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U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman’s Fifth Anniversary Message

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman’s Fifth Anniversary Message

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Gennady Stolyarov II

Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party

Time advances inexorably, and it has already been five years since I became Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party on November 17, 2016. While my tenure as Chairman began during a politically turbulent time in the United States, I could not have envisioned the extent of volatility, external shocks, social fractiousness, and, frankly, the steady deterioration of civilization and its displacement by sheer mass insanity – all of which have characterized 2021 even more amply than 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic, originally portrayed as a temporary disruption that could be overcome with a bit of collective precaution and shared inconvenience, has stubbornly resurged multiple times despite periodic false dawns – and despite extremely impressive and highly efficacious achievements of science and technology deployed to fight it. The lessons of 2021 are in many regards sobering – but the most significant of them is this: When the world and its major institutions and social norms are steadily disintegrating all around one, there is no choice but to rely on what one can build oneself, in collaboration with other good people who care about emerging into a brighter future.

For me, it has become clearer than ever why the U.S. Transhumanist Party exists and must continue to exist. We are the bulwark against the chaos. Our Core Ideals, our Platform, our vision for the next, greatest era of our civilization, are the inspiration, the fuel needed to propel ourselves as individuals and humankind as a species out of this pandemic and into the type of world that we can achieve and that we deserve. Leading such an organization is an ultramarathon and not a sprint – a distinction with which I am familiar quite literally. This is why my first thought on the occasion of my five-year Chairmanship anniversary, expressed to the USTP members on November 17 of this year, was that staying the course and integrity of vision are crucial!

For those who are interested in my general thoughts about how transhumanism offers a way out of the current predicament and toward a reinvigorated, widespread sense of meaning and impetus toward progress in all areas of society, I recommend watching my presentation “Regaining Civilizational Sanity Through Transhumanism” – originally delivered at the Vanguard Scientific Instruments in Management 2021 (VSIM-2021) conference on September 11, 2021.

We have put forth a valiant effort during the past year to both improve our organization and expand our reach. We now have over 3,700 members, and we continue to grow through our offering of free membership in perpetuity. Our Virtual Enlightenment Salons have been streamed every week without fail; we now have hundreds of hours of content from 82 sessions since the start of the pandemic, which have been compiled into a regularly updated YouTube playlist. The Virtual Enlightenment Salons have, indeed, been a bright light during this pandemic, bringing an interdisciplinary approach toward addressing the most pressing challenges faced by our species and arriving at advanced insights through long-form conversations in ways that would have made the 18th-century Enlightenment philosophers proud. (Of course, the 18th-century Enlightenment philosophers would have wished that they could have had our level of communication technology and means to engage in hours-long conversations with people from all over the world!)  Our most-watched conversations during this past year have been our Virtual Enlightenment Salons with Aubrey de Grey and Natasha Vita-More – both pivotal figures in our movement whose influence continues to be profound – and various sessions with other honored guests have come close in terms of viewership as well. We have used the Virtual Enlightenment Salon as a forum to test innovative formats of interaction, such as our Debate on Artificial General Intelligence and Existential Risk between Connor Leahy and David J. Kelley on February 7, 2021, and our Special Panel on FDA Reform on April 4, 2021 – both among our most-attended events. Most recently, the USTP has partnered with KGRA Radio to further improve the production quality of the Virtual Enlightenment Salons and effectively double our audience. Our conversations thus far with David Pearce, FairVote Washington, and Greg Mustreader illustrate the promise of this new format for the hopefully many sessions to come.

Setting for the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salons

Setting for the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salons – Background by Art Ramon Garcia, Jr., USTP Director of Visual Art

We have also used the Virtual Enlightenment Salon venue for internal organizational improvement, as illustrated prominently during our Reform Summit of November 28-29, 2020, during which we laid the groundwork for improvements to our Constitution which have resulted in significantly greater stability for our organization and strengthened eligibility criteria for endorsing candidates and appointing Officers, which have since been applied with the intended effects. We continue to implement the other reforms discussed at that Summit, including taking incremental steps toward accepting small donations via YouTube Super Chats and merchandise sales (here and here) to pay for website hosting and develop a small budget for future in-person events.

The new candidate vetting process has led to our most successful candidate endorsement yet, as we supported the campaign of Jennifer A. Huse for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey. (See our original candidate interview with Jennifer and our subsequent May 2 and October 17 Virtual Enlightenment Salons with her.) Jennifer ran a determined campaign, gaining inclusion on the general-election ballot through a remarkably persistent petition drive and overcoming dishonest tactics from one of her opponents who sought to have her disqualified based on false allegations. She personally reached out to hundreds of residents of Camden and engaged them directly on the issues that mattered most to them, while earning the distinction of being the first mayoral candidate in the United States to specifically focus on life-extension initiatives within her platform. Ultimately Jennifer received 104 votes in the general election of 1.61% of the total – overcoming a near-complete lack of media coverage of her campaign to nonetheless reach many voters who were dissatisfied with decades-long mismanagement of Camden by the Democratic Party. (Jennifer’s only other “independent” opponent, Theo Spencer, was in fact a Democrat who chose to run against the incumbent Democratic Mayor and temporarily became an “Independent” to do so.) Just by giving voters an alternative to the Democratic Party monopoly in Camden, Jennifer made a great breakthrough in the politics of that area, as now the Democrats know that they face the possibility of competition if they allow the situation to deteriorate any further. Moreover, Jennifer’s campaign provided key lessons in how transhumanists can run for local office and integrate the ideas of transhumanism with the local issues that matter most to their constituents, providing that crucial connection between the overarching promise of transhumanism and the practical solutions to day-to-day challenges in ways that could lead to immediate quality-of-life improvements for residents.

The USTP undertook diligent efforts at political activism earlier in 2021. We were not always successful, but we made our presence known. From protesting near the FDA headquarters in Maryland to urge prompt approval of the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines (read our Director of Scholarship Dan Elton’s letter to the FDA here), to testifying multiple times in opposition to Nevada Senate Bill 292 (which imposed an onerous “equal distribution” requirement for petition signatures of minor political parties, effectively preventing new minor parties from gaining ballot access), to writing to a Joint Special Committee of the Nevada Legislature in support of the concept of Innovation Zones, we endeavored to make a difference where we could, advocating for policy changes that would have saved lives, accelerated medical progress, prevented additional barriers to political participation, and enabled technological development to flourish. In politics one unfortunately does not get to win every battle, but even bringing a pro-technology, pro-rationality voice into political conversations, in a way that gets noticed by the key decision-makers, is itself a crucial step forward.

“Unclog the FDA” Pro-Vaccine Protests Near the FDA Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland – February 14, 2021

Just as 2021 has been highly unpredictable in its greater-than-anticipated turbulence, so does even the near-term future continue to be difficult to anticipate or plan for in any meaningful respect. However, I can identify several broad goals for the upcoming year of my Chairmanship:

1. Establish the Transhuman Club, the apolitical affiliate of the USTP, as a functioning organization.
2. Create a list of ongoing USTP projects to which members can contribute their efforts.
3. Test the approach of focused working groups for several ongoing projects.
4. Resurrect and release LEV: The Game, a computer game illustrating the concept of longevity escape velocity.
5. Hold at least one in-person event (possible provided that the pandemic subsides to a substantial extent).
6. Train the core of volunteers needed to publish content on the USTP website and spread it throughout various social media on a regular basis.
7. Create coordinated teams of USTP members and allies to monitor key online spaces for mentions of transhumanism and key figures in our movement, and to ensure that accurate information is presented and not targeted for deletion and censorship by our intolerant adversaries.
8. Reach 5,000 members. This will be an important milestone, halfway to the 10,000-member threshold which will hopefully enable the organization to become self-sustaining in perpetuity.
9. Continue the weekly Virtual Enlightenment Salons and create a large series of short video excerpts from numerous Salons so as to reach audiences who have tighter time constraints or who are seeking more concise introductions to transhumanist ideas.
10. Continue to strengthen policies and social-media tactics to protect the transhumanist community against trolls and hostile entryists with ulterior motives.

Too many individuals and organizations, when faced by challenges, come to turn inward and to doubt themselves, doubt their mission, doubt the validity of their ideas or the efficaciousness of their approach. Just because they do not get instant results (especially when the actual results may manifest over the course of years and decades), they come to question the ultimate goal – or try to make so many adjustments or “pivots” at once that they really have no objective means of testing whether the changes are genuine improvements or mere expenditures of energy borne out of frustration. Yet when the organization’s ideas and values are sound, when the culture is constructive, when the goals are worthwhile, then the main essential approach is to continue to work consistently and energetically for the fulfillment of those goals. Incremental reform is, of course, feasible and desirable, and there are always ways in which any organization, or any person, can improve. But as the 2009 version of the Transhumanist Declaration wisely points out, “Although all progress is change, not all change is progress.” Organizational reform efforts also need to be diligent about preserving and amplifying what aspects of the organization do work well; they need to be deployed surgically and mindfully to ensure that any given change does, indeed, constitute progress.

Our critics – the techno-pessimists, the partisans of the duopoly, the alt-right conspiracy theorists, the online trolls, the misguided ideologues of zero-sum new social movements – will not hesitate to use every opportunity to point out what they perceive to be our flaws. We must resist the temptation to be cowed by them or to “rebrand” ourselves in reaction to every perceived manifestation of hostility. Make no mistake about it, our movement is under attack from many corners – both from the typical detractors and from those “strategic conservatives” who wish to tone down our messaging for fear that it might rankle mainstream institutional gatekeepers – as well as from sheer unscrupulous opportunists who seek to rise by manufacturing scandal and tearing down prominent figures with long records of accomplishment. Alarmingly, the tactics of those who attack us from both without and within have become increasingly heavy-handed, indiscriminate, and outright dishonest, and certain well-known events of the past several months have illustrated this quite clearly. Yet in the words of Victor Hugo, “You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea.” Having the right enemies may, indeed, be a sign that an idea is attracting notice and gaining influence; this is the situation of transhumanism today as the world seeks answers about how we can avoid the repetition of the horrific events of 2020 and 2021 in the years and decades to come. Our most significant challenge is not to concern ourselves with what our critics think of us, but rather to reach the vast majority of people who are still unfamiliar with what transhumanism is and what it stands for, as well as the direct relevance of transhumanist ideas to their lives. Reaching people outside of our immediate circles is no easy task; it requires a significant time commitment and grass-roots, often one-on-one, persuasion and advocacy. Most importantly, this is not an effort that any of us can succeed at alone. Our community, and the USTP as an organization in particular, are absolutely crucial to facilitating an infrastructure and set of shared resources that we can use to reach broader segments of the public and motivate others to add their voices and skill sets to our outreach initiatives.

I continue to firmly believe that we, the human species in general and transhumanists in particular, can emerge from these troubled times together – but only together – only in a spirit of mutual uplifting and perseverance in the face of adversity. As Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, there is much that I am able to achieve, but I cannot achieve it alone. In the coming months, you, the members of the USTP, will receive more information about how you can assist in our mission in structured, straightforward ways. As I have urged transhumanists and the USTP to stay the course in our fidelity to our values, so I will aim to provide the means for many of you to do so effectively and contribute toward the realization of the transhumanist vision. The near-term future will continue to be ambiguous, perilous, and tragic at times – but I maintain that, slightly beyond the thick fog of the present, a luminous expanse awaits us. Through our own efforts, moving unceasingly forward, we can reach it – and soon.

On Space Exploration – Graphics by Luis Arroyo

On Space Exploration – Graphics by Luis Arroyo

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Luis Arroyo

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this set of graphics by our member Luis Arroyo to bring attention to some of the reasons to pursue space travel, a goal embraced in Section XVII of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform. Space travel is essential to turn humanity into a multi-planetary species, and, as Mr. Arroyo points out, also provides numerous benefits to human development and collaboration on Earth. Also, these graphics are effective for sharing on various social-media platforms.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, November 6, 2021

 

References

[1]  Richard Monastersky. “Shooting for the Moon”. Nature. July 15, 2009. Available at https://www.nature.com/articles/460314a.

[2] International Space Exploration Coordination Group. “Benefits Stemming from Space Exploration”. NASA. September 2013. Available at https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Benefits-Stemming-from-Space-Exploration-2013-TAGGED.pdf.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Otto Siegel – October 30, 2021

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Otto Siegel – October 30, 2021

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Otto Siegel
Gennady Stolyarov II
David Shumaker
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg
Zach Richardson

On Sunday, October 31, 2021, at 4 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Otto Siegel, M.Ed., MCC, to discuss the new field of Longevity Coaching to prepare people for an era of greatly extended lifespans. He provided an overview of Longevity Coaching, what it involves, what it can achieve, and how people can avail themselves of it. The discussion also focused on the cultivation of genius and how to discover aspects of genius in every individual. Watch the video recording of this Virtual Enlightenment Salon here.

Otto Siegel, M.Ed., MCC, shared his insights as a coach in maximizing genius and longevity with 18 years of experience. Key themes of the discussion included 1) how to stay healthy in all ways, 2) how contagious longevity can be when its adherents are having fun, 3) how play can be used to solve challenges and strengthen good habits, 4) focusing on our humanness and vulnerability to get skeptics to consider the merits of our beliefs, and 5) the importance of connecting with others in one’s longevity goals. To learn more, visit https://www.geniuscoaching.com.

Find out more about Longevity Coaching here and here.

Otto Siegel is a nationally known expert on genius and innovation and co-author, with Susanna Lange, of Yes, You Are a Genius, Whether You Know It or Not: Claiming the Extraordinary Life You Were Born to Live. After teaching Biology and Chemistry to high-school students in Munich, Germany, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, for 17 years, he discovered a deeper passion for learning and education and started his company Genius Coaching in 2002 in Scottsdale, AZ. He studied Behavioral Science with Nobel Laureate Prof. Dr. Konrad Lorenz in Munich, Germany, and holds a Master’s Degree in education and professional coaching.

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

15-Day Exposure Period on Policy Proposals on Investigations and Emergency Declarations

15-Day Exposure Period on Policy Proposals on Investigations and Emergency Declarations

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The U.S. Transhumanist Party hereby opens a 15-day public exposure period on the proposals submitted by R. Nicholas Starr and Zach Richardson concerning investigations and emergency actions. The proposals are presented below, followed by initial feedback from USTP leadership. The public exposure period is intended to last until 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on November 1, 2021.

During the exposure period, please post your comments on this thread. If you post comments intended to be considered in voting and/or amending any of these planks in any other electronic medium, please note that you thereby give your consent to have your comments reproduced with attribution or linked within this discussion thread, in order to direct members’ attention and consideration to them.

Given the nature of the proposals and depending on the input received regarding them, the U.S. Transhumanist Party reserves the right to put forward for a vote of the members either (1) the entirety of each proposal, (2) portions of each proposal, (3) some of the proposals but not others, or (4) none of the proposals. Also, the U.S. Transhumanist Party reserves the right to determine which document(s) of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, if any, would be open to amendment to include any of the contents of these proposals.

Proposals by R. Nicholas Starr

The following policy proposals seek to limit the power of USTP leadership during events of investigations and emergencies. I request these items are put to vote as soon as possible, after providing an appropriate exposure period for members to discuss, add, remove, or change things.

Proposal RNS-1. Guidelines for Investigations

As a data-driven political organization the United States Transhumanist Party (USTP), and its leadership acting on behalf of the USTP, must remain neutral in its official capacity during outside investigations into past, present, or future members until said investigations are complete and all facts are known and presented to USTP members. The USTP should also refrain from attempts to influence ongoing investigations or public perception while an investigation is taking place. Public statements of facts and acknowledgement of the situation is permissible, but statements must not stray into speculation. Once an investigation is complete the USTP can issue statements based solely on the facts and analysis thereof. This does NOT restrict an individual, regardless of their position in the USTP, from speaking out on an issue in their personal capacity, nor does it restrict a person from providing criticism of such personal statements in their own personal capacity.

The USTP can conduct its own investigations into matters affecting members on a case by case basis, as determined by a vote of the membership, and under the following limitations. Investigators must be impartial with no personal or professional connection to any of the parties involved in the investigation (accusers, the accused, or other individuals of interest sought for questioning in the investigation). Professional connections include but aren’t limited to current or former employees, advisors, board members, and interns for the person or organization under investigation as well as direct competitors of any party under investigation (you can’t investigate your competition). If an impartial investigator cannot be obtained, either from inside or outside our membership, then the investigation must be abandoned.

Internal investigations should not be intended to replace outside investigations and should be limited to how the incident under investigation impacts operation of the USTP. Consequences sought after the conclusion of the investigation shall be limited to administrative action available within the USTP. The USTP does not have the power to require action or consequences be made by outside organizations.

The purpose of the internal investigation shall be made known to the members with a summary of alleged offenses and what questions the investigation seeks to answer. This must be done in a professional manner, excluding personal opinion and potential bias.

Proposal RNS-2. Definitions and Restrictions on Emergency Actions

United States Transhumanist Party (USTP) leaders shall have the limited ability to declare, and act on, emergencies on behalf of its members. Such a declaration shall have no bearing on, or interfere with, applicable federal, state, and local laws.

When declaring an emergency the USTP leadership must publicly announce what the emergency is, why waiting to act would cause immediate increased harm, and the intended course of action sought by the USTP. This course of action must not deviate from, or spread beyond, the scope of the incident. Meaning any intended action must be clearly and directly related to the emergency.

An emergency shall be defined as an unexpected and immediate threat or active instance of the following, pending member further recommendations and approval by membership vote:

  • Threat to life or public safety (threats to life extension shall NOT be included unless the emergency threatens an individual placed in preservation prior to the emergency, such as cryogenics)
  • Natural disaster
  • Humanitarian crisis
  • Credible acts of violence
  • Direct malicious attack, physical or digital, of USTP property
  • Theft of USTP funds from an official account totaling over X% of the last known balance and more than $X. (Amounts to be decided based on current and future potential needs before vote)

It shall not include:

  • Personal scandal
  • Delays in research
  • Matters of outside businesses or organizations

An emergency can only be declared in cases where delayed action would clearly cause increased harm based on the available evidence. If the emergency action is to take longer than 14 days, then it requires further approval by a vote of the membership.

Feedback on R. Nicholas Starr’s Proposals by USTP Leadership

The USTP Leadership offers a point-by-point analysis of Mr. Starr’s proposals below.

Proposal RNS-1. “As a data-driven political organization the United States Transhumanist Party (USTP), and its leadership acting on behalf of the USTP, must remain neutral in its official capacity during outside investigations into past, present, or future members until said investigations are complete and all facts are known and presented to USTP members.”

USTP Leadership Response: This appears to provide a blanket power to any “outside investigation”, however motivated and by whomever conducted. Just because an outside investigation is being conducted does not guarantee the objective or impartial nature of the investigator, particularly if the investigator is retained by a party with a preconceived interest in the outcome of the investigation. If the USTP leadership is unable to point out instances of obvious bias when they exist, this hampers objectivity and the search for truth. Moreover, if the rest of the world is free to comment and speculate on the subject of the investigation while the USTP’s ability to respond is muzzled, the USTP would necessarily be placed at a disadvantage relative to those who have no compunctions about making unsubstantiated claims.

Proposal RNS-1. “The USTP should also refrain from attempts to influence ongoing investigations or public perception while an investigation is taking place.”

USTP Leadership Response: Public perception often can be influenced far more rapidly than an official investigation can be conducted or concluded. The unfortunate truth is, in a social-media-dominated age, the court of public opinion has the power to affect an individual’s fate without utilizing any reasonable standard of evidence or waiting for the facts to come out. Sometimes the damage to a person’s reputation from unsubstantiated allegations in the court of public opinion can be immense. Without voices of reason being ready to counter unsubstantiated, character-assassinating allegations right away, good people’s future prospects may be damaged or destroyed because unscrupulous voices are the only ones which are allowed to be heard.

Proposal RNS-1. “Public statements of facts and acknowledgement of the situation is permissible, but statements must not stray into speculation.”

USTP Leadership Response: The USTP does not favor unsubstantiated speculation, either, but must remain free to point out when others engage in such speculation and when such others accuse without evidence.

Proposal RNS-1. “Once an investigation is complete the USTP can issue statements based solely on the facts and analysis thereof. ”

USTP Leadership Response:  Again, this places too much power into the hands of an outside investigator, often appointed by entities with no affiliation or connection with the USTP, to determine what constitutes “facts and analysis” that are within the permissible realm of discussion. An outside investigator can easily present a selective, skewed, or biased portrayal, and the USTP should not relinquish its ability to inquire into and comment on facts and analytical interpretations that, for whatever reason, an outside investigator did not include in a public-facing report.

Proposal RNS-1. “ This does NOT restrict an individual, regardless of their position in the USTP, from speaking out on an issue in their personal capacity, nor does it restrict a person from providing criticism of such personal statements in their own personal capacity.”

USTP Leadership Response:  The USTP leadership agrees with the principle behind the statement above.

Proposal RNS-1. “The USTP can conduct its own investigations into matters affecting members on a case by case basis, as determined by a vote of the membership, and under the following limitations.”

USTP Leadership Response: Requiring a vote of the members before conducting an internal investigation may have several undesirable consequences. First, if there is an action whose damaging effect is swiftly forthcoming, then the procedural steps required for a vote to be conducted may well come about much later than the damage has already been done. Second, it is often possible to investigate certain matters discreetly without damage to the reputation of the person(s) being investigated. Once a pending investigation is publicly announced and put to a vote of the members, the members are placed in the position of (1) knowing that there is an alleged transgression or set of transgressions, and (2) deciding whether a given person or persons is sufficiently likely to be guilty of that alleged transgression or set of transgressions so as to be investigated. This in itself can damage the reputation of the person(s) being investigated, even if the investigation ultimately clears them of any wrongdoing. Having at least a preliminary private process of examining any actions within the USTP would be beneficial in enabling the vast majority of potential issues to be identified and resolved without such reputational damage, and any issues brought before the members would be of such an egregious nature that private means did not suffice to resolve them.

Proposal RNS-1. “Investigators must be impartial with no personal or professional connection to any of the parties involved in the investigation (accusers, the accused, or other individuals of interest sought for questioning in the investigation). Professional connections include but aren’t limited to current or former employees, advisors, board members, and interns for the person or organization under investigation as well as direct competitors of any party under investigation (you can’t investigate your competition). If an impartial investigator cannot be obtained, either from inside or outside our membership, then the investigation must be abandoned.”

USTP Leadership Response: The transhumanist community is small enough, and collaborations on projects by transhumanists are frequent enough, that it is difficult to find any person in the community who does not have a personal or professional connection of some sort with most others in the community. The proposal above also describes the possibility of an outside investigator; however, the outside investigator would likely need to be paid, and the USTP is an organization with extremely limited resources. Furthermore, the limitations above would create de facto immunity for someone who develops such extensive personal and/or professional connections that anyone who could possibly competently investigate that person would be precluded from doing so because of such connections.

Proposal RNS-1. “Internal investigations should not be intended to replace outside investigations and should be limited to how the incident under investigation impacts operation of the USTP. Consequences sought after the conclusion of the investigation shall be limited to administrative action available within the USTP.”

USTP Leadership Response: The USTP already has a process for actions to be taken in response to violations of our Guidelines for Community Conduct. That process does not require an independent investigation, which generally would be too time-consuming to address the most typical kinds of violations, which are at once blatant, public, and quick to have their effects. Thus, if the only consequences are any “administrative action available within the USTP”, then the internal investigation becomes an unnecessary instrument. 

Proposal RNS-1. “The USTP does not have the power to require action or consequences be made by outside organizations.”

USTP Leadership Response: While the USTP, as a practical matter, indeed cannot require another organization to take an action, the USTP does have the ability to express an opinion regarding the actions taken by any other organization and whether or not such actions align with the values and goals of the USTP, as well as whether or not such actions are beneficial to the transhumanist movement or are meritorious more generally. As an organization with definite views and definite outlooks on a large number of issues, projects, and people, the USTP is surely within its rights to express its points of view and, when needed, urge that certain courses of action be taken by other organizations and individuals. The USTP does not have the power to compel those courses of action, but expressing silence on matters that are likely to influence the future of the transhumanist movement is not advisable if by speaking out the USTP is able to make a difference in shaping public opinion.

Proposal RNS-1. “The purpose of the internal investigation shall be made known to the members with a summary of alleged offenses and what questions the investigation seeks to answer. This must be done in a professional manner, excluding personal opinion and potential bias.”

USTP Leadership Response:  Again, doing this may actually create unduly unfavorable impressions of the person(s) being investigated before the investigation is complete. There could be many conceivable cases in which, if an investigation is undertaken, those being investigated would actually prefer that the investigation be done privately and discreetly, at least as an initial approach.

***

Proposal RNS-2. “When declaring an emergency the USTP leadership must publicly announce what the emergency is, why waiting to act would cause immediate increased harm, and the intended course of action sought by the USTP. ”

USTP Leadership Response: The USTP leadership does not oppose the practice of making such a public announcement and will endeavor to do so in the future.

Proposal RNS-2. “This course of action must not deviate from, or spread beyond, the scope of the incident. Meaning any intended action must be clearly and directly related to the emergency.”

USTP Leadership Response: It would seem to be common sense that actions to address an emergency should be related to that emergency. However, there are circumstances where it may be a matter of interpretation whether a particular action is “clearly and directly related to the emergency” or somehow “deviates from” or “spreads beyond” it. If questioned on a particular action, the USTP leadership should be able to provide an explanation of its relationship to the emergency, and that explanation should be given deference unless it is completely nonsensical by any reasonable person’s interpretation.

Proposal RNS-2. “An emergency shall be defined as an unexpected and immediate threat or active instance of the following, pending member further recommendations and approval by membership vote […]”

USTP Leadership Response: The process of arranging a member vote is generally too logistically intense and time-consuming to be feasibly undertaken in cases of a genuine emergency, where swift action is required. It is possible to take a member poll after the fact of a particular major action, to determine whether or not the active portion of the membership agrees with the action that was taken. This was done, for instance, in response to the U.S. Transhumanist Party Statement of Support for Aubrey de Grey, where a member poll shows, as of October 16, 2021, 42 of the 58 members voting (72.4%) expressing agreement with the statement, 10 (17.2%) expressing disagreement, and 6 (10.3%) expressing no opinion or a neutral position. However, in a genuine emergency, such member polling should be done only when there is sufficient reprieve from the pressing need to respond to events that the poll could be accommodated without compromising the ability to actually address the emergency.

Proposal RNS-2. “Threat to life or public safety (threats to life extension shall NOT be included unless the emergency threatens an individual placed in preservation prior to the emergency, such as cryogenics)“.

USTP Leadership Response: Threats to the future and reputation of the life-extension movement and the prospect of attaining radical life extension within our lifetimes should indeed be considered grounds for declaring an emergency, particularly when such threats pertain to the possible derailment of the life-extension cause through hostile characterizations within the court of public opinion. The USTP leadership reminds members that the immutable Core Ideal 1 of the USTP is that “The Transhumanist Party supports significant life extension achieved through the progress of science and technology.” Any act, behavior, allegation, or decision which threatens the fulfillment of Core Ideal 1 and where the USTP has even a possibility of averting the threat through a swift and decisive response, should indeed be subject to potential treatment as an emergency.

Proposal RNS-2.

“Natural disaster
Humanitarian crisis
Credible acts of violence
Direct malicious attack, physical or digital, of USTP property”

USTP Leadership Response: The USTP leadership agrees that these would be valid reasons to declare an emergency.

Proposal RNS-2. “Theft of USTP funds from an official account totaling over X% of the last known balance and more than $X. (Amounts to be decided based on current and future potential needs before vote)”

USTP Leadership Response: The USTP does not currently hold an official account for funds, so this is not a situation that can arise at this time. However, in the future, if any theft were undertaken, this would be grounds for declaring an emergency if necessary. It is not clear why a threshold for doing so is proposed here, as any misappropriation of funds should be able to be dealt with swiftly and effectively.

Proposal RNS-2. “It shall not include:

  • Personal scandal
  • Delays in research
  • Matters of outside businesses or organizations“

USTP Leadership Response: The USTP leadership considers these exclusions to essentially negate any power to declare an emergency. Manufactured personal scandal is one of the easiest tactics to use in today’s cultural and social-media environment in order to damage a person’s career, livelihood, and reputation, without having sufficient evidence to do so within the criteria of any formal legal system. Tying the USTP leadership’s hands in such situations only lends additional power to those who would seek to deploy such a reprehensible tactic with impunity. Delays in research that affects life extension could be a matter of life or death for many transhumanists, and also contravene Core Ideal 1 of the U.S. Transhumanist Party; the USTP leadership should have the authority to endeavor to overcome such delays through all efficacious means, particularly by shaping public opinion if the roadblocks to the research’s continuation are cultural and attitudinal. Furthermore, if “outside businesses or organizations” engage in conduct that materially affects the future of the transhumanist movement, including public perception of transhumanism and life extension, then removing the ability of the USTP to comment on such conduct would simply remove the USTP from the ability to influence such public perception, leaving such influence solely to others, including those hostile to our movement. The USTP leadership does not understand why our organization should intentionally handicap itself when our movement’s detractors intend to do no such thing and have only escalated their attacks as the movement has been reaching various milestones of success.

Proposal RNS-2. “An emergency can only be declared in cases where delayed action would clearly cause increased harm based on the available evidence. If the emergency action is to take longer than 14 days, then it requires further approval by a vote of the membership.”

USTP Leadership Response: Again, criteria such as “clearly cause increased harm based on the available evidence” would be subject to interpretation, and a member who disagrees with the USTP leadership’s judgment as to what is likely to cause harm may then invoke such a clause to assert a veto power over USTP leadership’s actions. The 14-day threshold for a membership vote is unreasonably short, as most membership votes have historically taken longer than 14 days if one considers the prior exposure period alone, but the vote itself should also be open for a reasonably long amount of time to give any member who wishes to vote the opportunity to do so. If this is followed in the circumstances of an emergency, chances are that the rapid events, to which the USTP would need to respond, would have already taken their toll in the form of the undesirable consequences that may occur in the absence of USTP action.  Furthermore, the timing of the resolution of the emergency is contingent on a variety of external events and decisions over which the USTP leadership has no control; however, the USTP leadership can anticipate and has previously experienced situations where pressing situation can last far beyond 14 days, if, for instance, there is a standoff among the individuals and external organizations involved, or if the publication of information related to the matter in question is expected to be spread out over a longer time period (even as social-media commentary on the same matter and its consideration within the court of public opinion continue unabated). 

Proposal by Zach Richardson

Proposal ZR-1.

Proposal in Support of Decisive Executive Action in Times of Emergency:

When executive action is required in the face of a serious threat, the Chairman must have the authority to act decisively.

This proposal reasserts the Chairman’s authority to act decisively in defense of individuals, groups, or organizations by expressing the delegated support of the Party for the individual, group, or organization under assault.  The Chairman retains the authority to advocate for those individuals, groups, or organizations whose goals align with those of the Party. The Chairman is not required to seek the approval of a majority of the party membership to act on behalf of the party, nor does he have to provide justification for his support.

The authority of the Chairman to act on behalf of the party is not intended to supersede the authority of the Party to determine the Party’s position on a particular issue, nor is it intended to diminish the responsibility of the Party to take a position on a particular issue.

The Chairman will retain the authority to act on behalf of the Party, at his or her own discretion, to advocate on behalf of the Party and its members in the event of an emergency, defined as any event that may significantly impact the realization of the goals of the Party as outlined in the Platform.

The Party will seek to continuously empower the Chairman to act on behalf of its members by codifying his/her authority to do so in a manner that is consistent with the principles and standards of the Party, and is consistent with the existing authority of the Party to advocate on behalf of its members as a whole.

The Chairman is empowered to act as the Party’s representative, and to make statements on behalf of the Party, to the media and the public, to advocate on behalf of any individual, group or organization that supports the Party and its Platform, its members and the Party’s philosophy, goals and objectives, to promote the Party’s agenda, candidates and policies, and to respond to attacks on the Party, or on its members, allies or affiliates.

The Chairman has the ability to designate individuals and organizations as “allies” of the Party at his or her discretion, and to permit such “allies” to represent themselves to the public and the media as “allies” and “members” of the Party. Such “allies” are encouraged but not required to support the Platform.

Party members may not seek to compel the Chairman to retract any statement made on behalf of the Party or its allies, affiliates or members; nor may any Party member seek to compel the Chairman to retract any statement made on behalf of the Party or its allies, affiliates, or members by anyone who was so designated by the Chairman.

The Chairman and any of his designees shall ensure the following:

  1. The Party is adequately represented in all communications with the public and the media. In some cases, it may be appropriate to have two or more representatives from the Party speak on behalf of the Party.
  2. The Party is able to provide key information to the public and the media in a timely manner, through press releases, interviews, and particularly social media commentary.
  3. The Party is able to have a significant and positive impact on the outcome or resolution of the emergency.
  4. The Party is able to respond to attacks on the Party, or on any of its members, allies, or affiliates.

If any Party member seeks to compel the Chairman to retract any statement made on behalf of the Party, or its allies, affiliates or members, or any statement made on behalf of the Party by anyone who was designated an ally by the Chairman, the Chairman may assert that the member in question is acting in violation of the Party’s principles and its standards.

The Party pledges to empower the Chairman in a manner that is consistent with the principles and standards of the Party, and is consistent with the existing authority of the Party to advocate on behalf of its members and its Platform. The Party further pledges to make every effort to ensure that the Party, its members, and the Chairman are able to advocate for the Party and its members on a permanent and eternal basis.

It is in the interest of the Party to remain relevant, not only to the Party itself, but to the public, and it is in the spirit of that interest in which the Party empower the Chairman.

The Party therefore pledges to make a good-faith effort to ensure that the Chairman has the opportunity to respond to attacks on the Party, or on any of its members, allies, or affiliates, and finally to ensure that the Chairman is able to engage in the activities described in this proposal on a permanent and hopefully indefinite basis.

Feedback on Zach Richardson’s Proposals by USTP Leadership

The USTP leadership concurs with Proposal ZR-1 from Zach Richardson. Recent events have shown that the transhumanist movement is coming under increasing attack just as it is achieving new milestones in terms of publicity and acquisition of financial resources. We live in a make-or-break moment, not just for human civilization more generally, but for the transhumanist and life-extension movements in particular. It is essential for USTP leadership to have the authority to respond in defense of the values, people, and organizations which the USTP has always supported since its founding, even as those values, people, and organizations come under an unprecedented number of coordinated and insidious attacks. If we bind ourselves by excessive process, but our adversaries do not, then we set ourselves up to lose. If, however, we are able to act swiftly to resolve situations of emergency, this will afford more time to calmly and deliberatively approach most matters under the USTP’s purview, including the ability to organize more member votes on various matters if leadership’s attention is not continually occupied with how to address time-sensitive emergencies in the “procedurally correct” way. Our movement is under attack today, and we need to defend it today. In coming years and epochs, we will be thankful that we did.

Bengali / Bangla Translation of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Values Page – Translated by Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana

Bengali / Bangla Translation of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Values Page – Translated by Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana

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Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party is pleased to offer this translation of our Values page into Bengali, also known as Bangla, which is the sixth most spoken language in the world and the official language in Bangladesh. Our new Director of Foreign Relations and Foreign Ambassador in Malaysia, Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana, was kind enough to furnish this translation. The U.S. Transhumanist Party sees translations of our texts into other languages as crucial for spreading awareness of the ideas of transhumanism to broader audiences, particularly in the developing world, where there is considerable interest in technological progress and its immediate application to raise living standards.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party  

What We Stand For

The U.S. Transhumanist Party is focused on policy rather than politics as conventionally defined. We value initiatives and reforms that will improve the human condition for as many people as possible, with as much beneficial impact as possible – and without regard for scoring political points or defeating “the other side”. We seek to achieve the next, greatest era of our civilization, which will require constructive solutions to the problems of our current era. All of these problems can be solved if we look away from the political trench warfare of today and up toward a far brighter future.

Bengali / Bangla Translation

আমরা কি জন্য দাঁড়িয়েইউএস ট্রান্সহুমানিস্ট পার্টি প্রচলিতভাবে সংজ্ঞায়িত রাজনীতির পরিবর্তে নীতির উপর দৃষ্টি নিবদ্ধ করে। আমরা এমন উদ্যোগ এবং সংস্কারকে মূল্য দেই যা মানুষের অবস্থার উন্নতি করবে যতটা সম্ভব মানুষের উপকারের জন্য, যতটা সম্ভব উপকারী প্রভাব – এবং রাজনৈতিক পয়েন্ট স্কোর করা বা “অন্য দিক” কে পরাস্ত না করে। আমরা আমাদের সভ্যতার পরবর্তী, সর্বশ্রেষ্ঠ যুগ অর্জন করতে চাই, যার জন্য আমাদের বর্তমান যুগের সমস্যার গঠনমূলক সমাধান প্রয়োজন। এই সমস্ত সমস্যার সমাধান করা যেতে পারে যদি আমরা আজকের রাজনৈতিক পরিখা যুদ্ধ থেকে দূরে এবং আরও উজ্জ্বল ভবিষ্যতের দিকে তাকাই।

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.

Bengali / Bangla Translation

মূল আদর্শ:

আদর্শ 1.ট্রান্সহুম্যানিস্টপার্টি বিজ্ঞান ও প্রযুক্তির অগ্রগতির মাধ্যমে অর্জিত উল্লেখযোগ্য জীবন সম্প্রসারণকে সমর্থন করে।

আদর্শ ২। ট্রানশুম্যানিস্ট পার্টি যুক্তি, বিজ্ঞান এবং ধর্মনিরপেক্ষ মূল্যবোধের মাধ্যমে একটি সাংস্কৃতিক, সামাজিক এবং রাজনৈতিক পরিবেশকে অবগত এবং প্রাণবন্ত সমর্থন করে।

আদর্শ The। ট্রান্সহুম্যানিস্ট পার্টি মানব প্রজাতির বিভিন্ন অস্তিত্বের ঝুঁকি কমাতে এবং দূর করার জন্য বিজ্ঞান, প্রযুক্তি এবং যুক্তিসঙ্গত বক্তৃতা ব্যবহার করার প্রচেষ্টাকে সমর্থন করে।

Values and Goals from our Platform:

Find the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform as Article VI of our Constitution or in this standalone presentation. Below is just a selection of some of our key values and goals, as determined by votes of our members, but we have many other ideas as well, and we also frame the ideas below with a great deal of thought and detail.

  • Individual privacy and liberty over how to apply technology to one’s personal life. [Article VI, Section I]
  • Tolerance and inclusivity of all individuals of all races, genders, classes, religions, creeds, national origins, and other characteristics. [Article VI, Section II]
  • Support of most technologies but opposition to certain detrimental technologies (e.g., weapons of mass destruction, privacy-infringing technologies, engineering of new pathogens).  [Article VI, Section III]
  • Opposition to nuclear weapons, support of complete nuclear disarmament, even if unilateral. [Article VI, Section IV]
  • Support of research on eradicating disease.  [Article VI, Section V]
  • Morphological freedom.  [Article VI, Section VI]
  • Support of all values and efforts toward cultivation of science, technology, reason. [Article VI, Section VII]
  • Support of all emerging technologies that improve the human condition, including:

° Autonomous vehicles

° Electric vehicles

° Economical solar power

° Safe nuclear power

° Hydroelectricity

° Geothermal power

° Applications for the sharing of durable goods

° Artificial intelligence

° Biotechnology

° Nanotechnology

° Robotics

° Rapid transit

° 3D printing

° Vertical farming

° Electronic devices to detect and respond to trauma

° Beneficial genetic modification of plants, animals, and human beings   [Article VI, Section IX]

  • Ending the drug war. [Article VI, Section XIV]
  • Reforming the prison system to reduce the incarcerated population. [Article VI, Section XV]
  • Universal Basic Income (UBI) – not conditional on life circumstances, occupations, other income, or wealth. [Article VI, Section XVI]
  • Reasonable measures to fund space travel. [Article VI, Section XVII]
  • Using science and technology to eliminate disabilities. [Article VI, Section XVIII]
  • Ending the two-party duopoly. [Article VI, Section XIX]
  • Life extension / anti-aging. [Article VI, Sections V, VIII, IX]
  • Removal of barriers to medical research and deployment of treatments. [Article VI, Sections LXXIX, LXXX, LXXXI, LXXXII]
  • Reducing the national debt. [Article VI, Section XXXV]
  • Alternative sources of energy and their technological implementations. [Article VI, Section XXXVIII]
  • Increasing the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). [Article VI, SectionLXXVII]
  • Support for political, economic, and cultural experimentation – e.g., seasteads and micronations. [Article VI, SectionXXII]
  • Children’s rights proportional to their rational faculties. [Article VI, Sections XXIII, LXII]
  • Animal welfare (but not “animal liberation”). [Article VI, Section XXIV]
  • Opposition to intolerant, rights-violating, anti-technological, and compulsion-imposing doctrines, be they religious or secular. [Article VI, Sections XXV, XL, LXIII]

Bengali / Bangla Translation

আমাদের প্ল্যাটফর্ম থেকে মূল্য এবং লক্ষ্য:

আমাদের সংবিধানের ষষ্ঠ অনুচ্ছেদ বা এই স্বতন্ত্র উপস্থাপনায় ইউএস ট্রান্সহুমানিস্ট পার্টি প্ল্যাটফর্ম খুঁজুন। নীচে আমাদের সদস্যদের ভোটের দ্বারা নির্ধারিত আমাদের মূল মূল্যবোধ এবং লক্ষ্যগুলির মধ্যে একটি নির্বাচন করা হয়েছে, তবে আমাদের আরও অনেক ধারণা রয়েছে এবং আমরা নীচের ধারণাগুলিও প্রচুর চিন্তাভাবনা এবং বিশদভাবে তৈরি করেছি।

One ব্যক্তির ব্যক্তিগত জীবনে কীভাবে প্রযুক্তি প্রয়োগ করা যায় সে বিষয়ে ব্যক্তিগত গোপনীয়তা এবং স্বাধীনতা। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ I]

Ra সকল জাতি, লিঙ্গ, শ্রেণী, ধর্ম, গোত্র, জাতীয় উৎপত্তি এবং অন্যান্য বৈশিষ্ট্যের সকল ব্যক্তির সহনশীলতা এবং অন্তর্ভুক্তি। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ II]

Most অধিকাংশ প্রযুক্তির সমর্থন কিন্তু কিছু ক্ষতিকারক প্রযুক্তির বিরোধিতা (যেমন, ব্যাপক ধ্বংসের অস্ত্র, গোপনীয়তা-লঙ্ঘনকারী প্রযুক্তি, নতুন প্যাথোজেনের প্রকৌশল)। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ III]

Nuclear পারমাণবিক অস্ত্রের বিরোধিতা, সম্পূর্ণ পারমাণবিক নিরস্ত্রীকরণ সমর্থন, এমনকি একতরফা হলেও। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ IV]

Erad রোগ নির্মূলে গবেষণার সমর্থন। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ V]

  • রূপক স্বাধীনতা। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ VI]

Science বিজ্ঞান, প্রযুক্তি, যুক্তির চাষের প্রতি সকল মূল্যবোধ এবং প্রচেষ্টার সমর্থন। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ VII]

Emer সমস্ত উদীয়মান প্রযুক্তির সমর্থন যা মানুষের অবস্থার উন্নতি করে, যার মধ্যে রয়েছে:

° স্বায়ত্তশাসিত যানবাহন

বৈদ্যুতিক যানবাহন

° অর্থনৈতিক সৌর শক্তি

Nuclear নিরাপদ পরমাণু শক্তি

Dro জলবিদ্যুৎ

° ভূ -তাপীয় শক্তি

D টেকসই পণ্য ভাগ করার জন্য আবেদন

° কৃত্রিম বুদ্ধিমত্তা

° জৈবপ্রযুক্তি

° ন্যানো প্রযুক্তি

° রোবটিক্স

° দ্রুত পরিবহন

° 3D মুদ্রণ

Ert উল্লম্ব চাষ

° ইলেকট্রনিক ডিভাইস ট্রমা সনাক্ত এবং সাড়া

Plants উদ্ভিদ, প্রাণী এবং মানুষের উপকারী জেনেটিক পরিবর্তন [নিবন্ধ VI, বিভাগ IX]

The মাদক যুদ্ধের অবসান। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XIV]

Ar বন্দী জনসংখ্যা কমাতে জেল ব্যবস্থার সংস্কার। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XV]

  • ইউনিভার্সাল বেসিক ইনকাম (ইউবিআই) – জীবনের পরিস্থিতি, পেশা, অন্যান্য আয় বা সম্পদের উপর শর্তাধীন নয়। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XVI]

Space মহাকাশ ভ্রমণের তহবিল যুক্তিসঙ্গত ব্যবস্থা। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XVII]

Dis অক্ষমতা দূর করতে বিজ্ঞান ও প্রযুক্তি ব্যবহার করা। [আর্টিকেল VI, সেকশন XVIII]

The দুই পক্ষের দ্বৈরথের অবসান। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XIX]

  • লাইফ এক্সটেনশন / অ্যান্টি-এজিং। [আর্টিকেল VI, সেকশন V, VIII, IX]

Research চিকিৎসা গবেষণায় বাধা অপসারণ এবং চিকিত্সা মোতায়েন। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ LXXIX, LXXX, LXXXI, LXXXII]

National জাতীয় debtণ কমানো। [নিবন্ধ VI, বিভাগ XXXV]

Energy শক্তির বিকল্প উৎস এবং তাদের প্রযুক্তিগত প্রয়োগ। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XXXVIII]

Health জাতীয় স্বাস্থ্য ইনস্টিটিউট (NIH) এর বাজেট বাড়ানো। [নিবন্ধ VI, বিভাগ LXXVII]

Political রাজনৈতিক, অর্থনৈতিক এবং সাংস্কৃতিক পরীক্ষা -নিরীক্ষার জন্য সমর্থন – যেমন, সমুদ্রের তীর এবং মাইক্রোনেশন। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XXII]

  • শিশুদের অধিকার তাদের যৌক্তিক অনুষদের সমানুপাতিক। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XXIII, LXII]
  • পশু কল্যাণ (কিন্তু “পশু মুক্তি” নয়) [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XXIV]

Into অসহিষ্ণু, অধিকার-লঙ্ঘনকারী, প্রযুক্তি-বিরোধী, এবং বাধ্যতামূলক-চাপিয়ে দেওয়া মতবাদের বিরোধিতা, সে ধর্মীয় বা ধর্মনিরপেক্ষ হোক। [ধারা VI, বিভাগ XXV, XL, LXIII]

Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana is the Director of Foreign Relations and Foreign Ambassador in Malaysia for the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Find out more about him here. 

The Truly Radical Aspect of the Transhumanist Party – Article by Martin van der Kroon

The Truly Radical Aspect of the Transhumanist Party – Article by Martin van der Kroon

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Martin van der Kroon

The Transhumanist Party does not stand against other parties, but rather stands for positive change for humanity, science, healthcare, and ultimately for helping improve planet Earth and all life that inhabits it. Transhumanism often conjures up a mental picture of TV series like Altered Carbon, Black Mirror, the movies Johnny Mnemonic, Alita, and Blade Runner, or video games like Deus Ex, or Cyberpunk 2077. The Transhumanist Party is not against this, but rather for progress to improve health, and extend life through medical and scientific breakthroughs, and this could come in the form of cybernetic enhancements, but if different and equally viable and successful methods were to be discovered, we’d be equally thrilled about it.

This is a common misconception, and often an obstacle for people to support the Transhumanist Party, or even take it seriously. Despite that Transhumanism as a whole is conflated with cybernetics and robotics, those are merely possible tools to achieve the goals of extending life, but more importantly improving the lives and well-being of people. Ultimately, it would be great if people can have the option to live healthy for a much longer period, or indefinitely if they wish to, rather than being confined to a small window of time between two eternities.

Another image people might have when thinking of Transhumanism or the Transhumanist Party is that of people’s minds, brains, and memories being uploaded to ‘the cloud’. This is something a lot of Transhumanists would definitely be excited about, but let’s take a small step back. Even if you’re not excited about uploading your brain, or even those of loved ones to ‘the cloud’, there is still a lot to be excited about. When we could achieve this, that fundamentally requires us to have a much more sophisticated and complete understanding of the complexities of the brain, and with that likely also much more knowledge on how to treat various diseases and ailments that affect humans today. Another way “uploading to the cloud” could be useful is as a temporary storage during an operation, much like a heart-lung machine can already do now.

The Transhumanist Party is very different from what you are used to seeing in politics, or even in worldviews, in a sense it is radical much like the industrial revolution, the home computer, or the smartphone. The Transhumanist Party is not the solution to every problem we face as a species, but instead wants to be a constructive force to enable people to seek solutions, rather than push back against positive and transformative progress. That is the radical part about The Transhumanist Party, to enable progress through thoughtful regulation and thinking ahead and long-term, rather than stifle progress with knee jerk reactions based on short-term thinking.

Martin van der Kroon is a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and previously served as its Director of Recruitment in 2017.

Petition to President Joe Biden – Appoint Dr. Martine Rothblatt to Lead the NIH!

Petition to President Joe Biden – Appoint Dr. Martine Rothblatt to Lead the NIH!

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 Daniel C. Elton, Ph.D. and Ben Ballweg

 

Bigger. Bolder. Faster.

Innovation requires risk-taking, but the culture of medicine is overly conservative.

The NIH currently does a poor job of funding high-risk, long-term projects, focusing on conservative, incremental work instead. This is a shame because given the NIH’s unique size and structure, they are one of the few entities in the world capable of taking on ambitious projects. Under the right leadership, NIH is uniquely positioned to realize breakthroughs in 3D-printed organs, gene therapy, artificial wombs, molecular nanotechnology, and age-reversal biomedicine. To shake things up at the NIH, the reign of overly-conservative and myopic MDs as NIH directors must end.

We need a visionary to lead NIH, someone with a history of bold thinking, execution, zero-to-one innovation, and inspiring leadership. There is no better candidate to fill this need than Dr. Martine Rothblatt.

Ethics deep in her core

In her 1997 book Unzipped Genes, Rothblatt explored the legal, ethical and political issues arising from the sequencing of the human genome. She led the International Bar Association’s project to draft the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights for the UN, which was officially adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1998. In 2001, she obtained a Ph.D. in medical ethics from Queen Mary University of London. In 2004, she co-founded the Terasem Movement Foundation with her wife Bina Aspen to promote the ethical use of nanotechnology for human health.

Founder, leader, innovator

Martine grew up in a working-class suburb of San Diego and exhibited intense interest and passion for science and technology from a young age. As an undergraduate, Rothblatt became a convert to Gerard K. O’Neill’s “High Frontier” plan for space colonization and threw her energies into advancing the nascent private space industry. Rothblatt held key founding roles in several satellite communications companies before founding SiriusXM in 1990. Working on Capitol Hill, she used her acumen as a regulatory lawyer to convince FCC regulators to grant her the necessary permissions.

In 1994, motivated by her daughter’s diagnosis with pulmonary hypertension, Rothblatt decided to enter the world of life sciences. She first founded the PPH Cure Foundation and then the molecular biotech company United Therapeutics, where she has served as Chairman & CEO since its inception. As of 2021 United Therapeutics has saved the lives of countless patients through their drugs for pulmonary hypertension and neuroblastoma, and is valued at 8.7 Billion and employs close to a thousand people. United Therapeutics is now leading the world in developing 3D-printable organs to address the dire transplant shortage.

In 2013, Rothblatt was reported to be the highest-paid female CEO in America, based on the value of the stock options in her compensation package. In 2017, Forbes named her among the “100 Greatest Living Business Minds” of the past century, citing her achievements as a “perpetual reinventor, founder of Sirius and United Therapeutics, and creator of PanAmSat.”

 

Dr. Rothblatt with her wife Bina and daughter Jenesis.
Dr. Rothblatt with her wife Bina and daughter Jenesis.

Transgender trailblazer and fierce advocate

Born as Martin Rothblatt, she underwent gender-reassignment surgery in 1994 at the age of 40, and soon after changed her name to Martine. A vocal advocate for transgender dignity, she authored The Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender and From Transgender to Transhuman: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Form. She forcefully argues for the adoption of “a new sexual model that accommodates every shade of gender identity.”

In 2010, Rothblatt and Aspen received the Vicki Sexual Freedom Award from the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for sexual freedom as a fundamental human right. In 2019, Rothblatt was named one of “the 23 most powerful LGBTQ+ people in tech” by Business Insider. If appointed NIH Director, Martine would not only be the first woman to hold the post, but also one of the highest-ranking transgender persons in the federal government. By appointing Dr. Rothblatt to lead the NIH we can be confident that the goals and ideals of equity, diversity, and inclusion will flow from the top.


If you agree that Dr. Rothblatt should lead the NIH, please sign this petition:
Appoint Dr. Martine Rothblatt as Director of the NIH!

 

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

Ben Ballweg is Director of Longevity Outreach at the U.S. Transhumanist Party. 

100 Student Scholarships Now Available for RAADfest 2021 – Announcement by the Coalition for Radical Life Extension

100 Student Scholarships Now Available for RAADfest 2021 – Announcement by the Coalition for Radical Life Extension

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Coalition for Radical Life Extension

As an organization that supports the Coalition for Radical Life Extension, the U.S. Transhumanist Party provides the following announcement from the Coalition regarding RAADfest – https://www.raadfest.com/. The U.S. Transhumanist Party considers this a highly valuable opportunity for many students of limited financial means to attend RAADfest 2021 free of charge. Among the many sessions that this will enable students to watch, there will be a panel on longevity activism in which USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II will participate on October 3, 2021, at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Time.

 

100 Student Scholarships now available for RAADfest 2021
October 1 – 3 online

Attend RAADfest online, the largest super longevity event of its kinds, free of charge. Get informed about the most cutting-edge longevity research and protocols. Connect with like-minded people who are committed to radically extending life.

Who is eligible: Students with limited financial means
Requirements: Current student ID

The Coalition for Radical Life Extension, the presenter of RAADfest, is committed to promoting longevity education. That’s why we’re offering 100 scholarships to students with limited financial means to join RAADfest 2021 Online.

As students today, you may be part of the first immortal generation. Learn what you can do to help bring about radical life extension, both on a personal level and through your activism.

Hear from the top scientists, clinicians, and thought leaders in the field. From Neuroscientist Dr. Kristen Willeumier, pioneering gerontologist Dr. Bill Andrews, and futurist Dr. Natasha Vita-More to top anti-aging clinicians such as Dr. Sandra Kaufmann and Dr. Joe Cleaver, groundbreaking entrepreneurs Bill Faloon, Liz Parrish, and Dave Asprey, the lineup is loaded
with information and inspiration.

Presented by the non-profit Coalition for Radical Life Extension, RAADfest’s mission is to provide the most accurate and actionable information to support people living longer and living better. You can gain a huge head-start by living a longevity lifestyle right now. You can also help spread the word about the future of longevity.

“RAADfest is the only event of its kind that brings this depth and breadth of expertise presented for a general audience,” says James Strole, Director of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension.
“That’s why we’re growing all the time, because we impact peoples’ lives in very direct and positive ways.”

Contact us at info@rlecoalition.com.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Statement of Support for Dr. Aubrey de Grey

U.S. Transhumanist Party Statement of Support for Dr. Aubrey de Grey

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September 28, 2021 – In recent weeks the United States Transhumanist Party (USTP), many of its members, and others within the transhumanist and life-extension communities have expressed resounding support for the character, ideas, and work of biomedical gerontologist Dr. Aubrey de Grey, originator of the concept of SENS – Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence – and co-founder of both the Methuselah Foundation in 2003 and the SENS Research Foundation (SENS RF) in 2009. Many individuals who admire Dr. de Grey and his work have also shared their profound concerns at the deep injustice perpetrated by the SENS RF Board of Directors when it removed Dr. de Grey from his position as Chief Science Officer of the SENS RF on August 21, 2021, without waiting for the conclusion of the investigation into certain allegations that had been made against him. 

The USTP considers the allegations against Dr. de Grey to unjustly cast him in an unfavorable light, despite a lack of sufficient evidence behind those allegations, and despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary – evidence of Dr. de Grey’s upstanding character, integrity, and generous treatment of numerous persons with whom he has interacted. 

Many transhumanists and longevity advocates have also shared their positive experiences with Aubrey de Grey. These testimonials are attached in the Appendix of this statement.

The USTP shares the displeasure of these transhumanists and life-extension advocates at the purported “independent” Investigative Report, released on September 10, 2021, which appears to have been commissioned by the SENS RF Board of Directors to validate a preconceived course of action and without providing any benefit of due process or the presumption of innocence to Aubrey de Grey. The Board’s action was particularly ill-conceived since a second Investigative Report, which was provided to the Board on September 28, 2021, apparently failed to find any additional credible accusers or allegations, despite three months of exhaustively searching for such – hence the SENS RF Board’s decision not to disclose that report to the public, as its disclosure would clearly illustrate to everyone involved the immensely overhyped character of the entire incident and also thereby show the manifestly unjust and untenable nature of the SENS RF Board’s decision to terminate Dr. de Grey. 

The USTP views the first Investigative Report as lacking true independence, as being based on a weak “preponderance of evidence” standard, and as primarily expressing the investigator’s subjective opinions without introducing substantive new information about the allegations in question. USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II previously published a detailed analysis of the first Investigative Report and noted, “This report underscores the essentially ubiquitous fact that, in corporate America, ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune.’ There is no true possibility of a neutral, independent investigation when the investigator is financially compensated by one of the parties with a preconceived interest in the outcome. Whatever the personal ethics of the investigator, it would remain the case – and this is true for any paid professional contractor – that she would be concerned about where her future revenue stream would be coming from. Releasing a report that challenged or undermined the well-publicized intentions of (and actions already taken by) her clients – the Board of the SENS Research Foundation – would have jeopardized her future opportunities to be retained by the same clients or similar corporate boards, whose interest is not so much in the objective truth, but rather in ratifying the legitimacy of the Board’s actions after the fact and mitigating adverse publicity.”

The USTP is further troubled that a mere allegation of what amounts to no more than comments made years ago could have such a devastating impact to the life’s work and career of one of the brightest and most accomplished scientists in the rejuvenation biotechnology field. Whereas anyone accused of crimes such as murder or theft would be entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the writing of a poorly thought-out email nearly a decade ago, or the alleged making of an implausible suggestion at a dinner multiple years ago (for which there is no concrete evidence at all), seems not to merit those same protections in the minds of those wishing to act as judge, jury, and executioner in the present contrived scandal. It is clear to the USTP that these matters have only surfaced because of Dr. de Grey’s immense fundraising success in attracting an unprecedented $28 million in funding to the SENS RF as a result of the PulseChain Airdrop in July 2021. Even if the allegations made by “Complainant #1” and “Complainant #2” had been true, at worst the transgressions alleged would have amounted to unfortunate errors of judgment, for which an apology in private – not the destruction of a career and reputation – would have been the appropriate remedy. 

Indeed, the absolute disproportionality between the alleged offense and the punishment is clear indication of an ulterior motive, whereby certain interests sought the removal of Dr. de Grey irrespective of the reason, and the present allegations were merely a convenient pretext to justify such removal. It is the hope of the USTP that the nature of the ulterior motives and the persons behind them will be revealed in due time. 

In the meantime, the USTP calls for the SENS RF Board of Directors to immediately take the following actions:

1. Reinstate Dr. de Grey as Chief Science Officer;

2. Issue a complete retraction and disavowal of the irreparably flawed first “Investigative Report” of September 10, 2021;

3. Issue a public apology to Dr. de Grey for publicly tarnishing his reputation with unsubstantiated allegations and for terminating him on August 21, 2021, without due process; and

4. Effectuate the resignation of the Board member(s) who instigated the courses of action above. This does not pertain to the entire current Board of Directors, but rather to the specific member(s) who originated the plan and made the recommendation to the other Board members to terminate Dr. de Grey’s role as Chief Science Officer.

Until the aforementioned steps are taken, the USTP urges its members and other donors to discontinue all financial support from the SENS RF. The USTP considers the SENS approach to be inextricably linked with the ideas, contributions, and work of Dr. de Grey – and removing Dr. de Grey from any effort identified by the name “SENS” would leave that effort an empty shell, devoid of its essence and core organizing impetus.   

Dr. de Grey remains a trusted Advisor and ally of the USTP, and the USTP stands ready to support him and to offer our resources and online platforms to amplify his voice. As USTP Chairman Stolyarov remarked, “Dr. Aubrey de Grey’s work is literally saving lives, and the extent of his ability to continue this work going forward will affect how many lives are saved and how soon. Approximately 110,000 people die every day of causes related to biological aging. We cannot simply let these deaths transpire because of the allegations of two decade-old emails and an implausible comment. The stakes cannot be higher, and Aubrey de Grey deserves to be acknowledged as a hero for being on the front lines of the struggle for your life and mine.” 

Appendix: Testimonials in Support of Dr. Aubrey de Grey by Transhumanists and Life-Extension Advocates

Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, recalled the transformative impact that Aubrey de Grey has had on his thinking and his view of what is possible. “Since I was a young child, I was always convinced that death due to aging is the greatest tragedy and injustice, but until I learned about the SENS approach through the work of Aubrey de Grey in 2004, I did not expect that biological aging could be reversed within my lifetime. Aubrey de Grey changed that perception for me. He has spent over two decades tirelessly spreading the insights of the SENS approach, working to convince me and eventually many others – both scientists and laypersons – that longevity escape velocity may be within reach if enough people embrace and fund this goal. Recognition of the potential of this approach to overcome the greatest injustice of all was, of course, life-changing for me, and led to my involvement with the transhumanist and longevity communities over the ensuing years. During my interactions with him, I have always found Aubrey de Grey to be remarkably approachable, generous with his time, and willing to help anybody seeking to understand the SENS approach and effective ways to promote it. Most individuals of Aubrey de Grey’s level of fame and workload would not be so open – but this speaks to the kind of person Aubrey de Grey is: uncommonly transparent, straightforward, insightful, and willing to share those insights sincerely and with the best intentions. The longevity industry today would be many years further behind were it not for Aubrey de Grey’s diligent advocacy, inspiration, and creation of networks of researchers, activists, and entrepreneurs who have been able to take rejuvenation biotechnology from the idea stage and into research breakthroughs and human clinical trials.”     

Arin Vahanian, Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, recounted his interactions with Aubrey de Grey: “I first met Aubrey de Grey at RAADfest 2018 (coincidentally, that was also when I met my dear friend Gennady for the first time). Aubrey not only took time out of his schedule to chat, but he also invited me to the SENS booth. I found him to be thoughtful, humble, and kind. Earlier this year, I participated in a panel discussion with Aubrey with other officers of the Transhumanist Party, and he was not only very supportive of Transhumanism and the Transhumanist Party, but he also encouraged me to follow my goal of being involved in the biotech industry as a business executive.”

Artist and USTP Member Ekaterina Valinakova stated that she “met with Aubrey de Grey some years ago; he was pretty cool. He is a legend, and his work and contributions probably will lead to the saving of millions of lives. If Aubrey did not exist, the timeline for longevity escape velocity would probably be pushed back several years at least, perhaps as much as a decade. This translates to the difference between life and death for some of you here [reading this], and more importantly this translates to the difference between life and death for possibly hundreds of millions of people.”

Charlie Kam, the USTP Director of Marketing and previously the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s endorsed 2020 U.S. Presidential Candidate, stated, “Dr Aubrey de Grey  is by far, one of the most dedicated humanitarian visionaries of our time, focused on the most important issue of ALL time, which is that of saving lives by ending aging.  I’ve known of Aubrey and his amazing ideas long before he had even founded the SENS Foundation in 2009. I had read his writings, and met him, and listened to his presentations at several events throughout the early 2000s, and was so impressed, that by 2007, when I held the 3-day TransVision conference in Chicago, with over 30 speakers, I asked him to be one of the few star Keynote speakers, which included the likes of Ray Kurzweil and William Shatner. In all of our encounters over the years, both professionally and socially, I’ve known him to always be brilliantly engaging, humble, jovial, caring, respectful, and uncommonly generous. This last quality I mentioned, isn’t just my opinion, but was clearly and overwhelmingly proven to be factual in 2012, when he inherited $16 million, and then immediately proceeded to donate $13 million of it to the SENS Foundation. This action demonstrates not only his generosity, but also his integrity, and dedication to the cause, and success, of the SENS Research Foundation.”

“So I find it shocking, disappointing, and, frankly, rather foolish, and possibly corrupt, that the SENS RF Board would fire the very person who not only founded their foundation, but funded it in a large way.”

“I agree with the assessment presented by the USTP of the situation and the suggested remedies, which includes Aubrey’s reinstatement, a retraction of the tainted investigation, a public apology, and a ‘clean-up’ of the SENS board. And I would add one more caveat: If the SENS Research Foundation does not reinstate Aubrey because they believe he is of such immoral character, then they should not be willing to accept his ‘dirty money,’ and should return to him his $13 million donation!”

USTP Director of Publication Zach Richardson recalled, “I still remember the surge of excitement I felt reading the penultimate sentence of Chapter 4 in Ending Aging: ‘Michael Rae and I have worked hard in Part 2 to present cutting-edge science in a manner comprehensible to any educated layman who’s willing to put in the time to read it carefully.’ Educated layman, that was my preferred self-description! Aubrey laid down the law about the seven types of damage involved in aging, and I referred to the book at least once a quarter whenever I was agitating online. His idea of treating the effects of aging as an engineering problem to be solved, like replacing a broken windshield, reassured me that aging was a problem that could be beaten, and I was extremely pleased he had started the SENS RF. Aubrey has a powerful force of personality, and his dynamic and driven methodology is what is needed for anyone currently alive to have a chance at reaching Longevity Escape Velocity.”

USTP Member Rudi Hoffman explained, “Trust can be bifurcated into two components…do we trust a person’s INTENT, and do we trust their COMPETENCE?  In both of these components, Dr. de Grey scores a perfect ten with reference to his foundational and epic work on human longevity.”

“Having been with Dr. de Grey in both professional presentations as well as social situations, I can attest to the depth of his basic decency, caring, and congruence with the enlightenment values modern humans share.  In studying his book, the clarity of his thinking and the depth of his commitment is apparent.  He has been uniquely effective in changing society’s basic paradigm about aging and death, in part because of his singular personality.”

“Along with others, I am shocked and dismayed at the disproportionate response by the SENS board to allegations of harassment.  Even if true, a private apology might be warranted in response to the alleged statements, certainly not banishment from the organization Dr. de Grey has created, built, and helped fund.”

“I implore the SENS board to reconsider their actions and find a path toward cohesiveness, proportionality, and effective operations which are a direct result of one visionary human named Dr. Aubrey de Grey.  Aubrey may not be a perfect human, but I would literally trust him with my life.  It is very possible that our lives may thrive or wither based on rational minds prevailing in this matter.”

USTP Member Walter Crompton remarked, “I have spent considerable time with Aubrey, and never observed him speaking disrespectfully to, or about anyone, even though he seems comfortable speaking frankly with me.”

USTP Member Elysia Dawn commented, “Aubrey is one of the kindest and most generous people I have ever known. He only ever treated me with respect and kindness. I never saw him intentionally disrespect anyone.”

USTP Member Morris F. Johnson expressed his view that “It’s really sad [Aubrey de Grey] has to endure this. But when SENS started, he was touted as either a fool or a lunatic. He had proved to be a great global thought leader.”

Curry Taylor recounted that he “met [Aubrey de Grey] at RAADfest once; he was nothing but polite. We had a discussion about possible funding of SENS in the future. He was very optimistic about SENS’s future and also the future of aging-reversal research.”

Martin Lipovšek added, “Every time when I met Aubrey in person I saw a great human. I support defending him against accusations which work on the principle of ‘guilty until proven innocent.’”

Hugo Schmidt stated, “Aubrey’s been one of the most significant people I have ever met. He’s always been a gentleman, and a good-natured eccentric. I am convinced future generations will be thanking him. All of them.”

Report on the Development of Transhumanism in Togo – by Siba Tcha-Mouza

Report on the Development of Transhumanism in Togo – by Siba Tcha-Mouza

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Siba Tcha-Mouza

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this overview of recent transhumanist progress in Togo from our Foreign Ambassador for Togo, Siba Tcha-Mouza.  Here Mr. Tcha-Mouza focuses on the recent creation of the Lomé Data Centre and its implications for the spread of transhumanist ideas and opportunities on the African continent. 

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, September 28, 2021

The policy of the United States Transhumanist Party is based primarily on science and technology allowing the improvement of the physical, mental, and moral characteristics of the human being.  In practice, it is about the material, psychic, and social development of the human being thanks to the development of science and technology.  In this perspective, our representation in Togo would like to congratulate the efforts of the Togolese authorities for the creation of a Tier III level data center called Lomé Data Centre and inaugurated on June 4, 2021.

This project was funded by the World Bank as part of the West African Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (WARCIP) regional infrastructure development program and is part of the growth strategy supported by digital transformation.  It is an essential step forward for participation in the Fourth Technological Revolution.

The ambition to develop one of the fields of converging technologies makes it inevitable to explore all the other components of the fourth technological revolution.  Nanotechnology, biotechnology, computer science, and neuroscience necessarily intervene on top of each other to resolve technical dead ends and sometimes open the door to unheard-of possibilities.

The creation of Lomé Data Centre would undoubtedly be a first step which will necessarily require the intervention of artificial intelligence (AI) to be more optimal.  The mastery of this technological reality which is artificial intelligence (AI) will have a profound impact on almost all other fields by giving Togo a new impetus for technological development.

Our representation encourages such initiatives which are emerging more and more in Africa, and in particular in Togo, and hopes that other projects, within the framework of converging sciences and technologies, are born in order to accelerate scientific and technological research.  Thus, Togo would ensure its technological transformation and participate in the Fourth Technological Revolution.

Siba Tcha-Mouza
United States Transhumanist Party Foreign Ambassador for Togo

What is Transhumanism? – Graphics by Luis Arroyo

What is Transhumanism? – Graphics by Luis Arroyo

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Luis Arroyo

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this set of graphics by our member Luis Arroyo to bring attention to an interesting and worthwhile outlook on transhumanism. This is meant as a brief but informative overview of some transhumanist ideas as well as the diversity of thought within the transhumanist movement. Also, these graphics are effective for sharing on various social-media platforms.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, August 26, 2021

References

[1] Agence France-Presse. “Paralysed man walks using mind-controlled exoskeleton”. 4 October 2019. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/04/paralysed-man-walks-using-mind-controlled-exoskeleton

[2] Katie Tan. “Duke surgical team successfully implants new generation artificial heart in patient, first in U.S.” The Duke Chronicle. 29 July 2021. Available at https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2021/07/duke-university-hospital-health-artificial-heart-transplant-research-study-carmat

[3] Saqib Shah. “A magnetic helmet shrunk a deadly tumor in world-first test”. Engadget. 26 July 2021. Available at https://www.engadget.com/magnetic-helmet-tumor-093523598.html

[4] American Friends of Tel Aviv University. “Tel Aviv University study finds hyperbaric oxygen treatments reverse aging process”. EurekAlert! 19 November 2020. Available at https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/667837

[5] The Washington Post. “His voice silenced for years, a man can now communicate using only the electrical impulses from his brain”. 14 July 2021. Available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/paralyzed-man-can-communicate/2021/07/14/3a9ce638-e4b5-11eb-8aa5-5662858b696e_story.html

[6] Phys.org. “Scientists create embryos to save northern white rhino”. 30 July 2021. Available at https://phys.org/news/2021-07-scientists-embyros-northern-white-rhino.html

 

The Boredom Objection to Life Extension – Article by Arin Vahanian

The Boredom Objection to Life Extension – Article by Arin Vahanian

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Arin Vahanian

One of the most widely used yet most baseless objections to life extension is the idea that if people had longer lifespans, they would somehow be bored, or, that they would not be motivated, since the finite amount of time each person has is what is supposed to make them more motivated. Indeed, when this objection is uttered, images of people watching hours of television every day while drinking soda, eating junk food, and being unproductive, come to mind. However, as I will demonstrate below, boredom and motivation are not related to the length of life, but rather, are based on other factors.

The reality is that there are already plenty of people who claim to be bored, or who struggle with motivation. Therefore, shortening their lives or preventing them from living longer and healthier is not likely to make them less bored or improve their motivation. In fact, it is likely to do the opposite – to result in the person becoming demoralized, and, more than likely, very depressed, knowing that their life expectancy has been decreased, that there is no hope for rejuvenation, and that the end is closer still.

Being bored or unmotivated isn’t related to the length of one’s life; it is related to a person’s mindset, thoughts, beliefs, actions, life situation, and other factors that are not related to lifespan.

I can speak for myself and say that I would do plenty of things if I had a longer lifespan, including, but not limited to, starting new hobbies, enjoying the additional time with friends, family and loved ones, performing charity work, delivering even more value to others, and more. Wouldn’t you like to have a few extra years of a healthy life so that you could spend it with the people you love, doing things you enjoy?

Life being short isn’t a good thing, just like failure isn’t a good thing, and just like going bankrupt isn’t a good thing. The difference here, though, is that if you fail, you can probably try again, just like if your business goes under, you can probably try again at some point. In those scenarios too, one could make the argument that you might learn something from the failure or bankruptcy. However, if you die, you can’t try again, and there’s nothing to learn from it. It’s all over.

Just because some people believe that a longer lifespan would result in lethargic, lackadaisical behavior in certain people, doesn’t mean we have to damn all of humanity to a short, brutish lifespan full of disease and suffering, especially in the last few years or decades of life. Therefore, even if some people waste the time that they have, this does not mean the rest of us who do cherish the time we have should have less of it available to us.

Indeed, there are more hobbies, activities, educational tools, opportunities for personal development, and forms of entertainment available to us, than ever before. Therefore, if someone is truly bored, the boredom is more than likely not related to the length of their life, but rather, the quality of their life. It seems difficult to argue that an enthusiastic, passionate, and motivated person would all of a sudden become demotivated if they had more years of a healthy life ahead of them. On the other hand, it may very well be true that an unmotivated or depressed person would not be helped by having a longer life. However, this does not mean that the longer life is the reason for their boredom. There has been much research conducted on motivation, and the research seems to suggest that motivation is driven by intrinsic factors, such as purpose and the opportunity for self-improvement, and not necessarily by the length of life. Given these factors, it would be difficult to argue that adding a few years of healthy life would suddenly make someone demotivated.

Someone who feels bored or unmotivated with the valuable gift of life is calling out for help. We should help them come to a better understanding of what it means to be alive, what it means to be human, and, if possible, help them develop a purpose and goals in life so that they feel more motivated on a daily basis. Shortening the length of their life is unlikely to help them feel less bored, or more motivated. In my view, instead of attempting to prevent progress, opponents of life extension would be better served by spending their time helping others find meaning or purpose in life.

Furthermore, imagine not conducting valuable research into longevity just because of the objection that people would be bored with a longer life. While there is really no way to quantify just how damaging this objection could be to performing research into life extension, I imagine it has prevented some progress in treating aging-related diseases. Could you imagine the ensuing outrage if our teachers, business leaders, medical professionals, and parents came out publicly and said that we should stop treating or trying to cure illnesses? Similarly, we should be outraged by simplistic arguments against life extension, especially if they are not backed up by solid evidence. And, of course, we should certainly be glad that the men and women who have dedicated their lives to improving the human condition and curing devastating illnesses did not succumb to boredom or a lack of motivation.

Let’s be clear – death does not give life meaning any more than tearing down a house gives meaning to the house. Therefore, when we hear the objection that life extension would lead to boredom and demotivation, we should call it for what it is: an insult to the sanctity of life and something to be banished for eternity, just like the plague of aging and disease.

Arin Vahanian is the Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

 

Transhumanist Art by Luis Arroyo

Transhumanist Art by Luis Arroyo

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Luis Arroyo

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this set of three artworks by our member Luis Arroyo in order to highlight the creative variety and diversity in political views that exist among our membership base. Luis Arroyo’s work combines influences from art history, transhumanist philosophy, and political thought with an aspiration to achieve a transhuman future. 

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, July 26, 2021

Transhumanism – Digital Artwork by Luis Arroyo

Description by the Artist: “Some basic edits along with the term “transhumanism” in front of a black blocked like background; the  the sculpture of the statue is David Prime by Imagine Lion.“

 

FM-2030 – Digital Artwork by Luis Arroyo

Description by the Artist: “A photo of the Iranian-American FM-2030 as indicated by the texts with some basic edits over it. FM-2030 is most notable for his book Are You a Transhuman?“

Let’s Seize the Newest Means – Digital Artwork by Luis Arroyo

Description by the Artist:“This photo was made from a very leftist perspective hinting towards the possibilities if today’s technologies were used for the sustaining and prosperity of the human species instead of the maximization of profit, reasonably one can expect such policies that transhumanists could support to be passed given the general human notions to advance ourselves and society.“

Evolution Won’t Stop Aging Any Time Soon, but Medicine Might – Article by Sedeer el-Showk

Evolution Won’t Stop Aging Any Time Soon, but Medicine Might – Article by Sedeer el-Showk

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Sedeer el-Showk

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party publishes this article by Sedeer el-Showk, originally featured by our allies at Lifespan.io, in order to highlight the fallacious nature of many media outlets’ responses to a recent study about the “invariant rate of aging”. As Mr. el-Showk eloquently explains, this study does not refute or undermine the possibility of pursuing the reversal of biological aging, but simply suggests that this needs to be done through medical and technological means, and that without such means, overcoming the limitations of the current maximum human lifespan would not be feasible. Many of us in the longevity advocacy community have known this for a long time already, but it is important to spread accurate information to prevent an unjustified decline in public confidence in the feasibility of radical life extension.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, July 25, 2021

Aging is not unstoppable, despite misinterpretations of the new study.

A new study [1] about the ‘invariant rate of ageing’ has led to reports that aging is unstoppable and that we cannot cheat death. However, this reporting is based on a misunderstanding of what the study actually says.

The misinterpretations

The study shows that “immortality and everlasting youth are the stuff of myths,” according to The Guardian. The article goes on to say that “an unprecedented study has now confirmed that we probably cannot slow the rate at which we get older because of biological constraints.” Other outlets published similar conclusions, with Futurism saying that the study shows “an ‘invariant rate of aging’ that won’t slow down”.

These reporters seem to have gotten tripped up on the idea of an ‘invariant rate’, which has the key implication that biological constraints determine the rate of human aging. This led to the conclusion that aging is fixed, inevitable, and immutable, but that’s not at all what the study shows, as the paper itself directly says.

What the study actually says

The study aimed to investigate the ‘invariant rate of ageing’ hypothesis, which proposes that the rate of aging is fixed within a species. The idea is that aging has evolved in concert with a suite of other traits, such as birth rate and metabolic rate, and this concerted evolution has led to the rate of aging being relatively fixed within a species.

In this context, ‘fixed’ is used as the opposite of ‘plastic’. It doesn’t mean ‘set in stone’. It means there’s relatively limited variation in this trait within a species because biological factors have a stronger effect on it than environmental factors. A good example might be the number of digits on a limb – environmental factors don’t really affect it, and there’s very little (but some) variation.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers created a statistical model of the age-specific risk of death in species from seven primate genera. They used data from various studies to set the parameters of their model, which is how they tested the amount of variation.

The model included parameters for infant and juvenile mortality, age-independent mortality, and senescent mortality. Variation in the biological rate of aging would be reflected in the senescent mortality parameter, since it captures what we normally think of as ‘aging’, while the infant and juvenile morality parameter reflects the misfortune of dying young.

The study’s first finding is that most of the gain in human lifespan so far has come from reducing mortality at younger ages. There’s also variation in the infant and juvenile mortality parameter, both between societies and at different times.

This also shows up in the relationship between life expectancy and lifespan equality. Media reports generally got this part of the study right, and you can look at the report on SciTechDaily to get more details about these findings.

Unlike the infant and juvenile mortality parameter, the senescent mortality parameter varied very little within each species. In fact, changing this parameter in their model shifted the mortality and demographic data of one species to look like another.

Changing the other parameters led to minor shifts in age distribution, but changing senescent mortality made it look like data from a different species. What this means is that within a given species, biological factors are the ultimate determinants of longevity.

Changing the environment to reduce mortality at younger ages (as we have in most parts of the world) affects demographics, increasing life expectancy and lifespan equality. However, accomplishing more than that will require tackling the evolved biological constraints on lifespan.

This study, therefore, doesn’t show that the rate of aging cannot be changed; it shows that there’s a limit to how much change can be realized without biological interventions, which is precisely the challenge that longevity research aims to overcome.

The paper itself closes on that note, though you wouldn’t know it from the way it’s been covered: “It remains to be seen if future advances in medicine can overcome the biological constraints that we have identified here, and achieve what evolution has not.”

Abstract

Is it possible to slow the rate of ageing, or do biological constraints limit its plasticity? We test the ‘invariant rate of ageing’ hypothesis, which posits that the rate of ageing is relatively fixed within species, with a collection of 39 human and nonhuman primate datasets across seven genera. We first recapitulate, in nonhuman primates, the highly regular relationship between life expectancy and lifespan equality seen in humans. We next demonstrate that variation in the rate of ageing within genera is orders of magnitude smaller than variation in pre-adult and age-independent mortality. Finally, we demonstrate that changes in the rate of ageing, but not other mortality parameters, produce striking, species-atypical changes in mortality patterns. Our results support the invariant rate of ageing hypothesis, implying biological constraints on how much the human rate of ageing can be slowed.

Conclusion

Ultimately, this wasn’t a study about longevity or the inevitability of aging. It was research to understand what affects the rate of aging – how much it results from evolved biological processes versus the effects of the environment. That’s important science not only for longevity research but also for evolutionary biology. It’s undoubtedly valuable, but unfortunately, its message has been misconstrued.

Far from showing that aging is inevitable, this research instead demonstrates that, ultimately, we’ll run out of environmental improvements and will have to turn to biological interventions to affect aging.

Literature

[1] Colchero, F. et al. The long lives of primates and the ‘invariant rate of ageing’ hypothesis. Nature Communications (2021), doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23894-3

Sedeer el-Showk became a professional science writer after finishing a degree in biology. He also writes poetry and science fiction and fantasy, and somehow juggles an ever-growing list of hobbies from programming to knitting to gardening. Eternal curiosity and good fortune have taken him to many parts of the world, but he’s settled in Helsinki, Finland for the moment. He hopes he’ll never stop learning new things.

The Unnatural Objection to Life Extension – Article by Arin Vahanian

The Unnatural Objection to Life Extension – Article by Arin Vahanian

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Arin Vahanian

Of all the objections to life extension, perhaps the most banal one yet is the argument that it is not natural for humans to want to live longer and healthier than they currently do. Of course, not only does this actually go against human nature itself, but it is also an insult to the immense progress we have made in improving the human condition throughout the course of history. In fact, this opposition to life extension also flies in the face of the entire medical industry, which is focused on keeping people alive, and any other industry that contributes to the betterment of the human condition, of which there are many. The fact is, opposing life extension is what is unnatural, because it is a natural human desire to want to survive, and to continue living in a healthy manner.

And let me be clear – just because something is natural does not make it good. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that getting poisoned by a plant, mauled by a wild animal, drowned by a tsunami, or crushed by a landslide are scenarios that are to be avoided at all costs. That these sorts of events are now relatively rare speaks volumes about the progress we have made in battling the destructive forces of nature.

Similarly, cancer, heart attacks, and strokes are natural too, yet no one would say that these conditions are desirable or good. In fact, many billions of dollars and resources are spent on finding a cure for these diseases, and for good reason – these diseases are deadly and contribute to massive suffering and pain.

To be sure, the environment is precious and should be protected. After all, to be able to walk through a forest and appreciate the flora and fauna is refreshing. Being able to visit a beach and feel the cool ocean breeze on one’s skin on a late summer afternoon is lovely. However, we should also be very wary of romanticizing nature, mostly because nature is entirely indifferent to the human condition. Indeed, nature does not care one bit about our happiness or fulfillment. Earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis and hurricanes are part of nature, but no sane person would argue that these events are positive or that we should experience more of them.

Just because something exists in nature does not make it desirable or good. Conversely, just because something was developed outside of nature does not make it undesirable or bad. In fact, more often than not, science and technology have contributed to massively improving the quality of life for human beings. Imagine how much worse life would be without electricity, life-saving medicines, medical procedures, and computer technology.

How many people now would say that the tuberculosis vaccine, stents, or pacemakers are bad and should be abolished? Of course, all these discoveries were “unnatural,” but no sane person would wish to be inflicted with a deadly infectious disease or suffer a heart attack.

But going back to talking about the environment, climate change is a very real threat to planet Earth and humanity, and we should do all we can to protect our planet, the human race, and members of the animal kingdom. However, the solution to climate change is not going to arrive automatically as part of a natural process. Neither is the answer to stop evolving as a species or to stop all technological innovation and progress and revert to the Dark Ages, and in turn have humanity experience economic collapse and widespread suffering. In fact, humanity’s best hope for battling climate change will likely come from science and technology.

Further, attempting to control nature is what has allowed us to come up with inventions such as indoor plumbing, safe and comfortable shelter, and weather forecasts, all of which have improved the quality of life dramatically. Suppose that we had just let nature run its course in these scenarios. I don’t think I need to spell out what would have happened to humans had we allowed that to happen.

But even after we have thoroughly debunked this ridiculous objection to life extension, critics may then move on to other objections, such as the idea that a human life is already long enough, or that we may become bored if we were to live longer, or that the Earth will become overpopulated. Fortunately, we have answers to these objections as well. And what about the argument that sickness and death are inevitable and that we should just accept things the way they are? This topic deserves its own discussion, but for the moment we can respond by saying that catching an infectious disease and dying at the age of 20 or 30 was once the way things used to be, but it is fortunately no longer the case.

The fact is that it is entirely natural for humans to want to live longer and healthier. Indeed, it is what we have been trying to do since the dawn of time. It is human nature to want to survive and thrive. For the first time in human history, we have the potential to overcome nature itself. Limiting ourselves to what is natural means we deny ourselves the opportunity to be better and to do better. Dying at 20 years of age due to cholera, measles, or malaria wasn’t our destiny as human beings, and therefore we overcame infectious illnesses and significantly increased our life expectancy. Now, we are at a crossroads where we get to decide if we wish to continue suffering for years and then dying due to aging-related illnesses such as dementia, heart disease, and cancer, or, whether we will dedicate this next stage of human development to overcoming these horrific illnesses.

Of course, even after admitting that aging-related illnesses and natural disasters are devastating and should be avoided at all costs, opponents of life extension may still argue that they are entitled to oppose life extension. Of course, they are entitled to their beliefs, no matter how faulty their reasoning and logic may be, but we supporters of life extension are also entitled to advocate for the defeat of aging-related illnesses and to improve the human condition through advancements in science and technology, even if these advancements are not part of nature.

I would urge those who oppose life extension technologies because they are unnatural to revisit their stance after burying a loved one who dies from cancer, or after witnessing a calamitous natural disaster that destroys entire towns and kills thousands of people.

If nature held all the solutions to life, then we would not need to build earthquake-resistant buildings, we would not need to develop anti-cancer drugs, and we would not need spend money, time, and resources on reducing human suffering and improving the human condition.

Nature is how we started as human beings, but nature is not where we need to end.

Arin Vahanian is Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. 

Pasteurizing the Conclusions of an Anti-Vaxxer – Article by Zach Richardson

Pasteurizing the Conclusions of an Anti-Vaxxer – Article by Zach Richardson

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Zach Richardson

I had an unfortunate encounter with a friend of a U.S. Transhumanist Party member who was conducting on his page what I call an “anti-vaxxer drive-by”: shooting out some quick chart with poorly interpreted data that seemingly supports the idea that vaccines make you sick / don’t work / are Bill Gates microchips, etc.

The graphic in question was this one:

The chart in question shows a rise in infection at equal rates from those who got both vaccines, and those who did not receive a vaccine at all. The green bar shows amount of cases where no vaccine was received, and the blue bar amount of cases who again tested positive two weeks after the vaccine. What is the implied conclusion, then? The creator of this graphic wants to convey the message: “Why even get the vaccine, if the rates of infection are just as high 20 days after getting it as they are if you don’t get one at all?”

This post is about why his conclusion is wrong, why his analysis is wrong, and why his ilk are not to be trusted.

I was very lucky to find myself with several free hours of time today, as digging into this took some time. I had to type the source link into the browser a few characters at a time, since it was from an image, and the site itself was in Hebrew. I was pleased to find though, that the site did have the data available for download in a CSV format, which is easily importable into Google Sheets.

The data showed weekly stats on 9 age groups, and how many cases there were in three time periods: one to six days from vaccination, seven to thirteen days from vaccination, thirteen to twenty days from vaccination, and cases from vaccinations more than twenty days ago. This sequence is repeated for cases after dose two of the vaccine. Here is the spreadsheet:

I’ve included the last two weeks in this screenshot, and would like to direct the reader to notice a few things that should stick out sorely after a few moments’ study.

1. For the age range 0-19, the number of youths who reported cases was forty times as high as those who did not.

– Were children perhaps just 40 times as susceptible to infection? This would have been interesting for the person looking at the chart to know.

2. The age range 0-19 actually makes up one-half of the total amount of cases reported.

– Maybe it was just that those who signed up for this study all happened to be children who needed pocket money? That can’t be right…

3. For week the week of June 27 (2021-06-27), excepting the youth group for vaccine 1, not a single case was reported during the weeks 1-20 for any group. The next week never had more than five cases for an age group.

– Ah, good news! Perhaps the vaccine was super effective, if only for 20 weeks.

4. It is not reported how many people total got the vaccine who were NOT sick after 20 days.

-Perhaps the data account for all cases, and all those in the study eventually got reinfected?

There are some big problems with this chart, and the first is that this is a HUGE instance of what we call “self-selection bias”.

Unlike lab rats who have no choice in the matter, humans get to choose whether to participate in studies or not. Adults can easily choose to not report when they are sick; people had to voluntarily “select” themselves to be included in this dataset. Children have less choice. Children are in school, and vaccine testing can be conducted just the same way standardized knowledge testing is: get all the students in the same building, line them up, assign each a number, and have every single one tested. I think this is why youth aged 0-19 outnumber those aged 20-90 combined.

Even more important than that, we do not know how many people got the vaccine who did NOT get sick vs those who did not get the vaccine and did not get sick. Assuming Israel gives out 9,000 inoculations a day, the 30-39 year olds in week 07/04 could have been 248 vaccinated people infected out of tens of thousands who received the vaccine. We don’t have a way of knowing and don’t have that data.

The real plot twist though, comes after one digs into the “README” file attached to the study data right next to the CSV file. Here is the relevant excerpt Google translated:

“vaccination_without_positive_Sum – number of verified people detected per week and age group Relevant, and who did not receive any vaccine dose. It should be noted that vaccinated who received the vaccine dose The first on the same day that a positive result was obtained are included in this column.”

What does this mean? It means that the “unvaccinated” group were those who ran to the doctor after they got sick, got the vaccine themselves, and were only THEN added into the dataset. They got the vaccine too!

The charlatan that made that chart was trying to make it seem like he was comparing data from two groups in a randomized controlled trial, and concluding that the data showed you were equally as likely to get sick when taking the vaccine as not. What the data really showed is that it is very easy to test children who are stuck doing what their teachers tell them for eight hours a day, and also that when the chips are down and the unvaccinated finally do get sick, they change their mind and run to the doctor to get the vaccine anyway.

As Director of Publication for the USTP, I would like to reaffirm the Transhumanist Party’s strongly-held pro-vaccine stance. There is far too much of this junk science flying around, and I certainly can’t spend the better part of the afternoon each day playing “debunker”, but you can be sure to expect a series of pro-vaccine material to be republished under the Infinity Banner.

Zach Richardson is Director of Publication for the U.S. Transhumanist Party. 

Jennifer A. Huse Certified as Candidate in Mayoral Election in Camden, New Jersey

Jennifer A. Huse Certified as Candidate in Mayoral Election in Camden, New Jersey

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, June 14, 2021

Contact: Jennifer A. Huse

Email : info@jahformayor.com

Phone: 856-729-0272

Website www.jahformayor.com

Jennifer A. Huse, Independent Candidate for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey, has been certified by the Office of the Camden County Clerk’s Election Division to run on the ballot in the upcoming Mayoral election on Tuesday, November 2, 2021. 

Ms. Huse and her husband have each studied social system, city, and community design for over a decade. They have been personally mentored by the world’s foremost futurists and social engineers and she is excited to apply their knowledge to governance of our city.

Ms. Huse has a background and education in Cell and Molecular Biology, Exercise Science, Social Media Management, Communications, Marketing, and Business Management. Both Ms. Huse and her husband currently work in home renovations in our city. In addition to both of their social system design studies, this diverse background gives her a unique perspective in being inclusive of all people in proposals and improvements applied to governance of our city.

Ms. Huse states, “It is an honor to place my name forward as an Independent candidate for the city of Camden mayoral seat. I look forward to productive, one-on-one conversations in the next few months with the people of Camden and am pleased to present my extensive list of proposed changes to better the lives of all who live in Camden.”

She continues, “While gathering signatures, I was so encouraged and impressed with all whom I met, both the people who live and work here, and so happy to see how many persons want real change for their city. I am pleased to be offering a new, fresh approach to the governing of Camden.”

Ms. Huse’s extensive proposal list includes but is not limited to: housing for all, new employment opportunities, food security for all, education for all, new city revenue sources, ending the war on drugs, decriminalization of sex work, participatory governance, expansion of the arts and sciences, healthy life extension initiatives for all, and a Center for Scientific Solutions to problem-solve the issues we face in our city. She is the first mayoral candidate to include life extension initiatives in her platform proposals.

Ms. Huse concludes, “All people of Camden deserve a healthy and meaningful life in our beautiful city. Our administration looks to constantly improve and bring all people in Camden to the highest quality of life possible. I ask for your vote on November 2nd for the betterment of all.”

Note from the U.S. Transhumanist Party: Jennifer A. Huse was endorsed by a vote of the U.S. Transhumanist Party members on May 2, 2021, and accordingly the U.S. Transhumanist Party supports her run for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey. On May 2, 2021, the U.S. Transhumanist Party also held a Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Jennifer Huse, where we discussed her campaign initiatives in depth for nearly four hours. 

Why Transhumanism Needs More Positive Science Fiction – Article by Rykon Volta

Why Transhumanism Needs More Positive Science Fiction – Article by Rykon Volta

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Rykon Volta

In the modern Age of Accelerating Returns, more commonly known as the Information Age, technological growth is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. Never before in the history of humanity has technological growth shown itself so clearly to the human race. As noted by famous futurist Ray Kurzweil, the trend of exponential growth in technology follows a double exponential curve.

One famous example of this exponential growth that you might be familiar with if you are into the world of tech is, of course, Moore’s Law, but in The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil demonstrates that other technological fields, including medicine, have been accelerating as well. Ray Kurzweil shows that technology has actually been accelerating since before the Stone Age, although a man in the Roman Empire would not have noticed any ramifications of progress considering that his grandchildren would not live in a very different society from the one his grandfather and he inhabited. For the first time in recorded history, we are commonly thinking about where we will be in 100 years, where we will be in 50 years, and now we are even thinking about where we will be in a decade as technology progresses into the 21st Century. If Ray Kurzweil is right, machines will have sentience, and AI, or artificial intelligence, will be greater than human intelligence, resulting in a hypothetical event known as an “intelligence explosion” or “technological singularity”. After this point, machines will be much smarter than average human beings and will be able to carry on progress much faster than we can even begin to comprehend with our natural brains.

In the wake of the recognition of these future possibilities, many science-fiction authors and script writers have created a plethora of media to warn us that AI and future genetic augmentation pose many existential threats to the human race. Examples that now dominate the mainstream media include Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix, and many more that warn us that AI might kill us all. Gattaca expresses the great fear of an unfair society of elitism in a genetically enhanced world where a man who was born naturally is unable to get his dream career because he wasn’t born with genetic modifications. In parallel, people demonize the idea of genetic modification by ruthlessly attacking GMOs and saying that they’re bad for us when GMOs have in fact solved famine in some parts of the world due to higher yields. People are always fearful of something they do not understand.

In the Golden Age of Science Fiction, a period during the mid-20th Century that saw many sci-fi works hitting the stage, spreading optimism and futurism, science fiction had a brighter outlook on the future. Isaac Asimov imagined future Spacer societies and a Galactic Empire in his Robot Series and Foundation Series. Gene Roddenberry took us on fantastic voyages across the stars in the Enterprise alongside Captain James T. Kirk and Spock. Other authors inspired visionaries to have a brighter outlook on the future as the Space Race sent the first humans to the Moon.

Today, we have, in a way, a form of cultural stagnation. While some still see the future in an optimistic light, it seems much more popular today to look at the future as a dystopia, and New Age movements all over the place actually act like demonizing technology is some kind of “morally right” position. Despite the trends of growth continuing to accelerate, mainstream culture seems to be propagating more fear of the future than hope and inspiration. Why are we doing this? While I agree that dystopian sci-fi has it’s place and that we should in very deed analyze and contemplate existential risks in our future that we might steer clear of, progress is going to happen and we are going to try everything we can to “play god”, as the enemies of transhumanism like to say transhumanists are trying to do. To them, of course, I say, “Were we not created in God’s image? Did God not give the Earth to mankind? Were we not meant to achieve our full potential, to subdue the Earth and conquer it, bending it to our will?” Indeed, this phrase in Genesis seems to be divine permission to modify our bodies and accelerate a brighter future. However, this is mainly an appeal to my fellow religious folks who may be averse to progress. We are not playing God because, quite honestly, God would not even make that possible. We are just using our God-given talents to hack our own genetic code and modify the machinery of our initial, still quite wonderful creation. To those Christians who say that we are insulting God and telling him “You didn’t make me good enough”, the beauty of mankind is that we were in fact created with the ability to modify ourselves. Don’t modify yourself with the intention of insulting your creator, but with the intention of becoming closer to your creator. Why would he give us the ability for self-modification if he didn’t intend for us to use it? It’s like saying that we shouldn’t work out because self improvement is some kind of blasphemy against God. Do you really believe God wants us to intentionally limit ourselves from our full potential?

Others may fear the coming of AI as a usurping of humanity as the apex predator upon this planet, and they may be afraid of a Skynet scenario where a rampant AI destroys us all. I argue that the solution is to merge ourselves with the machines, allowing us to cause ourselves to evolve. Ray Kurzweil and many other singularitarians would make the same argument. By evolving our own bodies and replacing our cells with nanobots whereby we can enhance our brains to the point where neural signals travel at light speed, we will be able to keep up with AI in the evolutionary arms race to come. You can choose to live in fear in the face of the Singularity that is coming, getting left behind in its wake, or you can step boldly and bravely forward into the new world that it will create, surpassing all your physical, mental, and morphological limitations and ending your mortality fully.

As I have written before, mainstream media is overwhelmingly sending out negative signals and warnings about the future, painting into the memespace, or ideaspace, of mainstream culture the notion that technology is a negative influence and that it should be contained and controlled. Society is largely crying for a return back to the caves because many people are fearful of what they don’t understand. This trend needs to cease. People need to see that the light of the future is much brighter than they think. AI is coming, and the technological Singularity is coming, and it’s going to be better than anyone can imagine. This is a call to arms; artists and sci-fi writers who see the ramifications of the future and how it can create an abundant, prosperous utopia, I urge you to write science fiction that portrays AI not in a negative, but rather in a positive manner. Show AI in a benevolent form and show how it can aid humanity in its future quest for survival. Show how it can solve global problems like hunger and global warming and cure disease. Stories that put the Neo-Luddites in their place, and show that the pseudo-religious zeal of anti-progress-minded people is ultimately a negative factor only holding us back from creating a better world in the long run. Know and understand that the content in the mainstream media has a huge effect on the minds of the people, and indeed much of culture is shaped by what is put out there and consumed by the masses. Transhumanism needs more positive science fiction to help gain support for the movement and to inspire the next generation of scientists and inventors to design the future we all desire!

Rykon Volta is the author of the novel Arondite, Book I of The Artilect Protocol Trilogy. Arondite is available on Amazon in hard-copy and Kindle formats here. Visit Rykon Volta’s website here. 

Watch the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon of  July 19, 2020, when Rykon Volta was the guest of honor and discussed science fiction, his novel Arondite, and the ideas surrounding it with the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers.

 

“The FDA Almost Killed Me” – A True Story

“The FDA Almost Killed Me” – A True Story

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Daniel C. Elton, Ph.D.

Author’s Note: This article is cross-posted from my Substack.

Preface: It’s well known that stories of people who suffer while waiting for drugs to be approved rarely get attention, while the stories of those who suffer from unexpected side effects often end up in the news and congressional hearings. There are many reasons for this. One of them is the act-omission distinction. Intuitively people tend to place much more blame on actions that result in harm rather than omissions that result in harm. Rationally though, the distinction doesn’t amount to much — a doctor that withholds a life-saving medicine, while processing knowledge that it is likely to help a patient, still commits a grave ethical injustice even if they didn’t directly cause harm. Another reason is that patients are often not aware of drugs in the pipeline that have a good chance of helping them.

It doesn’t have to be like this, though. I strongly believe those who have suffered under FDA regulatory delay should have their stories heard and appreciated. That’s why I’m so happy John Bennett attended my second #ApproveAstraZeneca #UnclogTheFDA protest outside the FDA. When I heard John’s story, I knew it deserved to be told to a wider audience. So, I had him retell the story to me so I could tell it to you here. I really appreciate John taking the time to tell me his story and proofread my writing.

 

John at a February 14th protest outside the FDA, organized in conjunction with the DC Transhumanist Party, where we protested the FDA’s failure to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine while millions of doses languished in a factory in Baltimore and thousands died daily from COVID-19.

When John was only around nine years old, he started experiencing joint pain. Initially his doctors thought he might have juvenile autoimmune arthritis. Around age ten, however, he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Later his doctor would tell him that after that initial diagnosis he estimated his life expectancy was only nine more years.

Crohn’s disease is not just “digestive problems”. The disease affected all aspects of John’s life, and he spent much of middle and high school in and out of a wheelchair. In 2001 he started receiving infusions of the monoclonal antibody Remicade every six weeks. Due to Remicade, he started to be able to walk again and was able to live a mostly normal life. That all changed suddenly and unexpectedly in 2005 when his throat closed up after his injection. Unfortunately, as happens to many long-term Remicade patients, his body had developed an immune response to the drug. In response doctors switched him to a similar monoclonal antibody drug, Humira. However by 2013 his immune system had started rejecting the Humira as well. In response his gastroenterologist tried several general immune suppressors but at this point John was running out of good options.

Fortunately there was a new drug with a lot of clinical trials data to support it, Entyvio. Unlike Remicade and Humira, which are TNF-alpha antagonists developed for rheumatoid arthritis, Entyvio was developed specifically for Crohn’s disease and a similar disease called ulcerative colitis. Entyvio was specifically studied in Crohn’s disease patients like John who either could not tolerate or did not benefit from conventional therapy and TNF-alpha antagonists. A peer-reviewed Phase II study from 2008 showed a dose-dependent beneficial effect of Entyvio. Four Phase III studies followed. By February 2013 enough studies had been completed on Entyivio that a review article in Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy concluded the drug was “an effective and well-tolerated drug that is an important advance for the treatment of Crohn’s Disease.” Takeda Pharmaceuticals filed the paperwork for approval with the European Medicines Agency on March 7th, 2013 and filed with the FDA on June 21st, 2013.

This is where the story starts to get really dark. Throughout the summer and fall of 2013, John suffered from fatigue, joint pain, and stomach pain. His symptoms came and went in unpredictable waves, so he was never sure if he would be able to attend any social events or be able to go into work. He had to start taking a lot of leave from work, some donated from co-workers, and some unpaid.  Eventually the pain got so bad he started going to a pain clinic every two weeks, which started him on Vicodin and Percocet. His intestine was so inflamed it was shot through with holes. A persistent infection developed. His neck felt like it was in a vice and was so difficult to turn he had trouble driving.

Given John’s condition, his doctor knew he was in a race against time and that he needed Entyvio as soon as possible. As a member of the FDA’s Gastrointestinal Drugs Advisory Committee, John’s doctor had an inside view on the agency and predicted he should be able to get the drug by the end of the year. Indeed, on December 9th, 2013 the Committee voted 21-0 in favor of approving the drug for Crohn’s disease. Under normal circumstances, an approval would follow shortly thereafter. Unfortunately for John (as well as many other patients), this isn’t what happened.

Even though the FDA had granted Enyvio Priority Review Status, for the next five months the FDA kept John (and undoubtedly many others) suffering as they debated the wording for the warning label. Since the approval of earlier monoclonal antibody drugs such as Remicade and Humira, scientists learned that in the long term some patients can develop allergic reactions to treatment. The FDA wanted to put a warning about the possibility of a severe allergic reaction on the label. The problem was that the drug had been designed specifically to avoid the allergic reaction rejection problems that occurred with Remicade and Humira, drugs which did not contain such a warning. A warning about allergic reactions would make Entyvio look less safe, something that the company rightly took objection to.

Another possible reason for the delay might be related to the fact that the FDA claimed that Entyvio put patients at risk for progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, (PML) an often fatal brain virus. In over a decade of trials however no patient who had taken Entyvio had ever developed PML. Still, the FDA pointed to a similar drug, Tysabri, which carries a “black box” label warning of the risk for PML. The company disputed this – pointing to established mechanistic differences in how the two drugs worked, but the FDA wasn’t convinced. In the end, the FDA decided to include a warning about PML on the label and require post-market surveillance.

By April 2014 John’s condition had gotten so bad that John’s doctor started filling out compassionate use paperwork. The FDA told him not to bother and to wait for the approval. In retrospect, he probably should have tried anyway. When the drug was finally approved on May 20th, 2014, the initial doses the drug company had made had expired. The company had to manufacture new doses, leading to a delay in commercial availability. It wasn’t until September 2014 that John got the drug. By that time John was in precarious health. Although he now had the drug in his system, it was too late to help. In January 2015 his doctor sent him to the ER where he stayed in an ICU for several days fighting an infection. John had to have two major surgeries that ultimately removed his large intestine altogether.

The story illuminates many areas for improvement in the FDA approval process. First, it took five and a half years after promising Phase II results for the drug to become available to patients. Other different regulatory approaches like Free to Choose medicine or adaptive licensing could have made Entyvio available to patients faster and at lower cost. But even if you remain convinced that pre-market Phase III trials are a necessity, there are still major areas for improvement highlighted by this case.

Ideally, after the company reached their endpoints in their Phase III trials the drug would be rapidly approved within a month or two. In reality, John suffered for well over a year waiting for Entyvio to be approved by the FDA. Even after the FDA’s board unanimously voted in favor of approval, John suffered for another five months waiting for approval (the FDA could have figured out the proper warning label much earlier, for instance in the five years during which the Phase III trial was running). Even after approval, John had to wait another four months before he finally got his first dose since the initial doses had expired.

As a result of over a year of completely unnecessary delays, John became dependent on opioids, ended up in the ICU with a major infection, and had to undergo several risky surgeries. In the end though, he was lucky to have survived the ordeal. One wonders how many patients like John there were who also suffered from the delay, and how many died as a result.

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

Nevada Senate Bill 292 and the Democratic Party’s Anti-Democratic Hypocrisy on Voter Rights – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

Nevada Senate Bill 292 and the Democratic Party’s Anti-Democratic Hypocrisy on Voter Rights – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

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Gennady Stolyarov II

While the Democratic Party often postures as championing voter rights and opposing voter suppression, it frequently engages in voter-suppression tactics of its own, particularly aimed at restricting voters’ ability to choose minor political parties on the ballot. Senate Bill 292, advanced by prominent Democratic Legislators despite overwhelming public opposition, is a case in point.

SB292 is sponsored by former Nevada Democratic Party Chair, now Senator, Roberta Lange. Many have already identified the flaws with SB292’s attempt to implement “straight-party-ticket” voting – an option that discourages thoughtful consideration of individual candidates on their merits. But the largely overlooked Section 2 of SB292 would be much more insidiously damaging in shutting minor political parties out of realistic ballot access by imposing a requirement that petition signatures gathered by minor parties seeking ballot access be “equally apportioned” among the four Congressional districts in Nevada.

The number of petition signatures required in Nevada is already immensely high; one percent of the voters for U.S. Representative at the last general election must sign a minor party’s petition for the party to qualify for ballot access. No party has been able to meet this onerous threshold since 2011. Yet, even if a party is able to surpass it through herculean efforts, the requirement of equal apportionment would mean that the Democratic Party could challenge the minor party’s petition if just one more signature comes from one district than from another. For example, even if a minor party were spectacularly successful and somehow gathered signatures from all the registered voters in Nevada’s most populous 3rd Congressional District, the Democrats could attempt to disqualify that petition on the technicality that an “equal” number of signatures from the other, less populous districts were not attained. SB292’s Section 2 would empower Democrats to thwart every minor party’s petition forever.

Because of the additional coordination required to even attempt to gather petition signatures “equally” by petition district, rather than simply trying to gather as many signatures as possible, one would expect the petitioning effort to be more time-consuming than previously. However, Section 2 of SB292 reduces the time available to a minor party, moving the compliance deadline from the third Friday in June to June 1, thereby further lowering the probability of meeting all requirements. The United States District Court for the District of Nevada in 1992 already struck down a slightly less burdensome deadline of June 10 in the case of Lenora B. Fulani et al. v. Cheryl A. Lau, Secretary of State. A June 1 deadline could be challenged on the same grounds, but the proponents of SB292 wish to impose it regardless.

In Nevada, prominent Democratic Party Legislators seem determined to limit voters’ options at the ballot box. The Green Party, whose nominee finished fourth in the past three U.S. Presidential elections, failed to qualify for ballot access in Nevada in 2012, 2016, and 2020, because of the unreasonable existing petition threshold and significant Democratic Party efforts to disqualify petition signatures in 2016. Nevada is also one of only five states that lack a write-in option, further reinforcing the imperative to relax ballot-access requirements instead of imposing additional ones. At present, minor political parties without access to vast funds, such as the all-volunteer Transhumanist Party, are shut out by intentional barriers to entry imposed at the behest of the major parties.

Do Democrats in power only wish to improve the ease of voting for Democrats, while excluding other options by establishing insurmountable barriers to ballot access? Or will enough Democrats take a stand for their stated principles, support genuine voter choice, and thwart anti-democratic legislation such as SB292?

Senate Bill 292 will be heard at 4 p.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday, May 25, 2021, at the Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections. This will be our last chance at direct input to the Legislators regarding this bill. Follow the link above and click on the button to “Participate” in order to register for call-in information. You can also e-mail your written comments to . Be civil and respectful but firm in your opposition to this attempt to severely limit voter choice!

Gennady Stolyarov II is the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party and the Chief Executive of the Nevada Transhumanist Party.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Second Letter in Opposition to Nevada Senate Bill 292 – Sent to the Senate Committee on Finance – May 4, 2021

U.S. Transhumanist Party Second Letter in Opposition to Nevada Senate Bill 292 – Sent to the Senate Committee on Finance – May 4, 2021

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Gennady Stolyarov II

Note: Senate Bill 292 (SB292), which would make it essentially impossible for minor political parties to compete at the ballot box or even attempt ballot access, continues to be rapidly advanced in Nevada. It was authored by a former Democratic Party Chair who would like to require the number of signatures to be impossibly “equally apportioned” by petitioning district, move the deadline for submitting petitions to an earlier June 1 date, and institute straight-line party-ticket voting that shuts out other options and discourages individualized decision-making.

After SB292 passed on a party-line vote (3 Democrats in favor, 2 Republicans opposed) out of the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections, I drafted a letter to the Senate Committee on Finance, where the bill is headed next, in opposition to SB292. The text of this letter appears below. 

I urge all Nevadans and Transhumanist Party members, as well as those who are sympathetic to other minor political parties, to submit their opinions in opposition to SB292 here: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/Opinions/81st2021/. Be sure to reference the amended, “April 16, 2021” version as the bill you are opposing – so as to signal that even the recently amended bill continues to pose serious problems. If you would like your comments to be published, you can also submit them via e-mail to SenFIN@sen.state.nv.us. 

The Senate Committee on Finance will meet this Wednesday, May 5, at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Time to hold a public hearing on this bill. Meeting information will be updated on this page: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/81st2021/Bill/7895/Meetings. If you can dial in during the time period for public testimony and lend your voice in opposition, that would be greatly appreciated. Focus your testimony on the adverse fiscal impacts of this bill, as that is what the Committee will be primarily considering. Please feel free to reference any of my arguments below for inspiration. Remember to be civil and respectful but firm in your opposition!

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, May 4, 2021

May 4, 2021

Re: Opposition to Amended Senate Bill 292 (First Reprint)

Dear Chairman Brooks and honorable members of the Senate Committee on Finance:

As Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party and Chief Executive of the Nevada Transhumanist Party, I strongly urge you to oppose Senate Bill 292, which would deprive all minor political parties in Nevada of the opportunity to fairly compete at the ballot box or to even viably attempt such competition.

My comments today will focus on the adverse impacts of Section 2 of the amended (First Reprint) Senate Bill 292, especially the adverse financial impacts to the State of Nevada which are germane to the purview of this Committee.

At a time of great fiscal strain to the State of Nevada, which is just beginning to recover from the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and immense economic hardship for the people of this State, it is highly imprudent to impose additional costs upon the State or any of its agencies for the doubly imprudent and entirely deleterious purpose of raising the barriers to ballot access for minor political parties.

While the amended bill no longer raises the petition-signature threshold from 1% to 2% of the Nevada voters who voted in the last election, it does still, via Section 2, Subsection 2, Paragraph (c), seek to impose an impossible “equal apportionment” requirement for the petition signatures and would also move the deadline for submitting petition signatures from the current third Friday in June to June 1.

The “equal apportionment” requirement renders it essentially impossible for a minor political party to qualify via the petition process and also unnecessarily burdens the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office.

Currently, to verify the validity of a petition signature, the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office simply needs to consider an individual petition signature and whether it belongs to a registered voter in the State of Nevada. With Section 2 of SB292, the Secretary of State’s Office would have the additional burden of verifying that the signatures are “equally apportioned” among the four petition districts in Nevada. This could lead to a significant expenditure of time and resources beyond what can be formally budgeted for – because the added workload would be sporadic, punctuated, and inherently unpredictable given the difficulty in anticipating when (i.e., during what election season) a minor party would seek to qualify for ballot access, as well as how many minor parties would seek to qualify. The potential for significant additional costs to the State of Nevada will be illustrated below via a discussion of how the bill would burden the State by encouraging a multitude of major-party challenges to any minor-party petitions that are submitted.

Nevada has four petition districts, corresponding to the U.S. Congressional Districts. The 3rd Congressional District is the most populous, with a population of 857,197 as of 2019. All three of the other Congressional Districts have populations below 800,000. Suppose that a minor political party were spectacularly successful in gathering petition signatures and managed to collect them from the entire population of registered voters in the 3rd Congressional District. (For this example, I assume that the proportion of registered voters to the general population is the same in each Congressional District.) The very fact that this minor political party could accomplish such a feat would ironically render it impossible for that party to qualify for ballot access, because the other petition districts simply do not have enough registered voters to match the number of signatures gathered from the 3rd Congressional District in that case.

Moreover, the “equal apportionment” requirement renders it almost effortless for a major party to initiate challenges to petitions submitted by minor parties, simply by counting the signatures from each district and noting any difference whatsoever in the numbers of signatures, even if the difference is literally one signature! Even if the total number of signatures is well above 1 percent of the registered voters statewide, if the number of signatures gathered in one petition district were 10,000, and the number of signatures gathered in another petition district were 10,001, that also, by itself, would be sufficient to technically fall out of compliance with the requirement of “equal apportionment”. Note that the text of the amended NRS 293.1715(2)(c) would not allow any room for deviation from a strictly “equal” apportionment. There is no mention of a possibility for the apportionment to be made “approximately equal” or “reasonably equal” or “equal within a tolerance of X%”; the text would mandate strict equality of petition signatures by district, and it appears to enable major parties to seek to disqualify any minor party’s petition on a technicality. Given that different circulators of petitions are likely to operate in different petition districts, it is virtually certain that different numbers of signatures will be gathered by each team of circulators. This is so because the precise coordination at the level that would be needed to achieve exactly equal numbers of signatures among all four districts and to stop gathering signatures in a perfectly choreographed fashion once such equal numbers were attained, would be essentially impossible to achieve.

While it would be easy for major political parties to challenge a minor party’s petition under these circumstances, the experience would be made more difficult for the Secretary of State’s Office and the judicial system of the State of Nevada, because more challenges could be expected to be initiated than otherwise. Responding to a contested matter always involves an added, indeterminate, potentially immense expenditure which, I reiterate, has no compelling public benefit behind it.

Moving the deadline for petitions to June 1 would both unduly burden minor political parties and expose the State of Nevada to additional costs from potential legal challenges.

Because of the additional coordination required to even attempt to gather petition signatures “equally” by petition district, as contrasted with simply trying to gather as many signatures as possible, one would expect that the petitioning effort would be more time-consuming than previously. However, Section 2 of SB292 reduces the available time for a minor party to comply with the added burdens, thereby further lowering the probability of successfully meeting all of the requirements. This disenfranchises the citizens of Nevada who would like to see more options at the ballot box.

Moreover, the United States District Court for the District of Nevada already struck down an even somewhat less burdensome deadline of June 10; this occurred when the Judge in the case of Lenora B. Fulani et al. v. Cheryl A. Lau, Secretary of State (“Fulani v. Lau” – Case CV-N-92-535-ECR) issued a preliminary injunction on October 1, 1992, to require the State of Nevada to include Lenora Fulani and other independent and minor-party candidates on the ballot despite those candidates not having been able to gather the required number of signatures by June 10 of that year. In issuing the preliminary injunction (which effectively decided the case, since the election took place in November of the same year), the Judge wrote “that plaintiffs have shown likely success on the merits, that the balance of hardships tips in their favor and that they will suffer irreparable injury if their names are not put on the 1992 ballot” (Fulani v. Lau, p. 14). The Judge explained that

The character and magnitude of plaintiffs[‘] injury caused by the June 10 filing deadline shows a burden on their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The deadline burdens the rights of nonmajor parties[‘] candidates by excluding late[-]forming parties and forcing candidates to circulate petitions before most of the voting population has thought about the elections. Although this date is not as early as others which have been struck down as unconstitutional, most other states require the petitions be submitted several months later. Also, no evidence suggests that candidates who lack an established national affiliation are easily able to access the ballot. (Fulani v. Lau, p. 11)

If the United States District Court found that a June 10 petition-filing deadline is burdensome to non-major parties’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, then, logically, a June 1 deadline would be even more burdensome. Such a deadline would indeed serve to thwart any but the most amply funded minor political parties, if those parties choose to begin gathering the signatures extremely early in the year, whereas new minor parties, as well as minor parties that rely largely or exclusively on volunteer efforts and grass-roots organizing, would find themselves hobbled by lack of time. SB292 is seeking to institute in Nevada law a deadline more stringent than the one which the District Court has already overturned. SB292 would also entrench the role of money in politics and cost money to the State in doing so.

If SB292 is enacted with the June 1 deadline, then any number of parties adversely affected by that deadline could file a legal challenge with Fulani v. Lau as a precedent. The State of Nevada could be exposed to the costs of a legal proceeding, along with associated attorneys’ fees. The costs of responding to such a legal challenge are again indeterminate but potentially immense. Comments submitted separately to this Committee by Mr. Richard Winger discuss situations in other States where such early petition deadlines were struck down and those States were left with the expenses of the associated proceedings. To emphasize, this is not an outcome that I would wish for the State to experience in any manner; as a citizen of this State, I, too, would be adversely affected by continued needless expenditures on legal contests at a time when the State needs to devote all available resources to the economic recovery and to the genuine well-being of its residents.  This is why I urge this Committee and the Legislature more generally to refrain from proceeding with SB292 and to avert such an outcome.

Senate Bill 292 is bad policy, counterproductive in all respects, and the fiscal burdens and risks it imposes upon the State have no offsetting benefits. Indeed, Senate Bill 292 exacerbates a highly polarized political situation to the detriment even of major-party officeholders.

Senate Bill 292 would achieve the opposite of establishing a fair, level playing field for political candidates and parties.  Unfortunately, Senate Bill 292, if enacted, will only serve to exacerbate today’s political trench warfare by solidifying the bifurcation of the contemporary American body politic into two blocs that have each become increasingly monolithic and radicalized internally, and increasingly hostile toward the other, with no room between them to pursue unconventional and innovative solutions that can bridge partisan divides. This anticipated effect of SB292 is likely not anyone’s intention; however, the two-party system in the United States has a built-in downward spiral of incivility, hostility, and division which has, over the past year, crossed the line from mere acrimony into deadly riots and insurrections from extreme exponents of both sides of the partisan gulf. Any Legislator interested in stable and sensible governance should seek to avert an intensification of this scenario, and there is a vital role for a vibrant minor-party ecosystem in helping to prevent it.

How does Senate Bill 292 exacerbate political polarization? It does so by making it effectively impossible for minor political parties to even attain ballot access – in the ways described above. This bill would make it clear to voters that minor parties are not just long-shot participants but are effectively shut out of the process altogether. Thus, many people who would have otherwise given a minor party a chance would be shunted into one of the major political parties that is barely more aligned with their views than the other major political party. This would reinforce the bifurcation of America into two distinct blocs which are engaged in an ever-intensifying struggle with one another, to the detriment of any actual progress on policy and any actual solutions to the many pressing problems (including fiscal problems) facing our State, country, and world. Bifurcation of the American body politic creates an “us-versus-them” dynamic, where anyone who is not part of one’s own bloc is automatically considered to be “the enemy” and whose ideas are automatically disregarded. The record increase in independent and nonpartisan voters already shows many Americans to be disillusioned by the toxicity and acrimony that characterize the electoral tactics of the major parties and their most vocal adherents. Without minor parties for them to seek alternatives in, these Americans will either be reluctantly dragged into the deleterious fray they have always wished to avoid, or try to refrain from political participation altogether – in which case the fray will still find them, as extremists from the major parties have increasingly been demonizing conscientiously apolitical Americans as well.

The antidote to polarization is hyper-pluralism, which is precisely what a vibrant minor-party scene would facilitate. In a hyper-pluralistic body politic, there is no clear “enemy” for any constituent, because different smaller parties will align with one another on different issues; one’s adversary on one issue could be an ally on another, and so it is worthwhile to remain on at least respectful terms with everyone. It is for this reason that parliamentary democracies, which allow for proportional representation and numerous political parties competing on each ballot, are generally far less roiled by partisan strife than America’s uniquely contentious two-party system. But Nevada does not even need to adopt a parliamentary system to achieve a similar outcome; it just needs to allow minor political parties to compete on the ballots. Note that we are not even asking for the minor parties to win (which would still be difficult enough on its own), but merely to be allowed to compete!

Allowing quick, easy ballot access for minor political parties is the low-cost ­option to the State of Nevada as well. The less time and effort need to be spent validating petition signatures or enforcing restrictions, the more savings result for the State of Nevada.

Even the possibility of competition motivates both incumbent officeholders and major-party candidates to be more responsive to the needs of their constituents. Furthermore, minor parties can be fruitful repositories of ideas for major-party politicians to draw upon; the Transhumanist Party would be delighted to have any of its platform reflected in legislation advanced by major-party lawmakers. Ideas from minor parties tend to sufficiently depart from the prevailing major-party packages that they avoid triggering contentious and mutually intransigent debates about “wedge” issues and so may actually lead to solutions that most major-party policymakers are willing to entertain. Incumbents and major-party candidates can even derive much valuable campaign intelligence from election results involving minor political parties. A strong showing for a minor party indicates a set of issues that voters are interested in and that the incumbent or major-party candidate would do well to address while in office or on the campaign trail. Having a wealth of ideas from minor parties to draw upon will also improve the State of Nevada’s fiscal situation, since minor parties – which, out of necessity, have significant experience running low-budget or no-budget operations – will often develop creative ways to reduce expenditures without compromising the quality of service and benefits that the State provides to its residents.

By shutting minor parties out of viable political participation, Senate Bill 292 would only accomplish the illusion of stability for leading figures of a major political party. In reality, one cannot have a stable or tranquil political experience in a general environment marred by ideological polarization and all of its attendant ills. Depriving people of legitimate alternatives will only alienate them further and feed into the undercurrents of frustration and perceived disenfranchisement that permeate American politics today. Minor political parties are a major safety valve of American politics and can act to effectively channel dissent and discontentment into constructive avenues of mutual improvement and enhanced justice.  In the Federalist No. 10, James Madison, at the onset of the American Republic, noted that the advantage of a large representative republic is precisely in “the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest”. The American Founders, who feared precisely the scenario of two dominant factions vying for power at the citizens’ and the Republic’s expense, saw the “greater variety of parties” as an important safeguard against such an outcome. The Transhumanist Party echoes the Founders’ wisdom and would urge the Legislature to consider reforms in the opposite direction from those proposed in SB292 – namely, the elimination of all ballot-access requirements and the ability of any candidate or political party to compete fairly for office on the same terms as any other. After all, if a minor-party candidate is unpersuasive to the voters and the major-party candidates remain more popular, what is there truly for a major party to fear from allowing participation for all? But in the absence of such truly progressive reforms, we urge that the Legislature at least refrain from taking steps that would further limit electoral competition.

Removing ballot-access restrictions, rather than maximizing them, is the fiscally prudent, the consequentially best, and the morally just option. Please reject Senate Bill 292.

Sincerely,

Mr. Gennady Stolyarov II

Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party

Chief Executive, Nevada Transhumanist Party

https://transhumanist-party.org

My Path to Transhumanism and Becoming the First Transhumanist Party Member to Hold Political Office in North America – Article by Gerald Shields

My Path to Transhumanism and Becoming the First Transhumanist Party Member to Hold Political Office in North America – Article by Gerald Shields

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Gerald Shields

In 2016 I changed my political party membership to Transumanist on my voter registration card. Then, I became a town councilmember of the Town of Berwyn Heights in Maryland. I served in that role from October 2016 to May 2018. I believe I am the first Transhumanist Party member to hold a political office in North America (during the time period of the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s existence).

Gerald Shields at the Library of Congress in 2013. Photograph from Gerald Shields. 

My path to Transhumanism has been varied and interesting. I changed my voter registration for a variety of reasons. During the 2016 election cycle, I was disappointed in the various election platforms of the major parties. I thought that pushing the goal of making humanity a two-planet species was a more important goal than what was listed in those parties’ platforms. After some research for alternative parties, I discovered Mr. Zoltan Istvan’s campaign for the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Mr. Istvan called for a medical Moonshot program. Even though it was not a direct step to a two-planet species, it was a step in the correct direction to long-term colonization of other stars. I contacted the campaign, and I saw that there were no campaign posters for an internet-based campaign. I realized that without visual legitimacy, the transhumanist ideas will not get much traction. A visual will look good on television, blogs, and YouTube. A visual aids in the message. I helped create campaign posters with Ms. Chelsea Gilbert. It was my idea to use vector graphics in orange and black with classic Americana political phrases to illustrate some transhumanist ideas. The idea is to tap into the Americana meme under the banner of the Transhumanist Party without causing future shock. The goal is to stir the passion of our members as discussed during the various transhumanist conversations on YouTube.

The phrases I proposed were:

“The Future is here. The Transhumanist Party.”

“We can do it….With the Transhumanist Party.”

“The Transhumanist Party builds the Future.”

“Wake up America with the Transhumanist Party.”

“Reclaim America. Join the fight for the future and the Transhumanist Party.”

During the campaign, I attended several Washington, DC, and Seattle, Washington, transhumanist meetings, during which I met Zoltan in person.

 On October 3 2016 at Berwyn Heights Town Office, Gerald Shields (left) was sworn by Mayor Jewitt (right) in an a member of the town council. Photograph from Gerald Shields. 

Then, as part of my political path, I was on the Town Council of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, from October 2016 to May 2018. The competition was nonpartisan between a total of three people. I filled an empty position on the Town Council, and this was done via a special appointment, not a general election. However, in normal times, this is a nonpartisan, general-election position. I believe I am the first Transhumanist  Party member to hold a political office in North America (during the time of the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s existence). During the special appointment, I campaigned on a very local and non-glamorous issue of improved storm drains. Storm drains are important because, in Berwyn Heights, there was a 100-year storm that flooded the basements of several houses.  On a town or even county level, there really is no way to have a longevity Moonshot in my view.  I am a very practical and nuts-and-bolts (no transhumanist pun intended) type of person, who wants this Party to be a success.  However, when I was on the Town Council, my political portfolio was Parks & Recreation, Education, and Civic Affairs; not Public Works. I laid the foundation for the town’s policy on non-governmental organizations. During my term, Berwyn Heights achieved the title of Banner City for the first time and attained other objectives due to my efforts. At the end of my term, I achieved my Parks and Recreation goals, so I decided not to run in the election.

Right now, the public view of transhumanism is characterized by cyborgs and other scary things. We must adapt and put forth the benefits of increased medical knowledge and increased energy resources in a beneficial way while addressing the general public’s concerns. That is why I suggested to Zoltan to emphasize the Good Neighbor Next Door policy.  The Good Neighbor Next Door policy would focus on volunteering on local committees, such as Neighborhood Watch, the State Government’s official State Defense Force, Green Team, or other local small-town groups, as well as just saying “Hi” to one’s neighbors, to show that one is a normal person who cares about local matters. Also, I suggested that Zoltan post photos of himself and his kids because this would make him more relatable to other fathers. Then, as time progresses, Transhumanists who follow this approach would show that they are ready, willing, and, most importantly, able to lead in political positions.

That is my varied path to Transhumanism and becoming the first U.S. Transhumanist Party member to hold a Town Council political office.

Gerald Shields is a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and was a Town Council Member in Berwyn Heights, Maryland, between October 2016 and May 2018. 

To the FDA: Approve Leronlimab Now for Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients – Article by Dan Elton

To the FDA: Approve Leronlimab Now for Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients – Article by Dan Elton

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Daniel C. Elton, Ph.D.

Author’s Note: This article is cross-posted from my Substack.

How does Leronlimab work?

Leronlimab is a humanized monoclonal antibody that antagonistically binds to the CCR5 receptor to block activation of immune cells and lower the release of cytokines. The development of Leronlimab started with mouse antibodies that bind to CCR5. Unfortunately, mouse antibodies can’t be directly imported into humans since they are attacked by the immune system as foreign invaders. That’s where next-level genetic engineering comes in. Researchers looked at the genes for human antibodies, identifying ones that were closest to the genes for the antibody that the mice produce. They then took the segment of DNA from the mouse antibody that coded for the antigen binding site and stitched that into the human antibody gene. (The antigen binding site is the key part of the antibody allows it bind to the CCR5 receptor). The result is a chimeric or humanized antibody which can be mass-produced in bacteria.

As alluded to, the specific place where these antibodies bind is the CCR5 (Chemokine Receptor Type 5) receptor, a “G Protein coupled” receptor that resides on the surface of cells, in particular immune cells such as macrophages. When the receptor is stimulated, calcium channels open up and Ca++ ions move into the cell, causing activation (movement) of the macrophages.

Leronlimab was originally developed to treat HIV, because the HIV virus uses the CCR5 receptor to get into cells. (By blocking the receptors, the HIV virus could be blocked.) Despite being under study since 2007, Leronlimab is still not FDA-approved for HIV, although it appears to be getting close. To treat HIV, it is given as a once-weekly at-home injection. Researchers have found many other uses, however. For instance, when Leronlimab blocks the CCR5 receptors on breast-cancer cells, it prevents them from moving around so that the cancer can’t move to other parts of the body, which makes the cancer easier to treat. Note that Leronlimab is not yet FDA-approved for any of these possible applications, so off-label use for COVID-19 is impossible.

In the case of COVID-19, infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus induces stressed endothelial cells to produce CCL5. When CCL5 reaches T-cell and macrophage cells in lymph nodes and binds to their CCR5 receptors, it induces those cells to become activated and then move towards the source of the infection along the CCL5 gradient. Unfortunately, in severe COVID-19, the immune response can be so strong that it leads to tissue damage. CCL5 also induces the production of inflammatory cytokines including TNF and IL-6.

What do we know about the efficacy of Leronlimab?

CytoDyn Inc. published a press release on January 28th, 2020, announcing that it was beginning to evaluate Leronlimab’s use for COVID-19. In that press release, CytoDyn clearly explained the mechanism of action described above, noting that clinical experience in China found that many patients who died from COVID-19 did not die from the virus but from an overactive immune response causing inflammation and the infamous “cytokine storm”.

A study published in preprint form on May 5th, 2020, looked at 10 terminally ill COVID-19 patients on ventilators at the Montefiore Medical Center in Manhattan. The experimenters administered 700 mg of Leronlimab to each patient. Within three days they found that found that IL-6 had decreased in all of the patients, reaching healthy levels in two weeks. After two weeks six patients had recovered while four died (a 40% mortality rate). At that time the mortality rate for ventilated patients was said to be “as high as 88%” in New York City. So, while there was no control group in this study, one can argue there was an observed reduction in mortality here. While the results on reduced mortality are weak due to a lack of a suitable control, the biomarkers studied all showed a reduction of immune response. The researchers found a reduction of new immune cells manufactured in the bone marrow and a return of platelet cell counts towards normal levels. The researchers also found that the concentration of virus in the blood (viremia) decreased. In a TEDx talk, one of the authors, Dr. Bruce Patterson, claims that Leronlimab was responsible for the drop in blood virus concentration. He said this:

“Leronlimab restored CD8 T-cells and increased Granzyme A to better clear virally infected cells. It also inhibits Treg cells and repolarizes macrophages which both enhance the immune response against infected cells.”

I honestly do not understand these details or know how well they are empirically supported by this or other studies.

CytoDyn initiated two Phase IIb/Phase III clinical trials in mid-April 2020 to study mild-to-moderate COVID-19 and severe or critical COVID-19. To their credit in 2020 the FDA did provide about 60 emergency IND (eIND) authorizations that allowed patients to receive Leronlimab. However the company had to defer seeking eIND authorizations to accelerate the pace of enrollment in their clinical trials.

The mild-to-moderate trial did not meet its primary efficacy endpoint, but in a post hoc analysis in the subset of subjects with more severe disease, a higher proportion of Leronlimab-treated subjects (50%; 24/48) versus placebo-treated subjects (21%; 5/24) showed improvement in National Early Warning Score 2 – a risk score for “rapid clinical deterioration requiring critical care intervention” (p ​= ​0.0223).

The severe-to-critical trial also did not meet its primary endpoint — considering all patients, the difference in Day 28 mortality between Leronlimab and placebo was not statistically significant (N=384, 2:1 split, p > 0.05). (Update: a commentor pointed out that the placebo group ended up being younger and was small, so unfortunately they missed statistical significance. You can see all the details here.).

However, the researchers then analyzed patients on invasive mechanical ventilation or ECMO. They found that if Leronlimab was added to the standard of care, then on the 14th day there was a reduction in mortality of 82% (p=0.0233, N=62) and an average reduction in the length of stay of 5.5 days (p=0.005, N=62). They also found a 400% improvement on a 7-point ordinal scale for COVID-19 severity when compared with standard of care.

There have been several clinical reports and anecdotes about patients on ventilators or ECMO who rapidly recovered after receiving a single dose of Leronlimab (see here (N=1), here (N=4), here (N=1), and here (N=1)). A somewhat larger observational study with N=23 patients reported that after 30 days, 74% no longer required hospitalization. Six out of the seven patients that required ventilation survived. The biomarker results were somewhat mixed – while the researchers found evidence of reduced immune activation in the patients who received Leronlimab, they also found that the inflammatory marker CRP didn’t decrease until after two doses were given. Another small study on N=3 lung transplant patients with COVID-19 found a decrease in CRP after one week.

On March 29th, 2021, the Phillippines’ FDA began issuing compassionate use authorizations on a per-patient basis and for up to one year. Incidentally, one of first two patients was a former President of the Phillippines. In April compassionate use authorizations were given to 28 critically ill patients.

Why hasn’t the FDA acted?

CytoDyn’s failure to reach either their primary or secondary endpoints in their Phase II/III trial on critically ill patients is undoubtedly a major blow. The company has not yet applied for an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), and it seems this failure is the reason why. (News reports from August 2020 saying that company had applied for an EUA turned out to be incorrect.) CytoDyn is moving forward, however, and has filed a new protocol with the FDA that will study four doses given over four weeks to critically ill COVID-19 patients.

The use of any immunomodulator like Leronlimab is clearly a double-edged sword. It makes sense that it would only be helpful in the most severe cases. This is what the two clinical trials showed – they showed a significant effect on mortality for patients on ventilators and no statistically significant effect on other patients. Unfortunately the analysis of the patients on ventilators was a post-hoc analysis, which is frowned upon in science due to the possibility of data dredging. So clearly the science is not settled here.

Let’s consider this from an ethical point of view. Patients who are in ICUs and on ventilators have a high chance of dying. Inflammation macrophage activity, and excess cytokines are implicated in many COVID-19 deaths. There is strong evidence, going back over a decade, showing that Leronlimab decreases inflammation, macrophages, and cytokines. Leronlimab is known to be a very safe drug (prior to 2020 no serious side effects have been found in nine clinical trials with more than 800 patients). Even if Leronlimab only saves 20% of those to whom it is given, then one can argue we have an ethical obligation to do so. It is a somewhat expensive drug (for HIV patients getting weekly therapy, it costs about $2000 per dose; another source suggests it would cost about $1100). However, keeping someone in the ICU costs around $3,000-$10,000 per day. So in addition to saving lives, Leronlimab could also save money as well by reducing the amount of time patients need to spend in the ICU. This could lead to second-order life-saving effects in places where ICU beds are in short supply.

Medical educator Dr. Mobeen Syed has said this:

“I believe that if there is a drug that can help someone who is on a ventilator or ECMO and it can save them, then whatever small population that is, it is useful — that is my opinion. I have no financial interest or commercial interest or any other interest of any sort with them (CytoDyn).”

I agree. While the evidence is not conclusive, we have good reason to believe Leronlimab can help very critically ill COVID-19 patients such as those on ventilators or ECMO. There are likely gains from receiving Leronlimab for such patients and very little downside, especially if the patient is considered terminally ill. So not allowing doctors access to Leronlimab risks many unnecessary deaths. The drug should be an especially impactful tool in places like Brazil and India, where there are currently shortages of ICU beds and ventilators.

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

For an overview of the possibilities of Leronlimab to save the lives of critically ill COVID-19 patients, watch this brief video by Random Ryman. 

The U.S. Transhumanist Party Endorses Jennifer A. Huse for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey

The U.S. Transhumanist Party Endorses Jennifer A. Huse for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey

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The U.S. Transhumanist Party is pleased to announce the endorsement of our first candidate during the 2021 election season – Jennifer A. Huse – who is running for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey. See the website for Ms. Huse’s campaign.

Our electronic vote of the members, which took place on April 23-30, 2021, led to an overwhelming endorsement of Ms. Huse’s candidacy by 91.9% of the members who cast their votes.

The vote totals are as follows:

Question: Shall the U.S. Transhumanist Party endorse the candidacy of Jennifer A. Huse for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey?

 

Watch the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers’ interview of Jennifer A. Huse, conducted on February 15, 2021, by U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II, Director of Applied Innovation David Shumaker, and Director of Energy Issues John Kerecz.

On April 29, 2021, Jennifer Huse was interviewed by U.S. Transhumanist Party Regeneration Advisor Ira Pastor on the Progress, Potential, and Possibilities program. Watch this interview on YouTube here.

On Sunday, May 2, 2021, at 1 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time, the U.S. Transhumanist Party is holding a Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Jennifer Huse to give our members the opportunity to ask her further questions and discuss key transhumanist political issues with her. Follow the link above to watch the livestream of the Virtual Enlightenment Salon or the subsequent recording.

We hope to be able to endorse other candidates during the 2021 election season as well.  If you would like to be considered as a candidate for endorsement by the U.S. Transhumanist Party, please e-mail Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II with an expression of interest. Describe the office for which you plan to run, your background and qualifications, your platform, how it relates to the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, and what motivated your interest in running with the endorsement of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Please check our Candidate Eligibility Criteria in Article VII of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution.

Amended Nevada Senate Bill 292 Continues to Place Impossible Burdens on Minor Political Parties – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

Amended Nevada Senate Bill 292 Continues to Place Impossible Burdens on Minor Political Parties – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The anti-minor-party Nevada Senate Bill 292 has advanced out of the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections on a party-line vote (3 Democrats in favor, 2 Republicans opposed). An amendment from the bill sponsor was included in the bill; Amendment No. 230 is an incremental improvement but maintains essentially insurmountable barriers for minor political parties. While the amended bill no longer raises the petition-signature threshold from 1% to 2% of the Nevada voters who voted in the last election, it does still seek to impose an impossible “equal distribution” requirement for the petition signatures and also moves the deadline for submitting petition signatures from the current third Friday in June to June 1.

Section 2 of SB292 is the most onerous for minor political parties. The provisions further limiting ballot access, relative to the already significant requirements, are found in the new language that the bill sponsor, Nevada Senator and former Nevada Democratic Party Chair Roberta Lange, wishes to insert in NRS 293.1715(2)(c), stating that to qualify for ballot access, a minor political party must:

(New proposed wording above is in bold blue italics, wording proposed to be deleted is in red strikethrough.)

While various other problems exist with SB292, particularly with the concept of straight-ticket, party-line voting – which aims to absolve voters of the essential responsibility to study individual candidates and their stances on the issues – the present commentary will focus on the most egregious flaws with Section 2 of the bill: requiring that the petition signatures be “apportioned equally among the petition districts” and moving the deadline for submitting petition signatures to June 1 preceding the general election.

The bill sponsor appears to be of the impression that removing the previously proposed doubling of the number of petition signatures required would alleviate the most visible added burden on minor political parties. Yet the remaining requirement of equal apportionment is actually far more burdensome and more insidiously so. It requires several more steps in one’s thought process to discern the burden – hence, the bill proponents may believe it to be a viable option to insert such a provision without significant portions of the public noticing or voicing their objections. Therefore, it is important to elucidate the immense problems with the “equal apportionment” criterion.

Nevada has four petition districts, corresponding to the U.S. Congressional Districts. The 3rd Congressional District is the most populous, with a population of 857,197 as of 2019. All three of the other Congressional Districts have populations below 800,000. Suppose that a minor political party were spectacularly successful in gathering petition signatures and managed to collect them from the entire population of registered voters in the 3rd Congressional District. (For this example, we will assume that the proportion of registered voters to the general population is the same in each Congressional District.) The very fact that this minor political party could accomplish such a feat would render it impossible for that party to qualify for ballot access, because the other petition districts simply do not have enough registered voters to match the number of signatures gathered from the 3rd Congressional District in that case.

Moreover, the “equal apportionment” requirement renders it almost effortless for a major party to challenge petitions submitted by minor parties, simply by counting the signatures from each district and noting any difference whatsoever in the numbers of signatures, even if the difference is literally one signature! Even if the total number of signatures is well above 1 percent of the registered voters statewide, if the number of signatures gathered in one petition district were 10,000, and the number of signatures gathered in another petition district were 10,001, that also, by itself, would be sufficient to technically fall out of compliance with the requirement of “equal apportionment”. Note that the text of the amended NRS 293.1715(2)(c) would not allow any room for deviation from a strictly “equal” apportionment. There is no mention of a possibility for the apportionment to be made “approximately equal” or “reasonably equal” or “equal within a tolerance of X%”; the text would mandate strict equality of petition signatures by district, and it appears to me that the Democratic Party proponents of the bill did this intentionally to be able to disqualify any minor party’s petition on a technicality. Given that different circulators of petitions are likely to operate in different petition districts, it is virtually certain that different numbers of signatures will be gathered by each team of circulators. This is so because precise coordination at the level that would be needed to achieve exactly equal numbers of signatures among all four districts and to stop gathering signatures in a perfectly choreographed fashion once such equal numbers were attained, would be essentially impossible to achieve.

Moreover, suppose a minor political party represented a set of positions that resonated to a greater extent with a particular segment of the Nevada population – for instance, young urban professionals, ranchers, miners, university students, residents of rural areas. Each petition district has considerably different proportions of these demographics than the other. For instance, the 1st Congressional District is 99.90% urban, so a hypothetical party that focused on representing the interests of ranchers or rural residents would find quite limited support there.  Some city dwellers might, of course, sign a petition for such a party’s ballot access on principle, because they support inclusion of all political parties on the ballot; however, from a sheer probabilistic standpoint, the number of such people would be fewer than the number of people in rural areas who would be willing to sign that party’s petition. Even if the hypothetical party representing rural interests only intended to run candidates in rural areas, it would still need to receive an equal number of signatures from each urban-heavy petition district in order to qualify for the ballot. Therefore, regional parties or parties representing specific constituencies would essentially be permanently barred from ballot access by the “equal apportionment” requirement.

Because of the additional coordination required to even attempt to gather petition signatures “equally” by petition district, as contrasted with simply trying to gather as many signatures as possible, one would expect that the petitioning effort would be more time-consuming than previously. However, Section 2 of SB292 reduces the available time for a minor party to comply with the added burdens, thereby further lowering the probability of successfully meeting all of the requirements.

Moreover, the United States District Court for the District of Nevada already struck down an even less burdensome deadline of June 10; this occurred when the Judge in the case of Lenora B. Fulani et al. v. Cheryl A. Lau, Secretary of State (“Fulani v. Lau” – Case CV-N-92-535-ECR) issued a preliminary injunction on October 1, 1992, to require the State of Nevada to include Lenora Fulani and other independent and minor-party candidates on the ballot despite those candidates not having been able to gather the required number of signatures by June 10 of that year. In issuing the preliminary injunction (which effectively decided the case, since  the election took place in November of the same year), the Judge wrote “that plaintiffs have shown likely success on the merits, that the balance of hardships tips in their favor and that they will suffer irreparable injury if their names are not put on the 1992 ballot” (Fulani v. Lau, p. 14). The Judge explained that

The character and magnitude of plaintiffs[‘] injury caused by the June 10 filing deadline shows a burden on their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The deadline burdens the rights of nonmajor parties[‘] candidates by excluding late[-]forming parties and forcing candidates to circulate petitions before most of the voting population has thought about the elections. Although this date is not as early as others which have been struck down as unconstitutional, most other states require the petitions be submitted several months later. Also, no evidence suggests that candidates who lack an established national affiliation are easily able to access the ballot. (Fulani v. Lau, p. 11)

If the United States District Court found that a June 10 petition-filing deadline is burdensome to non-major parties’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, then, logically, a June 1 deadline would be even more burdensome. Such a deadline would indeed serve to thwart any but the most amply funded minor political parties, if those parties choose to begin gathering the signatures extremely early in the year, whereas new minor parties, as well as minor parties that rely largely or exclusively on volunteer efforts and grass-roots organizing, would find themselves hobbled by lack of time. SB292 is seeking to institute in Nevada law a deadline more stringent than the one which the District Court has already overturned.

There is still time to express opposition to Senate Bill 292, particularly to the requirement that petition signatures be equally apportioned and the earlier June 1 deadline for submitting such signatures. SB292 is already one of the most actively commented on and least popular bills of the 2021 Legislative Session, with 209 public opinions expressed in opposition and only 4 in favor.  You can submit your opinion in opposition to SB292 here and also e-mail the Senate Committee on Finance, where SB292 will be headed next, at SenFIN@sen.state.nv.us, as well as e-mail the Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections at AsmLOE@asm.state.nv.us. The Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections would be the committee where SB292 would be heard if it were to pass in the Senate. Please express your concerns civilly and politely but make it clear that you do not agree with any attempts to further limit minor-party ballot access. Also, please spread this article to as many constituencies as possible! People of nearly all political persuasions should be able to agree on the importance of voter choice and to abhor the injustice of intentionally restricting candidates and parties from even being available for voters to consider.

Even the current ballot-access thresholds in Nevada are unduly stringent; the last time a minor political party qualified for the ballot through petitioning in Nevada was in 2011, when the Americans Elect organization was able to submit the required number of signatures. It is time to pursue reforms in the opposite direction from Section 2 of SB292; it is time to repeal all petitioning requirements for ballot access and allow voters the choice of any candidate or party whom they wish to support. At minimum, it is essential to oppose the placement of any further obstacles along the path to ballot access. All provisions of SB292 related to minor political parties should be amended out of the bill upon further revision. Please add your voice to this important effort to preserve electoral choice and to oppose one major party’s efforts to monopolize Nevada elections.

Gennady Stolyarov II is the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party. 

A Summary of the USTP’s FDA Reform Panel – Article by Dan Elton

A Summary of the USTP’s FDA Reform Panel – Article by Dan Elton

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Daniel C. Elton, Ph.D.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party livestreams special Enlightenment Salon events every Sunday at 4 p.m. on YouTube. Two weeks ago, on April 4. 2021, the USTP organized a special Enlightenment Salon panel event on FDA reform. In addition to myself, the following people participated on the panel, which was moderated by USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II:

  • Prof. Alex Tabarrok, Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics, George Mason University
  • Dr. Max More, President Emeritus, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
  • Jim O’Neill, CEO, SENS Research Foundation
  • Dr. Edward Hudgins, Founder, Human Achievement Alliance
  • Prof. Garett Jones, Mercatus Center, George Mason University
  • Will C. , Medical Student and Blogger

The entire panel was probably the most information-dense event the USTP has done. I kicked things off by giving a short presentation, which I managed to blaze through in 15 minutes. (The slides can be viewed here.) The presentation set the stage for a very informative and productive discussion.

My only regret was that we didn’t have any women on the panel. However, during the course of researching my presentation, I found out about the work of Dr. Mary J. Ruwart. Dr. Ruwart estimated the number of people who die every year from FDA delays to be around 150,000 per year in her book Death by Regulation. So, I am happy to announce that Sunday, April 25th, from 4 – 6 p.m. Eastern Time, 1-3 p.m. Pacific Time, the USTP will be doing a special Virtual Enlightenment Salon with her.

Here is the recording of the FDA reform event. At 00:05:00 my presentation kicks off:

I’ve written a summary of the major points each of the panelists (and two others) made during approximately the first hour of the session. These are heavily paraphrased. (Instead of providing direct quotes, I shortened what was said in most cases while maintaining the core meaning of what was communicated.) I have put my own comments in italics.

Prof. Alex Tabarrok:

  • The FDA can approve a bad drug (Type I) or fail to approve a good drug (Type II). If they approve a bad drug, people who were affected will go on Oprah, and there will be huge backlash. If they don’t approve a good drug, there is no backlash. The invisible graveyard is a statistical reality, but it’s hard to see. This can be seen easily by asking people to name a time when the FDA approved a bad drug (or a drug with unexpected side effects). Lots of people can think of something. Many point to Thalidomide, which is actually a drug that was approved in Europe and caused birth defects. Thalidomide, incidentally, has many important applications but was not approved by the FDA until 1998.
  • When you have a Type I error, you learn something — we learn about the harms of a drug, and we change our behavior. With a Type II error we never learn anything. We can’t see the consequences of a failure to approve, and even worse, we can’t see the many drugs that never even made it to FDA-mandated trials in the first place because they were deemed too risky to justify the cost.
  • Reciprocity is a sensible reform that is one of the most feasible.
  • The FDA likes to think they are the “gold standard” for drug approval. Yet, people in other countries don’t worry about whether drugs are FDA-approved. For food safety we already have reciprocity with Canada.
  • The FDA has been working for 40 years on new standards for approving sunscreens. So Europeans have much more advanced sunscreen than the US.
  • If aspirin were invented today, it probably wouldn’t be approved.
  • One thing U.S. policymakers have done already, which is probably the smartest thing they have done in a while, is PEDUFA (Prescription Drug User Fee Act). The drug developers pay an extra tax as long as approvals are sped up. The FDA was happy because they got to expand their bureaucracy, and drug companies were happy because they could get to market faster.
  • In the EU the EMA “farms out” reviews to private companies. (So the EMA is more like “an approver of approvers”). Private companies can do a good job – for instance, look at Underwriters Laboratories in the realm of electrical devices. (If you look at many electrical devices, you may see a “UL” seal.) Many major companies like Amazon won’t carry devices unless they are UL-approved.
  • There is no formal process whereby where if a disease is more deadly, then the standards should be lowered to speed approvals. For instance, for pancreatic cancer, which often kills within 6 months, the standards should be lower (and more risk should be tolerated), since patients have less to lose. For something like acne treatment, the standards can be much higher. The FDA recognizes this to some extent in practice, but it’s totally informal – technically it’s not supposed to happen. However they could do this formally and adjust the required statistical significance levels. They could use Bayesian statistical techniques as well.
  • There’s no route to approve a drug for anti-aging. If a company wants to do R&D on anti-aging therapeutics, there is not a clear route for approval.

Dr. Max More:

  • We should keep in mind full abolition of the agency as a long-term goal. [My response: I am against full abolition, but I agree with this. Everyone should at least consider abolition, and if they are against it, explain in some detail why the government needs to be involved versus using private-sector companies and tort law. Going back to first principles regarding the role of government is healthy, especially in places like Washington, D.C., where government institutions are taken for granted and not questioned as much as they could be.]
  • We should keep in mind Milton Friedman’s statement that expecting the FDA to behave differently than it does is like expecting a cat to bark (Note: He said this in a 1973 Newsweek column.) We can’t just say, “We want the FDA to do X”; we have to make sure incentives are in place so people actually do the things we want. Legal mandates can help, but it’s easy for people to skirt around them if the proper incentives don’t exist.
  • We are facing an enormous cultural barrier when it comes to reforming the FDA and CDC. We don’t have a proactionary culture anymore; we have a very fear-based culture, and a simple solution to it does not exist. However, we have a good opportunity right now just like the AIDS activists had a good opportunity in the 1980s.
  • The proactionary principle is a “grab-bag” of tools based on a certain value perspective which basically says that progress is fundamentally good. We aren’t omniscient, so we have to learn by doing. As Alex Tabarrok said, you can’t really learn things without making mistakes. It’s impossible to make progress, like some rationalists believed, by just sitting in chairs and thinking carefully. We have to become empirical. You can “look before leaping”, but you also have “look while leaping” and adjust how you land, to use a crude metaphor.
  • Cost-benefit analysis is a basic approach that is used in many organizations but doesn’t seem to be used as much in government agencies. It shouldn’t be controversial. Mandating cost-benefit analyses would be a step towards using ideas from the proactionary principle.
  • We should institutionalize the Devil’s Advocate procedure and institutionalize respectful disagreement. Instead of having the most powerful person in the room getting what they want railroaded through, we should require debate and motivate decision makers to ponder both sides. Other approaches could help, such as reference class forecasting, structured argumentation techniques, auditing procedures, and auditing review panels.
  • Reciprocity seems like a no-brainer that is relatively easy to achieve, and would greatly reduce costs.
  • Besides getting out these great ideas, we need to figure out how to get people to follow those ideas. Laws can help, but people can choose to not follow them. How do we put “bite” into laws? I think an annual audit on the FDA’s decision making would be a good idea. Importantly, the auditor’s report should be made public. The auditors should come from a variety of institutions, for instance a variety of think tanks from different sides of the political spectrum.

Gennady Stolyarov II:

  • The USTP agrees that abolishing the FDA should not be out of the question. In our Platform, Section CXVIII states:

Section CXVIII [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: Given the extreme delays, bottlenecks, and expenses created by the mandatory approval processes on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States Transhumanist Party supports abolishing the FDA and replacing it with a Radical Life Extension Administration (RLEA), whose mandate would be to prioritize the rapid development of potential disease cures, treatments, and vaccines – including any possible cures or vaccines for COVID-19, as well as treatments to mitigate and reverse the disease of biological aging, the major risk factor for COVID-19. The RLEA would allow the marketing and collection of patient data on any potential cure, treatment, or vaccine which has passed affordable safety testing at a reasonably acceptable threshold.

Jim O’Neil:

  • I’ve had the pleasure of working with the FDA quite a bit, and in my experience most of the people there are very smart, and they actually believe in approving things, contrary to what it may look like from the outside.
  • The problem is that incentives matter, and the FDA is a central point of failure.
  • When someone has a severe side effect from a drug, the FDA Commissioner gets hauled in front of several Congressional Committees and is interrogated. When someone dies because something wasn’t approved, there’s total silence in Washington. We should blame Congress, not the FDA, for that incentive being in place.
  • Individuals respond to the institutional incentives, but they also have personal incentives. A lot of people want to be the next whistle-blower who finds the next thalidomide and calls a halt to it. Both of these are pretty severe and would affect even the most principled person in ways they couldn’t even detect.
  • I disagree with Alex that “FDA not recognizing aging as a disease is a major problem.” In order for the FDA to reasonably measure success of any therapy, there must be metrics and biomarkers. It’s not the FDA’s job to do all the scientific work to develop biomarkers for aging. That’s the job of the science community and the NIH to some extent. There are epigenetic clocks, but we need a lot more work on those. Those clocks can then be run through the FDA’s biomarker approval program.
  • The second thing I disagree with is Dan’s idea of making the FDA independent from HHS. I think that would make things worse.
  • My favorite approval ideas fall under the category of “progressive approval” or what Dan calls “tiered approval”. Contrary to what the FDA often thinks, doctors and patients are capable of processing information and making risk-benefit calculations using their knowledge about the specific situation they are in. The more information provided and the more transparency, the better. The FDA should focus back on their original mission of safety and purity. I absolutely support repealing the 1962 Kefauver-Harris Amendments.

Prof. Garett Jones:

  • I come at this as an macroeconomist. I think we can learn from what economists have learned about central banks around the world. The FDA should be as independent of congress and the president as central banks are or as judges are.
  • The Federal Reserve is a panel. That’s how we run the SEC, the FEC, the Federal Reserve, and the Supreme Court. There seems to be some magic to having a panel — it’s probably giving us a bit of the Law of Large Numbers in decision-making.
  • Another aspect of these panels is they have long terms. They are probably going to be serving under a few different Presidents. As I say in my book 10% Less Democracy, “short terms make short-term thinking”. Political independence can lead to decision-making independence, and we have evidence that’s a good thing.
  • Discussions in institutional reform have “high marginal product” right now, as an economist would say. Congress moves slowly, but Congresspersons tend to look for big opportunities for reform a couple years after a crisis. The Federal Reserve was established in 1913 but was born out of the Panic of 1907. Six years was how long it took between a huge financial crisis and Congress getting around to making some reforms. We saw something similar after the global financial crisis – it took about 2-3 years. The ideas that people are discussing now will be part of the information ecology of the next few years in Washington, D.C.
  • These ideas of long terms, independence, and panels are a good path for decision making. I am an unreformed Tabarrokian, so I agree with everything Alex Tabarrok has written about FDA reform (chuckle). What I want to push here is institutional reforms that seem to work in a wide variety of settings. A little more financial and legal independence will lead to a situation where Congress is less of a source of fear for FDA officials.
  • A lot of people on social media have told me that the President is in charge of the FDA. These people have never actually talked to anyone who worked on Capitol Hill — agencies live in fear of their Congressional overlords. They live in fear of the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House, who have power over their budgets. They also know that if they make a mistake, they can be hauled up before Congress and fired ignominiously.
  • There is a risk that a more independent agency may misuse its freedom. However, in practice, if we look at the data, independent agencies with long terms have high benefits and low costs.
  • It’s fun to complain about the FDA, but it’s wise to complain about Congress.

Dr. Ed Hudgins

  • We’ve been talking about how FDA regulators are always in fear of Congress. What I want to see are FDA regulators in fear of patients who want to get access to medications at less cost and quicker.
  • One of the most egregious examples of defining efficacy was when the FDA decided that 23andme could not offer advice on whether someone was prone to breast cancer. Essentially they thought that women were too stupid to understand the information and would rush out to get a double mastectomy without getting a second opinion.
  • Another example is in 1989-1990 when they wanted to classify a urine sample cup as a “class A medical device”, in the same category as a heart valve.
  • In April 2019, the FDA stated that it wants to regulate artificial intelligence as a medical device.
  • There are many consultants now, whose entire job is to help companies get through the FDA bureaucracy. So there’s a whole industry now just to help people get through the FDA — and that’s part of the problem now, too.
  • The “Free to Choose Medicine” idea should be at the top. Something like this was created around 1992 during AIDS crisis. Congress stepped in and put pressure on the FDA to do something. What they did was create a parallel track where sufferers could access a particular medication for AIDS during the three years it was being tested. 12,000 people took advantage of that, so there are 12,000 people who are not in the invisible graveyard as a result.
  • The idea of a parallel track has been put forward by Bart Madden. Data from people on that track would be put into a public real-world database.
  • There are alternatives to randomized controlled trials (RCTs). If observational data is put into a public database, then doctors can look at that data and make informed recommendations. Drugs would be able to fail quicker, too.
  • In the case of AIDS, it was patient groups that besieged the FDA’s buildings. In light of COVID-19, and people seeing that the system isn’t working for them, we have an opportunity now to push for change.
  • There’s momentum for FDA reform building off of the right-to-try legislation that has been passed in many states. In Texas and North Carolina there are strong pushes to broaden right-to-try to people like patients with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Will C.

  • The AIDS-FDA story is a little more nuanced than was described by Ed Hudgins and Max More. We all know about the militant groups like ACT-UP which pressured the FDA in the 1980s. However in the mid-1990s there developed a few counter-movements against that. One group was called Treatment Action Group, and they pressured the FDA to move slower because they felt the FDA was approving HIV/AIDS treatments that didn’t actually have much benefit.
  • A good book is Malignant by Vinay Prasad. It documents how, over the last twenty years or so, the FDA has lowered the standards for many cancer drugs. They often are approving drugs based on surrogate endpoints and biomarkers, and then the drugs don’t go through follow-up studies to show if they have actual clinical benefit. So there has been a natural experiment where we tried to lower the standards for cancer drugs, and it doesn’t seem to have worked very well. Of course, I’m not an economist, so there might be a way of adding up the costs and benefits where the marginal benefits have outweighed the costs.
  • The FDA had many failures during COVID-19. The first big one was with testing, both with the FDA and the CDC. Others were the decision to delay the approval of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines (by about 4-6 weeks), and the decision not to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine, which hasn’t had any transparency. Finally, there was a complete lack of experimentation with human challenge trials. What all of these share is there has been very little transparency and not much good reporting on these issues. There have not been any thorough investigations from journalists, and we don’t really know what’s going on. Before attempting reform we need to first go and find out what went wrong during COVID-19. We need a non-partisan investigation of all of these issues. We need to utilize Freedom of Information Act requests. We need to find out how Trump was involved, why approvals took the amount of time they did, etc.

Dr. Natasha Vita-More

  • Cosmetics does not need FDA approval pre-marketing. It only needs post-market approval if the company says something in their marketing materials that could be misleading. There are many doctors pushing crack cosmetic treatments and behaving in a very “loosey goose-y”. I have a hard time understanding how they get away with these things, unless there are big-monied interests behind them.
  • We all know about Theranos. In 2015 they got FDA approval for one of their tests. There’s clearly an imbalance here – many life-saving treatments struggle to get approval, but a company which is completely fraudulent like Theranos was able to get approval. [My response: This is a great point! Theranos did receive approval, but only for their Herpes test. If I recall correctly, this test was done with conventional laboratory equipment rather then their special “minilab” device, a fact which Theranos hid from investors. Theranos also utilized a loophole to sell tests without FDA approval.]

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party Vote on the Question of Endorsing Jennifer A. Huse for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey

U.S. Transhumanist Party Vote on the Question of Endorsing Jennifer A. Huse for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey

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The U.S. Transhumanist Party will hold an electronic vote of the membership for a seven-day period ending on 6:01 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time on Friday, April 30, 2020, on the question of whether to endorse Jennifer A. Huse, who is running as an independent candidate for Mayor of Camden, New Jersey, in 2021.

Registered U.S. Transhumanist Party members as of 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on Friday, April 23, 2020, would be able to cast their ballots on this question and will be sent their ballots via e-mail.

See Jennifer Huse’s campaign page here.

Watch the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers’ interview of Jennifer A. Huse, conducted on February 15, 2021, by U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II, Director of Applied Innovation David Shumaker, and Director of Energy Issues John Kerecz.

Highlights from Ms. Huse’s campaign website include the following (see additional issues here):

Healthy Life Extension Initiatives for All

We aim through a variety of initiatives, combined with human health services and biological sciences, to bring Camden to the top quality of health known to us at this time and to continue to progress in every possible endeavor to bring our citizens the highest and longest length of life in the world. We will explore every possible avenue through collaboration with leaders in health industries from around the country and world together with all of our valued Camden health professionals and researchers to work on this as a top priority.

We seek to provide the people of Camden with access to information, medicines, technology, and research as each develops. This includes offering transparency in health-related and all of our initiatives through new communication technologies and expansion of existing communication technologies for all people.

We aim to provide the community of Camden with the highest quality of water in the world. We firmly believe that water is life and essential to all persons’ quality of life and the quality of life of the planet itself. We will immediately undertake every possible opportunity to deliver top-quality water to all people of Camden.

We aim to collaborate with the small business owners of Camden to deliver an abundance of nutritious food to the community of Camden through Vertical Farming and other initiatives.

Please see our Food for All Initiative.

We aim to provide quality, nutritious food for the people of Camden through any initiatives we can possibly secure and in collaboration with experts from around the country and world. We aim to provide opportunities to our valuable industrial partners to participate in these efforts in order to bring them to the forefront of their industries and enhance all of our health and wellbeing.

Our administration values the health, wellbeing, and abundance for all of the people of Camden above all other things. We consider quality of life to be an essential and equal part of life extension.

One of our most immediate concerns has to do with Housing for All.

Every day that someone is without safe and secure housing, they are at risk of unnecessary sickness and death. We feel that without this basic need, the people of Camden are placed under unnecessary suffering and stress. We wish to explore every avenue to solve this issue entirely and permanently for all the people of Camden.

See our Housing for All Initiative.

We aim to help all households feel secure by having all of their utilities consistently connected so fear and stress do not cause detriment to their quality of life. We will explore all possible aid and programs throughout the entirety of our administration to make sure none of the households in Camden go without basic needs such as working utilities.

  • Parallel in U.S. Transhumanist Party Values and Platform:  The United States Transhumanist Party supports concerted research in effort to eradicate disease and illness that wreak havoc upon and cause death of sapient beings. We strongly advocate the increase and redirection of research funds to conduct research and experiments and to explore life, science, technology, medicine, and extraterrestrial realms to improve all sentient entities. [Article VI, Section V]

Ending The War on Drugs

The War on Drugs has repeatedly been proven to be detrimental to the health and wellbeing of people around the world. Our administration aims to work together with our local law enforcement to continue ending The War on Drugs locally in Camden, NJ. For years, our police have worked to help make Camden safer and more prosperous. We look to encourage and promote this loving, respectful, and effective way of policing throughout our beautiful city.

We look to continue exploring every possible avenue in regard to full decriminalization and legalization of all drugs found to be beneficial to human systems. We support the right to try any medication that may be able to improve the pain and suffering a person is experiencing within their own body.

We no longer want anyone to live in fear of arrest, detention, hefty legal and other fees, loss of time with loved ones, lowered quality of life, etc., simply for the choice of medicine they wish to put into their own bodies.

We no longer want persons that wish to work in industries that supply medicines to live in fear of arrest, detention, hefty legal and other fees, loss of time with loved ones, lowered quality of life, etc., or have to risk inferior medicines because of restricted access.

We wish all persons that may have been hurt by the war on drugs to be able to work in the legal industries through training incentives and employment opportunities.

We wish to expunge as many nonviolent drug charges as possible and will seek to help to the extent of our local powers in all areas. This is already being done in cities all over the country, and we will pursue all possible avenues to accomplish this. We aim to work together with others by looking into any other cases where persons from Camden may need assistance in regard to legal matters.

  • Parallel in U.S. Transhumanist Party Values and Platform:  Section XIV [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 26 – April 1, 2017]: The United States Transhumanist Party supports an end to the costly drug war, which is often an infringement upon the lives and liberties of innocent citizens who do not use drugs but fall victim to militant enforcement of drug prohibitions. The United States Transhumanist Party supports legalization of mild recreational drugs such as marijuana.

Participatory Governance

Our administration works for you! We would like for each and every one of the people of Camden to present us with any issues that you would like to see strategic solutions applied to. Upon being elected, we will put in as many avenues as possible for our valued residents to be able to present and possibly work on solving issues together along with our administration.

We aim to be as accessible as possible to all of the people of Camden, viewing each and every one of you and the quality of your health and life as our most important priority. We look to make sure that everyone has internet capabilities. We will seek to provide each person with online access through their home or by ensuring they have smartphone technologies available to them. Through new newsletter and paperless electronic alert systems, we will be able to inform all of the people of Camden of new grants, employment opportunities, health advances, and more. This will enable all people to be informed of our continued progress in our city.

We aim to achieve competence in all decision making together with maximum courtesy and empathy to ALL persons. We intend to initiate systems to allow for all of the people of Camden to be able to speak their concerns about the issues they and the city are facing. This will be set up through a variety of options including new contact methods in many departments, appointment scheduling, and problem-solving-related events. We are also interested in any persons who wish to help work on the issues themselves or may have ideas on how to improve the issues important to them.

  • Parallel in U.S. Transhumanist Party Values and Platform:  Section XIII [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 26 – April 1, 2017]: The United States Transhumanist Party supports the involvement of intelligent laypersons in the political process to counteract and neutralize the influence of politically connected special interests and their paid representatives. The United States Transhumanist Party supports all electronic and other technologies that can inform and empower intelligent laypersons to monitor and contribute to political discussions and decisions.

Education for All

Our administration seeks to develop, together with our existing educational systems and the Center for Scientific Solutions, a path for all interested people of Camden to obtain education for as long as they wish to pursue it.

We also look to bring in the most progressive education system reforms and support for students and educators possible.

Our administration looks to work together with our valued Department of Education and educators to develop all of Camden’s educational systems together with experts from around the country and allies from around the world in every subject and field.

For more information on our Center for Scientific Solutions, click here.

  • Parallel in U.S. Transhumanist Party Values and Platform:  Section XII [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 26 – April 1, 2017]: The United States Transhumanist Party holds that present and future societies should provide education systems accessible and available to all in pursuit of factual knowledge to increase intellectual acuity; promote critical thinking and logic; foster creativity; form an enlightened collective; attain health; secure the bounty of liberty for all sentient entities for our posterity; and forge new ideas, meanings, and values.The United States Transhumanist Party supports efforts to reduce the cost of education while improving its access. In particular, the United States Transhumanist Party supports freely available, open-source, methods of learning, teaching, credentialing, and cultural creation that integrate emerging technologies into every facet of the learning process. The United States Transhumanist Party primarily advocates private innovation to deliver such educational improvements, but also advocates the application of these improvements to all publicly funded educational institutions. The United States Transhumanist Party holds that every person should aspire toward intellectual, moral, and esthetic enlightenment and sophistication and should contribute toward bringing about a new Age of Reason, where the highest reaches of intellectual activity are attainable and eagerly pursued by the majority of the population.

The Center for Scientific Solutions

The future of Camden…The future of the World!

We aim for collaboration in this endeavor with award-winning city and community designers. It is one of our goals to offer new disaster-resistant residences and other designs to protect against extreme weather conditions. We will obtain opportunities by reaching out to every grant provider and organization available to develop the most advanced technological systems worldwide.

We aim to become prime examples of accessible displays of water, sewer, and electrical systems. We look to advance Camden’s air, soil, and water to optimal levels. Furthermore, we aim to create advanced school curriculum designs.

In collaboration with partners from around the world, we will test and advance solutions for improving our current social systems and introducing new technological solutions. The Center for Scientific Solutions will create an evolving social blueprint upon which we will work on all feasible and beneficial scientific solutions to the issues our city faces, while developing technologies that can also be used for other parts of the Nation and World. Our administration will work hand in hand together with the Center for Scientific Solutions to bring the highest quality of life to all residents of Camden and to serve as an example and innovator of progress throughout the nation and the world.

  • Parallel in U.S. Transhumanist Party Values and Platform:  Section IX [Adopted by a vote of the members during February 16-22, 2017]: The United States Transhumanist Party supports all emerging technologies that have the potential to improve the human condition – including but not limited to autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, economical solar power, safe nuclear power, hydroelectricity, geothermal power, applications for the sharing of durable goods, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, rapid transit, 3D printing, vertical farming, electronic devices to detect and respond to trauma, and beneficial genetic modification of plants, animals, and human beings.
Review of Rykon Volta’s “Arondite” – A Fascinating Exploration of a Hypothetical Future History, With Relevance to Our World – by Gennady Stolyarov II

Review of Rykon Volta’s “Arondite” – A Fascinating Exploration of a Hypothetical Future History, With Relevance to Our World – by Gennady Stolyarov II

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Gennady Stolyarov II

 

Arondite by Rykon Volta offers a fascinating exploration of a hypothetical trajectory of humankind’s future history, in which Hugo de Garis’s dire predictions of an “Artilect War” had come to pass. As in de Garis’s narrative, so in Volta’s, the anti-technological reactionary Terran faction initiates that war to assail emergent sentient artificial general intelligences and their philosophical allies, the pro-innovation Cosmists. Rather than allow such artificial general intelligences to develop, the Terran General Vantus destroys the entirety of the Earth in the year 2071 and binds the remnants of humanity to an Artilect Protocol, which imposes the harshest punishments on any humans who experiment with genetic modification, cybernetic implants, or artificial intelligence.

The story of Arondite takes place 500 years later, in 2571-2572. Humanity has, over the course of five centuries, risen slowly from the ashes of the Artilect War, and multiple competing societies and governments have taken hold in the Solar System – particularly the Martian Republic and the Jovian Empire, who are now on the edge of major war. The historical narratives at the beginning of each chapter are among the most intriguing aspects of Arondite and serve to add great depth to the world in which the events of the plot transpire. Indeed, the historical scenario presented by Volta is reminiscent of two epochs already experienced by humankind: the emergence of Classical Antiquity after a gradual recovery from the Late Bronze Age Collapse, and the rise of Medieval and then Renaissance societies after the Dark Ages following the fall of the Roman Empire. Every such recovery of civilization is a testament to human ingenuity in the face of immense adversity, and in the world depicted by Volta, the hardships of outer space certainly magnify those constraints for the remnants of humanity. Yet by developing extensive settlements both on multiple planets and in space, as well as advanced spacefaring vessels on which much of the book’s plot takes place, humans demonstrate irrepressible innovation by advancing in practically the only directions available to them. Still, the harsh boundaries imposed by the Artilect Protocol are beginning to fray, and indeed, would need to be overcome in order for further progress in the Solar System to be possible.

The protagonists of Arondite are a group of space pirates – Peron, Ashlyn, and Carlile, as well as their various and situationally shifting allies – who are quickly drawn into matters far weightier and more perilous than they could have expected, as they unwittingly find themselves at the epicenter of the struggle by multiple major powers for the Arondite Chip – a map to one of the few artilects rumored to remain. Without revealing the specific details, the plot features numerous rapid developments in this struggle – filled with shifting allegiances, sudden changes of fortune, and revelations of hidden motives which diverge from surface appearances. The reader is kept wondering throughout as to who will gain possession of the Arondite Chip – the pro-artilect Acliate Brotherhood, the Martian Republic, the Jovian Empire, the tense and ever-precarious alliance of the protagonists who must resist pressures from each of these forces, or perhaps someone else entirely. Characters from every faction, however, are united in their recognition of the vast transformational power of an artificial general intelligence; some fear it and wish to destroy it, whereas others wish to harness it for their own objectives. But will the protagonists be not only capable enough to locate this artilect, but wise enough to truly understand its capabilities and nature – and respect its autonomy?

The events of Arondite are driven strongly by all-too-familiar flaws of human character – from irrational fear to the desire for the subjugation of others to the perception of existence as a zero-sum struggle of all against all. Because of the prohibitions of the Artilect Protocol, these flaws have persisted and become endemic within the societies of 2571; after all, no fundamental improvements upon human nature had been made available via technological pathways. Thus, for all of humankind’s spacefaring progress, the aforementioned deleterious vestiges of the suboptimal evolution of the human mind had not been corrected; another major war looms on the horizon and threatens to undo centuries of hard-earned advancement. However, the rediscovery of the artilects might just open an entirely different and more hopeful set of possibilities for the future of civilization.  One can only hope that, in our own civilization, that set of possibilities can be opened much sooner and with major conflicts averted.

Through the plot of Arondite, Volta illustrates the futility of attempting to impose restrictions on technological progress – restrictions which only serve to mire humankind in an escalating war of all against all. The protagonists are thrust into such an all-encompassing struggle, but because of their relative naiveté (despite being space pirates) are able to keep their minds open to alternative possibilities and thus have a chance to bypass the numerous hostile forces and machinations standing in their way. There is a broader message contained in this kind of narrative – the ability of an earnest individual, who is not altogether experienced with “the way things are done” in a given field, to significantly influence that field and overcome institutional barriers that had hitherto prevented progress past a certain point. Both in the world of Arondite and in our world, Volta shows that the philosophy of transhumanism, with its openness to technologies that can radically transform the human condition to remedy age-old flaws, is the way forward, transcending the destructive power struggles which needlessly stunted the advancement of humanity in the past.

Gennady Stolyarov II is the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party. 

Arondite is available on Amazon in hard-copy and Kindle formats here. 

Watch the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon of  July 19, 2020, when Rykon Volta was the guest of honor and discussed Arondite and the ideas surrounding it with the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers.

 

20 Cutting-Edge Biotechnologies in Development Today – Article by Logan Thrasher Collins

20 Cutting-Edge Biotechnologies in Development Today – Article by Logan Thrasher Collins

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Logan Thrasher Collins

I have compiled a list of some of today’s most exciting, cutting-edge biotechnologies! Some of these technologies are emerging, and some of them are already prevalent in a translational context.

1. CRISPR-Cas systems: revolutionary for gene editing, gene therapy, fundamental biology, diagnostics, and more.
2. Gene therapy: enables cures for genetic diseases and powerful treatments for many cancers, may eventually treat polygenic disorders, ameliorate aging, and even enhance human biology (e.g., provide radiation resistance to astronauts). Synergy with CRISPR-Cas technologies will greatly aid gene therapy.
3. DNA origami: paves the way for new nanomedicines, biocatalysts, biosensors, imaging probes, diagnostics, data storage methods, biocomputing, and more.
4. Computational protein engineering: paves the way for new nanomedicines, biocatalysts, biosensors, diagnostics, biomaterials, imaging probes, and more.
5. Immunotherapy: enables cures for many cancers, treatments for autoimmune diseases, and more.
6. Computational protein structure prediction: revolutionizes drug discovery and basic biology, synergizes with computational protein engineering.
7. Spatial transcriptomics: method for interrogation of cell and tissue biology in a holistic and multidimensional fashion to deeply understand health and disease, may lead to dramatic insights on aging, cognition, and pathology.
8. Optogenetics: powerful tool for understanding cellular physiology and neural circuits, may greatly enhance brain-machine interfacing (with the help of gene therapy).
9. Expansion microscopy: physically enlarges biological samples to multiply resolution. Making major strides in connectomics, vastly enhancing study of spatial organization of cells and tissues in general, synergizing with spatial transcriptomics.
10. Longevity medicines: pharmacological, gene therapy, and other methods of treating aging may extend human lifespan and dramatically reduce the prevalence of most aging-related diseases.
11. Bioprinting: produces replacement tissue and may enable manufacturing of replacement organs. Also greatly aids study of tissue biology and provides platforms for drug testing.
12. Organ-on-a-chip systems: may greatly reduce the need for animal models in research, helping to understand organ microenvironments and organ physiology in general, serving as platform for drug testing and discovery.
13. Organoids: may greatly reduce the need for animal models in research, helping to understand organ physiology (especially in context to 3D structure and function), serving as platforms for drug testing and discovery, contributing to understanding of cognition, aiding understanding of developmental biology.
14. Cryo-EM and cryo-ET: rivaling x-ray crystallography for solving high-resolution protein structures and is much easier than x-ray crystallography (especially for certain problematic samples), giving 3D images of cellular environments at sufficient resolution to see some macromolecular structural details, preserves sample integrity better than other methods.
15. Phage therapy: enables versatile and potent treatment of bacterial infections, may save the world from antibiotic resistance.
16. Synchrotron x-ray nanotomography: rapid 3D imaging in one or two colors, may help map brain structure much more rapidly than other methods. This could lead to superior brain-inspired AI and robotics, treatments for brain disease, and whole-brain simulations.
17. Tissue clearing with light-sheet microscopy: facilitates 3D imaging of tissues and even whole organs, leading to much better understanding of biological function, aids connectomics.
18. Predictive systems biology models: transforming vast biological datasets into parameters for large-scale simulations which give valuable insights. Some key examples are kinetic signaling network simulations, molecular dynamics simulations, and biophysical neuronal network simulations.
19. Injectable electronics: minimally invasive method of delivering brain-machine interface hardware, may lead to widespread biomedical and nonmedical adoption of brain-machine interfaces.
20. Minimal cells: may transform understanding of cellular physiology, may act as a superior biomanufacturing platform, may act as a superior platform for cell therapy, and more.
***

Logan Thrasher Collins is a U.S. Transhumanist Party member, futurist, synthetic biologist, author, and innovator. When he was 16, he invented a new antimicrobial protein, OpaL (Overexpressed protein aggregator Lipophilic). He next developed a bacterial conjugation delivery system for the gene encoding OpaL. His synthetic biology research has been published as a first-author journal article in ACS Biochemistry: “Design of a De Novo Aggregating Antimicrobial Peptide and a Bacterial Conjugation-Based Delivery System.” In addition, his synthetic biology research has been recognized at numerous venues including TEDxMileHigh, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the International BioGENEius Challenge at the BIO International Convention, and at the American Society for Microbiology General Meeting. At Intel ISEF 2014, his synthetic biology research won 1st place in microbiology and best of category in microbiology ($8,000) as well as the Dudley R. Herschbach award. The latter included a trip to take part in the Nobel Prize ceremonies via the Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar (SIYSS). As part of the honors at Intel ISEF, a minor planet was officially named Logancollins.

As the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Conduit Computing, Mr. Collins is leading a supercomputing project which has allowed visualization of how the constituent proteins of SARS-CoV-2 interact inside of cells to build whole viruses.

Visit Logan Thrasher Collins’s website here.

Skyships as Bridges Between Earth and Space – Article by Michael Herschman

Skyships as Bridges Between Earth and Space – Article by Michael Herschman

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Michael Herschman

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party publishes this article by Michael Herschman to illuminate his creative idea for the development of skyships that would act as permanent human habitats and transitional platforms between Earth and space, benefiting the infrastructures and development of both of these realms. The skyship concept echoes the floating structures observed above the Earth and other worlds in the paintings of Robert McCall, and it would be an impressive feat of human progress for them to be brought into concrete reality. 

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, April 17, 2021

Physics evolves, and we can soon expect our advances in engineering. They rarely come, but they never leave. Voices can evolve from turmoil or from excess: People do not often think about science in terms of moral progress… However, there is no holiness of the mind that does not seek happiness. If we choose to look into the sky rather than at the ground, we will find more area for expansion. To a degree, our economy has developed an association with buoyancy. Self-reflection will take you far, but aviation can take you further.

Individuals try to want what is right. Most people never consider human-governed celestial action. NASA, Blue Origin, and SpaceX are influences toward limitless human engineering capacity. To not engage is to hold on… We face gravity as a creative people: Skyscrapers are natural, airplanes are natural, space rockets are natural. Skyships are natural. We need to defy current electronic constraints. It is the natural imperative of every individual to understand according to their capacity the truth of climate change. We see our Earth becoming more and more deceased from carbon. And we use carbon-dioxide-emitting rockets as we leave Earth. By our current standards, the safety and integrity of life on Mars is absurd.

Rendering a sustainable life in the sky is a real and true objective. It is a necessary structure for our next aeronautic epoch. Having a structure between skyscrapers and a space station will bring both closer. Common flying vehicles will proceed from skyship systems and intellectual scaffolding. Its existence will temper its surroundings. And its inhabitants will contribute to society. Everyone on the ship will have the goal of improving life on terrestrial Earth. It is Earth that got them there. They will serve Earth.

Skyships will come about naturally. They are a platform for energy freedoms and personal flight vehicles: so we are guided toward their construction. During the ship’s existence it will help society. Nothing onboard will languish from lack of attention or ability. The ship will be composed of givers that learn and share and provide examples for human structure. The ship will be bound by holistic healthy associations. Craft inhabitants will cure diseases.

We already have airships. A skyship is an airship that can be lived on indefinitely. They will be buoyant and provide protection and can be lived on indefinitely. They will be assisted by fuels and electricity but have no carbon footprint. They are bound to give to society.

Michael Herschman is a writer and poet who wants to learn and relearn STEM, and invent. His Instapoetry and books are available from https://www.whaleshift.com/ and @mkherschman

A Summary of Daniel P. Carpenter’s “Reputation and Power” – A Titanic Book on the History of the FDA

A Summary of Daniel P. Carpenter’s “Reputation and Power” – A Titanic Book on the History of the FDA

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Will C.
Edited by Dan Elton

Note from the Editor: In a conversation on Clubhouse that I hosted, entitled “Is the FDA moving too slowly with vaccine approvals?”, Will C. articulated a number of nuanced points about the FDA. He had recently finished reading Reputation and Power, an 856-page book on the history of the FDA. I asked Willy to organize his notes on the book so that the USTP membership could learn his key takeaways from the book and learn more about the history and role of the FDA. Willy graciously accepted my request. I have edited his notes somewhat for length and made some minor copyedits. A few key takeaways are bolded.

– Daniel C. Elton, Director of Scholarship, United States Transhumanist Party, April 2, 2021

Reputation and Power book cover


Reputation and Power
Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA
by Daniel P. Carpenter
856 pgs. Princeton University Press, 2010

 

Reputation and Power is a very deep dive into the history of the FDA and the reputational universe that it inhabits and creates. The gist of the book is that reputation management is the best lens to understand the FDA, not “public interest” versus “regulatory capture”. The political and regulatory power of the FDA is bound up inextricably with how Congress, the pharmaceutical industry, academic medicine, and consumer-protection groups view it. By virtue of the size of the market it regulates and its pre-market approval power, the FDA is likely the most powerful regulatory agency in the world. 

Because of the length of the book and the variety of topics it covers, I’ve split this