what is h plus

H+?

Transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism..? You can see why the H+ tag wasn't so hard to adopt with those mouthful-isms! They are all though just names for ideologies that revolve around the perceived acellerating changes in technology set to make even larger changes to humans and human society in the coming decades. What sets these ideas apart from sci-fi and regular futurists musing is the long view of technology and the nature of how technological change happens over time. If we take the long view of our our species we made a very significant move to from hunter gatherers to settled farmers about 12,000 years ago. This new agricultural technology allowed hunter gatherers to settle and expand temporary encampments into settled villages. In the scattered hunter gathering communities technology spread slowly as the different groups had patchy contact with each other. This new innovation of settled towns gave technology an environment to spread rapidly (physically closer for a start). Once you've got many minds together in one place you are able to crack problems and make technological advances far quicker than the smaller hunter groups.

The opening up of new horizons and areas of science feeds back discoveries and technology into the mix. For example if you can create a lens, you're not far away from a microscope or even a telescope. Have those tools and you open up a wider seam of discovery mining gems of greater technology and so on. The rule it seems is technology combined with creative thought through larger and larger societies hot-houses itself, enabling better technology and still larger societies. Technology shrinks the world via advances like roads, boats, aeroplanes and then by almost instant connection by telephone and information highways. Where is it all heading? It it a positive shift for the world? What is the artistic response to all this change?...