Persuasive Essay On Transhumanism

Do you ever imagine what would happen if our world is taken over by some artificial intelligent machines like in the movies “I, Robot” or “Matrix”? Some people may say it is nonsense to worry about a situation that happens in a science fiction movie, but in my opinion it is not so much of a nonsense anymore. Nowadays, people basically depend their daily lives on their phone: from waking up in the morning, to checking the map on the phone to go to their destinations. Also, the amount of people who have cell phone increased too. 90 percent of adults in the United States possess a cell phone. However, is this necessarily a bad trend? Because our phones are very multipurpose, our lives are much simpler. We don’t need to buy alarm clocks, watches, or mp3 players due to the presence smart phones. After analyzing

my cell phone use for a day from the transhumanist’s point of view, I concluded that transhumanism in the form of cell phone use has more benefits than loss.

To analyze, it is important to understand what transhumanism is; then, we will analyze the losses and benefits of cell phone use. First of all, what is transhumanism?
Transhumanism is the idea that supports enhancement of mankind through technology. The word “Transhumanism” is a big word that will intimidate some people, but it is easier concept that it sounds. Throughout the history, there has always been countless attempts to improve human qualities in many forms, like education and cultural enlightenment. In addition, transhumanism takes it to whole another level by bringing in medicine and technology. Transhumanists’ ideas comes from secular view of humanism; they view humanity as “work-in-progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold in

desirable ways (Bostrom 4).” Basically, this view states that it is possible to improve humanly limitations such as short life span, intellectual capacity, body functionality, sensory modalities and mood and emotion. This kind of attempts, of course, raised some concerns amongst the conservative side of the population. The biggest opposing side is the Christians. They argue that this idea is “playing God, messing with nature, tampering with our human essence, or displaying punishable hubris (Bostrom 4).” Furthermore, some people are concerned that this kind of technology can be misused in harmful ways against us. Also, this can intensify social inequality because only rich people will be able to afford these technologies. Other concerns are possibility of neglecting meaningful and precious humanly qualities like human face-to-face conversation. Even with this risks, transhumanists think that developing this technology is worth taking its risks. Transhumanism is not a foreign concept in everyday life. From eye glasses to vaccination, it is everywhere around us. The biggest and most common example is always in our hands: smart phones.
Even transhumanism in the form of smart phone is raising many concerns in modern society. First of all, smart phone is a very effective form of distraction. Smart phone has unimaginable amount of functions it can do. A lot of those functions can be distractive as they are made to entertain us. Even as students do homework or try to study for their exam, it is so easy to get disturbed by smart phones because they know how many thing they can do with their small, and handy smart phone. They don’t have to turn on computer to watch their favorite YouTube video or to go on to Facebook. All they have to do is to just unlock their smart phone. The portability of smartphone can be the best feature of smartphone, but also the worst when it comes to distraction. Secondly, distinction of real face-to-face interaction is making people worry. As the texting and calling develops, people don’t have to meet in real life to talk to each other. When they can just sit in their room, why would they go out to talk? However, this is a concern because sometimes people can’t enjoy what is right in front of them because of their phone and texting. Also, it is very easy to see everyone walking around the campus with their headphones on. This trend can be another example of disappearing human interaction. Before the invention of mp3 player, people usually talked to each other when in a line or before the class begin, but now everyone has their headphones on, or is looking at their phone instead of talking.
After analyzing the cultural artifact, smart phone is more of an improvement then damage. My cultural artifact was my smart phone use for 24 hours. Every 30 minute period, I recorded what types of smart phone function I used in last 30 minutes. Of course, I couldn’t write down every single detail, but I’ve got most of them. As you can see in the artifact, smart phone is very closely related to our lives. There was only 30 minutes in my day that I didn’t use my smartphone. From playing music when I’m sleeping to looking things up on google for the class, my phone is used everywhere. Is it bad though? If you look at the functions I used on my phone, and the time I used them, it is not bad for me at all. As shown in my artifact, most of the functions I used are helpful for my classes and my daily life. For instance, I sleep with my music on because I have bad insomnia problem, and I used blackboard, google search, and email in my classes to help understand what is going on in the classroom. Of course, there are some things I used during the class as a distraction such as replying to text messages, and checking Facebook, but I don’t used those things in a class where professor didn’t was allow us to use our smart phone. Overall, this distraction is not to the point where people lose control of using their smart phones. At least, I could control my use pretty well. For the concern about human interactions, I think it does not really affect my relationship with other people. There are so many instances where people have to talk to each other anyway, like in the classroom with discussions, or even in the classroom setting. Without all these demerits to worry about, existence of smart phone is a huge improvement for human being.
In conclusion, even with all the risks, smartphone is a great way to improve our daily lives. Cell phone, just like any other high-technology, was made to help the humankind. These kind of technologies are only bad when it is used in a bad way by someone. When a murderer kills someone with a knife, no one should blame the knife. Most tools are made to help people. It is not the tools that are bad, it is the people who abuse it who are bad. Smart phones are the same. There are so many functions in smart phones that are created to help people, but if you abuse it, those helpful functions can be a distraction.