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A review by rotorguy64
More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement by Ramez Naam
4.0
This was a fun read. Like a down-to-earth version of [b:The Singularity is Near|83518|The Singularity is Near When Humans Transcend Biology|Ray Kurzweil|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348757857s/83518.jpg|1080], with less speculation and a greater focus on contemporary research, mostly in genetics, pharmaceutics and neurology. Naam substantiated all of his claims, made extensive and transparent use of sources, and like I said, he didn't go overboard with his predictions. No cool graphs to prove that we'll be intelligent swarms of nanomachines thirty years into the future. It's all hard science.
The book gets bonus points for addressing the topic of economics and regulations. Naam claims that liberalizing some markets, like for genetic modification, would give a huge boost to the development and spread Of course we need some regulations, he says, but that's a flaw on his part that I can look over. That he didn't present scientific progress as existing in a vacuum outside of economics and took a stand for more freedom is already respectable. [b:Science, Technology, and Government|25953909|Science, Technology, and Government|Murray N. Rothbard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437518563s/25953909.jpg|45856532] is a great book for further study on this topic.
So, all in all, this book is solid, it's realistic, and it's fun. Naam did a very good job on this.
The book gets bonus points for addressing the topic of economics and regulations. Naam claims that liberalizing some markets, like for genetic modification, would give a huge boost to the development and spread Of course we need some regulations, he says, but that's a flaw on his part that I can look over. That he didn't present scientific progress as existing in a vacuum outside of economics and took a stand for more freedom is already respectable. [b:Science, Technology, and Government|25953909|Science, Technology, and Government|Murray N. Rothbard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437518563s/25953909.jpg|45856532] is a great book for further study on this topic.
So, all in all, this book is solid, it's realistic, and it's fun. Naam did a very good job on this.