Transhumanism
"I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to."
- – Willard Gaylin, Gattaca
"From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me."
"Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences."
- – Freeman Dyson
Transhumanism (with various substrains with more specific names; SJWs as H+, ancaps as Extropians, extreme Neckbeards as rationalists) is a movement that promotes or at least discusses the enhancement of the human race through science and technology. A transhuman society would have changed itself to the point where it would challenge the standard meaning of "being human" -- removing or changing some of the disadvantages of being human (sub-century lifespan, vulnerable to hostile bacteria) and improving what are the good parts of being human (thinking faster than the speed of chemicals, ceaseless endurance, capable of having an always-on smartphone in your head you can remove or disable at will).
Transhumanism threads on /tg/ sometimes get deleted by janitors, because the threads too often turn into pseudo-evangelical hugboxes that have nothing to do with tabletop games. When the Eclipse Phase RPG was published, the H+ fancreatures rallied as this was a way to cloak their preaching as talking about the game setting and fluff.
Don't confuse transhumanism for Cyberpunk. Transhumanism is an ideology about going beyond what nature has given us; Cyberpunk is about a world where advanced technology has failed to stop a dystopian society. They have a lot of overlap but they are not the same genre, Cyberpunk corporations are often transhuman but the technology is rarely available to all, and the industries which make some transhuman may well sentence everyone else to live in a crapsack world.
The Singularity
the transhumanism movement is usually associated with an anticipated event called 'the Singularity' To put it fucking simply, Humanity (or some other species) gets so fucking gud with its tech (or discovers some fuck off bullshit tech speed), they end up making something that sky rockets them through the tech tree at speeds that for many seem unimaginable. The causes can be super intelligent ai (that may also create even smarter super intelligences), transhuman super minds, super algorithms that are so impressive they can fucking research and develop shit ahead of human scientists and engineers, and other super bullshit. Its called 'the Singularity' because the original author said things are going to get so weird so fast there's no way to tell what any human culture will be like after this event, and it will serve as an unobservable "event horizon" just as with astronomical singularities like black holes. Some Transhumanists are convinced this event will usher in an ideal future, and some egotists amongst them will tell you at great length they know exactly what the future will look like post-Singularity. Because of this, it has also been sometimes deemed as a "nerd rapture".
Tl;dr: The Singularity is to transhumanists exactly like the End Times is for many Abrahamic faiths (i.e. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity).
How the hell can this be utilized
Transhumanism can be (and arguably is) a overwhelming. And for many, it's a balancing nightmare. Even outside the realm of table top gaming, the topic of transhumanism has treated as a difficult subject and is often restricted to a certain level, with many fictional settings straight up omitting the subject entirely. Cyberpunk 2020 for example utilizes a humanity system to cap augmentations so your characters don't turn into unstoppable cheese fests almost immediately.
But let's say you don't want Dune or Star Trek levels of transhumanism. What do you do? How do you manage this shit? Let me tell yah. You just "make everyone super" so no one is super. Augmentations and modifications that would topple capped settings become the bare minimum to stay in the game. A constant ballet of ridiculous power levels, where almost everyone constantly upgrades themselves to stay ahead of the competition, or at least survive. Unrestrained power that restrains itself.
And how do you make a conflict in a post Singularity/Transhuman filled setting without it "devolving" into total nerd rapture and utopia? Toss in some corruptive extradimensional threats, utilize the usual psychotic intelligences running civilization trope, or just simply make everyone a goddamn asshole. Truly, your imagination is the limit here.
Games
- Transhuman Space is a setting in GURPS and a game of its own.
- Eclipse Phase where your body and attributes are just another inventory item.
- Shadowrun, for a world that is well on its way toward robotic/brain-in-a-jar body rebuilding and on the cusp of experiencing the Singularity: true A.I.'s have appeared but they aren't (yet) able to cascade themselves into better and better iterations.
- Deus Ex series, with Invisible war showing glimpses into post-human world.
- Sins of a Solar Empire, the Advent are transhuman to the t.
- Post-Human Republic who despite their name are actually transhuman.
- Hic Svnt Dracones, an example of transfurryism of all things.
- Warhammer 40,000 has many examples of transhumanism among the good, the bad, the ugly, and the pure evil in their factions. Space Marines, Navigator, Adeptus Mechanicus, Leagues of Votann Kin, Necron, etc.