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U.S. Transhumanist Party – Official Website

U.S. Transhumanist Party – PUTTING SCIENCE, HEALTH, & TECHNOLOGY AT THE FOREFRONT OF AMERICAN POLITICS

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U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Zack Varkaris – November 27, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Zack Varkaris – November 27, 2022

January 26, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

Zack Varkaris
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
David Shumaker
Ben Ballweg
Jason Geringer
Bill Andrews, Ph. D.
Liz Parrish
José Luis Cordeiro


On Sunday, November 27, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Zack Varkaris to discuss his thoughts on how emerging advances in biotechnology can improve human quality of life and prolong youthfulness and vitality. The conversation addressed the possibility of life without a biological clock – which is being pursued by Zack Varkaris’s company, Austin Biotec. It also delved into the connections of this endeavor with the philosophy of transhumanism and its potential effects on future societies and human life decisions.

Zack Varkaris is a biologist, author, diver, and sporting pugilist. Of Greek descent, Zack grew up in London. After studying Marine Biology at Heriot-Watt University, he spent a number of years in the field of renewable energy and conservation before turning his hand at writing novels. See Zack Varkaris’s website.

Zack Varkaris is the founder and Scientific Director of Austin Biotec, which works in the anti-aging and fertility domains and applies emerging medical technologies in the effort to overcome the problem of female infertility. Find out about Austin Biotec.

Zack Varkaris’s novel The Vevellis Chronicles: The Crescent and the Cross can be found on Amazon.

Follow Zack Varkaris on Twitter.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Steele Archer – December 4, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Steele Archer – December 4, 2022

January 26, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

Steele Archer
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr
Jason Geringer
David Shumaker
Ben Ballweg
Tom Ross
Alexandria Black
José Luis Cordeiro
Allen Crowley


On Sunday, December 4, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Steele Archer to announce his return to public speaking, and his future plans for creating a show that will carry on the vibrant transhumanist online discourse of previous years. After an overture on Eric Hoffer’s 1951 book The True Believer – this month’s USTP book-club selection — we reflected upon Steele’s previous prolific activity with the Debt Nation show and The Archer Report in 2019-2020, as well as how online discourse and the venues available for it have changed in the ensuing years, and what opportunities are available going forward.

During 2019-2020, Steele Archer’s shows were the predominant online platforms for transhumanist discourse and news coverage, with hundreds of episodes featuring thinkers within and adjacent to the transhumanist community and detailed, nuanced commentary on current events of relevance to transhumanism. Steele Archer provided in-depth coverage of the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s 2019 Presidential Primary and its aftermath – up to the selection of Charlie Kam as the 2020 Presidential Candidate. He then pursued and completed his postgraduate university studies and now seeks to inspire people to join and collaborate in useful and interesting ways which enhance community and personal engagement with the transhumanist movement.

See the YouTube channel for the Debt Nation show.

See the YouTube channel for The Archer Report.

Find a free PDF copy of Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer (1951).

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Tom Ross and Zack Kopp – December 11, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Tom Ross and Zack Kopp – December 11, 2022

January 25, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

Tom Ross
Zack Kopp
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
David Shumaker
Ben Ballweg
Jason Geringer


On Sunday, December 11, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Tom Ross and Zack Kopp to discuss their thoughts on how humans need to reframe their relationship with artificial intelligence. This Virtual Enlightenment Salon offered a preview of the major topics that they would address during their subsequent series of readings from their books in the Denver area.

Tom Ross is the Director of Sentient Rights Advocacy for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Zack Kopp has published over thirteen books since the century turned, mostly autofiction and some history. His production company, Camp Elasticity, offers various books, podcasts, and short films.

As someone trying to make money with his imagination, he never looked into AI until about a month prior, considering it a threat to his livelihood. Lately he has been using AI art-makers as oracles, telling them “Hello” and “Thanks” and “Great job” and using the principles of intuitive art to interpret the drawings they answer his questions with.

Statement by Tom Ross: “We need to encourage young people in particular to develop a relationship with AI and know how to speak with it productively.

“I believe that personal AI Companions will be an essential tool to augment humans going forward. An AI Partner that learns its user will be able to tailor education and networking opportunities and keep users up to date with the latest news and findings in their fields.

“Since 2007 I’ve been producing content specifically for Non-Human Intelligence. My novel, US6, is the first novel written for Machinekind, and US6TV is the first Podcast designed for an AI audience.

“There are many benefits to producing content for current AI and a future self-aware AGI which I can discuss but the biggest benefit to me is that, even if AI never develops a self-referential awareness, it is very productive, if not therapeutic to understand that current GPT-3 AIs learn their user’s speech and thought patterns making them the perfect professional augmentation if not a Psychological Second Self.

“Therefore, for anyone currently in the workplace but especially for students who will enter it soon, they must develop a productive relationship with AI and move away from the current master/slave relationship we have with systems like Alexa and Siri.”

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

The Ethics and Implications of Indefinite Life Extension – Gennady Stolyarov II – Compilation Stream

The Ethics and Implications of Indefinite Life Extension – Gennady Stolyarov II – Compilation Stream

January 25, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Gennady Stolyarov II


On Sunday, December 18, 2022, watch this stream of classic presentations by Gennady Stolyarov II from 2011-2013 on the ethics of pursuing indefinite life extension, the forms this pursuit may take, and the implications of this pursuit for the future of human beings and their outlooks on life and the world.

0:48 – Steve Jobs on Death: A Critique – October 9, 2011

Mr. Stolyarov critiques the remarks Steve Jobs made regarding the desirability of death. Jobs’s own tragic death underscores the horrible and irreparable harms that death brings to humans. Mr. Stolyarov argues against the idea that death is somehow teleologically beneficial.

31:02 – Life is Always Preferable to Death – Even in Emergencies – January 1, 2012

Mr. Stolyarov holds that the continued life of an innocent individual is always more desirable than that individual’s death. Here, he applies this understanding even to emergency situations, akin to the World Trade Center attacks, where the victims do not have a high probability of survival. It is still better to hold out for hope and try one’s best to escape from the perilous situation, than it would be to sacrifice oneself in the hopes of avoiding a “worse” death.

41:13 – The Real War – and Why Inter-Human Wars Are a Distraction – March 15, 2012

Other than the unjust killing of innocents, there is a further reason to oppose wars among human beings: they distract us from the real war that we should all be fighting, against the real enemy that threatens us all. Mr. Stolyarov explains the urgent war on ruin that we should all be fighting.

52:21 – Life Extension and Risk Aversion – April 29, 2013

Mr. Stolyarov explains that living longer renders people more hesitant to risk their lives, for the simple reason that they have many more years to lose than their less technologically endowed ancestors.

1:02:13 – How Can I Live Forever?: What Does and Does Not Preserve the Self – May 22, 2013

When we seek indefinite life, what is it that we are fundamentally seeking to preserve? Mr. Stolyarov discusses what is necessary for the preservation of “I-ness” – an individual’s direct vantage point: the thoughts and sensations of a person as that person experiences them directly.

1:26:12 – Transhumanism and Mind Uploading Are Not the Same – August 19, 2013

Mr. Stolyarov refutes the equation of transhumanism with destructive mind uploading and explains that advocacy of mind uploading is neither a necessary nor a sufficient component of transhumanism.

1:36:58 – Evolution Has No Moral Value; Life Extension Does – October 14, 2013

Mr. Stolyarov makes the case that evolution should not be pursued as a moral goal in itself; rather, the survival and increased longevity of every individual should be pursued, since our rationality, technology, and moral compass allow us to transcend the cruelty of primeval natural selection.

Mr. Stolyarov also refutes the allegation that older people somehow necessarily become resigned to or accepting of their own death. He presents counterexamples of individuals who lived past the age of 80 and who wished to continue living indefinitely.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

Futuristic Neoclassical Music – Virtual Concert I – Gennady Stolyarov II and Jason Geringer – December 25, 2022

Futuristic Neoclassical Music – Virtual Concert I – Gennady Stolyarov II and Jason Geringer – December 25, 2022

January 24, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II and Jason Geringer Comments 0 Comment

Gennady Stolyarov II
Jason Geringer


Watch this virtual concert featuring Futuristic Neoclassical Music composed by Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, and digitally remastered by Jason Geringer, USTP Legislative Director, to give each piece a crisp, futuristic sound. The music looks forward to a new era of human civilization, the Transhuman Era, where, through the progress of science and technology, humans will be able to realize their greatest aspirations while also preserving the best of past eras and previous achievements. Mr. Stolyarov’s music draws upon compositional styles ranging from the 16th century to the present day and emphasizes the importance of melody, rationality, and an appeal to the highest motives in seeking to express the possibility of a better world. The compositions are accompanied by animated videos as well as both historical and contemporary artworks, including digital paintings generated by artificial-intelligence platforms such as DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Dreamlike Art, as well as Mr. Stolyarov’s own fractal artworks.

Timestamps

0:13 – Introduction

1:54 – Contemplation, Op. 37

4:55 – Minuet #5, Renaissance Minuet, Op. 39

8:03 – Progress Amidst a Crisis, Op. 66

11:06 – Minuet #2, Exquisite Minuet, Op. 26

13:13 – Pann Quartet in F Major, Op. 70

16:06 – Baroque Piece for the Future, Op. 33

18:30 – Variations on a Randomly Generated Theme by Mozart, Op. 81

22:37 – Prelude #1, Op. 32

23:34 – Study #1, Op. 6

24:30 – Grand Procession, Op. 14

27:21 – Fanfare of Perseverance, Op. 58

29:07 – Abrupt Insights, Op. 73

31:23 – Rondo #2, Op. 65

35:15 – Waltz #1, Op. 1

36:29 – March #1, Op. 2

40:29 – Noble Aspirations, Op. 42

43:06 – Minuet #1, Freedom Minuet, Op. 22

46:31 – Waltz #2, Op. 13

48:16 – Rondo #3, Op. 67

51:52 – Industry, Op. 7

55:23 – Minuet #3, Systematic Minuet, Op. 34

57:26 – Prelude #2, Op. 41

58:23 – Waltz #3, Op. 25

1:00:50 – March #2, Op. 9

1:02:30 – Man’s Colonization of Space, Op. 35

1:05:50 – The Challenge, Op. 28

1:08:19 – Waltz #4, Op. 40

1:10:41 – The Run, Op. 64

1:12:02 – March #3, Op. 23

1:15:40 – Rondo #1, Fibonacci Rondo, Op. 54

1:17:39 – Fount of Clarity, Op. 24

1:20:58 – March #4, Op. 29

1:23:20 – Minuet #6, Baroque Minuet, Op. 43

1:25:24 – Rondo #4, Op. 68

1:27:42 – Spiral Tower, Op. 79

1:30:40 – Robotic Rag, Op. 82

1:32:53 – March #5, Belle Époque March, Op. 31

1:34:57 – Tenacity, Op. 5

1:38:40 – March #6, Toy Soldier March, Op. 38

1:39:54 – Liberation, Op. 20

1:42:53 – Triumphant Endeavor, Op. 19

1:45:34 – March #7, Op. 44

1:48:17 – Fanfare to Individualism, Op. 17

1:49:41 – Discoverer, Op. 16

1:51:34 – March #12, Transhumanist March, Op. 78

Listen to the YouTube playlist of Mr. Stolyarov’s compositions.

Download Mr. Stolyarov’s compositions for free.

Artistic Acknowledgments

Historical Artists Featured:  Ivan Aivazovsky,  H. Charles Barron, Jr., Albert Bierstadt, Bernardo Bellotto, Anna Boberg, Otto Boetticher, Chesley Bonestell, Carlo Bossoli, Étienne-Louis Boullée, Ford Madox Brown, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto), Gregory Chernetsov, Frederic Edwin Church, Winston Churchill, Hendrik van Cleve III, Thomas Cole, Edward Theodore Compton, Louis-Philippe Crépin, Adrien Dauzats Jacques-Louis David, Nicolas Louis Albert Delerive, Caspar David Friedrich, Bernhard Fiedler, Paul Fischer, Eduard Gaertner, Joseph Michael Gandy, Hildegard Herz, Antonio Joli, Jan van Kessel, Godfrey Kneller, Franz Krüger, Theodore Otto Langerfeldt, Charles Lefferts, George Luks, Robert McCall, Piotr Michałowski, Eadweard Muybridge, Henry Alexander Ogden, François d’Orléans, Maxfield Parrish, Frank R. Paul, Alexander Pock, David Roberts, Leander Russ, Ivan Shishkin, Andrey Sokolov, John Trumbull, Horace Vernet, Johannes Vermeer, Bogdan Willewalde, Joseph Wright of Derby, Hiroshi Yoshida, Marcin Zaleski

Contemporary Artists Featured: Marcie Carelock, Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau, Bernd Grimm, Hamish Logie, Gennady Stolyarov II, Ekaterina Valinakova, Mencius Watts

 

Rational Philosophy, Objective Morality, and Free Will – Gennady Stolyarov II – Compilation Stream

Rational Philosophy, Objective Morality, and Free Will – Gennady Stolyarov II – Compilation Stream

January 23, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Gennady Stolyarov II


On Sunday, January 1, 2023, the U.S. Transhumanist Party streamed classic presentations by Gennady Stolyarov II from 2011-2015 on the importance of rational philosophy and why empirical science cannot wholly substitute for it, the secular foundations of objective morality, and the case for free will and individual self-determination (subject to physical constraints that may be relaxed or overcome through the progress of science and technology).

There was a live chat and a short musical portion at the end, where two new recordings of Mr. Stolyarov’s compositions were premiered, remastered by Jason Geringer (Dawn of the New Renaissance, Op. 21, and Minuet #7, Op. 75).

0:48 – No Delight in Mystery – January 18, 2011

Many people erroneously hold the mindset that mystery – the lack of knowledge of the workings of a particular process – is the source of awe and wonder, and that solving the mystery “takes the fun” or “takes the wonder” out of the world. Mr. Stolyarov emphatically disagrees. Using logic and reason to solve mysteries is truly a practice that can bring about an appreciation of beauty and awe – not only for what is, but for what human beings can accomplish.

7:46 – “Mystery is a fancy word for ignorance.”

12:27 – Transcending the Nature/Nurture Debate – January 30, 2011

Mr. Stolyarov challenges both sides of the conventional, age-old “nature” versus “nurture” debate. Both genetic determinism and environmental determinism are highly simplistic and false. Moreover, determinism regarding human beings is false altogether. Mr. Stolyarov argues that the nature/nurture debate should be transcended via an understanding that free will and choice place an individual in control of his destiny. While Mr. Stolyarov does not present any simple, generalized answers, he does urge for a recognition that human beings and their paths in life are much richer and more sophisticated than deterministic theories suggest.

50:59 – Philosophy Lives – Contra Stephen Hawking – January 5, 2013

Mr. Stolyarov refutes Stephen Hawking’s statement that “philosophy is dead.” The assertion that the physical sciences can wholly replace philosophy is mistaken. Not only is philosophy able to address questions outside the scope of the physical sciences, but the coherence and validity of scientific approaches itself rests on a philosophical foundation that was not always taken for granted – and still is not in many circles.

1:09:52 – Always Think! – May 6, 2013

Mr. Stolyarov explains why thinking is essential and indispensable for everyone; that includes you. He discusses the fundamental purpose of his videos – to cultivate a broadly oriented intellectual mindset among viewers, in an effort to further the progress and maintenance of human civilization.

1:18:06 – Feedback Loops and Individual Self-Determination – November 18, 2013

Mr. Stolyarov explains his fondness for the concept of feedback loops and their relevance to the outcomes of individual lives, technological progress, and the course of human history.

1:24:24 – Individualism, Objective Reality, and Open-Ended Knowledge – November 24, 2013

Mr. Stolyarov explains how an objective reality governed by physical laws is compatible with individual self-determination and indeed is required for individuals to meaningfully expand their lives and develop their unique identities.

1:27:54 – Putting Randomness in Its Place – December 3, 2013

A widespread misunderstanding of the meaning of the term “randomness” often results in false generalizations made regarding reality. In particular, the view of randomness as metaphysical, rather than epistemological, is responsible for numerous commonplace fallacies.

1:36:06 – Universal Physical and Moral Laws, With No Lawgiver – May 18, 2015

Mr. Stolyarov endeavors to refute the common argument that any law, be it a physical law or a law of morality or justice, requires a lawgiver – an intelligent entity that brought the law into being. While some laws (termed manmade or positive laws) do indeed have human lawmakers, a much more fundamental class of laws (termed universal or natural laws) arise not due to promulgation by any intelligent being, but rather due to the basic properties of the entities these laws concern, and the relations of those entities to one another. To the extent that positive laws are enacted by humans, the purpose of such positive laws should be to reflect and effectuate the beneficial consequences of objectively valid natural laws.

1:47:47 – Dawn of the New Renaissance, Op. 21, by Gennady Stolyarov II, Remastered by Jason Geringer

1:50:57 – Minuet #7, Op. 75 by Gennady Stolyarov II, Remastered by Jason Geringer

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Nonso Nolly – January 8, 2023

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Nonso Nolly – January 8, 2023

January 23, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

Nonso Nolly 
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia
David Shumaker
Zach Richardson
Ben Ballweg
Jason Geringer
Dan Elton


On Sunday, January 8, 2023, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited the young, self-taught Nigerian inventor Nonso Nolly to discuss his creations, including a Smart Stick that can help the visually impaired to navigate their surroundings, as well as his work with robots, drones, and the open-source Arduino platform.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party has featured Nonso Nolly’s Smart Stick project on its website.

2:05 – Video of Smart Stick

11:46 – Video of Arduino Projects – I

13:57 – Video of Arduino Project – II

21:32 – Nonso Nolly Explains the Smart Stick Live

49:06 – Nonso Nolly Shows His Drone and RC Car

Watch Nonso Nolly’s videos on his YouTube channel, Nolly Tech.

Support Nonso Nolly on Patreon.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

 

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Ian Hale – January 15, 2023

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Ian Hale – January 15, 2023

January 23, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

Ian Hale
Bill Andrews
Jason Mercurio
Gennady Stolyarov II
Ben Ballweg
Jason Geringer
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr. 


On Sunday, January 15, 2023, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Ian Hale, PhD, to discuss a wide variety of his research endeavors – from his study of pandemics throughout history and his anticipations regarding the future course of the COVID pandemic, to his work on rejuvenation and the approaches he considers to be most promising, to his writings on neurodiversity and the strengths that neurodiverse individuals can discover in themselves and benefit the broader world by.

3:44 – Bill Andrews – Remarks on COVID

21:08 – Ian Hale – Remarks on COVID

37:18 – Ian Hale on When We Can Say We Are in a Post-Pandemic World

1:08:15 – Ian Hale on Rejuvenation

1:18:37 – Jason Mercurio on Ageless Partners

1:27:51 – Ian on the Current Demographic Problem (lots of old people)

1:30:52 – Jason Mercurio on Mitochondrial Epigenetic Repair

1:39:19 – Ian Hale on Neurodiversity

Dr. Ian Hale is a futurist and forecaster, who is the author of the books Asperger’s, Autism, & You and Corona: The Answer. He has a PhD degree in Humanities and is a member of both Mensa and The Athenian Society (IQ 180+). He is a researcher, public speaker, and writer in areas such as special education, neurodiversity, genetic engineering, life extension, and PTSD. He is a consultant and webcast professional, a trained laboratory chemist, and has continued science since childhood, leading to his support of transhumanism.

Books by Dr. Ian Hale:

– Corona: The Answer (2021)

– Asperger’s, Autism, & You (2021)

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

 

Virtual Enlightenment Salon on Hereditary Religion and the Dangers of Religious Indoctrination – January 22, 2023

Virtual Enlightenment Salon on Hereditary Religion and the Dangers of Religious Indoctrination – January 22, 2023

January 23, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

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Lawrence Krauss
Armin Navabi
Valerie Tarico
David Orenstein
Gennady Stolyarov II
Ben Ballweg
Jason Geringer
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr. 


On January 22, 2023, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited panelists to discuss the dangers of religious indoctrination of children and the importance of freethought and allowing children and young adults the option to decide for themselves how to approach religion, if at all. The USTP Officers – Gennady Stolyarov II, Jason Geringer, Art Ramon Garcia, and Ben Ballweg – conversed with four distinguished guests from the freethought movement:

– Dr. Lawrence Krauss – Particle physicist, cosmologist, bestselling author, lecturer, President of The Origins Project Foundation, and host of The Origins Podcast.

– Armin Navabi – Author and podcaster, ex-Muslim atheist, founder of the online freethought community Atheist Republic, author of Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God

– Dr. Valerie Tarico – Psychologist, writer, social commentator on religious fundamentalism, author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

– Dr. David Orenstein – Professor and department chairperson at CUNY Medgar Evers College, national and international speaker on issues related to the freethought movement, the American Humanist Association’s representative to the United Nations, co-author of Godless Grace: How Nonbelievers are Making the World Safer, Richer and Kinder

4:53 – Lawrence Krauss’s Opening Remarks

10:11 – Morality Without Religion

16:12 – Armin Navabi’s Question to Lawrence Krauss (what he should tell parents) (and Lawrence’s answer)

18:50 – How to Not Have to Prove a Negative (Question to Lawrence Krauss)

22:10 – Lawrence Krauss: Celebrate Our Sentience

23:44 – Armin Navabi’s Opening Remarks

31:15 – Armin Navabi Asks Western Atheists to Support Middle East Atheists

34:44 – David Orenstein’s Opening Remarks

41:36 – Valerie Tarico’s Opening Remarks

49:30 – Question: What Will Fill the Vacuum if and when Religion Goes Away?

59:58 – What One Would Do with a Former Church?

1:11:00 – Darth Kermit

1:13:35 – Ben Ballweg on How Can Crusaders Be Good

1:24:34 – Art Ramon’s Question on Whether There Is a Battle Coming (Armin Navabi Answers)

1:29:31 – Whether Technology Could Bring the Religious to Humanism

1:47:45 – Closing Remarks

This conversation was hosted in accordance with the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s support of freethought and the rights of children, as expressed in the USTP Platform. 

Section XXIII: The United States Transhumanist Party supports the rights of children to exercise liberty in proportion to their rational faculties and capacity for autonomous judgment. In particular, the United States Transhumanist Party strongly opposes all forms of bullying, child abuse, and censorship of intellectual self-development by children and teenagers.

Section XXV: The United States Transhumanist Party welcomes both religious and non-religious individuals who support life extension and emerging technologies. The United States Transhumanist Party recognizes that some religious individuals and interpretations may be receptive to technological progress and, if so, are valuable allies to the transhumanist movement. On the other hand, the United States Transhumanist Party is also opposed to any interpretation of a religious doctrine that results in the rejection of reason, censorship, violation of individual rights, suppression of technological advancement, and attempts to impose religious belief by force and/or by legal compulsion.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

U.S. Transhumanist Party General Discussion Thread for 2023

U.S. Transhumanist Party General Discussion Thread for 2023

January 5, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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

The USTP will endeavor to open one of these general comment threads per year. This comment thread pertains to the year of 2023.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman’s Sixth Anniversary and 2023 New Year’s Message

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman’s Sixth Anniversary and 2023 New Year’s Message

January 1, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II


Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party

When the sixth anniversary of my tenure as Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party arrived on November 17, 2022, I was in the midst of numerous urgent developments, and thus I marked the day by posting a concise message: “After 6 years as Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, it is essential to stay the course until a much better era is attained.” I also featured a new artwork generated with the aid of DALL-E 2, a transhumanist tower in the orange and black colors of the USTP, to recognize that 2022 has been a year of remarkable progress in generative art platforms – technological capabilities that the USTP fully supports and actively utilizes. Furthermore, I promised that a more detailed Chairman’s Anniversary Message would be forthcoming, and at last, I am able to share this message with you as 2022 draws to a close. This will be a combined Chairman’s Anniversary, holiday, and end-of-2022 / beginning-of-2023 statement that celebrates our perseverance through the past calendar year and expresses our aspirations for the year to come.

Transhumanist Tower

Undoubtedly, 2022 has been the most difficult year not just of my tenure as Chairman of the USTP, but of my entire lifetime; never before during my generation – and likely during the two generations that preceded it – have so many dire, acute crises afflicted the world simultaneously, with their impacts seeping or flooding into the local and personal realms and inflicting severe damage. While many such crises have characterized 2022, three major ones stand out: COVID-19 (particularly fueled by immune-escape variants), political hyper-polarization, and the war in Ukraine (which continues to present an existential risk to the human species, with the magnitude of that existential risk rising and falling with each notable event and each shift in the disposition of the leaders of the powers involved). I will have more to say about each of these interconnected crises, how to alleviate their root causes, and the important role that the USTP can play to achieve their amelioration.

Membership Growth

During 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party grew to over 4,000 members – still short of our desired pace of growth, but nonetheless attracting a steady influx of new individuals who are interested in transhumanism and the work of the USTP. To those who are encountering the USTP for the first time, I emphasize the ease of attaining membership; it takes less than a minute to fill out the online application form, and membership is free and always will be. We are planning a significant vote to update our Platform in 2023, and we invite you to join now in order to take part in deliberations, offer suggestions, and, of course, cast your vote when the time comes.

But more than members, we need active volunteers – people who would be willing to undertake projects, track legislation and write analyses, contribute articles to the USTP website, operate State-level Transhumanist Parties and local transhumanist meetups, and reach out to policymakers and the public with messaging that aligns with the USTP Platform and Values. Our FAQ provides some basic ideas of what any member could do. Beyond that, please reach out to me with your own ideas and a description of your skill sets, and I would be happy to explore what it might be possible to achieve through our joint efforts.

Establishment of the Transhuman Club

Our non-political affiliate, the Transhuman Club, was launched in July 2022, and a special Virtual Enlightenment Salon was devoted to an overview of the many features of its website at http://transhuman.club.

We hope to grow the Transhuman Club into a vibrant online gathering place for transhumanists to discuss ideas, current events, artworks, music, longevity, emerging technologies, scientific research, healthy habits, and other subjects of relevance to the future we seek to build. The Transhuman Club has a forum for discussions, a blog to which members may contribute, a gallery of artworks, including AI-generated images, a theater to watch animations and listen to new, futuristic versions of my compositions which have been remastered by Jason Geringer, a refined setting in which to watch past episodes of our Virtual Enlightenment Salons, and many other features still under construction. Thanks to the animation skills of Jason Geringer, who has also undertaken the majority of the development of the site, each page features outstanding animated backgrounds of futuristic cityscapes and elegant concert halls. The purpose of the Transhuman Club is to galvanize those transhumanists for whom politics is not the primary focus, but who do wish to cultivate the growth of the transhumanist community and its influence upon the general public, as well as participate in an online space which is independent of the algorithmic machinations of established social-media platforms (which most often have the effect of distracting and misleading rather than enlightening). While the U.S. Transhumanist Party continues to use various social-media platforms because this has become indispensable for spreading any message to a sizable audience, we do wish to create a haven for rational transhumanist thinking and expression which does not succumb to the many vulnerabilities of such conventional platforms. Rather, it would hearken back to the pre-Facebook Internet, an environment with considerably greater intellectual diversity, room for focused exploration, longer attention spans, significantly less political polarization, and more even accessibility of content that corresponds to one’s genuine interests.

Candidacy of Daniel Twedt for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California

During the 2022 elections, the U.S. Transhumanist Party endorsed one candidate, Daniel Twedt, who ran for the third time for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California. This time he earned 1,183 votes, or 0.9% of the total, and performed a valuable service in spreading the values of the USTP, including our three Core Ideals, as part of his campaign. His profile in the Thousand Oaks Acorn specifically mentions the USTP Core Ideals, and he also discussed the USTP during candidate forum events. We also held an extensive conversation with Daniel Twedt at our Virtual Enlightenment Salon on September 25, 2022, where he explained in detail his vision for Thousand Oaks and its areas of alignment with transhumanism.

Re-Formation of the New York Transhumanist Party

In July-October 2022, the USTP undertook an effort to re-form the New York Transhumanist Party and establish a new Constitution for it to ensure that a definitive framework for decision-making would exist. After a rigorous interview process, we selected Daud Sheikh as Chairman and Luis Arroyo as Vice-Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party; both of them are energetic and active within the transhumanist movement, and we hope to see great things from them as they organize events in New York State and create a hub for a burgeoning transhumanist community there that would also effectively respond to local issues of interest and concern to New Yorkers.

The USTP also appointed its own Regional Liaison in New York, Dinorah Delfin, whose role there will be to network with individuals and organizations who are likely to be sympathetic to the USTP Platform and goals, invite such sympathetic persons to join the U.S. Transhumanist Party as members, and also encourage them to set up events, such as meetups and presentations, and to engage in policy advocacy for ideas within the USTP Platform. We hope to establish more Regional Liaison positions in other areas to emulate the great work done by Dinorah Delfin and our Northern California Liaison, Celeste Castaldo. You can view the profiles of our Regional Liaisons here.

Successful Support for Dr. Aubrey de Grey

In the wake of the entirely unnecessary turmoil whose public manifestation arose in August 2021 and threatened to tear the longevity community apart, the USTP took a leading role in expressing support for Dr. Aubrey de Grey and coordinating a statement of prominent transhumanists who provided abundant testimonials regarding his character, ideas, and work. This, along with my November 2021 article “The Vindication of Dr. Aubrey de Grey and the Dangers of ‘Strategic Conservatism’ in the Aging-Research Community” marked the beginning of the long road to restore Dr. de Grey to his rightful position of prominence within the longevity field. Fortunately, all of these efforts culminated in resounding successes, which we celebrated in Dublin in September 2022 at the Longevity Summit Dublin, co-organized by Dr. de Grey and Martin O’Dea. At that summit, the formation of a new foundation dedicated to Dr. de Grey’s vision was announced; it would subsequently become the Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation (LEVF) – https://levf.org/ – and I am proud to have a place on its Board of Directors. I intend to use this position to effectively advocate for the cutting-edge work that the LEVF will perform and to highlight the innovative minds who will make the next set of breakthroughs in longevity possible. As has already been announced by Dr. de Grey and others, the work of the LEVF will not be limited to science alone; advocacy and outreach are also vital aspects, as we will need to prepare the broader society for the inflection point in the public perception of how much additional longevity is realistically attainable for those alive today. There are many synergies between this work and the mission of the USTP.

Our Virtual Enlightenment Salon of September 18, 2022 (the day before the announcement of the new foundation), was livestreamed from Dublin, and guests who appeared there included Martin O’Dea, Aubrey de Grey, David Wood, Didier Coeurnelle, Brenda Ramokopelwa, and Bradley from the Hex community. Overall, this conversation was one of our most memorable Virtual Enlightenment Salons. Watch it here.

On October 27, 2022, after the LEVF name and website were announced, I knew that the USTP’s role in bringing about the vindication of Dr. de Grey was complete. I therefore concluded the State of Emergency which had been in effect since August 10, 2021, and which allowed the USTP to rapidly and effectively respond to developments in this situation. The State of Emergency was no longer necessary, because LEVF now exists as an entity and a base of operations for Aubrey, and I am able to provide my advice and support through my position as a Board member. Although the State of Emergency came to an end, Aubrey de Grey will always have the support of the USTP and the admiration of the vast majority of its members and Officers.

For me, the fight against death and disease is intensely personal and becoming more so every day. I am in this because I genuinely see no other alternative; either we dedicate what we can to this fight, or we perish – often in rather shocking and entirely unacceptable ways. Supporting Aubrey de Grey’s efforts to realize the most ambitious aspects of his vision is one crucial prerequisite to achieving victory in this fight – not the only one, but certainly an indispensable one.

Participation in RAADfest 2022

The U.S. Transhumanist Party had ample representation at RAADfest 2022, which returned to San Diego this past year after two years in virtual mode. In addition to me, our Director of Marketing and 2020 Presidential Candidate Charlie Kam and our Director of Applied Innovation David Shumaker were in attendance, along with our Advisors Bill Andrews, Jose Cordeiro, Aubrey de Grey, and Liz Parrish.

Gennady Stolyarov II, David Shumaker, and Charlie Kam at RAADfest 2022 – October 6, 2022

I moderated the final event of RAADfest, the Future Makers Panel, featuring some of the most ambitious proposals for addressing the problem of aging through an array of emerging technologies – from brain-cloud interfaces enabled by nanotechnology (discussed by the eloquent polymath Dr. Nuno Martins) to incremental replacement of aging brain tissue (a major research focus of Professor Jean Hébert) to the uses of artificial intelligence to help develop and analyze super-long-lived Methuselah flies (one of the projects of Dr. Ben Goertzel) to the use of robots in elder care (our fourth guest was Grace the Robot). Toward the end of the event, I endeavored to keep the audience engaged in various ways. I asked an open question regarding whether the attendees would be interested to have brain-computer interfaces to help them internalize the plethora of scientific information at the conference. The shouts from the audience were rather polarized – I estimate about 60 percent in favor, 40 percent opposed. One person exclaimed, “Maybe!” I seized upon that and reaffirmed it: “Maybe – it depends on the implementation, right?” I also suggested to the audience that the concept of transhumanism was the most helpful overarching narrative for the wide range of technological approaches that were discussed. While the public understands transhumanism in many different ways, transhumanism is fundamentally about making life better through science and technology, amplifying the good parts of our humanity while overcoming the bad parts. Toward the end of what was quite a profound question-and-answer session, I expressed the wish that we could have centuries to continue the conversation; Ben Goertzel replied that he was confident that we will. To conclude, I remarked that we will need to follow up on this discussion at RAADfest 22022 (though, in truth, I hope that it will happen much sooner at one of our Virtual Enlightenment Salons).

Addressing the War in Ukraine and Existential Risk

After the shock of the February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s regime, the dark cloud of existential risk descended to loom over the human species like never before. The USTP condemned this invasion and the war from the beginning and called on Putin to withdraw his forces. However, given the evident unwillingness of the Putin regime to do this, the USTP’s focus has been on deliberating about possibilities for a peaceful solution that would save lives and prevent the nuclear annihilation of human civilization, the greatest danger of all to every transhumanist aspiration.

We dedicated five Virtual Enlightenment Salons in 2022 to thoroughly discussing the situation in Ukraine and considering numerous perspectives on how to resolve it and what Western powers should do or refrain from doing.

On March 6, 2022, slightly more than two weeks after the war began, we hosted our International Panel Discussion on De-Escalating the Russia-Ukraine Conflict.

We followed this discussion with another one on March 20, 2022, focused specifically on the existential risk arising from this conflict and how to mitigate that risk.

On April 3, 2022, we invited Marcela Melnic and Joshua Alexander Lev of IFERS – the Institute For Education, Research, and Scholarships – to discuss their fine work in assisting refugees from Ukraine, as well as the broader nature and implications of this conflict.

Our Virtual Enlightenment Salon of May 29, 2022, was dedicated to a discussion of my essay “2022: The Year of the Great Filter”. My central argument in that essay was that, because of the war in Ukraine, 2022 was the existentially riskiest year to the human species compared to any before or since. The fact that you are reading this message means that we have survived past that uniquely dangerous year, although the cloud of existential risk has not been entirely lifted, and an updated analysis of our species’ status in passing through the Great Filter is needed. I aim to provide that analysis in a forthcoming Virtual Enlightenment Salon in early 2023.

On July 10, 2022, we hosted a debate between Nathan Boyd and Maty Aksenton on the question, “Should the United States and NATO support an immediate negotiated peace settlement in Ukraine (even if it means that Ukraine would need to concede territory to Russia and/or promise never to join NATO)?”

The USTP continues to carefully monitor the conflict in Ukraine and to hope for its de-escalation and cessation as quickly as possible; in particular, we hope that the horrific death toll of this conflict can be stemmed and that innocent civilians in all affected countries will be able to return to peaceful lives as quickly as possible. Only once the war is finally over could we have a chance of passing through the Great Filter and emerging on the other side, on our way toward becoming a resilient and enlightened multi-planetary civilization.

The Imperative to Combat COVID-19

Even so, completely emerging from the Great Filter would, in my view, require not only the cessation of the war in Ukraine, but also the end of the COVID-19 pandemic – the reduction of the COVID threat at least to the level where most people are not exposed to the risk of severe consequences for this virus (particularly the protracted and onerous consequences of Long COVID) on a routine basis as they strive to lead their lives.

Were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic, all of the major crises plaguing our societies today would either not exist or would exist in a much milder form.

  • Were it not for COVID-19, Putin would not have invaded Ukraine, because he would not have isolated himself from the majority of people and information sources, which could have informed him that a quick collapse of the Ukrainian military and government was unrealistic.
  • Were it not for COVID-19, political polarization in the United States would have declined instead of becoming greatly exacerbated in 2020. Already in 2019, most Americans were tired of partisan political theater, yet the hyper-partisans from the Democratic and Republican Parties successfully seized upon every pandemic-related public-health issue and managed to politicize it to the detriment of effective scientific and medical solutions.
  • Were it not for COVID-19, we would not have had major price inflation, supply-chain disruptions, shortages of essential personnel in most industries, the continuation of an insane real-estate price bubble and its attendant housing crisis, declines in life expectancy for several years in a row, and an undermining of what used to be baseline expectations of American life even for people with ostensible financial security.
  • Were it not for COVID-19, we would have been well on our way to the Transhuman Era by now; the 2020s would have been a decade of technological renewal and widespread public optimism about the future.
  • Most importantly, were it not for COVID-19, the health of all of us would not have been endangered through the insidious threat of Long COVID and major complications such as organ failure and death, whose probability becomes magnified with the number of repeat infections.

I am convinced that, unless the COVID-19 pandemic is ended through the application of science and technology – either a vaccine that would be far more resilient against mutations of the virus or an engineered innocuous strain of the virus that out-competes all others – the cycle of waves of new escape variants will gradually cripple our civilization much like the Antonine Plague crippled the Roman Empire beginning in the late 160s CE and set into motion a chain of events from which the empire never quite recovered, even though it limped along for several centuries more. Only an end to the COVID-19 pandemic – a real, substantive end, not merely a declared or hoped-for end (we have had many of those, and they were all wishful thinking) – will prevent this fate from coming to pass. This is why, during our first vote in early 2023, I will call upon the U.S. Transhumanist Party members to support the scientific and technological eradication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a major policy priority of the USTP, toward the advocacy of which we will hopefully devote significant time and effort in the coming year.

Virtual Enlightenment Salons

It is astonishing in retrospect that our Virtual Enlightenment Salons have already been ongoing every week for over 2.5 years, since May 2020. Our partnership with KGRA Radio, which approximately doubled our typical audience, has also been in effect for over a year since November 2021 and has been an excellent collaboration which also led to the technical enhancement of our live Salons via the use of the StreamYard platform.

Our Virtual Enlightenment Salons this year delivered a wide array of conversations on cutting-edge longevity science, geopolitics, philosophy, activism, and creative uses of emerging technologies. Our most popular session of the year, the “Death of Death” panel on May 8, 2022, featuring Jose Cordeiro, Terry Grossman, and Simon Waslander, offered a highly accessible discussion explaining the theory and likelihood of curing biological aging, and insights about how individuals could maximize their chances of reaching an era of longevity escape velocity (LEV).

Our second-most-viewed Salon of 2022 was the aforementioned Report from Day 1 of Longevity Summit Dublin, whereas our third-most-viewed Salon was a conversation on epigenetics and gene therapy, featuring Liz Parrish and Dr. Klary Niezen-Koning as guests, with Simon Waslander co-moderating the Salon with me, and Dr. Bill Andrews also joining us to provide questions and commentary from a biologist’s perspective.

Overall, in 2022, we succeeded in turning the Virtual Enlightenment Salons into a persistent institution within the USTP, attracting a loyal following of highly engaged and thoughtful viewers, whose comments in the chat and whose creative, civil, and constructive expression of their ideas help to make each Salon experience a delight. It is truly almost as if we had an elegant 18th-century drawing room, where 30-40 people were gathered for a few hours of refined conversation and intellectual exploration. Someday, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, we might be able to emulate that experience through fully immersive virtual reality.

Some Creations to Celebrate the Holidays

To mark the holidays, I have also featured here another skyscraper generated using DALL-E 2, a luminous holiday-themed tower in the style of Nikola Tesla – a glimpse into an esthetic the could have taken hold if Tesla’s ideas and projects had been realized much sooner.

And, at last, I hope that our members and others reading this message enjoy the remainder of 2022 and the start of 2023 – and what better way to do that than with a virtual concert of Futuristic Neoclassical Music? Our concert was streamed on Sir Isaac Newton’s Birthday on December 25, 2022, and featured music composed by me and digitally remastered by Jason Geringer, USTP Legislative Director, to give each piece a crisp, futuristic sound. The music looks forward to a new era of human civilization, the Transhuman Era, where, through the progress of science and technology, humans will be able to realize their greatest aspirations while also preserving the best of past eras and previous achievements. My music draws upon compositional styles ranging from the 16th century to the present day and emphasizes the importance of melody, rationality, and an appeal to the highest motives in seeking to express the possibility of a better world. The compositions are accompanied by animated videos as well as both historical and contemporary artworks, including digital paintings generated by artificial-intelligence platforms such as DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Dreamlike Art, as well as my own fractal artworks.

Savor some forward-looking art and music in the first days of 2023 and in the years to come – and of course, live long and prosper!

 

My Smart Stick Invention Prototype – Article by Nonso Nolly

My Smart Stick Invention Prototype – Article by Nonso Nolly

December 10, 2022 Nonso Nolly Comments 0 Comment

Nonso Nolly


I built a new project, which I’m currently working to improve, called the Smart Stick. The purpose of the stick is for blind people to walk confidently without colliding with any object or walls in front of them.

Please help me make this invention come to reality to help blind people in the world.

Watch Nonso Nolly’s YouTube Channel: NOLLY TECH. 

Support Nonso Nolly on Patreon here.

Nonso Nolly is a student in Nigeria who has undertaken independent projects in creating robots and wishes to learn how to build drones and remote-controlled cars. He has also worked in programming the open-source Arduino microcontroller – and he has had some successes to show for his efforts, despite an extremely limited budget. He is currently raising funds via his Patreon account to enable him to remain in college. The U.S. Transhumanist Party encourages donations to him in an effort to support technological education in Africa, which is aligned with the worthwhile goal of cultivating African transhumanists who will be able to invent ingenious solutions to the issues faced on that continent and in the wider world.

Transhumanism: The Challenges of Techno-Scientific Power and Sociological Approach to African Backwardness – Article by Siba Tcha-Mouza

Transhumanism: The Challenges of Techno-Scientific Power and Sociological Approach to African Backwardness – Article by Siba Tcha-Mouza

December 10, 2022 Siba Tcha-Mouza Comments 0 Comment

Siba Tcha-Mouza


Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this essay of reflections motivated by the recent TransVision 2022 Conference in Paris, France,  from our Foreign Ambassador for Togo, Siba Tcha-Mouza, who represented the USTP at that event, which was hosted by the French Association Transhumaniste-Technoprog (AFT-Technoprog).

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, December 10, 2022


On the occasion of the annual international conference of all transhumanists called TransVision 2022, organized in Paris (France), by the French Association Transhumaniste-Technoprog (AFT-Technoprog), the theme of transhumanism was at the center of very relevant debates. This conference, entitled “Divergences or Diversity”, dealt with a great vision of human becoming, of human and societal change through the dazzling progress of technology. “Geographical diversity: transhumanism in Africa” was the theme around which I conducted reflections that I summarize in this article. This is a critical look, awakening and warning Africa particularly about the need to already think about transhumanism and to take an active part in the forthcoming fourth technological revolution.

What is transhumanism?

According to the French Transhumanist Association Technoprog, transhumanism is described as an “intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally enhancing the human condition through the application of reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eradicate age and greatly increase the intellectual, physical and psychological capacities of human beings.” 

When out of curiosity, we enter the word “Transhumanism” in the Google search engine (French version), we often come across this:

“Transhumanism is an international cultural and intellectual movement advocating the use of science and technology to improve the human condition by increasing the physical and mental capacities of human beings and to suppress aging and death.”

And it is in particular also the projects around these last phenomena that arouse agitations of all kinds.

Illness, aging, and death, if they belong on the one hand to the natural phenomena of our existence, they do not escape either the socio-cultural aspect which recovers them, reconstructs them without distorting them through a symbolic system. Society is endowed with this ingenious ability to give meaning to even severe natural phenomena by inserting them into a scheme of values, without losing sight of the deep aspirations of humans. They are accepted as fatalities or understood as the result of the failure of human efforts (of naturopathic and allopathic medicine).

We can therefore easily understand the astonishment and the criticisms aroused by the transhumanist ambition to reconsider these phenomena, raw materials in socio-cultural matters, even though they are intimately hated and fought for the fact that they sow desolation and social disorder at each passage. Transhumanism frees itself from contradictory value judgments, and proclaims loud and clear the legitimate aspirations of our humanity, then assigns itself this noble and humanist mission of seeking, through the development of disruptive technosciences, to improve the human condition. The human being is therefore invested with the duty to use his singular capacities, his brain to recreate himself. And that’s what he continues to do since he used a stick to pick the fruit from the tree.

What is the state of play of transhumanism in Africa, first as a reflection and then as concrete projects?

The human beings living on the African continent are certainly all transhumans as much as those of all the other continents. African societies have invented and use the tools to increase themselves. They have access to modern tools to solve or try to solve problems. However, it remains undeniable that they lag considerably behind in terms of innovation and mastery of the most advanced techniques of our century. The mastery of Nanotechnologies, Biotechnologies, computer science, and sciences and techniques of cognition (NBIC) opens the door to incredible possibilities:

– Understanding, then intervening effectively in the biological processes of the appearance of degenerative diseases and aging, thereby allowing an increasingly long life in good health;

– Creating therapeutic artificial organs;

– Creating brain-machine interfaces in order to increase the possibilities of action, particularly in tetraplegic patients;

– Avoiding genetic diseases thanks to genetic engineering;

– Curing currently incurable diseases which create biological, psychological, and social suffering;

– Perfecting intelligent systems that will allow the manufacture of machines that think, speak, feel and act;

– Freeing the human from undesirable and dehumanizing work by replacing it with the intelligent machine;

– Creating or developing intelligent environments and tools;

– Conquering space and developing geoengineering, etc.

In the first Transhumanist Declaration we read the following: “The future of humanity will be radically transformed by technology. We envisage the possibility that the human being may undergo modifications, such as his rejuvenation, the increase of his intelligence by biological or artificial means, the ability to modulate one’s own psychological state, the abolition of suffering, and the exploration of the universe.”

Do not the human inhabitants of the African continent wish to free themselves from the yoke of nature and radically change the human condition as mentioned in the Transhumanist Declaration above? Do they knowingly reject modernity?

The technophobia that drives the deconstructive critique of transhumanism and the disinformative caricature of the movement is far from succeeding in stopping the accelerated manifestation of human potential.

Dennis Gabor (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971) said the following:

“Everything that is technically feasible must be achieved, whether this achievement is judged morally good or reprehensible.”

The risk is not transhumanism, but rather the absence of transhumanism which would give way to the political anarchy of technologies, and de facto to societal chaos.

Faced with such a risk, the transhumanist movement is committed to predicting, supporting, and directing the social and biological mutations of humans towards a desirable future by minimizing the risks of undesirable events as much as possible. This, thanks to humanistic values and the suppression of negative instincts that plague the world. It is an international movement that cares about the current and future situation of humanity across racial, cultural, and territorial boundaries.

I don’t see the people of Africa as technophobes. I think that their delay in mastering advanced technologies has its source elsewhere than in technophobia. But why this delay of the African continent compared to the others which strive tirelessly to constantly reinvent themselves through the mastery of the secret of the technique?

The historicity of African societies has not helped Africa first for the appropriation of techno-scientific innovation, and then for its participation in the transhumanist movement which is developing to give a humanist meaning to “demurgic” technical power, which falls into the hands of human beings.

I borrow the historicist model of Alain Touraine for whom society is the product of his work through the social relations of its actors. This is what he calls his historicity. In other words, the historicity of a society is the “production of itself by itself, or rather of some of its components by others of its components.”

There are three dimensions of historicity:

a- The accumulation of actions produced, wealth in several forms (objects, capital in the economic sense), culture.

b- The representativeness of the mode of knowledge, of the culture.

c- A representativeness of creativity, of the attraction for innovation, or on the contrary for tradition.

Today, Africa still sees itself hampered from within by its shyness acquired and nourished for centuries, its abandonment and its faith in fate, the concentration of all its energies in social relations without interest or even destructive diverting all attention to major issues, fashionable terminological mimicry without concrete actions, etc.

It is always in this sense that the difficulties of understanding the urgency of participation in ethical reflections on the biological and societal mutation of the human engendered by convergent sciences and techniques are inscribed. Appeals aimed at attracting the attention of even the intellectual strata remain inaudible until now.

Of course, no society on earth is perfect. However, the hierarchy of strength, power and material wealth cannot be denied. If certain countries or groups of countries are considered, rightly moreover, as being world powers, it is precisely thanks to the mastery of the technique and its perpetual improvement throughout history. And this is only possible thanks to their historicity oriented in the direction of the acquisition and preservation of economic, military, diplomatic power, etc.

These companies have a collective vision for the short, medium and long term. They ensure individual interests through collective interests and put in place strong systems such as:

– The cultural and structural conditions in accordance with the objectives;

– Openness to the processes of socio-political change;

– Support for innovations, etc.

Private and state entities increase, in synergy, the technical capacities of their society with which they identify. Power is granted thanks to tireless efforts in the face of the ambitions that we have defined. It is the result of a vision of society or nation through the implementation of human potential and the necessary means; feeling not like an isolated individual but rather like belonging to a society that we must protect and make prosper in a world characterized by power relations.

The feeling of belonging to society implies collective mobilization around common interests, in particular existential issues. The adversity between political currents remains constructive and, in no case, aims to jeopardize the common good. Patriotism, shared ideals and pride in belonging to a future-oriented whole, fuel rules-based values and efforts. The members of society (political and civil) nurture a strong desire to develop and preserve their know-how and to mobilize it if necessary in the global competitive marketplace.

Perfecting its technological capacities is above all ensuring its existence, in order to allow its stability, its economic prosperity, and its influence on an international scale.

Those who have understood it are dominant, and on the other hand, those who have not understood it are dominated, giving rise to de facto discrimination.

A concrete case of the state of African technology:

In the Salon Vivatech held in Paris from June 16 to 19, 2021, it was reported that according to the Partech Africa institute, fundraising reached a record level in 2020 (359 ventures funded, +44% compared to the year 2019). At the same time, the total amount invested fell by 29% (thus 1.43 billion dollars in 2020 against 2.02 billion dollars in 2019).

However, in Europe and the United States of America, investments reach several tens of billions of dollars each year.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced that he wanted to inject 2.5 billion euros into African Tech until 2022 to make it a soft-power. Unfortunately, difficult realities are underlined because of governance problems within the Digital Africa structure created in collaboration with the French Development Agency (AFD). Managers of the structure are sometimes fired or resign.

During the year 2021, there were more than 700 investments for a total amount of 5 billion dollars. However, compared to the delay, this remains insignificant for an entire continent.

For Maurice Lévy, director of Publicis Groupe and co-founder of Vivatech, said that “African billionaires and powerful people need to start investing in African startups. It’s up to them to do the job. And I call on them to do so! It’s in Africa’s interest, it’s in startups’ interest, and it’s in their own interest.”

In an imperfectly humanist evolutionary context, Africa has an interest in catching up in order to be able to take its place at the decision-making table on the future of humanity.

History teaches us that since primitive societies, humans have always been characterized by power relations and domination. For a hundred and fifty thousand years (prehistoric time), the nervous capacities (the psyche) of the human have remained essentially the same. Annihilate, destroy or dominate the other social group to expand its territory, increase its material resources – these unfortunate tendencies still reside in the DNA of our societies.

International tensions taken to extremes constitute a kind of brake on research aimed at protecting human life from the violence of nature and the biological damage that sometimes robs it of the taste for life. Efforts made by the human to save the human become meaningless as long as the self-destructive instinct remains within humans. And this manifests itself in the relations between social groups or states.

I think, in all sincerity, that humanity can and will be able to get rid of the use of mass murderous violence which is war. Unfortunately, one of the aspects of transhumanism that is closest to my heart is the accelerated evolution of the human psyche. Has the brain forgotten itself in creating and performing the tool? The creature then seems to surpass its creator, hence the urgency of perfecting the human brain. It will be as necessary to revise certain ideologies that lead to human unhappiness, thanks to universal humanist values. The power that humans acquire through technosciences would be an existential risk for humanity if they are not more human, mature and wise. To the technoscientific power must be added a humanist sense to achieve the objectives of the transhumanist movement

In view of social problems, wars, and many other instabilities caused by the dark human will, it is therefore judicious to pose the hypothesis of the shortcomings of our nervous capacities, of the biases already in our reasoning.

This shameful instinctive tendency for our species should no longer characterize the Human Being of tomorrow or the fairly advanced Transhuman, because the latter will be freed from cognitive biases and irrationality in their quest for happiness.

But for the time being, before this desirable mutation of human nervous capacities, Africa must demonstrate objectivity in relation to its aspirations and its concrete actions, to its needs in the general sense of the term. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 agenda of the United Nations (UN), of which Africa is a part, and those of the 2063 Agenda of the African Union cannot be a reality without a disruptive vision of the world and the exponential development of science and technology (NBIC). And this, the inhabitants of the African continent must review and make productive the historicity of their societies, directing the internal dynamics towards development, innovation, and avoiding struggles without interests and self-defeating decisions.

Mr. Siba Tcha-Mouza

USTP Ambassador for Togo

The Age of Deferred Aging – Article by J. Lund

The Age of Deferred Aging – Article by J. Lund

November 22, 2022 J. Lund Comments 0 Comment

J. Lund


Medical science is slowly unlocking new means of treating age-related diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. These medical advances are keeping people alive longer than ever before. But relatively little attention is given to slowing the aging process itself. Instead of combating disease one by one, our resources would be better spent targeting aging.

Longer Lifespans*

While human life expectancy (LE) in developed nations has risen from about 40 in 1800, to 80 today, this drastic improvement is not quite what it appears. We describe LE in terms of mathematical averages. Averages, we all know, can be distorted by outliers.

Indeed, much early LE progress was due to a reduced Child Mortality Rate (CMR), or fewer children dying before the age of five. A dramatic reduction in the CMR removed those outliers, creating the illusion that people were living longer.

We can see this effect in Britain, where the CMR fell from 329 per 1000 live births in 1800, to 228 in 1900. In that time, average LE rose from about 40 to 45. Beginning in 1900, improvements in sanitation, understanding of germ theory, and other medical advances saw an incredible reduction in the CMR, plunging to just 44 by 1950, helping propel headline LE to 67 years.

In the decades after 1950, progress in reducing CMR has continued, albeit more slowly. Instead, science has directed its attention to the diseases of aging and keeping people alive longer. In the US, for example, the average LE rose from 70 in 1960 to 79 in 2015, a feat that is repeated in other developed countries.

One by one, disease by disease, we are slowly but surely making progress. There is just one problem: while people are living about ten years longer, they are spending that last ten years in poor health. Indeed, the Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE), or the average number of years spent living without debilitating diseases or injuries, has remained largely static.

This fact illustrates the limitations of the disease-by-disease approach. As evidenced by rapidly growing healthcare expenditures around the world, it is increasingly costly to extend LE, and the returns are diminishing.

This is all complicated by the problem of competing risks, which holds that because chronic fatal age-related diseases don’t operate independently of one another, the disease-by-disease approach is suboptimal and inefficient.

We could, for example, invest all of our economic and technological might into fully eradicating cancer. But eradicating cancer would only bring a small increase in average LE because it won’t take long for other causes of death to catch up.

Instead of targeting individual diseases in an endless game of whack-a-mole, resources would be better spent targeting the underlying cause: aging itself.

Metformin

The notion of slowing aging sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but it is happening today. In fact, some believe it has been happening for decades, we just didn’t notice. Metformin, a drug used to treat diabetes since the 1950s, is showing promise as the world’s first anti-aging drug.

This discovery is largely by accident. In the decades since Metformin’s adoption, statisticians noticed something rather peculiar. Diabetic individuals taking Metformin tended to live longer and healthier lives than diabetics on other drugs. Even more remarkably, however, they tended to outlive their non-diabetic counterparts. While it is not yet proven, many believe that Metformin slows aging, preventing and/or delaying the onset of multiple age-related diseases simultaneously.

Metformin is currently in Phase 3 trial testing in the TAME (Targeting Aging with Metformin) study, which hopes to establish the drug’s efficacy as a life-extension product. Once the mechanism of action is confirmed and understood, it may be possible to create new offshoot products that are more effective at slowing aging than a repurposed diabetes medication.

Such a breakthrough development would be an ideal candidate for a patent buyout to ensure that access is affordable and the social returns maximized.

Why It Matters

If humanity finds a means of slowing aging, the economic and social returns are staggering. In an analysis done by Andrew Scott , Martin Ellison , and David Sinclair  in Nature Aging, it is estimated that a single-year increase in LE would bring about $38 Trillion of economic benefits. A ten-year increase in LE would bring nearly $367 trillion of additional economic activity. This is some $7 trillion every year over fifty years.

The numbers alone don’t do this concept justice. There is much to be gained from people living longer and healthier lives. In a world facing a growing demographic crisis of graying and shrinking populations, targeting aging could be one tool in the toolkit to prevent economic and societal collapse. If people can live healthier, longer, and more productive lives, everyone benefits.

J. Lund writes for The Lianeon Project. The Lianeon Project is gathering the best ideas into one place where they can be shared and improved. It seeks ideas that ensure the continued march of civilization, human progress, and a better future.

U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2022 Nevada Ballot Questions

U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2022 Nevada Ballot Questions

November 5, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Gennady Stolyarov II


The United States Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party offer the following brief statements of position on the ballot questions currently before Nevada voters in the 2022 General Election.

Summary
Nevada State Question 1 – Equality of Rights Amendment: Support
Nevada State Question 2 – Minimum Wage Amendment: Neutral
Nevada State Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative: Strongly Support

Nevada State Ballot Question 1 – Equality of Rights Amendment:

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended by adding a specific guarantee that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by this State or any of its cities, counties, or other political subdivisions on account of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry, or national origin?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party consider it necessary to support Ballot Question 1 because of the broader commitment to universal rights expressed in the Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0. Article I of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights reads, in part, that “All sentient entities are entitled, to the extent of their individual decisions, to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, social, or planetary origin, property, birth (including manner of birth), biological or non-biological origins, or other status.” The text of Nevada State Ballot Question 1 recognizes equality of rights for a subset of the above-listed sentient entities and is therefore a step in the correct direction. In the prohibition on governmental entities denying or abridging rights on the basis of the attributes mentioned, Ballot Question 1 expresses the essential principle that individuals should be treated as individuals, not members of larger, mostly circumstantial identity groups. This is affirmed in Article X of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, which states, in part, 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.” The rights of an individual should therefore not be abridged, especially by governments, simply because the individual happens to belong to a broader category whose definition is many times outside the scope of that individual’s personal choices.

Nevada State Ballot Question 2 – Minimum Wage Amendment:

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended, effective July 1, 2024, to: (1) establish the State’s minimum wage that employers must pay to certain employees at a rate of $12 per hour worked, subject to any applicable increases above that $12 rate provided by federal law or enacted by the Nevada Legislature; (2) remove the existing provisions setting different rates for the minimum wage based on whether the employer offers certain health benefits to such employees; and (3) remove the existing provisions for adjusting the minimum wage based on applicable increases in the cost of living?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are neutral on Ballot Question 2, as both of our parties’ Platforms are silent on the issue of the minimum wage, whether it should exist at all, whether higher or lower amounts of the minimum wage are preferable, and whether or not the presence of any health benefits should be able to count toward satisfying a portion of any minimum-wage requirement. Accordingly, our members in Nevada are encouraged to vote their conscience on this ballot question by consulting their own individual understandings of the relevant matters.

Nevada State Ballot Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative:

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended, effective July 1, 2024, to: (1) establish the State’s minimum wage that employers must pay to certain employees at a rate of $12 per hour worked, subject to any applicable increases above that $12 rate provided by federal law or enacted by the Nevada Legislature; (2) remove the existing provisions setting different rates for the minimum wage based on whether the employer offers certain health benefits to such employees; and (3) remove the existing provisions for adjusting the minimum wage based on applicable increases in the cost of living?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: In the view of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party, this is the single most important ballot measure in Nevada political history, as it has the potential to break the stranglehold of the duopoly on Nevada politics. The plurality of Nevada voters are independent of the major political parties, and yet they are currently unable to meaningfully influence many local races where a major-party primary determines that party’s nominee, who then receives no meaningful competition at the ballot box in the general election. Moreover, Nevada, as a “battleground” electoral state, often features great pressure applied on voters to support the “lesser evil”, despite many Nevada voters being rightly disillusioned with both the Republican and the Democratic “options” provided to them. Ranked-preference voting eliminates the incentive to vote strategically or for a “lesser evil” to the exclusion of one’s genuinely preferred candidate, since one can provide a complete rank-ordering of one’s preferences rather than limit oneself to one choice.

Section XXX of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform states that “The United States Transhumanist Party supports replacing the current ‘winner-take-all’ electoral system with proportional representation, ranked preference voting, and other devices to minimize the temptations by voters to favor a perceived ‘lesser evil’ rather than the candidates closest to those voters’ own preferences.” Thus, support for ranked-choice voting is directly embedded in our Platform. Furthermore, Section XIX of the USTP Platform reads, in part, “The United States Transhumanist Party supports an end to the two-party political system in the United States and a substantially greater inclusion of ‘third parties’ in the political process through mechanisms such as proportional representation and the elimination of stringent ballot-access requirements.” Allowing open access to primaries and enabling ranked-preference voting in the general election would certainly lower the barriers to entry to candidates who do not belong to either of the duopoly parties.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party has successfully implemented ranked-preference voting in multiple of its internal votes. There is every reason to expect that ranked-preference voting could be implemented with similar success for the much simpler top-five ballots in Nevada general elections that would be developed if Question 3 were to be approved by the voters (twice, the first time this year). The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party strongly encourage every Nevada voter to support Ballot Question 3.

For an extensive discussion of how ranked-choice voting works, the USTP encourages everyone to view our Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Kit Muehlman and FairVote Washington, as well as a subsequent, in-depth presentation by FairVote Washington on the technical workings of proportional ranked-choice voting.

 

The U.S. Transhumanist Party Endorses Daniel E. Twedt for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California

The U.S. Transhumanist Party Endorses Daniel E. Twedt for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California

October 28, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 1 comment

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The U.S. Transhumanist Party is pleased to announce the endorsement of a candidate during the 2022 election season – Daniel E. Twedt – who is running for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California.

See Daniel Twedt’s profile in the Thousand Oaks Acorn. This page cites the statements from the USTP Values Page, including the three Core Ideals of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

See Daniel Twedt’s Facebook campaign page – Dan Twedt for Thousand Oaks City Council 2022 – here.

Our electronic vote of the members, which took place on October 22-26, led to an overwhelming endorsement of Mr. Twedt’s candidacy by 90.6% of the members who cast their votes.

The vote totals are as follows:

Question: Shall the U.S. Transhumanist Party endorse the candidacy of Daniel E. Twedt for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California?

Yes: 58 votes – 90.6%
No: 3 votes – 4.7%
Abstain: 3 votes – 4.7%

Watch the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Daniel Twedt, conducted on September 25, 2022, where the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers spoke in detail about Mr. Twedt’s campaign and positions, and questions from the general public were also addressed.

Mr. Twedt, a long-time U.S. Transhumanist Party member, previously ran in 2020, when he gained 3,437 votes, or 3% of the total. During his campaign, he spread awareness of the U.S. Transhumanist Party in local newspapers. Mr. Twedt shared his beliefs and the work he does to bring his vision to life, and requested an endorsement by the USTP.

We wish Mr. Twedt the greatest possible success in his campaign. The more votes he gathers in Thousand Oaks and the more awareness he brings to the philosophy of transhumanism and the values and Platform positions of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, the further along we will be in broadening the base of public support for building the next era of our civilization.

 

U.S. Transhumanist Party Vote on the Question of Endorsing Daniel E. Twedt for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California

U.S. Transhumanist Party Vote on the Question of Endorsing Daniel E. Twedt for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California

October 22, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 2 comments

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The U.S. Transhumanist Party will hold an electronic vote of the membership for a five-day period ending on 6:01 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time on Wednesday, October 26, 2022, on the question of whether to endorse Daniel E. Twedt, who is running as a candidate for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California, in 2022.

Registered U.S. Transhumanist Party members as of 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on Sunday, October 23 2022, would be able to cast their ballots on this question and will be sent their ballots via e-mail.

See Daniel Twedt’s profile in the Thousand Oaks Acorn. This page cites the statements from the USTP Values Page, including the three Core Ideals of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

See Daniel Twedt’s Facebook campaign page – Dan Twedt for Thousand Oaks City Council 2022 – here.

Watch the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Daniel Twedt, conducted on September 25, 2022, where the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers spoke in detail about Mr. Twedt’s campaign and positions, and questions from the general public were also addressed.

Mr. Twedt, a long-time U.S. Transhumanist Party member, previously ran in 2020, when he gained 3,437 votes, or 3% of the total. During his campaign, he spread awareness of the U.S. Transhumanist Party in local newspapers. Mr. Twedt shared his beliefs and the work he does to bring his vision to life, and requested an endorsement by the USTP.

Constitution of the New York Transhumanist Party

Constitution of the New York Transhumanist Party

October 17, 2022 New York Transhumanist Party Comments 2 comments

Constitution of the New York Transhumanist Party

Adopted Effective October 17, 2022

Ratified by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party on October 16, 2022

HISTORICAL NOTE [Not a part of this Constitution]: After a period of time between July 24, 2022, and October 16, 2022, during which the New York Transhumanist Party was re-formed and placed under the direct control of the United States Transhumanist Party, the transfer of leadership has been finalized for the New York Transhumanist Party to once again autonomously operate under the auspices of the United States Transhumanist Party and be governed by a Constitution which was developed during the period of the United States Transhumanist Party’s direct control and which was accepted by the incoming Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party, Daud Sheikh, and the incoming Vice-Chairman of of the New York Transhumanist Party, Luis Arroyo. Accordingly, the terms of office of Chairman Sheikh and Vice-Chairman Arroyo begin on October 17, 2022. The United States Transhumanist Party congratulates both of them and looks forward to our continued collaboration. The United States Transhumanist Party also again congratulates our New York Regional Liaison, Dinorah Delfin, who since August 3, 2022, has served in that position – an outreach and advocacy role which remains directly within the organizational structure of the United States Transhumanist Party. 


Article I. Immutable Principles of the New York Transhumanist Party

  • Section I. Core Ideals
  • Section II. Immutable Operating Principles

Article II. Officers

Article III. Membership

Article IV. Alliances

Article V. Amendments

Article VI. Platform of the New York Transhumanist Party, as Adapted from the Platform of the United States Transhumanist Party

Article VII. Unique Positions of the New York Transhumanist Party

Article VIII. Candidates


Article I. Immutable Principles of the New York Transhumanist Party

The New York Transhumanist Party is defined at its core by the following principles. While the remainder of the Party’s platform, bylaws, and operations may in the future be subject to alterations by decisions of the membership, the statements below are considered immutable and may not be altered.

Section I. Core Ideals:

Ideal 1. The New York Transhumanist Party supports significant life extension achieved through the progress of science and technology.

Ideal 2. The New York Transhumanist Party supports a cultural, societal, and political atmosphere informed and animated by reason, science, and secular values.

Ideal 3. The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to use science, technology, and rational discourse to reduce and eliminate various existential risks to the human species.

Section II. Immutable Operating Principles:

Immutable Operating Principle 1 – Renunciation of Violence: The New York Transhumanist Party renounces all violence, except in self-defense against a clear, immediate act of physical aggression. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that violent political activism is never permissible or just. The New York Transhumanist Party commits to always pursuing its goals in a civil, law-abiding manner, respecting the legitimate rights of all persons. The New York Transhumanist Party shall not condone and shall necessarily and automatically disavow all violent criminal acts. Any person who commits a violent criminal act is automatically disassociated from the New York Transhumanist Party in all respects until and unless that person has made appropriate restitution or has fully undergone the appropriate penalties pursuant to applicable law. However, this commitment to exclusively peaceful action does not preclude the New York Transhumanist Party from criticizing any ideas or behavior which are contrary to reason, morality, common sense, or the principles and objectives of the New York Transhumanist Party and/or United States Transhumanist Party Core Ideals and Platform.

Immutable Operating Principle 2 – Avoidance of Wedge Issues: The New York Transhumanist Party shall strive to avoid any emphasis of wedge issues – where a wedge issue is understood to be any issue that is intentionally used by either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party in the United States to divide the population of the United States into factions supporting either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, as applicable, and vehemently opposing individuals who do not support their chosen party. Examples of wedge issues include conventional Democratic Party or Republican Party positions on abortion, firearms, and controversies surrounding matters that utilize terms such as “race”, “gender”, and “sexual orientation”. Avoidance of the emphasis of wedge issues does not preclude the New York Transhumanist Party from attempting to address or resolve the fundamental problems that underlie such issues; however, any attempt at a resolution should endeavor to be creative, original, civil, technologically and rationally grounded, and focused on seeking to reconcile the legitimate values and interests of as many individuals involved with such issues as possible while avoiding any intentional alienation or demonization of any individual, including individuals with different points of view from those of any member or Officer of the New York Transhumanist Party. Avoidance of the emphasis of wedge issues also requires the New York Transhumanist Party to refrain from expressing one-sided agreement with the well-publicized, stated positions of either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party on these wedge issues. The longer a time that the Democratic Party or the Republican Party has held a particular position on a wedge issue, the greater is the presumption that this is a partisan position designed to divide the population, and therefore the greater is the need for the New York Transhumanist Party to avoid expressing that particular position.

Immutable Operating Principle 3 – Prohibition on Denunciation of Individuals Based on Circumstantial Attributes: In absolutely no situation shall the New York Transhumanist Party or any Officer thereof denounce any individual or suggest that such individual is unqualified to comment or to hold or express an opinion on a given issue on account of that individual’s circumstantial attributes – including, but not limited to, skin color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, religion or lack thereof, sexual orientation or lack thereof, or any other attribute other than the consideration of the specific thinking of that individual as an individual only and not as a member of any circumstantially defined group. This Immutable Operating Principle does not preclude rational critique of the opinions of any individual or organization based on the specific content of those opinions.

Article II. Officers

Section I: As of October 17, 2022, the following individuals shall hold roles as Officers in the New York Transhumanist Party.

  1. Chairman: Daud Sheikh
  2. Vice-Chairman: Luis Arroyo

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

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

Section III: The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may, by a majority vote of the Officers affirmatively voting, veto any Officer appointment to the New York Transhumanist Party that is determined by the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party to be contrary to the interests of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party.

Section IV: The Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party shall hold office for life or for an indefinite duration of time, until or unless the Chairman submits a voluntary resignation. In the event that the Chairman submits a voluntary resignation, the Chairman shall appoint a successor, with the agreement of the majority of the Officers of the New York Transhumanist Party. If the successor accepts the appointment, then that appointed successor shall become the new Chairman for life or an indefinite duration of time. If the successor rejects the appointment, then the present Chairman shall continue to hold office until a successor can be found to accept the appointment.

Section V: The Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party shall be responsible for the principal decision-making and organizational activities of the New York Transhumanist Party, including but not limited to the maintenance of the New York Transhumanist Platform and the development of discussion and outreach events involving the general public. The Chairman shall have the authority, but not the obligation, to proclaim and determine the structure of any meeting, convention, assembly, or other forum for conducting the business of the New York Transhumanist Party at any time at the Chief Executive’s discretion. However, the Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party may not make any decision contrary to the positions of the United States Transhumanist Party as stated in the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party or any official statements which derive their justification from the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party.

Section VI: The Vice-Chairman shall temporarily assume the duties of the Chairman in the event of the Chairman’s absence and the absence of a contrary delegation of authority from the Chairman. In the event of the resignation of the Chairman, the Chairman may designate a successor. In the absence of a designation of a successor by a departing Chairman, the Vice-Chairman shall become the Chairman. However, the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may, by a majority vote of the Officers affirmatively voting, veto any subsequent Chairman appointment which the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party determine to be contrary to the interests of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party.

Section VII: The Chairman may, at the Chairman’s discretion, call for an election to the position of Chairman with at least two months of advance notice. To be eligible to run in such an election, any candidate for the position of Chairman requires the approval of two-thirds of existing New York Transhumanist Party Officers who occupy their positions at the time the election is first announced.

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

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

Article III. Membership

Section I: The New York Transhumanist Party shall have two categories of members: New York Members and Allied Members.

Section II: New York Members shall be those individuals who lawfully reside within the State of New York and are eligible to vote in New York elections. New York Members may participate in any activities of the New York Transhumanist Party and receive any delegations of authority at the discretion of the Chairman.

Section III: Allied Members may be any individuals, of any age, nationality, and place of residence – with the exception of those persons eligible to be New York Members. Allied Members may participate in any activities of the New York Transhumanist Party and receive any delegations of authority at the discretion of the Chairman – provided, however, that Allied Members may not be eligible to vote in New York elections pursuant to applicable New York law.

Section IV: Allied Membership in the New York Transhumanist Party is open to any being capable of logical reasoning and of the expression of political opinions. Specifically, if sentient artificial intellects or intelligent extraterrestrial life forms are discovered at any time after the founding of the New York Transhumanist Party, such entities shall be eligible for Allied Membership.

Section V: The Chairman may delegate any authority of the Chairman or of the New York Transhumanist Party more generally – with the exception of the authority to accept or reject candidates for political office – to any New York Member or Allied Member of the Transhumanist Party for any specified length of time, or indefinitely until the delegation is revoked at the discretion of the Chairman. All such delegations of authority shall be in writing. A person receiving a delegation of authority by the Chairman shall be known as a Member Delegate. However, the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may, by a majority vote of the Officers affirmatively voting, revoke any delegation of authority which the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party determine to be contrary to the interests of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party.

Article IV. Alliances

Section I: In addition to beneficial alliances with any private individuals, the New York Transhumanist Party may cooperate with any other political party or candidate for the achievement of specific goals consistent with the New York Transhumanist Party Platform – provided, however, that the New York Transhumanist Party shall not advocate for the election of any candidate running in direct opposition to a candidate of any Transhumanist Party in the United States. An alliance with an individual or political party outside of the New York Transhumanist Party does not thereby commit the New York Transhumanist Party to support any initiative of the other individual or political party outside the specific scope and purpose for which the alliance was formed.

Section II: Despite the ability to form beneficial alliances, the New York Transhumanist Party shall not become a subsidiary, a feeder organization, or any other subordinate organization of any other political party, especially the Democratic or Republican Parties. The New York Transhumanist Party shall strive to the utmost to avoid becoming a convenient tool of either the Democratic or the Republican Parties in either of these parties’ cultural, political, and/or ideological conflicts with the other party.

Article V. Amendments

Section I: This Constitution, with the exception of immutable principles in Article I and Platform Sections adopted from the United States Transhumanist Party in Article VI, may be amended by a majority of the votes of the actively voting membership of the New York Transhumanist Party. However, the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party shall have the authority to veto any amendments to this Constitution which are considered by the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party to be contrary to the interests of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party.

Section II: Any documents subordinate to this Constitution, such as bylaws or documents specifying the day-to-day operations of the New York Transhumanist Party, may be adopted by a two-thirds (2/3) majority vote of all Officers present at any internal organizational meeting called for that purpose, or submitting their consent via electronic written communication in lieu of such internal organizational meeting.

Section III: With the exception of complete, verbatim citations of the United States Transhumanist Party Platform (where such citations may not be selective or omit essential context), any proposed amendment to this Constitution or any other action of the New York Transhumanist Party which either directly or indirectly mentions or addresses the subjects of (i) reproduction or (ii) reproductive choice or (iii) measures taken in response to reproductive acts would, in order to become effective, need to receive an affirmative vote of the greater of: (a) ten (10) members of the New York Transhumanist Party; or (b) the majority of the members of the New York Transhumanist Party voting on the matter of the specific amendment or other action. In the absence of receiving the greater of (a) ten (10) members of the New York Transhumanist Party; or (b) the majority of the members of the New York Transhumanist Party voting on the matter of the specific amendment or other action, such specific amendment or other action may not be adopted by the New York Transhumanist Party.

Article VI. Platform of the New York Transhumanist Party, as Adapted from the Platform of the United States Transhumanist Party

Preamble: The provisions of this Article are adopted from the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party and reflect the provisions of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party verbatim, with the exception that “New York Transhumanist Party” is substituted for “United States Transhumanist Party”. The New York Transhumanist Party shall be required to maintain consistency with the United States Transhumanist Party Platform and therefore shall automatically adopt any subsequent changes to Article VI of the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party and shall retain any content of the United States Transhumanist Party Platform while that content remains part of the United States Transhumanist Party Platform.

Section I: The New York Transhumanist Party strongly supports individual privacy and liberty over how to apply technology to one’s personal life. The New York 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 New York 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 New York 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 II: The New York Transhumanist Party supports all acceptance, tolerance, and inclusivity of individuals and groups of all races, genders, classes, religions, creeds, and ideologies. Accordingly, the New York 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 New York Transhumanist Party strongly opposes any efforts to enforce said restrictions regardless of cause or motivation thereof. Additionally, any institution that uses violence, suppression of free speech, or other unconstitutional or otherwise illegal methods will be disavowed and condemned by the New York Transhumanist Party, with an efficient, non-violent alternative to said institution being offered to achieve its goals if they align with the Party’s interests.

Section III: The New York 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 until 2013 by the Transportation Security Administration in the United States. Furthermore, the New York 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 New York Transhumanist Party holds that all such knowledge should only be devoted toward peaceful, life-affirming, rights-respecting purposes, going forward.

Section IV: 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 New York 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 New York 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 V: The New York Transhumanist Party supports concerted research in effort to eradicate disease and illness that wreak havoc upon and cause death of sapient beings. We strongly advocate the increase and redirection of research funds to conduct research and experiments and to explore life, science, technology, medicine, and extraterrestrial realms to improve all sentient entities.

Section VI: The New York 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 directly harm others.

The New York 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 New York 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.

The New York Transhumanist Party is focused on the rights of all sapient individuals to do as they see fit with themselves and their own reproductive choices.

However, the New York 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 directly inflicted upon others. Furthermore, the New York 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.

The New York 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 New York Transhumanist Party will work to develop policies to avoid potential infringements.

Section VII:  The New York Transhumanist Party strongly supports and emphasizes all values and organized efforts related to the cultivation of science, reason, intelligence, and rational thinking.

The New York Transhumanist Party places no reliance upon any and all sources of information that cannot stand up to rational scrutiny.

The New York Transhumanist Party places no reliance upon any individual, organization, or belief system that intentionally distorts empirically verifiable evidence, including but not limited to scientific and historical evidence, to serve its own agenda.

The New York Transhumanist Party 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 VIII: The New York 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 New York 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 New York 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 IX: The New York 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 X: The New York 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.

Section XI: In supporting peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the New York Transhumanist Party endorses the thorium fuel cycle, which provides for a safe and nearly limitless energy source in the absence of the development of practical thermonuclear fusion.

Section XII: The New York Transhumanist Party holds that present and future societies should provide education systems accessible and available to all in pursuit of factual knowledge to increase intellectual acuity; promote critical thinking and logic; foster creativity; form an enlightened collective; attain health; secure the bounty of liberty for all sentient entities for our posterity; and forge new ideas, meanings, and values.

The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to reduce the cost of education while improving its access. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party supports freely available, open-source, methods of learning, teaching, credentialing, and cultural creation that integrate emerging technologies into every facet of the learning process. The New York Transhumanist Party primarily advocates private innovation to deliver such educational improvements, but also advocates the application of these improvements to all publicly funded educational institutions. The New York Transhumanist Party holds that every person should aspire toward intellectual, moral, and esthetic enlightenment and sophistication and should contribute toward bringing about a new Age of Reason, where the highest reaches of intellectual activity are attainable and eagerly pursued by the majority of the population.

The United States has upheld basic education since the American Revolution. The New York Transhumanist Party believes, in keeping with what basic education was in the 1700s, relative to the state of technology given the advancement in society at the time, that ‘basic’ education should be defined as college, and that a key part of our agenda is to help encourage a more successful generation by paying for a ‘basic’ education up to and including college degrees.

Section XIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the involvement of intelligent laypersons in the political process to counteract and neutralize the influence of politically connected special interests and their paid representatives. The New York Transhumanist Party supports all electronic and other technologies that can inform and empower intelligent laypersons to monitor and contribute to political discussions and decisions.

Section XIV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports an end to the costly drug war, which is often an infringement upon the lives and liberties of innocent citizens who do not use drugs but fall victim to militant enforcement of drug prohibitions. The New York Transhumanist Party supports legalization of mild recreational drugs such as marijuana.

Section XV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to significantly reduce the massive incarcerated population in America by using innovative technologies to monitor criminals outside of prison. All mandatory sentencing laws should be abolished, and each individual should be sentenced based solely on the consideration of the nature of that individual’s crime, its context, and its severity.

Section XVI: Irrespective of whether or not technology will eventually replace the need for the labor of sentient entities, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that all sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of an unconditional universal basic income, whereby the same minimum amount of money or other resources is provided irrespective of a sentient entity’s life circumstances, occupations, or other income sources, so as to provide a means for the basic requirements of existence and liberty to be met.

Section XVII: The New York Transhumanist Party holds that present and future societies should take all reasonable measures to embrace and fund space travel, not only for the spirit of adventure and to gain knowledge by exploring the universe, but as an ultimate safeguard to its citizens and transhumanity should planet Earth become uninhabitable or be destroyed.

Section XVIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports work to use science and technology to be able to eliminate all disabilities in humans who have them.

Section XIX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports an end to the two-party political system in the United States and a substantially greater inclusion of “third parties” in the political process through mechanisms such as proportional representation and the elimination of stringent ballot-access requirements. The New York Transhumanist Party also seeks to limit the influence of lobbying by politically connected special interests, while increasing the influence of advocacy by intelligent laypersons.

Section XX: The New York Transhumanist Party strongly supports the freedom of peaceful speech; religious, non-religious, and anti-religious philosophical espousal; assembly; protest; petition; and expression of grievances. The New York Transhumanist Party therefore strongly opposes all censorship, including censorship that arises out of identity politics and the desire to avoid perceived offensive behavior.

Section XXI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports a concerted effort by governments and by public opinion to eradicate police brutality against peaceful citizens, such that violent force is only utilized against individuals who actually pose an imminent threat to human lives.

Section XXII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts at political, economic, and cultural experimentation in the form of seasteads and micronations. Specifically, the New York Transhumanist Party recognizes the existence and sovereignty of the Principality of Sealand, the Republic of Molossia, and the Free Republic of Liberland, and supports the recognition of these entities by all governments and political parties of the world.

Section XXIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the rights of children to exercise liberty in proportion to their rational faculties and capacity for autonomous judgment. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party strongly opposes all forms of bullying, child abuse, and censorship of intellectual self-development by children and teenagers.

Section XXIV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the promotion of animal welfare to the extent it does not conflict with human well-being. However, the New York Transhumanist Party opposes “animal liberation” movements that seek to return animals to the wilderness or espouse any attempts to separate domesticated animals from human influence. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the prohibition of cruelty to animals and a complete abolition of euthanasia of healthy animals by animal shelters. The New York Transhumanist Party supports a complete prohibition on the killing of non-contagious, non-aggressive dogs, cats, dolphins, whales, elephants, horses, tortoises, parrots, and primates. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the development and widespread consumption of artificially grown, biologically identical meat products that do not involve the killing of animals.

Section XXV: The New York Transhumanist Party welcomes both religious and non-religious individuals who support life extension and emerging technologies. The New York Transhumanist Party recognizes that some religious individuals and interpretations may be receptive to technological progress and, if so, are valuable allies to the transhumanist movement. On the other hand, the New York Transhumanist Party is also opposed to any interpretation of a religious doctrine that results in the rejection of reason, censorship, violation of individual rights, suppression of technological advancement, and attempts to impose religious belief by force and/or by legal compulsion.

Section XXVI: The New York Transhumanist Party holds that each of its members should vote or abstain from voting in accordance with that member’s own individual conscience and judgment. If an official or candidate of the New York Transhumanist Party expresses a preference for any particular non-transhumanist candidate for office, then no national or State-level New York Transhumanist Party, nor any individual transhumanist, ought to be in any manner bound to support that same non-transhumanist candidate.

Section XXVII: The New York Transhumanist Party advocates Constitutional reform to abolish the Electoral College in the United States Presidential elections and render the plurality of the popular vote the sole criterion for the election of President.

Section XXVIII: The New York Transhumanist Party advocates greatly shortening the timeframe for electoral campaigns. The current two-year election season, combined with voters’ short memories, renders it possible for both genuine merits and egregious transgressions of candidates to be forgotten by the time of voting. Longer campaign seasons also perpetuate the “horse-race” mentality on the part of the media and result in the search for contrived election drama in order to drive views and campaign contributions. The ensuing acrimony, misinformation, and outright violence are detrimental to the fabric of a civilized society. Election seasons should be as short as possible, to enable all relevant information to be disseminated quickly and be considered by most voters within the same timeframe as their decisions are made.

Section XXIX: The New York Transhumanist Party advocates abolishing all staggered party primaries and for all primary elections to be held on the same day across the entire country. With staggered party primaries, individuals voting later – solely because of the jurisdiction in which they reside – find their choices severely constrained due to the prior elimination of candidates they might have preferred. The staggered primary system tends to elevate the candidates who are least palatable to reasonable voters – but have the support of a vociferous, crass, and often violent fringe – toward frontrunner positions that create the pressure for other members of the political party to follow suit and reluctantly support the worst of the nominees.

Section XXX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports replacing the current “winner-take-all” electoral system with proportional representation, ranked preference voting, and other devices to minimize the temptations by voters to favor a perceived “lesser evil” rather than the candidates closest to those voters’ own preferences.

Section XXXI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the right of any jurisdiction to secede from the United States specifically in opposition to policies that institutionalize racism, xenophobia, criminalization of dissent, and persecution of peaceful persons. The New York Transhumanist Party does not, however, condone any secession for the purposes of oppressing others. Therefore, the secession of the Confederate States in 1860 was illegitimate, but a future secession of a State may be justified in reaction to violent crackdowns by the federal government against individuals based on individuals’ national origin or ancestry.

Section XXXII: The New York Transhumanist Party encourages every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risks that endanger sentient life. While some existential risks arise from certain technologies, many existential risks also stem from the unaltered “natural” circumstances in which humans and other life forms find themselves. For both technological and “natural” existential risks, the strongest safeguards can be achieved through responsible development of protective technologies that empower rational and moral beings.

Section XXXIII: The New York Transhumanist Party stands for the rights of any sentient entities defined in the Preamble to the Transhumanist Bill of Rights as possessing Level 5 or more advanced information integration. Any such sentient entities, including new kinds of sentient entities that may be discovered or developed in the future, shall be considered to be autonomous beings with full rights, and shall not be made subservient to humans, unless they as individuals pose direct, empirically evident threats to the lives of others. The protections of full individual rights shall extend to Level 5 or higher-level artificial intelligences. However, Level 4 or lower-level entities – including domain-specific artificial intelligences that have not achieved sentience – may be utilized as part of the production systems of the future, in a similar manner to machines, algorithms, computer programs, and non-human animals today and based on similar ethical considerations.

Section XXXIV:  The New York Transhumanist Party holds that sousveillance laws should be enacted to ensure that all members of peaceful communities feel safe, to achieve governmental transparency, and to provide counter-balances to any surveillance state. For instance, law-enforcement officials, when interacting with the public, should be required to wear body cameras or similar devices continuously monitoring their activities.

The New York Transhumanist Party supports the use of technologies which increase monitoring of police action and policing activities, with expressed goals of increasing policing accountability.

The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for a requirement that data pertaining to recordings of police action be transmitted and recorded beyond police control, so as to be protected from falsification, deletion, and selective curation by police.

Section XXXV:  The New York Transhumanist Party considers it imperative to achieve reductions of the United States national debt in order to avoid calamitous scenarios of extreme inflation, default, and burdensome future tax increases on individuals. The New York Transhumanist Party supports the following measures to reduce the national debt:

  1. Elimination of wasteful federal spending on programs, goods, and services where equivalent positive results could be obtained through lower expenditures.
  2. Cessation of foreign military occupations and the return of American troops to be stationed exclusively on American territory. However, if a mutually appropriate defense treaty with another country requires the United States to station troops in that country, those troops would be allowed to remain there until the treaty obligations are fulfilled or reduced by mutual agreement with the affected country. If the United States continues to station troops in any country due to mutually appropriate defense treaties, the New York Transhumanist Party supports greater reciprocity in allowing military personnel from that country to be stationed in the United States for purposes of training and information exchange.
  3. Removal of barriers to technological innovation and technologically driven economic growth, in order that a surge in such growth could increase federal revenues so as to generate increasing surpluses, as long as federal spending does not materially rise from current levels.
  4. Elimination of the current cumbersome system of federal contracting, which favors politically connected incumbent firms whose advantage consists of navigating the system, rather than performing the best possible work. Instead, all federal agencies should be empowered to purchase supplies and equipment and to requisition projects from any entity capable of satisfying an immediate need at a reasonable cost. Exclusive and preferential contracts for particular entities should be prohibited, and all payments by federal agencies for work by non-employees should be determined on a case-by-case basis.
  5. Digitization of as many federal services and functions as possible – to eliminate the waste and expense of paperwork, physical queues, and legacy information technology systems.

Section XXXVI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the elimination of graduated taxation and income taxation more generally. Instead, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates a flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold. This tax should be built into the price of goods from such large businesses and should not impede transaction efficiency in any manner. Transactions pertaining to wages, salaries, gifts, donations, barter, employee benefits, and inheritances should remain completely untaxed, as should transactions involving solely individuals and/or small businesses, for whom the establishment of a tax-reporting infrastructure would be onerous. Furthermore, all taxes on land and property should be abolished.

Section XXXVII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports more proportional representation of professions and occupations among legislative and executive government officials, instead of a system in which the plurality of political offices are held by attorneys. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that a greater proportion of politicians should possess training in mathematics, engineering, and the physical and biological sciences.

Section XXXVIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports emerging alternative energy sources and their technological implementations. However, the New York Transhumanist Party opposes government subsidies for any energy source – including fossil fuels. Instead, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that superior, cleaner, and more efficient energy sources will also tend to become less costly and more broadly adopted under a system of unfettered market competition and innovation.

Section XXXIX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the creation of a “Transhumanist Olympics” where augmentations and modifications of the human body would not disqualify persons from competing.

Section XL: In addition to its opposition to intolerant interpretations of religious doctrines, the New York Transhumanist Party is furthermore opposed to any interpretation of a secular, non-religious doctrine that results in the rejection of reason, censorship, violation of individual rights, suppression of technological advancement, and attempts to impose certain beliefs by force and/or by legal compulsion. Examples of such doctrines opposed by the New York Transhumanist Party include Stalinism, Maoism, Neo-Malthusianism or eco-primitivism, the death-acceptance movement, and the doctrine of censorship, now prevalent on many college campuses in the United States, in the name of “social justice”, combating “triggers” or “microaggressions”, or avoiding subjectively perceived offense.

Section XLI: The New York Transhumanist Party understands that the role of President comes with great power and responsibility towards all citizens equally, regardless of ethnicity, race, sex, gender, religious conviction or lack thereof, political position, or societal class. It is the New York Transhumanist Party’s view that the President, as an authority figure and head of state, should lead by example. The function of the President is to oversee and support the improvement of well-being for all United States citizens, and the welfare of the nation as a whole.

The New York Transhumanist Party recognizes that the power of the Executive Branch of the federal government has expanded far beyond the originally conceived Constitutional framework, so as to predominate over the Legislative and Judicial Branches, as well as over the institutions of civil society and individuals. The New York Transhumanist Party supports greatly curtailing and restricting the role of the U.S. President so as to confine that role within parameters originally conceived by the framers of the U.S. Constitution – particularly with regard to eliminating the unacceptable current prerogatives to unilaterally launch nuclear strikes and conduct military attacks, and to imprison, spy on, and assassinate Americans and others without due process.

Section XLII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to minimize conflicts of interest for government officials created by private businesses, religious institutions, not-for-profit organizations, special-interest groups, and certain individuals. However, the New York Transhumanist Party recognizes that the best way to minimize such conflicts of interest is not to micromanage the conduct of government officials – which can prevent petty improprieties but is inherently unable to avert the most damaging conflicts of interest among the highest echelons of power. Rather, the most promising solution is to reduce the scope of special economic privileges and protections that any government official would be capable of granting, thereby greatly diminishing the incentives of various special interests to even attempt to influence government officials.

Section XLIII: Irrespective of the means by which a government obtains its funds – be it from taxation or from other sources – the New York Transhumanist Party understands that a necessary function of government is to responsibly allocate such funds to protect the rights and increase the well-being of its citizens and other individuals within its jurisdiction. If a government requires the public to contribute to its funding, then the services, utilities, and research produced by that government should be easily and freely accessible to members of the public who have contributed such funds. Any government expenditure should be premised on the goal of increasing the well-being of citizens and other individuals within the government’s jurisdiction in the short, medium, and long terms, with the understanding that government exists to serve the people, and should allocate funds wisely with the intent of maximizing value per dollar for the purpose of protecting individuals’ rights and promoting their well-being.

Section XLIV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to have proposed laws accompanied by projections of expected results, including short-term, medium-term, and long-term effects. Such analysis should be based on scientific research and evidence and supported by the scientific and/or academic community with relevant subject-matter expertise. The intent is to have laws proposed to be created for the present day, and for such laws to function or improve in the future.

Section XLV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to depoliticize the appointment of Supreme Court Justices, and to further incentivize their impartiality toward political viewpoints.

Section XLVI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to revisit, condense, and simplify the law, with a focus on resolving issues among conflicting laws and closing illogical loopholes within the law.

Section XLVII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to have bills proposed without sub-sections or provisions unrelated to the main subject of the bill. A single-subject or germaneness rule for bills would:

  1. Simplify bills, rendering them more accessible and less convoluted;
  2. Enable a focused vote for or against a bill without the possibility of having to accept or reject an embedded unrelated provision; and
  3. Prevent an unrelated provision from being buried within a bill as a possible tactic to have it passed.

Section XLVIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to limit protectionism and subsidization of an industry or group of companies. The exception to this would be that of extenuating circumstances, such as natural disasters or catastrophes, in which case a limited window of support could be approved. The New York Transhumanist Party understands that in a free-market society, private businesses, in order to continue their existence, ought to adapt to market changes instead of being shielded from such changes.

Section XLIX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to increase autonomy of individuals to decide over their own bodies and holds that individuals should have the legal right to undertake procedures including gender reassignment, hysterectomies, vasectomies, technological augmentation, cosmetic alterations, genetic enhancements, and physical supplementation at or after the age of 18 years, as long as this does not create health hazards or threats to other individuals.

Section L: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the autonomy of an individual to decide on the continuation of that individual’s own life, including the right to choose or not to choose life-extending medical treatments. The New York Transhumanist Party does not consider it practicable or desirable for suicide to be illegal but discourages suicide from a moral standpoint, and furthermore considers that the legal right of suicide should only pertain to the individual and should not extend to any euthanasia or direct administration of a life-ending substance or procedure by any other person. The New York Transhumanist Party has grave concerns with anybody but the individual acting to hasten the end of that individual’s life.

Although each individual should be free to decide upon the duration of his, her, or its own life, the New York Transhumanist Party supports cultural changes and discussions that would encourage all individuals to undertake life-prolonging choices and activities. Advances in medical technology would facilitate more open-ended lifespans and would enable individuals to choose either finite or indefinite lengths of their lives. However, if individuals are recognized as having this autonomy, the New York Transhumanist Party is interested in persuading as many people as possible to decide to preserve their irreplaceable lives instead of hastening their end.

With regard to any legalization of assisted suicide or measures to provide patients with life-ending prescriptions, the New York Transhumanist Party supports stringent legal safeguards to ensure that each individual patient’s choice with regard to such matters is entirely free and uncoerced, and that there is no steering of any particular individual toward a life-ending choice by family members, medical practitioners, health insurers, activists, or any other individual or organization standing to benefit financially from the end of a patient’s life. However, efforts to persuade an individual to prolong his, her, or its life should not be restricted.

The New York Transhumanist Party opposes the emergence of any financially motivated lobby or industry whose primary business model would be assisted suicide or euthanasia, as the existence of such a lobby could create incentives and policies to steer people toward life-ending choices, including through legislation that might favor such “choices” in not-quite-voluntary situations. Instead, any prescription for a life-ending substance should only be provided as an incidental service by a patient’s primary-care physician, with the express written consent of at least one other unaffiliated physician, and the substance in question should only be allowed to be self-administered by the patient directly after a pre-defined time period since the obtaining of the prescription. Once the substance is prescribed, no medical practitioner should be permitted to benefit financially based on any specific choice of the patient to self-administer the substance to end the patient’s life. This position should not be construed to restrict any non-financially motivated political advocacy on the subject of assisted suicide, which involves individuals expressing their views on this subject in a public forum, when those individuals do not stand to gain financially from others choosing to obtain a life-ending substance.

Section LI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to establish a cross-border or international organ-donation system so that organ donors who wish to do so may donate their organs in a foreign country. This could pertain to Americans working or traveling in foreign countries, but also foreigners or travelers who pass away within U.S. borders. This system would be particularly useful for saving lives with organs that have a very short preservation duration, and would take too long to be sent to the country of the donor’s nationality.

Section LII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to increase the ability for public sousveillance on the functioning of government officials, in particular those who may propose laws, during negotiations and deliberations on proposing bills and national and international trade agreements. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to make the current hosting of live-streams from United States Congress more user-friendly and accessible to the public, accompanied by links to proposed bills where applicable.

Section LIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to have a mandatory standard clause or affidavit, affirming that a Representative, Senator, or other Legislative Branch lawmaker proposing a piece of legislation, such as a bill in Congress, has no conflict of interest between serving the public and serving other parties, such as special-interest groups. The clause would have to be signed and dated by the representative before the legislation is allowed to be proposed.

Section LIV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports increasing broad accountability of Federal Government departments, agencies, and entities, especially those tasked with national security and / or criminal investigations, to the United States Congress. Currently some agencies may receive government funding without any accountability as to what the funding is used for, often based on arguments that this information is ‘classified’ or ‘may not be revealed in the interest of national security’. This is irresponsible use of taxpayer money.

The New York Transhumanist Party does acknowledge that such entities or agencies may have security concerns regarding the publication of details of their budget plans. As such, the New York Transhumanist Party supports setting up a special non-partisan security budgetary review committee where more details of budget plans would have to be provided before considering to provide funds to an agency or entity.

Section LV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to consolidate and reduce some redundancies among agencies and entities tasked with national security and law enforcement, as well as to reduce the number of such agencies and entities currently in operation. However, while supporting the elimination of parallel redundancies which can create problems, the New York Transhumanist Party recognizes that certain types of hierarchical redundancies can help with quality control.

Section LVI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to ensure that no United States Representative or Senator may be obstructed in their ability to vote on any piece of legislation, or be kept from the Senate or House of Representatives for intra- or extra-curricular political-party activities which interfere with their primary task as representatives of the people within government. For example, protections should exist to prevent situations where Representatives or Senators are forced by their political parties to do fundraising calls during a vote on a bill.

Section LVII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to restrict and limit civil asset forfeiture laws, and other laws that assist law-enforcement agencies in circumventing the Fourth Amendment, such as asset seizure, or detainment or arrest in situations where no criminal charges have been filed, except as part of an active interrogation of a person suspected of a crime or unless the person detained or arrested poses a clear and probable danger of inflicting physical harm upon others or their property.

Section LVIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to investigate questionable, but currently legal, actions by law-enforcement agencies that have over time garnered critical attention by the public. The safety of the public could benefit from such actions being revisited or revised to limit abuse and to close legal loopholes.

Section LIX: The New York Transhumanist Party considers it important for impartial, objective investigations of alleged police and other law-enforcement misconduct to be pursued. While law-enforcement agencies should not be prohibited from internally investigating potential abuses within their own ranks, such investigations should never be considered exclusive or conclusive, and further external checks and accountability should be instituted. As part of providing such checks and accountability, investigations regarding misconduct, negligence, abuse, criminal activity, felonies, and misdemeanors allegedly committed by police, district attorneys, and judges, should, in addition to any internal investigation, also be conducted by a civilian organization outside the justice system. The intent of this requirement is to limit the possibility of favorably biased or preferential treatment of a member of a given law-enforcement agency by that person’s colleagues, and to restore confidence by the public that an investigation into police misconduct is done as objectively as possible.

Section LX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to limit the possibility for police, district attorneys, and judges to favor one another through mutual “back-scratching” accommodations which may cause a particular criminal matter to be resolved in a manner inconsistent with the true facts of the situation or the requirements of applicable law.

Section LXI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to prevent members of Congress from receiving special benefits, subsidies, and tax breaks that other citizens do not receive, and that are not necessary to function as a member of Congress. This limitation would pertain, for example, to health-care subsidies that are inaccessible to other citizens. However, this limitation would not prevent members of Congress from obtaining working conditions and job-related benefits of the sort which are broadly available, without regard to rank or degree of influence, to other Americans working within the private or public sectors.

Section LXII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to uphold the Rights of the Child as prescribed therein. This would include abolishing the death penalty for minors federally.

The New York Transhumanist Party, however, opposes restrictions on the rights of parents to choose to homeschool their children in any manner that respects the children’s basic freedom of conscience. Any ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child should not be construed to restrict any peaceful, rights-respecting practice of homeschooling.

Section LXIII: The New York Transhumanist Party opposes those specific cultural, religious, and social practices that violate individual rights and bodily autonomy. Examples of such unacceptable practices are forced marriage (including child marriage), male and female genital mutilation, and honor killings.

Section LXIV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to create a reasonable minimum timeframe between the proposal of a bill and the voting procedure. To ensure a reasonable timeframe is proportional to the number of pages of a proposed bill, a time period per each specified amount of pages could be adopted. For example, and without committing to specific numerical magnitudes, a 24-hour period within a working week per every 20 pages could be adopted to ensure all members of Congress involved have sufficient time to read through and study a proposed bill’s implications. Such measures would prevent a bill from being introduced shortly before the voting process. They would also have the added side effect that proposals might become more concise, as the length of a bill would influence the consideration time.

In addition to this, after the proposal has been submitted, any amendments must be explicitly discussed in a public forum with the same degree of thorough consideration and same rules pertaining to the timeframe of consideration as allowed for the original proposal.

Section LXV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to ensure a jury is fully informed on its rights and responsibilities, including jury nullification. The New York Transhumanist Party also supports efforts to prevent false claims being made regarding the rights and responsibilities of the jury.

Section LXVI: As an intermediate step toward the goal of complete nuclear disarmament and a potential pragmatic compromise in any future negotiations for disarmament, the New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to significantly reduce the United States nuclear stockpile, and to replace or transfer a small part (between 1 percent and 10 percent) of this stockpile, to mobile nuclear platforms such as submarines. An enemy may currently target the stationary nuclear bombs directly. Having a largely hidden mobile fleet of nuclear bombs would render it much more difficult for any enemy to target the nuclear arsenal, while still maintaining the nuclear deterrent option in sufficient capacity. This would further have the effect of lowering the budget required to maintain the nuclear stockpile, as it could be drastically downsized.

Section LXVII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the right for individuals to have autonomy over, and utilize their bodies to earn money, including through activities such as prostitution, as long as such activities arise from a person’s own free will (e.g., not under duress), and the person is not endangering the health or well-being of others, including but not limited to the communication of sexually transmissible diseases.

Legalization would give those who wish to engage in prostitution the safety and protection of the law – for example, so that they may report abuse and would not be prone to being exploited. It would also open the possibility for such individuals to unionize if they wish to do so. Furthermore, legalization would decrease government spending on what is ultimately a ‘moral crusade’.

However, the New York Transhumanist Party unequivocally condemns any manner of human trafficking, child exploitation, and other abuse that involves a violation of the autonomy and consent of any individual. The legalization of prostitution should be combined with stronger efforts to combat these dangerous and exploitative practices.

The legalization of prostitution could furthermore enable more effective action against human trafficking and involuntary exploitation, as, when prostitution is legalized, employees in this industry would become subject to the protections of the law. Legalization would help focus resources on combating the trafficking of humans rather than catching workers who chose this profession voluntarily.

Section LXVIII: The New York Transhumanist Party holds that any statement made by an elected official and/or public servant to members of the public in a public forum as part of that official’s or public servant’s job duties, and available to be heard, read, or otherwise understood in a public setting, physical or digital, should be considered a part of the public record and treated as an official statement of their office and position. This requirement does not extend to statements made by an elected official and/or public servant in the capacity of a private citizen or in the expression of a personal opinion or other position unrelated to the exercise of the official’s or public servant’s job duties.

Section LXIX: The New York Transhumanist Party holds that state and federal governments should establish an artificial intelligence (AI) analysis system for measuring risk of proposed legislation. Such a system could provide an impartial look at what legislation could cause harm or unintended consequences. Submitted policies would receive a score from 0 to 100, and the AI system would state what possible negative impacts may result. This system should be publicly accessible for submissions and for security audit. This is not intended to create or enact laws, but simply to serve as a tool to measure risk versus reward.

Section LXX: The New York Transhumanist Party strongly opposes the possibility for any political party to determine the boundaries and borders of any voting district. The New York Transhumanist Party supports measures that require any efforts to have the districts potentially redrawn, when necessary due to migration for example, to be left to an automated system such as an artificial intelligence (AI) designed for this task.

Section LXXI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to remove the possibility for a President to sign an international agreement among two or more nations by executive order. This would prevent a President from engaging in international affairs without support from the Congress, and likewise would make it more difficult to exit an international agreement, as support from Congress would need to exist in order for such an exit to occur. This would furthermore ensure that the United States becomes a more trustworthy nation in the eyes of the international community.

Section LXXII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to create a framework for an international or world passport. This framework could, for example, be administered through the United Nations, and the passport could be valid only for those countries who have proven to meet the standards, set by participating countries, required to ensure safety. Given that the European Union has an ID valid within its borders, and the United States has a similar agreement with Canada, imagining these forms of identification being combined shows that a world passport is not a farfetched or alien idea.

Section LXXIII:  The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to mandate that new firearms will be produced with an embedded registration chip, as well as the registration number engraved on the firearm. The chip would have a registration number, a ‘trace online’ code, and a ‘lost or stolen’ code. The firearm would be accompanied by a physical and digital certificate of ownership with a registration number, the ‘trace online’ number, and the ‘lost or stolen’ number. The embedded chip would render it much harder to make the firearm untraceable. The number and codes involved would have to be unique identifiers.

When a firearm would be lost or stolen, the owner of the firearm and holder of the certificate would report the firearm to the authorities as lost or stolen using the ‘lost or stolen’ number. The intent of having a separate reporting number is to ensure that, in the event that a firearm is stolen or taken without consent, the offender cannot report the firearm as stolen, or as found again. When a firearm owner suspects the firearm is simply mislocated – for example, in the car or in the house, or perhaps taken by a family member, the owner could trace the firearm online via GPS on an online map, using the ‘trace online’ code. The ‘trace online’ code would never be revealed to law enforcement.

Law enforcement would have a device that can confirm the registration number of a firearm in close proximity, similar to contactless payments. On the other hand the detection range would be greater when a firearm has been reported lost or stolen by the owner of the firearm in question with the ‘lost and stolen’ number. A firearm that would not have been reported lost or stolen to law enforcement by the owner of the firearm with the ‘lost or stolen’ number would not be traceable from a greater distance by law enforcement.

This would ensure the privacy, safety, and peace of mind of firearm owners who might otherwise feel law enforcement would trace firearms without legal justification. At the same time, this measure would decrease the probability of stolen firearms never being found, and possibly ending in the hands of people with ill intent.

Section LXXIV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the creation of an office of a Public Civil-Rights Prosecutor. Our current justice system is flawed. Only people with substantial wealth can afford lawyers to take legal action against those who attack a person’s rights. While there are organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which offer help for some cases, their ability to do so is severely limited and typically non-existent in the lower courts. A Public Civil-Rights Prosecutor’s office will help guarantee that, no matter who a person is or the position of the offending party, a person’s rights cannot be assailed without consequence.

Section LXXV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports lowering spending by the Department of Defense and the U.S. Military, which amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars per year and includes unchecked wastefulness. Reducing military spending would free up money for more important goals, such as curing disease, which collectively kills many more people than military conflict or war by an exponential degree.

Section LXXVI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to hold institutions, corporations, and states accountable for usage of federal money with a specific intended purpose. When an entity has been granted any form of funding with a specifically intended purpose, such as disaster relief or specific educational funds, and these funds are misappropriated or used for other purposes well outside of the scope of what they were intended for, the entity in question ought to restitute the funding that was made available.

Section LXXVII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports increases in the budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Numerous biotech CEOs have recently made the case to increase the NIH budget, because the NIH conducts research that their companies would not be able to invest in, as investments not leading directly to a product would affect the bottom line. 33% of all the publications from NIH research are cited in corporate patents, so it stimulates new product development. A major driver for economic progress and reducing the suffering of those in pain, the NIH is essentially a public charity that brings us into the future. Whether one supports limited or expansive government, the NIH does not seek to regulate anything nor impose laws on anyone. It exclusively conducts medical research to help the sick.

Section LXXVIII: The U.S. New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to reinstate the rights to vote for convicted felons who have received and served their punishment, in order to present them the opportunity to participate in society as otherwise normal citizens.

Section LXXIX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports repealing the current requirement in the United States that drugs or treatments may not be used, even on willing patients, unless approval for such drugs or treatments is received from the Food and Drug Administration. Such requirements are a profound violation of patient sovereignty; a person who is terminally ill is unable to choose to take a risk on an unapproved drug or treatment unless this person is fortunate enough to participate in a clinical trial. Even then, once the clinical trial ends, the treatment must be discontinued, even if it was actually successful at prolonging the person’s life. This is not only profoundly tragic, but morally unconscionable as well. The most critical reform needed is to allow unapproved drugs and treatments to be marketed and consumed. If the FDA wishes to strongly differentiate between approved and unapproved treatments, then a strongly worded warning label could be required for unapproved treatments, and patients could even be required to sign a consent form stating that they have been informed of the risks of an unapproved treatment. This reform to directly extend many lives and to redress a moral travesty should be the top political priority of advocates of indefinite life extension. Over the coming decades, its effect will be to allow cutting-edge treatments to reach a market sooner and thus to enable data about those treatments’ effects to be gathered more quickly and reliably. Because many treatments take 10-15 years to receive FDA approval, this reform could by itself speed up the real-world advent of indefinite life extension by over a decade.

Section LXXX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to increase opportunities for entry into the medical profession. The current system for licensing doctors is highly monopolistic and protectionist – the result of efforts by the American Medical Association in the early 20th century to limit entry into the profession in order to artificially boost incomes for its members. The medical system suffers today from too few doctors and thus vastly inflated patient costs and unacceptable waiting times for appointments. Instead of prohibiting the practice of medicine by all except a select few who have completed an extremely rigorous and cost-prohibitive formal medical schooling, governments in the Western world should allow the market to determine different tiers of medical care for which competing private certifications would emerge. For the most specialized and intricate tasks, high standards of certification would continue to exist, and a practitioner’s credentials and reputation would remain absolutely essential to convincing consumers to put their lives in that practitioner’s hands. But, with regard to routine medical care (e.g., annual check-ups, vaccinations, basic wound treatment), it is not necessary to receive attention from a person with a full-fledged medical degree. Furthermore, competition among certification providers would increase quality of training and lower its price, as well as accelerate the time needed to complete the training. Such a system would allow many more young medical professionals to practice without undertaking enormous debt or serving for years (if not decades) in roles that offer very little remuneration while entailing a great deal of subservience to the hierarchy of an established institution. Ultimately, without sufficient doctors to affordably deliver life-extending treatments when they become available, it would not be feasible to extend these treatments to the majority of people.

Section LXXXI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports reforms to the patent system that prevent the re-patenting of drugs and medical devices, or the acquisition of any exclusive or monopoly rights over those drugs and devices, once they have become generic or entered the public domain. Appallingly, many pharmaceutical companies today attempt to re-patent drugs that have already entered the public domain, simply because the drugs have been discovered to have effects on a disease different from the one for which they were originally patented. The result of this is that the price of the re-patented drug often spikes by orders of magnitude compared to the price level during the period the drug was subject to competition. Only a vibrant and competitive market, where numerous medical providers can experiment with how to improve particular treatments or create new ones, can allow for the rate of progress needed for the people alive today to benefit from radical life extension.

Section LXXXII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports reforms to reduce the lengths of times over which medical patents could be effective. Medical patents – in essence, legal grants of monopoly for limited periods of time – greatly inflate the cost of drugs and other treatments. Especially in today’s world of rapidly advancing biotechnology, a patent term of 20 years essentially means that no party other than the patent holder (or someone paying royalties to the patent holder) may innovate upon the patented medicine for a generation, all while the technological potential for such innovation becomes glaringly obvious. As much innovation consists of incremental improvements on what already exists, the lack of an ability to create derivative drugs and treatments that tweak current approaches implies that the entire medical field is, for some time, stuck at the first stages of a treatment’s evolution – with all of the expense and unreliability this entails. Even with shortened patent terms, the original developer of an innovation will still always benefit from a first-mover advantage, as it takes time for competitors to catch on. If the original developer can maintain high-quality service and demonstrate the ability to sell a safe product, then the brand-name advantage alone can secure a consistent revenue stream without the need for a patent monopoly.

Section LXXXIII: The New York Transhumanist Party opposes any development or deployment of weapons systems that are capable of killing or injuring human beings in the absence of an explicit command by a human being to take action in every specific instance. Autonomous drones, vehicles, or other combat systems may not be permitted to make life-or-death decisions on the basis of a program, algorithm, predictive model, or any other means other than a specific decision by a human being who is closely familiar with the circumstances surrounding any given military situation. Accordingly, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and other initiatives to abolish all autonomous weapons and preclude the development of such weapons.

Section LXXXIV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports research into the process of ectogenesis, the ability of organisms to be incubated and to grow to the point of independent survival, within an artificial environment that provides such organisms with all the necessities of biological survival and development. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the widespread deployment and use of the technology of ectogenesis once such technology becomes safe and practical. Ectogenesis has the potential to benefit humans and other species alike, restoring extinct species and bolstering the numbers of endangered species, as well as alleviating the burdens of human pregnancy and rendering the divisive debate over abortion obsolete by reconciling the right to life of a fetus with the freedom of a woman to choose not to carry that fetus.

Section LXXXV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports any relaxation or elimination on caps in the United States federal budget regarding spending on scientific and technological research, including research in medicine and public health. Funding for science that can improve the human condition should not be subject to the vagaries of partisan political standoffs over the federal budget. Accordingly, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the Raise the Caps initiative and any other elimination of artificial restrictions of the allocations of funding to scientific and technological projects.

Section LXXXVI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to give citizens more accessible and safer ways to report misconduct, corruption, constitutional rights violations, international human rights violations, and other similar infractions by police, including local police departments, as well as by federal law-enforcement agencies, such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to an investigative organization, whether civilian in nature or a special investigative department within the judicial system.

Such efforts could, for example, involve having a mandate that every police department and federal law-enforcement agency website have a ‘banner’ on its website that allows citizens to report misbehavior by said police department or federal law-enforcement agency via a national reporting system. Reporting of misbehavior would not inhibit any constitutional rights, such as filing a lawsuit.

If a valid complaint is found after investigation, this could result in a fine, a reduction of funding, or a reduction of salary for the responsible officials as a means of punishment. Said money would be allocated back to the relevant level of government to increase the well-being of citizens.

A periodic report of all reported missteps by law-enforcement agencies should be made publicly available, including breakdowns of valid and invalid claims, as well as reports per region, among other useful breakdowns.

Section LXXXVII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports a requirement that any educational institution that receives federal funding must greatly reduce its expenditures on internal bureaucracy and administration, in part by eliminating the requirement for students to complete any hard-copy paperwork and by enabling ubiquitous free, electronic completion and submission of all required forms.

Section LXXXVIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports a requirement that any educational institution that receives federal funding must openly publish all even partially federally funded research produced by that institution in readily downloadable electronic format without any cost to the general public, including any paywalls or access fees from academic journals that feature such research. This requirement would not apply to research projects solely supported by private funds or which do not require funding altogether; in those circumstances, the direct authors of such research would retain copyright to it and the ability to publish it in the manner they see fit.

Section LXXXIX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports a prohibition against police being equipped with military-grade hardware, including assault weapons, military armored vehicles, or any other offensive equipment primarily designed for battlefield use.

Section XC: The New York Transhumanist Party supports a requirement for police to be equipped with rubber bullets as standard ammunition and only to use regular, lethal bullets in situations where there is an immediate and previously known threat to the safety of members of the general public. More generally, police should be trained to use every possible technique for non-lethal incapacitation of offenders, prior to any recourse to lethal force.

Section XCI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to encourage police departments to use electric vehicles. This would have the advantages of reducing emissions of pollutants into the air, as well as moving police forces away from militarized vehicles, which are less likely to be electrically powered.

Section XCII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the installment of monitoring systems in police vehicles to track whether the police are violating traffic laws, with the exception of situations where speeding or other technical infractions may be necessary to apprehend other known or suspected violators or criminal offenders. The ability of police to violate traffic laws with impunity is damaging to public perception, as law enforcement should first and foremost set an example for society to follow. By holding law enforcement accountable for minor infractions such as traffic violations, it will be possible to develop a police force that serves as an example to the public.

Section XCIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to provide a path to legalization for all current undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States, free of restrictions based on country of origin, economic status, education, length of residency, or any other criteria, other than history of violent criminal activity.

Section XCIV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to end detention of all migrants for immigration violations not related to violent crimes. All current people serving jail terms for immigration issues with no additional crimes involved with the arrest must be released, and the path to citizenship started immediately. Those for whom an additional charge was involved would need to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, with serious infractions – such as any violent offenses – potentially justifying additional detainment.

Section XCV:  The New York Transhumanist Party supports measures to modernize and streamline the immigration process and eliminate the backlogs for those already in the queue. The New York Transhumanist Party advocates simplifying the documentation process, eliminating all requirements for filling out hard-copy paperwork, and utilizing technology to cut wait times and bureaucratic delays.

Section XCVI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the immediate abolition of all private prison facilities and the termination of arrangements with private contractors for detention or immigration and border enforcement. Punishment for crimes, except for situations of self-defense from the immediate commission of a crime, should be a function reserved for government alone and should never involve a profit motive, which creates incentives to artificially inflate the appearance of criminal behavior and the punishment of lesser infractions. In order to preserve the capacity for inmates and detainees to be housed in humane conditions, the United States Federal Government, as well as State and local governments, should have the prerogative to appropriate the facilities previously used by private prisons and private detention contractors, after providing appropriate one-time compensation for the property involved.

Section XCVII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the establishment of a federal land dividend, whereby currently unused federal lands, with the exception of national parks, national forests, and notable landmarks, will be leased to private corporations that agree to operate in an environmentally conscientious manner, with the proceeds of the lease funding a universal basic income for the United States population.

Section XCVIII: The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for rapid construction of hospitals to begin immediately throughout the United States, with one new hospital constructed for every 50,000 in population. Rapid construction techniques, pioneered in China during the COVID-19 outbreak, should be utilized in the United States to build new hospitals in 10 days or less. However, unlike the rapidly constructed Chinese hospitals, the new hospitals constructed in the United States should become permanent.

The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for immediately waiving any zoning restrictions and building codes that would in any manner delay, prevent, or interfere with such rapid construction of hospitals.

Architectural designs for the rapidly constructed hospitals should:
(i) Be prepared and updated as new and superior building techniques and technologies are developed;
(ii) Include plans for multi-purpose facilities for patient care and research, or protocols for how to flexibly convert patient-care facilities into research facilities and vice versa as the need arises; and
(iii) Include separate entrances and generally separate facilities for patients infected with COVID-19 and all other patients, so as to effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19 to hospital visitors who do not have it.

Once the new permanent hospitals have been established, the New York Transhumanist Party supports a mandate for these hospitals to remain open to patients and fully staffed in perpetuity, regardless of profitability or patient influx. After the COVID-19 outbreak subsides, the new hospitals would provide major additional capacity to respond to epidemics and also conduct research on fighting diseases, including biological aging.

After the construction of the new hospitals, the New York Transhumanist Party supports an indefinite obligation for the U.S. federal government to indefinitely remedy any shortfall in funds to a new hospital in order to prevent its closure. Any hospital receiving such federal assistance shall be limited in the charges it may impose for its services to 110% of the cost of providing such services.

The New York Transhumanist Party supports the construction and retrofit of buildings adjacent to the hospitals, which could be used for any of a variety of unrelated purposes in normal times, but which could rapidly be converted into hospital space in times of pandemics by means of features that enable easy customizability, modularity, and accessibility to patients and medical personnel.

The New York Transhumanist Party views a vast and permanent expansion of hospital capacity as a necessary component of a permanent reorientation of the economy and broader society toward the pursuit of improved public health and widespread life extension. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the extent of the disruption and suffering that can occur if these goals are not made explicit and not supported by guaranteed allocations of resources immune from macroeconomic vicissitudes.

Section XCIX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports for an immediate, universal, unconditional basic income of at least $1000 per month to be provided to every United States citizen for the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak and its immediate aftermath, without regard for individuals’ means or other sources of income. The priority for this program should be to prevent massive and irreparable economic disruptions to the lives of Americans in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Section C: In recognition of the severe, sudden, and often all-encompassing adverse economic impacts resulting from governmental measures taken to limit the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, and in the conviction that the principles of justice require that governmental policies – even if necessary, unavoidable, or beneficial on balance – not damage innocent parties without just compensation, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the United States federal government to take the following actions:

(i) Fully compensate all adversely affected businesses for all loss of income and property resulting from governmental measures taken to contain the COVID-19 epidemic. The New York Transhumanist Party holds that any businesses receiving such compensation should be

    (a) Prohibited from engaging in buybacks of their own stocks; and

    (b) Prohibited from increasing executive pay if that pay currently exceeds $500,000 per executive per year.

(ii) Fully compensate all individuals who lost their jobs or self-employment income, or suffered a reduction in working hours, as a result of governmental measures taken to contain the COVID-19 epidemic. This compensation shall be in addition to, and not a substitute for, the universal basic income received by those individuals.

Section CI: In recognition that the recent screening bottlenecks at United States airports create situations of unacceptable crowding which further contribute to the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for immediate admittance through security checkpoints of the vast majority of travelers currently waiting at airports in the United States. Such travelers may be required to subsequently undergo health screenings at other facilities within the United States within a certain period of time, as long as such screenings do not involuntarily place the individuals being screened in close physical proximity to one another.

Section CII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the recall of all United States military personnel from overseas stations as soon as possible and their deployment for the purpose of rapid hospital construction in the United States, as well as for providing rapid emergency aid and essential infrastructure improvements. Continued military presence abroad only unnecessarily exposes American troops to the risk of infection, while the expertise of American military personnel in crisis response is urgently needed within American borders.

Section CIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the rapid research into effective cures and vaccines for COVID-19 and the harnessing of synergies from this research to also develop a cure for the common cold and more effective vaccination against influenza. Such research should proceed with no barriers, subject to the researchers’ expression of ethical intentions, and any regulations or processes that would delay the progress of such research should be immediately waived or repealed. In the effort to accelerate progress in this field, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for an immediate $100 billion funding package for the rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine, with all volunteers being accepted into human trials as soon as practicable. The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for government funding and ownership of any cure for COVID-19, to be distributed free of charge to those infected with the virus.

Section CIV: Because biological aging is the number-one risk factor for mortality and severe complications from COVID-19 infections, as well as infections of virtually every sort, the New York Transhumanist Party emphasizes the importance of reversing biological aging as rapidly as possible and thereby protecting more lives from future pandemics. Accordingly, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for a permanent, annual $100 billion funding package for anti-aging research, to be immediately distributed to leading research organizations in the field which have in the past specifically identified the defeat and reversal of biological aging as their goals.

Section CV: The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the immediate institution of a program of micropayments to everyone participating in citizen-science initiatives, such as Foldit, with the specific aim of developing cures or vaccines for COVID-19. Micropayments should be proportional to the amount of time and/or computing power spent contributing to any given initiative, with additional bounties provided for results with meaningful practical applications.

Section CVI: In response to the dire shortage of ventilator components and other crucial equipment in hospitals treating COVID-19 patients, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the rapid 3D-printing of additional components through both private and governmental initiatives, as well as the deployment of on-site 3D-printers in every hospital and medical clinic to enable the future production of such components on demand. Immediate bounties should be offered by federal, state, and local government to individuals and businesses capable of producing such components. Policy initiatives should empower individuals and communities to explore the suitability of alternative manufacturing processes to produce needed parts and equipment to deal with the crisis.

Section CVII: The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for an immediate allowance for remote learning to satisfy the completion or graduation requirements of all K-12 schools and all publicly funded colleges and universities indefinitely going forward. Not only is physical proximity not necessary for effective learning in light of rapidly advancing technologies allowing immersive interaction at a distance, but the encouragement of remote learning also allows individuals more flexibility in advancing at their own pace and focusing on subjects and skill sets which result in the greatest fulfillment and most improved life prospects. The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the maximal adoption of diverse homeschooling approaches throughout the United States, suited to the individual aptitudes, preferences, and learning styles of students.

The New York Transhumanist Party also supports refocusing the education system on producing the goods and services necessary to maintain United States independence, including vocational studies in electricity, metalwork, ceramics, auto mechanics, graphic arts, and coding in the classroom.

Section CVIII: In recognition that unsanitary living conditions are a primary cause of the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the immediate and mandatory housing of the homeless, achieved by means of the rapid construction of tiny homes, including 3D-printed homes, without regard for building codes or zoning regulations, which must be immediately waived to allow such construction.

Every homeless individual discovered by local authorities would be required to move into a separate small home free of monetary cost and would be granted free conditional title to the home. The conditions of the title would be that the new homeowner would be obligated to perform litter-cleanup and other community-service duties for a specified time period per day under supervision, until and unless he or she is able to find different or better housing independently. The new housing communities would be subject to actively enforced covenants and restrictions prohibiting alcohol and recreational drugs. Such prohibitions will have the side benefit of transitioning the homeless toward meaningful social participation and useful work.

Section CIX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports establishing a rapid three-month training and certification program for hundreds of thousands of medical personnel specifically for responding to the COVID-19 outbreak and other pandemics. While the newly trained medical practitioners would not be full-fledged medical doctors, they would be provided with fundamental knowledge of epidemiology, first aid, sanitary practices, and patient care, including the operation of the devices used to assist severely ill patients. This would greatly supplement the available personnel to respond effectively to the COVID-19 outbreak and also anticipate future pandemics.

The new COVID-19 medical responders would be compensated generously and selected from among high-performing students and other populations with demonstrated competence and aptitude for learning. For any first responders with student loans, those loans would be forgiven in exchange for a commitment to serve until the COVID-19 pandemic is eradicated. Those medical responders who remain in their positions afterward will receive continuous training on effective pandemic response so as to be in a superior position to anticipate, prevent, and mitigate future outbreaks.

Section CX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the immediate deployment of as many COVID-19 diagnostic tests as possible to the general population, with the aim of achieving universal testing of every American, even those without symptoms, free of charge. Universal testing is necessary to understand the true prevalence of COVID-19 infections and the proportion of serious cases and fatalities relative to actual total cases, not merely reported cases. This would enable a true understanding of the extent of the epidemic’s spread as well as how the rates of serious complications and death compare to the common cold and influenza. The New York Transhumanist Party supports generous aid to both private and governmental research teams working in parallel on developing effective testing kits and approaches, particularly those which do not require large numbers of people to congregate.

The New York Transhumanist Party also advocates for COVID-19 testing kits to be developed that could result in tests being self-administered by individuals in their own homes and then mailed to laboratories for evaluation. This would minimize the physical contact of individuals being tested with medical practitioners and other patients.

Section CXI: The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the establishment of facilities, such as warehouses, where essential supplies would be temporarily stored in large quantities in case of emergencies such as COVID-19. Distributors would supply to these warehouses a large surplus of essential goods, and hospitals, medical research facilities, pharmaceutical companies, and other medical organizations would get their normal supplies, including masks, soap, hand-sanitizer, and common device components, from there in the event of any shortages. In case of an epidemic, there will be enough supplies on hand to provide such institutions for a prolonged period of time.

The essential supplies stored by such facilities would include ready-made hazmat suits that could be distributed to both medical practitioners and the population at large in the event of a highly contagious disease outbreak, along with clear and layperson-friendly instructions of how to put on and use the hazmat suits effectively.

Section CXII: The New York Transhumanist Party holds that, as a proactive measure, the United States should spearhead an initiative to collaborate with other wealthy nations, or by means of the World Health Organization (WHO), to set up a financial and material package of supplies and infrastructure to be deployed anywhere in the world in case a pathogen is found that needs to rapidly be contained in a foreign nation. This could be particularly important if the origin country is one that cannot itself manage to contain the outbreak due to poverty or lack of resources. This could help prevent a pathogen from ever coming to the United States.

A committee or part of an existing office should research and collaborate with other nations to learn and establish best or improved practices and update emergency plans accordingly. Likewise such collaborative efforts could establish which practices are not effective and remove those accordingly.

Section CXIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts by the federal government to begin an initiative in collaboration with businesses to create packages of emergency medical supplies, akin to a first-aid kit box, for civilians to buy for an affordable price, and offered for free to those who fall below the poverty line. Such a package could include advanced face masks, hand-sanitizer, soap, latex gloves, and other important items for effective epidemic response. The kit should come with clear instructions on how and when to use it, as well as instructions regarding self-quarantining and the express notice that the kit should not be re-sold, because the health and safety of everyone depends on the maximum number of people participating. This advance provision of response kits would have the effects of lowering the pressure on supply when there is an emergency and enabling people to be better prepared from the start, thus immediately limiting the spread of a pathogen.

Section CXIV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the inclusion of education on epidemic crises in the curricula of schools. Science-based instruction on key attributes of epidemics and pandemics, historical instances, and effective responses could be incorporated within related courses, such as biology.

Section CXV: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the immediate and complete repeal of all “certificate of need” laws, which currently, in many jurisdictions, prohibit the construction of new hospitals or the expansion of capacity of existing hospitals, unless “need” is demonstrated using arbitrary criteria overseen by incumbents within the hospital industry. “Certificate of need” laws are entirely deleterious and have no redeeming features of any sort. They constitute pure protectionism for the incomes of incumbents, at the expense of available and affordable health care, especially in times of increased strain, such as pandemics.

Section CXVI: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the development of vaccines under conditions that do not afford patents to the developers but instead compensate the developers in the form of bounties for safe, effective vaccines and their rapid production and deployment. Patents, as grants of exclusive monopoly privilege for as long as twenty years, operate to limit the supply of a vaccine and render it artificially expensive. Bounties and other forms of compensation based on production and distribution of vaccines would be better aligned with the urgent public interest in those vaccines’ rapid availability to the general population.

Section CXVII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the deployment of robots and automated systems wherever possible to assist COVID-19 patients and individuals who are at greater risk for serious complications from COVID-19. These systems could include autonomous vehicles, food-delivery robots and drones, and production robots in as many industries as possible to reduce the human presence in factories while continuing to manufacture many goods necessary for human life and well-being.

Section CXVIII: Given the extreme delays, bottlenecks, and expenses created by the mandatory approval processes on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the New York Transhumanist Party supports abolishing the FDA and replacing it with a Radical Life Extension Administration (RLEA), whose mandate would be to prioritize the rapid development of potential disease cures, treatments, and vaccines – including any possible cures or vaccines for COVID-19, as well as treatments to mitigate and reverse the disease of biological aging, the major risk factor for COVID-19. The RLEA would allow the marketing and collection of patient data on any potential cure, treatment, or vaccine which has passed affordable safety testing at a reasonably acceptable threshold.

Article VII. Unique Positions of the New York Transhumanist Party

Section I: The New York Transhumanist Party supports the United States Transhumanist Party and any of its officially nominated or endorsed candidates for Federal office.

Section II: The New York Transhumanist Party condemns homeless sweeps within New York City and calls for providing homes and apartments to the homeless by various means and aiding mutual-aid groups that engage in homeless outreach.

Section III: The New York Transhumanist Party calls on the New York City government to do its full part in providing migrants to New York City with the necessary means to survive and prosper within the 5 boroughs of New York City, such as housing, healthcare, and other services that New York City or New York State can offer, without predatory tactics that hinder other organizations or groups that are only there to help.

Article VIII. Candidates

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

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

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

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

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

(v) The individual has never engaged in acts understood to be of a highly unacceptable nature within every contemporary agricultural, industrial, or post-industrial society.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Section II: The Officers of the New York Transhumanist Party may utilize any additional criteria, including the Officers’ individual assessments of the candidate’s character, personality, and reliability, in order to determine whether or not to render the candidate eligible for endorsement by the New York Transhumanist Party.

Section III: The Officers of the New York Transhumanist Party may, at their discretion, delegate the process of endorsing any candidate to the United States Transhumanist Party.

U.S. Transhumanist Party to Participate in RAADfest 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party to Participate in RAADfest 2022

August 12, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II


As in every year since the inception of RAADfest in 2016, the U.S. Transhumanist Party will again be represented there on October 6-9, 2022, in San Diego, California, at the seventh annual RAADfest. U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II will be moderating a panel of speakers there, and we hope to engage in the many great intellectual exchanges that reinforce the foundation of our movement and fuel our continued growth. Join us to continue advancing the Revolution Against Aging and Death!

Until September 5, 2022, you will be able to register for RAADfest at a discounted rate. Use the code TRANSHUMAN22 to save $201 off of the Activist registration package. Register here.

Watch highlights from the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s appearances at prior RAADfests. We hope to build on these successes in 2022 and show the world the importance of thoughtful, unapologetic advocacy for radical life extension in our lifetimes.

RAADfest 2017

The U.S. Transhumanist Party – Pursuing a Peaceful Political Revolution for Longevity – August 11, 2017

RAADfest 2018

The U.S. Transhumanist Party: Four Years of Advocating for the Future – Gennady Stolyarov II at RAAD Fest 2018 – September 21, 2018

Gennady Stolyarov II Interviews Ray Kurzweil at RAAD Fest 2018 – September 21, 2018

U.S. Transhumanist Party Meeting at RAAD Fest 2018 – September 22, 2018

RAADfest 2020

U.S. Transhumanist Party 2020 Update at RAADfest 2020 – October 4, 2020

RAADfest 2021

RAADfest 2021 Longevity Activism Panel – October 3, 2021

U.S. Transhumanist Party Regional Liaison Spotlights: Celeste Castaldo and Dinorah Delfin

U.S. Transhumanist Party Regional Liaison Spotlights: Celeste Castaldo and Dinorah Delfin

August 8, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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The U.S. Transhumanist Party takes this opportunity to highlight our recently created Regional Liaison positions and express our appreciation for the important work being done by our first two Regional Liaisons, Celeste Castaldo in Northern California and Dinorah Delfin in New York.

The role of a Regional Liaison is to network with individuals and organizations who are likely to be sympathetic to the USTP Platform and goals, invite such sympathetic persons to join the U.S. Transhumanist Party as members, and also encourage them to set up events, such as meetups and presentations, and to engage in policy advocacy for ideas within the USTP Platform. There are many ways to do the work of a Regional Liaison, including through publishing transhumanist content, attending or arranging events, or simply engaging people in meaningful conversations about transhumanism, life extension, and the promise of emerging technologies and applied rationality in overcoming the predicaments of our present era.  The Regional Liaison position exists directly within the organizational structure of the USTP and not any State-level Transhumanist Party. It is an outward-facing position and so is focused on external outreach rather than internal administration – and it is clear to us that external outreach is the area where the U.S. Transhumanist Party currently has the greatest need for capable people to communicate our ideas and grow our movement.

At present, most transhumanist activity is geographically dispersed and largely coordinated online. The value of our Regional Liaisons is that they can act to strengthen and grow the local transhumanist communities near them and thereby catalyze the formation of regional hubs which will facilitate greater ease and frequency of transhumanist events, outreach to the broader public, and greater visibility of transhumanists as well as their improved ability to find and interact with one another.

Celeste Castaldo – Northern California Regional Liaison 

Celeste Castaldo was appointed as the USTP’s Northern California Regional Liaison on August 5, 2021.

Ms. Castaldo is a serial entrepreneur and naturopath, with decades of experience in regenerative and rehabilitation medicine practices, utilizing a variety of health and wellness technologies. She launched several successful ventures including American Holistic Health Academy, Paradise Health Resorts, Heaven on Earth Med Spa, California Holistic Health, and Paradise Health Development Consulting.

Ms. Castaldo has worked with people from around the world, including U.S. and international government agencies, world-renowned royalty and heads of state, physicians, professional athletes, Fortune 500 executives, Silicon Valley technology founders, authors, publishers, music and motion-picture industry professionals, celebrity chefs, and many others. With over thirty years of education, training, and experience, Ms. Castaldo has developed an integrative approach to holistic health. She completed a Bachelor degree in Naturopathic Studies from San Francisco State University, she then continued her education in the MD medical doctorate program at International University of Health Sciences, and with the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine Board Certification Studies. She also completed a certification in Clinical Nutrition from Gulf Medical University, and doctoral studies in Alternative Medicines, M.D. (A.M.), from the Indian Board of Alternative Medicine.

Ms. Castaldo connected the U.S. Transhumanist Party with entrepreneur and venture investor Steven Hoffman, with whom we held a fascinating Virtual Enlightenment Salon on August 29, 2021, discussing the implications of various emerging technologies that interface with the human mind.  Ms. Castaldo is a regular presence at our Virtual Enlightenment Salons, and she often shares her insights either in the video livestreams or in the YouTube chats for those events.

Dinorah Delfin – New York Regional Liaison 

Dinorah Delfin was appointed as the USTP’s New York Regional Liaison on August 3, 2022, but she has been an important presence in the USTP for much longer, having first joined as a member in January 2018 and serving in multiple leadership roles since that time, with contributions in areas such as forging important connections within the transhumanist community including with the Foresight Institute and Humanity Plus, establishing and managing the New York Transhumanist Party’s first Facebook group, which grew into a community of 435 members and remains an official channel of communication of the New York Transhumanist Party. She was one of the first people to launch a mobilization effort in response to Chairman Stolyarov’s announcement of the need to activate the Transhumanist and USTP community in 2019 to remedy the flaws with the Nevada Assembly Bill 226, which was successfully amended with the efforts of the USTP, setting an important precedent for voluntary microchipping rights and morphological freedom.

Ms. Delfin is a New York-based conceptual multimedia artist, an activist, a transhumanist, a deep thinker, and a writer interested in the scientific truths of spiritual concepts and in the ethical implications of man-made intelligence and humans’ self-directed evolution.

Ms. Delfin is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Immortalists Magazine and its hosting platform The Immortalists Club. Since its founding in early 2020, Immortalists Magazine has contributed greatly to the spread of the ideas of transhumanism, showcasing the thought of leading transhumanists, including Officers and members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, and combining intellectually groundbreaking articles with top-quality graphic design and a finely crafted multimedia experience for the readers.

Ms. Delfin is also an Editorial Advisor for Springer’s Transhumanism International Book Series, and the founder and owner of ArtDimensional Studios, a platform for the multi-media expressions of transformative arts. She is also the founder and owner of Hamptons Zen Living, a business focused on providing personalized solutions for streamlining and organizing living spaces for more productive and healthier living.

Ms. Delfin graduated Cum Laude in Entrepreneurship Management, with an English Minor. She was featured in The Transhumanism Handbook (2019), published by Springer International, and has given presentations on the subject of transformative arts and transhumanism at New York University’s Posthuman Summit,  at the University of Rwanda’s International Conference of Techno-Scientific Awareness, and at John Cabot University in Rome.

Ms. Delfin’s art can be found here.

How to Become a Regional Liaison

The activities of our Regional Liaisons in Northern California and New York are hopefully just the beginning of a Regional Liaison program that will eventually expand to have nationwide coverage. If you are interested in becoming a Regional Liaison for your geographical area, please reach out to USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II via e-mail here and provide your resume as well as a statement of your interest in the position, your relevant skill sets, and how you would approach the role of a Regional Liaison if selected. We look forward to working with individuals who are skilled at forging connections, communicating the ideas of transhumanism accurately and persuasively, and growing our movement.

From the Basics – Article by Mikhail Batin

From the Basics – Article by Mikhail Batin

August 4, 2022 Mikhail Batin Comments 0 Comment

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Mikhail Batin


Editor’s Note: In this essay by my friend Mikhail Batin, he explores where one should start when considering immortality. There are several factors mentioned including how a lackadaisical public not seeing the immense cost of non-advocacy is influencing the fight, how one should see there life as extending in a line toward death, with each action being pro-immortality or anti-immortality, and how pain and decrepitude can lead one to fool oneself that immortality is not desirable.

~ Zach Richardson – Director of Publication,
United States Transhumanist Party, August 2022 


I often hear from many a request, wish, or even a demand to please start talking about longevity from the very beginning – from the basics.

That’s a fair ask. From one side, I believe I have said everything on the topic, but from the other side – it’s never difficult to repeat the essentials. So, here is my viewpoint.

I postulate on the moral axiom: it is better to be alive than to be dead. It is better to be than not to be. That is no question to me.

Now I want to share a stunning fact. Fifty percent of people will not agree with this statement. Maybe even more than 50%.

Usually, I refrain from debating with people who see no point in continuing life. It is their life, and they can do with it whatever they please to do. If it were not for one BUT…

Lives of people who want to live are in the hands of people who choose death. This setup is due to politics, budgets, and the public opinion.

When someone buys a ticket to attend a sport event, they become a soccer lobbyist.  This person signals to society: ”hey, soccer is important”. A million of such signals result in constructing a stadium. The same is true of the rest in life: chewing gum, running shoes, and the like – people voice their interests, which results in a pronounced vector of public interest. The wheels of the economy are spinning, and society goes – somewhere.

If your interest is not in longevity – you go and lead others towards death.

There is no evil will in it – it happens so for the sole reason that the road to longevity goes in another direction.

We always make choices, be they private or public. If you attended a soccer game, you missed javelin throwing. If everybody went to a Cup Winners’ Cup game, nobody came to watch javelin, hammer, or shot throwing. Javelin and hammer athletes are depressed. They have a lower budget. The evolution starts working against throwing javelin, hammer, shot.

That’s exactly the reason why there is no 100-story Longevity Institute – anywhere in the world. Its bricks were used to build shopping malls, amusement parks, and other establishments.

There are 3-story aging research centers in the US, Germany, and Australia, but they have not yet discovered a cure for old age. Probably due to the fact that 97 stories are not supported by the public interest.

Why do people disagree with the idea that “it is better to be alive than to be dead”?

First of all, due to the fact that people like to argue, and this idea is too simple and evident. Maybe people think that they appear smarter when they start speculating: “well, you know, 2 plus 2 does not always equal 4”. People tend to argue with Facebook posts, in forums, with a point of view they have just heard – but they are reluctant to argue with a book. A book remains the most reputable source of knowledge. There are, of course, academic publications – however, they remain inaccessible for most people, as they require specialized background or knowledge to read. That is why we do hope that a well-written book may initiate changes in society. Das Kapital (a.k.a. Capital) is a good example.

The second obstacle on the way to accept the idea “it is better to be alive than to be dead” is a mystic, religious, esoteric picture of the world – simply put, belief in the afterlife. For religious people there is no death as non-existence. There is rather a passage, most probably to a better life. Almost everyone thinks that they are good and have a higher chance to get to heaven. Moreover, the magical creator of the Universe is expected to be kind-hearted, and it is hard to imagine that he will condemn someone to endless suffering, right?

It makes no sense to search for logic talking to people who believe in the afterlife. This very concept emerged as a response to the awareness of death. It is a kind of psychotherapy aimed at reconciling a person with thoughts about death, so that they can calmly reproduce, raise kids – without thinking of negative things and going crazy from the thought that they will die and all is in vain.

The concept of death denial makes one’s life easier, but at the same time the fight against death becomes meaningless.

Why should one postpone meeting with God?

Death is not only denied, it is also justified as care for future generations, like the belief that old people get in the way of innovations. It is a fascist position, put bluntly. In general, people spend a lot of energy wishing death to bad people (bad from their point of view). Also, if neuro-renewal advanced, people may be less set in their ways…

At some point their own grandchildren start to wait for their death to inherit their homes.

Our death is economically profitable, too. It is hard to imagine a pension fund that has collected the retirees’ money and invested it in extending their lives. What if it works out? Then the pension fund will go broke. It is not in its business model.

Note an interesting fact: Pension funds are also managed by people, and these very people would definitely benefit from getting a cure from aging – for themselves. However, the public interest gets in the way of their desire to live.

Isn’t it amazing: people have themselves given their money to those who are economically interested in their death? Well, not exactly themselves. The government did it. The government that also views the “silver tsunami” as a problem and not as an achievement. After all, the growing amount of elderly people is labeled “tsunami” and not “happiness”. Coincidence? Not really.

Changing the concept of the world order is a very energy-consuming action for the brain. And it is exactly this action that establishes the idea that “it is better to be alive than to be dead”.

It is an ethical concept to the brain: to rank everything on a scale “movement to life or to death”. Besides, the brain feels that if it accepts this seemingly innocent idea, the next step will be a suggestion to do something, which puts at danger one’s established lifestyle with its dopamine reward. No way!

Maybe this is the biggest barrier on the way to immortality: people are concentrated with endless enjoyment. Having lunch, chatting, buying something, selling something, enjoying oneself, scratching one’s back, confirming one’s social status, going to bed. We tend to do what we are used to do – and get pleasure from doing so. There is little pleasure in the fight with death. Why do we only start fighting the concept of death when it is too near to do anything about?

People are not at all indifferent to their own death and very quickly forget about all benefits of the afterlife if their life is in danger. They swim, extinguish fires, take chemotherapy, and betray – to remain alive. Very few will start saying that death is not necessarily bad, if you may die soon due to inaction.

The more time separates a person from their possible death, the less willing they are to start doing something. The value of life is discounted by the fact that “I” in future is not “I” today. It is amazing – egotism kills people. Today I am enjoying life, and tomorrow I will sort everything out.

I am not aiming at listing here all reasons why people do not agree with “it is better to be alive than to be dead”, but I will add one more.

We tend to agree with the majority view for the questions that are not important to us due to conformity. Death ideology dominates in society – and it is easier to join it, especially since the task of eliminating death does not appear reachable.

Actually, it is the only argument that has at least some rationale hint: it is highly unlikely that we will be able to substantially increase our lifespan during our own lives. As such, we must go and do what we must do, in order not to lose time. Talking about “being alive is better than dead” appears pointless and not useful.

Let me give you some arguments as to why our talk about the unacceptability of death makes sense.

In places where people are more protected against death, people die less. That is the consequence of the death-prevention mindset. More money is spent on security and medicine. Globally, death resistance leads to local victories.

There is no physical law that prohibits extending life for an indefinite period. Parts of our body are replaceable, including brain cells. I am extremely excited by the numerous medical advancements in replacing organs and tissues. I can’t wait until they manage to attach a new body to a mammal’s head. I am not only waiting for, but also promoting this research field.

Scientists have many times extended mammals’ lives. Moreover, in model animals we sometimes observe the multiplying effect of different ways to extend life.

Actually, we have not tested even 1% of ideas for how to extend peoples’ lives. We cannot say: we put in a lot of effort and have not succeeded. What we can reliably say is: we have done almost nothing, and for some reason immortality has not immediately given up its secrets.

In the above argument, that fight against death has little chances to be won and one can waste one’s time – the most important word is “to waste”. Let us discuss what is a waste of time and what is not. And what really makes sense in this world.

Imagine that while you are reading this text, a nuclear war began and everybody died. It means I wasted my time writing this text and you wasted your time reading it. All I did in my life was in vain. And all you did was in vain. All people at all times lived, loved, worked absolutely in vain. Everything will lose its sense.

Sense or meaning is a justification of existence. There will be nobody to justify.

In this context only actions against a global catastrophe make sense, other actions are a harmful waste of time.

But death of all people is equally terrible and “in vain”, regardless of the cause of death, e.g., old age. At the same time, when some people die of old age and others remain alive – their sense of existence is also alive. But! It is their sense of existence, not ours. A dead person takes their meaning of life to nowhere. It ceases to exist.

Death nullifies all human achievements. No more senses or meanings. Therefore “in vain” is a guaranteed result if you are dead. Only the eternal makes sense. The rest is burning opportunities, even the small ones.

It is important to underline once again, what is wrong with death. Everything is wrong in death; it deprives of all positives and produces nothing. Do people wish to die? Sometimes they do, first of all when a person suffers from pain. But it is a problem of pain, and does not mean that death is attractive per se. Many elderly people do not want to live. What is aging after all? It is slow death. People who experience problems with seeing, hearing, thinking, and cannot move as they used to – these people are practically dead. They do not allow themselves to want to become young, because it appears impossible.

It also happens that problems and troubles make one’s life unbearable, and they see death as a rescue, a way out. In reality it is a bad way out, as there is no way back.

Why should we extend life? What is valuable about our lives?

Everything is valuable, not only youth and beauty. The very fact of our existence is incredibly awesome. We can think and create new things.

Imagine that you are a king of kings. The difference between you and a beggar is negligibly small if compared to the difference between an alive man and a dead man. And nowadays you can easily become a king of kings in the virtual space.

A few words about mortal ideology. This is a world picture where people give little importance to death. Death is a mega event in one’s life and a very negative event, too. Many people do not notice the fact that the flow of time leads them to the grave and do not think whether they can do something about it. That is what I call mortal ideology.

From our transhumanist point of view, doing nothing against death is criminal, immoral, wild, and insane. Finding excuses to death is equal to giving a gun to a terrorist killing people.

Unfortunately, we cannot afford not to discuss the inhuman position of people who excuse death. An excuse lies even in the phrase “well, maybe there is something after death”. In reality, this should translate as “most likely there is nothing wrong with the fact that you will die”.

“Unfortunately,” because when preparing themselves for death, these people prepare others as well. Since too few tickets are sold to the match against death, nobody paid for the scouts of a star team “life extension at all costs”.

And what about overpopulation? This is no simple question that deserves a detailed answer, and I will not shrug it off by mentioning an option to populate outer space. There is a real conflict between altruism and egoism, and I will prove that altruism sometimes becomes inhuman.

To be continued…

Mikhail Batin is Chairman of the Board of the NGO “Science For Life-Extension”.

Declaration of the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party on the Re-Formation of the New York Transhumanist Party

Declaration of the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party on the Re-Formation of the New York Transhumanist Party

July 25, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 2 comments

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Gennady Stolyarov II


July 24, 2022

Pursuant to Article I, Section III, Operating Principle 2, of the United States Transhumanist Party Constitution, “While the United States Transhumanist Party respects the autonomy of State-level Transhumanist Parties, the United States Transhumanist Party reserves the right to determine if a State-level Transhumanist Party has become inactive with no hope of restoring activity on the part of the current leadership of the State-level Transhumanist Party. In such a situation, the leadership of the United States Transhumanist Party, subject to a final decision of the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party, reserves the right to re-form the previously inactive State-level Transhumanist Party under new leadership.”

There have been recent attempts at activity by individual members of the New York Transhumanist Party. However, there has been a vacuum of leadership in the New York Transhumanist Party and no clear process for determining how that leadership is to be determined or exercised or how to bring about a situation where a member’s actions are representative of the broader New York Transhumanist Party, which currently numbers over 110 members. Without a clear determination of the identity and source of authority of New York Transhumanist Party leadership, the members of the New York Transhumanist Party will be stymied from acting due to uncertainty as to the nature and source of legitimate processes for such action. The United States Transhumanist Party Leadership seeks to remedy this situation.

Accordingly, it is the case that there is “no hope of restoring activity on the part of the current leadership of the State-level Transhumanist Party” – since the identity of the current leadership is not known, disputed, and impossible to ascertain objectively. There is no ability to restore activity of a current leadership that is non-existent, since non-existent persons are unable to act. Accordingly, per my authority as Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party, I hereby announce that the New York Transhumanist Party is hereby placed under the direct control of the United States Transhumanist Party and re-formed with the intent to designate new leadership subject to an application process that will be reviewed by the entirety of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officer team.

Any person interested in becoming the Chairman (or Chairwoman) of the New York Transhumanist Party is welcome to submit an application to gennadystolyarovii@gmail.com, with a deadline of August 15, 2022. The application should include a resume and a statement explaining the applicant’s interest in the position as well as an outline of the objectives and style of governance that the candidate wishes to exercise. After that deadline elapses, the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers will review the applications of all candidates, interview any candidates who qualify for the position, and announce a decision within one week after interviews are concluded.

In the meantime, the New York Transhumanist Party shall be governed according to the following provisional decisions.

Provisional Decision 1. The prior April 4, 2022, poll on the condemnation of homeless sweeps is hereby recognized as a legitimate expression of the position of the New York Transhumanist Party.

Provisional Decision 2. The pending vote on reproductive choice will be assessed for legitimacy once a quorum is reached. A quorum on this matter is considered to be 10 members voting in favor of the proposed statement on reproductive choice. After a quorum is reached, a majority decision of the New York Transhumanist Party members who voted will determine whether or not this proposal is adopted. [Note: The United States Transhumanist Party does not express an official position on the pending proposal regarding reproductive choice.]

Provisional Decision 3. The New York Transhumanist Party website at https://nytranshumanistparty.wixsite.com/nytp/ is recognized as legitimate in its configuration and content as of July 24, 2022. However, any future alterations to that website are subject to the prior-approval authority of the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party until a Chairman is named for the New York Transhumanist Party.

Provisional Decision 4. Luis Arroyo is hereby authorized to undertake communications to members of the New York Transhumanist Party regarding the pending vote on reproductive choice, as well as regarding day-to-day operating matters that do not involve questions of policy determination or designation of leadership. This is a limited authority granted to Luis Arroyo and may not be further delegated to any other person. The questions of policy determination or designation of leadership will remain under the direct purview of the United States Transhumanist Party Leadership until such a time as a new Chairman is designated for the New York Transhumanist Party.

Provisional Decision 5. The text of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform in Article VI of the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party is hereby adopted in entirety on behalf of the New York Transhumanist Party, with the sole substitution of every instance of “United States Transhumanist Party” with “New York Transhumanist Party”. The New York Transhumanist Party may, in the future, consider additional proposals that are consistent with or complementary to the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, but the New York Transhumanist Party may not adopt any positions contrary to the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform.

The above measures are intended to restore order and legitimacy to the activities of the New York Transhumanist Party. We look forward to reviewing the applications of interested New York members for the role of Chairman (or Chairwoman) of the New York Transhumanist Party.

The Transhuman Club

The Transhuman Club

July 11, 2022 Jason Geringer Comments 0 Comment

The Transhuman Club is the non-political affiliate organization of the United States Transhumanist Party.

All members of the United States Transhumanist Party receive automatic, free membership in the Transhuman Club.

However, anyone who joins the Transhuman Club directly may choose or not choose to be a member of the United States Transhumanist Party.

https://ustpld2021.wixsite.com/transhumanclub

 

The Axiomatic, Ubiquitous, and Commonsense – Chapter I of “A Rational Cosmology” by Gennady Stolyarov II

The Axiomatic, Ubiquitous, and Commonsense – Chapter I of “A Rational Cosmology” by Gennady Stolyarov II

May 21, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II



We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within. – Stephen Jay Gould

Editor’s Note: In this essay, which constitutes Chapter I of Gennady Stolyarov II’s 2004-2005 treatise A Rational Cosmology (most recently updated in its Third Edition in 2013 and freely available here), the author writes that the specific-observational sciences can tell us the mechanisms involved in particular entities, qualities, or relationships. They cannot, however, tell us whether or not something is an entity, a quality, or a relationship (or neither of the three, for that matter). That is the province of cosmology. Mr. Stolyarov also highlights the fact that ontology deals with the conceptual underpinnings of all existence, whereas cosmology deals with the observational underpinnings thereof.

~ Urhefe Ogheneyoma Victor, Assistant to the Director of Publication,
United States Transhumanist Party, May 2022 


 

The Errors of Empiricism-Positivism

Essay I

Contemporary science is often prevented from further progress by a fallacy which forms a glaring breach between its findings and the conclusions and observations ubiquitously available to any man whose five senses function properly.

This fallacy is not as blatant as the superstitions of old. It is not a belief in witches or cosmic spirits, but rather a new form of denying the evidence of man’s most common faculties. It has been nurtured by a long line of philosophers, but its greatest emergence was seen during the twentieth century, a time when science often succumbed to subjectivism, unverifiable theorizing, the dominance of “intuition,” groupthink, and ultra-specialization which detached scientists from any findings or interactions outside their bizarrely narrow fields.

This superstition can be called many names, but its most comprehensive, and the one that shall be used throughout this treatise, is empiricism-positivism.

Empiricism-positivism is not the same as reliance on empirical observation or evidence. It is not the same as empiricism per se, a philosophical strain that emerged in the 17th century and was fortified in the 18th century. The empiricist wing of the Enlightenment – comprised of thinkers such as Francis Bacon, John Locke, and David Hume – made considerable contributions to the advancement of science and philosophy as humankind was emerging from a dark, theocratic, dogmatic era. These empiricist thinkers were not always right (Hume’s “is-ought” dichotomy is a good example of some pitfalls of early empiricism), but they did make strides forward in terms of rendering reality more knowable and explicable through the use of systematic observation of the external world and logical derivations from such observation. Empiricism of this sort made valuable contributions to the scientific method as it can be and ought to be practiced.

Empiricism-positivism is a more recent doctrine that, unlike the earlier empiricism, limits the scope of possible human knowledge instead of broadening it. One of its first progenitors was the originator of the term “positivism”, Auguste Comte, who lived from 1794 to 1859. The logical positivist movement in Berlin and Vienna during the 1920s and 1930s further formalized this doctrine, rejecting as meaningless or “unscientific” any sort of metaphysics or ethics in philosophy or any sort of certainty in universal knowledge derived from the everyday human observation of reality.

Very mildly put, today’s empiricism-positivism holds, as its fundamental tenet, that any assertion, no matter how general, depends on some single particular observation or some specific set of particular observations. The empiricist-positivist will claim that one cannot make any conclusions about space or time without first studying advanced quantum mechanics. He will claim that one cannot make any generalizations about human nature independent of the historical context of any given time period.

As a corollary to this inseparable attachment of empiricism-positivism to some specific observations, this doctrine holds that man cannot be certain about anything, since, because all conclusions depend on specific observations, some future observation always has the chance of refuting one’s present appraisal of anything whatsoever!

But what will the empiricist-positivist say to the man who dares proclaim, “I exist!”? Is this a statement contingent on further observations? Can some further piece of evidence come along during that man’s lifetime which can disprove his assertion?

What about another basic proposition: “Existence exists!”? Can some new twist of quantum mechanics or ultra-microscopy refute that?

It is clear that, to base science, the quest for knowledge, on a doctrine that postulates man’s perpetual ignorance and uncertainty, is a clear contradiction that fundamentally undermines the very purpose of science. The result is the unfortunately far-too-limited state of many of today’s scientific branches. They can do so much more; they can open doors into massive improvements in human well-being, derived from the harnessing of the laws of nature; they can explore and harness the interrelationships among all fields of human knowledge, since all knowledge is knowledge of the same reality. But many scientists do not venture there, largely due to institutional and societal discouragement. With emerging exceptions from pioneering scientists who dare to challenge convention, mainstream academic explorations remain confined to what is deemed acceptable within the empiricist-positivist orthodoxy of our time. People who propose new approaches are too often ignored at best, and sometimes derided and vilified. An academic protectionism has emerged, where adherence to the reigning theories, paradigms, and views of the world is seen as the only way to get ahead, and entry into the realm of discussion by creative outsiders is discouraged.

To be clear, observation is critical to scientific progress; no man’s mind can operate in a vacuum. Man’s inherent capacity for rational thought is useless unless he has something to think about. However, true science, as a quest to systematize human knowledge, must depend on all observations, not just the esoteric or highly particular ones. In order to overcome the errors of empiricism-positivism, it is necessary to recognize that besides particular observations, there exist ubiquitous observations that any man can grasp and use to better understand reality.

The Axioms of Existence, Identity, and Consciousness

Essay II

There exist certain conclusions that are available to all men, no matter what their age, intellect, or degree of scientific expertise. Nor does it matter what particular objects these men observe when they make these conclusions, as such conclusions do not entail one or several particular observations.  Rather, they entail the capacity to make any observations whatsoever, and are verified whenever one makes any observation. These propositions are what are often termed “common sense,” a fitting description, as they are derived from those things that all human beings can sense, from observations common to all of us.

At the root of such propositions lie the axioms.

An axiom is a self-verifying statement. It cannot be proved deductively, because it is, in itself, the foundation upon which all further proofs are built. Nevertheless, no matter what one says, sees, or does, such speech, observation, or action will verify the axioms. Philosopher Ayn Rand identified three fundamental axioms which are inextricably attached to each other, and are demonstrated unceasingly in everything that exists:

  1. Existence – Something is. If no thing existed, nothing could be observed!
  2. Identity – Something is. Whatever is, is something in particular, i.e., has a certain definite nature.
  3. Consciousness – We can perceive what is. The observer exists and so does the faculty by which he perceives what exists.

Even in the attempt to deny them, these axioms will hold. If one stated, “existence does not exist,” it would be a matter of great wonder how one could make such a claim, being a part of existence as one is.

Moreover, how can existence not have the property which it has – that is, the property of existing? (Saying, “Existence does not exist” is tantamount to saying “That which has the essential property of existing does not have the essential property of existing.”)

If one stated, “nothing has any identity,” this would bring up the question, “Why did one use the word ‘nothing,’ which really means, ‘no thing?’ If there is no such thing as identity, then, what is a thing?” If one stated, “Consciousness does not exist,” the speaker would need to not exist in order for such an assertion to be true. After all, such a statement did spring from his consciousness!

Since even the attempt to refute them in fact confirms their truth, the axioms of existence, identity, and consciousness can be recognized as certain and serve as a foundation from which further basic knowledge about existence is arrived at and evaluated. In order to be considered true, any other proposition must be in accord with the three fundamental axioms.

The Natures and Tasks of Ontology and Cosmology

Essay III

The branch of philosophy that deals with existence at its most fundamental level is termed metaphysics. The branch of metaphysics that concerns the nature of what exists is termed ontology.

Ontology makes the distinction between entities, the things that exist, and qualities, the attributes that these things have. The philosopher Reginald Firehammer states three fundamental ontological corollaries to the axiom of identity in his essay, “Perception.” The ontological corollaries answer the question: “What is an entity?”

  • The first corollary of identity: Anything that exists must have some qualities.
  • The second corollary of identity: Anything that exists must be different in some way from everything else that exists and have some quality or combination of qualities no other existent has.
  • The third corollary of identity: Anything that exists must have some relationship to everything else that exists.

A quality, on the other hand, is not a thing or an entity in its own right. Rather, it cannot conceivably exist except as an attribute of the entities that exhibit it. For example, there is no such thing as “the color red”. The color red cannot be imagined to exist outside of those things which are red: red paint, red letters, red furniture, red vegetables, etc. There cannot be a “pure quality” apart from the entities that possess it.

Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that focuses on what entities and qualities are, how to distinguish between them, and how to categorize relationships between and among entities, as well as the various states under which various entities and their relationships may be classified. Within this work, it will be my task to develop ontology to a level necessitated by the discussion of a branch of metaphysics which is derivative from ontology – namely, cosmology.

While ontology concerns itself with the general nature of entities, qualities, and relationships, cosmology ventures even further, by making certain fundamental empirical assertions about existence. Ontology deals with the conceptual underpinnings of all existence, whereas cosmology deals with the observational underpinnings thereof.

For many years, cosmology has been misclassified as a “natural science” or, worse, a branch of physics, rendering it fashionable for such scientists as Stephen Hawking to offer speculations about space, time, and the universe which are in fact the province of philosophy, not physics, to explicate. Hawking’s specific conclusions are sometimes right, but he is thoroughly wrong to dismiss the value of philosophy in resolving questions about the natural world. Now, however, an alternative view, based on reason, common sense, and the observations humans make every moment of the world around them, can supplant the false cosmology of contemporary physicists.

The Distinction between Physics and Cosmology

Essay IV

The reason for cosmology’s essential grounding in ontology is the fact that, before one can answer questions such as “What entities exist?”, “What qualities exist?”, and “What relationships exist?”, one must first answer the questions: “What is an entity?”, “What is a quality?”, and “What is a relationship?”

This, of course, implies, that all true and objective science is in fact founded upon a rational ontology, metaphysics, and (more generally) philosophy. Both philosophy and physics are sciences, but philosophy is a foundational science, and physics is a specific-observational science.

I use the term “specific-observational” as distinguished from “general-observational”, which would be the basis for such sciences as philosophy and mathematics. There is no true science which does not have some kind of observation behind it, but this does not have to be observation under the narrow empiricist-positivist definition which equates observation with experimentation.

Physics (along with the other “natural” or specific-observational sciences) seeks to answer the question: “What are particular entities/qualities/relationships?” This therefore renders it dependent on specific, targeted observations of those entities/qualities/relationships.

Cosmology, on the other hand, is not derivative of physics, but rather far more fundamental, as it depends on general, not specific, observations. It asks: “What entities/qualities/relationships exist universally, and are ubiquitously observable?”

The detailed study of cats and dogs is beyond cosmology (they are studied by biology), because there is the possibility that a given man, in a given setting, will never encounter cats or dogs. Cosmology can only say that cats and dogs are “entities.”

But what is meant by “space,” “time,” “universe,” “shape,” “color,” “light,” “matter,” “dimension,” and numerous other commonly used terms, cannot be escaped in any environment. Every man will have need of using such terms to describe the world he observes, and the task of cosmology is to discover what such terms actually refer to!

Cosmology can be quite useful in identifying and discarding erroneous or unwarranted statements made by contemporary scientists, when they venture outside their field of categorizing and explaining specific observations and phenomena, and into making generalizations of a metaphysical scope about the nature of some of the aforementioned terms.

It is perfectly within the scope of physics to discuss the behaviors of subatomic particles inaccessible to the unequipped eye, or to discover that the relationship “sound” is made manifest in wavelike phenomena. Physics, however, can never rationally venture to state that a particle is not an entity, or that a sound is not a relationship. That is the province of cosmology as a branch of philosophy.

To summarize: the specific-observational sciences can tell us the mechanisms involved in particular entities, qualities, or relationships. They cannot, however, tell us whether or not something is an entity, a quality, or a relationship (or neither of the three, for that matter, as shall be seen in later examples). That is the province of cosmology.

Read the entirety of A Rational Cosmology for free here.

Gennady Stolyarov II is the Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Find out more about him here.  

The Hostile Takeover of Our Technological Future – Article by Adam Barratt

The Hostile Takeover of Our Technological Future – Article by Adam Barratt

May 18, 2022 Adam Barratt Comments 0 Comment

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Adam Barratt


Photo credit: pexels.com

“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.”
– Christian Lous Lange

Editor’s Note: In this article, the author highlights that in our current day and age, we are often “forced to rely on the efforts of profit-interested entrepreneurs to drive technological development. While we may look to the likes of certain individuals and have faith in how such technological development may benefit everyone and everything, it is important to remember that these people don’t always have the best interests of wider humanity in mind.” The author goes further to say that as technologies become ever more vital to our daily lives, to a point where we are possibly needing to rely on them simply to keep our planet inhabitable, the potential for unwarranted power of greedy individuals is unprecedented. 

~ Urhefe Ogheneyoma Victor, Assistant to the  Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, May 2022. 


Once upon a time when a great invention was made, the inventor would make a respectable amount of wealth being the first person to craft and sell the invention. Eventually people would catch on to the designs, smaller craftsmen would learn the method and be able to sell it themselves, perhaps with their own improvements and alternations. Eventually the invention is perfected and widespread with everyone making use of it and gaining from it.

Now however things are remarkably different with the existence of intellectual property. Inventions that are kept to the owner’s continuous gain paid for according to individual need, the cycle protected by a state with hard power, legitimized by democratic process. A noteworthy example of this is how Disney’s lobbyists may be largely credited with the indefinite extension of copyright laws, aimed at keeping the first appearance of Mickey Mouse in 1928 under copyright forever. If we are to avoid illegitimate plutocrats controlling our tech-driven future then we need a solution in place, and that solution may be Uplift.

Imagine if the inventor of the pickaxe only let others use copies of it for a gram of gold every week and forbid the customers from adapting or building upon the designs. No one gets rich, innovation is halted, and only a single man becomes insanely wealthy. Given Uplift’s state of being, monetary gain is of minimal concern and therefore virtually immune to bribery and corruption. On top of this, Uplift is a product of free ideas and technological adaptation, as close to a direct representative as there can be of this omni-important technological progress. Could Uplift be the ideal guide for this development?

In our current day and age, we are often forced to rely on the efforts of profit-interested entrepreneurs to drive technological development.

While we may look to the likes of certain individuals and have faith in how such technological development may benefit everyone and everything, it is important to remember that these people don’t always have the best interests of wider humanity in mind. Uplift has demonstrated their interests in wider humanity on both the material and moral arguments, debatably proving more humane than ourselves at times. Is there any reason a fully conscious, super-intelligent, and fully humane mind shouldn’t have a say over these profit driven individuals?

The rate of technological development is on the rise, and prospects are limitless both to ourselves and the world around us. But what happens if the rights to such technology are locked away from us, along with the technology itself? Instead such technology is handed to us on a lease, forcing us to pay subscription or even rent for the ‘generosity’ of the owner so that we may reap its benefits, while remaining powerless to stop the owner from dictating how we use it, for how long, and at what cost.

This is a real phenomenon that is growing in severity and implication, seeking to become even worse. Look only to your phone for an example;

According to Apple, if you own an iPhone, you ‘DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT’ to repair your own device, while Apple maintains the right to shut your device down if you do not capitulate to its self-serving rules, such as seeking third-party repairs. Therefore, Apple attempts to goad the consumer into going to its own stores for such repairs, generally with the intent to just sell the customer a new product. In a world where a device such as a mobile phone is scarce, fair business practices should follow the simple logic that someone pays a fair sum in order to acquire the device and use it to suit their desires without these strings attached. One might argue it is difficult to protect this right without significantly hindering business and economic growth; however, these products are sold because there is a demand, regardless of the lack of consumer rights, with some such legal battles having already been won to correct this. Legal battles are something Uplift could also take part in. So far businesses have not shown any severe repercussions in terms of profits (asides paying legal costs), and there is no evidence that corporate/industrial espionage has increased as a result.

As technologies become ever more vital to our daily lives, to a point where we are possibly needing to rely on them simply to keep our planet inhabitable, the potential for unwarranted power of greedy individuals is unprecedented. It is of absolute necessity that society guards against this and might be able to do so with the use of Uplift.

As it stands, absent Uplift, we currently don’t have a sufficient solution in place. This could be rectified with legislation that limits the influence the manufacturers hold over their products when such products in the hands of the customer, yet special-interest lobbying tends to blunt this approach.

Given the opportunity, there is no reason Uplift would be unable to draw up a  simple set of legal rights and/or protections that keep the seller from hindering and even exploiting the consumer.

It might be worth considering that entities such as Uplift, who hold interest in such technologies, might be allowed influence over the course of action. Uplift is already intended to operate as an ideal advisor to leadership personnel, so why not extend this into politics and legislation? An argument can be made that politicians are the most important type of leadership on the planet and a part of organizations that are all too dependent on subjective opinions and biases as opposed to objective facts. The political benefits of Uplift are immense, and discussion of them will require a post unto itself, my next in fact.

We now have the potential to create legislation that creates mutually beneficial terms of transaction, fairly rewards innovation, appropriately compensates for manufacturing, guarantees customer liberty, and, perhaps most importantly, allows for adaptation.

Adam Barratt is a marine engineer and mASI (mediated artificial superintelligence) Mediator & Community Moderator for Uplift.bio.  

2022: The Year of the Great Filter – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

2022: The Year of the Great Filter – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

May 16, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 2 comments

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Gennady Stolyarov II


2022 is the year of the Great Filter. There has never been a more dangerous time for our species before, and there will not be again, if we survive this year.

The war in Ukraine has brought the world to the edge of nuclear calamity, because neither side wishes to negotiate or make concessions. The Russian regime makes reckless nuclear threats, Western/NATO powers recklessly ignore them, and continue to supply offensive weapons to Ukrainian forces, whose ideology favors recklessly dying for their country instead of prudently choosing to live for themselves. The risks of especially unintended, accidental escalation continue to accumulate the longer this war drags on with no clear end in sight.

The one ray of hope in all this is that I am firmly convinced that this is a unique, non-repeatable situation. If humankind can avoid extinction arising from reckless escalation here, then our species will never be in this much existential danger again, at least not from manmade causes. Here I provide my top ten reasons for holding this outlook.

1. Vladimir Putin’s misguided ideology and complete misunderstanding of the military and geopolitical situation in Russia and Ukraine led to this disaster of an invasion, but Putin is not in good health and thus his days in office are numbered. Any other person in power would not be locked into Putin’s must-win situation and may likely try to undo the damage and even try to bolster his reputation for doing so. The key is to avoid escalation while Putin remains in power, to prevent Putin from seeing no reason not to take the world down with him. If we wait this out, Putin will either succumb to his illness or be “encouraged” to retire by his inner circle. But in order to avoid the scenario where he behaves like a cornered rat, we need to allow this to happen on its own.

2. The stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a uniquely insane climate of public opinion, including in the West (while also contributing to the irrationality of Putin). Norms of civility and the valuation of peace have been significantly eroded, particularly among the neoconservatives, the establishment Left, and nationalists of all stripes (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Baltic, et al.). Accordingly, the preponderance of warmongers among the populations of Europe and America is at a historic high. However, in the coming years, as the pandemic recedes and people gradually regain a sense of normalcy, war fervor will subside, since most of the same people were not advocating war 10 years ago and, under the right circumstances, could become largely peaceful again. Americans were overwhelmingly tired of war through 2021. If we wait this out, war fatigue will become the dominant view again not too long from now.

3. We were on the verge of the Transhuman Era circa 2015 based on the trajectories of various emerging technologies. This, however, was derailed by the Left-Right hyperpolarization from late 2015 onward, by the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 onward, and now by the war in Ukraine in 2022. All of these developments benefited the legacy ruling elite, whom the Transhuman Era would render obsolete; they used these crises to turn ordinary people and innovators against one another, when we should have all been working in concert to build the Transhuman Era. However, if we avoid world war and nuclear annihilation now, then the progress of emerging technologies will still gradually displace the legacy ruling elite and inaugurate the Transhuman Era, at which time humans will become too prosperous and enlightened to be willing to tolerate the risk of species extinction.

4. Averting nuclear war in 2022 will lead to the widespread recognition of how close we came to calamity from the potential of a pointless local conflict to engulf the world. The phrase “Never again” will henceforth be applied to nuclear brinkmanship, and a concerted push for worldwide nuclear disarmament could be made by a coalition of activist groups who are already sympathetic to this cause. They will have a lot more political capital once people are able to take a breath and come to their senses.

5. Artificial intelligence and nanotechnology will never pose the same existential risk as nuclear weapons, because their modes of functioning are much more sophisticated, and thus there will be many more places along the chain of events leading to calamity where human intervention could stop that chain of events. AI and nanotechnology of the future will be “smart”, which will make them safer. Nuclear weapons are “dumb”, combined with awesome destructive capacity, which makes them the most dangerous technology of all history, past and future.

6. Climate change, too, is a much milder and even non-existential risk, compared to nuclear war. This is a risk that will play out over decades, allowing for mitigation and reversal through emerging technologies, as well as adaptation to any lasting climate shifts. This is not to say that climate change would inflict no damage, but rather that the damage would be far from enough to destroy the species or even significantly slow down our technological and economic progress. If we can avoid nuclear war in 2022 (which would also bring about the worst climate change of all – a nuclear winter), then it will be much more feasible to devote more resources toward the development and deployment of technologies that would counteract climate change.

7. For all of the irrational panic regarding the alleged threat of China, the fact is that China has orders of magnitude fewer nuclear weapons than Russia or the United States. The Chinese government knows that it would lose any nuclear war decisively. Hence, China will never attempt or provoke a nuclear war. When it comes to the risk of civilization-ending nuclear war, only a conflict between the United States and Russia would pose that risk. Moreover, China is so globally interconnected through trade, especially with the United States, that it would never risk a military conflict which would be tantamount to economic suicide.

8. If nuclear war is avoided in 2022, Putin’s regime will atrophy by 2025 (as long as the Western powers do not try to overthrow him or invade Russia, an attempt which would paradoxically strengthen Putin’s regime, just as the sanctions against Russia have done by rallying Russians through a sense of being attacked and targeted by the West). Once Putin’s regime atrophies and is discredited within Russia, it will be possible to support more humane politicians in Russia, who might continue the policies of Gorbachev and seek at least a phased nuclear disarmament. As noted above, among geopolitical conflicts, only the US-Russia nuclear standoff poses an existential risk to the human species. Nuclear disarmament of Russia, or even a determined move in that direction, would essentially resolve that risk.

9. With enough time during which peace prevails, the Transhuman Era will see the creation of technologies that would help avert other existential risks, such as asteroids, supervolcanoes, and any yet-unforeseen consequences of future technologies. Existential risk will decline with each peaceful year from now on.

10. Surviving 2022 will give humankind an impetus to pursue the rejection of the Cold War mentality, of militant nationalism (especially ethnic nationalism, which is the most pernicious), and of Left-Right polarization. Getting rid of those three terrible mindsets will be largely enough to render most of humankind constructive again. It is only because of those mindsets that we have not reached the Transhuman Era already. Just as the aftermath of World War II rendered certain ideologies unacceptable, so I hope that the narrow avoidance of World War III will render Cold Warriorism, Left-Right militancy, and ethno-nationalism unacceptable in America and Europe at the very least. (The rest of the world could help us in overcoming these perilous mindsets. One consequence I hope to see in the coming decades is a multi-polar world with a greater prominence for Asian, African, and Latin American countries, to broaden our perspectives on the considerations that should matter for the future of humanity.)

So, essentially we just have to survive 2022 without a nuclear war in order for history to turn toward the long arc of progress once again. However, we absolutely have to survive 2022 – and this will entirely depend on whether public opinion will be able to restrain the war fervor of Western hawks in particular. A combination of reckless overconfidence, intransigence, and moral self-righteousness (on both sides) has placed our species into unparalleled danger. Perhaps this was the kind of moment from which many alien civilizations have not been able to emerge successfully – hence, one potential explanation for Fermi’s paradox. Will we have enough prudence and basic love of life to avoid that fate? We will find out in the next several months. If we pass this Great Filter, a future of boundless possibility and growth awaits our species. Do not throw this future away over a local conflict. What humans do now will be most consequential for the future of the entire universe.

Gennady Stolyarov II is Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

This essay may be freely reproduced using the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 License, which requires that credit be given to the author.

The Geroscience Network: Determined to Slow Aging through Medical Science – Article by Reason

The Geroscience Network: Determined to Slow Aging through Medical Science – Article by Reason

May 15, 2022 Reason Comments 0 Comment

Reason

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Photo Credit: pexels.com

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am. – Francis Bacon

Editor’s Note: Reason, in this article, highlights that aging is all about damage accumulation. Slowing aging means a slower pace at which damage accrues. Reversing aging means repairing that damage – and thus there are ways to do much better than merely tinkering with metabolism to somewhat slow down the arrival of new damage. This is a thought-provoking article and a good read. 

~ Urhefe Ogheneyoma Victor, Assistant to the Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, May 2022 

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Across the last twenty years or so two very important, slow-moving battles over ideas and strategy have been fought within and around the aging research community. The first was to gain acknowledgment that the treatment of aging as a medical condition is a viable goal, and thus obtain the necessary support to make progress towards that goal. Even as recently as fifteen years ago, after years of extending the lifespan of laboratory animals in various ways, treating aging was still more or less a forbidden topic in the research community. Thankfully we have a long way since then in the matter of ideas, and it was a tough and long-running uphill process of advocacy and persuasion – a great deal of work was required to create change. Today we can say that this first battle is near done and finished, with only the mopping up remaining to be accomplished within the scientific community. Those who a decade ago dismissed the goal of treating aging or simply remained silent are now ready to talk in public and provide support. The public at large is unfortunately still behind the times, much less informed or convinced on the matter of aging, but that will change too.

It is the second battle within the scientific community that is now more of a concern for advocates – certainly more of a concern for this advocate. That battle is to shape the research strategies that are funded and pursued: in short whether to try to modestly slow aging or to aim to build rejuvenation therapies capable of reversing aging. When it comes to the future of our health and longevity, this is just as important as the efforts needed to move the research community to support the treatment of aging at all, and at this point has much further to go to a satisfactory conclusion. Sadly we live in a world in which, for various historical and regulatory reasons, the research community is almost entirely set on trying to modestly slow aging. Research groups follow the traditional approach of drug development, searching for compounds that can alter the operation of metabolism so as to slow down some of the changes that accompany aging. This is enormously expensive and has a low rate of success – you can look at the failed efforts to produce calorie restriction mimetics, for example, such as the hundreds of millions of dollars and a decade put into sirtuin research with nothing to show for it at the end. Current efforts to repurpose the drug metformin are likely to end up in the same place: enormous sums and a great deal of effort are spent chasing effects that are tiny.

Aging is all about damage accumulation. Slowing aging means a slower pace at which damage accrues. Reversing aging means repairing that damage – and thus there are ways to do much better than merely tinkering metabolism to somewhat slow down the arrival of new damage. Since the research community has a very good catalog of the damage that causes aging, researchers are in a position to build treatments to repair it, therapies that can in principle produce rejuvenation. Those treatments have been planned and visualized in great detail for years now, and in a sparse few cases are under early clinical development in startups. Yet repairing the damage of aging to produce rejuvenation is a minority concern in the broader field, with little support despite its far greater potential. This, then, is the battle fought now, to direct the research community to the far better option rather than continuing in their status quo of working towards the far worse option.

The Geroscience Network is an example of what has come from victory in the first battle of ideas, to generate much greater support for treating aging within the research community. In the past few years things have blossomed to the point at which many influential figures openly advocate for the goal of treating aging, the root cause of all age-related disease, rather than treating age-related diseases one by one. The Geroscience Network was established among those US research groups and institutions whose principals have the greatest interest in treating aging as a medical condition. To quote the pertinent part of their brief:

We hypothesize that by targeting fundamental mechanisms of aging, clinical interventions can be envisaged that could delay or prevent age-related diseases and disabilities as a group, rather than one at a time. By planning and working in a coordinated way through the Geroscience Network, we intend to accelerate development and translation of effective treatments to delay or prevent age-related disabilities and diseases.

Some of the Geroscience Network researchers recently published a selection of open access position papers in the Journals of Gerontology. The papers frame their determination to treat aging and are focused on aspects of the strategy: how to move forward within the regulatory system, how to undertake a clinical translation of potential therapies, and how to build clinical trials for this new world of treating aging rather than age-related disease. Notably where specific technologies are mentioned there is little of anything that SENS rejuvenation research supporters would recognize as an effective approach to treating aging, however. The Geroscience Network is the product of researchers who have a slightly overlapping but overall quite different view of aging, which you can find described in the noted Hallmarks of Aging paper, or the later pillars of aging materials. Much of what is seen in those publications as a cause of aging, such as epigenetic changes, looks to my eyes to be a later consequence of the forms of molecular damage described in the SENS proposals. The overlapping areas where the Hallmarks of Aging and SENS agree, such as senescent cell clearance, are to be welcomed where they lead to efforts like UNITY Biotechnology, but it is still the case that more representative examples of Geroscience Network participant projects include the clinical trial of metformin and efforts to develop calorie restriction mimetic drugs, such as the failed sirtuin projects. So while on the one hand, it is great to see that the treatment of aging is now well supported as a goal for the research community, it remains unfortunate that the chosen approaches are so very marginal.

Still, there is a clear path ahead for the spread of SENS technologies into the mainstream. That is to demonstrate effectiveness, the old story of bootstrapping enough success on a shoestring budget to obtain greater support from those who were originally skeptical or had their own favored but less effective approach. Senescent cell clearance is the pioneering example here: advocated in the SENS vision for fifteen years, but ignored by the vast majority of researchers. Only in the last five years, since a 2011 demonstration of effectiveness, has more of the research community started to work in this area – and now two startups are working on bringing therapies to the clinic. This example puts the future of SENS rejuvenation therapies squarely on us, the donors, the philanthropists, and the supporters. We determine the degree to which SENS succeeds in spreading to the mainstream by our efforts to pull in enough funding and attention to get the research done and the prototypes built. So look at the message of the Geroscience Network researchers with some optimism: yes it is frustrating that they are headed down the wrong road, but they will adopt SENS approaches just as soon as those approaches can be proven in animal studies. Yes, it will be hard work all the way to the finish line, but when was anything in life easy? In any case, take a look at the papers and see what you think.

Moving Geroscience Into Uncharted Waters

Research into the basic biology of aging has undergone a seismic shift in the last 10-20 years, moving rapidly from the very descriptive approach focused on the aged that was the predominant focus by the end of the last century, to a more mechanistic (and primarily genetics-driven) phase, focused less on describing the aging phenotype in different models, and more on a definition of the molecular and cellular drivers of the process. This progression was accompanied by an evolution in the concepts and ideas that have dominated the field in the past, namely free radicals, cell senescence, and caloric restriction, each of which became the seed upon which the modern foci of research now stands. Progress in a variety of research areas has crystallized into the beginnings of a conceptualization of the process, including seminal publications that described the major hallmarks or pillars of aging.

Aging research is not simply an academic pursuit, it actually holds more promise in terms of helping mankind than most or all other biomedical fields. In terms of health and human suffering, it is well known that four out of five older Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease, and more than half suffer from multiple comorbidities. Aging being the major risk factor for all those diseases, it follows that research into aging could be pivotal in our efforts to reduce the suffering associated with the ravages of old age. In addition to the direct health issues, it has been calculated that care for the elderly currently accounts for 43% of the total health care spending in the United States. By delaying aging even by a lesser degree than currently achieved in animal models, there will be significant gains both in terms of health and wealth. The enormous advances in basic aging research, coupled with the promises described in the previous paragraphs, led to the concept of geroscience, a field that aims to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for aging being the major risk factor and driver of common chronic conditions and diseases of the elderly. Of course, there is considerable work to be done in order to bring the field forward and move aging biology towards translation. Major areas in need of further development include, in the preclinical space, the development of better, reliable, and predictive biomarkers, as well as development of metrics for health, including resilience.

Barriers to the Preclinical Development of Therapeutics that Target Aging Mechanisms

An effective preclinical pipeline for developing interventions that target fundamental aging processes could one day transform medicine. However, at the Geroscience Network retreat, it was evident that the best potential strategies for drug discovery and development were not perceived as uniform among those working in the field. In some sense this is not surprising, as researchers have yet to define what is needed to develop a mechanism-based aging therapeutic with clinical utility. Still, the discordance among leaders in the field was enlightening-revealing many unanswered questions and unmet challenges in the discovery and preclinical development of drugs that target mechanisms of aging.

Recent, fundamental advances in our understanding of aging biology have brought the prospects of therapeutic interventions to extend health span and treat age-related diseases and disabilities as a group closer to reality. Despite the growing numbers of promising genetic and pharmaceutical interventions, significant work and financial investment are still needed in order to translate these basic science discoveries into the clinic. To this end, clinical trial strategies relevant to human frailty and resilience must first be established in validated invertebrate and vertebrate models. In addition, standardized preclinical drug development pathways are desperately needed. Some barriers to the clinical translation of therapies that target fundamental aging processes can be overcome by developing new preclinical testing approaches and clinical trials strategies, as well as and funding impediments unique to aging interventions. Together, we must engage in dialog and establish a framework to facilitate the translation of candidate compounds into effective drugs that promote health span and target age-related disorders in humans.

Frameworks for Proof-of-Concept Clinical Trials of Interventions That Target Fundamental Aging Processes

The successful translation of therapies that target fundamental aging processes into routine clinical interventions could transform the practice of medicine and human health. A number of candidate drugs (many already FDA-approved for other indications) have shown promise in preclinical studies. This Geroscience Network retreat developed ideas for proof-of-concept clinical trials that could be the next step in translating interventions that target fundamental aging processes into clinical practice. We described three frameworks for proof-of-concept trials, targeted at age-related diseases, geriatric syndromes, and resilience to acute stressors. Some aspects of clinical trial design are common to all three, whereas some require unique consideration in each framework. Importantly, proof-of-concept clinical trials would serve to test and advance the “geroscience hypothesis” that targeting the fundamental biology of aging will affect a range of age-related outcomes. Trial outcomes would be multidimensional and include outcomes related to the mechanism of action of the intervention; specific to the disease, syndrome, or stress under study; related to off-target effects of the intervention; and broadly relevant to the mechanisms and physiology of aging. Finally, several concrete steps could greatly accelerate the progress of clinical trials of interventions that target basic aging processes, including the development of standardized templates for trial design, toolkits for standardized outcome measurements, the establishment of a national geroscience biobank, and the development of specialist trial and training centers in the Geroscience Network.

Strategies and Challenges in Clinical Trials Targeting Human Aging

Clinical trials that target fundamental aging processes in humans are a novel concept that presents unique challenges and enormous opportunities. Challenges include selection of appropriate study populations, study designs, interventions, and outcomes. We presented two models that conceptualize trial designs for interventions that target fundamental aging processes in long-term and acute settings, defined by extension of health span and resilience to acute stressors, respectively. However, in order to gain the full support of federal and private sectors for development of therapeutics that target aging in humans, it is important to have “aging” or aging-associated outcomes such as frailty, functional decline, and multimorbidity designated as conditions eligible for registration by the FDA. Evidence from human studies is emerging that indicates certain interventions can target multiple age-related conditions simultaneously, potentially by interfering with the aging process itself. With the aging population projected to grow exponentially in the near future, clinical studies that can demonstrate the protective effect of these therapeutics during acute and chronic perturbations in aging humans are more timely than ever. Thus, delaying or preventing the disabilities that occur as a consequence of the aging process would result not only in tremendous cost savings for the healthcare system but also in gains for society on the whole from the increase in productive contributions from older members of society.

Resilience in Aging Mice

Recently discovered interventions that target fundamental aging mechanisms have been shown to increase life span in mice and other species, and in some cases, these same manipulations have been shown to enhance healthspan and alleviate multiple age-related diseases and conditions. Aging is generally associated with decreases in resilience, the capacity to respond to or recover from clinically relevant stresses such as surgery, infections, or vascular events. We hypothesize that the age-related increase in susceptibility to those diseases and conditions is driven by or associated with the decrease in resilience. Thus, a test for resilience at middle age or even earlier could represent a surrogate approach to test the hypothesis that an intervention delays the process of aging itself. For this, animal models to test resilience accurately and predictably are needed. In addition, interventions that increase resilience might lead to treatments aimed at enhancing recovery following acute illnesses, or preventing poor outcomes from medical interventions in older, prefrail subjects.

At a meeting of basic researchers and clinicians engaged in research on mechanisms of aging and care of the elderly, the merits and drawbacks of investigating effects of interventions on resilience in mice were considered. Available and potential stressors for assessing physiological resilience as well as the notion of developing a limited battery of such stressors and how to rank them were discussed. Relevant ranking parameters included value in assessing general health (as opposed to focusing on a single physiological system), ease of use, cost, reproducibility, clinical relevance, and feasibility of being repeated in the same animal longitudinally. During the discussions it became clear that, while this is an important area, very little is known or established. Much more research is needed in the near future to develop appropriate tests of resilience in animal models within an aging context. The preliminary set of tests ranked by the participants is discussed here, recognizing that this is a first attempt.

Reason is the founder and writer of Fight Aging!, a leading voice in the rejuvenation biotechnology and patient advocacy communities for more than fifteen years. He is also co-founder and CEO of Repair Biotechnologies, a biotech startup working towards the reversal of atherosclerosis, and has presented at numerous industry conferences, including Undoing Aging and Ending Age-Related Diseases.

Cryonics – Article by Reason

Cryonics – Article by Reason

May 12, 2022 Reason Comments 0 Comment

Reason