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.
– Francis Fukuyama Many enthusiasts applaud transhumanism, but the movement has also provoked a major wave of criticism. American political scientist Francis Fukuyama even pointed it out as one of the most dangerous ideas of our time. Many others from across a whole spectrum of disciplines have criticized it as well. Fukuyama himself belongs to a “bioconservative” current and the core of his argument consists of the question: will mankind, by dint of all these technological adjustments, somehow lose its humanity and dignity? What if, as the transhumanist dreamers propose, we get rid of all undesirable traits such as aggression, illness, and death that are an inherent part of human nature – won’t we also lose human nature itself? And might not transhumanism create whole new types of social inequality, based not on racial, sexual, or other bodily differences but instead on the accessibility of implants (and, ultimately, on the access to money, in much the same way as we see it today with the accessibility of cosmetic plastic surgery and/or orthodontics)?
