Gennady Stolyarov II

Informal polling of U.S. Transhumanist Party members has indicated that the majority of respondents prefer ballots to be relatively concise, with five issues addressed per ballot. The U.S. Transhumanist Party will endeavor to respect this preference where it is reasonable to do so.

In order to enable members’ suggestions regarding platform planks to still be considered on a relatively expeditious timeframe, the U.S. Transhumanist Party will henceforth institute the practice of rolling exposure periods, where any potential plank (and the set of options that has been generated in connection with it) may be placed on the ballot if it has been publicly exposed for at least 15 days. This will still allow members at least 15 days to comment on any proposal and suggest alternative variants. Furthermore, some proposals may be exposed for longer than 15 days as a result of this, allowing for more discussion. Once any five potential planks have been exposed for at least 15 days each, the U.S. Transhumanist Party will endeavor to circulate ballots to enable members to vote on them, which will potentially enable multiple votes to be held in closer succession while still keeping each ballot concise.

The United States Transhumanist Party also hereby opens its exposure period for its second vote on platform planks, which will last at least until 12:01 a.m. on February 16, 2017. Comments from members, and at times specific wording suggestions, have motivated the presentation of the five potential planks below. In some instances, multiple options have already been generated based on available sources and suggestions, however additional options may still be proposed for consideration.

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. Instructions for electronic voting will be sent to members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party via e-mail at that time. 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 Section titles below 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 E2-A. Morphological Freedom.

Option E2-A-1.

[Based on Section VI of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform]

The United States Transhumanist Party advocates for morphological freedom – the right of an individual to alter the appearance, composition, and prospects of his, her, or its organism, as long as such changes do not harm others.

Option E2-A-2.

[Platform Adaptation of Article X of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, Version 2.0]

The United States Transhumanist Party upholds morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence whatever one wants so long as it does not harm others.

The United States Transhumanist Party considers morphological freedom to include the prerogative for a sentient intelligence to set forth in advance provisions for how to handle its physical manifestation, should that intelligence enter into a vegetative, unconscious, or similarly inactive state, notwithstanding any legal definition of death. For instance, a cryonics patient should be entitled to determine in advance that the patient’s body shall be cryopreserved and kept under specified conditions, in spite of any legal definition of death that might apply to that patient under cryopreservation.

The United States Transhumanist Party also recognizes that morphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics, including as yet undefined subcategorizations that may arise as sapience evolves.

However, the United States Transhumanist Party holds that the proper exercise of morphological freedom must also ensure that any improvement of the self should not result in involuntary harms inflicted upon others. Furthermore, the United States Transhumanist Party recognizes any sentient entity to have the freedom not to modify itself without being subject to negative political repercussions, which include but are not limited to legal and/or socio-economic repercussions.

Potential Add-On Language [Based on Transhuman National Committee Platform, Freedom of Self Policy Plank]

Clause E2-A-Add-1.  The United States Transhumanist Party is focused on the rights of all sapient individuals to do as they see fit with themselves and their own reproductive choices.

Clause E2-A-Add-2. The United States Transhumanist Party recognizes the ethical obligations of sapient beings to be the purview of those individual beings, and holds that no other group, individual, or government has the right to limit those choices – including genetic manipulation or other biological manipulation or any other modifications up to and including biological manipulation, mechanical manipulation, life extension, reproductive choice, reproductive manipulation, cryonics, or other possible modifications, enhancements, or morphological freedoms. It is only when such choices directly infringe upon the rights of other sapient beings that the United States Transhumanist Party will work to develop policies to avoid potential infringements.

Question E2-A-Add-3. If any option of the Morphological Freedom plank is adopted, shall any mention of not harming others be preceded by the word “directly”? For example, if members vote in the affirmative, then in Option E2-A-1, “as long as such changes do not harm others” would be revised to “as long as such changes do not directly harm others”. In Option E2-A-2, “so long as it does not harm others” would be revised to “so long as it does not directly harm others”.

☐ Yes, add the word “directly”.

☐ No, do not add the word “directly”.

Section E2-B. Pro-Intelligence / Pro-Science Position

Option E2-B-1.

[Based on Section II of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform]

The United States Transhumanist Party supports the spread of a pro-science culture by emphasizing reason and secular values.

Option E2-B-2.

[Based on Proposal by Daniel Yeluashvili, Base Text]

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.

Potential Add-On Language [Based on Proposals by Daniel Yeluashvili, with Additional Options Generated]

Note: It is intended for members to have the options to accept or reject any of the following add-on clauses and to select candidate language within each clause when multiple variants may be feasible.

Clause E2-B-Add-1: The United States Transhumanist Party [Possible Options: condemns, disavows, disregards, frowns upon, places no reliance upon] any and all sources of information that cannot stand up to [Possible Options: academic, rational, factually grounded, objective] scrutiny.

Clause E2-B-Add-2: The United States Transhumanist Party [Possible Options: condemns, disavows, disregards, frowns upon, places no reliance upon] any [Candidate entities for inclusion in the list: individual, organization, belief system] that intentionally distorts [Possible Options: academically, empirically, factually, objectively] verifiable evidence to serve its own agenda, including but not limited to [Candidate adjectives for inclusion in the list: scientific, historical, political, journalistic] evidence.

Clause E2-B-Add-3: The United States Transhumanist Party [Possible Options: condemns, disavows, disregards, frowns upon, places no reliance upon] any position or belief system that contains arguments built upon logical fallacies (with exemption granted to arguments containing both fallacious and logically defensible premises).

Section E2-C. Liberty to Innovate

Option E2-C-1.

[Based on Section III of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform]

The United States Transhumanist Party supports maximum individual liberty to engage in scientific and technological innovation for the improvement of the self and the human species. In particular, the United States Transhumanist Party supports all rationally, scientifically grounded research efforts for curing diseases, lengthening lifespans, achieving functional, healthy augmentations of the body and brain, and increasing the durability and youthfulness of the human organism. The United States Transhumanist Party holds that all such research efforts should be rendered fully lawful and their products should be made fully available to the public, as long as no individual is physically harmed without that individual’s consent or defrauded by misrepresentation of the effects of a possible treatment or substance.

Section E2-D. Support for Emerging Technologies

Option E2-D-1.

[Based on Section XVII of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform]

The United States Transhumanist Party supports all emerging technologies that have the potential to improve the human condition – including but not limited to autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, economical solar power, safe nuclear power, hydroelectricity, geothermal power, applications for the sharing of durable goods, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, rapid transit, 3D printing, vertical farming, electronic devices to detect and respond to trauma, and beneficial genetic modification of plants, animals, and human beings.

Section E2-E. Smart Infrastructure

Option E2-E-1.

[Based on Proposal by Jennifer Warren]

The United States Transhumanist Party advocates the construction of a self-repairing, self-maintaining smart infrastructure which incorporates the distribution of energy, communications, and clean potable water to every building.