Website link: http://www.dtc-wsuv.org/ccarroll/transhumanism/index.html
For my final authoring assignment, I created a website that explores four transhumanist technologies, discussing their origins in science-fiction, current applications and developments, and future potential. Since my midterm project focused on form over content, I wanted to take a more informative approach with this project. I created the website using HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery, again using the Skrollr plug-in to provide some movement on the page. I wrote the material as I coded, pulling content from various Web sources, including news articles, organization pages, and even a few scholarly works.
My main goal in creating this website is to raise awareness of how these current technologies are being developed to transcend the human condition. In addition, I believe that it is important for us, as members of the human race, to consider the future of our species. As such, I also hope to facilitate a forward-thinking mentality with my website. I avoided discussing any ethical implications, leaving it up to the readers to make up their own minds as to whether transhumanist ideas are primarily healthy or toxic.
In researching transhumanist technologies, I discovered that, though there is great potential for new technology to radically alter the paradigm of human experience, it is unlikely that significant change (such as achieving “singularly” or the “post-human”) will occur within the next twenty—even fifty—years. Despite the progress researchers in the areas of artificial intelligence, cybernetics, virtual reality, and space colonization have made, these technologies are quite a ways off from achieving their potential as envisioned in science-fiction.