Fashionable Pessimism and Enzymatic Slime
A lengthy post at Existence is Wonderful looks at the intersection of modern pessimism in the transhumanist community and advocacy for radical life extension: "sometimes I feel like I'm caught in the middle between, on the one hand, well-meaning folks (who might very well be contributing plenty from a scientific and fundraising standpoint to longevity research) who nonetheless see superlativity critique as pessimistic or irrelevant, and other folks (such as Jones and Carrico) who in my assessment seem to have very astutely identified particular problems in public technology discourse (including that surrounding biogerontology) as it presently stands." It has become somewhat fashionable for the transhumanist mainstream to be more concerned with existential risk than with progress these days and to disparage visionary viewpoints as "superlativity" or similar. In that the community reflects the spirit of the times - it's environmentalism's shadow cast large, an infection of the mind brought over from the vast number of people who deeply fear change or wish a return to an imagined idyllic past. I can't see this ending well, given that the change of progress is exactly what transhumanism is all about.
Link: http://www.existenceiswonderful.com/2009/01/thanks-but-ill-take-test-tubes-of.html