Transhumanism won't save you

Originally published in Manila Bulletin

They tell you the future is here. That soon your brain will be enhanced, your body rebuilt, your life extended. You’ll think faster, live longer, feel less pain. They call it transhumanism, the next step in human evolution. And you—numbed by the comfort of screens and the endless drip of entertainment—believe them.

But you shouldn’t.

What they promise is not transformation. It’s convenience disguised as greatness. What they offer is not a new kind of human—it’s a more obedient machine.

The question is not whether we can enhance the body. The question is whether doing so makes us better, fuller, deeper beings. Does it make us more human, or less?

Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote of the Übermensch—the one who overcomes not others, but himself. He doesn’t ask what is safe, what is efficient, what is popular. He asks: What can I become? He creates his own meaning. He bears suffering not to avoid it, but to transform it into strength. He is not content. He is becoming.

But you—modern man—you are not becoming. You are upgrading.

You are turning yourself into a gadget.

You imagine freedom will come through technology. That if only you had a better processor, a younger face, an eternal life, you would be fulfilled. You won’t. You’ll just live longer in a world that feels increasingly empty.

Because here’s the truth: You cannot outsource purpose. You cannot download courage. No amount of enhancements will make you whole if you are too afraid to stand alone and choose who you are.

The danger of transhumanism isn’t the tech. It’s the illusion. The illusion that becoming more than human means avoiding the parts of life that make it meaningful: risk, failure, suffering, death. But those are the forge. That’s where strength is made. That’s where character is tested. That’s where meaning is born.

You want eternal life? First, live a life worth repeating.

You want to be more than human? Then do what no machine can: create values where there were none. Face pain without anesthesia. Love without guarantee. Stand without certainty.

Don’t dream of becoming a god by erasing your humanity.

Become more human—more conscious, more dangerous, more alive—than the world tells you is possible.

That is what it means to go beyond.

That is the real evolution.

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