Dec 29 2008

Mac, UFOs & More

Over at Binnall of America, Richard Thomas interviews Mac Tonnies of Posthuman Blues; and After the Martian Apocalypse fame, and one of the most forward-thinkers (and good guy too!) in the field.

And to give you a taster, here are a couple of extracts from the interview:

Richard: “I’m a huge fan of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass serials and films, particularly Quatermass and the Pit. What do you think of the central premise of the story: ‘That we owe our human condition here to the intervention of insects?’”

Mac: “Cultures all over the world seem to have a special affinity with insect intelligence, a theme we seem to see reiterated in Western pop culture’s eponymous image of the ‘Gray’ alien. ‘Trippers’ who ingest DMT sometimes describe similar insect-like entities. The question that naturally arises is whether we’re indeed making contact with an intelligence external to our own minds or else tapping into some neural legacy.”

“Colony collapse disorder is at least as disturbing, albeit for different reasons. The global die-off of bees reminds us how intricately connected we are with the planet. Ultimately, there are no dispassionate, clinical observers; we’re embedded in the experiment with no clear sight of its purpose — assuming, of course, that it has one.”

Richard: “For people who don’t know, what is ‘transhumanism’ and why do you support the idea?

Mac Tonnies: “Transhumanism is a simple blanket term for people who view technology as a means by which to augment and expand human prowess — physically, cognitively and perhaps even spiritually. We’re already knee-deep in an era of smart-drugs, genetic therapies and molecular manufacturing, so it’s not exactly rash to attempt to anticipate future breakthroughs. For instance, there’s reason to suspect that aging itself will eventually come to be viewed as a degenerative disease, much how we currently view diseases like polio or cancer. Given the ability to avert disease, relatively few among us will refuse to take advantage of new cures. So I suspect most of us are ‘closet transhumanists,’ whether we’re explicitly familiar with the philosophical arguments or not.”

And here’s where you can find the complete interview.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under Abductions, Alien Encounters, Author Interviews, Beliefs, Books, Breaking News, Close Encounters, Evidence, The Redfern Files, UFO Sightings, UFOlogists, UFOlogy. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.
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