About Us
Inspired by Dr. Laurent Alexandre's talk at TEDxParis 2012, this website was launched April 2013 by Xavier Gorra, of Lonay, a small town close to the shores of Lake Geneva, some 12km from Lausanne - Switzerland.
We are at the dawn of a technological revolution and humanitarian tsunami that I believe may totally transform our lives, but particularly those of the following generations. Where will it lead and how fast will it affect us are open questions that may or may not receive rapid answers, yet hopefully will gain enough transparence through the content of this website over time.
What is Transhumanism?
Click for in depth details /
Cliquez pour plus de détailles
Transhumanism
is an international
intellectual and cultural movement that affirms
the possibility and desirability of fundamentally
transforming the
human condition by developing and making widely
available
technologies to
eliminate aging and to greatly
enhance human intellectual, physical, and
psychological capacities. Transhumanist thinkers
study the potential benefits and dangers of
emerging and
hypothetical technologies that could overcome
fundamental human limitations, as well as study the
ethical matters involved in developing and using
such technologies. They predict that human beings
may eventually be able to transform themselves into
beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to
merit the label "posthuman".
Le transhumanisme est un
mouvement culturel et intellectuel international
prônant l'usage des
sciences et des
techniques afin d'améliorer les caractéristiques
physiques et
mentales des
êtres humains. Le transhumanisme considère
certains aspects de la
condition humaine tels que le
handicap, la
souffrance, la
maladie, le
vieillissement ou la
mort subie comme inutiles et indésirables. Dans
cette optique, les penseurs transhumanistes comptent
sur les
biotechnologies et sur d'autres techniques
émergentes. Les dangers comme les avantages que
présentent de telles évolutions préoccupent aussi le
mouvement transhumaniste[.
The Growing Years:
Back in 2003 W. S. Bainbridge of the National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia, USA had authored a paper in which he stated..."the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science can greatly improve human performance over the next ten to twenty years. The chief areas of application include: expanding human cognition and communication, improving human health and physical capabilities, enhancing group and societal outcomes, strengthening national security, and unifying science and education. Convergence will be based on the material unity of nature at the nanoscale, technology integration from the nanoscale, key transforming tools, the concept of reality as closely coupled hierarchical complex systems, and the goal to improve human performance".
History of the Human Genome Project:
Completed in 2003, the Human Genome Project (HGP) was a 13-year project coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. During the early years of the HGP, the Wellcome Trust (U.K.) became a major partner; additional contributions came from Japan, France, Germany, China, and others. Click here to see the HGP history page for more information.
HGP
goals were to:
• identify all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in
human DNA,
• determine the
sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make
up human DNA,
• store this
information in databases,
• improve tools for data analysis,
• transfer related technologies to the private sector,
and
• address the ethical, legal,
and social issues (ELSI) that may arise from the
project.
Though the HGP is finished, analyses of the data will continue for years, an important feature of the HGP project was the federal government's long-standing dedication to the transfer of technology to the private sector. By licensing technologies to private companies and awarding grants for innovative research, the project catalyzed the multibillion-dollar U.S. biotechnology industry and fostered the development of new medical applications.
Battelle Report: US$3.8 Billion Investment in HGP Drove US$796 Billion in Economic Impact, Created Jobs, and Launched Genomic Revolution (May 2011); See Response From Nature (What is the human genome worth? - May 11, 2011)
Where we're going:
The goal of this site is to create an information reference source, accessible to all, on NBIC convergence and the medical / surgical / reproductive advancements this convergence is opening up.
The hope is to bring a worthwhile contribution to the collation and proliferation of information that NBIC convergence is creating.
The initial idea is to keep the language and video presentations as accessible as possible also to non-medical, non-technical, non-scientific individuals around the world while making use of material from the knowledge base of professional sources.
Team Bio: (volunteers urgently needed!)
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Schooled in electronics and telecommunications, after a stint as an apprentice service engineer in radio-TV
broadcasting (Monte Carlo), I started my carreer
as a commissioning engineer for industrial process instrumentation and automation (Honeywell Int. BV). This led me to spend time on a variety of production processes including cement, steel, aluminum, glass, water desalination, gas-oil separation plants and refineries. Some years later I moved into sales and have handled various lines over time. These have included industrial process instrumentation, precision test instruments, various analytical, clinical & medical instrumentation, thin film deposition & etch, ion implanters, molecular beam epitaxy, Auger spectroscopy, SIMS, EPMA, helium leak detection, high vacuum & UHV, cryogenics, thermal flow control & vaporization, front-end VME / NIM electronics & power systems for particle physics, Digital Pulse Processing and Digital Multi Channel Analyzers suited for Gamma & X-ray spectroscopy. My early hobbies rotated around construction of electronic assemblies as radio receivers, stereo amplifiers, radio transmitters, test instrumentation. My ongoing hobbies for well over 15 years have been heavily focused around cyber space: www.swisstronix.net / www.swisstronix.info. I've had the good fortune to observe and participate in the transformation of the electronics landscape from vacuum tube to transistor to integrated circuit, into the sub-micron geometries and now even the single digit nanometer scale. First through my time at Télé Monte Carlo during the shift from B&W tube image, to transistorized color broasdcasting, and later through selling capital equipment worth multi-millions for the fabrication process of large scale integrated circuits, solid state lasers and other advanced devices. This multidisciplinary background has opened me the doors to a multitude of highly enriching interests in various terrestrial and space-related cutting-edge technologies. My hobbies often intertwined with my professional activities which helped alieviate the boredom of the routine and expand my intellectual reflection beyond the frontiers of the known or current! In March 2013 I came across a short yet fascinating presentation by Dr. Laurent Alexandre, "Le recul de la mort: L' immortalité à brève échéance?". Along with the numerous questions arising, not least who would pay the hefty bill for keeping the next generation alive to 500, 800, even 1000 years, I felt an urgent need to proliferate Alexandre's provocative yet highly informative video presentation among my friends. In parallel, I also felt it important to plan a means of collating and redistributing any pertinent information, past and current, pertaining to the four converging NBIC fields of science and technology and the combined effect it would have on society over the years and decades to come. |
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(Xavier
Gorra 
Switzerland):
. Let me tell you a bit about
myself.
(Volunteer
(Volunteer
needed!):
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