Judge, Jury and Executioner Syndrome – Article by Arin Vahanian

January 11, 2021 Arin Vahanian Comments 1 comment

Arin Vahanian

The topic of life extension seems to bring forth strong emotions from people. While living longer and healthier is a goal that nearly all people say they have, there are critics of life extension who have become quite vociferous in their opposition to extending the human lifespan. The truth is, living a longer and healthier life shouldn’t be controversial at all. After all, it is what we humans have been trying to do since day one.

However, when the topic turns to living a healthy life indefinitely, critics seem to come out of the woodwork, citing various reasons why humans should not live radically longer. While each of the major objections to life extension deserves its own space (and its own rebuttal), one objection, in particular, is rankling in its lack of substance – that human beings already live long enough.

As ridiculous as this objection is, we need to address it, not only because of the amount of damage it does to humanity by limiting life-extension research, but also because it causes unnecessary pain and suffering. People who present this objection have what I like to call “Judge, Jury, and Executioner Syndrome.”

I can’t imagine that people in the 14th century suffering and then dying from the Bubonic Plague at age 20 or 30 would have considered their life to have been “long enough.” In the same way, nor could I imagine that someone would actually find declining and then dying from an aging-related disease such as dementia at age 75 to be desirable.

But how long is long enough? Is it 40 years, like it used to be in 19th-century England? Or is it 82 years, as it is in modern-day Japan? Or is it 100 years?

It is difficult to answer this question, because there is no correct answer to the question.

However, rather than going down a rabbit hole, the best way to answer such critics is to ask them why they get to decide how long people should live. Of course, they have no right whatsoever to decide how long the human lifespan should be. This should end the conversation right then and there, but sadly, in some cases, it does not.

To go further, one might want to ask these critics whether they believe their parents or grandparents, if they are still alive, have lived too many years and whether they would want them to die quickly because they have already lived “long enough.” Or, even better, we should ask critics of life extension how many years they think their children should live (if they have children). Of course, no one, other than a psychopath, would wish such suffering and death upon their loved ones.

Therefore, it appears that people who oppose life extension on the basis that humans already live long enough, tend to only hold this view toward other people, and not themselves or their loved ones. This seems to me to be horribly cruel, not to mention illogical. However, we should not consider those who claim they are satisfied with the 82-year lifespan for themselves, as being nobler or more altruistic than other people. After all, they are still trying to play judge, jury, and executioner!

The argument that human beings already live long enough attacks the very core of what it means to be human. Human beings are designed to want to survive, and to continue living. Otherwise, we would have stopped trying to live longer a long time ago, and as a consequence, we would have stopped trying to find cures for diseases such as cancer, heart disease, or diabetes. The very fact that we are so dedicated to finding cures for conditions that have ravaged humanity is proof that we are dedicated to living longer and healthier. There is no rule that says that human beings can only live until 100 years old, or that they are not allowed to try to live longer.

Of course, just as no one may decide how long the human lifespan should be, neither should we force those who do not want to live longer and healthier, to live longer and healthier. This is a personal choice that everyone must make for themselves. But opponents of life extension do not have the right, nor do they have the ability, fortunately, to decide how long the human lifespan should be.

Even if there is some unalterable limit to how long a human lifespan can be, wouldn’t it be better to come to this conclusion and obtain closure after conducting medical and scientific research, rather than hastily quitting, and in the process, damning all of humanity to pain, suffering, and death, solely to satisfy a falsely held belief that humans already live long enough?

I understand that no matter what I may be arguing in this article, there will always be people who do not want to live much longer and healthier than they do now, for whatever reason. While I respect their decision to not want to extend their own life, I also ask them to respect my wishes to live longer and healthier. Surely this seems like a fair position to take.

There is absolutely no reason at all to apologize for wanting to live a healthy life indefinitely. No one should be asking, “Why do you want to live longer?” Rather, we should be asking, “How can we live longer and healthier?” This sort of inclusive, optimistic, and honest approach will go a long way toward removing some of the obstacles to life extension, thus putting humanity just a bit closer to attaining what it has been seeking since the beginning of time – to live a longer, healthier life.

Arin Vahanian is the Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Anti-Aging: The Growing Popularity Of Radical Life Extension – Article by Kimberly Forsythe

January 4, 2021 Kimberly Forsythe Comments 0 Comment

Kimberly Forsythe

There are numerous anti-aging therapies, which are used to slow the aging process in humans. Each of these therapies has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, there are anti-aging processes such as anti-oxidants, anti-aging nutrients, anti-aging exercise programs, anti-aging diets, and anti-aging supplements that are said to extend a person’s lifespan. Aging is said to be a natural process that cannot be slowed or reversed once humans undergo it, and which accelerates greatly after puberty and early adulthood; however, some experts do not agree with this. There are several theories on the subject of aging that have varying outlooks on the actual causes of aging.

What Causes Aging in Humans?

There are various theories that explain the causes of aging, but they do not all agree. While we are making new discoveries all the time, we still do not have definitive answers on what causes aging. Some researchers believe that oxidative damage is what causes aging, and others believe genetics are involved in causing aging.

The evidence for the oxidative damage by sunlight, poor diet, and poor exercising habits is strong. For example, if your parents or grandparents had a shorter lifespan than the average person, it’s possible that part of the reason was that they didn’t have a good diet, they didn’t exercise, or they didn’t avoid the common environmental hazards we encounter today. That certainly makes some sense.

You might think that they all contribute equally, which is certainly plausible. Consider how much impact the food we eat has on our health. If the foods we eat are generally unhealthy, then the oxidative damage done to our cells will be greater, and our lifespan will be shortened. If the foods we eat are rich in antioxidants and are beneficial to health, then we will be healthier, and the oxidative damage we do to our cells will be lessened.

So, one could say that oxidative damage is what causes aging, and the antioxidants are what counteract it. But that’s too simple. Actually, free radicals do more damage to our cells than oxidative damage, so it stands to reason that free radicals add to the damage. In other words, instead of wearing away at the cells in a chemical process, free radicals cause cell death.

However, the evidence for genetics is also strong. When the telomeres within the protective shell of the cell are damaged, they become shorter. As a result, the “RNA” within the telomere becomes too short. The second factor which causes aging is cell senescence, or aging at the cellular level.

There are many different forms of cell senescence, but the main ones are in peripheral tissues such as skin, muscles, and blood vessels. If this continues, then the total number of cells may start to decline. The decline in cell numbers is partly what causes aging in general.

Another factor is called DNA damage, and this is caused by exposure to radiation and to chemicals used during manufacturing. This is a big problem, because DNA is responsible for the repair of cellular damage, and if it gets damaged, it can stop replicating to produce new cells altogether. This would mean that the aging process could not be stopped, and the body will just keep getting older without any real control.

What is Radical Life Extension?

Radical life extension is the process of using anti-aging technology to reverse age-related processes that are already underway. Anti-aging techniques rely on a combination of knowledge and understanding of the aging process, as well as on modern-day scientific breakthroughs. Scientists are only just now beginning to unlock many of the mysteries surrounding the mechanisms of aging.

In theory, we could live forever if we found a way to completely rejuvenate ourselves after we passed the age of sixty. Some people are under the impression that curing or reversing aging is impossible. But at the very least, we might be able to make ourselves better, or at least age gracefully. It is not known how far the search has come, but some of the results so far have been very promising.

When Will Aging be Cured or Reversed?

To cure or reverse aging, it will be necessary to find some way to increase the lifespan of humans. Many questions surround which scientific approach to anti-aging will be the most beneficial to humans. Perhaps we will lengthen lifespans by curing all of the diseases that we are prone to, or perhaps by using genetic engineering to insert new genes into the human genome. For some transhumanists, the ultimate aim would be to live forever. Others, however, wish only to increase the number of healthy years.

There is a great deal of interest in the subject of radical life extension, and there is considerable money involved. Investors are piling in to fund research to unlock more theories about aging and the mysteries that scientists are trying to unravel. There are, unfortunately, many unfounded claims and charlatans out there misleading the public about how we may be able to cure or reverse aging.

Some people have made the mistake of thinking that radical life extension is magic, or of taking a magical pill that will turn you into an immortal. While there is promising research for medications that can reduce biological age, the notion that it will be an immediate and instant cure is likely a distortion of the truth. We need to understand that aging is just one of the processes that occur within us, but there are many ways we can counter these processes. It is possible to extend your life significantly, but this requires an understanding of the aging process as a whole.

Overall, the more resources we put into studying the aging process and search for effective ways of curing or reversing aging, the faster we will find answers to questions that humans have sought after for ages. The “Fountain of Youth” may arrive sooner than we think. It is important that we collectively understand the implications of reversing aging and take steps to address these issues as soon as possible.

2021 New Year’s Message by Victor Bjoerk

January 3, 2021 Victor Bjoerk Comments 0 Comment

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Victor Bjoerk

2021 has arrived, and it’s time for my yearly New Year’s message!

Since we all know how the world has been affected this year, there’s no point in mentioning the virus, but quite a few things happened for me.

At the beginning of this year and spring I was living in San Francisco and working on aging at BioAge. However, BioAge had to temporarily shut down because of COVID, but this wasn’t a big deal for me since I was able to transfer to Ichor Therapeutics in Syracuse, New York, which remained operational. So I got to work at two awesome leading biotech companies in the Longevity field, where I gained a lot of specific know-how which I am very grateful for!

I returned to Europe a few weeks ago, and shortly I’ll have some more exciting things to announce that I will be working on!

So yes, a lot of lemons were handed out this year worldwide, but I felt I did a decent job at making lemonade out of them. I’m a very positive person with a grand vision of wiping out all age-related disease within the next few decades, so that everybody can live as long as they want in a 25-year old body.

Some do not have that approach, they think “Longevity” means some slight health improvement by diet/exercise. Others study some aspect of aging because they want a PhD and some academic credentials (using aging as an excuse to refer to for that); however, this causes a generalized lack of a big-picture perspective for what’s going to work.

That is not me. I robustly and consistently keep up the interest until the mission is fully accomplished. In my personal roadmap I’ve developed for impacting aging, I emphasize the transdisciplinary scientific fields that are going to produce good outcomes (that may be hidden as, e.g.,“proteomics” rather than explicitly stated as “anti-aging”).

I also put an equal weight on the “business aspect” here, since your impact won’t be that big without the correct biotech business know-how, especially as AI and robotics wipe out the lab workers. Drug development and clinical trials are complex fields with 15-20 years from initial discovery to approved product. In addition, raising capital and advocacy to the public are as important as knowing the basic biology itself.

A lot of things in history have also been grotesquely mismanaged and squandered because of predictable human error, not because of the intrinsic difficulty of the science itself. There are a lot of golden nuggets laying around the labs in the world right now, and lots of resources and techniques are at our fingertips, but how will they be combined and implemented into an individual in order to cure them from aging? And how will this cocktail of interventions that forms the ultimate cure of aging be implemented across the world just like the efforts currently underway with the COVID vaccine?

A lot of setbacks are reversible and temporary, such as a lack of money and success or whatever people feel this year has caused them; aging is profoundly more serious.

During the year I read, as usual, many hundreds of scientific papers to keep up with the aging field, and also I have several publications I’ve produced, coming out now during 2021 (unfortunately peer-review takes time). I participated in many aging conferences, including one in Curacao, which meant a week of swimming in the tropics (how enjoyable!).

So yes, I felt I did many things well despite the challenges. Of course, things could always have been done better in retrospect, but that’s what one always says.

My New Year’s celebration this year isn’t very special because of all restrictions, but I wish you all a happy new year!

I have some typical New Year’s resolutions like getting fitter (but not motivating with all gyms and pools being closed, so some coaching is required), and of course continuing with the aging mission. So I’ll leave the question now to the reader: What have you done this year, and what good do you feel you can do for next year?

Victor Bjoerk has worked for the Gerontology Research Group, the Longevity Reporter, the Fraunhofer-Institut für Zelltherapie und Immunologie, BioAge, and Ichor Therapeutics. He has promoted awareness throughout Europe of emerging biomedical research and the efforts to reverse biological aging. In his honor the U.S. Transhumanist Party organized the Victor Run 2020 Virtual Race on June 5-7, 2020.

U.S. Transhumanist Party General Discussion Thread for 2021

January 2, 2021 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 2 comments

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The purpose of this post is to facilitate member comments pertaining to transhumanism and the U.S. Transhumanist Party (USTP), which might not specifically fit the subjects of any other post or article on the USTP website. This is the place for members to offer suggestions or converse about any areas of emerging technologies and their political, moral, societal, cultural, and esthetic implications. The general discussion thread is also an ideal location to suggest or propose platform planks that may be considered for future platform voting, and/or bring our attention to emerging legislative and societal developments that may affect the course and impact of emerging technologies.

The USTP will endeavor to open one of these general comment threads per year. This comment thread pertains to the year of 2021.

Type in your comments below. Please note that, to protect against spambots, the first comment by any individual will be moderated. After passing moderation, a civil commenter should be able to post comments without future moderation – although we cannot guarantee that the technical aspect of this functionality will work as intended 100% of the time.

Results of U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitutional Reform Vote #2

January 2, 2021 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 4 comments

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The U.S. Transhumanist Party (USTP) conducted its sixteenth vote of the members and the second vote on the non-platform provisions of its Constitution between December 23 and December 30, 2020. Official ballot options can be found here.

Detailed results of the voting have been tabulated here.

As a result, the following new or amended sections of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution were adopted within Articles I, III, VII, and VIII.

Nearly all of the proposed new provisions received a majority of support from the voting members. The members also determined that the Chairman would have the discretion to call an election for the office of Chairman at any time with two months of advance notice, without any member threshold needing to be reached to trigger that decision. Furthermore, regarding the name for activities that would disqualify a potential candidate pursuant to Article VII, Section I, Subsection (v), after 10 rounds of instant runoffs, the term “highly unacceptable” emerged as the one most favored by the members. The majority members did not believe that a previous criminal history of vandalism should automatically disqualify a potential candidate. Accordingly, any future candidates with a history of vandalism will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and in consideration of the other eligibility criteria adopted by the USTP members. The remainder of the proposed candidate eligibility criteria were adopted by majority votes of the USTP members.

Note that only the newly added or amended provisions of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitutions are listed below.

Article I, Section II. Statements of Historical Fact

Historical Fact 9. [Added on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020] Johannon Ben Zion ceased to be affiliated with the United States Transhumanist Party as of June 8, 2020. After that date, Arin Vahanian became the Vice-Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party.

Article III. Officers

Section I [Amended on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020]: As of January 1, 2021, the following individuals shall hold roles as Officers in the United States Transhumanist Party.

Chairman: Gennady Stolyarov II
Vice-Chairman: Arin Vahanian
Secretary: Pavel Ilin
Vice-Secretary: Caeus H. Antony
Director of Foreign Relations: B.J. Murphy
Director of Scholarship: Dan Elton
Director of Community Resilience: Alexandria Black
Director of Marketing: Charlie Kam
Director of Longevity Outreach: Daniel Yeluashvili
Director of Applied Innovation: David Shumaker
Director of Publication: Brent Logan Reitze
Director of Sentient Rights Advocacy: Tom Ross
Legislative Director: Justin Waters
Director of Visual Art: (Art Ramon) Garcia, Jr.
Director of Energy Issues: John J. Kerecz

The list of Officers above and the effective date of this list is subject to automatic updates without further member votes in the event of a change in the individual holding any Officer position, provided that such a change occurs in accordance with the processes outlined in the provisions of this Article III.

Section II [Amended on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020]: New Officer positions may be created, and vacancies in Officer positions may be filled in the event of a departure of any Officer. Any individual may apply for an Officer position that becomes vacant. Any appointment of an Officer to a new or vacant position shall be effective upon a two-thirds affirmative vote of those Officers who take active part in the deliberations regarding such an appointment at any time during a discussion period of three days, and with the subsequent approval of the Chairman.

Section III [Amended on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020]: While any individual may apply for an Officer position that becomes vacant, the United States Transhumanist Party shall only appoint an individual to an Officer position if that individual has demonstrated at least one of the following qualifications:

(i) A United States Transhumanist Party Officer position attained on or before January 1, 2021; or

(ii) At least four consecutive years of active presence within the broader transhumanist movement, with each year of such active presence capable of being verified by means of clear evidence of the individual’s writings, videos, audio recordings, projects, scientific research, artistic work, meeting or conference attendance, or other objectively demonstrable contributions to the advancement of transhumanism; or

(iii) At least six months of reliable service to the United States Transhumanist Party in an intermediate role which does not carry Officer status but may involve responsibility in organizing projects, events, or outreach. Such intermediate roles may be created at the discretion of the United States Transhumanist Party Officers and are not subject to the requirement in Subsection (ii) above.

Section IV [Amended on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020]: For any new applicant to an Officer position, existing Officers will assemble and interview the applicant. The interview may take place prior to or subsequent to the confirmation vote for the applicant, depending on whether any existing Officer would consider the interview to provide additional information needed for the purposes of making a decision regarding the applicant.

In the process of the interview, the applicant and the existing Officers will develop an agreement that will encompass the necessary duties and suggested roles of the position, how to perform the duties and roles of that position, and any information relevant to that position. The agreement may be documented either in writing or by means of a recorded discussion at the interview.

Section V [Amended on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020]: Beginning in February 2021, Officers shall establish a public page of goals for the United States Transhumanist Party to accomplish within reasonable timeframes specified for each goal. As each goal is achieved, or as the timeframe for that goal elapses or is in need of revision, the Officers shall update the public page of goals to reflect such developments.

Section VII [Amended on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020]: The Chairman shall be the chief Officer of the United States Transhumanist Party and shall preside at all meetings of the organization, or else appoint a substitute for any meeting where the Chairman is absent. The Chairman shall have the chief executive authority within the United States Transhumanist Party and shall be responsible for the principal decision-making and organizational activities of the United States Transhumanist Party, including the maintenance of the United States Transhumanist Party Platform, the periodic organization of elections and votes on provisions of the Platform, and the development of discussion and outreach events involving the general public. The Chairman shall have the authority to decide any matter affecting the course, conduct, and official positions of the United States Transhumanist Party. The Chairman shall have the authority, but not the obligation, to proclaim and determine the structure of any meeting, convention, assembly, or other forum for conducting the business of the United States Transhumanist Party at any time at the Chairman’s discretion. The Chairman may delegate any aspect of the Chairman’s responsibility to another Officer or Member of the United States Transhumanist Party at the Chairman’s discretion via a written delegation of authority. Such a written delegation of authority may be revocable at any time.

The Chairman shall appoint committees that are deemed necessary for the organization. Vacancies that occur for Vice-Chairman, Secretary, or Directors may be filled by appointment of the Chairman, preferably following a two-thirds vote of those Officers who take active part in the deliberations regarding such an appointment at any time during a discussion period of three days.

Section VIII [Amended on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020]: The Vice-Chairman shall temporarily assume the duties of the Chairman in the event of the Chairman’s absence and the absence of a contrary delegation of authority from the Chairman. In the event of the resignation of the Chairman, the Chairman may designate a successor. In the absence of a designation of a successor by a departing Chairman, the Vice-Chairman, Secretary, and each of the Directors who desires the role of Chairman shall each select a random number, and then a random-number generator shall be utilized to select the next Chairman among the willing Officers, such that the Officer whose number is chosen shall become the Chairman.

Section XI [Amended on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020]: By majority vote and with the approval of the Chairman, the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may place on probation an Officer who fails to fulfill the duties of his or her office as specified in the documents developed by the United States Transhumanist Party to describe such duties. The probation period shall last as long as the Officers deem appropriate by majority vote, and shall include a written contract with deadlines and criteria for the fulfillment of duties. In the event that the terms of the probation period and/or contract are violated, the subject Officer may be removed from office by a majority vote and with the approval of the Chairman. An Officer may also be removed from office if a majority vote, with the approval of the Chairman, determines that the subject Officer has been entirely inactive and non-responsive and would therefore not be able to abide by the terms of any probation period. If an Officer has been entirely inactive and non-responsive for a period of three consecutive months, then that Officer shall be deemed to have vacated his or her position, unless the Officer affirmatively indicates a desire to remain in that position via a written communication to the Chairman.

The Chairman may take measures at the Chairman’s sole discretion to restrict, contain, sanction, or discipline any Officer considered to be acting in an intentionally hostile manner toward the United States Transhumanist Party. Any Officer discovered to be engaged in criminal activity, planning an internal coup, or spreading false allegations about other Officers to third parties or to the public, may, at the sole discretion of the Chairman, be immediately restricted from any or some portion of that Officer’s role within the United States Transhumanist Party upon discovery of such actions. A restriction is not an expulsion and is subject to subsequent evaluation by the remaining Officers. Upon subsequent evaluation, such restricted Officer may be removed from his or her Officer role and/or expelled from the United States Transhumanist Party by means of a majority vote of the other Officers, if those other Officers determine it proper to do so.

Section XII [Added on January 1, 2021, pursuant to a vote of the members on December 23-30, 2020]: The Chairman may, at the Chairman’s discretion, call for an election to the position of Chairman with at least two months of advance notice. To be eligible to run in such an election, any candidate for the position of Chairman requires the approval of two-thirds of existing United States Transhumanist Party Officers who occupy their positions at the time the election is first announced.

Article VII. Candidates

Section I [Adopted by a vote of the members during December 23-30, 2020]: In order to be eligible to become endorsed by the United States Transhumanist Party as a candidate for any local, state, or federal political office, an individual must satisfy the following criteria.

(i) The individual satisfies the minimum qualifications pursuant to applicable law for holding the office for which the individual seeks to run.

(ii) The individual has never committed any violent crime. A violent crime includes physical injury or destruction inflicted upon any person. A violent crime also includes physical damage or destruction inflicted upon property. As used in this subsection, the term “violent crime” includes but is not necessarily limited to the following: murder, manslaughter, rape, human trafficking, domestic violence, robbery, assault, battery, looting, arson, and rioting.

(iii) The individual has never committed any financial crime which had any victim, including but not limited to fraud, embezzlement, theft, cybercrime, or financing of violent or criminal groups.

(iv) The individual has never engaged in documented acts of cyberbullying, cyber-harassment, or intentional spreading of false accusations against another individual online.

(v) The individual has never engaged in acts understood to be of a highly unacceptable nature within every contemporary agricultural, industrial, or post-industrial society. The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party shall maintain an internal list identifying such highly unacceptable practices, engaging in which or advocating which would be considered an automatic disqualification for holding any office within or receiving any endorsement from the United States Transhumanist Party.

(vi) The individual has never engaged in acts which are understood by the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party to have been undertaken by that individual primarily for the purposes of generating shock value or for transgression for the sake of transgression.

(vii) The individual must agree to participate in any process designated by the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party for the determination of whether or not that individual may be endorsed as a candidate and to respect the outcome of that process, no matter whether or not that individual is ultimately endorsed as a candidate.

(viii) The individual must agree to work collaboratively with the United States Transhumanist Party during the campaign season and not to disparage the United States Transhumanist Party as well as not to work contrary to the interests and goals of the United States Transhumanist Party during that time.

(ix) The individual must never have disparaged the United States Transhumanist Party or any of its current Officers in good standing within any written publication or public video or audio recording. This criterion does not, however, preclude constructive criticism, and a reasonable-person test shall be used to differentiate constructive criticism from disparagement.

(x) The individual must commit to running for office as a candidate endorsed by the United States Transhumanist Party until the conclusion of the election in which the individual seeks to be a candidate.

(xi) The individual must have never reneged on a prior commitment to run for office as a candidate endorsed by the United States Transhumanist Party until the conclusion of the election in which the individual sought to be a candidate.

(xii) The individual must never have falsely alleged any electoral malfeasance on the part of the United States Transhumanist Party.

(xiii) The individual must never have undertaken or threatened to undertake any legal action or make any formal complaint to an external entity against the United States Transhumanist Party or any Officer thereof in good standing.

(xiv) The individual must express agreement with the Core Ideals of the United States Transhumanist Party as described in Article I, Section I, of this Constitution.

(xv) The policy positions of the individual should have significant areas of alignment with the United States Transhumanist Party Platform as described in Article VI of this Constitution.

(xvi) The individual must agree, in that individual’s public statements, to either (a) specifically and openly express support for transhumanism and/or life extension; or (b) specifically and openly reference the endorsement of that individual by the United States Transhumanist Party.

Section II [Adopted by a vote of the members during December 23-30, 2020]: Prior to convening a vote of the members regarding whether or not the United States Transhumanist Party should endorse a candidate for any office, the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party shall interview the candidate in order to determine the candidate’s compliance and likelihood of continued compliance with the criteria in Section I of Article VII and the desirability of enabling that candidate to seek the approval of the members of the United States Transhumanist Party. The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may utilize any additional criteria, including the Officers’ individual assessments of the candidate’s character, personality, and reliability, in order to determine whether or not to render the candidate eligible to appear on a ballot for consideration by the members.

Article VIII. Additional Initiatives

Section I [Adopted by a vote of the members during December 23-30, 2020]: The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may, at their discretion, form a non-political affiliate organization or organizations which would maintain the same leadership structure and Officers as the United States Transhumanist Party but which would not be a political party or parties and would not be involved in any campaigns for elected office. All members of the United States Transhumanist Party would become members of the non-political affiliate organization or organizations unless they individually opt out of such membership. However, additional members may in the future join the non-political affiliate organization or organizations without choosing to join the United States Transhumanist Party. The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party will otherwise have complete discretion to determine the name, activities, and focus of the non-political affiliate organization or organizations.

The Poverty Crisis and a Case for Universal Basic Income – Article by Brent Ellman in TAFFD’s Magazine

December 27, 2020 Brent Ellman Comments 1 comment

Brent Ellman

Editor’s Note: U.S. Transhumanist Party member and long-time USTP supporter Brent Ellman has published a piece in TAFFD’s Magazine on Universal Basic Income (UBI). Our friends at TAFFD’s (https://taffds.org/) were nice enough to give us permission to cross-post the article here in full format. Brent is an entrepreneur with a diverse background and currently serves as director of marketing at TAFFD’s. Originally from New York, he has lived in Colorado since 2008.

~ Dan Elton, Director of Scholarship, United States Transhumanist Party, December 27, 2020

Excerpt: In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced in his State of the Union Address that, “This administration, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.” How does one fight a war against poverty, though? What exactly does poverty even mean? As of 2019 in the United States, an individual who makes under $12,490 annually is considered to be living in poverty. A family of 3 earning under $21,330 also falls under the category of living in poverty.

In Denver, Colorado, 15.1% of the population lives below the poverty level, according to a recent Census Bureau ACS 5-year estimate. That estimate found that 101,000 out of 666,000 people are living below the poverty line. To put this further into perspective, as of July 2020, according to RentJungle.org, the average price to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Denver is $1468 per month. According to RentCafe only 5% of rentals listed in Denver are priced at less than $1000 per month. We’ve been waging America’s unconditional war on poverty for 56 years, and this is how far we’ve come.

How might poverty actually be solved in the United States? Read Brent Ellman’s full article here.

The Curative Education and Research Initiative (CERI) – Proposal by R. Nicholas Starr

December 27, 2020 R. Nicholas Starr Comments 4 comments

R. Nicholas Starr

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party (USTP) has published this view by our member R. Nicholas Starr in order to invite discussion on the issues he raises, although the USTP Platform does not endorse his proposal to tax religious institutions at this time. Indeed, the USTP Platform, in Section XXXVI, states that “The United States Transhumanist Party supports the elimination of graduated taxation and income taxation more generally. Instead, the United States Transhumanist Party advocates a flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold. This tax should be built into the price of goods from such large businesses and should not impede transaction efficiency in any manner. Transactions pertaining to wages, salaries, gifts, donations, barter, employee benefits, and inheritances should remain completely untaxed, as should transactions involving solely individuals and/or small businesses, for whom the establishment of a tax-reporting infrastructure would be onerous. Furthermore, all taxes on land and property should be abolished.” An income tax on religious institutions, which primarily derive their income from donations, would be a tax on donations that the USTP Platform does not support. Moreover, it would create the need for a new tax-reporting infrastructure, and the USTP Platform tends toward the opposite approach of leveraging the reporting capabilities that already exist to create a seamless tax system that is barely noticed by ordinary people as they go about their daily lives. Furthermore, in Sections XX and XXV of its Platform, the USTP indicates support for religious tolerance and openness to religious individuals who may be receptive to technological progress and therefore may be valued allies and participants in the transhumanist movement. While we agree with Mr. Starr that additional science education and improved scientific literacy among the population would be highly beneficial, we would invite discussion of other ways in which it might be achieved. Also, we would invite any religious transhumanists to respond to Mr. Starr’s article with their own perspectives.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, December 27, 2020

The Curative Education and Research Initiative (CERI)

Religion is the father of all existential risk. To reverse its damage, I propose a 2.5% federal income tax on religious institutions to fund public school education and scientific research. Support for this can be found throughout the USTP Platform, but specifically Sections II, VII, XII, and XXXII.

America needs more science! Not just “traditional” sciences like biology or chemistry, but social sciences and their companion the arts as well. And while the USTP has identified many areas that are lacking scientific attention or funding, we should also address scientific illiteracy, and even resentment, in the United States. New research means very little if the average American does not understand the research, results, or how it benefits them and the rest of humanity.

The US also needs to improve research and public education of social sciences. Anthropology and sociology are relegated to fringe college courses when it should help form the core of American education system. Cultural ignorance and hatred restrict the free exchange of ideas and thus future research needs. And when elementary schools glorify figures like Christopher Columbus and marginalize the indigenous people he and those who came after him oppressed, how can we expect society to move forward?

All Americans need to come together to plan for and fight against any number of issues and existential threats that science is currently researching or that may arise in the future. Racism and societal intolerance not only affect the free exchange of ideas, but also stifle research of problems in specific communities that many Americans deem “undesirable” and not worthy of study (drugs, sex work).

The biggest existential threat to humanity isn’t climate change, racism, or nuclear war. The greatest threat is the mindset that begat them. When “God” gave dominion over the planet to man, the church set climate change in motion. When holy texts tell their faction they are superior to the others, this creates habits of oppression and subjugation. In short, humanity is still paying for the fiction turned perceived fact created millennia ago. The time for it to end is now.

Science is the silver bullet to ignorance and superstition. A well-educated public gets us there.

To fund this initiative I propose a 2.5% tax on religious institutions to fund public-school education and scientific research. Payment of this tax does not grant any new access from churches into schools (school prayer, previously excluded religious clubs, proselytizing, recruitment, etc.), input or direction of scientific research being funded by these taxes, or any previously prohibited religious involvement in government. The purpose of this tax is to fund programs that benefit all people living in the United States, as decided by the scientific data, and advance social and scientific understanding in the classroom and in every day life.

Why tax religious institutions?

Religion in America is a 1.2-trillion-dollar untaxed industry. A 2.5% tax would add $30 billion annually in federal tax revenue. Note: enforcing property taxes on all religious institutions would provide approximately $500 billion.
Tax breaks for religious institutions is a form of government subsidy. This forces all tax-paying Americans to support the church regardless of their religious beliefs.
Religious organizations have a long history of prohibiting or stifling scientific research, something that continues to this day (e.g., with stem cells).
Religious organizations claim to financially support charity work, but there is no mandate to do so or requirement for how much is spent on charitable efforts. Additionally, what each organization considers charity may be detrimental to marginalized communities (LGBTQ conversion camps) and humanity internationally (missionary work overseas, historical support of slavery).
Religious institutions have been, and continue to be, safe havens for misogyny, racism, intolerance, and violence. They owe a debt to society for the harm caused.

What should be funded with this money

Public education (current federal education budget is $64 billion)
- Science
- Social Studies
- Arts
Federal entities for science and the arts
- National Science Foundation (NSF – current budget of $8.3 billion)
- National Institutions of Health (NIH – current budget of $39 billion)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA – current budget of $22.6 billion)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA – current budget of $5.35 billion)
- National Endowment for the Arts (NEA – current budget of $162 million)

As the primary objective of this proposal is to improve public education, it should be required that the largest sum of money should be put into public schools. However due to ever-changing financial needs, how this money is split shall be redetermined every two years by the legislative body. These numbers are based on the federal budget, but should this proposal be modified and adopted for state use, funding shall be sent to public education and scientific organizations that provide similar services as those noted above to the state.

This is controversial proposal. But it is also a modest tithe that can do a lot of good to change the country, and the world, for the better. Our country has gone above and beyond when it comes to supporting religious institutions and their members while asking for nothing but promises in return. It is time for these organizations to support the whole public.

Ryan Starr (R. Nicholas Starr) is a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and the founder of the Transhumanist Party of Colorado.

Official Ballot Options for U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitutional Reform Vote #2

December 23, 2020 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 4 comments

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The 7-day electronic voting period on the second set of proposed reforms to the Constitution of the U.S. Transhumanist Party will occur from 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on December 23, 2020, to 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on December 30, 2020. All members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party (USTP) who have applied before 12:01 a.m. on December 23, 2020, will be eligible to vote, as long as they have expressed agreement with the three Core Ideals of the USTP or have otherwise been rendered eligible to vote at the discretion of the Chairman.

All members who are eligible to vote will be sent a link to an electronic submission form whereby they will be able to cast their ballot.

When you are voting, it is strongly recommended that you keep this page of official ballot options and the submission form open simultaneously in different windows so that you can reference the relevant options as you vote on them. Due to space limitations, the submission form does not list the entire text of all the options.

It is also recommended that you set aside at least thirty minutes to consider and vote on all of the options and read their text closely, as some of the options contain minor variations upon other options.

For some questions, electronic voting is conducted by a ranked-preference method on individual sections where more options are possible than would be accommodated by a simple “Yes” or “No” vote. Members should keep in mind that the ranked-preference method eliminates the incentives for strategic voting – so members are encouraged to vote for the options that reflect their individual preferences as closely as possible, without regard for how other members might vote.

Results of the voting will be tabulated during late December 2020 / early January 2021, with the intent to announce the results approximately 2-3 days after all votes have been submitted.

NOTE: The numbering of the potential Sections in the ultimately adopted provisions within the Constitution of the U.S. Transhumanist Party may change depending on which proposals are or are not adopted.

NOTE II: The inclusion of any proposals on this ballot does not indicate any manner of endorsement for those proposals by the U.S. Transhumanist Party at this time – except to place those proposals before the members to determine the will of the members with regard to whether or not the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform should incorporate any given proposal.

Voter Identification

E-mail address

Provide the same e-mail address you used to register for U.S. Transhumanist Party membership. Your ballot will be cross-referenced to our membership rolls, and only ballots with matching e-mail addresses will be counted.

What is your name?

At minimum, first and last name are required, unless you are publicly known by a single-name pseudonym which is not itself a common name. Your identity will not be publicly disclosed by the Transhumanist Party, unless you choose and/or authorize its disclosure. The nature of the selections made by the members may be disclosed, but, if they are, each individual vote will not be associated with the identity of the voter but rather will be presented in an anonymized manner.

Navigate the Options

Proposed Sections of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution

Question I. Article I, Section II. Statements of Historical Fact – Proposed Addition

Shall the following item be added to the immutable portion of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution in Article I, Section II?

Historical Fact 9. Johannon Ben Zion ceased to be affiliated with the United States Transhumanist Party as of June 8, 2020. After that date, Arin Vahanian became the Vice-Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question II. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section I

Shall Article III, Section I, be amended to read as follows?

Section I: As of January 1, 2021, the following individuals shall hold roles as Officers in the United States Transhumanist Party.

Chairman: Gennady Stolyarov II

Vice-Chairman: Arin Vahanian

Secretary: Pavel Ilin

Vice-Secretary: Caeus H. Antony

Director of Foreign Relations: B.J. Murphy

Director of Scholarship: Dan Elton

Director of Community Resilience: Alexandria Black

Director of Marketing: Charlie Kam

Director of Longevity Outreach: Daniel Yeluashvili

Director of Applied Innovation: David Shumaker

Director of Publication: Brent Logan Reitze

Director of Sentient Rights Advocacy: Tom Ross

Legislative Director: Justin Waters

Director of Visual Art: (Art Ramon) Garcia, Jr.

The list of Officers above and the effective date of this list is subject to automatic updates without further member votes in the event of a change in the individual holding any Officer position, provided that such a change occurs in accordance with the processes outlined in the provisions of this Article III.

Rank-order the Question II Options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc.

If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

☐ Yes. (Proposed wording updates the list of Officers to eliminate obsolete information, establishes an effective date of January 1, 2021, removes triennial Officer elections, and allows for future automatic updates without further member votes in the event of a change in the individual holding any Officer position, provided that such a change occurs in accordance with the processes outlined in the provisions of this Article III.)

☐ No – keep the current wording, except update the list of Officers to the current list above and update the date from February 1, 2020, to January 1, 2021.

☐ No to all changes. (Current wording includes an effective date of February 1, 2020, triennial Officer elections, and an obsolete list of Officers prior to the reorganization of June 11, 2020.)

Question III. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section II

Shall Article III, Section II, be amended to read as follows?

Section II: New Officer positions may be created, and vacancies in Officer positions may be filled in the event of a departure of any Officer. Any individual may apply for an Officer position that becomes vacant. Any appointment of an Officer to a new or vacant position shall be effective upon a two-thirds affirmative vote of those Officers who take active part in the deliberations regarding such an appointment at any time during a discussion period of three days, and with the subsequent approval of the Chairman.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes.

☐ No – keep the current wording.

Current Wording of Section II: During the interim period between triennial Officer elections, new Officer positions may be created, and vacancies in Officer positions may be filled in the event of an interim departure of any Officer. Any appointment of an Officer to a new or vacant position during the aforementioned interim period shall be effective upon a majority vote of those Officers who take active part in the deliberations regarding such an appointment at any time during a discussion period of three days, and with the subsequent approval of the Chairman.

☐ Abstain.

Question IV. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section III

Shall Article III, Section III, be amended to read as follows?

Section III: While any individual may apply for an Officer position that becomes vacant, the United States Transhumanist Party shall only appoint an individual to an Officer position if that individual has demonstrated at least one of the following qualifications:

(i) A United States Transhumanist Party Officer position attained on or before January 1, 2021; or

(ii) At least four consecutive years of active presence within the broader transhumanist movement, with each year of such active presence capable of being verified by means of clear evidence of the individual’s writings, videos, audio recordings, projects, scientific research, artistic work, meeting or conference attendance, or other objectively demonstrable contributions to the advancement of transhumanism; or

(iii) At least six months of reliable service to the United States Transhumanist Party in an intermediate role which does not carry Officer status but may involve responsibility in organizing projects, events, or outreach. Such intermediate roles may be created at the discretion of the United States Transhumanist Party Officers and are not subject to the requirement in Subsection (ii) above.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes.

☐ No – keep the current wording.

Current Wording of Section III: Any current member of the United States Transhumanist Party is eligible either to run for office during a triennial Officer election – with the first such election to pertain to the set of Officers which shall begin their service on February 1, 2023 – or to apply for an Officer position that becomes vacant during the interim period between triennial Officer elections.

☐ Abstain.

Question V. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section IV

Shall Article III, Section IV, be amended to read as follows?

Section IV: For any new applicant to an Officer position, existing Officers will assemble and interview the applicant. The interview may take place prior to or subsequent to the confirmation vote for the applicant, depending on whether any existing Officer would consider the interview to provide additional information needed for the purposes of making a decision regarding the applicant.

In the process of the interview, the applicant and the existing Officers will develop an agreement that will encompass the necessary duties and suggested roles of the position, how to perform the duties and roles of that position, and any information relevant to that position. The agreement may be documented either in writing or by means of a recorded discussion at the interview.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes.

☐ No – keep the current wording.

Current Wording of Section IV: For each Officer position, Officers will assemble and develop an agreement that will encompass the duties of the position, how to perform the duties of that position, and any information relevant to that position.

☐ Abstain.

Question VI. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section V

Shall Article III, Section V, be amended to read as follows?

Section V: Beginning in February 2021, Officers shall establish a public page of goals for the United States Transhumanist Party to accomplish within reasonable timeframes specified for each goal. As each goal is achieved, or as the timeframe for that goal elapses or is in need of revision, the Officers shall update the public page of goals to reflect such developments.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes.

☐ No – keep the current wording.

Current Wording of Section V: In February of each year, Officers shall set goals for implementation during the remainder of that year. In January of the subsequent year, Officers shall create an annual report that discusses the accomplishment of the objectives and goals established during the preceding year.

☐ Abstain.

Question VII. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section VII

Shall Article III, Section VII, be amended to read as follows?

Section VII: The Chairman shall be the chief Officer of the United States Transhumanist Party and shall preside at all meetings of the organization, or else appoint a substitute for any meeting where the Chairman is absent. The Chairman shall have the chief executive authority within the United States Transhumanist Party and shall be responsible for the principal decision-making and organizational activities of the United States Transhumanist Party, including the maintenance of the United States Transhumanist Party Platform, the periodic organization of elections and votes on provisions of the Platform, and the development of discussion and outreach events involving the general public. The Chairman shall have the authority to decide any matter affecting the course, conduct, and official positions of the United States Transhumanist Party. The Chairman shall have the authority, but not the obligation, to proclaim and determine the structure of any meeting, convention, assembly, or other forum for conducting the business of the United States Transhumanist Party at any time at the Chairman’s discretion. The Chairman may delegate any aspect of the Chairman’s responsibility to another Officer or Member of the United States Transhumanist Party at the Chairman’s discretion via a written delegation of authority. Such a written delegation of authority may be revocable at any time.

The Chairman shall appoint committees that are deemed necessary for the organization. Vacancies that occur for Vice-Chairman, Secretary, or Directors may be filled by appointment of the Chairman, preferably following a two-thirds vote of those Officers who take active part in the deliberations regarding such an appointment at any time during a discussion period of three days.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes. (Most of the text would remain the same as previously; the major impact is to increase the threshold for approving a new Officer appointment to two-thirds of the currently active Officers from the current majority.)

☐ No – keep the current wording.

Current Wording of Section VII: The Chairman shall be the chief Officer of the United States Transhumanist Party and shall preside at all meetings of the organization, or else appoint a substitute for any meeting where the Chairman is absent. The Chairman shall have the chief executive authority within the United States Transhumanist Party and shall be responsible for the principal decision-making and organizational activities of the United States Transhumanist Party, including the maintenance of the United States Transhumanist Party Platform, the periodic organization of elections and votes on provisions of the Platform, and the development of discussion and outreach events involving the general public. The Chairman shall have the authority to decide any matter affecting the course, conduct, and official positions of the United States Transhumanist Party. The Chairman shall have the authority, but not the obligation, to proclaim and determine the structure of any meeting, convention, assembly, or other forum for conducting the business of the United States Transhumanist Party at any time at the Chairman’s discretion. The Chairman may delegate any aspect of the Chairman’s responsibility to another Officer or Member of the United States Transhumanist Party at the Chairman’s discretion via a written delegation of authority. Such a written delegation of authority may be revocable at any time.

The Chairman shall appoint committees that are deemed necessary for the organization. Vacancies that occur for Vice-Chairman, Secretary, or Directors may be filled by appointment of the Chairman, preferably following a majority vote of those Officers who take active part in the deliberations regarding such an appointment at any time during a discussion period of three days.

☐ Abstain.

Question VIII. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section VIII

Shall Article III, Section VII, be amended to read as follows?

Section VIII: The Vice-Chairman shall temporarily assume the duties of the Chairman in the event of the Chairman’s absence and the absence of a contrary delegation of authority from the Chairman. In the event of the resignation of the Chairman, the Chairman may designate a successor. In the absence of a designation of a successor by a departing Chairman, the Vice-Chairman, Secretary, and each of the Directors who desires the role of Chairman shall each select a random number, and then a random-number generator shall be utilized to select the next Chairman among the willing Officers, such that the Officer whose number is chosen shall become the Chairman.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes.

☐ No – keep the current wording.

Current Wording of Section VIII: The Vice-Chairman shall temporarily assume the duties of the Chairman in the event of the Chairman’s absence and the absence of a contrary delegation of authority from the Chairman. In the event of the resignation of the Chairman during the interim between triennial Officer elections, the Vice-Chairman shall assume the title of Chairman.

☐ Abstain.

Question IX. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section XI

Shall Article III, Section XI, be amended to read as follows?

Section XI: By majority vote and with the approval of the Chairman, the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may place on probation an Officer who fails to fulfill the duties of his or her office as specified in the documents developed by the United States Transhumanist Party to describe such duties. The probation period shall last as long as the Officers deem appropriate by majority vote, and shall include a written contract with deadlines and criteria for the fulfillment of duties. In the event that the terms of the probation period and/or contract are violated, the subject Officer may be removed from office by a majority vote and with the approval of the Chairman. An Officer may also be removed from office if a majority vote, with the approval of the Chairman, determines that the subject Officer has been entirely inactive and non-responsive and would therefore not be able to abide by the terms of any probation period. If an Officer has been entirely inactive and non-responsive for a period of three consecutive months, then that Officer shall be deemed to have vacated his or her position, unless the Officer affirmatively indicates a desire to remain in that position via a written communication to the Chairman.

The Chairman may take measures at the Chairman’s sole discretion to restrict, contain, sanction, or discipline any Officer considered to be acting in an intentionally hostile manner toward the United States Transhumanist Party. Any Officer discovered to be engaged in criminal activity, planning an internal coup, or spreading false allegations about other Officers to third parties or to the public, may, at the sole discretion of the Chairman, be immediately restricted from any or some portion of that Officer’s role within the United States Transhumanist Party upon discovery of such actions. A restriction is not an expulsion and is subject to subsequent evaluation by the remaining Officers. Upon subsequent evaluation, such restricted Officer may be removed from his or her Officer role and/or expelled from the United States Transhumanist Party by means of a majority vote of the other Officers, if those other Officers determine it proper to do so.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes.

☐ No – keep the current wording.

Current Wording of Section XI: By majority vote and with the approval of the Chairman, the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may place on probation an Officer who fails to fulfill the duties of his or her office as specified in the documents developed by the United States Transhumanist Party to describe such duties. The probation period shall last as long as the Officers deem appropriate by majority vote, and shall include a written contract with deadlines and criteria for the fulfillment of duties. In the event that the terms of the probation period and/or contract are violated, the subject Officer may be removed from office by a majority vote and with the approval of the Chairman. An Officer may also be removed from office if a majority vote, with the approval of the Chairman, determines that the subject Officer has been entirely inactive and non-responsive and would therefore not be able to abide by the terms of any probation period.

☐ Abstain.

Question X. Addition of New Section XII to Article III (Officers)

Shall a new Section XII be added to Article III to read as follows?

Section XII: During the first full calendar year in which the United States Transhumanist Party attains [Number to be decided upon in the next question] members, the Chairman may, at the Chairman’s discretion, call for an election to the position of Chairman with at least two months of advance notice. To be eligible to run in such an election, any candidate for the position of Chairman requires the approval of two-thirds of existing United States Transhumanist Party Officers who occupy their positions at the time the election is first announced.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XI. Numerical Threshold of Members for the Chairman to be Able to Call an Election for the Position of Chairman

If Article III, Section XII, is adopted in Question X above, what is the number of members that the United States Transhumanist Party should be required to attain before the Chairman may call an election for the position of Chairman, at the Chairman’s discretion?

Rank-order the options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. You may include the option for “No member threshold” in your rank-ordering, and it does not need to be your most favored option if you do so.

If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

☐ Option XI-1. 10,000 members

☐ Option XI-2. 50,000 members

☐ Option XI-3. 100,000 members

☐ Option XI-4. 500,000 members

☐ Option XI-5. 1,000,000 members

☐ Option XI-NO. No member threshold; allow the Chairman to call an election at any time with two months of advance notice; accordingly, begin Section XII with “The Chairman may [remainder of wording as proposed]”.

Question XII. New Article VII (Candidates), Section I – Criteria for Office

The U.S. Transhumanist Party is considering requiring candidates which it endorses for political office to satisfy certain stated criteria. If any of the criteria listed below are adopted, then a new Article VII, Section I, would be added to the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party, containing the following preface

Section I: In order to be eligible to become endorsed by the United States Transhumanist Party as a candidate for any local, state, or federal political office, an individual must satisfy the following criteria.

After the preface, a list of the criteria adopted by the members would follow.

Select all the options you support. (You can select multiple options for this question.) Any option receiving the majority of votes cast will be included in the ultimately adopted wording. If you do not favor any of the options below, then you may leave this question blank.

☐ Requirement (i) The individual satisfies the minimum qualifications pursuant to applicable law for holding the office for which the individual seeks to run.

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 1: The individual has never committed any violent crime.

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 2 – Clarification of Prohibited Violent Crime: A violent crime includes physical injury or destruction inflicted upon any person.

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 3 – Clarification of Prohibited Violent Crime: A violent crime includes physical damage or destruction inflicted upon property.

As used in this subsection, the term “violent crime” includes but is not necessarily limited to the following:

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 4 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Murder

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 5 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Manslaughter

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 6 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Rape

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 7 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Human trafficking

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 8 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Domestic violence

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 9 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Robbery

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 10 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Assault

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 11 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Battery

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 12 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Looting

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 13 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Arson

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 14 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Rioting

☐ Prohibition (ii) – Part 15 – Type of Prohibited Violent Crime: Vandalism

☐ Prohibition (iii) – Part 1: The individual has never committed any financial crime which had any victim.

As used in this subsection, the term “financial crime” includes but is not necessarily limited to the following:

☐ Prohibition (iii) – Part 2: Type of Prohibited Financial Crime: Fraud

☐ Prohibition (iii) – Part 3: Type of Prohibited Financial Crime: Embezzlement

☐ Prohibition (iii) – Part 4: Type of Prohibited Financial Crime: Theft

☐ Prohibition (iii) – Part 5: Type of Prohibited Financial Crime: Cybercrime

☐ Prohibition (iii) – Part 6: Type of Prohibited Financial Crime: Financing of violent or criminal groups

☐ Prohibition (iv) The individual has never engaged in documented acts of cyberbullying, cyber-harassment, or intentional spreading of false accusations against another individual online.

☐ Prohibition (v) The individual has never engaged in acts understood to be [wording to be decided upon in Question XIII below] within every contemporary agricultural, industrial, or post-industrial society. The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party shall maintain an internal list identifying such [wording to be decided upon in Question XIII below] practices, engaging in which or advocating which would be considered an automatic disqualification for holding any office within or receiving any endorsement from the United States Transhumanist Party.

☐ Prohibition (vi) The individual has never engaged in acts which are understood by the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party to have been undertaken by that individual primarily for the purposes of generating shock value or for transgression for the sake of transgression.

☐ Requirement (vii) The individual must agree to participate in any process designated by the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party for the determination of whether or not that individual may be endorsed as a candidate and to respect the outcome of that process, no matter whether or not that individual is ultimately endorsed as a candidate.

☐ Requirement (viii) The individual must agree to work collaboratively with the United States Transhumanist Party during the campaign season and not to disparage the United States Transhumanist Party as well as not to work contrary to the interests and goals of the United States Transhumanist Party during that time.

☐ Prohibition (ix) The individual must never have disparaged the United States Transhumanist Party or any of its current Officers in good standing within any written publication or public video or audio recording. This criterion does not, however, preclude constructive criticism, and a reasonable-person test shall be used to differentiate constructive criticism from disparagement.

☐ Requirement (x) The individual must commit to running for office as a candidate endorsed by the United States Transhumanist Party until the conclusion of the election in which the individual seeks to be a candidate.

☐ Prohibition (xi) The individual must have never reneged on a prior commitment to run for office as a candidate endorsed by the United States Transhumanist Party until the conclusion of the election in which the individual sought to be a candidate.

☐ Prohibition (xii) The individual must never have falsely alleged any electoral malfeasance on the part of the United States Transhumanist Party.

☐ Prohibition (xiii) The individual must never have undertaken or threatened to undertake any legal action nor made or threatened to make any formal complaint to a governmental entity against the United States Transhumanist Party or any Officer thereof in good standing.

☐ Requirement (xiv) The individual must express agreement with the Core Ideals of the United States Transhumanist Party as described in Article I, Section I, of this Constitution.

☐ Requirement (xv) The policy positions of the individual should have significant areas of alignment with the United States Transhumanist Party Platform as described in Article VI of this Constitution.

☐ Requirement (xvi) The individual must agree, in that individual’s public statements, to either (a) specifically and openly express support for transhumanism and/or life extension; or (b) specifically and openly reference the endorsement of that individual by the United States Transhumanist Party.

Question XIII. New Article VII (Candidates), Section I – Name for Unacceptable Behaviors Prohibited in Subsection (v)

If subsection (v) of Article VII, Section I, identifying certain activities prohibited for a person seeking to be endorsed as a candidate by the United States Transhumanist Party, is enacted, what shall be the term used to refer to such prohibited activities?

Rank-order the Question XIII Options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. You may include the option for “None of the above” in your rank-ordering, and it does not need to be your most favored option if you do so. (For instance, some voters might favor some options but think that no language is preferable to some of the other options.) If the “None of the Above” option wins and Subsection (v) passes in Question XII above, the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers will select a different term after further consultation with the members.

If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

☐ Option XIII-1. In extremely poor taste

☐ Option XIII-2. Taboo

☐ Option XIII-3. Repugnant

☐ Option XIII-4. Repulsive

☐ Option XIII-5. Immoral

☐ Option XIII-6. Abhorrent

☐ Option XIII-7. Anti-Human

☐ Option XIII-8. Deeply reprehensible

☐ Option XIII-9. Of special undesirable status

☐ Option XIII-10. Highly unacceptable

☐ Option XIII-NO. None of the above

Question XIV. New Article VII (Candidates), Section II – Candidate Interview Process

Shall a new Section II be added to Article VII, to read as follows?

Section II: Prior to convening a vote of the members regarding whether or not the United States Transhumanist Party should endorse a candidate for any office, the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party shall interview the candidate in order to determine the candidate’s compliance and likelihood of continued compliance with the criteria in Section I of Article VII and the desirability of enabling that candidate to seek the approval of the members of the United States Transhumanist Party. The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may utilize any additional criteria, including the Officers’ individual assessments of the candidate’s character, personality, and reliability, in order to determine whether or not to render the candidate eligible to appear on a ballot for consideration by the members.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XV. New Article VIII (Additional Initiatives), Section I

Shall a new Article VIII, Section I, be created to read as follows?

Section I: The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may, at their discretion, form a non-political affiliate organization or organizations which would maintain the same leadership structure and Officers as the United States Transhumanist Party but which would not be a political party or parties and would not be involved in any campaigns for elected office. All members of the United States Transhumanist Party would become members of the non-political affiliate organization or organizations unless they individually opt out of such membership. However, additional members may in the future join the non-political affiliate organization or organizations without choosing to join the United States Transhumanist Party. The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party will otherwise have complete discretion to determine the name, activities, and focus of the non-political affiliate organization or organizations.

Select one option below.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Reject the Deadly Precautionary Principle: Approve All COVID-19 Vaccines Immediately! – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

December 15, 2020 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 1 comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II

It should be a mild relief that vaccination efforts against COVID-19 are finally beginning in the United States, but they are beginning eleven months too late, while the pandemic surrounds us and most of us must wait months longer to receive vaccinations. Over 300,000 Americans have already died needlessly and preventably from COVID-19; hundreds of thousands more are likely to die in the coming months, even though the exact same vaccine from Moderna that is even today still undergoing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review already existed in its current form by January 13, 2020. As David Wallace-Wells writes in New York Magzine, in an article entitled “We Had the Vaccine the Whole Time” (dated December 7, 2020):

You may be surprised to learn that of the trio of long-awaited coronavirus vaccines, the most promising, Moderna’s mRNA-1273, which reported a 94.5 percent efficacy rate on November 16, had been designed by January 13. This was just two days after the genetic sequence had been made public in an act of scientific and humanitarian generosity that resulted in China’s Yong-Zhen Zhang’s being temporarily forced out of his lab. In Massachusetts, the Moderna vaccine design took all of one weekend. It was completed before China had even acknowledged that the disease could be transmitted from human to human, more than a week before the first confirmed coronavirus case in the United States. By the time the first American death was announced a month later, the vaccine had already been manufactured and shipped to the National Institutes of Health for the beginning of its Phase I clinical trial. This is — as the country and the world are rightly celebrating — the fastest timeline of development in the history of vaccines. It also means that for the entire span of the pandemic in this country, which has already killed more than 250,000 Americans, we had the tools we needed to prevent it.

As has been demonstrated time and again during this pandemic, scientists and doctors have been the true heroes in their rapid and immensely creative responses, whereas institutions and their processes have failed massively, and our egregiously broken society and culture have precipitated abysmal mass-scale reactions and behaviors as well. But the major reason why now almost 300,000 Americans died who did not need to die at all, is the Precautionary Principle – a cornerstone of contemporary “bioethics” which is, in fact, deeply unethical. The Precautionary Principle is the fundamental reason why new medical treatments, including vaccines, are required in the United States to undergo extensive safety and efficacy testing before they are allowed to be provided to patients, even willing patients who may knowingly accept the risks of experimental medicines. Essentially, unless safety and efficacy can be rigorously demonstrated first, along with a sufficient lack of adverse consequences, adherents of the Precautionary Principle believe that no action should be taken to implement an innovation. Those who espouse the Precautionary Principle completely ignore, of course, the costs and risks of inaction – which, in the case of a global pandemic, can be measured in more than 1.62 million lives worldwide, but which have also resulted in far greater numbers of deaths from more “routine” otherwise terminal illnesses, whose victims might have been saved by new treatments whose approval the FDA delayed, sometimes for a decade or more while billions of dollars were spent on hyper-expensive efficacy testing.

While laudable efforts were made in the United States to greatly accelerate the review timeframe for COVID-19 vaccines – hence the now well-known “Operation Warp Speed” – those efforts did not come in time for the hundreds of thousands who died and the hundreds of millions who now live in fear of death every day as the pandemic’s spread has become all-encompassing. Cutting the approval timeline from the typical unconscionable 4-5 years to 9 months is an improvement, but not nearly enough. Much more should have been done right away. Approval for the vaccines should have been granted as soon as they were developed, and instead of putting review roadblocks in the way, governments should have actively aided in vaccine production and distribution of all serious candidate vaccines from day one.

While New York Magazine’s David Wallace-Wells made the seemingly obligatory (during this tragically precautionary era) disclaimer that “To be clear, I don’t want to suggest that Moderna should have been allowed to roll out its vaccine in February or even in May, when interim results from its Phase I trial demonstrated its basic safety” (and Wallace-Wells still faced considerable vitriol for the quite modest observations he sought to make) – I do want to suggest exactly that. Indeed, I would go further and insist that it was a moral imperative to approve and facilitate the mass production and distribution of vaccines such as Moderna’s mRNA-1273 to willing members of the general population as soon as those vaccines were available.

Transhumanists reject the Precautionary Principle and instead follow the Proactionary Principle, which, per the description of Max More (Extropy Institute, 2004), “urges all parties to actively take into account all the consequences of an activity – good as well as bad – while apportioning precautionary measures to the real threats we face, in the context of an appreciation of the crucial role played by technological innovation and humanity’s evolving ability to adapt to and remedy any undesirable side-effects.” The Proactionary Principle does not ignore the potential for adverse consequences of an activity, but recognizes that there are situations when the benefits can greatly outweigh any potential adverse effects.

Imagine how, in an alternate history, a Transhumanist administration would have dealt with the COVID-19 crisis. Suppose, for instance, that Zoltan Istvan had been elected President in 2016 and thus was the President who faced the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Or suppose that Charlie Kam, the U.S. Transhumanist Party (USTP) Presidential nominee in 2020, had held the country’s highest executive office. The U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform contains 21 sections specifically addressing COVID-19 responses – proposals that were adopted by USTP members in late March 2020, and would have saved most of the lives of the COVID-19 victims had they been expeditiously implemented by governments. These proposals, indeed, are applications of the Proactionary Principle to the COVID-19 pandemic. Section CIII of the USTP Platform specifically states that “The United States Transhumanist Party supports the rapid research into effective cures and vaccines for COVID-19 and the harnessing of synergies from this research to also develop a cure for the common cold and more effective vaccination against influenza. Such research should proceed with no barriers, subject to the researchers’ expression of ethical intentions, and any regulations or processes that would delay the progress of such research should be immediately waived or repealed. In the effort to accelerate progress in this field, the United States Transhumanist Party advocates for an immediate $100 billion funding package for the rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine, with all volunteers being accepted into human trials as soon as practicable.”

This is exactly what would have been done by a Transhumanist administration with the Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and any other vaccines, including do-it-yourself experiments such as that undertaken by Josiah Zayner. The Transhumanist administration would have asked the vaccine developer one question: “Do you intend to apply this candidate vaccine in an ethical manner when offering it to the general public?” After giving an affirmative answer to that question, the vaccine developer would have the full legal right to test, give away, or sell its product to any volunteers capable of giving informed consent – provided that the recipients understood that the vaccine was experimental and had not passed the typical safety and/or efficacy tests. Receiving any vaccine would always remain entirely voluntary. Individuals who were uncertain or concerned about side effects – or even motivated by pseudoscientific, anti-scientific, or religious objections – would maintain the right not to get vaccinated. However, those who chose to get vaccinated would be shown clearly and quickly to have far lower incidence of COVID-19, and the statistical disparity in infection rates between the vaccinated and the un-vaccinated would grow too large in just a few months for reasonable people to ignore. Those who become vaccinated would be free to lead their everyday lives and participate in economic activities as usual, and massive disruptions to the economy and to people’s livelihoods would have been completely avoidable. The multifaceted advantages of vaccination under this approach would become abundantly clear in a relatively short time.

Testing would not be eliminated by the Transhumanist administration. Indeed, it would be accelerated and fully funded via the $100 billion emergency package (and likely via other resources as well), so that vaccine developers would need to pay absolutely nothing out of pocket for any compliance with testing protocols. However, testing would occur in parallel with mass distribution of the vaccines, and as much data as possible would be collected from vaccine recipients in the general population, to greatly augment the samples of tested patients. If any specific side effects manifested themselves in a statistically significant portion of the population, protocols for administering the vaccine would be adjusted in real time. For example, if a specific group of people were found to be particularly vulnerable to certain side effects, members of that group would quickly receive additional disclosures and warnings and would be able to make informed decisions in light of this information.

Could there conceivably be adverse side effects or even deaths of certain patients under this approach of mass distribution in parallel with testing? Of course, that is a possibility. However, the scale of such side effects and deaths would surely be orders of magnitude less than the all-encompassing devastation that the current sequential review-and-approval process has allowed to happen. So far nobody has died specifically from any COVID-19 vaccine. At least 1.62 million people in the world have died from COVID-19. Numerous others have died because of the fallout of the restrictive measures taken to contain the spread of COVID-19. Even if the vaccines had been far more dangerous than they actually are, it is absolutely impossible for them to have caused anywhere near the death toll inflicted by the disease itself and the societal havoc that it and responses to it have wreaked. This basic insight, whose evidence is all around us, is precisely what the Precautionary Principle misses. By placing all of the burden of proof on the innovation, the Precautionary Principle gives a free pass to the wantonly murderous status quo. Inaction is not safety. Inaction is quite frequently the greatest danger – and at no time is that truer than during a global pandemic. If we do nothing, any of a vast array of perils will befall us rather quickly.

The United States has already lost more people to COVID-19 than it had to all but one of its historical wars. The novel coronavirus is the enemy here to be sure, but the Precautionary Principle is an even more pernicious and insidious foe. The Precautionary Principle is responsible for the hundreds of thousands of American dead just as much as the novel coronavirus itself, since it prevented an implementation of an existing off-the-shelf solution that could have saved the vast majority of their lives. Every war in history has resulted in unacceptable death tolls because of fundamentally flawed premises – ideas and practices that brought about the war because people accepted them as commonplace and justified. Slavery, religious intolerance, jingoistic nationalism, and totalitarianism have all stemmed from deep moral errors that caused colossal loss of life – and fortunately most of humanity has recognized the great evil that these notions entail and has resoundingly rejected them. The Precautionary Principle, when implemented in institutions that have the power to make life-or-death decisions, is in that same league of moral errors; it will be remembered decades and centuries hence as the greatest destroyer of lives in our epoch.

How much senseless loss of life needs to occur before we recognize that our institutions, based on the Precautionary Principle, are wantonly negligent in allowing our fellow humans to die and are still withholding life-saving solutions from them? It is time to reject the Precautionary Principle once and for all and to institute the truly humane policy of allowing all rationally capable individuals to assess the risks and benefits of emerging medical treatments for themselves. This would not only save colossal numbers of lives in the immediate term, but also greatly accelerate medical discovery and technological progress – since innovators would be able to obtain data rapidly and iterate upon their approaches. The arrival of cures for cancer, dementia, diabetes, and biological aging itself will depend on how free medical innovators are to offer their treatments and how free patients are to accept them. Extensive and expensive pre-distribution review processes kill many more people than they save. End them now!

Gennady Stolyarov II is the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party.

Opinions From Around the World: Obah Isaac Ebuka – 3D-Printing Organs for Transplant

December 13, 2020 Obah Isaac Ebuka Comments 0 Comment

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Obah Isaac Ebuka

Editor’s Note: It is extremely important that supporters of transhumanism understand the opinions of peoples from every nation. I, Kimberly Forsythe, decided to reach out to people from other cultures and asked them to give me their opinions on the topic of transhumanist tech. My goal is to better understand why some may object to the idea based on various cultural differences.

As I receive the essays, I will publish them. My hope is that we can work together to build more international bridges and achieve progress that works for as many people as possible. This essay regarding the promises of 3D-printing of organs and the remaining challenges of implementing this technology was written by Obah Isaac Ebuka.

~ Kimberly Forsythe, Member, United States Transhumanist Party, December 13, 2020

3D-Printing Organs for Transplant

What if it was possible to mass-produce organs – to grow hearts and lungs in a lab, readily accessible by the hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for organs? The affirmative answer to that question has been the goal of many researchers over the years, and their results are very promising.

The Promise of 3D-Printing

In 1988, a researcher modified a basic HP inkjet printer into using cells instead of regular ink and used the printer to write on a surface using cytoscribing technology. Now in 2019, scientists in Israel have been able to print a miniature human heart complete with contracting blood vessels using human cells. A lot of work and technology through the years led up to this incredible feat of human bio-engineering.

3D-printing organs is still not completely perfected, but the technology at present shows that it is possible. Current biotechnology makes it possible to print incredibly complex organ scaffold structures that mimic the structures of human organs and tissues with high anatomical precision using synthetic but biocompatible materials. These scaffolds can then be used as the spatial matrix on which cells can be built upon to create life-sized vascularized organs that possess the vital microstructures of real organs.

Current Challenges for Bioprinting

Biological Complexity

There are still many challenges to bioprinting that are yet to be addressed. One of these is that human organs are more incredibly complex than current technology can create. It might have been possible to create a miniature heart with the major aortae and coronary arteries, but scientists have yet to replicate vessel structures like the millions of capillary networks which are micrometers in diameter and essential to the life of organs.

Also, organs are much more than their structures and shapes. There a lot of details about organs that we are yet to understand such as how certain genes, hormones, and other factors in the body interact with organs and vice versa. An example of this is how the heart is an endocrine organ and not simply a blood pumper. So a true heart replacement also has to be able to create Atrial Natriuretic Peptides (ANP), which lower blood pressure.

Practicability

Hindrances from a bioengineering perspective aren’t the only things to worry about. It is also very challenging to design clinical trials that will test the longevity and compatibility of these experimental organs in humans. There is also the challenge of securing sustainable sources of cells, biocompatible material, as well as large-scale manufacturing capabilities needed for 3D-printing to be a viable and affordable replacement for real organ transplants.

Ethnic and Religious beliefs

Ethnicity and religious belief inhibit technological changes. In Nigeria, a country in western Africa, some groups of religious fanatics believe that each organ is sacred and would not have their organs changed. This view is not only shared in Nigeria particularly, but it is commonplace and widespread for natives to abhor mending or replacing what they come to see as natural.

Proposed solutions to these barriers

Natives should be enlightened. They should be taught the need for bioprinting organs, seeing that the ultimate aim is to save lives.

Author: Obah Isaac Ebuka

Abuja, Nigeria.

Twitter handle: @AiTweet01

What Causes Aging in Humans?

What is Radical Life Extension?

When Will Aging be Cured or Reversed?

Related reading:

Article I, Section II. Statements of Historical Fact

Article III. Officers

Article VII. Candidates

Article VIII. Additional Initiatives

The Curative Education and Research Initiative (CERI)

Voter Identification

E-mail address

What is your name?

Navigate the Options

Proposed Sections of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution

Question I. Article I, Section II. Statements of Historical Fact – Proposed Addition

Question II. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section I

Question III. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section II

Question IV. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section III

Question V. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section IV

Question VI. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section V

Question VII. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section VII

Question VIII. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section VIII

Question IX. Amendment of Article III (Officers), Section XI

Question X. Addition of New Section XII to Article III (Officers)

Question XI. Numerical Threshold of Members for the Chairman to be Able to Call an Election for the Position of Chairman

Question XII. New Article VII (Candidates), Section I – Criteria for Office

Question XIII. New Article VII (Candidates), Section I – Name for Unacceptable Behaviors Prohibited in Subsection (v)

Question XIV. New Article VII (Candidates), Section II – Candidate Interview Process

Question XV. New Article VIII (Additional Initiatives), Section I

3D-Printing Organs for Transplant

Current Challenges for Bioprinting