U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party General Discussion Thread for the First Half of 2020
The purpose of this post is to facilitate member comments pertaining to transhumanism and the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party (USTP), which might not specifically fit the subjects of any other post or article on the USTP website. This is the place for members to offer suggestions or converse about any areas of emerging technologies and their political, moral, societal, cultural, and esthetic implications. The general discussion thread is also an ideal location to suggest or propose platform planks that may be considered for future platform voting, and/or bring our attention to emerging legislative and societal developments that may affect the course and impact of emerging technologies.
The USTP will endeavor to open one of these general comment threads per half-year. This comment thread pertains to the months of January, February, March, April, May, and June 2020.
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4 thoughts on “U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party General Discussion Thread for the First Half of 2020”
The following Platform suggestion was made by Adam Perrotta: “For a future revision, I would propose labor laws banning discrimination against the unemployed and the overqualified in hiring. Nobody benefits from this. It results in wasting of human talent.”
Hello All,
Here follows a set of suggestions, some might be better fleshed out than others. This mainly because I’m not an emergency response expert, nor have I lived through a variety of disasters.
Hence, if some of the ideas are impractical or not useful, please do say so.
Short preamble; We just had our 8th platform vote, dedicated to CoVid19. Congratulations to all the planks that were adopted, and a good turn-out on the voting. However, CoVid19 is just one possible ‘disaster’ we might face. As we noticed, we, the USTP, reacted to this viral pandemic. I think, in order to be better prepared in the future, we ought to consider our response to other possible disasters that we might face.
General:
The United States would provide subsidies to partially alleviate increased costs of buildings, structures and relevant infrastructure. This might seem like a handout that favor some over others, but it prevents having to give handouts after the fact. There are currently a number of relief payments after disasters, such as for those living in hurricane rich areas. If buildings etc are better equipped against the natural disaster they might encounter, the federal government might pay much less ex-post-facto. In the end it is cheaper both in direct prevention of damage and loss, as well as less economic disruption or secondary financial damages.
Supplies should be prepared and stored outside the danger zones, but with an ability to be dispersed quickly towards the affected area. Such supplies could include emergency rations, medical supplies, and bottled drinking water, blankets, tents and so on.
Earthquakes:
As a preventative measure, to prevent loss of life as well as minimize economic or structural damage. A federal guideline and standard should be developed for earthquake resistant measures in buildings. These standards and guidelines should then be valid for earthquake prone areas. This would apply to areas where natural earthquake’s occur, as well as areas where significant damage to buildings occurs due to man-made earthquakes through drilling (as overarching term).
More research should be funded for earthquake prediction. Even a few seconds or minutes can save a great many lives.
Hurricanes & tornadoes:
New housing projects should be made reasonably hurricane-proof, for example with bricks or reinforced concrete, and include storm-proof shutters for the windows, as glass often buckles and shatters under the under-pressure caused by hurricanes and tornadoes.
Alternatively, windows could be laminated to minimize it from shattering and turning it into dangerous projectiles.
Tsunami’s and floods;
Lands should be assigned to function as flood basins. These lands might be leased for a small fee for letting cattle graze, but with the express notice that there are risks attached. Hence, no damages can be awarded for financial loss of cattle under these circumstances where the basin needs to be used.
Construction of dams and dikes should receive federal funding to protect urbanized areas that are prone to flooding. Such constructions should be built future-proof as much as possible, for example for the next 30-50 with anticipated rising water levels.
Furthermore, a set amount of the federal budget should be set aside for maintenance, repairs and upgrades of constructions in place to protect a population.
I’ll add if anything else comes to mind.
I would like to suggest something for policy consideration.
There is a new book out that describes how MDMA was banned by the Food & Drug Administration on dubious grounds in 1985. Pure MDMA had been used in couples’ counselling and there had been benefits. The book’s title is Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Our Relationships by Brian Earp and Julian Savulescu..
Another thing I would like to submit is biological freedom to achieve modification of sexual orientation. There are people who like to be attracted to different kinds of people and such changes can be used to achieve a more just society. The article is called Reorientation by Rhys Southan: https://medium.com/@rhys/re-orientation-fb131ba7bd9b
Biological freedom is the key.