-17T21:29:55.766Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think it's also helpful just to have more reasonable and rational movies about some transhumanist ideas on youtube

This sounds obviously true and in theory I agree with you, but if you look at the youtube page it took literally four comments before someone started joking about murdering people who don't share their transhumanist views.

Replies from: Baughn, Yosarian2
comment by Baughn · 2013-06-18T17:29:52.988Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

People still look at Youtube comments?

I'm partially kidding, but.. it's widely known that Youtube comments are essentially useless, and I instinctively overlook them. If there are many people who don't, that'd honestly be a surprise to me.

comment by Yosarian2 · 2013-06-17T21:38:38.168Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yeah, it's certainly not helpful when people do that.

I would think, though, that the actual videos on youtube probably have a bigger impact on people's opinions then the comments under those videos, considering how inane most of those comments tend to be. For some reason the comments sections on youtube videos seems to be almost universally dominated by the lowest common denominator.

comment by turchin · 2013-06-17T10:23:05.935Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

great!

comment by Ben Pace (Benito) · 2013-06-17T08:09:24.904Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

At what time is the cameo appearance? I somehow missed it...

Replies from: gjm
comment by gjm · 2013-06-17T10:22:25.566Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

9m 59s, to judge from the URL.

Replies from: Benito
comment by Ben Pace (Benito) · 2013-06-17T17:48:21.614Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

So it is. I hear EY saying 'the spaghetti code of the brain'. Thanks :)