As a warm up for our Transhumanim episode that we’re releasing this tuesday we conducted a short email interview with Mac Tonnies, a transhumanist and writer.

MT How central is the Singularity concept to Transhumanism?

MACT It’s become central — disappointly so, in my opinion — but I think transhumanism stands on its own merits regardless if the Singularity comes to pass as expected (or at all, for that matter). There’s no arguing that technology is getting faster, better and increasingly intimate. How this will impact the human race at large remains to be seen. One possibility is that something very much like the commonly depicted Singularity takes place, but on an unexpectedly small scale in terms of beneficiaries. We may indeed be on the verge of a “Geek Rapture” — but it might turn out to be an “Extremely Wealthy Geek Rapture.”

MT Could we be facing a profoundly Tranhumanist future even without the Geek Rapture?

MACT Absolutely. Barring cataclysms, humans are going to become something other than what they are now in terms of technology interfacing and computational acumen. The question is whether or not something as explicit as the Singularity is necessary for this to occur. Frankly, I’m left wondering if the “Singularity” is essentially a matter of virulent semantics. Just as one person’s utopia is another’s dystopia, maybe one person’s Singularity is another’s anticlimax.

MT Are we ever going to see a backlash from people tinkering with themselves in radical new ways? Or will everyone just raise their eyebrows and go to the next screen?

MACT We can make some educated forecasts based on the proliferation of wireless technology. When I go to a coffeeshop, I see the Connected and the Unconnected sipping lattes in relative harmony. Part of the reason for this chummy milieu is that the Connected are immersed in their laptops or riveted to their Blackberries. But when technology becomes anatomically intrusive we’re bound to see some schisms.

Stay tuned for the fifth episode of our podcast where we explore Transhumanism both as its represented in Science Fiction and in the real world Transhumanist movement. This episode features an interview with Dr. J Hughes, the executive director of the World Tranhumanist Association. The episode will be online this Tuesday.

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