Posthumanist perspectives on transhumanist marketing: More than human genes, more than market promotion

Abstract

Transhumanism advocates enhancement of current human capacities with new technologies, in pursuit of human improvement and perfection, and thereby creates lucrative marketing opportunities. We use the broader concept of posthumanism, which includes this, but also all the other ways in which humans are enhanced by non-humans. However, our study is not about posthumanism, but about how a posthumanist critique can enhance our analyses and diagnoses. We consider not just technology, but also other species such as our microbiome, in an effort to critically examine transhumanist marketing, and develop analytic tools to better understand it. The limitations are highlighted with an extended example of the marketing of health information in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Transhumanist marketing is distinguished between “ends”, promoting products, and “means”, as ways to facilitate marketing. We offer a typology of motivations for consumption of transhumanist goods and services.