The Christian Transhumanist Podcast

Ep 28: Robert Walden Kurtz & the Zero Sum Game

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Can a Seventh-Day Adventist be a transhumanist? Robert Walden Kurtz, Adventist pastor and Professor of Philosophy, says yes! Join us as we discuss robots stealing your job, mind-mapping Jesus, the hidden threat of washing machines, zero-sum games, hacking the mind, and radical humility.

  • Why Singularitarians are like early Seventh-Day Adventists
    • The origins of Adventism, and what to do when your apocalypse fails
    • The impact of communication on historical cycles in culture, and how this connects the Adventists, Mormons, Ahmadiyya Muslims, and the Bahai
    • What's different about utopian expectations this time around?
    • Ray Kurzweil & the Transcendent Man Documentary
      • Will there always be an economy?
      • Redefining what value means
      • Transhumanism: the prospect of becoming superheroes. But will it also make us super-villains?
      • What happens when you get everything you really want?
      • "Earl Grey, hot!" — Star Trek & the world of 3D printing we're now entering
      • Altruism isn’t popular — especially in modern Christianity
        • Must others fail for you to succeed?
        • Zero-sum games — amplifying competition, what about altruism?
        • Robots stealing your jobs?
          • Washing Machines: the robots already among us!
          • Did the washing machine destroy community? What do you do about it?
          • Mind-mapping Jesus, The Buddha & Mother Teresa
            • Hacking the neural correlates of spiritual experiences, controlling oxytocin, and amping up our pro-sociality
            • Prayer and meditation as the original brain-hacking technology
            • Why brain modification doesn't make zombies, but can help us overcome our zombie addictions, and become more human
            • How Robert became a more effective police officer, and spent 15 years in law enforcement without needing to hurt anyone
            • Aubrey De Grey & Calico Labs
            • “I have never been okay with accepting death and destruction as somehow beautiful and natural”
              • Why Christianity agrees with Ray Kurzweil about the beauty of life, and the ugliness of death
              • John 10:10 “…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
              • Adventists pioneered some of the finest hospitals and medical technologies—desiring to extend life and relieve suffering
              • David Brin’s Bible study
                • David Brin, novelist & futurist, author of The Postman, speaking to atheists about how to communicate with theists
                • The biblical motif of God as parent, and humans as growing children
                • God saying "not yet" to humans
                • But ultimately inviting them into his family business
                • Stephen Pinker and The Better Angels of Our Nature
                  • Darwin — a patron saint?
                  • Why nature films skew our perception of nature in the direction of conflict
                  • Schadenfreude — Why people will destroy their own best interest to spite others
                  • Why humility is the gateway to curiosity
                    • Does the Big Bang contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
                    • Do our theologies amuse God?
                    • Why the criticism of "Playing God" is hypocrisy—and why Christianity calls us to "Play God" better
                    • For further reading: The Four Gospels!
                      • ...more
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                      The Christian Transhumanist PodcastBy Micah Redding
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