Proposal to Establish a Legislative Action Framework – Post by R. Nicholas Starr
R. Nicholas Starr
In light of recent legislative action pursued by the United States Transhumanist Party (USTP), and the urgent need for response on a topic that could have been identified much earlier, I propose the establishment of a legislation tracking and analysis structure as detailed below. The goal is not necessarily to write new legislation (we have no members currently serving in government positions), but to act as a think tank or watchdog organization as legislation is presented in federal or state governments.
Core requirements:
- Compilation of a comprehensive topic/keyword database, sorted into issue groups
- If possible, the creation of a legislative keyword tracking program made available to analysts in a cross platform or web-based architecture
- A chain of command detailing positions and the responsibilities their responsibilities
Chain of Command
Chairman
|
Legislative Director ————> Expert Advisors
^
/
Issue Analysts
Issues may include, but are not limited to:
• Artificial Intelligence
• Biohacking hardware
• Biomedical research and practical application
• Computer and data sciences
• Education
• Environment and ecology
• Existential risk
• Foreign policy
• Life extension
• Privacy, surveillance, and security
• Robotics
• Science and exploration
Keywords shall be gathered for each issue, and analysts should be provided with a thorough and frequently updated list from which to search all available resources (legislation trackers, search engines, government databases, etc.). Eventually, understanding the massive amount of work this would require, we should develop our own legislation tracking system to streamline operations and increase effectiveness.
The Legislative Director would ideally have a background in law/policy making. It would be the responsibility of the Legislative Director to inform the Chairman of all relevant legislation on a state and federal level as provided by analysts or personal observation. It would also be the Legislative Director’s responsibility to identify national policy trends and make suggestions for yearly priorities. The Legislative Director should, when necessary, reach out to our expert Advisors as listed on the USTP Advisors page.
Analysts would ideally have knowledge of/passion for the issues they desire to monitor. There should be no limit to how many analysts cover any particular issue, and individual analysts can cover multiple issues if they desire. Before an analyst submits a legislative report to the Legislative Director, they must provide a link to the legislation and try to answer the following:
- How urgent is the matter?
- Could this cause harm to an individual’s physical/mental health or civil rights?
- Which article of our Platform does this pertain to?
- If none, please explain its relevance.
- Does this apply to other issue groups?
- What do you propose the Party do?
- Provide evidence to support your position.
Many of these issues will overlap each other, which is ideal, as it may provide different analyst perspectives on a particular issue. Many of these issues may also have other prominent organizations (ACLU, EFF) that may be better equipped to address a particular issue. In such cases it is important that we identify to what extent the topic impacts our platform and whether or not it relates to future technology/advancements or present-day capabilities.
This is by no means an exhaustive recommendation, and the nature of this body should be flexible to meet the USTP’s current and future needs. Please provide your comments, recommendations, and criticisms below.
Ryan Starr (R. Nicholas Starr) is a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party and the founder of the Transhumanist Party of Colorado.
5 thoughts on “Proposal to Establish a Legislative Action Framework – Post by R. Nicholas Starr”
I am wholly in support of Mr. Starr’s idea to create a more robust approach to legislative tracking.
We welcome comments on this page as well as spreading this proposal via social media to encourage more individuals to read Mr. Starr’s article and offer input, and to volunteer to track legislation or apply for the Legislative Director position (via e-mail to me; I will post an official opening, along with several others, early next week).
I know from personal experience that legislative tracking efforts can be quite effective if enough dedicated and enthusiastic individuals are involved in gathering information, monitoring developments, and providing thoughtful analysis of pending legislation, its implications, and the desirable courses of action in response.
Sincerely,
Gennady Stolyarov II,
Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party
I formally volunteer. Though I strongly believe that our efforts in this political climate will hamstring our success, i’m not about to sit idle when there’s an opportunity to become more effective in that political sphere.
It may also be beneficial to have a blog, post, or page where we can link and share articles that pertain to Transhumanist ideals. the combination of news articles involving legislature and articles involving science/technology/medicine directly connected to the site may help drive traffic and raise awareness to the value of the party platform and the bill of rights.
We definitely should have a page dedicated to that. Not a blog post, since it will get buried by new posts.
Mr. Antony, your volunteer application is accepted. Thank you for being willing to assist in our forthcoming legislative tracking endeavors.
Regarding a page for linking to and sharing articles, we do have a page on our website – https://transhumanist-party.org/facebook-feed/ – where content from our Facebook feed (for the U.S. Transhumanist Party Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/USTranshumanistParty/ – is also posted automatically. If you make a guest post on the Facebook page, it will show up on the above-linked website page as well. (The latest 100 posts are displayed there; I could not find a setting to display more than that, unfortunately.)
Sincerely,
Gennady Stolyarov II,
Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party