The recent controversy surrounding Jason Richwine’s Havard dissertation “IQ and Immigration Policy” serves as an opportune point of departure for reflecting on biological determinism in transhumanist thought. Are transhumanists, as Michael Anissimov says, eugenicists without the coercion? What does channeling eugenics in a white-supremacist society mean and do? Why the obsession with IQ among various transhumanists, particularly AI enthusiasts? I argue that the scientific racism of Richwine and company, with all its elaborate statistical wizardry, functions first and foremost as rationalization of inequality and privilege. I call on transhumanists to reject to biological determinism and struggle for social justice in social terms.

Read it here.

Kurlander attempts to back up his claim that this was “criminal anarchist violence” by selectively citing historical examples. He cites Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of president McKinley, and self-proclaimed anarchist, and the followers of Luigi Galleani, who famously advocated for “propaganda of the deed.” It can be debated whether assassination is technically terrorism, but regardless, both these men engaged in violence for political means and Galleani advocated and encouraged the use of terrorism. It’s worth noting the majority of anarchists at the time repudiated Czolgosz’s actions. While the philosophical ethics of using violence against an oppressive state is debated today, violence against people is not. It is completely rejected by anarchists. It is seen as an immoral, authoritarian action.

The state is apparently not people; the third-to-last sentence leaves me a bit bewildered. Violence against people remains thoroughly contentious in anarchist circles.

On that note, I always intensely annoyed by all the handwringing over Leon Czolgosz’s assassination of William McKinley. Both today and at the time, most anarchists do nothing but try to distance themselves from Czolgosz. Saying ey was just mentally ill or wasn’t really an anarchist supports all sorts of oppressive narratives. If anything, we should be proud that one of our own killed the figure personally presiding over a genocidal war in the Philippines and various other colonial ventures. That’s anti-imperialism in action. I don’t want to shoot anybody, but McKinley is about the last person we should mourn or feel sympathy for. Hell, I do things on a daily basis more morally reprehensible than killing the head of a colonial state.

In case we needed further proof that some lives matter vastly more than others, Assata Shakur‘s recent addition to the FBI most-wanted terrorist list provides it. The authorities apparently cannot stand that Shakur escaped their cage. The claim of terrorism is particularly brazen and speaks volumes about what the term means. According to the official story, Shakur robbed banks and killed a police officer who stopped the vehicle ey was in. Ey didn’t bomb a crowd or fly a plane into a building. Eir terrorist designation suggests that terrorism is about politics, specifically resisting, defying, or threatening the established power structure. Any sort of supposedly objective standard for terrorism based on indiscriminate violence, violence against noncombatants, or the use of fear to condition behavior misunderstands how the label functions.

Happy May Day!

Bradley Manning will not be a grand marshal in this year’s San Francisco Pride celebration. His nomination was a mistake and should never have been allowed to happen. A staff person at SF Pride, acting under his own initiative, prematurely contacted Bradley Manning based on internal conversations within the SF Pride organization. That was an error and that person has been disciplined. He does not now, nor did he at that time, speak for SF Pride.

Bradley Manning is facing the military justice system of this country. We all await the decision of that system. However, until that time, even the hint of support for actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform — and countless others, military and civilian alike — will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride. It is, and would be, an insult to every one, gay and straight, who has ever served in the military of this country. There are many, gay and straight, military and non-military, who believe Bradley Manning to be innocent. There are many who feel differently. Under the US Constitution, they have a first amendment right to show up, participate and voice their opinions at Pride this year.

Specifically, what these events have revealed is a system whereby a less-than-handful of people may decide who represents the LGBT community’s highest aspirations as grand marshals for SF Pride. This is a systemic failure that now has become apparent and will be rectified. In point of fact, less than 15 people actually cast votes for Bradley Manning. These 15 people are part of what is called the SF Pride Electoral College, comprised of former SF Pride Grand Marshals. However, as an organization with a responsibility to serve the broader community, SF Pride repudiates this vote. The Board of Directors for SF Pride never voted to support this nomination. Bradley Manning will have his day in court, but will not serve as an official participant in the SF Pride Parade.

This tells you all you need to know about the mainstream LGBT movement in the United States. It’s about disciplining rogue queers and defending the U.S. military from insult. I pray Williams’s brazen support for imperialism inspires comrades in the Bay Area to show up for SF Pride with plans of their own. I might try to make it myself. Destroy what destroys you, folks.

The longstanding and growing concern over structural unemployment caused by automation highlights the absurdity of capitalism. Like homelessness caused by too many houses, poverty from mechanization looks perverse and nonsensical from system-optimization standpoint. This article briefly sketches the history of both fears and hopes surrounding automated labor in order to argue against economic status quo of coercion, inequality, and inefficiency. I recommend distributing and/or socializing the twenty-first-century’s increasingly robotic means of production while simultaneously troubling sanguine post-scarcity dreams through attention to uncertainty, ecology, and pluralism.

Read it here.

In other news, remember that queer struggle ain’t about getting hitched. Gay marriage is a conservative cause.

Fundamentally, I doubt that freedom will look like a well-oiled machine. I’ll be happy if we can avoid killing and dominating one another. I see greater potential in fragmentation than in trying to create a successful unified system, though these two dynamics need not exist in binary opposition.

As a side note, Wesley Strong makes a charming critique of IEET/transhumanism in the comments that demands reproduction here:

People at IEET seem all to ready to praise white elites like they are godsends. Warren Buffet is a fatcat assclown that profits from the despair of others (he profitted form the economic collapse of 2008). Bill Gates projects a positive image through institutions like the Gates Foundation, which many consider admirable, but what I would argue is just the ruling class buying alliegance from the working and underclass whilst exploiting them at the other end to the fullest extent. Don’t even get me started about Microsoft and how messed up they are. And don’t get me started on how the Gates Foundation is a giant white-man’s burden machine that is there to maintain poverty through acts of charity instead of acts of solidarity. They seek to aid so that others become dependant instead of working to create a society where they are not needed. It is the PR arm to make up for all the messed up crap that is microsoft. And Thomas Edison is a completely differemnt story. People on here are all too willing to praise capitalist elites that exploit millions while ignoring the billions that are marginalized by capitalism, some of them to death.

Indeed!