Techno-progressivism, or tech-progressivism,[1] is a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social change. Techno-progressives argue that technological developments can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory when they are regulated by legitimate democratic and accountable authorities to ensure that their costs, risks and benefits are all fairly shared by the actual stakeholders to those developments.[2][3][self-published source?] One of the first mentions of techno-progressivism appeared within extropian jargon in 1999 as the removal of "all political, cultural, biological, and psychological limits to self-actualization and self-realization".[4]
Stance
Techno-progressivism maintains that accounts of progress should focus on scientific and technical dimensions, as well as ethical and social ones. For most techno-progressive perspectives, then, the growth of scientific knowledge or the accumulation of technological powers will not represent the achievement of proper progress unless and until it is accompanied by a just distribution of the costs, risks, and benefits of these new knowledges and capacities. At the same time, for most techno-progressive critics and advocates, the achievement of better democracy, greater fairness, less violence, and a wider rights culture are all desirable, but inadequate in themselves to confront the quandaries of contemporary technological societies unless and until they are accompanied by progress in science and technology to support and implement these values.[3][self-published source?]
During the November 2014 Transvision Conference, many of the leading transhumanist organizations signed the Technoprogressive Declaration. The Declaration stated the values of technoprogressivism.[6]
Bioconservatism (a portmanteau word combining "biology" and "conservatism") is a stance of hesitancy about technological development especially if it is perceived to threaten a given social order. Strong bioconservative positions include opposition to genetic modification of food crops, the cloning and genetic engineering of livestock and pets, and, most prominently, rejection of the genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification of human beings to overcome what are broadly perceived as current human biological and cultural limitations.[2][3][self-published source?]
Although techno-progressivism is the stance which contrasts with bioconservatism in the biopolitical spectrum, both techno-progressivism and bioconservatism, in their more moderate expressions, share an opposition to unsafe, unfair, undemocratic forms of technological development, and both recognize that such developmental modes can facilitate unacceptable recklessness and exploitation, exacerbate injustice and incubate dangerous social discontent.[2][3][self-published source?]
Technocritic Dale Carrico, who has used "techno-progressive" as a shorthand to describe progressive politics that emphasize technoscientific issues,[20] has expressed concern that some "transhumanists" are using the term to describe themselves, with the consequence of possibly misleading the public regarding their actual cultural, social and political views, which may or may not be compatible with critical techno-progressivism.[21][self-published source?]
^Mander, Jerry (1991). In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, California.
^Rifkin, Jeremy (1998). The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York, New York.
^Shiva, Vandana (2000). Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, South End Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.