When possible, how to remove the negative reptilian competitiveness of
humans while retaining the drive for continued progress as an
surviving/evolving organism?

This question assumes that we, as advanced humans, continue to develop
the capabilities to alter our own brain while also
augmenting/replacing our brain with controllable computational power. 
This all done through A.I., nanotechnology and a host of other
technologies that control our biology atomically (thus molecularly and
cellularly) in concert with networking and power sources that remain
to be developed but are all theoretically possible and are on the
table.  And don't think linearly, think exponentially which says we
will not remain "dumb" as this all progresses but will grown in our
mental capacities.

All of this will obey all laws of physics until that itself changes,
if it does.  It is the point in time when we crawl out of the swamp
"again", but this time under our own control.

Thank you very much. - Bobby

See below for a detailed (and fun) description of what I am talking
about by Max More.



Dear Mother Nature:

Sorry to disturb you, but we humans?your offspring?come to you with
some things to say. (Perhaps you could pass this on to Father, since
we never seem to see him around.) We want to thank you for the many
wonderful qualities you have bestowed on us with your slow but
massive, distributed intelligence. You have raised us from simple
self-replicating chemicals to trillion-celled mammals. You have given
us free rein of the planet. You have given us a life span longer than
that of almost any other animal. You have endowed us with a complex
brain giving us the capacity for language, reason, foresight,
curiosity, and creativity. You have given us the capacity for
self-understanding as well as empathy for others.

Mother Nature, truly we are grateful for what you have made us. No
doubt you did the best you could. However, with all due respect, we
must say that you have in many ways done a poor job with the human
constitution. You have made us vulnerable to disease and damage. You
compel us to age and die?just as we?re beginning to attain wisdom. You
were miserly in the extent to which you gave us awareness of our
somatic, cognitive, and emotional processes. You held out on us by
giving the sharpest senses to other animals. You made us functional
only under narrow environmental conditions. You gave us limited
memory, poor impulse control, and tribalistic, xenophobic urges. And,
you forgot to give us the operating manual for ourselves!

What you have made us is glorious, yet deeply flawed. You seem to have
lost interest in our further evolution some 100,000 years ago. Or
perhaps you have been biding your time, waiting for us to take the
next step ourselves. Either way, we have reached our childhood?s end.

We have decided that it is time to amend the human constitution.

We do not do this lightly, carelessly, or disrespectfully, but
cautiously, intelligently, and in pursuit of excellence. We intend to
make you proud of us. Over the coming decades we will pursue a series
of changes to our own constitution, initiated with the tools of
biotechnology guided by critical and creative thinking. In particular,
we declare the following seven amendments to the human constitution:

Amendment No.1: We will no longer tolerate the tyranny of aging and
death. Through genetic alterations, cellular manipulations, synthetic
organs, and any necessary means, we will endow ourselves with enduring
vitality and remove our expiration date. We will each decide for
ourselves how long we shall live.

Amendment No.2: We will expand our perceptual range through
biotechnological and computational means. We seek to exceed the
perceptual abilities of any other creature and to devise novel senses
to expand our appreciation and understanding of the world around us.

Amendment No.3: We will improve on our neural organization and
capacity, expanding our working memory, and enhancing our
intelligence.

Amendment No.4: We will supplement the neocortex with a "metabrain".
This distributed network of sensors, information processors, and
intelligence will increase our degree of self-awareness and allow us
to modulate our emotions.

Amendment No. 5: We will no longer be slaves to our genes. We will
take charge over our genetic programming and achieve mastery over our
biological, and neurological processes. We will fix all individual and
species defects left over from evolution by natural selection. Not
content with that, we will seek complete choice of our bodily form and
function, refining and augmenting our physical and intellectual
abilities beyond those of any human in history.

Amendment No.6: We will cautiously yet boldly reshape our motivational
patterns and emotional responses in ways we, as individuals, deem
healthy. We will seek to improve upon typical human emotional
excesses, bringing about refined emotions. We will strengthen
ourselves so we can let go of unhealthy needs for dogmatic certainty,
removing emotional barriers to rational self-correction.

Amendment No.7: We recognize your genius in using carbon-based
compounds to develop us. Yet we will not limit our physical,
intellectual, or emotional capacities by remaining purely biological
organisms. While we pursue mastery of our own biochemistry, we will
increasingly integrate our advancing technologies into our selves.

These amendments to our constitution will move us from a human to an
ultrahuman condition as individuals. We believe that individual
ultrahumanizing will also allow us to form relationships, cultures,
and polities of unprecedented innovation, richness, freedom, and
responsibility.

We reserve the right to make further amendments collectively and
individually. Rather than seeking a state of final perfection, we will
continue to pursue new forms of excellence according to our own
values, and as technology allows.

Your ambitious human offspring.

© Max More, 1999