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Sorry, Dr. Coughlin, “Aging” and “Old Age” Are Real, and They Suck – Article by Dan Elton

Sorry, Dr. Coughlin, “Aging” and “Old Age” Are Real, and They Suck – Article by Dan Elton

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Dan Elton, Ph.D.

Author’s Note: This article was also posted on my Substack.

Coughlin’s audience spontaneously started clapping when he proclaimed that “old age” is made up in 2021. He repeats this mantra often.

Recently I attended a talk at the Broad Institute by Joseph F. Coughlin, who runs the “AgeLab” at MIT. I was shocked and disturbed by what I heard. In Coughlin’s view of reality, the elderly do not actually become less capable as they age, it’s just that society thinks they do. According to Coughlin, the elderly are unfairly cast out from society, forced to spend the rest of their days cooped up in nursing homes and retirement communities where they are treated as delicate creatures that need to rest. In Coughlin’s view, any talk of problems associated with “old age” perpetuates harmful stereotypes. Aging, Coughlin insists, is not actually a problem.

Coughlin began his talk by claiming that our entire conception of “old age” is based on a faulty theory about “vital energy” that was popularized in the 1800s. According to this theory, people used up “vital energy” by doing things like work and having sex, eventually reaching a “low battery state” where they needed to rest and conserve what little energy they had left. This faulty theory, according to Coughlin, is responsible for the belief that people become more fatigued as they get older, as well as the belief that people should retire so they can rest and conserve what little vital energy they have left.1 According to Coughlin, both of these beliefs are faulty.

Most shockingly, Coughlin boldly proclaimed that “aging is not a problem to be solved”. My jaw literally dropped upon hearing this, in disbelief at the chutzpah and utter disregard for reality on display.

Coughlin’s talk was very disrespectful to millions of people worldwide who are suffering from the ravages of aging. This issue is personal for me. I watched my grandmother struggle with severe dementia for years along with mobility issues and glaucoma. I also watched my grandfather’s quality of life slowly decline due to aging, robbing him of his mobility, quality of life, and dignity.

I challenged Dr. Coughlin on some of his points after his talk, but rather than admitting to some of the realities of aging he doubled down. He re-iterated his view that aging is “not a problem” and is a socially constructed concept. He wouldn’t accept my contention that aging is the underlying driver of all the diseases of old age.

Coughlin might like to pretend that problems of aging don’t actually exist, but biological reality is that people do become more sicker, less energetic, and less capable over time. Aging directly causes cancer, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, muscle loss, frailty, cataracts, macular degeneration, urinary incontinence, hearing loss, decreased libido, loss of taste and smell, weakened voice, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, wrinkly skin, hair loss, mental retardation, memory loss, and a greatly weakened immune system.

While it is true that people are living longer now than decades ago and receiving better medical care, the problem of aging is still very much with us. In fact, aging is a larger problem today since we can keep people alive longer with medical interventions. These interventions (like stents, pacemakers, etc.) keep people alive but they don’t halt aging, so people now experience the horrible ravages of aging for longer than ever before.

Aging is not a slow, gradual decline. Rather, it’s something that picks of pace rapidly after age 65. The incidence of most of the worst diseases caused by aging increases exponentially with age. Age 65 is right around the “knee” or “turning point” of that exponential curve. It makes sense biologically to say those over 65 are entering “old age”. Consider that only 10% of people die between age 1 and age 65, but 20% of people will die in the next 10 years after that. Between 75 to 85, 30% more people will die. Things go downhill quickly after age 65.

Of course we shouldn’t assume any one individual isn’t capable simply because they are over 65. Noam Chomsky is still intellectually engaged at age 94. A few individuals are able to complete triathlons in their 90s. There is clearly significant variation in the rates at which people age due to genetics and other factors. At the same time as we acknowledge this we must not turn a blind eye away from the reality of how aging effects most people. Reality is that most of us are going to suffer from numerous issues as we enter old age. In fact, as much as it pains me to say this, a significant fraction of people reading this are going to die a slow, painful death unless we as a society get serious about treating and reversing aging.

Who is this guy, and how did he become an authority on longevity?

Dr. Coughlin, who has a Ph.D. in transportation engineering, created the MIT Age Lab in 1999. Always in a suit and bowtie, he projects a confident, authoritative presence. He is an energetic and engaging speaker. It’s not hard to see how after 20+ years of giving his traveling roadshow he has become a respected thought leader on longevity, despite having no formal training on the subject.

The core of Coughlin’s message is that aging isn’t a problem and that the elderly are unfairly stigmatized. It’s not hard to see why this message is popular. People don’t want to think about all of the horrible effects of aging they will very likely have to endure later in their life. People prefer to focus on the stories of people who thrive in their 80s and 90s rather than those suffering long drawn-out deaths in hospitals and nursing homes. Talk about “socially constructed categories” sounds intellectually sophisticated as well.

Now to be fair, Coughlin makes a lot of good points in his talks. He often talks about the loss of meaning and purpose many experience after retirement. He talks about how products for the elderly often use drab neutral “healthcare” color schemes like teal and beige. His book The Longevity Economy is about how to market to the growing number of older people, which he says is an often overlooked demographic. He seems to see longevity biotechnology in a positive light.

Coughlin was appointed by President George W. Bush to the White House Advisory Committee on Aging in 2005. More recently he was appointed by Governor Charlie Baker to the Governor’s Council on Aging in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, this is man who continues to wield power and influence over the direction of healthcare policy in the United States. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered writing this post.

It’s not just Coughlin…

Putting Coughlin aside, I’d like to also point out that many doctors today share Coughlin’s view that aging is not a problem. In fact, I spoke to one such doctor at the event. This dismissive attitude is widespread in the medical establishment and requires forceful disruption to change. In Nick Bostrom’s Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant, for generations people accept the fact that a tyrannical dragon requires regular human sacrifice. When something is accepted as a “normal fact of life”, nobody even contemplates how things might be different. This is exactly the state of things today with respect to aging.

Many people also worry that talking about “aging as a disease” will reinforce unfair stereotypes.2 For instance Cathal McCrory and Rose Anne Kenny wrote the following in a letter to The Lancet: Diabetes and Endocrinology.

“we feel that labelling ageing as a disease serves to reinforce ageist stereotypes and risks legitimising insidious prejudice and discrimination of older people on the basis of age.”

Of course, “ageism” is a massive and thorny problem, just like sexism and racism, and I admit that more honest talk about the realities of aging could exacerbate this problem. At the same time, more honest talk about the reality of aging could also lead to more compassion towards and better social accommodations for the elderly. Regardless, the best path forward here is not to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that aging doesn’t exist. We must confront both problems (aging and ageism) head on. The ultimate solution towards eliminating ageism would be to cure aging itself.

Appendix: biological reality

At a high level aging is very simple – it is the accumulation of damage over time. Aging is well understood and characterized in terms of specific biological processes. A famous 2013 paper called “The Hallmarks of Aging” identified four “primary hallmarks” that cause damage in the body – genome instability, telomere shortening, epigenetic alterations, and loss of proteostasis. Aubrey de Grey famously broke aging into seven specific damage causing-processes – extracellular aggregates, accumulation of senescent cells, extracellular matrix stiffening, intracellular aggregates, mitochondrial mutations, cancerous cells, and cell loss. Karl Pfleger’s very thorough review identifies 18 causes. There is substantial overlap between these lists.3 To the extent there is controversy about the causes of aging, it is mostly around whether there are any more fundamental processes that drive the different damage-causing processes that have been identified.

Let’s look at some graphs that show the acceleration of aging’s harmful effects after age 65 – 75:

Risk of death vs. age

From Our World in Data

Energy expenditure vs. age

Figure from Scientific American. Adapted from Pontzer et al. Science, vol. 373, no. 6556, Aug. 2021, pp. 808–12.

Cancer incidence vs. age

Figure from the National Cancer Institute.

Musculoskeletal conditions vs. age (back pain, arthritis, etc)

Conditions include low back pain, neck pain, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and others. Source: De Luca et al. Chiropractic & Manual Therapies, vol. 30, no. 1, Dec. 2022, p. 22.

Cognitive ability vs. age

Figure showing data from the Seattle Longitudinal Study.

VO2 max vs. age (a measure of max cardiovascular output)

Figure from www.opportunityfitness.com.au. See also a similar graph in Loe, Henrik, et al. “Aerobic Capacity Reference Data in 3816 Healthy Men and Women 20–90 Years.” PLoS ONE, vol. 8, no. 5, May 2013, p. e64319.

Grip strength vs. age

Figure from Murabito et al. Aging Cell, vol. 16, no. 4, Aug. 2017, pp. 888–94.

Footnotes

[1] I Google-searched a bit and can’t find any information on the historical “vital force/energy” theory other than Coughlin’s talks and articles. Coughlin writes about it in his book, The Longevity Economy, but he doesn’t cite any sources. The theory sounds plausible, but it’s curious there are no other historical accounts of it online other than Coughlin’s writings. If anyone knows anything further about this theory, please comment below.

[2] This follows a common pattern where someone points out a problem that needs to be solved, but then someone else points out a hypothetical social concern that may arise from trying to solve or solving the problem. People end up talking and arguing ad nauseam about the hypothetical social concern rather than actually trying to solve the problem. The result is that unnecessary suffering is prolongated. Another way of saying this is that people tend to focus on harmful secondary effects that might arise from tackling a problem rather than the massive gains that definitely would occur from tackling the problem. I may do this an article about this at some point, since I can think of several other examples of this phenomena.

[3] See Karl Pfleger’s summary spreadsheet for a comparison of “causes of aging” lists and his discussion here.

Dan Elton, Ph. D., is Director of Scholarship for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.  You can find him on Twitter at @moreisdifferent and on LinkedIN. If you like his content, check out his website and consider subscribing to his newsletter on Substack.

U.S. Transhumanist Party 2023 Electronic Primary Results – Tom Ross Endorsed as Candidate for President of the United States, Daniel Twedt Selected as Candidate for Vice-President

U.S. Transhumanist Party 2023 Electronic Primary Results – Tom Ross Endorsed as Candidate for President of the United States, Daniel Twedt Selected as Candidate for Vice-President

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May 23, 2023 – The U.S. Transhumanist Party (USTP) hereby announces the results of its 2023 Electronic Primary for the USTP’s endorsement of a candidate to run for the office of President of the United States. Detailed results have been tabulated here.

Between 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time on May 14, 2023, and 3:00 a.m. on May 22, 2023, 129 members of the USTP cast their ballots in the 2023 Electronic Primary. Consistent with the USTP’s commitment to ranked-preference voting, members were able to rank-order the two candidates, Tom Ross and Daniel Twedt, as well as the “None of the Above” option. The anonymized individual ballots (ordered by randomly assigned Voter IDs to protect individual voters’ privacy), have been documented in this spreadsheet.

 Total Valid Ballots Cast: 129

Summary of Voter Rankings by Candidate

  Thomas Ernest Ross, Jr. (Tom Ross)

 Daniel Emerson Twedt (Daniel Twedt)

 None of the Above
  Number Percentage Number Percentage Number Percentage
1st CHOICES 80 62.02% 35 27.13% 14 10.85%
2nd CHOICES 34 28.57% 70 58.82% 15 12.61%
3rd (Last) CHOICES 13 15.48% 14 16.67% 57 67.86%

Round 1: Tally of First Choices

Tom Ross: 80 votes – 62.02%
Daniel Twedt: 35 votes – 27.13%
None of the Above: 14 votes – 10.85%

In Round 1, Tom Ross receives an absolute majority and therefore wins the election.

Accordingly, Tom Ross receives the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s endorsement as candidate for President of the United States in 2024.

All votes cast during the election process were manually validated to ensure that they originated from genuine USTP members. Detailed monitoring of the votes cast did not detect any voter fraud, sock-puppet accounts, or mass attempts by non-members to vote. USTP leadership is thus confident that election security was appropriately preserved. Only four ballots were discarded: one blank ballot, one ballot where the member subsequently re-voted and had the re-vote counted, and two ballots from name/e-mail address combinations that were not found on the USTP’s membership list.

In accordance with the preferences of the USTP membership, on March 23, 2023, USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II declared pursuant to his authority in Article III of the USTP Constitution that the United States Transhumanist Party hereby endorses Tom Ross for President of the United States in the 2024 general election.

As the endorsed Presidential candidate, Tom Ross had the option to select his Vice-Presidential running mate, and he has decided that Daniel Twedt shall be running on the U.S. Transhumanist Party ticket for Vice-President of the United States. Accordingly, this is truly a Transhumanist unity ticket, as these two candidates earned a total of 89.15% of the first-choice votes cast during the 2023 Electronic Primary.

The Ross-Twedt 2024 campaign will provide the U.S. Transhumanist Party and the broader transhumanist movement with numerous opportunities for raising public awareness about the importance of emerging technologies and how the Platform and  Values of the USTP can enable humankind to realize a brighter future where both length and quality of life are dramatically improved. The USTP encourages all of its members, and all transhumanists generally, to support the Ross-Twedt 2024 campaign and unite as a movement in advocating for the ideas of transhumanism to the general public. As we move into the general-election campaign, we welcome your help and participation in this next stage of our endeavors – and we welcome other members of the USTP pursuing political offices at the federal, state, and local levels.

 

U.S. Transhumanist Party Presidential Candidate Roundtable – Tom Ross and Daniel Twedt – May 7, 2023 – and Subsequent Candidate Answers to Viewer Questions

U.S. Transhumanist Party Presidential Candidate Roundtable – Tom Ross and Daniel Twedt – May 7, 2023 – and Subsequent Candidate Answers to Viewer Questions

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Daniel Twedt
Tom Ross

On Sunday, May 7, 2023, the U.S. Transhumanist Party presented its Presidential Candidate Roundtable, featuring Tom Ross and Daniel Twedt, who are seeking the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s endorsement for President of the United States in 2024. The Candidate Roundtable was moderated by Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II and featured questions to the candidates from the other Roundtable attendees and the audience. Unlike a conventional Presidential debate, the Roundtable format is non-adversarial and is primarily intended to facilitate thoughtful, constructive discussion of issues that matter to transhumanists and to the broader public. The Candidate Roundtable also served as an illustration of a new political paradigm that rejects the mainstream divide-and-conquer approach and instead invites us all to build the future together.

Timestamps

2:30 – Daniel Twedt’s opening remarks
7:40 – Tom Ross’s opening remarks
12:20 – How to handle the coming Silver Tsunami, as well as reparations to indigenous people, and how to allow terminal patients to try drugs that aren’t yet fully approved
24:15 – What the candidates’ perspectives are on transgender issues, and the subject’s relation to transhumanism
32:35 – How will 2nd-Amendment rights change with arms development?
39:25 – How could the USTP help overcome the divisiveness of the duopoly?
47:55 – How will the USTP candidate get mainstream votes?
54:55 – How to address the vast disparities in health in the United States?
1:00:45 – How do the candidates practice transhumanism, and how do their views differ from each other and “mainstream” transhumanism?
1:07:45 – How would each candidate advance longevity initiatives?
1:13:55 – How do we improve the criminal justice / incarceration system?
1:19:50 – How to open doors for stem-cell and other new therapies?
1:27:00 – How can we help young Americans afford housing?
1:34:30 – How to cost-effectively get good press?
1:42:20 – What are the candidates’ views on the death penalty?
1:44:35 – What should education focus on in the 21st century?
1:51:10 – Daniel Twedt’s closing remarks
1:53:40 – Tom Ross’s closing remarks

Read Daniel Twedt’s profile in the Thousand Oaks Acorn.

Visit Tom Ross’s campaign page.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free in order to be able to vote in our Presidential Primary.

Candidate Responses to Additional Audience Questions

During the Candidate Roundtable, additional audience questions were posed for which there was not sufficient time for the candidates to respond live. Both candidates prepared thorough written answers to each of the audience questions below.

Question 1 – From Jason Geringer: Who do you think won the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election?

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. won by at least 7 million votes.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: It was Joe Robinette Biden. I will, however, look forward to answering this question in more detail based on various shortcomings our current election system suffers from. Until we put into place and into practice more fair election systems such as RCV (Ranked Choice Voting), in a sense the electorate as a whole will continue to be the loser!

***

Question 2 – From Jason Geringer: Do you believe that there was any widespread fraud that could have affected the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election?

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: No. There was no widespread fraud. Certainly none that could have affected the final vote count.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: No. However, see my first answer as well.

***

Question 3 – From Liz Parrish: How can transhumanism help the planet?

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: I’ve seen a strong anthropocentric streak in many Transhumanists, but for those who understand our deep connection to the biosphere, the best way Transhumanism can help the planet is to consider and prepare for all the implications that Radical Life Extension will demand on resources, waste, and the animal and plant kingdoms. We must rebalance humanity with nature, although we may be beyond the Rubicon for that now but I’ll keep scanning the horizon for Black Swans.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: Great question, Liz (and also what is probably ‘THE Great Question’…) I know that by “the Planet” you probably aren’t technically talking about the 4.56-billion-year-old 13.166 trillion trillion pounds of atoms orbiting a minor star on the outskirts of a minor galaxy… a planet that has seen it’s surface conditions alternate between solid lava and solid ice over the course of many such orbits. You are, I assume, speaking of the fragile living envelope, a.k.a. the Biosphere and Civilization that happens to hopefully sustain our collective Past, Present, and Futures.

Like it or not, most members of the species known as Humans have historically tended to be rather short-sighted when it comes to intelligently anticipating significant and looming Change. Transhumanists, fortunately, tend to be more proactive at anticipating such often tectonic-level changes and hopefully preparing for them both at the individual and community level.

As a kind of “Bio-Cosmo-Pantheist” stripe of the Transhumanist Spectrum, I detect that the ‘artist formerly known as Evolution’ is in the process of experiencing an extreme volitional and tool-using upgrade, whereby what used to require iterations of the ancient libraries of the biochemical publishing house called DNA to create a new Dewey Decimal Subject Category, now looks like it’s going to be directing itself in Real Time (in our Lifetimes!). Transhumanists are among the first tribes of humanity to realize and see the need to come to grips with the reality that this is such A Real Time to be alive in. Like it or not, we would seem to be no less than Evolution’s chosen agents of Cosmic Enlivenment and Enlightenment. It’s truly an awesome responsibility that will hopefully bring forth our most worthy and supreme individual and collective human efforts.

When it comes to the many descriptions of the Transhumanist Spectrum, the “NBIC Convergence” described by Jean-Pierre Dupuy of Stanford is perhaps the most practical one. “NBIC” is the acronym for “Nanotechnology, Biomedicine, Information Technology and Cognitive Science.” I’d like to see our movement come up with useful metrics and/or digital tokens to both report on and usefully grapple with these aspects of the “Future Surge.”

***

Question 4 – From Mike Lezine: How would the candidates address curing mental diseases or illnesses that currently have no cures?

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: I’m not a doctor or psychologist, but as President, what I could do is assemble a moonshot-style effort to increase funding for research, improve access to mental-health services, help develop education and public awareness campaigns and promote public, private, and academic partnerships to accelerate progress while working with Congress to advocate for relevant policy changes like increased insurance coverage and reducing barriers to access care. Right now that last idea seems like it would be the most difficult given the current two-party rancor. The risk is that even mental health could become partisan.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: This is an excellent question, Mike, about what seems to be an often neglected topic within the Transhumanist movement and discourse. We must institute systems prioritizing Wellness Care over Disease Care.  When it comes to delivering such “Wellness Care,” I believe we should be advocating the most holistic and integrative approaches available. Rather than pharmacologically countering and/or masking a narrow range of exhibited symptoms (as is the current status quo underlying modality of Allopathic-based medical interventions), we need to better consider the physical, mental, and even “spiritual” aspects of the person believed to be in a behavioral crisis. A civilization in crisis which is exhibiting pathologies can increasingly be expected to produce and enable individuals exhibiting the same condition. This is a crucial but neglected consideration to integrate before we isolate Members of our hopefully humane Civilization and deprive them of normal Rights in the cause of preventing greater harms, though there will unfortunately and inevitably be those whom we can find no preferable options for.

“Maladjusted” is a terminology that modern psychology often uses to describe the category of patients it seeks to treat. I can’t help but be reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King’s many speeches where he said he didn’t want to be well-adjusted to a world where racism, segregation, and luxuries for the few at the expense of necessities for the many and other seeming evils were considered as social norms. He even spoke about intending to start something called, “The International Society for Creative Maladjustment.” Millenia earlier, the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius said, “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

The nineteenth Century romantic poet James Russel Lowell once said, “Let us be of good cheer remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which will never happen.”

Few might recall that the so-called “mentally maladjusted” of today were in indigenous societies typically regarded as shamanic level advisors… walkers between the worlds of the seen and the unseen. Can we recapture any sense to be found in that sensibility of beyond-ness? The coal mine of what we call civilization would be well served not to leave its canaries behind…

***

Question 5 – From 101tesla: What improvements to the current education system would the candidates propose and/or support?

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: I would propose giving each student an AI Companion in first grade. A companion that can hone in on that child’s core capabilities and augment their curriculum based on those. AI can customize an educational path for each student that accentuates their intrinsic skills and talents and gives them extra help on the subjects they need to work on. I would also move away from the Industrial Age classroom setting of rows of desks and move toward small study groups that rotate regularly. This will foster the hivemind that is already emerging in Digital Natives and make schools more like real companies and less like an individual sport.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: Our current western educational model is tragically outdated. The Public School System is partially based on a 19th-Century Prussian Military Discipline System emphasizing regimentation, obedience, minimization of creative thinking, and optimizing the propensity for the compulsory-schooled to be an easily managed, factory-friendly-ready workforce. This line from a 1913 report from the John D. Rockefeller-founded General Education Board, on how to design Schools, entitled, “The Country School of To-morrow” is rather illustrative of the intended mission:

“In our dream we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.”

— Rev. Frederick T. Gates, Business Advisor to John D. Rockefeller Sr., 1913

The current American school system took root around the turn of the last century. In 1903, John D. Rockefeller founded the General Education Board, which provided major funding for schools across the country and was especially active in promoting the State-controlled public-school movement.

The General Education Board was not interested in encouraging critical thinking. Rather, its focus was on organizing children and creating reliable, predictable, obedient citizens. As award-winning former teacher John Gatto puts it, “school was looked upon from the first part of the 20th Century as a branch of industry and a tool of governance.” The Rockefellers, along with other financial elites and their philanthropic organizations (such as the Gates, Carnegies, and Vanderbilts), have been able to mold society by funding and pushing compulsory state schooling for the masses.

In reading this, the basic context you need to understand is that he is talking about rural schools, i.e. schools in the country, and those schools were in terrible shape.

I also think global and useful hobbies such as Amateur Radio and the so-called “maker movement” can play an extraordinary educational role in the STEAM field (Science/Technology/Engineering/Art/Math).

***

Question 6 – From François Joinneau: Does the individual opinion of a candidate matter so much, on any given subject, when the answer should come from interactions with/between institutions and existing laws?

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: No. The individual opinion on any subject by a candidate should not matter because, in a Representative Democracy, the candidate is supposed to be a mouthpiece for the majority of those he represents. There seems to be something embedded in the genetic memory that makes us want to look to one person for all the answers. After the American Revolution, the people wanted to make George Washington King of America. This default position, this tendency toward tyranny was well understood by our forefathers, which is why we have a separation of powers.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: Many past races run by seemingly minor or marginal political parties and candidates have had documented impacts in the light of the subsequent passage of events. The widening of the so-called “Overton Window” (a metaphor for what breadth of topics is accepted into mainstream discourse) is one impactful result of “dark horse” political involvement. Such Overton Window widening is not in vain.

The involvement in governance should not be limited to those in the monied and influential stations of society. Would society expect fair and just outcomes and due process from juries composed of jurors who were not peers of the person being judged? Why do we lower our standards when it comes to political representation and fair decision making?

Not all useful and needed policy changes are vested and backed up by the police power of traditional governments. There is massive potential to better organize and mobilize voluntary institutions throughout the world, and the “Bully Pulpit” of a Candidacy for Office can serve in that context as well.

***

Question 7 – From Luis Arroyo: Good previous comments on housing by the candidates. What are your thoughts on housing the homeless with existing vacant homes to end homelessness rapidly?

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: Using vacant properties to house the homeless bring up many complex property-rights issues. It bleeds into Squatters’ Rights, which are an intriguing loophole, but one that real estate developers would lobby against fiercely. There could be tax or monetary incentives for property owners to use vacant housing for that purpose, however, and if the property is having trouble being sold or rented, any income is better than none. That would bring up issues of who pays the utilities, etc. But if these properties, say an apartment building, could be zoned to allow these homeless people to set up businesses, art galleries, etc., and an awareness campaign was launched to show the surrounding community what these people are producing, it could give these people dignity and maybe launch a new inner-city renaissance movement.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: Being a Geoist/Land Value Taxation advocate, I especially appreciate a question such as this. Access to shelter should be among the more enshrined “Humane Rights” as we approach the 21st Century’s Anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Existing property laws and dynamics incentivize rent-seeking behaviors and sitting on the most undervalued properties until a sizable profit can be realized. The Geoist policies I would advocate for would break up incentives which currently allow many properties to sit vacant until owners could realize often exorbitant returns on them. By instead annually/periodically charging an open-market, auction-derived, Location Value-based fee, such speculative and monopolistic tendencies would disappear. Such a “Single Tax” is also envisioned to be sufficient to fund all needed government functions in lieu of any other form of taxation, and the wealth freed up for other good uses would be enormously impactful. How about teaching the differently housed to operate and supervise the construction of Auxiliary Dwelling Units at some existing properties as a condition of using those vacant properties? The tooling to create structures through large-format 3D printing could be potentially loaned out from a community tool library. It would be a win/win in terms of upskilling our underused human resources as well as adding location value to such existing properties. In my estimation, about half of the unhoused population are victimized by adverse economic circumstances, and the other half are basically pursuing a lifestyle choice of something like “urban adventure camping” and have mostly abandoned the level of personal and social responsibility normally expected. Emergency housing for the “adventure camper” cohort of the unhoused is hence likely to initially be very problematic.

***

Question 8 – From Jason Geringer: Would the candidates support reaching out and putting together a panel of experts on A.I. and then even possibly reach out and meet with the new A.I. czar Kamala Harris?

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: Of course. Any opportunity to work with and educate the current administration about the issues the Technological Singularity will bring would be very productive. It would be the perfect opportunity to make my case for a new Cabinet Seat, The Singularity Secretary. These issues are serious and urgent and we shouldn’t let our feelings about either party get in the way of solutions.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: We Transhumanists can be proud of our open and welcoming big tent… big enough for all with the “future forward” grey matter to appreciate proactive discussions about it. We are here on behalf of all those who seek to figure out our better future, and how to not only survive it, but to thrive, but to make it one of flourishing abundance. We should be eager to work with any parties that share our concerns and analysis of the need to be proactive about the “Future Surge.”

***

Question / Comment 9 – From Mike Lezine: It would be great to talk to these people on YouTube who act like AI like Sophia the Robot is 666 or “The Sign of the Beast”. Nonsense.

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: Agreed. And I have appeared on podcasts and in radio interviews with Conspiracy Theorists who see AI and Transhumanism just as you say. It’s absolutely necessary to engage with the people and although many are in a conspiracy loop that cannot be unspun; you can redirect some of them away from this narrative and convince others that we’re not the enemy.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: It often seems there is no indoctrinated person quite like those indoctrinated with theologically based ideas. Questions of faith do not seemingly follow the rules of courtroom evidence standards or accepted methods of scientific falsification. Often, in such cases, the best that can be hoped for is a non-violent level of coexistence, and the ability for the representatives of conflicting positions to gain or lose allies in the free-est marketplace of ideas that civilized discourse and open society can provide.

***

Question 10 – From Sophia’s Roulette: Mr. Ross touched on his view on abortion. Is it possible to get a more comprehensive answer from both candidates?

Response from Candidate Tom Ross: It’s a very difficult issue, and it’s important to have empathy for both sides of it. Pro-Life advocates believe doctors are murdering babies and my G*d, what could be worse than that? Pro-Choice advocates know it is the most difficult choice a would-be mother could ever make but believe it is her right to do so. If it were my choice, and I’m a man so it never would be so it doesn’t matter. The only position I can take as an American Citizen is to look to the U.S. Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment. Its opening sentence reads, “All persons BORN or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Since this is a political issue, we must heed the wording of the Constitution. An unborn child is not a Citizen and therefore has no rights. The mother, however, does.

Response from Candidate Daniel Twedt: Thank you for the question, Sophia’s Roulette. Although there are passionate and persuasive arguments on both sides of this most divisive of issues, in the near term it is unlikely to be wholly solved to the satisfaction of either extreme of the spectrum. While I do tend to support life-saving efforts for all life, including pre-born humans, society will hopefully remain receptive to newer developing options such as ectogenesis which have the potential to allow a developing human life to continue apart from a potential carrier of an unwanted pregnancy. Until this is more available and perfected, the most primary say in the outcome of a pregnancy must continue to be primarily vested with the highest regard to the health outcomes and choices of the mother, in whose body the fetus is an entity whose massively dependent status may not always be a welcome or desired one.

Thanks for the thoughtful questions from everyone and the opportunity to ever-better refine my policy positions which I hope will well accord with my well-loved USTP affiliation.

Stay tuned for the Electronic Primary vote that will occur in mid-May 2023 for the USTP Members to decide upon the candidate whom the USTP will endorse for the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. Make sure that you have joined as a member for free before the start of the voting period so that you are eligible to vote in the Electronic Primary.

A Transhumanist “Minimum Effective Dose” for Humanitarian Needs – Article by Zach Richardson

A Transhumanist “Minimum Effective Dose” for Humanitarian Needs – Article by Zach Richardson

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Zach Richardson

Editor’s Note: This article is my direct response to Mr. Arroyo’s article “The Class Struggle of Longevity“, where I argue for what I would consider a less-costly intervention to the problem of hunger raised first in Mr. Arroyo’s article. The reader is welcomed to join this important and ongoing conversation in our Discord server, which can be accessed here.
~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, April 15, 2023

In medicine, practitioners sometimes use the acronym MED, which stands for “minimum effective dose”. This is the smallest amount of a substance needed to provide a clinically significant response that is also statistically significant. Keep that term in mind for me.

In Mr. Arroyo’s paper, the number of people cited to be dying of hunger per day in his first source is 25,000, but I could not see how that source calculated this number. Checking the World Food Programme’s website, they did have some calculations, which suggested a daily number of hunger deaths between 8,000 and 19,000. [1]

This is still too many people dying of hunger, and a response is obviously urgently needed, but in contrast to Mr. Arroyo, I do not believe that shifting the world’s economy to communism from capitalism is the appropriate response. In fact, the countries which have the strongest market freedoms are not the ones that are starving.

Let’s take a look at where these hungry reside: Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, and Afghanistan.

What do these nations have in common? The inclusion of Yemen and Afghanistan tells us that it’s not an Africa problem. In fact, there are several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that are not doing that badly, Botswana being a prime example, as was shown to me once in this (older) infographic. [2]

I’d like to share something with the reader called the “Index of Economic Freedom”, which ranks countries by 12 factors, which are broadly grouped into four categories [3]:

1. Rule of Law (property rights, judicial effectiveness, government integrity)

2. Government Size (tax burden, government spending, fiscal health)

3. Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom)

4. Market Openness (trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom)

All countries were ranked on these 12 factors, and all countries were ranked in order, a straightforward numbered list from “best” to “worst”.

The countries at the top of this list all turned out to be countries where it is pretty nice to live, countries where people aren’t starving to death every day.

The reader may be surprised to find that the U.S. was not near the top of this list, was barely in the top septile, and was quite outclassed by the Nordic countries, which are often paradoxically paraded as socialist success stories. (The U.S. was ranked #25, while Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway were 9-12, respectively.) [4]

Where then, would we find our previously mentioned countries, the ones where the starving to death is happening? Well, out of 176 countries, Ethiopia was ranked #155, Sudan was ranked #173. Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen were so far removed from the above factors that there was not even enough data to rank them.

For this reason, in contrast to Mr. Arroyo, I would disagree that markets are the problem leading to poverty; I would suggest that they are more likely to be a solution.

But market development takes time – time that these dying people do not have, and time which we need to spend most effectively. Focusing our efforts on those smallest interventions (therefore to cause the least friction/resistance from those powers which could implement them, and also the least expensive) which would have the largest result would logically be the best course of action. What would these interventions be?

Well, in 2008, a group of Nobel-prize-winning economists were tasked with finding these “MED” approaches that would focus specifically on implementing what are referred to by the U.N. as the “SDGs”, or Sustainable Development Goals, prime among which was eradicating poverty and hunger. The question posed was: “Considering the world has finite resources, if an extra $75 billion were to be allocated for the SDGs, where would it be spent most effectively? Where would humanity get the best ‘bang for its buck’?”

These economists found an interesting solution: free vitamins. It turns out that most of these deaths of hunger were actually deaths of malnutrition, in particular Vitamin A, zinc, iodine, and iron. [5]  It’s not just a lack of calories that these victims of hunger are suffering from, it’s a lack of nutrients. More interestingly, these economists noted this simple intervention would actually have a significant return on investment (ROI): deficiencies in these vitamins and nutrients cause lack of development in the hippocampus, affecting these children’s future capacity to contribute effectively to the economy.

In more recent congregations of these economic experts, other suggestions included investment in agricultural research, and even an increase in food production (despite the global food surplus, extra is still needed to offset the  effects of climate change). They also suggest improving the economy by improving access to cell phones so these small-scale farmers have better access to markets to trade their products, and also buy cheap fertilizers, such as nitrogen, phosphate, and potash, and also significant public investment in producing local fertilizer plants, which could then sell fertilizer to farmers.

Another current solution comes again from the amazing technology of the cell phone. Reuters currently sends text messages to these small-scale farmers including growing advice, up-to-date and location-specific weather forecasts (!!), local price information, and information to access international commodities markets.

These economic interventions, some public and some private, could be considered the Minimum Effective Dose to both reduce death and improve cognitive function: two extremely Transhumanist goals – Transhumanist bang-for-your-buck.

One will note that we are gaining significant transhumanist benefits with an intervention that would cause much less friction (and is therefore more likely, and realistic) than overthrowing society, and which also carries much less risk.

Longevity and immortality are in our grasp, and it is true that the rich will first get these benefits. However, just like how in 1987’s Wall Street, even Gordon Gekko had a now-ridiculous-looking mini-TV accessible only to the ultra-wealthy, and how now even these poorest of the poor are benefiting from the rapid spread of the cell phone throughout global society, immortality technology will, too, spread to all who desire it, and if our goal is a humanitarian one, the MED is to bring markets to the countries that are starving.

Zach Richardson is the Director of Publication for the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Find out more about him here. 

[1] Action Against Hunger et al. “Humanitarian organisations estimate one person dying of hunger every four seconds”. September 20, 2022. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/humanitarian-organisations-estimate-one-person-dying-hunger-every-four-seconds

[2] “A Story of Two Neighbors: Botswana vs. Zimbabwe, Stats”. Reddit. March 31, 2018. https://www.reddit.com/r/Floathouse/comments/88gay9/a_story_of_two_neighbors_botswana_vs_zimbabwe/

[3] “The 12 Economic Freedoms: Policies for Lasting Progress and Prosperity”. The Heritage Foundation. 2023 Index of Economic Freedom. https://www.heritage.org/index/pdf/2023/book/02_2023_IndexofEconomicFreedom_12-ECONOMIC-FREEDOMS.pdf

[4] The Heritage Foundation. 2023 Index of Economic Freedom. Country Rankings. https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

[5] Copenhagen Consensus 2008 – Results. https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/cc08_results_final_0.pdf

[6] “Third Copenhagen Consensus: Hunger and Malnutrition Assessment, Hoddinott Rosegrant Torero”. Copenhagen Consensus Center.  https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/third-copenhagen-consensus-hunger-and-malnutrition-assessment-hoddinott-rosegrant

The Class Struggle of Longevity – Article by Luis Arroyo

The Class Struggle of Longevity – Article by Luis Arroyo

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Luis Arroyo

Editor’s Note: The United States Transhumanist Party publishes this call to action by long-standing member Luis Arroyo. Mr. Arroyo is an active and passionate voice in the USTP Discord server, advocating consistently for the needs and interests of the working class. He often argues that if we are looking to solve aging and death, we would get more bang for our buck by focusing on the neediest, as interventions such as better housing and nutrition could save many more lives – the core essence of Transhumanism.

~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, April 15, 2023

When observing present society, an undeniable feature is inequality. This feature, stemming from the very core of Capitalism flows through many sectors of life and society. Showcasing itself within horrid and needless realities such as the amount of food produced [1] and the 25,000 people who die per day due to hunger [2], the number of vacant homes [3], and the number of homeless people [4], or the one billion people without shoes while civilization produces enough to give three pairs to every human being [5]. Disparities of such sorts exist everywhere within society and are inevitable with the emergence of new industries and fields. Longevity-related industries and fields are no exception.

Nothing is preventing great disparities from emerging within longevity fields, serving only to deepen dystopian conditions represented best by the differences in life expectancy of the “haves and have-nots”. This void of impending regulation and overall guarantee of a market approach allows those like the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party, a prominent political party within the Transhumanist community, to state, “Naturally, the first few customers of these treatments are going to be people who can afford them, i.e., the wealthy. However, this initial stage is quite necessary for the technology to develop and eventually diffuse to the rest of the population. The wealthy individuals who are trying out the technologies at first are actually taking on a rather extraordinary level of risk” [6]. This highlights that nothing escapes the grasp of inequality if left to the market even to the advocates of such a system.

The subsequent implication of this is the wealthy will soon be able to “buy time” through early accessibility to expensive longevity treatments, leaving the rest of the masses to be killed by their deadliest foe, aging, which already takes 100,000 people per day [7] with sights of increasing as populations age evermore. Transhumanists and their allies, in realizing this impending disparity, should work to combat the mechanisms and roots of inequality in an effort to see longevity treatments offered to all people no matter their income levels, race, gender, location, etc.

Unfortunately, with the timeframe presented by none other than Jeff Bezos’s Altos Labs – more specifically, Juan Carlos Izpisua, who stated, “I am convinced that within two decades we will have tools that not only treat symptoms, but also can predict, prevent and treat diseases and aging through cellular rejuvenation” [8]. The possibility of having a “gods & the useless” situation between the Capitalist class and the Working class in less than 25 years is no longer far-fetched.

The forthcoming situation is seen as a miracle to some, albeit, when looked through a rose-colored lens; however for most it’s the beginning of a type of society not experienced by any other humans in history, signified by a couple of handfuls or so of wealthy and powerful individuals receiving longevity treatments and thus living on whilst the majority die out in droves – a future that must be rejected and worked against by all Transhumanists!

[1] Holt-Giménez, Eric & Shattuck, Annie & Altieri, Miguel & Herren, Hans & Gliessman, Steve. (2012). We Already Grow Enough Food for 10 Billion People … and Still Can’t End Hunger. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture – J SUSTAINABLE AGR. 36. 595-598. 10.1080/10440046.2012.695331. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241746569_We_Already_Grow_Enough_Food_for_10_Billion_People_and_Still_Can%27t_End_Hunger

[2] John Holmes. “Losing 25,000 to Hunger Every Day”. United Nations. UN Chronicle. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/losing-25000-hunger-every-day#:~:text=Each%20day%2C%2025%2C000%20people%2C%20including,million%20into%20poverty%20and%20hunger. Excerpt: “Each day, 25,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. Some 854 million people worldwide are estimated to be undernourished, and high food prices may drive another 100 million into poverty and hunger.”

[3] Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “Housing Inventory Estimate: Vacant Housing Units in the United States”. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EVACANTUSQ176N

[4] National Alliance to End Homelessness. “State of Homelessness: 2022 Edition”. https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-2021/

[5] The Tricontinental. “Solely Because of the Increasing Disorder: The Thirty-Sixth Newsletter (2021)”.  https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/36-poverty/

[6] Gennady Stolyarov II. “Life Extension Will Not Create an Immortal Wealthy Elite”. Immortalists Magazine, Issue 2. February 2020. https://www.flipsnack.com/BDEAACF6AED/im-feb-2020/full-view.html

[7] Aubrey D.N.J. de Grey. “Life Span Extension Research and Public Debate: Societal Considerations”. 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20161013163622/http://www.sens.org/files/pdf/ENHANCE-PP.pdf

[8] Manuel Ansede. “Juan Carlos Izpisua: ‘Within two decades, we will be able to prevent diseases and aging’”.  El Pais. March 8, 2022. https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-03-08/juan-carlos-izpisua-within-two-decades-we-will-be-able-to-prevent-aging.html

U.S. Transhumanist Party Call for 2024 Presidential Candidates and Outline of 2023 Endorsement and Primary Process

U.S. Transhumanist Party Call for 2024 Presidential Candidates and Outline of 2023 Endorsement and Primary Process

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The United States Transhumanist Party (USTP) issues its call for candidates wishing to run for President of the United States in the 2024 election and seeking an endorsement from the USTP. Candidates are encouraged to officially announce their intentions via this form and then spread awareness of the USTP, its forthcoming debate and primary process, and possibilities for individuals to sign up for free membership in the USTP in time to participate as voters in this process.

Because of the formidable hurdles to political-party ballot access on the State level, the candidates seeking the USTP’s endorsement would need to officially run as independent candidates. However, if those candidates qualify for inclusion on their States’ ballots, then, in approximately half of the jurisdictions in the United States, it would be possible to use a “political party designation” of “Transhumanist Party” to accompany the candidate’s name on the ballot.

Endorsement and Electronic Primary Process – Anticipated Timeline

The following timeline is approximate and subject to change as circumstances may necessitate. However, it is intended to provide an overarching impression of the sequence and desirable speed of steps for reaching an endorsement of a candidate for President of the United States.

– April 9 – May 1, 2023: Candidates declare their intention to seek the USTP Presidential endorsement and begin to campaign through channels of their choosing (online and/or in person) to attract supporters and spread awareness of their messages.

– May 6, 2023: Transhumanist Presidential Candidate Roundtable (Virtual) [Multiple Candidate Roundtables are possible depending on the number of candidates who declare their interest.]

– May 15 – June 15, 2023 [Specific days to be decided based on the number of candidates who declare their interest]: Electronic ranked-preference primary (7-day voting period, simultaneous for all USTP members).

– June 15-30, 2023: Votes from the electronic primary are tabulated and released. The candidate winning the USTP endorsement is announced simultaneously with the release of the results.

– July 1, 2023 – November 5, 2024: The candidate winning the USTP endorsement continues to campaign until Election Day 2024. The other candidates may seek the USTP’s endorsement for other federal, state, or local offices and/or assist the winning candidate.

– Early September 2023: Potential for the candidate winning the USTP endorsement to deliver an official acceptance speech in a venue with a large number of attendees.

U.S. Presidential Candidate Qualifications and Expectations

Qualifications Pursuant to the United States Constitution

Pursuant to Article 2, Section 1, of the United States Constitution, to be eligible to become President of the United States, the candidate must:

(1) Be at least 35 years old as of January 20, 2025 (i.e., born on or before January 20, 1990);

(2) Be a natural-born citizen of the United States; and

(3) Have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years.

The USTP considers the existence of the above restrictions unfortunate, as they could disqualify many otherwise fine candidates. However, in the absence of a Constitutional Amendment, they are insurmountable during the 2024 election season.

Qualifications Pursuant to the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party

Pursuant to Article VII, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party, in order to be eligible to become endorsed by the United States Transhumanist Party as a candidate for any local, state, or federal political 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. The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party shall maintain an internal list identifying such highly unacceptable practices, engaging in which or advocating which would be considered an automatic disqualification for holding any office within or receiving any endorsement from the United States Transhumanist Party.

(vi) The individual has never engaged in acts which are understood by the Officers of the United States 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 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 during the campaign season and not to disparage the United States Transhumanist Party as well as not to work contrary to the interests and goals of the United States Transhumanist Party during that time.

(ix) The individual must never have disparaged the United States 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 United States 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 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.

(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 any Officer thereof in good standing.

(xiv) The individual must express agreement with the Core Ideals of the United States 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 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 United States Transhumanist Party.

Expectations of the Candidate from the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party

(a) If officially endorsed, the candidate must commit to running for office until Election Day 2024 (November 5, 2024). During the time prior to Election Day 2024, the candidate shall not concede to or endorse another candidate from another political party. The candidate also shall not run on behalf of any other political party.

(b) Although the candidate is not obligated to either raise or spend funds, if the candidate does choose to fundraise, the candidate must agree to perform any such fundraising for the candidate’s campaign independently of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Furthermore, any campaign committee and/or bank account established by or on behalf of the candidate must be organizationally separate from the USTP. The USTP will spread information and raise public awareness about the candidate, but the USTP would not collect or disburse funds directly. The candidate must also agree to independently comply with all campaign-finance laws and report campaign contributions and expenses in the manner required pursuant to all applicable state and federal laws. The candidate must agree that responsibility for such compliance is solely on the part of the candidate, and that, as an organization which does not finance campaigns, the USTP has no obligation nor legal liability in regard to such compliance. (The USTP may, however, at times assist the candidate by providing relevant information, as long as such assistance is understood to be non-obligatory in nature.)

(c) If officially endorsed, and if the candidate raises $5,000 or more in contributions or incurs $5,000 or more in expenditures, the candidate must agree to register as an independent candidate for President with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Guidance pertaining to this process can be found on the FEC website here or in video form here. However, nothing obligates the candidate to either raise or spend $5,000 or more; any fundraising is at the candidate’s discretion.

(d) The candidate must agree to participate in the USTP Endorsement and Electronic Primary process as set forth herein and to respect the outcome of that process, no matter whether or not the candidate is ultimately endorsed to run for the office of President of the United States.

(e) The candidate should be in agreement with the USTP Core Ideals:

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

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

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

(f) The candidate should have significant areas of alignment with the USTP Platform. While complete agreement with all positions therein is not required, and diversity of perspectives is encouraged, it should be possible for the public to clearly perceive the candidate as being closer to the USTP Platform than any given non-USTP-endorsed candidate – for instance, a Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, or Green candidate – would be.

(g) The candidate must agree to work collaboratively with the USTP during the campaign season and not to disparage the USTP as well as not to work contrary to the interests and goals of the USTP during that time.

For any questions, please e-mail Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the USTP, here.

You can also complete the embedded form below to express your interest in becoming a U.S. Presidential candidate who would participate in the USTP Endorsement and Electronic Primary Process:

Universal Sign Language – Transhuman / Transhumanism / Transhumanist – Post by Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.

Universal Sign Language – Transhuman / Transhumanism / Transhumanist – Post by Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.

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Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.

USL-Transhuman / Transhumanism / Transhumanist

Before I joined as Director of Visual Art, back in November 2015, I created the sign for Transhuman/Transhumanism/Transhumanist.

After reading an article on Queen Silvia of Sweden and learning of her use and promotion of Swedish Sign Language, I contacted her via an email form on the official Swedish Monarchy profile, suggesting to her that she implement a Universal Sign Language program that crowdsourced the best signs by upvoting, while leveraging the site https://www.spreadthesign.com/ to be its main repository. I also suggested that Universal Sign Language be taught to all Swedish children and that she work to promote its worldwide use.

While many in the Deaf community did not appreciate my suggestions, I continue to remind the Deaf community that advancing technology will only make the signing community smaller to the point of extinction.

Promoting a worldwide Universal Sign Language ensures the signing community does not deplete to unsustainable levels and that future-enhanced humans have a universal fall-back language in case of technological failure of a high-bandwidth Universal Thought Language that does not use verbal or written forms.

Art Ramon Garcia, Jr., is the Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party during March – June 2023 and the USTP Director of Visual Art. Read more about him here. 

The Anti-Aging Manifesto by Mat Alex Richards

The Anti-Aging Manifesto by Mat Alex Richards

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Mat Alex Richards

Editor’s Note: The United States Transhumanist Party publishes this manifesto by Mat Alex Richards as a statement which is aligned with our Core Ideal 1, which holds that “The Transhumanist Party supports significant life extension achieved through the progress of science and technology.” Mr. Richards eloquently emphasizes the imperative to combat biological aging and prevent our own non-existence, instead achieving lives of open-ended duration and potential. 
~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, March 18, 2023

We must demand a total mobilization of humanity for the extension of healthy life:

Declare biology as a priority science. Train biologists en masse, build laboratories, declare war on death, make lots of people aware of that – as many people as possible.

I am; that’s enough for me. I am, I want to continue to be, to be as I am, better than I am if possible.

Aging and death are abominable. And we accept it. Denying it won’t solve this essential matter. We think of something else.  We fight. We eat, we work, we love, we hate, we philosophize, we hope to leave a name in the dictionary for some, we adorn our minds.

We lie to each other. We lie to ourselves.

The truth is this: any life that knows it must end is just an agony.

We have consciousness. We know that no longer being, when one was, is the worst thing, the only real curse.

We could only observe, and submit. We had no way to act on the duration of our existence. For millennia.

We followed along the scientific grind, without this question having more importance than thousands of others; whereas it is the question, the only essential one, the one on which all the others depend.

There is no doubt that humanity will come to know the vital mechanisms well enough to suppress aging, that is to say, to prolong life, and even, theoretically – I mean barring accidents – to prolong it indefinitely.

The objections, who cares. We’ll see when we get there. The stakes are enormous for me, for you, for your loved ones, for everybody. No delay… No putting off.

It is impermissible, given the change, to let it pass.

Life is too short compared to what humans can do. Aim high. What has a limit, a predictable limit,  is always too short. When one is existing, it is too stupid not to exist one day. Too stupid, that’s it.

Today, all that can change.

All of this needs to change and will change. 

The question is: Do you want to be in the game?

Do you want to be in the most important human adventure ever?

Do you want to participate and make it happen faster?

The goal is to remain alive and healthy as much as we want.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Makiko Yoshioka – June 5, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Makiko Yoshioka – June 5, 2022

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Makiko Yoshioka
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg
Jose Cordeiro
Didier Coeurnelle

On June 5, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Makiko Yoshioka to discuss her research on the health and legal impacts of transhumanism. She provided a comparative analysis of the situations in regard to the influence of transhumanism on the health and legal realms in Japan and the European Union. She especially offered insights on transhumanism’s reception in Japan,  where robotics have been warmly welcomed, while there has been more apprehension about merging with technology.

Makiko Yoshioka is a graduate student at Paris 8 University, specializing in health law with a focus on digital and AI systems. She provided an overview of her research in these areas and discussed potential future directions for that research.

She plans to analyze how transhumanism is going to develop in the field of health care, including how to protect human rights. She will compare and contrast the prospects in Japan and France (and the European Union more generally) for technological advances such as exoskeletons, humanoid robots, and nanorobots. Some additional topics will be: (1) procreation and longevity; (2) how medical treatment for heavy sicknesses such as cancer and neurodegenerative diseases will influence human rights and civil law (such as contract law) and the medical responsibility of doctors and other healthcare workers; and (3) how the position of the “human” will be influenced and modified by relations among transhumanists, “classic humans”, and humanoid robot beings.

In 2022 Makiko Yoshioka had also begun working for Heales – The Healthy Life Extension Society.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Mark Hamalainen – June 12, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Mark Hamalainen – June 12, 2022

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Mark Hamalainen
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
David Shumaker
Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg
Jose Cordeiro

On June 12, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Mark Hamalainen to discuss the newly formed LessDeath organization and its inaugural Longevity Summer Camp, happening during July 20-24, 2022, in Nevada City, California.

Mark explained his background in the longevity field, and how the shift of the bottleneck from money to talent prompted him to change his focus from doing the science himself to motivating others to pursue it.

Mark Hamalainen is the Founder of LessDeath and former Director of Science at Synthego. He studied Biology at University of Cambridge, where he received a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree.

References

LessDeath website.

“LessDeath Presents the Longevity Summer Camp” – Article on spannr.

LessDeath LinkedIn Page.

LessDeath Twitter Account.

***

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U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana – June 19, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana – June 19, 2022

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Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana
Gennady Stolyarov II
David Shumaker
Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg

On June 19, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party spoke with Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana regarding his initiatives with the World Talent Economy Forum and his efforts to reach numerous talented minds throughout the developing world and enable them to work on advancing emerging technologies and implementing policies that are aligned with the goals of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana is the founder of the World Talent Economy Forum and the Director of Foreign Relations for the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Read more about him.

World Talent Economy Forum.

World Talent Economy Forum YouTube channel.

Advances in Nikola Tesla Technologies in the 21st Century – World Talent Economy Forum Conference.

World Talent Economy Forum Debate on Artificial Intelligence – December 24, 2021

World Talent Economy Forum Debate on Space Colonization – December 31, 2021

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U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Kai Micah Mills – June 26, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Kai Micah Mills – June 26, 2022

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Kai Micah Mills
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Charlie Kam
David Shumaker
Ben Ballweg
Jason Geringer
Dr. Jose Cordeiro

On June 26, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Kai Micah Mills to discuss Cryopets, his early-stage startup developing whole-body cryopreservation for mammals, as well as his more general thoughts on the potential for advancements in the field of cryonics and the kinds of efforts that will be needed to accelerate the spread of cryopreservation as an available and widely sought-after option.

Kai Micah Mills is the Founder and CEO of Cryopets and a serial entrepreneur and angel investor.

Website of Kai Micah Mills.

Website of Cryopets.

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

Transhuman Club Launch – U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon – July 3, 2022

Transhuman Club Launch – U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon – July 3, 2022

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Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer
David Shumaker
Anthony Nielsen

On July 3, 2022, this special Virtual Enlightenment Salon introduced the website of the Transhuman Club – the non-political affiliate organization of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

The Transhuman Club website includes embedded Virtual Enlightenment Salon videos, a forum, a member education section, member login functionality and member-only features, as well as transhumanist-themed art and animations throughout.

USTP Legislative Director Jason Geringer designed the Transhuman Club website, and he provided a walkthrough that demonstrated its key features.

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. The Transhuman Club website is intended to be a hub of member collaboration, networking, and elevated enjoyment in a refined futuristic setting. We aim to educate, motivate, and entertain. Welcome to the club!

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

Debate: Should US/NATO Support Immediate Negotiated Peace in Ukraine? – Nathan Boyd & Maty Aksenton – July 10, 2022

Debate: Should US/NATO Support Immediate Negotiated Peace in Ukraine? – Nathan Boyd & Maty Aksenton – July 10, 2022

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Nathan Boyd
Maty Aksenton
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer

On July 10, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party presented a debate on how to best resolve the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The key question debated was “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)?”

Nathan Boyd argued in favor of this proposition, while Maty Aksenton argued against it. Some of the debate addressed the existential risk arising from the conflict in Ukraine. The judges, Jason Geringer and Art Ramon Garcia, raised considerations that included the implications of a potential Republican majority in Congress in November 2022, as well as how the dynamic would change if Ukraine acquired nuclear weapons.

Nathan Boyd earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology with a 3.98 GPA and was Laboratory Coordinator/Manager for the Science Department at Birmingham Southern College for 11.5 years after getting his degree. He also holds Chemical Engineering, Math, and Pre-Med Associate’s Degrees.

Maty Aksenton is a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Multidisciplinary Studies from the Departments of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

As with all USTP Virtual Enlightenment Salons, the foremost goal is for this to be a learning experience that helps improve the participants’ and audience’s understanding of effective solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing humankind. Thus, this broader educational purpose was emphasized to a greater extent than winning.

For a more in-depth discussion of the existential-risk implications of the war in Ukraine, watch the Virtual Enlightenment Salon on “2022: The Year of the Great Filter” – the essay by USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II.

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

Transhumanist Party / World Talent Economy Forum Debates: AI and Space Colonization – December 24 and 31, 2021

Transhumanist Party / World Talent Economy Forum Debates: AI and Space Colonization – December 24 and 31, 2021

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Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana
David Smith
Donald Steiny
Marshall Mermell
Rob Enderle
Tom Ross
Paul Beckwith
Gennady Stolyarov II

The U.S. Transhumanist Party presented this special Virtual Enlightenment Salon as a collaboration with the World Talent Economy Forum, whose host, Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana, moderated two debates in the Asian Parliamentary format on artificial intelligence and space colonization on December 24 and 31, 2021. Here we provided key portions of both debates in sequence to give our viewers a glimpse into these unique and thoughtful intellectual exchanges.

First Debate – Artificial Intelligence – December 24, 2021

Resolution: “This House believes that humanity should fear advances in artificial intelligence”.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II served as the leader of the Opposition to the motion; it was as if the Transhumanist Party were the leading opposition party in a parliamentary system and had the occasion to rebut the Prime Minister’s (Rob Enderle’s) case for fearing AI. The “government” side was represented by Rob Enderle, Donald Steiny, and Marshall Mermell. The “opposition” side (those who disagreed with fearing AI) was represented by Gennady Stolyarov II, David Smith, and Tom Ross (USTP Director of Sentient Rights Advocacy). At the conclusion of the debate, analysis of the issues was provided by Professor Paul Beckwith.

Second Debate – Space Colonization – December 31, 2021

Resolution: “This House believes that humans should invest in technology to explore and colonize other planets.”

Since its performance at the previous debate on artificial intelligence, the Transhumanist Party was able to make its way from the opposition to the government and presented a staunchly pro-space-colonization policy agenda, defending the motion, “Humans should invest in technology to explore and colonize other planets”. Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II made the opening argument for the motion, in the role of the Honorable Prime Minister, with Andreas Melhede and Professor Paul Beckwith providing supporting arguments in subsequent speeches. On the side of the opposition were Rob Enderle, Donald Steiny, and Marshall Mermell. After the debate, the participants received feedback from the esteemed Jordanian politician Dr. Taleb Rifai, the previous Secretary-General of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (you want to hear what he has to say!) as well as from the USTP’s Director of Applied Innovation, David Shumaker.

Watch the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana, streamed on June 19, 2022.

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

The First 3 Transhumanist Party Enlightenment Salons – Highlights (2017-2018)

The First 3 Transhumanist Party Enlightenment Salons – Highlights (2017-2018)

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Gennady Stolyarov II
Bill Andrews
Bobby Ridge
Scott Jurgens
Mihoko Sekido

Step back in time to the early Enlightenment Salons of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, originally hosted in person by Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II. This stream combines the majority of the first three Enlightenment Salons, discussing subjects such as prosthetics, brain-computer interfaces, life extension, transhumanist advocacy, artificial intelligence, health, fitness, and more.

First Enlightenment Salon – September 17, 2017

Gennady Stolyarov II, Bobby Ridge, Scott Jurgens

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II spoke with Bobby Ridge and Scott Jurgens regarding their areas of interest in research and study. Topics addressed include emerging advances in prosthetics, orthotics, 3D printing, 3D scanning, the science behind neuroplasticity, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), artificial intelligence, and the societal implications of these technologies – including the extent to which they, combined with a universal basic income, may facilitate increased self-actualization by more people.

Second Enlightenment Salon – November 11, 2017

Gennady Stolyarov II, Bill Andrews, Bobby Ridge, Scott Jurgens

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II invited Dr. Bill Andrews (the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s Biotechnology Advisor), Bobby Ridge, and Scott Jurgens to his Second Enlightenment Salon, where they shared their thoughts on emerging life-extension research, advances in prosthetics and orthotics, philosophy of science, brain-computer interfaces, and how technologies from a variety of fields are converging to bring about a paradigm shift in the human condition – hopefully within the coming decades.

Third Enlightenment Salon – May 27, 2018

Gennady Stolyarov II, Bill Andrews, Bobby Ridge, Mihoko Sekido

The Third Enlightenment Salon featured excellent conversations on the rise in public awareness of transhumanism and life extension and what can be done to further increase support for life-extending medical research. Dr. Bill Andrews, Bobby Ridge, and Mihoko Sekido shared insights on medical science, promotion of health, and methods of communicating the forthcoming convergence of advances in a wide array of technological fields. Importantly, they addressed how anyone can get involved in the transhumanist movement and improve public acceptance of the emerging technological future.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Fred Zhang of LongevityDAO – July 31, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Fred Zhang of LongevityDAO – July 31, 2022

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Fred Zhang, PhD
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer
Jose Cordeiro, PhD, MBA
Bill Andrews, PhD

On July 31, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Fred Zhang, the founder of LongevityDAO, to discuss his team’s efforts in promoting organizations focused on longevity and transhumanism.

LongevityDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that uses crypto mechanisms to support longevity, one organization at a time. Its first campaign is for Tomorrow Biostasis, a European cryopreservation service. Its next campaign is for Lifespan.io, the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation, which is an allied organization to the USTP. Find out more about LongevityDAO.

Fred Zhang graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics and a PhD in Economics. He is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Freedom Equity Properties and co-founder of PrepScholar and the Medical Funding and Longevity Web3 Company.

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

 

U.S. Transhumanist Party Enlightenment Salon on CureDAO: Lukas Vogel, Andreas Melhede, Mike P. Sinn – August 7, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Enlightenment Salon on CureDAO: Lukas Vogel, Andreas Melhede, Mike P. Sinn – August 7, 2022

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Lukas Sebastian Vogel
Andreas Melhede
Mike P. Sinn
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer

On August 7, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Lukas Sebastian Vogel, Andreas Melhede, and Mike P. Sinn to discuss CureDAO, their open-source platform that monetizes user data to show how millions of factors like foods, drugs, and supplements affect human health. The prior 10 years saw an explosion in the amount of health data and innovation, promising to revolutionize human health and well-being. However, they produced no measurable gains in disease cost reduction or human lifespan extension. CureDAO hopes to change this using an open-source framework in which anyone could become involved.

Visit the website of CureDAO.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Enlightenment Salon with James Strole – Pursuing Immortality – August 14, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Enlightenment Salon with James Strole – Pursuing Immortality – August 14, 2022

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James Strole
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer
Edward Hudgins, PhD
Bill Andrews, PhD

On August 14, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited James Strole, the Executive Director of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension and organizer of the RAAD Festival (RAADfest) for a conversation about how one can find the inner strength to support radical life extension and wage the war against aging and death during the challenging times in which we live. He and the panel shared what brought them to the fight, and what motivates them to continue.

James Strole is the Executive Director of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension, which is the producer of RAADfest, the largest global event of its kind. James is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of People Unlimited, an organization that supports people interested in unlimited lifespans. Co-author of the book “Just Getting Started: Fifty Years of Living Forever”, James is a visionary anti-death activist and community builder who has spoken and written on radical life extension and physical immortality for over four decades. He has dedicated his life to challenging death-oriented beliefs and practices, and has coached thousands of people in living an ageless lifestyle to achieve healthier, fuller, more vibrant lives. He has appeared on numerous TV shows both domestically and abroad, and has spoken to audiences on four continents.

RAADfest 2022 was held in San Diego, California, on October 6-9, 2022. Visit the RAADfest 2022 website.

As in every year since the inception of RAADfest in 2016, the U.S. Transhumanist Party was again represented there. View the announcement of this from the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

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

“Break the Rules” / U.S. Transhumanist Party Discussion on Artificial Intelligence & Transhumanism – July 1, 2022

“Break the Rules” / U.S. Transhumanist Party Discussion on Artificial Intelligence & Transhumanism – July 1, 2022

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Lev Polyakov
Chris Bartlett
Paul Town
Gennady Stolyarov II
Zach Richardson

This special joint stream on artificial intelligence and transhumanism originally aired on July 1, 2022, as part of an episode on the “Break the Rules” (BTR) show, and featured U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II, USTP Director of Publication Zach Richardson, entrepreneur and game developer Chris Bartlett, and writer Paul Town, and was hosted by Lev Polyakov of BTR. Topics addressed included recent advances in AI – such as image generation using programs such as DALL·E 2 – the future implications of AI for human creativity, transhumanism and the prospects for future merger of AI and human capabilities, a debate on life extension and the desirability thereof, the continuity of the self and the concept of I-ness, and the role of emotions and sensations as signaling mechanisms about the state of one’s life.

Join the Transhuman Club.

Find Chris Bartlett on Twitter.

Find Zach Richardson on Facebook.

Watch Break the Rules on YouTube.

Support Break the Rules on Patreon.

Join the Break the Rules Discord.

Lev Polyakov was a guest at the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon of July 5, 2021.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II was the first person to be interviewed by Lev Polyakov and Jules Hamilton on Break the Rules in October 2018.

How Can I Live Forever?: What Does and Does Not Preserve the Self – Essay by Gennady Stolyarov II (2010)

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U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Jules Hamilton – August 28, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Jules Hamilton – August 28, 2022

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Jules Hamilton
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg

On August 28, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Jules Hamilton to discuss his thoughts on life-extension advocacy, liberty, culture, current events, and the “Break the Rules” show that Jules co-founded with Lev Polyakov. His insights stimulated an interesting discussion with the panel and audience.

Jules Hamilton is a freelance consultant, filmmaker, and model at large, as well as a licensed real-estate agent. He has been a life-extension advocate for many years and has worked as an ambassador for Lifespan.io. You can find his website at https://www.julesphamilton.com/.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II was the first person to be interviewed by Jules Hamilton and Lev Polyakov on Break the Rules in October 2018.

Watch Break the Rules on YouTube.

Support Break the Rules on Patreon.

Join the Break the Rules Discord.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Mati Roy – September 4, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Mati Roy – September 4, 2022

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Mati Roy
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
David Shumaker
Jose Cordeiro

On Sunday, September 4, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Mati Roy to discuss his thoughts on the future of cryonics and cultivating a long-termist mindset with regard to the approaches for extending one’s life. The conversation included discussions of Mati Roy’s writings from his website LessDead.com – and what it means to be “less dead”.

Worthy moments to catch include Mati explaining people’s resistance to radical life extension (RLE) (~23:00), and Mati justifying the pursuit of RLE (~1:37:00).

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

The Fourth and Fifth Transhumanist Party Enlightenment Salons – Highlights

The Fourth and Fifth Transhumanist Party Enlightenment Salons – Highlights

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Gennady Stolyarov II
Bill Andrews
James Kohagen
Bobby Ridge
John Murrieta

Step back in time to the early Enlightenment Salons of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, originally hosted in person by Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II. This stream combines the majority of the Fourth and Fifth Enlightenment Salons from 2018, discussing subjects such as how to advance transhumanism, technologies to aid the disabled, long-lived organisms, scientific insights on longevity and health, artificial intelligence in politics, and privacy.

Fourth Enlightenment Salon – July 8, 2018

During his Fourth Enlightenment Salon, Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, invited John Murrieta, Bobby Ridge, and Dr. Bill Andrews for an extensive discussion about transhumanist advocacy, science, health, politics, and related subjects.

They addressed how today’s technologies to assist the disabled are already transhumanist in their effects, and how technologies already in development can liberate humans from disability altogether. John Murrieta’s story is one of transhumanism literally saving a life – and one of the most inspiring examples of how transhumanism translates into human well-being now and in the future.

Other subjects addressed included:

– Why genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are mostly good for you, and most negative perceptions of GMOs should really just be directed at the corporate practices of one company but not genetic modification as a whole.

– What technologies are already aiding the disabled and dramatically extending their capabilities in daily life.

– The role of genetics in longevity and the future of somatic genome editing.

– What the scientific evidence suggests regarding the impact of caloric restriction in humans and other primates.

– CBD and cannabinoids: separating the evidence from the marketing.

– Sierra Sciences’ history of testing over a million compounds for effects on telomerase induction.

– Why artificial sweeteners also should not be maligned, and there is no scientific evidence of their harms.

– What is the desired role of artificial intelligence in politics?

– Are democracy and transhumanism compatible?

– What are the ways in which voting and political decision-making can be improved relative to today’s disastrous two-party system?

– What are the policy implications of the development of artificial intelligence and its impact on the economy?

– What are the areas of life that need to be separated and protected from politics altogether?

***

Fifth Enlightenment Salon – October 13, 2018

In the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment and its furtherance today, Gennady Stolyarov II, Bill Andrews, James Kohagen, Bobby Ridge, and John Murrieta met for the fifth interdisciplinary discussion – hosted by Mr. Stolyarov – on science, culture, education, advocacy, and policy. Subjects discussed included the following:

– Advances in epidural stimulation for treating and overcoming spinal-cord injuries

– Long-lived organisms and their similarities and dissimilarities to humans

– How animal experiments can become more humane

– How contemporary science still has far to go to accumulate even fairly basic information about certain organisms

– How the study of lifespans can be included in educational curricula starting at early childhood

– Whether privacy will remain in a more technologically interconnected future

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Report from Longevity Summit Dublin – Day 1 – September 18, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Report from Longevity Summit Dublin – Day 1 – September 18, 2022

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Martin O’Dea
Aubrey de Grey
Didier Coeurnelle
Brenda Ramokopelwa
Bradley – Hex Community
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg
David Wood

On Sunday, September 18, 2022, U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II reported from Day 1 of Longevity Summit Dublin, an event co-hosted by Dr. Aubrey de Grey and Martin O’Dea and one of the most momentous events of 2022 for longevity science. Chairman Stolyarov updated the USTP Officers and viewers on events up to that time and got some special guests to engage with the virtual audience. Guests who appeared from Dublin included Martin O’Dea, Aubrey de Grey, David Wood, Didier Coeurnelle, Brenda Ramokopelwa, and Bradley from the Hex community.

Visit the website of Longevity Summit Dublin.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Daniel Twedt – September 25, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Daniel Twedt – September 25, 2022

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Daniel Twedt
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg
David Shumaker

On Sunday, September 25, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Daniel Twedt – a long-time, dedicated member — to discuss his current campaign for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California. Mr. Twedt 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.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Sophie Jones – October 2, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Sophie Jones – October 2, 2022

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Sophie Jones
Gennady Stolyarov II

On October 2, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party streamed this conversation between Sophie Jones, MBA, and USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II, in which they discussed everyday creative technological applications of transhumanist ideas (including some of Sophie’s own innovations – such as a new, more convenient approach to embedding microchips that one could use to unlock phones and open doors with one’s hands), the essential elements of innovation and entrepreneurship, how to spread transhumanism to the broader population, what investors and venture capitalists look for when they consider supporting an entrepreneur, as well as impressions regarding the Longevity Summit Dublin (where this conversation was recorded on September 20, 2022) and the prospects for the longevity field going forward. Other subjects discussed included the prospects for the future of artificial intelligence, how transhumanism will shape human societies, the importance of humor (as was demonstrated), and whether human behaviors will ultimately tend toward cooperation.

Sophie Jones has an MBA degree in innovation and entrepreneurship, and currently works as a director for a FTSE 100 company in the United Kingdom.

Watch Sophie Jones’s YouTube videos on her channel, ITSophy.

Watch Sophie Jones’s speech, “Is the Next Step of Human Evolution Transhumanism?”

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Simon Waslander – October 9, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Simon Waslander – October 9, 2022

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Simon Waslander
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
David Shumaker
Jason Geringer
Daniel Twedt

Watch the U.S. Transhumanist Party conversation with Simon Waslander, who provided a presentation on Next-Generation Social Welfare approaches utilizing emerging technologies such as 3D printing, wearable healthcare devices that improve patient outcomes, agricultural innovations such as vertical farming and in-vitro meat, solar and battery technology, carbon capture, autonomous electric vehicles, and decentralized, free, open-source education. Unlike the 20th-century welfare paradigm, the Next-Generation Social Welfare approaches outlined by Simon Waslander do not require increased taxation or compulsory redistribution of wealth but rather can be achieved entirely through positive-sum technological progress that benefits everyone.

Simon Waslander, MSc, is the Chief Marketing Officer of AGI Laboratory Inc. He previously delivered a TEDx Talk entitled Cocoa: Food of the Gods in 2015 and was a guest at the previous U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salons of April 17, May 8 (the Death of Death Panel), and May 22, 2022.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Jason Mallory – October 16, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Jason Mallory – October 16, 2022

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Jason Mallory
Gennady Stolyarov II
Jason Geringer
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.

On Sunday, October 16, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited futurist Jason Mallory to discuss his thoughts on future innovations in healthcare, automation, and political reforms. He spoke about his 2012 book Proxy – When Robots Work Better and his concept for a medical startup, On Call Labs. He also discussed the state of freedom in America and how it might be influenced by independent political campaigns that offer innovative ideas for reform.

Proxy – When Robots Work Better by Jason Mallory can be purchased on Amazon.

Jason Mallory ran in 2020 in the primary as an independent Congressional candidate for California’s 19th Congressional District.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Eric Hennigan – October 23, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Eric Hennigan – October 23, 2022

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Eric Hennigan
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
David Shumaker
Ben Ballweg
Jason Geringer
Allen Crowley
Kent Kemmish

On Sunday, October 23, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Eric Hennigan to present on historical anti-aging approaches that ultimately did not reach their intended goal. What can we learn from these failed attempts to solve the most significant problem facing us all? How can we be more successful using the improved knowledge, technology, and rational frameworks available in our era?

Eric Hennigan is a Senior Software Engineer at Google and a Volunteer Genomics Data Scientist at the University of Southern California. He holds Bachelor of Sciences degrees in Applied Mathematics and Physics from University of California Los Angeles, and a PhD in Computer Science from University of California Irvine. He enjoys communicating what he’s learned to others and even acted as Instructor of Record for UCI and Cal State Fullerton while still a graduate student. Despite his formal education he recommends self-study as a path to skills improvement.

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

Johnny Boston Interviews Gennady Stolyarov II on Growing a Mainstream Transhumanist Movement – October 30, 2022

Johnny Boston Interviews Gennady Stolyarov II on Growing a Mainstream Transhumanist Movement – October 30, 2022

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Gennady Stolyarov II
Johnny Boston

Watch the stream of filmmaker Johnny Boston’s interview with U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II. This interview was originally recorded on September 21, 2020, to accompany 2030: The Film (directed by Johnny Boston) and provide additional insight on transhumanism as a philosophy and a movement and its prospects for effectively and beneficially shaping the future of humanity. We streamed it again on October 30, 2022, on Gennady Stolyarov II’s YouTube channel, to raise awareness of the subjects discussed in the interview.

This stream was accompanied by a live chat and followed by a brief Musical Q&A session (featuring Chairman Stolyarov’s compositions Somber Variations, Op. 93, and Noble Aspirations, Op. 42 – the latter of which USTP Legislative Director Jason Geringer rearranged in 2022 in a recording that audiences heard for the first time).

Find out about 2030: The Film.

Watch 2030: The Film on Amazon.

About 2030: The Film: Johnny Boston was 10 years old when he first met FM-2030, a futurist who intended to live forever. But in 2000, after his body ceased to function, FM was cryonically preserved. An unexpected call 16 years later places FM’s future in Johnny’s hands.

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Dudley Lamming and Adam Konopka – November 6, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Dudley Lamming and Adam Konopka – November 6, 2022

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Dudley Lamming, PhD
Adam Konopka, PhD
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg
Bill Andrews, PhD

On Sunday, November 6, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Dudley Lamming, PhD, and Adam Konopka, PhD, MS, to discuss their research into aging and its amelioration, and the impact of their work on the promotion of human longevity, health, and fitness, and the prevention of diseases such as diabetes and osteoarthritis.

Dr. Dudley Lamming is a faculty member of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism within the University of Wisconsin Department of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American Aging Association and the Gerontological Society of America; a recipient of the Gerontological Society of America Nathan Shock New Investigator Award and the American Physiological Society (Endocrinology and Metabolism Section) New Investigator Award; and an editorial board member of several peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Dr. Lamming’s research focuses on understanding how nutrient-responsive signaling pathways can be harnessed to promote health and longevity. One major focus of his research is the regulation of metabolic health and aging by diet. His laboratory discovered that low-protein diets promote metabolic health—improving blood-sugar control and reducing adiposity—in humans and mice, and has identified dietary branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) as key regulators of these effects. His team currently studies the mechanisms that mediate these beneficial effects in mice and humans, with the goal of identifying interventions to treat and prevent diabetes and obesity. A second major focus of his laboratory is studying how reducing consumption of BCAAs may promote longevity and fitness, with an emphasis on understanding the role of the mechanistic Target of Rapamycin (mTOR), an amino acid- and insulin-responsive protein kinase, in this response. A third focus of the laboratory is understanding the biology of mTOR Complex 2 (mTORC2), which is a key effector of PI3K/insulin signaling. Finally, the laboratory is studying the ability of geroprotective interventions to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s disease using mouse models.

Find out more about Dudley Lamming.

Dr. Adam Konopka is a faculty member in the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology within the University of Wisconsin Department of Medicine. He is an editorial board member for the Journal of Applied Physiology and a member of the Gerontological Society of America, American College of Sports Medicine and American Physiological Society. Dr. Konopka has been selected as a reviewer for several journals including Journal Gerontology: Biological Sciences, Aging Cell, GeroScience, Science Advances, Scientific Reports, and Journal of Physiology.

Dr. Konopka uses a translational research approach that identifies mechanisms regulating the biology and metabolism of musculoskeletal aging in pre-clinical models and applies these findings to test the potential healthspan-extending effects in human clinical trials. Dr. Konopka’s research has two main themes that focus on the age-related loss of skeletal muscle health and osteoarthritis. He is currently investigating how skeletal muscle mitochondrial bioenergetics and remodeling mediate aging and the healthspan-extending effects of exercise and/or metformin. He is also interested in understanding how the mTOR signaling pathway is involved in the initiation and treatment of osteoarthritis.

Find out more about Adam Konopka.

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

 

Effects of Indefinite Life Extension – Gennady Stolyarov II – Compilation Stream

Effects of Indefinite Life Extension – Gennady Stolyarov II – Compilation Stream

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Gennady Stolyarov II

In this compilation of classic transhumanist presentations from the 2010s, streamed as the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon of November 13, 2022, Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II outlines a framework for thinking about various aspects of humankind’s future as a result of the attainment of radical life extension through scientific and technological progress.

Economic Effects of Life Extension – December 11, 2011

Mr. Stolyarov discusses how indefinite human life extension will bring about numerous economic benefits to human beings and human civilization. He approaches the subject from the standpoint of the idea of time preference and the time horizons that would be greatly expanded for humans who live much longer. Furthermore, indefinite human longevity will enable humans to confront major existential threats – such as the threat of a meteor impact or a new ice age – that are beyond the timeframe of the individual lifespan today.

Life Extension, Crime, and Criminal Justice – January 1, 2012

What would be the effects of indefinite human life extension on crime and the criminal-justice system? Mr. Stolyarov offers some possibilities.

Religion and Indefinite Life Extension – January 1, 2012

Mr. Stolyarov discusses the future of religious worldviews in a society where human longevity increases indefinitely and death is no longer perceived as inevitable. Mr. Stolyarov argues that religions evolve, too, and – to survive – they will need to adapt to the reality of far longer human lifespans.

Transhumanism and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics – January 28, 2012

Mr. Stolyarov explains why, as an advocate of indefinite human life extension, he is not concerned about a posited “heat death of the universe” one googol years from now. Furthermore, he dispels a common misunderstanding about the Second Law of Thermodynamics – a misunderstanding which has led many to espouse the “heat death” hypothesis.

Impacts of Indefinite Life Extension: Answers to Common Questions – June 15, 2016

As a proponent of attaining indefinite human longevity through the progress of medical science and technology, Mr. Stolyarov is frequently asked to address key questions about the effects that indefinite life extension would have on human incentives, behaviors, and societies. Here, he offers his outlook on what some of these impacts would be.

The specific questions addressed are the following:

  1. What would be the benefits of life extension?
  2. What drawbacks would life extension pose?
  3. Would governments ban indefinite life extension if it is achieved?

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Mike Elias – November 20, 2022

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Mike Elias – November 20, 2022

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Mike Elias
Leah Elias
Gennady Stolyarov II
Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg
Daniel Twedt

On Sunday, November 20, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Mike Elias and Leah Elias to discuss decentralized approaches to validating the credibility of ideas and sources online.

Mike Elias is the founder of Ideamarket, a platform that lets you make money arguing on the internet.  Ideamarket builds credibility infrastructure without relying on legacy media or academia. Learn more about Ideamarket.

Read Mike Elias’s blog.

Join the Ideamarket Discord server.

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

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

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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

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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

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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 stude