Previously, one established the failures of human faculties as such concerns as lack of sustenance, wellbeing, intelligence, autonomy and productivity, either causing or caused by each other, and resulting in uncivilization. Augmentation of human faculties, physical, mental and/or autonomous, aims to redeem such failures; in the case of physical faculty, to improve one’s constitution and physical utility, of mental faculty, to improve one’s computational and intellectual abilities, and of autonomy, to improve one’s maturation and self-realisation. Each of these pertains to the economy and civilization, as each modifies the human nature of the citizenry in some way.
To this end, augmenting humanity on a society-wide scale with civilizing intent on the economy is achieved through industrialising and automating human faculties. To industrialise one’s faculties, especially within the scope of innovation theory of value, one alters one’s human nature such as to see an improvement in one’s productivity, efficiency or autonomy beyond previous capability, ideally to the point where civilization becomes possible. To automate one’s faculties, however, one must relinquish those faculties, a concept not as controversial as one might expect. Much of the human body is naturally automated, such as respiration, digestion, etc., and extending this automation to further faculties one has no desire to control is ultimately a question of one’s personal preference. However, due to this difference, augmentation will be discussed firstly in terms of industrialisation, and secondly in terms of automation.
Industrialising the three faculties, physical, mental and autonomy, to civilize the economy varies by the ways in which they fail to achieve this end. Physical faculties generally fail civil economies by lacking the required productivity or, more harshly, requiring more sustenance than the economy can provide. Additionally, human bodies require healthcare, a complicated affair usually requiring huge expenditure, due to the complexity of the human body. These problems are solved through augmentation improving one’s physical capability and coordination, improving efficiency of one’s metabolism and improving one’s health in general. As such, industrialising one’s physical capability will likely require bodily modification, increasing strength, endurance or adroitness; augmenting metabolism, improving efficiency of one’s body in absorbing and utilizing nutrients, resulting in sustenance
giving more utilizable energy to the augmentee; and augmenting health and bodily functions, lowering costs of healthcare as well as lowering lost labour from incapacitation due to poor health. As such, physical augmentations would allow one to improve their productivity, and if inclined, also allow one to metabolise sustenance much more efficiently or go for longer without it.
Mental faculties fail civil economies by lacking expertise or comprehension. Augmentation seeks to solve these problems by improving the computational and storage capacity of one’s mind, which in turn, should result in improved comprehension and judgement. The effects these augmentations have on economy vary, as vocations involving acuity and management differ. By augmenting mental faculties, one allows for all manner of increases to productivity, capital, etc., as well as decreases to costs by identifying unnecessary or inefficient economic components and removing or improving them. Furthermore, increased computational power would allow for increased rates of consciousness, improving reaction times; such augmentations would prove useful in vocations requiring socalled “quick” decisions, thereby improving productivity.
Autonomy fails civil economies by disregarding or sabotaging of the means and ends of a civil contract and economy. It presents a challenge to augmentation, as enhancements of human nature are intended to expand, not compromise, one’s faculties. Autonomy augmentations are thus intended to allow one to better realise one’s intent, to better know and understand one’s aspirations and to consider one’s self more comprehensively; the economic issues pertaining to uncivil practices are not outright solved by these augmentations, but, given these augmentations, one would be hard-pressed to suggest ignorance being the cause of one’s uncivil action. Ultimately, however, industrializing autonomous faculties fails to solve issues of human nature in achieving civilization.
Similarly to industrialization, automating human faculties endeavour to improve human faculties through augmentation, though forgoing autonomy and personal management in the process. Automating human faculties in this way removes the need for citizens to autonomously conduct those faculties, thus no longer requiring autonomy to sustain the economy, as previously necessary. One then automates one’s faculties to suit one’s self, as opposed to shaping one’s self to one’s faculties and the social contract. Such automation takes the form of augmentations able to independently and/or automatically perform tasks on one’s behalf such as, but not limited to, moving and arranging objects or one’s limbs, calculating and evaluating problems and making decisions or suggestions on courses of action in one’s affairs.
However, to avoid contravention of the principles established in this text and, in the case of automating autonomy itself, self-contradiction, this text only considers
automation of human nature that is easily countermanded, rendering it temporary, or fully subservient. These augmentations would most likely still require supplemental direction towards the necessary labour, though it is not implausible to consider an augmentation, or combination thereof, that would allow one’s faculties to be entirely independent of one’s autonomy at all times. In this context, full and irreversible automation of human faculty itself is considered Posthumanist, and discussed later; however, within the remit of Transhumanism, manageable automation of human faculty lessens, and in some cases prevents, conflict between social contract, economy and autonomy, allowing for civilization.
Clearly augmentations of human faculty, either individually or any simultaneous combination of them, solve many of the original problems of human inadequacy inherent to economy; combined with an innovation theory of labour, whereby the economy is directed by efficiency and innovation, the civilization of society becomes assured, as labour, capital and agreement is constantly facilitating more efficient, more productive and more satisfying augmentations. Increases to demands of satisfaction by the citizenry is thus met, as progress is constantly encouraged, increasing productivity which meets said demand. By ensuring other previously mentioned principles are upheld, that augmentations are at least comparable to human faculties and that declining augmentations remains a solvent option, agreement is maximised and civilization under Transhumanism becomes viable, at least hypothetically. This does assume that enough citizens accept augmentations, however, as too large a majority of citizens declining augmentations will likely result in a less civil economy, marred by the aforementioned inadequacies of human faculties.
Leave a Reply