Talk:Dahlia

Transhumanist vs. Posthumanist

(Spoilers for PALISADE 29!)

This is not mega important, but it's interesting to me! Re: the edit to change the PALISADE 29 spoiler block from saying "transhumanist" to "posthumanist and accelerationist" - the historical accelerationism is obviously totally correct, but I would absolutely argue that Dahlia is a transhumanist, not a posthumanist. Definitions differ, obviously, but the one I've always gone by is that transhumanism is about "improving" humanity through technological innovation until humans become something "better" than human, whereas posthumanism is critical of the human-centric concept of "person" in the first place. The former comes from Enlightenment thinking and science and positivism and is totally compatible with imperial bullshit, and it seems to me exactly like what Dahlia is doing. I'd propose changing that back to transhumanist. What do people think? Rigormorphis (talk) 00:08, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Having not read much on the subject I was mostly thinking of what has been said on the podcast, that the Mirage, for example, is transhumanist and the Branched are posthuman. I thought mayyybe Dahlia's attempt to eventually synthesize forms of selfhood was posthuman in aim, even if what we get of their methods is transhuman. And ludicrous. (Aside from that -- they're also the person who (in narration?) called the Branched 'creatures so monstrous they ought not be given names' and I can't tell if that's been made retroactively aspirational in some way, should be interpreted the same way as before, or what. Which isn't a problem, exactly -- blank spaces and accidents are valuable. Anyway.) Changing it back is fine with me. 1smalldragon (talk) 01:41, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Hmmmm I'm thinking myself in circles about all this now. I'd forgotten about that thing about the Mirage being transhumanist which I THINK at the time I interpreted as like, it's not doing the whole "we're all already posthuman" thing that posthumanism does... like, imo the Branched are posthuman in the sense that they as a people expand our idea of personhood (a person can be a room who used to be a haunted deck but hating being that!) whereas the Mirage is transhumanist in the sense that it's like, these people are humans but they've been made Extra. idk idk, I'm open to other interpretations obviously. but in the meantime I guess if nobody objects I'll change it back to transhuman?

(that apparent discrepancy in the Branched as 'monstrous' vs. what Dahlia says in 29 is so fascinating to me. what is real and what is propaganda! what maybe was real but has since changed! etc etc. love a blank space) Rigormorphis (talk) 16:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I would argue that unless someone explicitly rejects humanity, transhumanism is functionally a superset of post-humanism. But then again they sort of did that........ Chemiosmotic (talk) 13:26, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

you make a good point!!! my instinct is to be like, idk if this is posthumanism but I DO think it qualifies as transhumanism, which I guess would track with transhumanism being a superset of posthumanism. does that feel right to you? (obviously if you have a different read on the situation I'd LOVE to hear it.) Rigormorphis (talk) 16:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)