>>220723
I don't think I was clear enough in my original post. I wasn't asking exclusively about modifications to yourself as an extant individual ((you)'ll note I never used the word "transhumanism" anywhere). Rather I wanted to ask about a more general class of interventions, which could include self-augmentation, alterations to your offspring, and the creation of new lifeforms (i.e. intelligent machines). This is why I said "your line could be enhanced," not just (you). It's worth noting that I treat the individual "you" and your offspring as essentially a continuation of the same entity, and I would regard even a nonhuman lifeform you gave rise too as your child in a very real sense; not everyone shares this view, of course. So to examine each aspect separately, let me ask you (assume there are minimal risks attached to each of these hypotheticals):
If you could get a couple of robot arms attached to yourself, would you do it?
If you could get some computer hardware attached to your brain to let you remember more information or think faster, would you do it? (assume no glownigger backdoors, etc)
If you could use embryo selection to ensure your kids wouldn't have any genetic disorders or genetic predisposition to disease, would you do it?
If you could use embryo selection to ensure your kids would be extremely smart and/or athletic and/or charismatic, would you do it?
If you could use embryo selection to ensure your kids would be uncannily beautiful, very tall with true Aryan blond hair and icy blue eyes, would you do it?
>Evolution is not about a basic entity spontaneously changing its form over its lifespan, it's about a species collectively slowly changing its form by certain offspring thriving and others being culled
Quite correct, and I did not mean to imply otherwise. Natural selection is the "blind idiot god" governing all things, and it's mistaken to assume that it has a teleology. When I say that superior organisms evolved from inferior ones, that occurred under eugenic selection pressures, like cold climates selecting for intelligence and Europe's constant but limited warfare ensuring that great men with adventurous spirits prospered. Selection pressures at present are not eugenic. Arguably the most "well-adapted" creature in the modern west is a nigger surviving off gibs with four babymamas, spawning retard offspring left and right. What I want is to restore eugenic pressures, through a sort of "unnatural selection" if necessary. Use embryo selection and gene editing to make supermen. Make them into cyborgs if that makes them better. Cull the defectives. Low-hanging fruit is elimination of genetic disorders like Down syndrome and Huntington's disease. But we could do more. Selective breeding of crops has increased yields by something like 30 to 50 standard deviations. Imagine that applied to human intelligence, or to other traits. We could be better men than we are.
Regarding your last paragraph, I think you're entirely right to be concerned about the existing powers. They're the main obstacles to doing any of this. So in some sense this is all a coup-complete problem, and you'd have to overthrow or escape the current regime to do any of it.