15-Day Exposure Period for Platform Planks on Privacy Rights, Anti-Bigotry, Benefits and Risks of Technologies, Nuclear Disarmament, and Replacement of the Military-Industrial Complex
Gennady Stolyarov II
The membership of the U.S. Transhumanist Party continues to grow. Having reached over 254 members and having successfully implemented a voting infrastructure (which is currently being utilized in our vote on the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, ongoing until 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2017), the Transhumanist Party can now begin to develop its platform with input from and voting by the members. The voting on the Transhumanist Bill of Rights has been an important learning experience for us, in that we have received ample member feedback and have sought to incorporate all of it in our ballot. This led to the ballot being extensive (with 38 substantive questions and numerous options for some of the questions), and has led us to consider how we can continue to ensure that all reasonable member input is reflected, while keeping each individual vote concise to enable even members with limited time to consider all the options and offer their input.
Our provisional solution with regard to future votes on the Transhumanist Party Platform is to consider five issue-specific planks per ballot. There will be multiple votes, each pertaining to a set of five planks, so members should not be discouraged if some issues are not mentioned on any given ballot. The intent is to continue the process of exposure and voting until the Transhumanist Party Platform is reasonably comprehensive and responsive to member suggestions in a large number of relevant areas. Even after the initial platform becomes reasonably comprehensive, the Transhumanist Party will accept member input regarding platform planks on an ongoing basis and will set up periodic votes on platform issues as soon as a sufficient mass of suggestions has accumulated to justify the compilation of a new ballot.
During the next 15 days, until 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on January 15, 2017, members of the Transhumanist Party will be able to offer input regarding the five proposed planks below.
The first five planks being proposed pertain to timely issues which have motivated extensive discussion among members and comments made in outreach to the leadership of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. It is my personal view that, given ongoing world events, it is essential for the Transhumanist Party to take positions on issues such as privacy rights, opposition to bigotry, the imperative to use technology to improve and not damage human well-being, the imperative to prevent nuclear war (including accidental nuclear war), and the need to transition the focus of our productive infrastructure away from tools of warfare and destruction and toward research into and deployment of cures for diseases, including senescence, which are our real enemies.
What the specific positions on these issues will be, however, is ultimately subject to the determination of the members. The proposed planks being exposed are open to member suggestions, and every reasonable suggestion will generate an alternative option for members to vote on. Please offer your honest feedback regarding what you like about the original proposed version of each plank, what you dislike, and any revisions or additions you would favor. Please feel free to advocate your individual viewpoint – as all reasonable (serious, non-egregious, benevolently motivated) and topical suggestions will be considered in the voting process. If you make a suggestion that is best addressed in a plank on a different issue, then your suggestion will be considered during the development of a subsequent ballot and may influence the sequence by which planks get exposed.
During the exposure period, please post your comments on this thread. If you post comments intended to be considered in voting and/or amending any of these planks in any other electronic medium, please note that you thereby give your consent to have your comments reproduced with attribution or linked within this discussion thread, in order to direct members’ attention and consideration to them.
After the exposure period, a 7-day electronic voting period will occur from 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on January 15, 2017, to 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on January 22, 2017. Instructions for electronic voting will be sent to members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party via e-mail. All individuals who are members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party as of the end of the exposure period and who have expressed agreement with its three Core Ideals will be eligible to vote thereafter. You can still vote if you become a member during the exposure period, so please apply here if you are interested. During the 7-day electronic voting period, you will still be able to become a member – but you will only be able to vote in subsequent elections, since we seek for voting on any given issue to be done by those members who have had an opportunity to thoroughly consider that issue and be involved in deliberations regarding it.
Electronic voting will be conducted by a ranked-preference method. Members will be able to rank-order their preferred selections on each individual Platform Section. The original text of each Section will be available for selection, as well as any reasonable amendments proposed by any member. Leadership of the Transhumanist Party reserves the right to edit any proposed amendment for correctness of spelling and grammar only – but not with regard to the substance, unless the person proposing the amendment requests or consents to a substantive edit. “No Section of this sort” will also be a choice, and any Section where a majority of votes favors this option will be not be adopted. Members will also be able to abstain from voting on any given Section.
The ranked-preference method has the advantage of eliminating a “winner-take-all” or “first-past-the-post” mentality and preventing people from being channeled into voting for sub-optimal choices (in their view) just because they fear an even less palatable alternative prevailing. Within the ranked-preference methodology, if no option obtains a clear majority as voters’ first choice, the option having the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated from consideration, and all those who voted for that option will have their votes assigned to their second-choice options. This process of elimination continues until one particular option has a clear majority of votes.
The Transhumanist Party encourages all members to participate in this process and for other transhumanists to sign up for membership during the exposure period.
The text of the proposed platform planks below, other than Section D (which is newly written), is based on sections of the current Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform. The Section letters are provisional and will be replaced with official numbers for each plank that is adopted. The Section titles are informational only and will not be included in the adopted versions of the platform planks.
Section A. Privacy Rights
[Based on Section XIX of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform]
The United States Transhumanist Party strongly supports individual privacy and liberty over how to apply technology to one’s personal life. The United States Transhumanist Party holds that each individual should remain completely sovereign in the choice to disclose or not disclose personal activities, preferences, and beliefs within the public sphere. As such, the United States Transhumanist Party opposes all forms of mass surveillance and any intrusion by governmental or private institutions upon non-coercive activities that an individual has chosen to retain within his, her, or its private sphere. However, the United States Transhumanist Party also recognizes that no individuals should be protected from peaceful criticism of any matters that those individuals have chosen to disclose within the sphere of public knowledge and discourse.
Section B. Anti-Bigotry
[Based on Section XXX of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform]
The United States Transhumanist Party abhors all racism, nativism, xenophobia, and sexism. Accordingly, the United States Transhumanist Party condemns any hostile discrimination or legal restrictions on the basis of national origin, skin color, birthplace, ancestry, gender identity, or any manner of circumstantial attribute tied to a person’s lineage or accident of birth. Furthermore, the United States Transhumanist Party strongly opposes any efforts to close national borders, restrict immigration of peaceful individuals, or deny opportunities to individuals on the basis of ethnicity, race, or national origin. The United States Transhumanist Party unequivocally condemns all demagogues who seek to segregate individuals on the basis of national origin, race, or ethnicity. In particular, The United States Transhumanist Party opposes movements describing themselves as “white nationalism”, “America First”, “race realism”, and the “alt-right” – as well as the counterparts of those movements in other countries.
Section C. Benefits and Risks of Technologies
[Based on Section XXVIII of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform]
The United States Transhumanist Party holds that the vast majority of technologies are beneficial to human well-being and should be enthusiastically advocated for and developed further. However, a minority of technologies could be detrimental to human well-being and, as such, their application, when it results in detrimental consequences, should be opposed. Examples of such detrimental technologies include nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, mass-surveillance systems such as those deployed by the National Security Agency in the United States, and backscatter X-ray full-body scanners such as those used by the Transportation Security Administration in the United States. Furthermore, the United States Transhumanist Party is opposed to the deliberate engineering of new active pathogens or the resurrection of once-existing pathogens, whose spread might not be able to be contained within laboratory settings. While it is impossible to un-learn the knowledge utilized in the creation of such technologies, the United States Transhumanist Party holds that all such knowledge should only be devoted toward peaceful, life-affirming, rights-respecting purposes, going forward.
Section D. Nuclear Disarmament
In recognition of the dire existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to sapient life on Earth – including as a result of such weapons’ accidental deployment due to system failures or human misunderstanding – the United States Transhumanist Party advocates the complete dismantlement and abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere, as rapidly as possible. If necessary for geopolitical stability, synchronized multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation treaties should be pursued, strengthened, and accelerated in the most expeditious manner. If, however, multilateral agreements among nations are not reached, then the United States Transhumanist Party advocates that all nuclear powers, especially the United States and Russia, should undertake unilateral nuclear disarmament at the earliest opportunity in order to preserve civilization from accidental annihilation.
Section E. Replacement of the Military-Industrial Complex
[Based on Section XVI of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform]
The United States Transhumanist Party supports the replacement of the military-industrial complex with concerted research efforts to cure cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and other illnesses that kill far more Americans than any terrorist or foreign government. Any increase in government funding to disease-research efforts should be offset by a greater reduction in military spending.
We welcome your feedback in the comments below.
24 thoughts on “15-Day Exposure Period for Platform Planks on Privacy Rights, Anti-Bigotry, Benefits and Risks of Technologies, Nuclear Disarmament, and Replacement of the Military-Industrial Complex”
For a transhumanist to have Sovereignty over his or her own body the concept of individual property rights is key. We own our own body and can enhance at our own discretion without permission of others.
Thus, Countries that respect personal property are more friendly to transhumanism. Differences in laws and opinions are to be respected and rule of Law as applied to self ownership and self determination should be respected over Countries and localities that foster group rights and forced compliance with group expectations.
Dear Sir/Madam,
Is there a chance that you might be able to provide any links to any angel investors who might be interested in AI projects? I live in Toronto, Canada.
Thanks in advance.
Tried to join Transhumanist Party other day.
Didn’t get any email, so not sure it worked
Greetings, Robert. I am not certain what happened, but the Transhumanist Party did not receive a membership application from you. Try filling out the form again at https://goo.gl/forms/IpUjooEZjnfOFUMi2 (including the last validation question) or send me answers to the questions via e-mail at gennadystolyarovii@gmail.com. Either way, we will make an effort to get you enrolled as a member.
Sincerely,
Gennady Stolyarov II,
Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party
Original:
“Section A. Privacy Rights: The United States Transhumanist Party strongly supports individual privacy and liberty over how to apply technology to one’s personal life. The United States Transhumanist Party holds that an individual should remain completely sovereign in the choice to disclose or not disclose personal activities, preferences, and beliefs within the public sphere. As such, the United States Transhumanist Party opposes all forms of mass surveillance and any intrusion by governmental or private institutions upon non-coercive activities that an individual has chosen to retain within his, her, or its private sphere. However, the United States Transhumanist Party also recognizes that no individuals should be protected from peaceful criticism of any matters that those individuals have chosen to disclose within the sphere of public knowledge and discourse.”
Comments:
Depending on the outcome of the BoR and the eventual final approved version, this topic should be tabled or at minimum altered to reflect the USTP BoR document. With all our founding documents and consensus of party members, we should work diligently to ensure our Constitution, BoR, and subsequent planks be consistent throughout. For this very reason, no document or planks should be finalized until primary founding documents are complete.
All that aside, in our republic as US citizens we already have privacy rights that was decided upon by the consent of the governed. Our privacy rights plank should focus on what’s different and/or what to add to existing privacy rights of the US. To state and oppose all forms of mass surveillance by a government or private institutions is unrealistic, impossible to achieve, and enforce in our technologically advanced country now and in the future. What does Transhumanism mean if not intertwined with technology? How does one achieve morphological transcendence without government and private institutions? We are not sovereign individuals; we are a collective of like-minded ideas that seek a means to live better, longer, healthier, etc. Technology mass surveillance is here and now, let’s not go backwards.
In addition, our consumer society is losing personal ownership on many levels and the loss of ownership will continue to pervade as technology with self-driving cars, robotics, automation, artificial intelligence, etc., continue to advance. An example is your phone usage, computer usage, communication usage…all are services ‘rented’ by the user. So, the very private institutions that propels us technologically forward will ‘rent’ us their advancements/services that has a user agreement attached. We’ll be able to use it personally, but the data will be co-owned with the private institution for their use too.
So, the only thing that is new that Transhumanists advocate to add to our existing privacy rights is in the first sentence.
Without knowing the outcome to the BoR, I will use my previous input to the BoR concerning this topic as a new version to consider.
Consider:
“The USTP strongly supports the liberty over how to apply technology to oneself and the privacy rights to any sentient entities of personal data, genetic material, digital, biographic, physical and intellectual enhancements, and consciousness.”
Original:
“Section B. Anti-Bigotry: The United States Transhumanist Party abhors all racism, nativism, xenophobia, and sexism. Accordingly, the United States Transhumanist Party condemns any hostile discrimination or legal restrictions on the basis of national origin, skin color, birthplace, ancestry, gender identity, or any manner of circumstantial attribute tied to a person’s lineage or accident of birth. Furthermore, the United States Transhumanist Party strongly opposes any efforts to close national borders, restrict immigration of peaceful individuals, or deny opportunities to individuals on the basis of ethnicity, race, or national origin. The United States Transhumanist Party unequivocally condemns all demagogues who seek to segregate individuals on the basis of national origin, race, or ethnicity. In particular, The United States Transhumanist Party opposes movements describing themselves as “white nationalism”, “America First”, “race realism”, and the “alt-right” – as well as the counterparts of those movements in other countries.”
Comments:
Let us never forget one of the main reasons for the creation of the Transhumanist Party is to bring to light the differences we believe in from the general populace. We form this party to ensure WE ARE NOT restricted or discriminated against for wanting to be different. Transhumanists are a collective of intellectual forward thinking lifers and we must rise above name calling, labeling, and discriminating against people who think differently than us. We must strive to be inclusive of all sentient entities and we must NOT present ourselves as a radical group that blatantly alienates people. It’s best to focus on inclusiveness and transhumanist advancements. We must never forget that it’s ok to be different.
The mere title of this section B is negative and extremely subjective from one person to the next. We must avoid as a collective these types of negative leaning planks. Keeping in line with my previous comments, let’s focus on what’s different versus what is already in the US Constitution/BoR. There are three topics touched on in this ‘anti-bigotry’ explanation.
The first is the talk about discrimination, which most of the verbiage here already exists and so there is no need to repeat it. Yes, we stand against these discriminatory actions, but there is nothing new that talks about Transhumanism. What do we need to add about discrimination that covers our new way of thinking and protecting Transhumanists of today and the future?
The second topic talked about is immigration. Is it necessary to oppose current immigration laws that already allow legal “immigration of peaceful individuals, or deny opportunities to individuals on the basis of ethnicity, race, or national origin?” Let’s not advocate law violations, let’s add laws and rights that protect Transhumanists. We must ask ourselves, what does immigration have to do with Transhumanism?
The third topic discussed is a prime example of public chastising and discrimination. We as a collective must resist this type of divisive hate speech. It is name calling, labeling, and biased about people who think differently. Do we as ‘ADVANCED’ sentient beings want to be the source of new discriminatory labels and division to our world? Will the Transhumanist Party discriminate, ostracize, and negatively label a ‘republican’ transhumanist? Let’s promote ‘Alt-Life’ for all.
I implore our founding members to refrain and eliminate negativity from all our documents and keep our focus on Transhumanism and how to allow us to become better. Let’s do our best not to contribute negativity in our future and promote ‘Alt-Life’ for all.
Once again I will utilize my USTP BoR input and draft a new section B for consideration.
Consider:
Section B. Discrimination:
In addition to the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, the USTP emphatically supports the freedom of enhanced or augmented sentient entities to live free from ridicule, discrimination, abuse, or enslavement by any person, group, entity, or government. Accordingly, the USTP strongly supports legal immigration without bias. Furthermore, the USTP vehemently supports inclusiveness of all sentient entities.
Section D needs thought.
A nuclear disarmament means going back to a pre-WWII reality.
If a major war were to break lose, then, once again a lot of lives will be lost in WWIII and all the successive wars.
My comments should not be construed, as such, where, I am proposing for the existence and enablement of nuclear weapons.
I just don’t know what the stance should be on this issue.
Section E needs a fair bit of thought.
There needs to be mechanisms in place, in order to prevent against the use of technology and an individual and a group’s capacity to do harm.
The whole point of the military industrial complex is to do that. To be preventative and proactive and proactively work on mitigating risks and threats.
However and considering the reality whereby there is no clear concensus of what is good and acceptable in the earthly construct. As well, in light of a reality, whereby nation/states are unilaterally taking decisions in an non-transparent manner. These and other issues are leading towards increased polarization. This, development, if left unchecked, will have negative consequences towards the globalization and something that has been in effect for quite some time.
As globalization becomes negatively impacted, this will have downstream issues, whereby the spread of technology could not be guaranteed. And, that, in turn could negatively impact the models via which increasing amounts of efficiencies are found in the global supply chain system.
Instead of taking a hard-stance toward the abolishment of the Military Industrial Corporate and Space complex. Instead focus on first embracing the system as it it and then painting a vision of what our collective human machine civilization can be.
This starts with opening up of the frontier, the expansion of our consciousness, eradication of disease, indefinite life extensions, the enablement of a transparent society where there is no judgement.
But that is just a start. And what a start that will be.
A StarTrek future is within our reach. The MIC can evolve into the StarFleet and weapons systems can be sublimated into benign tools that may be required for mob control.
Further out and as we expand through the Galaxy and here, in a Drake’s equation sense, we will come in contact with other intelligences.
On some time scale, this contact is, it appears , an unknown.
But, it appears that our sense of perception would have been greatly expanded by that time, as we take steps towards a positive singularity.
Original:
“Section C. Benefits and Risks of Technologies: The United States Transhumanist Party holds that the vast majority of technologies are beneficial to human well-being and should be enthusiastically advocated for and developed further. However, a minority of technologies could be detrimental to human well-being and, as such, their application, when it results in detrimental consequences, should be opposed. Examples of such detrimental technologies include nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, mass-surveillance systems such as those deployed by the National Security Agency in the United States, and backscatter X-ray full-body scanners such as those used by the Transportation Security Administration in the United States. Furthermore, the United States Transhumanist Party is opposed to the deliberate engineering of new active pathogens or the resurrection of once-existing pathogens, whose spread might not be able to be contained within laboratory settings. While it is impossible to un-learn the knowledge utilized in the creation of such technologies, the United States Transhumanist Party holds that all such knowledge should only be devoted toward peaceful, life-affirming, rights-respecting purposes, going forward.”
Comments:
Once again let’s not paint ourselves into a corner with too much specificity. We should keep our planks on target without too much definition so that our representatives someday have flexibility.
Consider:
Section C. Technology:
The USTP unequivocally supports the advancement of technologies that benefit sentient being’s wellness, extension, and expansion of life. We enthusiastically advocate continued research and development that is devoted toward peaceful, life-affirming, and rights-respecting purposes. However, we stand against technologies that are detrimental to sentient entities. We stand opposed to the use of chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare tactics/devices that only bring death and destruction.
Thoughts and Suggestions on section A:
This section is good overall and the ideas expressed will certainly be valuable to the growth and spread of healthy transhumanist ideas. It could probably be simplified somewhat however to its benefit. Most of the material is encompassed in the phrase ‘personal sovereignty’ and keeping these simple is important to making them easier to understand and disseminate to a wider audience. A specific aspect that might be changed as well would be the the ‘he, she or it’ to simply ‘they’ as this is a common neutral choice.
Thoughts and Suggestions on Section B:
The ideal here is excellent and should be retained but the way it is currently written is somewhat concerning. What it should do is lay out egalitarian principles and refuse to put people into boxes or take sides. This means that no government decisions should be based on race, sex, or other circumstances of birth beyond individual control. Such decisions must include things like affirmative action and restroom gendering as these also represent legislation that puts people into categories and divides them based on circumstances beyond their choosing. Further multiple group names are given at the end and this is a poor choice since it is tying a negative stereotype to these limited labels whereas determining what a group believes should be done by their own rhetoric and on a case by case basis. Further, in keeping with section A, freedom of association should be reinforced here stating that individual actions should not be censured so long as they are not violent or coercive to other individuals even when they may contravene this ideal.
A better version might go along the lines of saying that the Transhumanist Party is an egalitarian institution and believes in individual freedom of association sans coercion or violence. That government shall not make rules either opposed to or in favor of groups or individuals based on circumstances of their birth.
Thoughts and suggestions on section C:
This one seems a little naive and overzealous. Even if we wanted to shut down all harmful technologies we could not do so. They would simply be driven underground. Their growth may be stunted if we refused to fund them but those that did come to exist would be that much more dangerous when they came out since we would have little knowledge of how to deal with them effectively. The United States does not exist in isolation and other nations may continue to develop an entire panoply of all the things we may seek to ban and could turn them against us. Furthermore we do not and cannot know what technologies will lead to specific future benefits. Nuclear weapons were developed as the ultimate weapon but their long term effect has been deterrence from major wars and development of highly valuable nuclear technologies such as highly effective, cheap, and clean power plants. The Mass surveillance systems listed are not in themselves harmful they have simply been badly misused by an intrusive government. Technologies are not inherently bad or good. The purposes they serve are defined by how they are used. Elsewise the transhumanist party should be opposed to fireworks because they can be used as explosives in the wrong hands. It is true that things like pathogens do have incredible hazardous potential and they should be handled with care and perhaps proper regulation but we should not put a blanket restriction on anything.
It would be far better to have a section that states that all technology has potential value even if we do not know what it may lead to but certain techs may be hazardous and should be approached with due caution.
A useful change might be to say that the H+ party advocates caution in the development of technologies that may pose a threat to human life but does not seek to ban development as all technologies and science can have value and often the specific uses are not known before a given technology and its derivatives are developed.
Thoughts and Suggestions on Section D:
Overall disarmament is not a bad idea and as far as following international disarmament treaties it makes sense. Having fewer weapons in the world in general can be a road toward a safer, more peaceful, and prosperous humanity. It is quite unlikely in the current climate however, that full worldwide disarmament can be achieved and the idea of taking on full scale unilateral disarmament is a poor one. If the United States alone were to undertake to fully remove its nuclear weapons there would still be sufficient weapons out there to destroy the world so we would be only marginally safer and the United States would have removed the deterrent factor that has been the overwhelming reason nuclear weapons have not been used as an offensive weapon since the end of World War II. If all sides have not removed their capabilities and we removed the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction then the temptation to use nuclear strikes by those who still have them becomes much greater and the likelihood of intentional nuclear weapons use increases substantially. Since this section is rather specific it can probably be struck entirely and reduced to a single line in section C to the effect that the Transhumanist party opposes nuclear proliferation and endorses multilateral disarmament treaties.
Thoughts and Suggestions on Section E:
This section makes good sense up a point. The United States military is by far the most capable in the world. Its abilities reach beyond what is needed for national defense which, at least in theory, is its primary role. It can be downsized without detrimental effect to the safety of US citizens but that downsizing cannot go to zero. Maintaining a healthy military remains important in the modern world. It is also worth noting that many of the most important scientific and technological breakthroughs of the last century have been supported by the military. Self driving cars and the internet were born from DARPA supported work. It is not simply one or the other where the military and technology are concerned. We must decide what lower limit on the military we want to aim for in reduction.
A useful change might be that the H+ party opposes military expansion in the United States and seeks a reduction in size and funding to the military. Funding released by such reduction may be utilized to expand valuable research. The party does not advocate however for the abolition of the military in its entirety.
Original:
“Section D. Nuclear Disarmament: In recognition of the dire existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to sapient life on Earth – including as a result of such weapons’ accidental deployment due to system failures or human misunderstanding – the United States Transhumanist Party advocates the complete dismantlement and abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere, as rapidly as possible. If necessary for geopolitical stability, synchronized multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation treaties should be pursued, strengthened, and accelerated in the most expeditious manner. If, however, multilateral agreements among nations are not reached, then the United States Transhumanist Party advocates that all nuclear powers, especially the United States and Russia, should undertake unilateral nuclear disarmament at the earliest opportunity in order to preserve civilization from accidental annihilation.”
Comments:
The basic idea that the USTP stands opposed to chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare tactics is included in the previous Section C: Technology submission. Do we need to specifically state disarmament? If so, then we must recognize the US already has non-proliferation treaties, agreements, disarmament, and reduction measures.
Consider:
Section D. Nuclear Disarmament:
In recognition of the dire existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to sapient life on Earth, the USTP advocates the eradication, disarmament, dismantlement, and abolition of all nuclear weapons worldwide.
Original:
“Section E. Replacement of the Military-Industrial Complex: The United States Transhumanist Party supports the replacement of the military-industrial complex with concerted research efforts to cure cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and other illnesses that kill far more Americans than any terrorist or foreign government. Any increase in government funding to disease-research efforts should be offset by a greater reduction in military spending.”
Comments:
Let’s refocus this plank commensurate with the idea of curing disease. It’s unrealistic to expect the replacement of the defense industrial base. This very technology sector and monies expended has created and developed most of the advanced life enhancing technologies of today. Let’s not advocate to shut down a massive research arm that benefits Transhumanists desire the most. Instead, let’s highlight the most important reason for this plank and that is curing disease/illness. We should not commingle and convolute the eradication of disease with the minimization of military spending. Again, do not include solutions, these are platform planks, not a place for solutions.
Again, I will use my input to the BoR for consideration.
Consider:
Section E. Disease Eradication: The USTP supports concerted research in effort to eradicate disease and illness that wreaks havoc upon and causes death of sapient beings. We strongly advocate the increase and redirection of research funds to conduct research, experiments, explore life, science, technology, medicine, and extraterrestrial realms to improve all sentient entities.
“Any increase in government funding to disease-research efforts should be offset by a greater reduction in military spending.”
Perhaps the proper solution isn’t to simply reduce military spending, but instead to properly manage it. Since the USA has such a large military, it goes without saying as to why our armed forces have such high budgets, but the real issue here is the expenditure on unnecessary items. Let’s take two fellows named Bob and Dave as an example: Bob and Dave both buy new computers that perform at the same levels, however Bob’s computer costs $100 more. In this case, Bob is the USA, while Dave is comparable to countries like Russia and China.
Our problem is spending more than other countries to receive the same service.
I’m quite happy with this, especially with the privacy plank. My only thought would be to perhaps address or differentiate within article B. Part of me felt that mention of the various morphological freedoms would be appropriate. On the other hand, it would really take away from the articles intent. So, that’s my only thought.
Why is a lot of the plank issues concerning social issues not directly related to technology advancement and longevity? That’s why I’m affiliated with transhumanism to see science, technology and life advancements become more mainstream. I agree with equality, I agree with spending more on science and tech r&d than military development (though these two should coincide) but are these the central issues of what we should be debating as transhumanist? I bring this up because I see it a lot of not necessarily core transhumanist issues being pushed on all the groups I am apart of. I joined transhumanist party groups to push technology advancement and life extension. Is this just me or do others see this as well?
We are only considering five platform planks at a time to prevent the ballots from becoming unwieldy. There will be many other votes on many other planks, and longevity will be a prominent part of them – but we cannot practicably cover every issue on every ballot.
A lot of pro-longevity statements are already incorporated in the Core Ideals and will also be part of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 2.0 (to be published soon) – so thus far we are trying to fill in the gaps and also address some extremely timely issues, such as anti-bigotry, privacy, and the threat of nuclear destruction, which are important to take positions on in the process of actualizing the transhumanist vision for the future.
Sincerely,
Gennady Stolyarov II,
Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party
Just curious, why not adopt the planks from other Transhumanism groups? Do we really need to come up with new ones?
Greetings, David.
Four of the five planks proposed here were actually adapted from the Nevada Transhumanist Party platform. Members do have the ability to propose planks from other groups and platforms as well (with the caveat that we want to avoid using any copyrighted language – but any language that is in the public domain or licensed as Creative Commons or any other “copyleft” license is fair game).
Given that members also have the opportunity to propose modifications, what gets adopted will probably look a bit different than any other group’s platform. In any event, I think it is important to give members the option to vote and select among any alternatives that have been proposed. As you will soon see with the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, the result is often an amalgam of different members’ ideas and proposals.
Sincerely,
Gennady Stolyarov II,
Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party
I saw where you’re a part of the other groups too, so I thought your connection could gain us access and use of the planks that seemed to be well thought out and established. My reason for asking was to encourage joining with the other groups so to ensure a common theme, ideas, etc. There is strength in numbers of like-minded intellectuals and to have the best chance at gaining political advantage and a strong voice, we should team together.
Comments on Section B: Anti-Bigotry
Original:
The United States Transhumanist Party abhors all racism, nativism, xenophobia, and sexism. Accordingly, the United States Transhumanist Party condemns any hostile discrimination or legal restrictions on the basis of national origin, skin color, birthplace, ancestry, gender identity, or any manner of circumstantial attribute tied to a person’s lineage or accident of birth. Furthermore, the United States Transhumanist Party strongly opposes any efforts to close national borders, restrict immigration of peaceful individuals, or deny opportunities to individuals on the basis of ethnicity, race, or national origin. The United States Transhumanist Party unequivocally condemns all demagogues who seek to segregate individuals on the basis of national origin, race, or ethnicity. In particular, The United States Transhumanist Party opposes movements describing themselves as “white nationalism”, “America First”, “race realism”, and the “alt-right” – as well as the counterparts of those movements in other countries.
Comments:
Although I fully agree with the values emphasized within this section, the discriminatory, alienating verbage within it makes me question how successful the Transhumanist Party would be if it were to seek membership on a national scale. To rectify this, I would either change the section or add an additional one altogether to emphasize the importance of the abolition of the ubiquitous anti-intelligence, anti-science culture that is on the rise in the United States. Creationism and intelligent design, for instance, mask factually incorrect evidence about the world as a religious belief in a manner that disgraces genuine, intelligent believers in a higher power. Movements such as the alt-right and race realism do the same thing on a different scale and it is this butchering of facts, not the beliefs accompanying them, that we must protest. To that end, here are two working revisions of Section B, one with more inclusive verbage (serving as a replacement for the original Section B) and one emphasizing the value of intelligence and the scientific method in our culture (serving as a new section altogether).
Section B-1: Pro-Inclusivity
The United States Transhumanist Party supports all acceptance, tolerance, and inclusivity of individuals and groups of all races, genders, classes, religions, creeds, and ideologies. Accordingly, the United States Transhumanist Party condemns any hostile discrimination or legal restrictions on the basis of national origin, skin color, birthplace, ancestry, gender identity, or any manner of circumstantial attribute tied to a person’s lineage or accident of birth. Furthermore, the United States Transhumanist Party strongly opposes any efforts to enforce said restrictions regardless of cause or motivation thereof.
Section C-1: Pro-Intelligence
The United States Transhumanist Party strongly supports and emphasizes all values and organized efforts related to the cultivation of science, reason, intelligence, and rational thinking. All sources of information that cannot stand up to academic scrutiny will be universally condemned by the United States Transhumanist Party and publicly discredited as expediently as possible. The above will also apply to any individual, organization, or belief system that:
-Intentionally distorts academically verifiable evidence to serve its own agenda, including but not limited to scientific, historical, political, and journalistic evidence
-Contains arguments built upon logical fallacies (with exemption granted to arguments containing both fallacious and logically defensible premises)
-Publicly approves or affiliates itself with groups that do any of the above
All above verbiage may be modified as long as the original meaning within it is retained as presented.
All other sections appear to be satisfactory.
I support every plank of this platform.
As transhumanists, we aim to live in a society radically different than present. We will have to fight and earn all the support that we get because many of these ideas are unknown, unpopular, or feared. Our statements, if they are true to the vision we want, will come off as visionary, bold, or insane to many (regardless of how tepidly stated).
Our primary aim as the tagline states is to put “science, health, and technology at the forefront of American politics”. The underpinning of all three domains is rationality. Bigotry is irrational. It has no basis in scientific findings and it feeds the post-truth culture which the party rebukes in its Bill of Rights. Excluding irrationally prejudiced ideology (not the people who willfully choose to believe in it) from having legitimacy in our party is an intelligent way to ensure that we stay true to our mission.
What we as a party aim to do, won’t be easy, and it won’t be achieved by the same political thinking that other parties use. We ought to be inclusive, but we should be ruthlessly discriminatory against those ideas and movements based in irrationality. This is possible, optimal, and not a contradiction.
As the other planks have not received so much attention, I assume their justification need not be dealt with.
Thank you to everyone who has commented thus far. Based on members’ input, I have assembled the draft sample ballot for this upcoming vote here: http://transhumanist-party.org/2017/01/11/draft-sample-ballot-1-platform/. I formulated language for various options based on the input of members who proposed alternative wordings. In certain cases, I have made grammatical and/or clarifying edits, but have endeavored to preserve the intent of each proposal.
The potential platform sections on morphological freedom (proposed by Ryan Starr) and rational thinking / pro-intelligence (proposed by Daniel Yeluashvili) will be considered as part of the next ballot (for which the exposure period will begin upon the conclusion of the present vote). For now, I would like to experiment with a vote on five platform planks at a time, to see if this will materially increase member participation due to a more concise ballot. However, potential planks mentioned by members in this discussion will receive priority consideration during the next vote.
There are still three full days left in the present exposure period, so members are welcome to propose additional options for the five planks being considered. This includes those who have commented thus far and expressed general ideas but have not yet provided proposed alternative wording of the planks regarding which they commented. Perhaps the presence of the draft sample ballot will motivate additional specific suggestions.
Sincerely,
Gennady Stolyarov II,
Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party
I firmly agree that we should concentrate on saying what separates Transhumanist ideas from common beliefs of the topics raised here for the Constitution. Our different ideas or advancements on such ideas should be emphasized, mostly to elucidate how they would promulgate said common desires of the public to a higher echelon than they currently are even dreamt of attaining. However, I disagree whole heartedly that we should not be too specific with our words in order for future Transhumanist legislators leniency or wiggle room with the document. A Constitution is a restriction of powers. It’s function is to be specific in order for future wolves draped in angelflesh to not have the powers to tear down the society to their will within a generation. Changing laws, amending doctrines should be extremely difficult. What worth having doesn’t come with struggle? The arduousness of amendments to a Constitution are there to combat against insidious philosopher kings: elected by whatever contemporary epoch’s populism, and giving them the authority to destroy Transhumanism and the human liberation it brings.
Of course issues like privacy, bigotry, immigration, military spending, nuclear proliferation, and scientific research are important; and I think a great number of ideas have been discussed here on those topics. But I think they are too broad. It’s like saying you want world peace; of course, we all do, but how are we going to arrive in that world? What must we do? What algorithm should be programmed and initiated?
Because I believe that the creation of strong AI and subsequent superintelliegence AI to help us advance human and robotic flourishing, will only be genesised after the singularity of man and machine into a biomechanical, artificially genetically evolve cognitively augmented Overman, the most pressing endeavors concerning the state of both America and the world in general, is the need for the funding of scientific and medical research and education, in order to form a generation of humanity which gets up to the singularity faster than expected, and brings the citizens of our future Transhumanist Cosmopolis one step closer to curing death.
Therefore, underneath I have proposed very specific measures for the country’s current status, in order to put us in the position to unmake the disease filled, bureaucratic corpulence, and breathtaking suffering components of society, and replace them with engines of Transhumanist emancipation, along with the engineers to erect a post-suffer existence.
http://thomasjcalandra.blogspot.com/2016/12/love-letter-to-future-world.html?m=1
CUT TAXES TO GET MORE REVENUE FOR SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL RESEARCH
There is much political division over taxes. One side wants to lower them, in order for more money to be in the economy, and is of course willing to forego the public services that these tax dollars pay for, and there is the other side who not only wants to not lower taxes, but raise them, in order to provide many more public services that
they believe will makes the economy prosper and human society flourish. Though they disagree on what path to take to opulence, they agree on the premise of there being a tradeoff between taxes and public services: taxes go down, public services go down; want more public services? Then higher taxes are necessary. However, This premise, this tradeoff, this belief, is wrong.
There have been three major tax decreases occur in the United States within the 20th century: the 1920s tax cuts, the kennedy cuts, and the Reaganomics tax cuts. Each results not only in economic prosperity for the private sector, but also with greater public federal revenues for social programs, with also the consequence of the rich
end of the citizenry paying a greater share of the taxes opposed to when taxes were hiked.
In the 1920s, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon entered in,
fought for and won a succession of tax cuts which brought the upper income bracket from the post World War 1 levels of 75% down to just 25%. Though theoretically a nightmare for those who wanted increase government involvement in society, and more public services for the social sphere, it turned out that such tax cuts increase the count in the bank vaults of the federal government. Tax revenue increased 61%, from $719 million dollars in 1921 to $1.16 billion dollars in 1928; a 68% increase when we adjust for inflation. In 1920, the top wealthiest tax brackets was an income of $50,000 dollars or more ($584,000 dollars in 2014 dollars). Even though the rich had their income tax cut by Mellon, they ended up paying more of a percentage
of the total taxes than they did before the cut. Increasing their share of total federal tax revenue from 44.2% in 1921 to 78.4% in 1928.
After the stock market crash, President Herbert Hoover entered in many reforms that inflicted the government into the economy such as deflating the currency and approving the Smute-Hawley tariffs. He also increased taxes back up to World War 1 levels, which were then increased further by President Roosevelt in the beginning of his presidency up to 90%. This remained the case until the 1960s when President Kennedy, in opposition to his own Democratic party, proposed and passed, tax cuts bringing down the highest income brackets from FDR’s 91% down to 70%. JFK even dropped corporate taxes from 52% to 48%. Besides unemployment dropping from 5.2% to 3.8%, tax receipts soared by 62% from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968. When we adjust for inflation the percentage gets
brought down to 33%. The rich of the 1960’s saw the same thing happen to themselves as did the rich of the 1920s: those making over $50,000 ($394,000 in 2014 dollars) increased 57% from 1963 to 1967, while the top bracket of earners, $200,000 dollars or more,
($1.5 million dollars or more in 2014 dollars) paid a larger share of the taxes, (15%) at the end of the decade then they did at the beginning of the decade (11%).
The Reagan era might be the most impressive. Coming into office with the economy in a slump, with high unemployment and high inflation. Reagan cut income taxes from 70% to 50% for the highest bracket and the lowest went from 14% to just 11%, as well as cuts to the estate taxes and corporate tax. Then in 1986, Regan cut taxes on
the wealthy from 50% to a low 28%, while increasing taxes on the lowest bracket from 11% to 15%. What resulted? Federal tax revenues increased 99.4% for the decade of the 1980s. The revenue individual income tax increased by 54%, or 28% when you adjust for inflation. The Reagan era, being considered the Gordon Gecko, “greed is good”,
consumer capitalist epoch, is believed to be the time when the rich won big, which they did, and with the help of Reagan did not end up paying their fair share. And like the examples above, you would be mistaken. The richest top 10% of the nation’s tax share in the revenue went from 48% in 1981 to 57% in 1988. And the income stratosphere
of the top 1%, their portion of the tax went from 17% in 1981 to 27% in 1988.
A more recent example would be North Carolina, who cuts taxes immensely and not only saw vast improvement in the state of the state, but we’re about to grow the state’s revenue. They lowered taxes for every household in every income bracket, cut corporate taxes to the lowest in the nation, and eliminated the estate tax (death tax) which not only is a tax on pre taxed savings, but will be a useless enterprise to tranahumanists after the disease of dying is cured. As a result, North Carolina had the number one GDP growth in the nation for 2013-2015 (. 13.4% compared to the national average of 9.9%). 295,000 jobs were added. Unemployment decreased from 10% in 2011 to 4.9% in October of 2016. In June of 2015 the state had a budget surplus of $445 million, and the following year that amount almost reached a billion. Thus the state was able to raise the average teacher’s salary to $50,000 a year, (fastest increase of any state) and increase spreading on K-12 education by 20% (34 million dollars).
The moral of this section could be summed up with, “if you want more public funds in order to maintain or expand public services, and/or you wish to see greater portions of said tax money come from the wealthiest in society, then you should actively be pressing for lower taxes all around, especially corporate taxes.” The mechanism behind this is that people are more likely to save their extra money and firms now have more money to expand their profit making potential. When people have more money from not paying taxes, they are more likely to save it (which is more productive than spending it). Putting money in the bank means the banks have more deposits to loan out to lucrative enterprises or upstarts looking for revenue. By firms either expanding or beginning via investment or paying less taxes, this creates jobs that were not there before. With the increase of new positions opening up faster than humans being born or coming into the workplace, a time arrives where workers are outnumbered by the availability of employment, to which companies have to compete for skilled workers by offering higher wages or increased benefits. All of which thus creates taxpayers and tax paying firms which eventually leads to paying a higher percentage of taxes because they are earning more money. Even though each entity is paying less taxes individually, since there are more taxpayers and more new firms operating, there is more tax revenue pouring in to the Treasury.
What this means to us Transhumanists is that there will be more money in the government coffers for the Universal basic income, scientific research, medical advancements, cognitive augmentation, and life extension funding. More money for science to bring to our social mainframes more information. More medical treatments so people are less sick and therefore be more productive for longer periods of time. More for increasing of cognitive abilities in order to think of ways to improve science, improve medicine, improve cosmopolitanism, build AI, and to think of ways that the swelling of human liberation and flourishing will extend forever.
NEW TAX PLAN AND UBI FORMAT
Proposed Tax Bracket:
$0-49,999 = 0%
$50,000-$249,999 = 10%
$250,000-$999,999 = 20%
$1million and up = 30%
Plus a fluctuating annual nation sales tax that begins with 2% for one year, then 4% then next year, then 6% the next and then 8% the next; to which it recesses back to 6% then 4% then 2% annually, to which there will be a “Year zero” of no sales tax. This fluctuation of the sales tax causes spending and saving changes in both firms and people and thus staves off industry specific bubbles, allows firms to prepare for surplus induced purchases that shock the economy, ( for example tax returns or government stimulation: people spend these on big purchases like cars, boats, shopping sprees, and thus firms respond with an uptick in production after the rush of purchasing, however the stimulation is over and the new surplus is was a waste of money and resources. Firms are hurt, many go out of business) and actually induces people and firms to save more for longer periods of time because they are waiting for the years with a lower sales tax, while banks have more money during the saving years when the tax is high, thus inducing them to make better loan offers with lower interest in order to compete for firms looking for investment or people looking to improve their standard of living such as a home purchase or towards medical expenses.
No more tax categorization incentives such as “head of household”, “married” or “single.” All taxes will be on an individual basis only. There are two reasons why these incentives should be abolished. The first is that they only lead to obfuscation of the tax code as well as add to the bureaucracy of the enterprise. By cutting the bureaucracy you cut the money needed to maintain the bureaucracy. With less money and time needed, the more money that can be used towards more lucrative endeavors such as adding to the UBI, scientific and medical research, and life extension pots. The second reason they should be abolished is that it punishes economically those who choose to not get married, or choose not to get married until a pre arranged time. As the future approaches the economy will grow faster and faster especially with technology coming out such as AI and other resource saving technologies. As the expansion hits the economic difference for year to year will widened. So a year of tax breaks could mean a great difference in helping those who are married and hurting those who chose not to. There is already going to be a widening gap when many of these technologies are available between the haves and have nots; why make it worse with an archaic tax code?
All other federal taxes will be abolished: no excise taxes, no property taxes, no estate taxes, no custom duties taxes, no capital gains taxes, no payroll taxes, no social security taxes, and no Medicare/Medicaid taxes. There will remain a corporate tax of 5%. All welfare such as food stamps, corporate welfare, child tax credits, farm subsidies, public housing, investment tax credits, Medicare, Medicaid and Social security will be eliminated and replaced with a Universal basic income that one receives each week. After doing some intermediate calculation the UBI should between $200-250 a week when the national sales tax is at 2%, and near $700 a week when the tax is at 8%. This burying of taxes and welfare programs is beneficial because it eliminated the bureaucracy that costs to run them in the form of workers, their benefits, pensions, air-conditioned state of the art buildings, all of which cost upwards of 35-45% of the amount of tax dollars allocated to said program each year, but instead gives it directly to those in need in a weekly check that allows said person to use that money however they seem fit to improve their or their family’sstandard of living and or do with it to further a praxeological algorithm to give their life more meaningful experiences and increase human liberation.
Within the Transhumanist revolution, and the inducement we plan to bring of life extension technologies and the eradication of diseases from existence – as opposed to, using Zoltan Istvan’s term, band-aid care, which only fixes the corporeal problem temporally- the need for social security, Medicare and Medicaid will be as needed as a driver in a truck, or a worker in a coalmine, or a wheelchair. We can proclaim great feats of relinquishing human suffering with a Transhumanist world without having confidence in it; without wagering something for it.
MANDATORY K-16 EDUCATION BEGINNING AT 4 YEARS OLD
Advances in farming technology in the 19th century eliviate a lot of the need for manpower in the farming industry. At the time of the civil war, 65% of the nation were farmers, by 1900, it was less than half, by 1950 it was 12% and today only 1.7% of the American workforce are farmers. Yet despite this decline in manpower, crops yields and production seem to break records with every passing year, and a lack of food is the antithesis of The American way. But back at the turn of the 20th century, those farming technologies first got the young kids and teenagers off the farms before their adult counterparts. These young men ( yes, most were men) were forced to go to school or to continue school past the age were normally they would leave to look for work. Both they no longer had to work because of the emergence of these technologies, and at this time many progressive laws were past making public education mandatory until 16. This growth of education lead to both the growth of college attendees in the subsequent decades by astronomical levels, but also the expansion of new fields of employment, and industries and sections of the economy burgeoning. There is no wonder that just two decades after this switch and growth of education, we have the electronic explosion of the 1920s and 1930s where labor saving devices and modern appliances became available and inexpensive to the average person thus greatly improving the human condition. Refrigerators, washing machines, irons, and vacuums all came to fruition at this time, as well as great mass production machines in factories to place on assembly lines to further emancipate manpower and improve productivity. None of which could have happened without an army a fresh engineers coming out schools instead of trying under the sun on farms until they died at 55.
Despite what most believe, people are not dumber today than they were yesterday. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Believe it or not, the average general intelligence of people has been rising since we have been testing people with IQ test. This rising of the general intelligence of a population is called The Flynn Effect, named after James Flynn who was one of the first researchers to document the trend. On average, the IQ of the population has risen around three points every decade. What this intelligence inflation means is that Einstein who had an IQ of 155 in the 1940s, today, would have an IQ of about 130. Or if you give a teenager today who has an IQ of 115 and IQ test from 1920, the results would give him or her an IQ of 145. Perhaps a bit more disturbing, a prisoner on death row in 2014, with an IQ of 69, and therefore deamed mentally retarded, (and thus unable to be executed) if whisked back to the year 1914, that prisoner would be given an IQ of 99: just one point below what would be back in that year as the average intelligence. IQ tests have to be recalibrated every so often in order for the average score to always be 100. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children test was created in 1949, and is expressly geared to test children between the ages of 6 to 16. Yet, this test has had to be readjusted in 1974, 1991, and 2003, in order to keep the average score for the test 100. As you can see, the timespan between each reconfiguration gets shorter and shorter: 25 years between the first, 17 years from then to the third, and just 12 years until the most recent; a sign of the ever growing need to adjust match the growing general intelligence.
In order to better clarify the information about higher IQ scores, it has to mentioned that the IQ gains of the Flynn effect are, in fact, overall better in each aspect of intelligence that is tested, however such portions of the IQ test such as general information (who wrote Romeo and Juliet?) arithmetic, and vocabulary/reading have gain the least: about less than five points since 1950. The true improvements in IQ come from the portions that test abstract reasoning: capacity to think hypothetically. A great test done on young children to in order to see if they have this capacity is the tiny elephant test. Here, the researcher asks the child, “If dogs are bigger than elephants, and if mice are bigger than dogs, are elephants smaller than mice?” Most children under the age of 10 answer incorrectly with a “no.” They do not have yet the ability to preform deductive reasoning to the question’s logical end, but instead resort to induction: the reason of the observed. (7)
In the IQ test, the questions on abstract reasoning are in the form of three different types of abstractions:similarities, analogies and visual matrices. Similarities are “what does a pound and an inch have in common?” Analogies are questions like “Bird is to egg as tree is to what?” And matrices problems such as this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Raven_Matrix.svg/220px-Raven_Matrix.svg.png
These sections that tap into abstract reasoning are what has mostly improved over the course of time. Since 1950, similarities have gone up 25 points and matrices have gone up 30 points. Flynn suggests that this vast improvement that can be seen to begin as far back as pre WW1, is that the difference is “prescientific” and “post scientific” thinking. For an example, with the similarities question, “what do dogs and rabbits have in common?” today a test taker would answer by saying, “they are both mammals.” But a test taker between 1900 and 1920 would answer, “Dogs chase rabbits.” This is because the category of mammals is an abstraction made by science. It pulls us out of the parochial practical world that we are use to and puts us in a hypothetical or would/could be world. The German camel question is the classic example: There are camels in Berlin; Berlin is a city in Germany; are there any camels in Germany? Research done by Michael Cole and Alexander Luria have shown that premodern, indigenous, and even some non-literate people in some more advanced societies can not answer this question, even when put in the context of things and places in their own environment. Here is an actually question and answer response from Cole and Luria with a premodern person living in a remote part of Russia.
Q: “All bears are white where there is always snow. In Novaya Zemlya there is always snow. What colors are the bears there?
A: I have seen only black bears and I do not talk of what I have not seen.
Q: But what do my words imply?
A: If a person has not been there he cannot say anything on the basis of words. If a man was 60 or 80 and had seen a white bear there and told me about it, he could be believed.” (4)
This is because of the growth of education in the general public starting after WW1 and then exploded after school became compulsory in the 1930s. In the year 1900, the average American only received about 7 years of schooling, with 25% of them only getting four years of schooling. Recall the growth of the number of universities in Europe we saw after the birth of the printing press. Not only the increase of time in school but also those during those school years the children were learning science, which is deductive logic through and through. Make no mistake; the Russian in the above conversation was not wrong. He was just thinking differently. He could not grasp the logical conclusion of a premise that was different then the reality in which he himself has experienced. In a very real sense, he lacks the amount of imagination that is in most grade school children. This abstract reasoning is what Jean Piaget calls “formal operational thought,” which is the final stage of a person’s cognitive development that is characterized by systematic logic and the ability to think about abstract ideas. Piaget himself best describes it as “the ability to reason about assumptions that have no necessary relation to reality.” Children are asked “If dogs are bigger than elephants and if mice are bigger than dogs, are elephants smaller than mice?” When Piaget asks this question in the 1950’s he found that the youngest children who could answer it with a yes were about 12 years of age. This means they had entered the formal operational stage, and had the ability to transcend their thoughts away from what they know about reality and imagine a world where elephants were smaller than mice. Before the age of twelve, all the children ask would say no, because they couldn’t subtract their mind away from what they knew from experience. Today, this is seen to be reached on average at about the age of 10 in children, which means that today’s children are able to grasp abstract ideas and imaginary worlds at a younger age then they did in the 1950s. Does this mean that this change is genetic? No, it probably is due to better overall education, (especially the expansion and elaboration of science) more stimulating and imaginative society, or better nutrition, or a combination of the three. No matter which one turns out to be the cause of this IQ inflation, each one of these possible links are products of technology.
With people living longer and longer due to Transhumanist technologies there in no reason why people shouldn’t be going to school for longer periods of times, and we Transhumanists should be as concerned with finding ways to lower the costs of educating a student, just as we are in finding new ways in lowering the cost of crisprcas9 editing. It is only going to advance human capital into the place where we need it to be in order to push our own ideals and vision of a Transhumanist human liberation further. This Transhumanist education will only gets us to where we need to be faster. Not to mention spread the knowledge of science and reason while simultaneously helping to slowly eradicate ancient religious dogmas and hatred boiling up from antiquity, out of our Cosmopolis. AndCosmopolitans, We should encourage brain drain. We want our schools to be immaculate learning centers that beakons of knowledge, science and reason, so that they attract people from every destitute, dismal, downtrodden part of this thresher of suffering, so they learn science and medicine and reason in order to take it back to their communities to pull it out of darkness. Afghanistan, the DRC, Mauritania, and the rural areas of India need engineers, elder diseases cured, schools built, 20th century agriculture, and lower infant mortality rates more so than we do at the moment. And as they pull themselves out with our help, their great minds can help us all add to the hive mind of knowledge to improve well being through new technologies and move forward the Transhumanist liberation from suffering and the disease of dying.
SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL RESEARCH PLATFORM
I was ruminating on how the federal government hands out money for science and medicine when it comes to research. Millions of researchers spend hours, days, weeks not working in their labs, but instead typing up, revising, editing, revising again, starting over, and repeating their Grant proposals. All in order to be given to government bureaucracies whom are read by at best a thousand reviewers, whom then take months to decide on which project gets how much money. And of course these employees of the bureaucracy have to be paid. They have to sit at desks with computers, all in state of the art buildings with central air. They take vacations and have unions. They have an incentive to take a long time in deciding in the name of being “thorough”. All of this bureaucratic quagmire cost money that could go to the research itself, but instead pays for those who decided where the rest of the money can go.
My idea comes in here to correct this waste.
One of the benefits of UBI is that it eliminates all current welfare and social safety net programs, and just replaces them with flat rate checks in the mail. Thus also burying the bureaucracy behind the program with it, which gives more money for the UBI or something more useful than a bureaucracy, such as scientific research. So the goal is for a concoction that administers, clearly defined and disseminates money for scientific and medical research without a wasteful bureaucracy to take half the money away drudgingly choosing where best that money could go.
“If it was up to the NIH to cure polio through a centrally directed program… You’d have the best iron lung in the world but not a polio vaccine”. – Samuel Broder, Former Director, National Cancer Institute._
My proposal involves us giving federal tax money to scientific and medical advancements AFTER the work is done, based on goals and patents. Here is an example that is fairly novice. Instead of the government splitting hundreds of billions of dollars each year for research in fossil fuel reduction technology, the government instead offers a money race to the finish line. $10 billion dollars to the first person or company that invents a car to go 150 miles to the gallon on strictly natural gas. $20 million dollars to the first company to Patent a design with that design and sells it for under $40,000 dollars a car. $25 billion for under $30,000; however, the cars have to be road universal like modern cars. They have to be both for city or highway. They have to be able to be able to get up to highway speeds. Safety testing by private third party crash test facilities. Obviously they will all be automated by then, and car accidents will decline vigorously; not to mention the end of the car insurance industry all together. But of course, once these goals have been met, they go away and new ones are set up based off what has arrived in that contemporary future. Once the $25,000 150 miles to the gallon car is the new Camry, the same rewards will then apply for the first person or company to patent a car that gets 250 miles to the gallon. Of course, here is the kicker. The person or company that invents and patents the technology, has the freedom not to take the money, and keep the rights to the patent with full property protection that patents receive today. Yet, once the patent is there, the money reward is gone. Patents are important to stimulate competition and innovation in a free market. Without security that your ideas cant be stolen, ideas coming to fruition to benefit others would stop. This was why economies under communism essentially froze the people along with their standard of living in time; as if to live decade after decade within a couple years of the revolution.
This is where the rewards come in. Unfortunately, Grants and bureaucracy choose what avenues technology will take based off of the ideas and the rhetoric of the written grant proposal and whatever fashionable politics drives discourse of the day. Here, the avenue isn’t their concern, only the goal. How it comes to pass is left to the innovators who are competing for the prize. The competition and innovation is still there. Second kicker though: if you do decide to take the reward, the technology, ideas and construction contained in the patent becomes open source information that any and all can use, build off of , and advance upon in order to reach that next step in the patent reward. This applies a free market of ideas to technology with the Express goal of getting to that next step, then moving on to better goals: $100 billion for a car that gets 500 miles to the gallon, car that runs on air, train engine that runs on oxygen, etc.
Right about now that quote from above involving the iron lung and the vaccine is tickling your brain, as well as Henry Ford s saying, “ if I asked people what they wanted they’d probably tell me a faster horse.” This is where the maintenance of the freedom to keep the rights to your patent must be upheld, simply because people will continue to work on things that have nothing to do with the rewards being offered by the government. For example, the Fed could offer all these billion dollar rewards for cars that get miles to the gallon, then some person comes out with a SVU truck that gets 1000 miles on a gallon of water, and each unit would cost the consumer just $50,000. At this point, this is the vaccine and natural gas is the iron lung; the former is the car, the latter the horse. Therefore the rewards for the natural gas car goals get scratched and new ones formed based off the water design. Now, if someone patents a technology that supersede the rewards and goals as in the example above, the federal government can offer to pay for the patent with negotiation in order for the patent to be open source. This also applies for those who wish not to have the reward for goals that were set by the Fed, because the most important factor is to get the technology open source to build from, to perpetuate progress, but also to maintain freedom to choose not to take the reward. However, if a water powered superior design comes along and is patented before any or most of the natural gas designs have been innovated and patent, the person or company can still work on their natural gas car technology and get it protection via patent, however no reward is there. Yet, even though a superior technology has come along to cancel out rewards, (ex. Water car) the government could offer a minimized reward to the person or company that invents the now scratched goals (natural gas cars) but for considerably less money than offered before. For example, $10 billion becomes $1 billion. The minimized reward is there in order to get the technology ideas to the open source symposium and free market place of freely sharing and freely using the technology.
Let’s back up for a second. With all this negotiation and determining goals and rewards by the government, it sounds like I’m setting up to build a bureaucracy. Not so.
When the goals and rewards are being determined, they will be by a group of experts and scientists and engineers already in the field. It would be a conference, a symposium, a debate, then a vote that would last no more than a month. After that they collect a paycheck from the government and return to their private sphere. No vacation days, no employees, no benefits, no insurance coverage, no buildings being built to furnish the permanent bureaucracy. Just flat payments then it’s over. The best part is that there isn’t a year after year of Schelling out billions of dollars by expensive and wasteful government employees. The money just sits there until the technology is patented. It could be the next year. It could be 5 years, or ten or twenty. And since the cars are now tested and inspected by third party private institutions, the government gets completely out of the business of doing the regulating and testing aspects. Which frees up more money to offer for incentive in other fields of study and innovation. Not to mention, with the need then, after this paradigm shift occurs, for more third party inspection institutions, we have just created a whole new gigantic industry overnight, which itself will engage in competition with each other, and think up new ways to better check, inspect, and review technology in order for the technology to be illuminated for the person or company on their way to the patent office to collect their rewards.
Another advantage is time. Government inspection slows down testing believing that this helps for safety. However, they have an incentive to slow it down because there are major risks to the bureaucracy and bureaucrats themselves if they go to fast and something is overlooked. This could involve jail time. Instead, the testing process is dramatically sped up in order to get the technology available, and if anything goes wrong, it is expressly the company’s fault and all wrong doing will be settled by the civil courts, settlements, individual or class action lawsuits. This is another incentive for the company with the advancement in technology to do their due diligence before putting it out there in the market. No government crutch. No government waste, either with time or money.
With medical research and future drug breakthroughs, the plan is roughly the same but with some differences. Treatment, procedure, and medication, (in hospital, prescription, and over the counter) have an usual progression, however it isn’t necessarily true to follow, especially with this new system in place, which liberates innovation, speeds up breakthroughs, and gets rid of the most corrupt, heinous, and destructive department ever put forth on the American people: the FDA.
Let’s use Alzheimer’s as an example.
The new system of goals and rewards are similar to the car example above, however different with being more exact, detailed, specific and changing due to the vastly more importance of medicine, health care and life extension.
So first let’s say the government decides to set goals and rewards for curing Alzheimer’s. All plans for disease cures or treatments have to be in these three stages: 1, in hospital treatment, (going to a hospital or a facility for length of time on a week to week or month to month, or year to year basis to receive said treatment that could only be done there by doctors. Ex. Chemo or dialysis) 2, prescription only drugs (prescribed by doctors for home medication; could be in pill form or injectors like insulin) 3, over the counter medicine, much like grabbing some Tylenol, allergy medicine, or condoms.
Let’s say the federal government offers a reward for the patent that has the in hospital treatment of $15 billion dollars, $25 billion dollars for prescription only medicine patent, and $50 billion dollars for the over the counter medicine.
The difference comes in here from the car example: if someone bypasses the previous steps, the previous steps do not get scratched. Here is why. It is in the nature of medicine and treatments that they have side effects, with also the earliest breakthroughs having the most or most severe, to which with time, will be chipped away at via more breakthroughs in reducing harm from the treatment itself.
So let’s say that the three stages are set, but someone patents a pill that possibility could be over the counter. The person or company that invents the discovery gets the reward, but the reward stays for the next innovator who patents an over the counter drug that has less side effects, less harmful side effects and/or made to cost less to the consumer at the pharmacy. Now what happens to the rewards for the previous steps of in hospital treatment and prescription only is they get cut by a fifth for every advance in the succeeding step. So if step three has an advance, 1&2 get cut by a fifth and three remains the same. If two has an advance then it remains the same, and step 3 remains the same, but step 1 gets cut by a fifth. This is so that researchers never give up on making each stage of the treatment better even while facing competition of fellow innovators working on later stages. Yet it also emphasizes they need for treatments to be more accessible, more safe, and less costly for those suffering from the illness. However, once the breakthrough money race has been taken off, the rewards for the lower two stages are the quickest to be repeatedly cut by a fifth. The lowest stage’s end fifth is $3 billion dollars, and the second stage’s end fifth is $5 billion dollars. These remain static and in place until one these three things occur: (1) an innovator patents a treatment for the stage with absolutely no side effects, (2) the next highest stage gets a patent for no side effects, or third stage patents an over the counter drug with extremely minimal, and mild side effects (to which not only does the first stage but also the second stage’s rewards gets scratched, and (3) finally, and absolute cure has been found, such as what is likely to occur in the next fifteen to twenty years, where a chip is one time implanted in the brain and the disease is extinguished from the patient’s consciousness and neuro-health. This final death rattle, demise, quietus, and eternal rest of such a despicable illness of the godless world could also have a reward of say $50 billion dollars. But once it is reached once, it is scratched, as well as all three stages of rewards are scratched, and we as a new, life extended, healthier, and augmented species progress on to the next problem facing future humanity.
Another difference, because it is medicine and health care, is that with each of the three stages is a change in the number of private, independent, testing labs which first must go over and detect the treatment’s or drug’s effectiveness and possible side effects. And because of the vast safety concerns and difference between in hospital care, prescription and over the counter medicine, the number of labs must increase with each stage. For example, stage 1 would require ten, stage 2 would require fifteen, and stage 3 would require twenty. And this would never change, even if previous advancements in the stage have been reached and the innovators have only improved the treatment.
After the disease is cured, researchers and innovators can still work on treatments for the lower three stages of treatment. They can still patent their breakthroughs and receive full protection from the patent office. However no more rewards will be in place, unless the government would want to negotiate a deal to buy the patent so the information can be open source. And like the car example, if something goes wrong with any treatment once it is being produced for consumers, it will be handled in civil court.
These are cheap, extremely simple examples to best elucidate the this new proposal for funding scientific and medical research. I have a number of problems and concerns that have come to mind, yet I still think the trade-off is much more lucrative, fast moving, and better equipped to solve these progressive goals then what we are doing today. So I would like to stop right there before delving into them, in order to get your feedback of plan’s pro and cons, merits and demerits, or just plain foolishness.
Again, I am sure you are busy, so if you do not have the time, I completely understand.
Thank you very much for your time.