Interesting analysis. I'd differ with you, though, on one point: you seem to consider transhumanism a movement and an idea that we need to promote and convince people to join. I, on the other hand, think of it as an inevitable result of technological progress that we'll reach weather we want to or not. A transhumanist, in my view, is someone who recognizes where progress is leading us; as opposed to being someone who's actively promoting the idea and encouraging people to join the movement. I could be wrong, and I would be interested in hearing what others think.
Based on that, I don't think we need to convince people that death is bad, as you suggest. When you ask most people, they'd probably say that death is a natural process and that they wouldn't want to change that; but the moment they get sick, they rush to the hospital and be willing to pay any price to get a cure. Fear of death and the desire to live is built into everyone, no matter what they say. So, I don't worry too much about convincing people that death is bad. I think that once drugs that extend the healthy life span are available, almost everyone will rush to use them.
I think we need to be careful about what we say is inevitable. In my opinion technological progress up to and including, say, radical life extension, uploading and human-level AI is by no means guaranteed to happen. It might not be possible [although this is unlikely]. It might be possible in theory, but almost impossible in practice. More seriously, technological progress may result in a global catastrophe which eliminates the entire human race; clearly this would be the end of technological progress for a very long time, if not forever.
So I say that we should be careful about the word "inevitable", and that we should resist the urge to sit around and wait for techno-rapture to arrive of it's own accord.
Although I didn't specifically mention it, I hope it was understood that by 'inevitable' I meant that it's going to happen as long as technological progress continues the way it is and that no bad event happens (such as a catastrophic event or evil AGI).
Right, understood. In that case you may well be right. But still, there are questions of timeframe, of reducing risks, and so on, which mean that I think that activism is required.
Based on that, I don't think we need to convince people that death is bad, as you suggest. When you ask most people, they'd probably say that death is a natural process and that they wouldn't want to change that; but the moment they get sick, they rush to the hospital and be willing to pay any price to get a cure. Fear of death and the desire to live is built into everyone, no matter what they say. So, I don't worry too much about convincing people that death is bad. I think that once drugs that extend the healthy life span are available, almost everyone will rush to use them.
So I say that we should be careful about the word "inevitable", and that we should resist the urge to sit around and wait for techno-rapture to arrive of it's own accord.