Ideas
We Are the Species That Modifies Itself
Four billion years of biology was a process of variation and selection acting on organisms that had no idea they were variations of anything. The
The Übermensch Is Not a Metaphor Anymore
Nietzsche introduced the Übermensch in 1883 as a figure who would come after the human. Not a different kind of human. Not a more virtuous
Self-Overcoming Is the Only Real Project
Self-overcoming is the German word Selbstüberwindung, and it shows up in Nietzsche's work more often than almost any other concept. It is what
Your Body Is Yours. Modify It.
Morphological freedom is the position that the body you were born with belongs to you, that no institution has a superior claim to it, and
Love the Genome You Got. Then Change It.
Amor fati is two Latin words that hold the hardest philosophical move Nietzsche ever made. Love of fate. Not tolerance of fate. Not endurance of
Will to Power Is Not What You Think
Will to power is probably the most misread concept in Nietzsche's work, and the misreading has cost the culture a useful idea for
We Have a Moral Duty to Choose Better Children
Julian Savulescu, in a 2001 paper in the journal Bioethics, proposed a principle he called procreative beneficence. The principle says that if prospective parents are
Enhancement Is Not Optional. It Is a Duty.
The enhancement imperative is the moral claim that if you have the capacity to improve yourself and to improve the next generation, you are obligated
The Word Transhumanism Is Older Than You Think
In 1957, Julian Huxley published a book of essays called New Bottles for New Wine. The lead essay was titled Transhumanism. It was the first
Camel, Lion, Child: The Three Stages of Self-Overcoming
In the opening pages of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche lays out a three-stage structure for how a human being actually becomes capable of creating values
Every Philosophy Is a Confession of Its Author's Body
Nietzsche proposed, in several different places across his work, a reading strategy for philosophy that almost nobody applies and that changes everything once you do.
The Revaluation of All Values Is Now a Lab Procedure
Nietzsche's final, incomplete, catastrophically ambitious project was a book called The Revaluation of All Values. He worked on it for years. He died
