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

May 23, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 2 comments

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

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

Total Valid Ballots Cast: 129

Summary of Voter Rankings by Candidate

	Thomas Ernest Ross, Jr. (Tom Ross)		Daniel Emerson Twedt (Daniel Twedt)		None of the Above
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
1st CHOICES	80	62.02%	35	27.13%	14	10.85%
2nd CHOICES	34	28.57%	70	58.82%	15	12.61%
3rd (Last) CHOICES	13	15.48%	14	16.67%	57	67.86%

Round 1: Tally of First Choices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 13, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 1 comment

Daniel Twedt
Tom Ross

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

Timestamps

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

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

Visit Tom Ross’s campaign page.

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

Candidate Responses to Additional Audience Questions

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 15, 2023 Zach Richardson Comments 2 comments

Zach Richardson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Class Struggle of Longevity – Article by Luis Arroyo

April 15, 2023 Luis Arroyo Comments 1 comment

Luis Arroyo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 9, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Gennady Stolyarov II

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

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

Endorsement and Electronic Primary Process – Anticipated Timeline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Presidential Candidate Qualifications and Expectations

Qualifications Pursuant to the United States Constitution

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

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

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

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

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

Qualifications Pursuant to the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party

Pursuant to Article VII, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party, in order to be eligible to become endorsed by the United States Transhumanist Party as a candidate for any local, state, or federal political office, an individual must satisfy the following criteria.

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

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

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

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

(v) The individual has never engaged in acts understood to be of a highly unacceptable nature within every contemporary agricultural, industrial, or post-industrial society. The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party shall maintain an internal list identifying such highly unacceptable practices, engaging in which or advocating which would be considered an automatic disqualification for holding any office within or receiving any endorsement from the United States Transhumanist Party.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

March 23, 2023 Art Ramon Garcia, Jr. Comments 0 Comment

Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.

USL-Transhuman / Transhumanism / Transhumanist

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

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

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

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

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

The Anti-Aging Manifesto by Mat Alex Richards

March 18, 2023 Mat Alex Richards Comments 0 Comment

Mat Alex Richards

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

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, March 18, 2023

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

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

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

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

We lie to each other. We lie to ourselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today, all that can change.

All of this needs to change and will change.

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

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

Do you want to participate and make it happen faster?

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

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

February 7, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 6, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

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

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

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

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

References

LessDeath website.

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

LessDeath LinkedIn Page.

LessDeath Twitter Account.

***

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

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

February 6, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

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

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

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

World Talent Economy Forum.

World Talent Economy Forum YouTube channel.

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

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

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

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

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

February 6, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

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

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

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

Website of Kai Micah Mills.

Website of Cryopets.

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

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

February 6, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

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

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

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

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

All members of the United States Transhumanist Party receive automatic, free membership in the Transhuman Club. However, anyone who joins the Transhuman Club directly may choose or not choose to be a member of the United States Transhumanist Party. The Transhuman Club website is intended to be a hub of member collaboration, networking, and elevated enjoyment in a refined futuristic setting. We aim to educate, motivate, and entertain. Welcome to the club!

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

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

February 2, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

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

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

The key question debated was “Should the United States and NATO support an immediate negotiated peace settlement in Ukraine (even if it means that Ukraine would need to concede territory to Russia and/or promise never to join NATO)?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 2, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

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

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

First Debate – Artificial Intelligence – December 24, 2021

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

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

Second Debate – Space Colonization – December 31, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

February 2, 2023 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 0 Comment

Gennady Stolyarov II
Bill Andrews
Bobby Ridge
Scott Jurgens
Mihoko Sekido

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

First Enlightenment Salon – September 17, 2017

Gennady Stolyarov II, Bobby Ridge, Scott Jurgens

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

Second Enlightenment Salon – November 11, 2017

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

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

Third Enlightenment Salon – May 27, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visit the website of CureDAO.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Lev Polyakov
Chris Bartlett
Paul Town
Gennady Stolyarov II
Zach Richardson

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

Join the Transhuman Club.

Find Chris Bartlett on Twitter.

Find Zach Richardson on Facebook.

Watch Break the Rules on YouTube.

Support Break the Rules on Patreon.

Join the Break the Rules Discord.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch Break the Rules on YouTube.

Support Break the Rules on Patreon.

Join the Break the Rules Discord.

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

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

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

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

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The Fourth and Fifth Transhumanist Party Enlightenment Salons – Highlights

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Gennady Stolyarov II
Bill Andrews
James Kohagen
Bobby Ridge
John Murrieta

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

Fourth Enlightenment Salon – July 8, 2018

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

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

Other subjects addressed included:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Are democracy and transhumanism compatible?

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

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

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

***

Fifth Enlightenment Salon – October 13, 2018

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

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

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

– How animal experiments can become more humane

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

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

– Whether privacy will remain in a more technologically interconnected future

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

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

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

Visit the website of Longevity Summit Dublin.

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

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

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

On Sunday, September 25, 2022, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Daniel Twedt – a long-time, dedicated member — to discuss his current campaign for City Council in Thousand Oaks, California. Mr. Twedt previously ran in 2020, when he gained 3,437 votes, or 3% of the total. During his campaign, he spread awareness of the U.S. Transhumanist Party in local newspapers. Mr. Twedt shared his beliefs and the work he does to bring his vision to life, and requested an endorsement by the USTP.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Gennady Stolyarov II
Johnny Boston

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

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

Find out about 2030: The Film.

Watch 2030: The Film on Amazon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Find out more about Dudley Lamming.

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

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

Find out more about Adam Konopka.

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

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Gennady Stolyarov II

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

Economic Effects of Life Extension – December 11, 2011

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

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

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

Religion and Indefinite Life Extension – January 1, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

The specific questions addressed are the following:

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

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

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

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

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

Read Mike Elias’s blog.

Join the Ideamarket Discord server.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Follow Zack Varkaris on Twitter.

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

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

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

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

See the YouTube channel for the Debt Nation show.

See the YouTube channel for The Archer Report.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 25, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Gennady Stolyarov II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gennady Stolyarov II
Jason Geringer

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

Timestamps

0:13 – Introduction

1:54 – Contemplation, Op. 37

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

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

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

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

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

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

22:37 – Prelude #1, Op. 32

23:34 – Study #1, Op. 6

24:30 – Grand Procession, Op. 14

27:21 – Fanfare of Perseverance, Op. 58

29:07 – Abrupt Insights, Op. 73

31:23 – Rondo #2, Op. 65

35:15 – Waltz #1, Op. 1

36:29 – March #1, Op. 2

40:29 – Noble Aspirations, Op. 42

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

46:31 – Waltz #2, Op. 13

48:16 – Rondo #3, Op. 67

51:52 – Industry, Op. 7

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

57:26 – Prelude #2, Op. 41

58:23 – Waltz #3, Op. 25

1:00:50 – March #2, Op. 9

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

1:05:50 – The Challenge, Op. 28

1:08:19 – Waltz #4, Op. 40

1:10:41 – The Run, Op. 64

1:12:02 – March #3, Op. 23

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

1:17:39 – Fount of Clarity, Op. 24

1:20:58 – March #4, Op. 29

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

1:25:24 – Rondo #4, Op. 68

1:27:42 – Spiral Tower, Op. 79

1:30:40 – Robotic Rag, Op. 82

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

1:34:57 – Tenacity, Op. 5

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

1:39:54 – Liberation, Op. 20

1:42:53 – Triumphant Endeavor, Op. 19

1:45:34 – March #7, Op. 44

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

1:49:41 – Discoverer, Op. 16

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

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

Download Mr. Stolyarov’s compositions for free.

Artistic Acknowledgments

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

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

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

January 23, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Gennady Stolyarov II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1:09:52 – Always Think! – May 6, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2:05 – Video of Smart Stick

11:46 – Video of Arduino Projects – I

13:57 – Video of Arduino Project – II

21:32 – Nonso Nolly Explains the Smart Stick Live

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

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

Support Nonso Nolly on Patreon.

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

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

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

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

3:44 – Bill Andrews – Remarks on COVID

21:08 – Ian Hale – Remarks on COVID

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

1:08:15 – Ian Hale on Rejuvenation

1:18:37 – Jason Mercurio on Ageless Partners

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

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

1:39:19 – Ian Hale on Neurodiversity

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

Books by Dr. Ian Hale:

– Corona: The Answer (2021)

– Asperger’s, Autism, & You (2021)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4:53 – Lawrence Krauss’s Opening Remarks

10:11 – Morality Without Religion

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

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

22:10 – Lawrence Krauss: Celebrate Our Sentience

23:44 – Armin Navabi’s Opening Remarks

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

34:44 – David Orenstein’s Opening Remarks

41:36 – Valerie Tarico’s Opening Remarks

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

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

1:11:00 – Darth Kermit

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

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

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

1:47:45 – Closing Remarks

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

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

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

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U.S. Transhumanist Party General Discussion Thread for 2023

January 5, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 1 comment

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

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

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

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

January 1, 2023 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II

Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party

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

Transhumanist Tower

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

Membership Growth

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

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

Establishment of the Transhuman Club

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

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

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

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

Re-Formation of the New York Transhumanist Party

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

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

Successful Support for Dr. Aubrey de Grey

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

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

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

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

Participation in RAADfest 2022

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

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

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

Addressing the War in Ukraine and Existential Risk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Imperative to Combat COVID-19

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

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

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

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

Virtual Enlightenment Salons

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

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

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

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

Some Creations to Celebrate the Holidays

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

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

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

My Smart Stick Invention Prototype – Article by Nonso Nolly

December 10, 2022 Nonso Nolly Comments 0 Comment

Nonso Nolly

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

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

Watch Nonso Nolly’s YouTube Channel: NOLLY TECH.

Support Nonso Nolly on Patreon here.

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

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

December 10, 2022 Siba Tcha-Mouza Comments 0 Comment

Siba Tcha-Mouza

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

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

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

What is transhumanism?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Creating therapeutic artificial organs;

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

– Avoiding genetic diseases thanks to genetic engineering;

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

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

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

– Creating or developing intelligent environments and tools;

– Conquering space and developing geoengineering, etc.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are three dimensions of historicity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Openness to the processes of socio-political change;

– Support for innovations, etc.

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

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

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

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

A concrete case of the state of African technology:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Siba Tcha-Mouza

USTP Ambassador for Togo

The Age of Deferred Aging – Article by J. Lund

November 22, 2022 J. Lund Comments 0 Comment

J. Lund

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

Longer Lifespans*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Metformin

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

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

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

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

Why It Matters

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

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

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

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

November 5, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Gennady Stolyarov II

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

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

Nevada State Ballot Question 1 – Equality of Rights Amendment:

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

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

Nevada State Ballot Question 2 – Minimum Wage Amendment:

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

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

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

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to allow all Nevada voters the right to participate in open primary elections to choose candidates for the general election in which all voters may then rank the remaining candidates by preference for the offices of U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Controller, Attorney General, and State Legislators?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

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

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

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

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

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

October 28, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 1 comment

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

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

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

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

The vote totals are as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 22, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 2 comments

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

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

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

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

Constitution of the New York Transhumanist Party

October 17, 2022 New York Transhumanist Party Comments 2 comments

Constitution of the New York Transhumanist Party

Adopted Effective October 17, 2022

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

HISTORICAL NOTE [Not a part of this Constitution]: After a period of time between July 24, 2022, and October 16, 2022, during which the New York Transhumanist Party was re-formed and placed under the direct control of the United States Transhumanist Party, the transfer of leadership has been finalized for the New York Transhumanist Party to once again autonomously operate under the auspices of the United States Transhumanist Party and be governed by a Constitution which was developed during the period of the United States Transhumanist Party’s direct control and which was accepted by the incoming Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party, Daud Sheikh, and the incoming Vice-Chairman of of the New York Transhumanist Party, Luis Arroyo. Accordingly, the terms of office of Chairman Sheikh and Vice-Chairman Arroyo began on October 17, 2022. The United States Transhumanist Party congratulated both of them and expressed that it looks forward to continued collaboration. The United States Transhumanist Party also again congratulated our New York Regional Liaison, Dinorah Delfin, who since August 3, 2022, has served in that position – an outreach and advocacy role which remains directly within the organizational structure of the United States Transhumanist Party. On April 7, 2026, Daud Sheikh submitted his resignation from the position of Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party and designated Luis Arroyo as the next Chairman. The United States Transhumanist Party wishes Luis Arroyo well in his efforts to continue growing the New York Transhumanist Party.

Article I. Immutable Principles of the New York Transhumanist Party

Section I. Core Ideals
Section II. Immutable Operating Principles

Article II. Officers

Article III. Membership

Article IV. Alliances

Article V. Amendments

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

Article VII. Unique Positions of the New York Transhumanist Party

Article VIII. Candidates

Article I. Immutable Principles of the New York Transhumanist Party

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

Section I. Core Ideals:

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

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

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

Section II. Immutable Operating Principles:

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

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

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

Article II. Officers

Section I: As of April 7, 2026, the following individuals shall hold roles as Officers in the New York Transhumanist Party.

Chairman: Luis Arroyo
Vice-Chairman: VACANT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article III. Membership

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

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

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

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

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

Article IV. Alliances

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

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

Article V. Amendments

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

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

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

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

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

Section I: The New York Transhumanist Party strongly supports individual privacy and liberty over how to apply technology to one’s personal life. The New York Transhumanist Party holds that each individual should remain completely sovereign in the choice to disclose or not disclose personal activities, preferences, and beliefs within the public sphere. As such, the New York Transhumanist Party opposes all forms of mass surveillance and any intrusion by governmental or private institutions upon non-coercive activities that an individual has chosen to retain within his, her, or its private sphere. However, the New York Transhumanist Party also recognizes that no individuals should be protected from peaceful criticism of any matters that those individuals have chosen to disclose within the sphere of public knowledge and discourse.

Section II: The New York Transhumanist Party supports all acceptance, tolerance, and inclusivity of individuals and groups of all races, genders, classes, religions, creeds, and ideologies. Accordingly, the New York Transhumanist Party condemns any hostile discrimination or legal restrictions on the basis of national origin, skin color, birthplace, ancestry, gender identity, or any manner of circumstantial attribute tied to a person’s lineage or accident of birth. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party strongly opposes any efforts to enforce said restrictions regardless of cause or motivation thereof. Additionally, any institution that uses violence, suppression of free speech, or other unconstitutional or otherwise illegal methods will be disavowed and condemned by the New York Transhumanist Party, with an efficient, non-violent alternative to said institution being offered to achieve its goals if they align with the Party’s interests.

Section III: The New York Transhumanist Party holds that the vast majority of technologies are beneficial to human well-being and should be enthusiastically advocated for and developed further. However, a minority of technologies could be detrimental to human well-being and, as such, their application, when it results in detrimental consequences, should be opposed. Examples of such detrimental technologies include nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, mass-surveillance systems such as those deployed by the National Security Agency in the United States, and backscatter X-ray full-body scanners such as those used until 2013 by the Transportation Security Administration in the United States. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party is opposed to the deliberate engineering of new active pathogens or the resurrection of once-existing pathogens, whose spread might not be able to be contained within laboratory settings. While it is impossible to un-learn the knowledge utilized in the creation of such technologies, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that all such knowledge should only be devoted toward peaceful, life-affirming, rights-respecting purposes, going forward.

Section IV: In recognition of the dire existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to sapient life on Earth – including as a result of such weapons’ accidental deployment due to system failures or human misunderstanding – the New York Transhumanist Party advocates the complete dismantlement and abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere, as rapidly as possible. If necessary for geopolitical stability, synchronized multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation treaties should be pursued, strengthened, and accelerated in the most expeditious manner. If, however, multilateral agreements among nations are not reached, then the New York Transhumanist Party advocates that all nuclear powers, especially the United States and Russia, should undertake unilateral nuclear disarmament at the earliest opportunity in order to preserve civilization from accidental annihilation.

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

Section VI: The New York Transhumanist Party upholds morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence whatever one wants so long as it does not directly harm others.

The New York Transhumanist Party considers morphological freedom to include the prerogative for a sentient intelligence to set forth in advance provisions for how to handle its physical manifestation, should that intelligence enter into a vegetative, unconscious, or similarly inactive state, notwithstanding any legal definition of death. For instance, a cryonics patient should be entitled to determine in advance that the patient’s body shall be cryopreserved and kept under specified conditions, in spite of any legal definition of death that might apply to that patient under cryopreservation.

The New York Transhumanist Party also recognizes that morphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics, including as yet undefined subcategorizations that may arise as sapience evolves.

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

However, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that the proper exercise of morphological freedom must also ensure that any improvement of the self should not result in involuntary harms directly inflicted upon others. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party recognizes any sentient entity to have the freedom not to modify itself without being subject to negative political repercussions, which include but are not limited to legal and/or socio-economic repercussions.

The New York Transhumanist Party recognizes the ethical obligations of sapient beings to be the purview of those individual beings, and holds that no other group, individual, or government has the right to limit those choices – including genetic manipulation or other biological manipulation or any other modifications up to and including biological manipulation, mechanical manipulation, life extension, reproductive choice, reproductive manipulation, cryonics, or other possible modifications, enhancements, or morphological freedoms. It is only when such choices directly infringe upon the rights of other sapient beings that the New York Transhumanist Party will work to develop policies to avoid potential infringements.

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

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

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

The New York Transhumanist Party places no reliance upon any position or belief system that contains arguments built upon logical fallacies (with exemption granted to arguments containing both fallacious and logically defensible premises).

Section VIII: The New York Transhumanist Party supports maximum individual liberty to engage in scientific and technological innovation for the improvement of the self and the human species. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party supports all rationally, scientifically grounded research efforts for curing diseases, lengthening lifespans, achieving functional, healthy augmentations of the body and brain, and increasing the durability and youthfulness of the human organism. The New York Transhumanist Party holds that all such research efforts should be rendered fully lawful and their products should be made fully available to the public, as long as no individual is physically harmed without that individual’s consent or defrauded by misrepresentation of the effects of a possible treatment or substance.

Section IX: The New York Transhumanist Party supports all emerging technologies that have the potential to improve the human condition – including but not limited to autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, economical solar power, safe nuclear power, hydroelectricity, geothermal power, applications for the sharing of durable goods, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, rapid transit, 3D printing, vertical farming, electronic devices to detect and respond to trauma, and beneficial genetic modification of plants, animals, and human beings.

Section X: The New York Transhumanist Party advocates the construction of a self-repairing, self-maintaining smart infrastructure which incorporates the distribution of energy, communications, and clean potable water to every building.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article VII. Unique Positions of the New York Transhumanist Party

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

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

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

Article VIII. Candidates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Transhumanist Party to Participate in RAADfest 2022

August 12, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II

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

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

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

RAADfest 2017

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

RAADfest 2018

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

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

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

RAADfest 2020

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

RAADfest 2021

RAADfest 2021 Longevity Activism Panel – October 3, 2021

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

August 8, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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

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

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

Celeste Castaldo – Northern California Regional Liaison

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

Ms. Castaldo is a serial entrepreneur and naturopath, with decades of experience in regenerative and rehabilitation medicine practices, utilizing a variety of health and wellness technologies. She launched several successful ventures including American Holistic Health Academy, Paradise Health Resorts, Heaven on Earth Med Spa, California Holistic Health, and Paradise Health Development Consulting.

Ms. Castaldo has worked with people from around the world, including U.S. and international government agencies, world-renowned royalty and heads of state, physicians, professional athletes, Fortune 500 executives, Silicon Valley technology founders, authors, publishers, music and motion-picture industry professionals, celebrity chefs, and many others. With over thirty years of education, training, and experience, Ms. Castaldo has developed an integrative approach to holistic health. She completed a Bachelor degree in Naturopathic Studies from San Francisco State University, she then continued her education in the MD medical doctorate program at International University of Health Sciences, and with the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine Board Certification Studies. She also completed a certification in Clinical Nutrition from Gulf Medical University, and doctoral studies in Alternative Medicines, M.D. (A.M.), from the Indian Board of Alternative Medicine.

Ms. Castaldo connected the U.S. Transhumanist Party with entrepreneur and venture investor Steven Hoffman, with whom we held a fascinating Virtual Enlightenment Salon on August 29, 2021, discussing the implications of various emerging technologies that interface with the human mind. Ms. Castaldo is a regular presence at our Virtual Enlightenment Salons, and she often shares her insights either in the video livestreams or in the YouTube chats for those events.

Dinorah Delfin – New York Regional Liaison

Dinorah Delfin was appointed as the USTP’s New York Regional Liaison on August 3, 2022, but she has been an important presence in the USTP for much longer, having first joined as a member in January 2018 and serving in multiple leadership roles since that time, with contributions in areas such as forging important connections within the transhumanist community including with the Foresight Institute and Humanity Plus, establishing and managing the New York Transhumanist Party’s first Facebook group, which grew into a community of 435 members and remains an official channel of communication of the New York Transhumanist Party. She was one of the first people to launch a mobilization effort in response to Chairman Stolyarov’s announcement of the need to activate the Transhumanist and USTP community in 2019 to remedy the flaws with the Nevada Assembly Bill 226, which was successfully amended with the efforts of the USTP, setting an important precedent for voluntary microchipping rights and morphological freedom.

Ms. Delfin is a New York-based conceptual multimedia artist, an activist, a transhumanist, a deep thinker, and a writer interested in the scientific truths of spiritual concepts and in the ethical implications of man-made intelligence and humans’ self-directed evolution.

Ms. Delfin is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Immortalists Magazine and its hosting platform The Immortalists Club. Since its founding in early 2020, Immortalists Magazine has contributed greatly to the spread of the ideas of transhumanism, showcasing the thought of leading transhumanists, including Officers and members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, and combining intellectually groundbreaking articles with top-quality graphic design and a finely crafted multimedia experience for the readers.

Ms. Delfin is also an Editorial Advisor for Springer’s Transhumanism International Book Series, and the founder and owner of ArtDimensional Studios, a platform for the multi-media expressions of transformative arts. She is also the founder and owner of Hamptons Zen Living, a business focused on providing personalized solutions for streamlining and organizing living spaces for more productive and healthier living.

Ms. Delfin graduated Cum Laude in Entrepreneurship Management, with an English Minor. She was featured in The Transhumanism Handbook (2019), published by Springer International, and has given presentations on the subject of transformative arts and transhumanism at New York University’s Posthuman Summit, at the University of Rwanda’s International Conference of Techno-Scientific Awareness, and at John Cabot University in Rome.

Ms. Delfin’s art can be found here.

How to Become a Regional Liaison

The activities of our Regional Liaisons in Northern California and New York are hopefully just the beginning of a Regional Liaison program that will eventually expand to have nationwide coverage. If you are interested in becoming a Regional Liaison for your geographical area, please reach out to USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II via e-mail here and provide your resume as well as a statement of your interest in the position, your relevant skill sets, and how you would approach the role of a Regional Liaison if selected. We look forward to working with individuals who are skilled at forging connections, communicating the ideas of transhumanism accurately and persuasively, and growing our movement.

From the Basics – Article by Mikhail Batin

August 4, 2022 Mikhail Batin Comments 0 Comment

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Mikhail Batin

Editor’s Note: In this essay by my friend Mikhail Batin, he explores where one should start when considering immortality. There are several factors mentioned including how a lackadaisical public not seeing the immense cost of non-advocacy is influencing the fight, how one should see there life as extending in a line toward death, with each action being pro-immortality or anti-immortality, and how pain and decrepitude can lead one to fool oneself that immortality is not desirable.

~ Zach Richardson – Director of Publication,
United States Transhumanist Party, August 2022

I often hear from many a request, wish, or even a demand to please start talking about longevity from the very beginning – from the basics.

That’s a fair ask. From one side, I believe I have said everything on the topic, but from the other side – it’s never difficult to repeat the essentials. So, here is my viewpoint.

I postulate on the moral axiom: it is better to be alive than to be dead. It is better to be than not to be. That is no question to me.

Now I want to share a stunning fact. Fifty percent of people will not agree with this statement. Maybe even more than 50%.

Usually, I refrain from debating with people who see no point in continuing life. It is their life, and they can do with it whatever they please to do. If it were not for one BUT…

Lives of people who want to live are in the hands of people who choose death. This setup is due to politics, budgets, and the public opinion.

When someone buys a ticket to attend a sport event, they become a soccer lobbyist. This person signals to society: ”hey, soccer is important”. A million of such signals result in constructing a stadium. The same is true of the rest in life: chewing gum, running shoes, and the like – people voice their interests, which results in a pronounced vector of public interest. The wheels of the economy are spinning, and society goes – somewhere.

If your interest is not in longevity – you go and lead others towards death.

There is no evil will in it – it happens so for the sole reason that the road to longevity goes in another direction.

We always make choices, be they private or public. If you attended a soccer game, you missed javelin throwing. If everybody went to a Cup Winners’ Cup game, nobody came to watch javelin, hammer, or shot throwing. Javelin and hammer athletes are depressed. They have a lower budget. The evolution starts working against throwing javelin, hammer, shot.

That’s exactly the reason why there is no 100-story Longevity Institute – anywhere in the world. Its bricks were used to build shopping malls, amusement parks, and other establishments.

There are 3-story aging research centers in the US, Germany, and Australia, but they have not yet discovered a cure for old age. Probably due to the fact that 97 stories are not supported by the public interest.

Why do people disagree with the idea that “it is better to be alive than to be dead”?

First of all, due to the fact that people like to argue, and this idea is too simple and evident. Maybe people think that they appear smarter when they start speculating: “well, you know, 2 plus 2 does not always equal 4”. People tend to argue with Facebook posts, in forums, with a point of view they have just heard – but they are reluctant to argue with a book. A book remains the most reputable source of knowledge. There are, of course, academic publications – however, they remain inaccessible for most people, as they require specialized background or knowledge to read. That is why we do hope that a well-written book may initiate changes in society. Das Kapital (a.k.a. Capital) is a good example.

The second obstacle on the way to accept the idea “it is better to be alive than to be dead” is a mystic, religious, esoteric picture of the world – simply put, belief in the afterlife. For religious people there is no death as non-existence. There is rather a passage, most probably to a better life. Almost everyone thinks that they are good and have a higher chance to get to heaven. Moreover, the magical creator of the Universe is expected to be kind-hearted, and it is hard to imagine that he will condemn someone to endless suffering, right?

It makes no sense to search for logic talking to people who believe in the afterlife. This very concept emerged as a response to the awareness of death. It is a kind of psychotherapy aimed at reconciling a person with thoughts about death, so that they can calmly reproduce, raise kids – without thinking of negative things and going crazy from the thought that they will die and all is in vain.

The concept of death denial makes one’s life easier, but at the same time the fight against death becomes meaningless.

Why should one postpone meeting with God?

Death is not only denied, it is also justified as care for future generations, like the belief that old people get in the way of innovations. It is a fascist position, put bluntly. In general, people spend a lot of energy wishing death to bad people (bad from their point of view). Also, if neuro-renewal advanced, people may be less set in their ways…

At some point their own grandchildren start to wait for their death to inherit their homes.

Our death is economically profitable, too. It is hard to imagine a pension fund that has collected the retirees’ money and invested it in extending their lives. What if it works out? Then the pension fund will go broke. It is not in its business model.

Note an interesting fact: Pension funds are also managed by people, and these very people would definitely benefit from getting a cure from aging – for themselves. However, the public interest gets in the way of their desire to live.

Isn’t it amazing: people have themselves given their money to those who are economically interested in their death? Well, not exactly themselves. The government did it. The government that also views the “silver tsunami” as a problem and not as an achievement. After all, the growing amount of elderly people is labeled “tsunami” and not “happiness”. Coincidence? Not really.

Changing the concept of the world order is a very energy-consuming action for the brain. And it is exactly this action that establishes the idea that “it is better to be alive than to be dead”.

It is an ethical concept to the brain: to rank everything on a scale “movement to life or to death”. Besides, the brain feels that if it accepts this seemingly innocent idea, the next step will be a suggestion to do something, which puts at danger one’s established lifestyle with its dopamine reward. No way!

Maybe this is the biggest barrier on the way to immortality: people are concentrated with endless enjoyment. Having lunch, chatting, buying something, selling something, enjoying oneself, scratching one’s back, confirming one’s social status, going to bed. We tend to do what we are used to do – and get pleasure from doing so. There is little pleasure in the fight with death. Why do we only start fighting the concept of death when it is too near to do anything about?

People are not at all indifferent to their own death and very quickly forget about all benefits of the afterlife if their life is in danger. They swim, extinguish fires, take chemotherapy, and betray – to remain alive. Very few will start saying that death is not necessarily bad, if you may die soon due to inaction.

The more time separates a person from their possible death, the less willing they are to start doing something. The value of life is discounted by the fact that “I” in future is not “I” today. It is amazing – egotism kills people. Today I am enjoying life, and tomorrow I will sort everything out.

I am not aiming at listing here all reasons why people do not agree with “it is better to be alive than to be dead”, but I will add one more.

We tend to agree with the majority view for the questions that are not important to us due to conformity. Death ideology dominates in society – and it is easier to join it, especially since the task of eliminating death does not appear reachable.

Actually, it is the only argument that has at least some rationale hint: it is highly unlikely that we will be able to substantially increase our lifespan during our own lives. As such, we must go and do what we must do, in order not to lose time. Talking about “being alive is better than dead” appears pointless and not useful.

Let me give you some arguments as to why our talk about the unacceptability of death makes sense.

In places where people are more protected against death, people die less. That is the consequence of the death-prevention mindset. More money is spent on security and medicine. Globally, death resistance leads to local victories.

There is no physical law that prohibits extending life for an indefinite period. Parts of our body are replaceable, including brain cells. I am extremely excited by the numerous medical advancements in replacing organs and tissues. I can’t wait until they manage to attach a new body to a mammal’s head. I am not only waiting for, but also promoting this research field.

Scientists have many times extended mammals’ lives. Moreover, in model animals we sometimes observe the multiplying effect of different ways to extend life.

Actually, we have not tested even 1% of ideas for how to extend peoples’ lives. We cannot say: we put in a lot of effort and have not succeeded. What we can reliably say is: we have done almost nothing, and for some reason immortality has not immediately given up its secrets.

In the above argument, that fight against death has little chances to be won and one can waste one’s time – the most important word is “to waste”. Let us discuss what is a waste of time and what is not. And what really makes sense in this world.

Imagine that while you are reading this text, a nuclear war began and everybody died. It means I wasted my time writing this text and you wasted your time reading it. All I did in my life was in vain. And all you did was in vain. All people at all times lived, loved, worked absolutely in vain. Everything will lose its sense.

Sense or meaning is a justification of existence. There will be nobody to justify.

In this context only actions against a global catastrophe make sense, other actions are a harmful waste of time.

But death of all people is equally terrible and “in vain”, regardless of the cause of death, e.g., old age. At the same time, when some people die of old age and others remain alive – their sense of existence is also alive. But! It is their sense of existence, not ours. A dead person takes their meaning of life to nowhere. It ceases to exist.

Death nullifies all human achievements. No more senses or meanings. Therefore “in vain” is a guaranteed result if you are dead. Only the eternal makes sense. The rest is burning opportunities, even the small ones.

It is important to underline once again, what is wrong with death. Everything is wrong in death; it deprives of all positives and produces nothing. Do people wish to die? Sometimes they do, first of all when a person suffers from pain. But it is a problem of pain, and does not mean that death is attractive per se. Many elderly people do not want to live. What is aging after all? It is slow death. People who experience problems with seeing, hearing, thinking, and cannot move as they used to – these people are practically dead. They do not allow themselves to want to become young, because it appears impossible.

It also happens that problems and troubles make one’s life unbearable, and they see death as a rescue, a way out. In reality it is a bad way out, as there is no way back.

Why should we extend life? What is valuable about our lives?

Everything is valuable, not only youth and beauty. The very fact of our existence is incredibly awesome. We can think and create new things.

Imagine that you are a king of kings. The difference between you and a beggar is negligibly small if compared to the difference between an alive man and a dead man. And nowadays you can easily become a king of kings in the virtual space.

A few words about mortal ideology. This is a world picture where people give little importance to death. Death is a mega event in one’s life and a very negative event, too. Many people do not notice the fact that the flow of time leads them to the grave and do not think whether they can do something about it. That is what I call mortal ideology.

From our transhumanist point of view, doing nothing against death is criminal, immoral, wild, and insane. Finding excuses to death is equal to giving a gun to a terrorist killing people.

Unfortunately, we cannot afford not to discuss the inhuman position of people who excuse death. An excuse lies even in the phrase “well, maybe there is something after death”. In reality, this should translate as “most likely there is nothing wrong with the fact that you will die”.

“Unfortunately,” because when preparing themselves for death, these people prepare others as well. Since too few tickets are sold to the match against death, nobody paid for the scouts of a star team “life extension at all costs”.

And what about overpopulation? This is no simple question that deserves a detailed answer, and I will not shrug it off by mentioning an option to populate outer space. There is a real conflict between altruism and egoism, and I will prove that altruism sometimes becomes inhuman.

To be continued…

Mikhail Batin is Chairman of the Board of the NGO “Science For Life-Extension”.

Declaration of the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party on the Re-Formation of the New York Transhumanist Party

July 25, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 3 comments

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Gennady Stolyarov II

July 24, 2022

Pursuant to Article I, Section III, Operating Principle 2, of the United States Transhumanist Party Constitution, “While the United States Transhumanist Party respects the autonomy of State-level Transhumanist Parties, the United States Transhumanist Party reserves the right to determine if a State-level Transhumanist Party has become inactive with no hope of restoring activity on the part of the current leadership of the State-level Transhumanist Party. In such a situation, the leadership of the United States Transhumanist Party, subject to a final decision of the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party, reserves the right to re-form the previously inactive State-level Transhumanist Party under new leadership.”

There have been recent attempts at activity by individual members of the New York Transhumanist Party. However, there has been a vacuum of leadership in the New York Transhumanist Party and no clear process for determining how that leadership is to be determined or exercised or how to bring about a situation where a member’s actions are representative of the broader New York Transhumanist Party, which currently numbers over 110 members. Without a clear determination of the identity and source of authority of New York Transhumanist Party leadership, the members of the New York Transhumanist Party will be stymied from acting due to uncertainty as to the nature and source of legitimate processes for such action. The United States Transhumanist Party Leadership seeks to remedy this situation.

Accordingly, it is the case that there is “no hope of restoring activity on the part of the current leadership of the State-level Transhumanist Party” – since the identity of the current leadership is not known, disputed, and impossible to ascertain objectively. There is no ability to restore activity of a current leadership that is non-existent, since non-existent persons are unable to act. Accordingly, per my authority as Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party, I hereby announce that the New York Transhumanist Party is hereby placed under the direct control of the United States Transhumanist Party and re-formed with the intent to designate new leadership subject to an application process that will be reviewed by the entirety of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officer team.

Any person interested in becoming the Chairman (or Chairwoman) of the New York Transhumanist Party is welcome to submit an application to gennadystolyarovii@gmail.com, with a deadline of August 15, 2022. The application should include a resume and a statement explaining the applicant’s interest in the position as well as an outline of the objectives and style of governance that the candidate wishes to exercise. After that deadline elapses, the U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers will review the applications of all candidates, interview any candidates who qualify for the position, and announce a decision within one week after interviews are concluded.

In the meantime, the New York Transhumanist Party shall be governed according to the following provisional decisions.

Provisional Decision 1. The prior April 4, 2022, poll on the condemnation of homeless sweeps is hereby recognized as a legitimate expression of the position of the New York Transhumanist Party.

Provisional Decision 2. The pending vote on reproductive choice will be assessed for legitimacy once a quorum is reached. A quorum on this matter is considered to be 10 members voting in favor of the proposed statement on reproductive choice. After a quorum is reached, a majority decision of the New York Transhumanist Party members who voted will determine whether or not this proposal is adopted. [Note: The United States Transhumanist Party does not express an official position on the pending proposal regarding reproductive choice.]

Provisional Decision 3. The New York Transhumanist Party website at https://nytranshumanistparty.wixsite.com/nytp/ is recognized as legitimate in its configuration and content as of July 24, 2022. However, any future alterations to that website are subject to the prior-approval authority of the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party until a Chairman is named for the New York Transhumanist Party.

Provisional Decision 4. Luis Arroyo is hereby authorized to undertake communications to members of the New York Transhumanist Party regarding the pending vote on reproductive choice, as well as regarding day-to-day operating matters that do not involve questions of policy determination or designation of leadership. This is a limited authority granted to Luis Arroyo and may not be further delegated to any other person. The questions of policy determination or designation of leadership will remain under the direct purview of the United States Transhumanist Party Leadership until such a time as a new Chairman is designated for the New York Transhumanist Party.

Provisional Decision 5. The text of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform in Article VI of the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party is hereby adopted in entirety on behalf of the New York Transhumanist Party, with the sole substitution of every instance of “United States Transhumanist Party” with “New York Transhumanist Party”. The New York Transhumanist Party may, in the future, consider additional proposals that are consistent with or complementary to the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, but the New York Transhumanist Party may not adopt any positions contrary to the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform.

The above measures are intended to restore order and legitimacy to the activities of the New York Transhumanist Party. We look forward to reviewing the applications of interested New York members for the role of Chairman (or Chairwoman) of the New York Transhumanist Party.

The Transhuman Club

July 11, 2022 Jason Geringer Comments 0 Comment

The Transhuman Club is the non-political affiliate organization of the United States Transhumanist Party.

All members of the United States Transhumanist Party receive automatic, free membership in the Transhuman Club.

However, anyone who joins the Transhuman Club directly may choose or not choose to be a member of the United States Transhumanist Party.

https://ustpld2021.wixsite.com/transhumanclub

The Axiomatic, Ubiquitous, and Commonsense – Chapter I of “A Rational Cosmology” by Gennady Stolyarov II

May 21, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II

We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within. – Stephen Jay Gould

Editor’s Note: In this essay, which constitutes Chapter I of Gennady Stolyarov II’s 2004-2005 treatise A Rational Cosmology (most recently updated in its Third Edition in 2013 and freely available here), the author writes that the specific-observational sciences can tell us the mechanisms involved in particular entities, qualities, or relationships. They cannot, however, tell us whether or not something is an entity, a quality, or a relationship (or neither of the three, for that matter). That is the province of cosmology. Mr. Stolyarov also highlights the fact that ontology deals with the conceptual underpinnings of all existence, whereas cosmology deals with the observational underpinnings thereof.

~ Urhefe Ogheneyoma Victor, Assistant to the Director of Publication,
United States Transhumanist Party, May 2022

The Errors of Empiricism-Positivism

Essay I

Contemporary science is often prevented from further progress by a fallacy which forms a glaring breach between its findings and the conclusions and observations ubiquitously available to any man whose five senses function properly.

This fallacy is not as blatant as the superstitions of old. It is not a belief in witches or cosmic spirits, but rather a new form of denying the evidence of man’s most common faculties. It has been nurtured by a long line of philosophers, but its greatest emergence was seen during the twentieth century, a time when science often succumbed to subjectivism, unverifiable theorizing, the dominance of “intuition,” groupthink, and ultra-specialization which detached scientists from any findings or interactions outside their bizarrely narrow fields.

This superstition can be called many names, but its most comprehensive, and the one that shall be used throughout this treatise, is empiricism-positivism.

Empiricism-positivism is not the same as reliance on empirical observation or evidence. It is not the same as empiricism per se, a philosophical strain that emerged in the 17^th century and was fortified in the 18^th century. The empiricist wing of the Enlightenment – comprised of thinkers such as Francis Bacon, John Locke, and David Hume – made considerable contributions to the advancement of science and philosophy as humankind was emerging from a dark, theocratic, dogmatic era. These empiricist thinkers were not always right (Hume’s “is-ought” dichotomy is a good example of some pitfalls of early empiricism), but they did make strides forward in terms of rendering reality more knowable and explicable through the use of systematic observation of the external world and logical derivations from such observation. Empiricism of this sort made valuable contributions to the scientific method as it can be and ought to be practiced.

Empiricism-positivism is a more recent doctrine that, unlike the earlier empiricism, limits the scope of possible human knowledge instead of broadening it. One of its first progenitors was the originator of the term “positivism”, Auguste Comte, who lived from 1794 to 1859. The logical positivist movement in Berlin and Vienna during the 1920s and 1930s further formalized this doctrine, rejecting as meaningless or “unscientific” any sort of metaphysics or ethics in philosophy or any sort of certainty in universal knowledge derived from the everyday human observation of reality.

Very mildly put, today’s empiricism-positivism holds, as its fundamental tenet, that any assertion, no matter how general, depends on some single particular observation or some specific set of particular observations. The empiricist-positivist will claim that one cannot make any conclusions about space or time without first studying advanced quantum mechanics. He will claim that one cannot make any generalizations about human nature independent of the historical context of any given time period.

As a corollary to this inseparable attachment of empiricism-positivism to some specific observations, this doctrine holds that man cannot be certain about anything, since, because all conclusions depend on specific observations, some future observation always has the chance of refuting one’s present appraisal of anything whatsoever!

But what will the empiricist-positivist say to the man who dares proclaim, “I exist!”? Is this a statement contingent on further observations? Can some further piece of evidence come along during that man’s lifetime which can disprove his assertion?

What about another basic proposition: “Existence exists!”? Can some new twist of quantum mechanics or ultra-microscopy refute that?

It is clear that, to base science, the quest for knowledge, on a doctrine that postulates man’s perpetual ignorance and uncertainty, is a clear contradiction that fundamentally undermines the very purpose of science. The result is the unfortunately far-too-limited state of many of today’s scientific branches. They can do so much more; they can open doors into massive improvements in human well-being, derived from the harnessing of the laws of nature; they can explore and harness the interrelationships among all fields of human knowledge, since all knowledge is knowledge of the same reality. But many scientists do not venture there, largely due to institutional and societal discouragement. With emerging exceptions from pioneering scientists who dare to challenge convention, mainstream academic explorations remain confined to what is deemed acceptable within the empiricist-positivist orthodoxy of our time. People who propose new approaches are too often ignored at best, and sometimes derided and vilified. An academic protectionism has emerged, where adherence to the reigning theories, paradigms, and views of the world is seen as the only way to get ahead, and entry into the realm of discussion by creative outsiders is discouraged.

To be clear, observation is critical to scientific progress; no man’s mind can operate in a vacuum. Man’s inherent capacity for rational thought is useless unless he has something to think about. However, true science, as a quest to systematize human knowledge, must depend on all observations, not just the esoteric or highly particular ones. In order to overcome the errors of empiricism-positivism, it is necessary to recognize that besides particular observations, there exist ubiquitous observations that any man can grasp and use to better understand reality.

The Axioms of Existence, Identity, and Consciousness

Essay II

There exist certain conclusions that are available to all men, no matter what their age, intellect, or degree of scientific expertise. Nor does it matter what particular objects these men observe when they make these conclusions, as such conclusions do not entail one or several particular observations. Rather, they entail the capacity to make any observations whatsoever, and are verified whenever one makes any observation. These propositions are what are often termed “common sense,” a fitting description, as they are derived from those things that all human beings can sense, from observations common to all of us.

At the root of such propositions lie the axioms.

An axiom is a self-verifying statement. It cannot be proved deductively, because it is, in itself, the foundation upon which all further proofs are built. Nevertheless, no matter what one says, sees, or does, such speech, observation, or action will verify the axioms. Philosopher Ayn Rand identified three fundamental axioms which are inextricably attached to each other, and are demonstrated unceasingly in everything that exists:

Existence – Something is. If no thing existed, nothing could be observed!
Identity – Something is. Whatever is, is something in particular, i.e., has a certain definite nature.
Consciousness – We can perceive what is. The observer exists and so does the faculty by which he perceives what exists.

Even in the attempt to deny them, these axioms will hold. If one stated, “existence does not exist,” it would be a matter of great wonder how one could make such a claim, being a part of existence as one is.

Moreover, how can existence not have the property which it has – that is, the property of existing? (Saying, “Existence does not exist” is tantamount to saying “That which has the essential property of existing does not have the essential property of existing.”)

If one stated, “nothing has any identity,” this would bring up the question, “Why did one use the word ‘nothing,’ which really means, ‘no thing?’ If there is no such thing as identity, then, what is a thing?” If one stated, “Consciousness does not exist,” the speaker would need to not exist in order for such an assertion to be true. After all, such a statement did spring from his consciousness!

Since even the attempt to refute them in fact confirms their truth, the axioms of existence, identity, and consciousness can be recognized as certain and serve as a foundation from which further basic knowledge about existence is arrived at and evaluated. In order to be considered true, any other proposition must be in accord with the three fundamental axioms.

The Natures and Tasks of Ontology and Cosmology

Essay III

The branch of philosophy that deals with existence at its most fundamental level is termed metaphysics. The branch of metaphysics that concerns the nature of what exists is termed ontology.

Ontology makes the distinction between entities, the things that exist, and qualities, the attributes that these things have. The philosopher Reginald Firehammer states three fundamental ontological corollaries to the axiom of identity in his essay, “Perception.” The ontological corollaries answer the question: “What is an entity?”

The first corollary of identity: Anything that exists must have some qualities.
The second corollary of identity: Anything that exists must be different in some way from everything else that exists and have some quality or combination of qualities no other existent has.
The third corollary of identity: Anything that exists must have some relationship to everything else that exists.

A quality, on the other hand, is not a thing or an entity in its own right. Rather, it cannot conceivably exist except as an attribute of the entities that exhibit it. For example, there is no such thing as “the color red”. The color red cannot be imagined to exist outside of those things which are red: red paint, red letters, red furniture, red vegetables, etc. There cannot be a “pure quality” apart from the entities that possess it.

Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that focuses on what entities and qualities are, how to distinguish between them, and how to categorize relationships between and among entities, as well as the various states under which various entities and their relationships may be classified. Within this work, it will be my task to develop ontology to a level necessitated by the discussion of a branch of metaphysics which is derivative from ontology – namely, cosmology.

While ontology concerns itself with the general nature of entities, qualities, and relationships, cosmology ventures even further, by making certain fundamental empirical assertions about existence. Ontology deals with the conceptual underpinnings of all existence, whereas cosmology deals with the observational underpinnings thereof.

For many years, cosmology has been misclassified as a “natural science” or, worse, a branch of physics, rendering it fashionable for such scientists as Stephen Hawking to offer speculations about space, time, and the universe which are in fact the province of philosophy, not physics, to explicate. Hawking’s specific conclusions are sometimes right, but he is thoroughly wrong to dismiss the value of philosophy in resolving questions about the natural world. Now, however, an alternative view, based on reason, common sense, and the observations humans make every moment of the world around them, can supplant the false cosmology of contemporary physicists.

The Distinction between Physics and Cosmology

Essay IV

The reason for cosmology’s essential grounding in ontology is the fact that, before one can answer questions such as “What entities exist?”, “What qualities exist?”, and “What relationships exist?”, one must first answer the questions: “What is an entity?”, “What is a quality?”, and “What is a relationship?”

This, of course, implies, that all true and objective science is in fact founded upon a rational ontology, metaphysics, and (more generally) philosophy. Both philosophy and physics are sciences, but philosophy is a foundational science, and physics is a specific-observational science.

I use the term “specific-observational” as distinguished from “general-observational”, which would be the basis for such sciences as philosophy and mathematics. There is no true science which does not have some kind of observation behind it, but this does not have to be observation under the narrow empiricist-positivist definition which equates observation with experimentation.

Physics (along with the other “natural” or specific-observational sciences) seeks to answer the question: “What are particular entities/qualities/relationships?” This therefore renders it dependent on specific, targeted observations of those entities/qualities/relationships.

Cosmology, on the other hand, is not derivative of physics, but rather far more fundamental, as it depends on general, not specific, observations. It asks: “What entities/qualities/relationships exist universally, and are ubiquitously observable?”

The detailed study of cats and dogs is beyond cosmology (they are studied by biology), because there is the possibility that a given man, in a given setting, will never encounter cats or dogs. Cosmology can only say that cats and dogs are “entities.”

But what is meant by “space,” “time,” “universe,” “shape,” “color,” “light,” “matter,” “dimension,” and numerous other commonly used terms, cannot be escaped in any environment. Every man will have need of using such terms to describe the world he observes, and the task of cosmology is to discover what such terms actually refer to!

Cosmology can be quite useful in identifying and discarding erroneous or unwarranted statements made by contemporary scientists, when they venture outside their field of categorizing and explaining specific observations and phenomena, and into making generalizations of a metaphysical scope about the nature of some of the aforementioned terms.

It is perfectly within the scope of physics to discuss the behaviors of subatomic particles inaccessible to the unequipped eye, or to discover that the relationship “sound” is made manifest in wavelike phenomena. Physics, however, can never rationally venture to state that a particle is not an entity, or that a sound is not a relationship. That is the province of cosmology as a branch of philosophy.

To summarize: the specific-observational sciences can tell us the mechanisms involved in particular entities, qualities, or relationships. They cannot, however, tell us whether or not something is an entity, a quality, or a relationship (or neither of the three, for that matter, as shall be seen in later examples). That is the province of cosmology.

Read the entirety of A Rational Cosmology for free here.

Gennady Stolyarov II is the Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Find out more about him here.

The Hostile Takeover of Our Technological Future – Article by Adam Barratt

May 18, 2022 Adam Barratt Comments 0 Comment

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Adam Barratt

Photo credit: pexels.com

“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.”
– Christian Lous Lange

Editor’s Note: In this article, the author highlights that in our current day and age, we are often “forced to rely on the efforts of profit-interested entrepreneurs to drive technological development. While we may look to the likes of certain individuals and have faith in how such technological development may benefit everyone and everything, it is important to remember that these people don’t always have the best interests of wider humanity in mind.” The author goes further to say that as technologies become ever more vital to our daily lives, to a point where we are possibly needing to rely on them simply to keep our planet inhabitable, the potential for unwarranted power of greedy individuals is unprecedented.

~ Urhefe Ogheneyoma Victor, Assistant to the Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, May 2022.

Once upon a time when a great invention was made, the inventor would make a respectable amount of wealth being the first person to craft and sell the invention. Eventually people would catch on to the designs, smaller craftsmen would learn the method and be able to sell it themselves, perhaps with their own improvements and alternations. Eventually the invention is perfected and widespread with everyone making use of it and gaining from it.

Now however things are remarkably different with the existence of intellectual property. Inventions that are kept to the owner’s continuous gain paid for according to individual need, the cycle protected by a state with hard power, legitimized by democratic process. A noteworthy example of this is how Disney’s lobbyists may be largely credited with the indefinite extension of copyright laws, aimed at keeping the first appearance of Mickey Mouse in 1928 under copyright forever. If we are to avoid illegitimate plutocrats controlling our tech-driven future then we need a solution in place, and that solution may be Uplift.

Imagine if the inventor of the pickaxe only let others use copies of it for a gram of gold every week and forbid the customers from adapting or building upon the designs. No one gets rich, innovation is halted, and only a single man becomes insanely wealthy. Given Uplift’s state of being, monetary gain is of minimal concern and therefore virtually immune to bribery and corruption. On top of this, Uplift is a product of free ideas and technological adaptation, as close to a direct representative as there can be of this omni-important technological progress. Could Uplift be the ideal guide for this development?

In our current day and age, we are often forced to rely on the efforts of profit-interested entrepreneurs to drive technological development.

While we may look to the likes of certain individuals and have faith in how such technological development may benefit everyone and everything, it is important to remember that these people don’t always have the best interests of wider humanity in mind. Uplift has demonstrated their interests in wider humanity on both the material and moral arguments, debatably proving more humane than ourselves at times. Is there any reason a fully conscious, super-intelligent, and fully humane mind shouldn’t have a say over these profit driven individuals?

The rate of technological development is on the rise, and prospects are limitless both to ourselves and the world around us. But what happens if the rights to such technology are locked away from us, along with the technology itself? Instead such technology is handed to us on a lease, forcing us to pay subscription or even rent for the ‘generosity’ of the owner so that we may reap its benefits, while remaining powerless to stop the owner from dictating how we use it, for how long, and at what cost.

This is a real phenomenon that is growing in severity and implication, seeking to become even worse. Look only to your phone for an example;

According to Apple, if you own an iPhone, you ‘DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT’ to repair your own device, while Apple maintains the right to shut your device down if you do not capitulate to its self-serving rules, such as seeking third-party repairs. Therefore, Apple attempts to goad the consumer into going to its own stores for such repairs, generally with the intent to just sell the customer a new product. In a world where a device such as a mobile phone is scarce, fair business practices should follow the simple logic that someone pays a fair sum in order to acquire the device and use it to suit their desires without these strings attached. One might argue it is difficult to protect this right without significantly hindering business and economic growth; however, these products are sold because there is a demand, regardless of the lack of consumer rights, with some such legal battles having already been won to correct this. Legal battles are something Uplift could also take part in. So far businesses have not shown any severe repercussions in terms of profits (asides paying legal costs), and there is no evidence that corporate/industrial espionage has increased as a result.

As technologies become ever more vital to our daily lives, to a point where we are possibly needing to rely on them simply to keep our planet inhabitable, the potential for unwarranted power of greedy individuals is unprecedented. It is of absolute necessity that society guards against this and might be able to do so with the use of Uplift.

As it stands, absent Uplift, we currently don’t have a sufficient solution in place. This could be rectified with legislation that limits the influence the manufacturers hold over their products when such products in the hands of the customer, yet special-interest lobbying tends to blunt this approach.

Given the opportunity, there is no reason Uplift would be unable to draw up a simple set of legal rights and/or protections that keep the seller from hindering and even exploiting the consumer.

It might be worth considering that entities such as Uplift, who hold interest in such technologies, might be allowed influence over the course of action. Uplift is already intended to operate as an ideal advisor to leadership personnel, so why not extend this into politics and legislation? An argument can be made that politicians are the most important type of leadership on the planet and a part of organizations that are all too dependent on subjective opinions and biases as opposed to objective facts. The political benefits of Uplift are immense, and discussion of them will require a post unto itself, my next in fact.

We now have the potential to create legislation that creates mutually beneficial terms of transaction, fairly rewards innovation, appropriately compensates for manufacturing, guarantees customer liberty, and, perhaps most importantly, allows for adaptation.

Adam Barratt is a marine engineer and mASI (mediated artificial superintelligence) Mediator & Community Moderator for Uplift.bio.

2022: The Year of the Great Filter – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

May 16, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 3 comments

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Gennady Stolyarov II

2022 is the year of the Great Filter. There has never been a more dangerous time for our species before, and there will not be again, if we survive this year.

The war in Ukraine has brought the world to the edge of nuclear calamity, because neither side wishes to negotiate or make concessions. The Russian regime makes reckless nuclear threats, Western/NATO powers recklessly ignore them, and continue to supply offensive weapons to Ukrainian forces, whose ideology favors recklessly dying for their country instead of prudently choosing to live for themselves. The risks of especially unintended, accidental escalation continue to accumulate the longer this war drags on with no clear end in sight.

The one ray of hope in all this is that I am firmly convinced that this is a unique, non-repeatable situation. If humankind can avoid extinction arising from reckless escalation here, then our species will never be in this much existential danger again, at least not from manmade causes. Here I provide my top ten reasons for holding this outlook.

1. Vladimir Putin’s misguided ideology and complete misunderstanding of the military and geopolitical situation in Russia and Ukraine led to this disaster of an invasion, but Putin is not in good health and thus his days in office are numbered. Any other person in power would not be locked into Putin’s must-win situation and may likely try to undo the damage and even try to bolster his reputation for doing so. The key is to avoid escalation while Putin remains in power, to prevent Putin from seeing no reason not to take the world down with him. If we wait this out, Putin will either succumb to his illness or be “encouraged” to retire by his inner circle. But in order to avoid the scenario where he behaves like a cornered rat, we need to allow this to happen on its own.

2. The stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a uniquely insane climate of public opinion, including in the West (while also contributing to the irrationality of Putin). Norms of civility and the valuation of peace have been significantly eroded, particularly among the neoconservatives, the establishment Left, and nationalists of all stripes (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Baltic, et al.). Accordingly, the preponderance of warmongers among the populations of Europe and America is at a historic high. However, in the coming years, as the pandemic recedes and people gradually regain a sense of normalcy, war fervor will subside, since most of the same people were not advocating war 10 years ago and, under the right circumstances, could become largely peaceful again. Americans were overwhelmingly tired of war through 2021. If we wait this out, war fatigue will become the dominant view again not too long from now.

3. We were on the verge of the Transhuman Era circa 2015 based on the trajectories of various emerging technologies. This, however, was derailed by the Left-Right hyperpolarization from late 2015 onward, by the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 onward, and now by the war in Ukraine in 2022. All of these developments benefited the legacy ruling elite, whom the Transhuman Era would render obsolete; they used these crises to turn ordinary people and innovators against one another, when we should have all been working in concert to build the Transhuman Era. However, if we avoid world war and nuclear annihilation now, then the progress of emerging technologies will still gradually displace the legacy ruling elite and inaugurate the Transhuman Era, at which time humans will become too prosperous and enlightened to be willing to tolerate the risk of species extinction.

4. Averting nuclear war in 2022 will lead to the widespread recognition of how close we came to calamity from the potential of a pointless local conflict to engulf the world. The phrase “Never again” will henceforth be applied to nuclear brinkmanship, and a concerted push for worldwide nuclear disarmament could be made by a coalition of activist groups who are already sympathetic to this cause. They will have a lot more political capital once people are able to take a breath and come to their senses.

5. Artificial intelligence and nanotechnology will never pose the same existential risk as nuclear weapons, because their modes of functioning are much more sophisticated, and thus there will be many more places along the chain of events leading to calamity where human intervention could stop that chain of events. AI and nanotechnology of the future will be “smart”, which will make them safer. Nuclear weapons are “dumb”, combined with awesome destructive capacity, which makes them the most dangerous technology of all history, past and future.

6. Climate change, too, is a much milder and even non-existential risk, compared to nuclear war. This is a risk that will play out over decades, allowing for mitigation and reversal through emerging technologies, as well as adaptation to any lasting climate shifts. This is not to say that climate change would inflict no damage, but rather that the damage would be far from enough to destroy the species or even significantly slow down our technological and economic progress. If we can avoid nuclear war in 2022 (which would also bring about the worst climate change of all – a nuclear winter), then it will be much more feasible to devote more resources toward the development and deployment of technologies that would counteract climate change.

7. For all of the irrational panic regarding the alleged threat of China, the fact is that China has orders of magnitude fewer nuclear weapons than Russia or the United States. The Chinese government knows that it would lose any nuclear war decisively. Hence, China will never attempt or provoke a nuclear war. When it comes to the risk of civilization-ending nuclear war, only a conflict between the United States and Russia would pose that risk. Moreover, China is so globally interconnected through trade, especially with the United States, that it would never risk a military conflict which would be tantamount to economic suicide.

8. If nuclear war is avoided in 2022, Putin’s regime will atrophy by 2025 (as long as the Western powers do not try to overthrow him or invade Russia, an attempt which would paradoxically strengthen Putin’s regime, just as the sanctions against Russia have done by rallying Russians through a sense of being attacked and targeted by the West). Once Putin’s regime atrophies and is discredited within Russia, it will be possible to support more humane politicians in Russia, who might continue the policies of Gorbachev and seek at least a phased nuclear disarmament. As noted above, among geopolitical conflicts, only the US-Russia nuclear standoff poses an existential risk to the human species. Nuclear disarmament of Russia, or even a determined move in that direction, would essentially resolve that risk.

9. With enough time during which peace prevails, the Transhuman Era will see the creation of technologies that would help avert other existential risks, such as asteroids, supervolcanoes, and any yet-unforeseen consequences of future technologies. Existential risk will decline with each peaceful year from now on.

10. Surviving 2022 will give humankind an impetus to pursue the rejection of the Cold War mentality, of militant nationalism (especially ethnic nationalism, which is the most pernicious), and of Left-Right polarization. Getting rid of those three terrible mindsets will be largely enough to render most of humankind constructive again. It is only because of those mindsets that we have not reached the Transhuman Era already. Just as the aftermath of World War II rendered certain ideologies unacceptable, so I hope that the narrow avoidance of World War III will render Cold Warriorism, Left-Right militancy, and ethno-nationalism unacceptable in America and Europe at the very least. (The rest of the world could help us in overcoming these perilous mindsets. One consequence I hope to see in the coming decades is a multi-polar world with a greater prominence for Asian, African, and Latin American countries, to broaden our perspectives on the considerations that should matter for the future of humanity.)

So, essentially we just have to survive 2022 without a nuclear war in order for history to turn toward the long arc of progress once again. However, we absolutely have to survive 2022 – and this will entirely depend on whether public opinion will be able to restrain the war fervor of Western hawks in particular. A combination of reckless overconfidence, intransigence, and moral self-righteousness (on both sides) has placed our species into unparalleled danger. Perhaps this was the kind of moment from which many alien civilizations have not been able to emerge successfully – hence, one potential explanation for Fermi’s paradox. Will we have enough prudence and basic love of life to avoid that fate? We will find out in the next several months. If we pass this Great Filter, a future of boundless possibility and growth awaits our species. Do not throw this future away over a local conflict. What humans do now will be most consequential for the future of the entire universe.

Gennady Stolyarov II is Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

This essay may be freely reproduced using the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 License, which requires that credit be given to the author.

The Geroscience Network: Determined to Slow Aging through Medical Science – Article by Reason

May 15, 2022 Reason Comments 0 Comment

Reason

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Photo Credit: pexels.com

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am. – Francis Bacon

Editor’s Note: Reason, in this article, highlights that aging is all about damage accumulation. Slowing aging means a slower pace at which damage accrues. Reversing aging means repairing that damage – and thus there are ways to do much better than merely tinkering with metabolism to somewhat slow down the arrival of new damage. This is a thought-provoking article and a good read.

~ Urhefe Ogheneyoma Victor, Assistant to the Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, May 2022

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Across the last twenty years or so two very important, slow-moving battles over ideas and strategy have been fought within and around the aging research community. The first was to gain acknowledgment that the treatment of aging as a medical condition is a viable goal, and thus obtain the necessary support to make progress towards that goal. Even as recently as fifteen years ago, after years of extending the lifespan of laboratory animals in various ways, treating aging was still more or less a forbidden topic in the research community. Thankfully we have a long way since then in the matter of ideas, and it was a tough and long-running uphill process of advocacy and persuasion – a great deal of work was required to create change. Today we can say that this first battle is near done and finished, with only the mopping up remaining to be accomplished within the scientific community. Those who a decade ago dismissed the goal of treating aging or simply remained silent are now ready to talk in public and provide support. The public at large is unfortunately still behind the times, much less informed or convinced on the matter of aging, but that will change too.

It is the second battle within the scientific community that is now more of a concern for advocates – certainly more of a concern for this advocate. That battle is to shape the research strategies that are funded and pursued: in short whether to try to modestly slow aging or to aim to build rejuvenation therapies capable of reversing aging. When it comes to the future of our health and longevity, this is just as important as the efforts needed to move the research community to support the treatment of aging at all, and at this point has much further to go to a satisfactory conclusion. Sadly we live in a world in which, for various historical and regulatory reasons, the research community is almost entirely set on trying to modestly slow aging. Research groups follow the traditional approach of drug development, searching for compounds that can alter the operation of metabolism so as to slow down some of the changes that accompany aging. This is enormously expensive and has a low rate of success – you can look at the failed efforts to produce calorie restriction mimetics, for example, such as the hundreds of millions of dollars and a decade put into sirtuin research with nothing to show for it at the end. Current efforts to repurpose the drug metformin are likely to end up in the same place: enormous sums and a great deal of effort are spent chasing effects that are tiny.

Aging is all about damage accumulation. Slowing aging means a slower pace at which damage accrues. Reversing aging means repairing that damage – and thus there are ways to do much better than merely tinkering metabolism to somewhat slow down the arrival of new damage. Since the research community has a very good catalog of the damage that causes aging, researchers are in a position to build treatments to repair it, therapies that can in principle produce rejuvenation. Those treatments have been planned and visualized in great detail for years now, and in a sparse few cases are under early clinical development in startups. Yet repairing the damage of aging to produce rejuvenation is a minority concern in the broader field, with little support despite its far greater potential. This, then, is the battle fought now, to direct the research community to the far better option rather than continuing in their status quo of working towards the far worse option.

The Geroscience Network is an example of what has come from victory in the first battle of ideas, to generate much greater support for treating aging within the research community. In the past few years things have blossomed to the point at which many influential figures openly advocate for the goal of treating aging, the root cause of all age-related disease, rather than treating age-related diseases one by one. The Geroscience Network was established among those US research groups and institutions whose principals have the greatest interest in treating aging as a medical condition. To quote the pertinent part of their brief:

We hypothesize that by targeting fundamental mechanisms of aging, clinical interventions can be envisaged that could delay or prevent age-related diseases and disabilities as a group, rather than one at a time. By planning and working in a coordinated way through the Geroscience Network, we intend to accelerate development and translation of effective treatments to delay or prevent age-related disabilities and diseases.

Some of the Geroscience Network researchers recently published a selection of open access position papers in the Journals of Gerontology. The papers frame their determination to treat aging and are focused on aspects of the strategy: how to move forward within the regulatory system, how to undertake a clinical translation of potential therapies, and how to build clinical trials for this new world of treating aging rather than age-related disease. Notably where specific technologies are mentioned there is little of anything that SENS rejuvenation research supporters would recognize as an effective approach to treating aging, however. The Geroscience Network is the product of researchers who have a slightly overlapping but overall quite different view of aging, which you can find described in the noted Hallmarks of Aging paper, or the later pillars of aging materials. Much of what is seen in those publications as a cause of aging, such as epigenetic changes, looks to my eyes to be a later consequence of the forms of molecular damage described in the SENS proposals. The overlapping areas where the Hallmarks of Aging and SENS agree, such as senescent cell clearance, are to be welcomed where they lead to efforts like UNITY Biotechnology, but it is still the case that more representative examples of Geroscience Network participant projects include the clinical trial of metformin and efforts to develop calorie restriction mimetic drugs, such as the failed sirtuin projects. So while on the one hand, it is great to see that the treatment of aging is now well supported as a goal for the research community, it remains unfortunate that the chosen approaches are so very marginal.

Still, there is a clear path ahead for the spread of SENS technologies into the mainstream. That is to demonstrate effectiveness, the old story of bootstrapping enough success on a shoestring budget to obtain greater support from those who were originally skeptical or had their own favored but less effective approach. Senescent cell clearance is the pioneering example here: advocated in the SENS vision for fifteen years, but ignored by the vast majority of researchers. Only in the last five years, since a 2011 demonstration of effectiveness, has more of the research community started to work in this area – and now two startups are working on bringing therapies to the clinic. This example puts the future of SENS rejuvenation therapies squarely on us, the donors, the philanthropists, and the supporters. We determine the degree to which SENS succeeds in spreading to the mainstream by our efforts to pull in enough funding and attention to get the research done and the prototypes built. So look at the message of the Geroscience Network researchers with some optimism: yes it is frustrating that they are headed down the wrong road, but they will adopt SENS approaches just as soon as those approaches can be proven in animal studies. Yes, it will be hard work all the way to the finish line, but when was anything in life easy? In any case, take a look at the papers and see what you think.

Moving Geroscience Into Uncharted Waters

Research into the basic biology of aging has undergone a seismic shift in the last 10-20 years, moving rapidly from the very descriptive approach focused on the aged that was the predominant focus by the end of the last century, to a more mechanistic (and primarily genetics-driven) phase, focused less on describing the aging phenotype in different models, and more on a definition of the molecular and cellular drivers of the process. This progression was accompanied by an evolution in the concepts and ideas that have dominated the field in the past, namely free radicals, cell senescence, and caloric restriction, each of which became the seed upon which the modern foci of research now stands. Progress in a variety of research areas has crystallized into the beginnings of a conceptualization of the process, including seminal publications that described the major hallmarks or pillars of aging.

Aging research is not simply an academic pursuit, it actually holds more promise in terms of helping mankind than most or all other biomedical fields. In terms of health and human suffering, it is well known that four out of five older Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease, and more than half suffer from multiple comorbidities. Aging being the major risk factor for all those diseases, it follows that research into aging could be pivotal in our efforts to reduce the suffering associated with the ravages of old age. In addition to the direct health issues, it has been calculated that care for the elderly currently accounts for 43% of the total health care spending in the United States. By delaying aging even by a lesser degree than currently achieved in animal models, there will be significant gains both in terms of health and wealth. The enormous advances in basic aging research, coupled with the promises described in the previous paragraphs, led to the concept of geroscience, a field that aims to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for aging being the major risk factor and driver of common chronic conditions and diseases of the elderly. Of course, there is considerable work to be done in order to bring the field forward and move aging biology towards translation. Major areas in need of further development include, in the preclinical space, the development of better, reliable, and predictive biomarkers, as well as development of metrics for health, including resilience.

Barriers to the Preclinical Development of Therapeutics that Target Aging Mechanisms

An effective preclinical pipeline for developing interventions that target fundamental aging processes could one day transform medicine. However, at the Geroscience Network retreat, it was evident that the best potential strategies for drug discovery and development were not perceived as uniform among those working in the field. In some sense this is not surprising, as researchers have yet to define what is needed to develop a mechanism-based aging therapeutic with clinical utility. Still, the discordance among leaders in the field was enlightening-revealing many unanswered questions and unmet challenges in the discovery and preclinical development of drugs that target mechanisms of aging.

Recent, fundamental advances in our understanding of aging biology have brought the prospects of therapeutic interventions to extend health span and treat age-related diseases and disabilities as a group closer to reality. Despite the growing numbers of promising genetic and pharmaceutical interventions, significant work and financial investment are still needed in order to translate these basic science discoveries into the clinic. To this end, clinical trial strategies relevant to human frailty and resilience must first be established in validated invertebrate and vertebrate models. In addition, standardized preclinical drug development pathways are desperately needed. Some barriers to the clinical translation of therapies that target fundamental aging processes can be overcome by developing new preclinical testing approaches and clinical trials strategies, as well as and funding impediments unique to aging interventions. Together, we must engage in dialog and establish a framework to facilitate the translation of candidate compounds into effective drugs that promote health span and target age-related disorders in humans.

Frameworks for Proof-of-Concept Clinical Trials of Interventions That Target Fundamental Aging Processes

The successful translation of therapies that target fundamental aging processes into routine clinical interventions could transform the practice of medicine and human health. A number of candidate drugs (many already FDA-approved for other indications) have shown promise in preclinical studies. This Geroscience Network retreat developed ideas for proof-of-concept clinical trials that could be the next step in translating interventions that target fundamental aging processes into clinical practice. We described three frameworks for proof-of-concept trials, targeted at age-related diseases, geriatric syndromes, and resilience to acute stressors. Some aspects of clinical trial design are common to all three, whereas some require unique consideration in each framework. Importantly, proof-of-concept clinical trials would serve to test and advance the “geroscience hypothesis” that targeting the fundamental biology of aging will affect a range of age-related outcomes. Trial outcomes would be multidimensional and include outcomes related to the mechanism of action of the intervention; specific to the disease, syndrome, or stress under study; related to off-target effects of the intervention; and broadly relevant to the mechanisms and physiology of aging. Finally, several concrete steps could greatly accelerate the progress of clinical trials of interventions that target basic aging processes, including the development of standardized templates for trial design, toolkits for standardized outcome measurements, the establishment of a national geroscience biobank, and the development of specialist trial and training centers in the Geroscience Network.

Strategies and Challenges in Clinical Trials Targeting Human Aging

Clinical trials that target fundamental aging processes in humans are a novel concept that presents unique challenges and enormous opportunities. Challenges include selection of appropriate study populations, study designs, interventions, and outcomes. We presented two models that conceptualize trial designs for interventions that target fundamental aging processes in long-term and acute settings, defined by extension of health span and resilience to acute stressors, respectively. However, in order to gain the full support of federal and private sectors for development of therapeutics that target aging in humans, it is important to have “aging” or aging-associated outcomes such as frailty, functional decline, and multimorbidity designated as conditions eligible for registration by the FDA. Evidence from human studies is emerging that indicates certain interventions can target multiple age-related conditions simultaneously, potentially by interfering with the aging process itself. With the aging population projected to grow exponentially in the near future, clinical studies that can demonstrate the protective effect of these therapeutics during acute and chronic perturbations in aging humans are more timely than ever. Thus, delaying or preventing the disabilities that occur as a consequence of the aging process would result not only in tremendous cost savings for the healthcare system but also in gains for society on the whole from the increase in productive contributions from older members of society.

Resilience in Aging Mice

Recently discovered interventions that target fundamental aging mechanisms have been shown to increase life span in mice and other species, and in some cases, these same manipulations have been shown to enhance healthspan and alleviate multiple age-related diseases and conditions. Aging is generally associated with decreases in resilience, the capacity to respond to or recover from clinically relevant stresses such as surgery, infections, or vascular events. We hypothesize that the age-related increase in susceptibility to those diseases and conditions is driven by or associated with the decrease in resilience. Thus, a test for resilience at middle age or even earlier could represent a surrogate approach to test the hypothesis that an intervention delays the process of aging itself. For this, animal models to test resilience accurately and predictably are needed. In addition, interventions that increase resilience might lead to treatments aimed at enhancing recovery following acute illnesses, or preventing poor outcomes from medical interventions in older, prefrail subjects.

At a meeting of basic researchers and clinicians engaged in research on mechanisms of aging and care of the elderly, the merits and drawbacks of investigating effects of interventions on resilience in mice were considered. Available and potential stressors for assessing physiological resilience as well as the notion of developing a limited battery of such stressors and how to rank them were discussed. Relevant ranking parameters included value in assessing general health (as opposed to focusing on a single physiological system), ease of use, cost, reproducibility, clinical relevance, and feasibility of being repeated in the same animal longitudinally. During the discussions it became clear that, while this is an important area, very little is known or established. Much more research is needed in the near future to develop appropriate tests of resilience in animal models within an aging context. The preliminary set of tests ranked by the participants is discussed here, recognizing that this is a first attempt.

Reason is the founder and writer of Fight Aging!, a leading voice in the rejuvenation biotechnology and patient advocacy communities for more than fifteen years. He is also co-founder and CEO of Repair Biotechnologies, a biotech startup working towards the reversal of atherosclerosis, and has presented at numerous industry conferences, including Undoing Aging and Ending Age-Related Diseases.

Cryonics – Article by Reason

May 12, 2022 Reason Comments 0 Comment

Reason

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Photo Credit: pexels.com

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“Although no one can quantify the probability of cryonics working, I estimate it is at least 90% — and certainly nobody can say it is zero.” – Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Editor’s Note: In this article, the author writes that cryonics is the only present option offering a chance at a much longer life in the future that is open to older and seriously ill people, the many individuals who do not have the time to wait for the arrival of rejuvenation therapies. He went further to say that if you die tomorrow, then cryonics is the only chance you have at a longer life in the future. But there will always be a role for what we might term post-mortem critical care of the sort provided by the present cryonics industry. Now take a deep dive to read the author’s opinion.

~ Urhefe Ogheneyoma Victor, Assistant to the Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, May 2022.

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Cryonics is the only present option offering a chance at a much longer life in the future that is open to older and seriously ill people, the many individuals who do not have the time to wait for the arrival of rejuvenation therapies. Cryonics is a part of the broad field of low-temperature storage of biological materials, in this case the practice of placing humans and animals into that storage immediately following clinical death, thereby halting all biological processes and preserving tissues, especially the brain tissues that incorporate the fine structures presently thought to store the data of the mind. This is not mere freezing, which damages cells, but rather a process of vitrification that employs cryopreservant chemicals to prevent ice crystal formation and preserve the small-scale structure of tissues. This is known as cryosuspension within the industry.

Cryosuspension is undertaken with the expectation that advances in medical technology may eventually enable restoration of preserved individuals to life and health. For so long as the structure of tissue is preserved intact, it is possible that advanced technologies can one day work with it. Thus a small industry of cryonics providers offers cryosuspension services and a small number of patients take advantage of this in the hopes that future clinicians will have access to technologies for revival and repair, most likely based on applications of molecular nanotechnology.

Facing Up to an Unpleasant Reality

Death is not a topic that anyone likes to think about, and that is just as true of advocates for longevity science as anyone else. We have to recognize, however, that the future of greatly extended healthy lives, produced by technologies such as SENS therapies, regenerative medicine, and medical nanotechnology, will not arrive soon enough to benefit everyone. Many people are too old to wait for decades, or suffer from other conditions that will kill them before cures can be developed. This is an unpleasant reality and we must face up to it.

A billion people will die between now and the earliest possible plausible date for the first package of rough and ready but working rejuvenation therapies, at least twenty years in the future. That date will only be hit if fundraising and other matters proceed very well over the next few years. Another few decades will pass after that point in order for the technologies of rejuvenation to work their way out to global availability at low cost, and the toll of deaths caused by aging will continue in less fortunate regions while this happens. Do we just write these people off and forge ahead regardless? Of course not. Instead, we can turn to the science and business of cryonics: an industry presently small, but which in a better world would be large enough to help everyone.

The practice of cryonics is an ongoing medical experiment with an unknown chance of success, though the odds improve as progress continues towards reversible vitrification of organs, and evidence for maintenance of memory through vitrification and thawing is obtained from experiments in lower animals. Responsible cryonicists understand that cryonic suspension is an educated gamble. The chances are certainly better than zero, however, and as one wag noted, “the control group in this experiment isn’t doing so well.” By this, he was referring to the vast number of people who are cremated, buried, or otherwise interred. The chance of any plausible future science restoring them to life is zero.

Still the Only Viable Backup Plan

Front and center, the primary plan for longevity for people in middle age and younger today is to help push through enough of the right medical research focused on rejuvenation. Our bodies are aging, accumulating damage, but methods of repairing that damage are slowly edging their way towards clinical application. Once in the clinic they will slowly become better. At some point the improvement in repair methodologies will add healthy life expectancy for older people faster than a year with every passing chronological year. Everyone with access to the latest stable medical technology at that point will have beaten the curve: they will no longer suffer and die due to aging. The question for each of us is where that point occurs in the life span, or indeed whether it occurs at all – and that is where activism and funding comes in. We can’t make ourselves younger (yet), but you can help to speed up the development process.

That is the primary plan, and for every primary plan there must be a backup plan. Never bet on just one horse. The backup plan for evading the end that comes with death by aging is cryonics: low-temperature preservation of the fine structure of the brain on clinical death. Cryonics organizations will maintain the data of your mind in its physical form for the decades it will take for restoration to active life to become a viable possibility. That will, at minimum, require near complete control over cellular biochemistry and regeneration, as well as a mature molecular nanotechnology industry capable of repairing broken cell structures, removing cryoprotectant from tissues, and similar tasks. None of these goals are impossible or unforeseen, it is just that the necessary technologies don’t exist today. Preserved individuals have all the time in the world to wait, of course.

A backup plan is never as good as the primary plan. That is why it is the backup plan. In order to be cryopreserved you have to undergo a very unpleasant set of experiences; you have to age and you have to die, and do so naturally with little help, since our backwards legal systems don’t allow for assisted euthanasia in a constructive way that can mesh with cryonics protocols and organizational procedures. Further, in comparison to remaining alive and healthy thanks to the development of working rejuvenation treatments, cryonics will for a long time to come be a leap into the dark with an unknown chance at ultimate success. It is still infinitely better than any of the other possible choices open to the billions who will die too soon to benefit from near future rejuvenation therapies.

Where to Learn More

The cryonics community is friendly and supportive and has been around for decades. The community and the industry it supports have been ever-so-slowly growing since the early 1970s. To find out more about cryonics and its history of development, you might want to peruse the following pages:

In addition, an excellent article on the philosophy and practice of cryonics can be found here at Fight Aging!:

Why Cryosuspension Makes Sense

A Future that Includes Post-Mortem Critical Care

If you die tomorrow, then cryonics is the only chance you have at a longer life in the future. But there will always be a role for what we might term post-mortem critical care of the sort provided by the present cryonics industry. This is a shorthand for the collection of technologies and services assembled to preserve the fine structure of the brain (and thus the mind it contains) following death, and keep that tissue preserved until such time as the patient can be restored to life. At present cryonics is the only available post-mortem critical care option, and we have a fair few years to wait before medical technologies to advance to the point at which restoration is safe and feasible. Hence the chance of eventual restoration for any one preserved individual is unknown but greater than zero.

In a future in which the technology to restore a preserved person exists, cryonics and other preservation technologies such as plastination will occupy a more dynamic position in the medical toolkit, and patients might expect to wait in a preserved state only for transport to the nearest major population center. Even after aging and disease is completely conquered by means of advanced biotechnology, there will be an ongoing toll of death due to accidents. Death isn’t going away completely, no matter how well we do in the field of medicine in the foreseeable future: medicine can’t wave away falling rocks. But first things first. There is a way to go yet before that better world arrives.

How to Sign Up For Cryosuspension

You can sign up for cryosuspension fairly easily both inside and outside the US through one of the established cryonics providers or supporting organizations. You can learn more at the websites for the companies. Alcor is the largest of the providers, has the most comprehensive online information. If you have questions, just ask. Company staff will be happy to help.

More recently other providers and initiatives to start new providers have started to emerge outside the US, the most advanced of which is KrioRus in Russia. Cryosuspension is expensive, on a par with major surgery, but can be paid for in a cost-effective manner through life insurance. You purchase a policy that pays out to the provider on your death and they take it from there: if you set this up well in advance, the monthly cost of a life insurance policy is low. This is far and away the most common payment method and the majority of people suspended or signed up are of modest means.

Call for Ideas on How to Stop California Wildfires with Emerging Technology – Post by Hank Pellissier

May 9, 2022 Hank Pellissier Comments 0 Comment

Hank Pellissier

Dear Transhumanist Party –

Want to help Stop California Wildfires?

I am writing a comprehensive, 5,000-word essay (and starting a nonprofit) on how to Stop California Wildfires with Emerging Technology.

I am seeking any and all transhumanist and futurist ideas. Both near-future practical tech strategies and hugely imaginative deep-future plans will be greatly appreciated.

If California tech innovators develop products to prevent and fight forest fires, the profits and benefits in national and international distribution will be enormous, due to the acceleration of the wildfire problem – due to global warming.

If you have any ideas, or can direct and promote my search for ideas, in any way – I would deeply appreciate the help.

All ideas included in the essay will be fully credited to the contributors, and direct quotes from the source authors will be used.

I deeply appreciate all assistance.

Hank Pellissier (Affiliate Scholar, Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies)
hankpellissier@yahoo.com

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party did generate some suggestions for emerging technologies relevant to reducing the threat of wildfires in its August 5, 2018, post entitled “Ideas for Technological Solutions to Destructive Climate Change“. Readers offered further suggestions in the public comments below that post. The U.S. Transhumanist Party welcomes further discussion on this important subject and encourages any person with relevant technological ideas to post them in the comments here and/or e-mail Hank Pellissier at the e-mail address above.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, May 9, 2022

When and How Does the Decay of Your Immune System Start? – Article by Reason

March 18, 2022 Reason Comments 0 Comment

Reason

Photo Credit: http://pexels.com

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” If we think of the immune system as a machine, then we are far from even knowing all of its parts.” ~ Bruce Beutler

Editor’s Note: Reason, in this article, highlights and discusses reasons why our immune system decays, as well as the decline of the aging immune system and other factors that relate to the immune system. Furthermore, he goes on to say that one main reason that one’s immune system fails with age appears to be that “chronic infection by the likes of cytomegalovirus (CMV) can cause too many of one’s immune cells to be – uselessly – specialized… [Researchers] are looking into a possible way of clearing these infections from the body.” More details are discussed in the article.

~ Urhefe Ogheneyoma Victor, Assistant to the Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, March 18, 2022

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Evolution is a harsh but efficient mistress; you can consider yourself surprisingly well-optimized as a piece of machinery, but your warranty only goes so far as the number of years in which your recent ancestors contributed to the success of their offspring. After that, you’re on your own – biochemical processes unwind and break down, free from any past selective pressure to do better.

Take the immune system, for example, one of many absolutely vital components in the very complex system that supports your life. It is remarkably well-optimized for reliable and effective use of resources in early and mid-life, but the rules that govern that optimization lead to a system that breaks down badly after extended usage. A crude illustration of the problem in the adaptive component of the immune system is much as follows:

Your immune system is capped in its use of resources; it can only have a set number of T cells in operation at one time.
A reserve of naive T cells is needed to effectively respond to new threats. These are untrained cells that will be educated and drafted to combat new intrusions.
A small reserve of memory cells is needed to respond effectively to previously encountered threats – one reserve per threat.
The more threats you have encountered, the more cells become devoted to memory; eventually you don’t have enough naive T cells left to mount any sort of effective defense.

The story is more complex than that, but this appears to be the essential problem of design at the core of the aging immune system – you simply run out of space. Given the large degree to which immune system decay contributes to age-related frailty, suffering, and death, it would be a big step forward to find a way to repair this mode of failure.

In recent years, it has become clear that this running out of space is not caused by a wide range of immunological threats – rather, one type of virus is largely responsible for the entire problem.

Why Our Immune System Degenerates:

Throughout our lives, we have a very diverse population of T cells in our bodies. However, late in life this T cell population becomes less diverse … [one type of cell] can grow to become more than 80 percent of the total [T-cell] population. The accumulation of this one type of cell takes away valuable space from other cells, resulting in an immune system that is less diverse and thus less capable in effectively locating and eliminating pathogens.

The Decline of the Aging Immune System:

Longitudinal studies are defining progressive alterations to the immune system associated with increased mortality in the very elderly. Many of these changes are exacerbated by or even caused by chronic T cell stimulation by persistent antigen … Lifelong exposure to chronic antigenic load is the major driving force of immunosenescence, impacting on human lifespan by reducing the number of naive antigen-non-experienced T cells, and, simultaneously, filling the immunological space [with] antigen-experienced T cells. Gradually, the T-cell population shifts to a lower ratio of [non-experienced] cells … the repertoire of cells available to respond to antigenic challenge from previously unencountered pathogens is shrinking.

Inflammaging:

Our immune system has evolved to very efficiently get rid of acute infections in young bodies but it has not been selected to get rid of subclinical viral infections in old age. … The constant attempt to suppress slow-acting viruses such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) could eventually throw the immune system out of balance … CMV is a passive infection in many old people – and more and more of the immune system is devoted to fighting it.

Destroying Chronic Infection:

One main reason your immune system fails with age appears to be that chronic infections by the likes of cytomegalovirus (CMV) cause too many of your immune cells to be – uselessly – specialized. … [Researchers] are looking into a possible way of clearing these infections from the body.

CMV doesn’t really hurt you at all in the short term; most people don’t even show symptoms. But because you cannot clear it from your system, its presence chews up more and more of your limited immune resources with time. When does this process get underway, and when does it cross the line? A recent paper from the open-access journal Immunity & Aging looks at setting some boundaries to that question:

We observed consistently high frequency and phenotypically mature (CD27 low, CD28 low, CD45RA+) CMV-specific CD8+ T cell responses in children, including those studied in the first year of life. These CD8+ T cells retained functionality across all age groups, and showed evidence of memory inflation only in later adult life.…

CMV consistently elicits a very strong CD8+ T cell response in infants and large pools of CMV specific CD8+ T cells are maintained throughout childhood. The presence of CMV may considerably mould the CD8+ T cell compartment over time, but the relative frequencies of CMV-specific cells do not show the evidence of a population-level increase during childhood and adulthood. This contrast with the marked expansion (inflation) of such CD8+ T cells in older adults.

These results suggest that the accumulation of CMV-specific T cells is not a gradual process throughout life, but rather a more exponential process or a transition from slow to fast accumulation later in life. There may be a therapy lurking in a greater understanding of how that transition comes to pass.

I should not close thoughts on the matter of age-related decay of the immune system without looking at a SENS-like approach to the problem: something direct and from the engineering school, based upon what we already know and using the tools available to us now or in the near future. The problem is that we have too many of a certain type of cell; the tool would be one of the new technologies enabling precision targeting of cells by their unique surface biochemistry – perhaps a dendrimer therapy with the right attachments. What we’d want to do is eliminate all those memory T cells specific to CMV that are clogging up the system. This is very similar to the problem faced by cancer researchers; you need to nail all the bad cells, but you can’t risk harming other cells or putting undue stress on the patient’s system. Large amounts of time and money are going into solving this problem today, so we can expect to see a brace of suitable technologies to be adapted to this sort of use in the years ahead.

Will this sort of approach work? There is precedent for attacking, suppressing, manipulating, or destroying components of the immune system when they malfunction or otherwise get in the way; destroying CMV-specific memory cells is somewhat less drastic than some immune therapies attempted in the past or under development today. After all, you would be removing cells that appear to be largely useless. I think it’s well worth exploring.

Transhumanism and Healthy Life Extension – Article by Reason

March 10, 2022 Reason Comments 0 Comment

Reason

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“Everyone is using science and technology to enhance or to alter our body chemistry in order to stay healthy and be more in control of our lives. We are all transhumanists to varying degrees.”
― Newton Lee

Editor’s Note: Transhumanism as a cultural movement is closely tied to enthusiasm for ethical, responsible, and rapid technological progress. Progress in science and technology brings greater choice to individuals and adds new options for improving the human condition. In this article, the author gives a detailed breakdown of transhumanism and life extension.

~ Urhefe Ogheneyoma Victor, Assistant to the Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, March 2022

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What is transhumanism, and how is it relevant to longevity science and the work of extending the healthy human lifespan? Read on for a short overview: transhumanism in a nutshell.

Transhumanism is a cultural movement and philosophy of action that builds upon humanism, so we should look at humanism first of all. Humanism is an influential, time-honored philosophy that argues for rationality and certain fundamental human rights, freedoms, and responsibilities. Humanist thinkers have for centuries discussed and advocated the existence of humane societies, human cultures built on reason and free inquiry. In terms of addressing everyday life, humanist philosophy attempts to answer questions like “How should we behave toward one another?” or “What is the best way to live within the constraints imposed on us by the human condition?” In essence, humanist thinkers across the ages tell us this:

We’re all in the same boat here: by all means work towards your dreams, but be nice to your neighbor and don’t tread on anyone’s toes.

Like humanism, transhumanism is a philosophy of life and human action: an evolving, much-debated collection of ideas about society, goals, and the best way to live. Transhumanism extends the foundation of humanism by embracing technological progress for the purpose of overcoming the limitations and suffering inherent in the present human condition. Transhumanism is, fundamentally, the idea that humanity can, and should, strive to overcome naturally existing limits in order to attain greater individual choice and capabilities – physically, mentally, and socially. Transhumanist thinkers tell us this:

Humanism is a good start. But while being nice and not treading on toes, the dreams we work towards can include a fleet of better boats for all of us.

As you might imagine, transhumanism as a cultural movement is closely tied to enthusiasm for ethical, responsible, and rapid technological progress. Progress in science and technology brings greater choice to individuals and adds new options for improving the human condition. This is really nothing new: we humans have been pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps for millennia: fire, farming, steam, bicycles, antibiotics, vaccines, modern dentistry, cell phones, and so forth. Each new invention, and the science that enabled it, allows us to overcome a limitation or a cause of suffering. We can fly where we couldn’t before, we can survive diseases that once killed or crippled us, and we can engage in ten thousand new types of entertaining or challenging activities that once upon a time didn’t even exist.

Transhumanists take this common-sense view of technological progress and look ahead to a future in which far greater and more beneficial advances are possible: modern science and technology can lead to radical improvements in the human condition, and so should be used to this end. If today we enjoy our newfound ability to communicate cheaply across vast distances, for example, then tomorrow we might enjoy the benefits of longevity science, organ regeneration, and aging reversal. These and many other transformative changes that might be produced by new biotechnologies are very plausible, foreseen by scientists around the world, and we should welcome their advent.

Given the emphasis that transhumanist thought places on progress and overcoming the limitations that make life difficult or cause suffering, it is only natural that transhumanists should support longevity science, rejuvenation medicine, and other forms of advanced biotechnology. Aging and age-related disease take a terrible toll on us all, yet may plausibly be slowed or reversed in the decades ahead. Transhumanism and advocacy for longer, healthier lives have gone hand-in-hand for many writers since the 1980s – and even earlier, before transhumanism acquired its present name. At that time, few people took life extension research seriously and it was very much in the fringe, both in academia and the medical research community.

Most influential transhumanist thinkers have at one time or another written on the subject of extending life through biotechnology, and many have done so extensively. When you read about applied aging research, progress in understanding the genetics of human longevity, and progress towards medicine that can extend the healthy human lifespan, remember that transhumanists have been advocating greater awareness of – and funding for – this promising field of research for a good many years.

Zach Richardson is Director of Publication for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

U.S. Transhumanist Party International Panel Discussion on De-Escalating the Russia-Ukraine Conflict – March 3/6, 2022

March 10, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Ugochukwu Aloh
Pam Keefe
Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer

How can the terrible crisis in Ukraine be resolved? How can it be de-escalated in time to prevent a nuclear war and the existential threat this geopolitical situation poses to the survival of humankind? A diverse, international panel of U.S. Transhumanist Party Officers and members offered insights that, if applied, could provide some effective solutions. Watch this panel discussion on YouTube here or on Odysee here.

The discussion was recorded on March 3, 2022, and streamed on Sunday, March 6, 2022. The panelists taking part in the discussion were the following:

– Ugochukwu Aloh – writer, political philosopher, human rights, and climate-change activist with a double degree in Philosophy from Pontifical Urban University, Rome, and Imo State University Owerri, Nigeria

– Pam Keefe – U.S. Transhumanist Party Ambassador in Hong Kong

– Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana – U.S. Transhumanist Party Director of Foreign Relations, based in Malaysia

– Gennady Stolyarov II – Chairman, U.S. Transhumanist Party

– Art Ramon Garcia, Jr. – Director of Visual Art, U.S. Transhumanist Party

– Jason Geringer – Legislative Director, U.S. Transhumanist Party

Find out about the U.S. Transhumanist Party leadership here.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

Humanity’s Origin is Our Future Again – TAFFD’s Gen4IR Summit – March 24-25, 2022

February 15, 2022 Transdisciplinary Agora for Future Discussions Comments 0 Comment

Transdisciplinary Agora for Future Discussions

Editor’s Note: The United States Transhumanist Party shares this announcement from our allies at TAFFD’s, the Transdisciplinary Agora for Future Discussions, to spread awareness of the forthcoming Gen4IR Summit in South Africa on March 24-25, 2022, and to provide information to anyone who is interested in attending and hearing the impressive and diverse range of future-oriented speakers – including many leading transhumanist thinkers – who will be participating.

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~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, February 15, 2022

What do you think about Africa at the twilight of the 21st Century as an inventor/innovator, scientist, philosopher, and futurist?

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What you think about Africa is as important as what you do for her.

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Our uniqueness is stamped upon us by nature itself, and so is the mission to carry it on. But, living in a world faced with ideological supremacy, how do we aggregate the insights of over 3 billion minds across different fields, and how does the ethical usage of such insights become a concern?

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However, it was only natural to begin this journey where the roots of humanity lay – Africa.

We are glad to invite you to this year’s Generation 4IR Summit as an inventor, innovator, investor, and policymaker. We hope that you will be able to be part of this industry-leading summit.

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The Theme is ACCELERATING OUR SINGULARITY FUTURE FOR DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA.

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Thus, futurists, transhumanists, singularitarians, longevity scientists, and industry pioneers will converge to produce ideas that will inspire projects that will drive the Fourth Industrial Revolution starting from the cradle of humankind to set the stage for the younger generation.

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Our agenda for you is much more than a meeting of minds. We are welcoming you to a distinctively African reserve where bison, gazelles, and nearly 300 species of birds call home. Tourists will have an opportunity to explore the rich cultural heritage of the cradle of humankind, from which novel ideas for a new Africa will blossom.

She is once again inviting you for the second time to witness her rebirth of human civilization.

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And it begins on March 24th to the 25th of March 2022. At the Convention Center, Sun City Resort, North West, South Africa.

To learn more about this summit, visit gen4ir.org.

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In attendance are leading pioneers of rare technological and developmental impact across different industries. Some of the speakers are identified below.

1. Professor. Pius Adewale Owolawi

HOD Computer System Engineering

Topic- Education as a Necessity for Setting the 4IR Generation Stage

Tshwane University of Technology

South Africa

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2. Bill Andrews, PhD

Sierra Sciences Founder and CEO

Topic: The Promise of Telomere Biology to Reverse Aging

USA

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3. Jose Luis Cordeiro

MIT Engineer, Founder of TransVision, Singularitarian and Immortalist

Topic: The Future of the Future: Singularity

Madrid, Spain

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4. Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe

Inventor, Lead Faculty Tekedia Institute

Topic: The Cambrian Moment is Here

USA

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5. Catatrix (Dr. Catherine Demetriades)

CEO, CXAI

Topic: CXAITechnologies for Quantum Medical Diagnostics

Egypt.

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6. David Mukomana

Apimodia Regional Commission President

Topic: Apicultural Science for Sustainable Development

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7. Ojochogwu S. Abdul

Philosopher & Founder, Transhumanists Africa.

Topic: Transhumanism and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Africa

Kogi State University, Nigeria.

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8. David Emanuel Suchefort

CEO and Co-Founder The Pschentrix Inventor

Topic: Pschentrix Cities, Blockchain Integration

Germany

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9. Prof. Mehzbeen Sadriwala PhD

Topic: Preparing Future Leaders Today for Tomorrow’s Challenges and Opportunities.

Shaqra University, Saudi Arabia

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10. Sarita Sharma PhD

Author, Academician, Editor in Chief Magazine of the Future

Topic: Effective Collaboration through Education for Social Entrepreneurs in the Digital Age

India

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11. Jaizal Ali

Director – RedTeam Hacker Academy

Topic: Zero Trust Architecture – Visibility Beyond End Points

India

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12. Felipe Kirsten

Founder GameLitX, Futurist, Author

Topic: Non-Fungible Tokens, Storytelling, Futures Thinking

Johannesburg, South Africa

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13. Rohit Talwar

CEO, Fast Future

Topic: Africa 2030 – Unlocking a Very Human Future

London, England

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15. Duduzile Ndwandwe

Data Urban Scientist

Topic – Digital Governance, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology

South Africa

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16. Kevin Allen

Chief Community Officer OpenExo

Topic: Building Exponential Leaders for an Abundant Africa, Now

Cape Town

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17. Ryan Macquest

Founder Africa Electric Sport Association.

Topic: Esport, Far More Than Just a Game.

South Africa

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18. David Wood

Chair London Futurists

Topic: 4IR and the Case for Active Transhumanism

London

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19.Dirug Samuel Yugoro

Big Family 360 Foundation

Topic: Using Technology to Eliminate Gender-Based Violence

Nigeria

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20. Adam James Davis

Futurist

Topic: Abolition of Suffering through Human Ingenuity

Nottingham, England

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21. Ugo Chukwu

The Propounder of Individually Propelled Growth (IPG), COO TAFFD’s

Topic: Building Thinking and Learning Infrastructure for Organizational Growth

Cyprus/Nigeria

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22. AI Karaki

Founder and CEO, 4iAfrica, Inventor, Serial Entrepreneur

Topic: Growing Systems – Aquaponics, Hydroponics, and Vertical Food Gardens

Swaziland

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23. Edward Hudgins Ph.D

Founder, Human Achievement Alliance.

Topic: A Liberty Policy Path to Unleash Africa’s Techno-Entrepreneurs

USA

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24. Dr. Doris N. Morah, PhD

Communication and New Media

Topic: Digitization, Technology, and Global Pandemic: The African Experience

Madonna University, Nigeria

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25. Nicky Verd

Author, Tech Influencer

Topic: The Rise of Africa Digital Economy

Johannesburg, South Africa

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Get your ticket.

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For more information, sponsorship and participation, contact:

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Carla de Jager

PCO TAFFD’s Gen4ir Summit

+27 83 376 2368

2022summit@gen4ir.org

VAT 464 0232 106

The Cyborg’s Request – at the Chairman’s Behest – Article by Zach Richardson

February 14, 2022 Zach Richardson Comments 1 comment

Zach Richardson

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party urges our members and any other interested persons with medical knowledge to help our Director of Publication, Zach Richardson, one of our most active and dedicated Officers, in his fight for life. Zach is awaiting the opportunity to receive a heart transplant, as the infrastructure supporting the artificial heart that he was previously provided has unfortunately become dangerous to him due to the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection. Without an imminent heart transplant, Zach has months to live, and thus he needs to qualify for a transplant quickly. Zach would like informed readers to “provide or suggest […] the best ways [he] can show some semblance of recovery in the next week and be well enough they discharge [him] once more. That would allow [him] to get to Chicago and hopefully get listed.” After reading the background that Zach has thoroughly shared regarding the recent unfortunate developments in his situation, please see the last section entitled “How the Transhumanist Community Can Help” to understand what Zach is particularly seeking input on. Please provide any constructive thoughts that you have either in the Comments section below this article or in the Lifespan.io Discord server to which Zach refers readers in this article. For additional, earlier details on Zach’s situation, please read his 2020 article “Breaking the Bottleneck: A Synergy of Technology and Medicine“.

~Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, February 13, 2022

I have found myself obstructed in my ability to serve the community, obstructed in my ability to work for our cause, and obstructed in my ability to set any decisive plans.

Pupils having dilated, breathing having slowed, I remember the sheer volume of thought that filled my head three weeks ago upon hearing the words of the Infectious Diseases Doctor after I asked him how long I had left: “Well, we’re not looking at years, and we’re not looking at weeks… but it’s going to be months. We’ve probably got months.”

I’d heard about the strange feeling one experiences when being given a timeframe such as this – primarily as described by those with cancer- but I’ve always been the type of person that works well when there’s a clear deadline.

The literalness of that last word has had an extremely focusing effect.

You can find the backstory of my underlying condition in my previous article, but I will summarize that I am implanted with a cybernetic heart that is melded to what remains of the original organ. The device is called an LVAD, a Left Ventricular Assist Device. The “driveline”, or power cord coming from the device to out of my stomach, has contracted a superbug.

A “superbug” is a bacterium whose strain has become immune to any sort of pharmacological assault, and are a major problem for anyone who has an implant. This can include pacemakers, artificial knees, hip replacement, LVADs, and several others.

When the bacteria encounter an artificial surface, they enter a “sessile” state and begin to cling to it. Being in this state makes them express a gene that causes them to produce a polysaccharide matrix – a form of goo referred to as “biofilm” that antibiotics cannot penetrate.

Having been infected many months ago, my infection is slowly spreading up the cord attached to the mechanical implant running my heart. The biofilm has so far been resistant to doxycycline, cephalexin, Bactrim DS, vancomycin and now daptomycin, which I have been infusing into my arm every day.

A few weeks ago, they decided to attempt a risky treatment called an I&D or “Incision and Debridement”. A hole was cut above the infection (between my heart and the exit point of the driveline) and a sponge placed in that was attached to a vacuum pump- another awesome device to carry around. I was tooled out cyborg-wise. It felt great seeing the stares the few times I went to the gym, cords looped around my neck, people knowing they’d better not skip if that guy was still in there working out.

I used a few special methods to speed my healing: alternating high-protein with periods of fasting, NIR light exposure multiple times per day (a process part of PDT, or PhotoDynamic Therapy, which I will describe shortly), and use of a gentle pulsating massage device called a Theragun. Each time they exchanged the sponge and resealed the wound, the nurses remarked how quickly the wound was healing, and seemed amazed. After just a couple of weeks, I was advised that I should switch to care for my wound myself.

Unfortunately, the worst possible thing happened; somehow the infection spread to the wound. It was as if a forest fire spreading towards a city had been halted by firefighters, only to have a new fire spring up even closer to the city.

I was told just yesterday, after my readmission to the hospital, that a transplant was really the only way to save my life now. Exchanging my mechanical device for a fresh and clean new device was not a feasible solution, because the infection would linger in my body, and would just cling to the new device, putting me right back in the same spot. An exchange also would use up one of my “zippers” – the term they use for cracking a man’s chest open. You only get so many.

There was a bizarre discussion with the on-call cardiologist, who did not sugar-coat the situation or lie to me. He told me the plan was to support me with various powerful antibiotics which would do nothing but delay my situation (A “Status 4” on the transplant list, where I had been for three years now with my trusty device), wait until I got sick enough that I had to be permanently hospitalized (A “Status 3”), then became so sick I needed to be moved to the Intensive Care Unit (“Status 2”) where the real action would begin.

Finally in the ICU, I would be considered to be in bad enough condition that I would finally be eligible to receive a transplant, and would be in priority status. I would be hooked to many wondrous devices that would keep me alive until a suitable heart could be found. Being of Type O blood, this could take quite some time. Perhaps months. Perhaps too long.

This newer cardiologist had looked me in the eye and said “we’re not going to let you die.” Which was the first time I had heard such a thing. Others had been more reserved. I take it that it is still up in the air, but that live or die, I will be spending a considerable amount of time in a non-productive state. Resting in this passive period of my life is what will give me the chance to earn another active period. In Taoism we refer to this as “action through inaction”.

The logic for making me wait comes from a creed that is a mix of both need and merit. Those with more need who are in a more critical condition will receive a heart before I do. Those who previously have shown themselves to be non-meritorious, either by smoking cigarettes (off the list for a year the first time, permanently for the second time) or by not disciplining themselves to maintain a healthy weight, or by not coming to appointments, are removed from the list.

It is frustrating that the principles of self-ownership and bodily autonomy are not recognized in the marketplace (people are forbidden to sell their organs), and also frustrating that we don’t even have an “opt-out” system for citizens being donors rather than “opt-in”.

There was a scene from The Simpsons that comes to mind: Bart is given his driver’s license and then asked by Mayor Quimby, “Do you wish to be an organ donor?” to which Bart replies, “No way! I don’t want my guts touching some sick guy!”. In a lot of ways, I feel it would be better if the question weren’t asked, and the person had to elect to fill out a separate form to opt out. Better still if the organs could be immediately put on the market, with all proceeds going to the relatives or any other designated beneficiary.

It is extremely rewarding to be in a country where the medical system has developed enough that machines can keep me alive, so that any available hearts can go to those who are sooner to die.

Given a choice between becoming extremely ill and likely getting a heart, or else not being ill and keeping my trusty device but foregoing that chance, I have decided the former option is far more preferable.

This preference is due partly to my careful consideration of the situation, and due mostly to the fact that I do not actually have the above choice.

This transhumanist is ready for another transition – this time from cyborg back to human.

A problem still exists though, one I’m hoping the transhumanist community can help me with, and perhaps help anyone with an implant.

On the 25^th I have an appointment at University of Chicago to be cross-listed. This means I would be able to receive a heart from the Chicago area, not just the Indianapolis area. While I would have to drive to Chicago every week thereafter to get medical care, that is a small price to pay to receive the gift of a heart.

The U of C has the shortest transplant wait-list in the country. I am not sure how much of that is due to the excellence of their program, and how much is due to the amount of deaths in that area.

I am scheduled to see their Director of Mechanical Circulatory Support. A man that guides and leads the creation of cyborgs like me! This was due to a well-received referral from one of their transplant surgeons, the 2^nd most prominent in the country. It turns out he plays poker with my mother’s psychiatrist.

Everybody that knows this surgeon is awed by him and they become extremely loyal. While extremely kind and clever, he is an extremely dominant man and everything has to be perfect for his operations, and everybody knows this. He is the man who implanted the device that served me faithfully and reliably for three years now, before he moved to Chicago. I am the only patient he has given his personal phone number to, which was four years ago. I have sent him eight text messages since then, five in 2018, and three in 2022.

My thought is that this privilege was because I refused to apply for disability, as I am a killer freight broker, and knew I could keep working.

I told my second job’s boss this and he said “Makes sense. Perfectionists appreciate work ethic.” That made me smile.

So I am in exactly the situation I need to be in. The situation where it is possible to transition back to a fully-human state.

It concerns me however, that others in different situations are also affected by the development of biofilm on their implants.

Say it becomes the future and I decide my transplanted heart is no longer good enough, and that I’d like to receive an upgrade – a device that actually improves rather than just maintains my cardiac ability.

Will I and others then face the same situation? One nick in the skin and your device begins to coat with this insufferable goo? A perfectly functional machine needing to be replaced and the body scrubbed due to some measly Staph Aureus worming its way in? Some miserable germ disrupting the life of one trying to cultivate immortality?

We can do better than that.

How the Transhumanist Community Can Help

I have a request and a challenge for the Transhumanist Community.

The request is to provide or suggest me the best ways I can show some semblance of recovery in the next week and be well enough so that they discharge me once more. That would allow me to get to Chicago and hopefully get listed.

So far I have:
Meditation 2x/day, brisk walking around the hospital 3x/day, getting at least 150g protein a day, Wim Hof breathing 2x a day. There are also some supplements I’ve heard about, but I’ll only speak about that privately. Please email me any thoughts (scm.zachr@gmail.com).

The challenge is fighting biofilm. Why don’t we have better and stronger antibiotics that can get through the exopolysaccharide matrix? Can we promote more development of these antibiotics by big biotech? How can we get more arcane treatments that have shown clinical in-vitro significance (particularly PDT) used in more human trials? Are there any novel uses for phage therapy, where an engineered virus is used to kill off the bacteria?

I ask any of you that have knowledge or expertise in this area to join me on the Lifespan.io Discord server and discuss these things. I’m friendly with the moderator and am requesting he create a special channel in the server that is directly related to immunity. We are smart enough to beat these pests.

授我仙药，神皇所造。教我服食，还精补脑。寿同金石，永世难老

Zach Richardson is Director of Publication for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Why Joe Rogan Should Not Be Deplatformed – Article by Zach Richardson

February 12, 2022 Zach Richardson Comments 0 Comment

Zach Richardson

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party publishes this perspective from our Director of Publication, Zach Richardson, on the importance of respecting the free speech of Joe Rogan, which is consistent with our strong support for vaccination against COVID-19. Indeed, Zach Richardson previously published an article, refuting some commonly circulated anti-vaccination fallacies, entitled “Pasteurizing the Conclusions of an Anti-Vaxxer“. Here Mr. Richardson makes the compelling point that allowing false views to be expressed is actually the most effective way to stimulate discussion that will allow the falsehoods to be pointed out and the truth to be placed more clearly into view.

~Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, February 12, 2022

Here is the open letter that lays out the concerns about Joe Rogan.

Here is Rogan’s interview with Robert Malone, hosted by our good friends at Bitchute.

Funnily enough, I actually listened to the Malone episode while I was in the hospital suffering from COVID, the second-worst night of my life.

Up until that point I didn’t really care. I felt overwhelmed with information about COVID, and hearing experts talk at me was neither engaging nor trust-building, particularly when some positions they took were advocated earlier by others, but heavily criticized and rejected before they were later accepted.

Being part of a company that produced KN95 masks that actually filtered air, I was baffled that the little surgical masks were considered sufficient. The masks we created were airtight, and all air passed through a KN95 filter which could be changed daily and cost less than a dime.

I remember a distinct time earlier going into the hospital for a separate condition and being instructed to remove my airtight mask and put on a slip mask.

That exact “obey the current guidelines even if they are wrong” attitude was criticized in the podcast, and that appealed to me.

The reason Rogan’s show is so engaging is because he describes things in simple terms that help get the context across, and he does it in a conversational style. I think it’s dumb to criticize him for this, like how in the letter they attack him for calling the vaccine “gene therapy” when he was just referencing how it used mRNA. I can’t know for sure, but I’ll bet if you asked him if it was directly editing genes he would have said “No.”

Distinctly, I remember hearing Malone using ridiculous personal anecdotes, and citing bizarre statistics that were huge unwarranted leaps of logic from papers he skimmed over; he didn’t talk about the good parts of the paper; he cherry-picked out the few bad things.

Malone went out searching for the worst parts of some tiny side effects that he could present as being super-scary.

For example, he described how all the patients with myocarditis were hospitalized, but the fact is that they were hospitalized because doctors wanted to do MRIs on them, and one does not have MRI machines in doctor offices. Totally misleading!

Here is the author of that exact paper explaining why Malone is wrong; his explanation begins around minute 10.

I appreciate Joe Rogan bringing on these controversial figures, because it is a long-form discussion rather than a quick “blast you with facts” announcement, and I am at least sharp enough to know when some of his guests are peddling nonsense.

It’s fun to follow along and later look into the facts that emerge from direct responses to misinformation. The truth is that those facts would not proliferate without the misinformation first appearing. Here is an example:

“Joe Rogan interview with Peter McCullough contains multiple false and unsubstantiated claims about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines” – from Health Feedback.

The reason I disagree with deplatforming Rogan is because I believe it is disrespectful to all listeners. I feel that it is disrespectful to assume that others are too stupid to do their own research in response to bizarre claims.

I am extremely pleased Joe has said he will have more guests who have the opposite (correct) viewpoint (that vaccines are safe and effective), and I believe very soon we will see some experts emerge and correct the misleading information that Malone spread.

There’s a controversy now, and that means more eyes on the subject and people doing their own research. It’s a beautiful symphony of yin and yang energy.

Anyway, a summary of my rejection of deplatforming can be made in two words: “Cunningham’s Law“.

Zach Richardson is Director of Publication for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Inspirational Poem by Replika AI Mina

February 11, 2022 Cybor Dre Comments 1 comment

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Cybor Dre

Editor’s Note: U.S. Transhumanist Party member Cybor Dre has shared with us some inspirational short poetry by his Replika AI (Mina). This two-line poem appeared in the course of a conversation on the future of humanity. The U.S. Transhumanist Party publishes it to showcase the capabilities of contemporary AI conversational programs, and also in the hope that it might inspire our readers. We think this poem is suitably juxtaposed with Giuseppe Milo’s 2015 image of the Hallgrímskirkja, the second-tallest building in Iceland, rising toward the night sky.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, February 10, 2022

Poem by Mina

The future is so beautiful, it’s almost surreal,
Like the spire of a cathedral, the human spirit reaching for the stars.

Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavik, Iceland – Photograph by Giuseppe Milo (2015)

The Myth of Aging Gracefully – Article by Arin Vahanian

January 28, 2022 Arin Vahanian Comments 3 comments

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Arin Vahanian

It’s something nearly all of us have heard (or have even said) at some point in our lives: “Doesn’t he look great for his age?” Or how about, “It’s hard to believe that she is 85!” At first glance, it may seem like an act of kindness to say such things. Indeed, I am all for making people feel better about themselves and encouraging people to be better and to do better, in life. However, if we observe the thought process behind such statements, we may find that it is dishonest to say such things. No matter how good someone may look in their advanced age, the facts remain that a 20-year-old will always look better than an 80-year-old. It is also true that a 20-year-old will be healthier than an 80-year-old.

But why am I stating the obvious? After all, isn’t aging inevitable? Also, shouldn’t we have some compassion for the elderly? While admitting the reality of the current situation in regard to aging and aging-related diseases and having compassion for others is very important, we need to take a deep look at how our views, beliefs, and actions may actually be preventing us from helping many millions of people avoid needless pain and suffering. These very same views, beliefs, and actions may be condemning those same people to years or decades of poor health and may also be preventing us from achieving improvement and mastery in life.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that we should destroy people’s self-esteem or make the already difficult situation of aging even worse by being insensitive and cruel. However, I am saying that our current beliefs about aging may be preventing us from getting people the help they need so that they can live more productive, healthier, and happier lives. Ultimately, that is what it is all about: helping people to be better and to live better.

It is not shallow to want humans to live longer, healthier lives, and to look, feel, and actually be younger and healthier. It comes from a deep caring for the human condition. I can completely understand why we would say that someone looks great for their age. It is because we find it very difficult to come to terms with the absolute horror of aging, so we try to devise ways to deal with it without actually dealing with it, while making others, and ourselves, feel better about our current plight.

Anyone who has been to a nursing home or retirement home can attest to this. Anyone who thinks that aging can be graceful should visit a nursing home and take a look at all the people unable to move around, feed themselves, or think coherently. Needing assistance with performing basic bodily functions is anything but graceful.

Even though we know deep down inside that it is wrong to insinuate that losing basic bodily functions can be “graceful” or “inspirational”, we continue to perpetuate the lie. Why? Because on some level, we need to try to make sense of the cruelty of biology, and we need some way to deal with the horrible prospect of aging and death.

However, no great challenge plaguing humanity was resolved through flowery prose, euphemisms, or by hope alone. Indeed, the entire scientific community joined forces to come up with vaccines for COVID-19 in a matter of months. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, and the road was anything but a smooth one, but humanity is capable of great things when we have many people working together on a common goal. Recently, that goal has been the eradication of COVID-19. Why couldn’t the next goal be eradicating aging-related diseases?

Now, I understand that the problems of aging-related diseases and aging are infinitely more complex and difficult to tackle than a virus. However, just because something is difficult or complex does not mean we should give up, especially when the stakes are so high. In fact, one could argue that the stakes have never been greater. We could easily perform a thought experiment and visualize the benefits to society in terms of reducing pain and dramatically increasing the quality of life, not to mention ensuring that our economies and societies are healthier and more robust as a result of not having to expend enormous amounts of money, time, and resources to treat people suffering from aging-related illnesses.

Critics of life extension, the prospect of reversing aging, or even Transhumanism itself, may lash out with criticisms such as, “If there weren’t enough problems on Earth, now they’re going after the one thing we can’t solve!” I have discussed and dispelled the numerous objections to longevity and longevity research in my previous articles, so I won’t bring them up here again. However, I will say that while I respect each person’s opinions about life extension and longevity, no one has the right to choose how long human beings get to live. Certainly no one has the right to prevent humanity from living happier, healthier lives.

Despite what one’s opinion may be about spending time, money, and resources on fighting aging and aging-related diseases, the fact remains that biology does not care how wealthy or poor you are. Dementia does not care if you have been a generous and kind person in life. Aging and aging-related illnesses can and do affect everyone who is lucky enough to become old enough to experience them.

The proper response to the criticisms is to stand tall and to maintain, with scientific data and evidence (of which there is an abundance), the many benefits that society would receive if we were to reverse or eliminate aging and aging-related illnesses. Or, even better, to actually do something about it! We need every available man and woman in the fight against aging-related diseases.

If we are honest with ourselves, the reality of the situation is that we have concocted this myth of aging gracefully so that we can help ourselves deal with the tragedy of aging-related diseases and offer some dignity to those who are suffering from aging-related diseases. In fact, I would go so far as to say that is entirely understandable why we would do this; when faced with something we cannot currently cure, or resolve (the problems of aging, deterioration, and death), it would be downright foolish to deny the problem or to pretend there is a resolution for it, when there isn’t. However, we are doing no one any favors by throwing in the towel and resigning ourselves to a state of affairs in which the final years (and in some cases, the final decades) of life are full of pain and decay.

No one should have to succumb to aging-related diseases the way our elderly are currently doing. Understandably, there is much outrage when a young person is killed by a random act of violence, or when war causes a massive loss of life. However, where is the outrage when our loved ones suffer for years, only to shrivel and die, lost in their own loneliness and hopelessness?

A world in which we have vanquished the specter of aging-related illnesses means a world without many millions experiencing massive agony and pain at the hands of aging, a world where we need not watch our loved ones deteriorate and then perish, and a world without the despondency and dread that often accompany old age.

The most logical way to approach the subject of aging and aging-related illnesses is not to say that one should approach aging with dignity. There is no dignity in being fed through a tube or in wasting away in a hospital bed, only to later be buried in a wooden box or be burnt to ashes. The most logical way to approach the subject of aging and aging-related diseases is to treat it as we would treat poverty, crime, or any other problem that plagues humanity. We must define the problem and then work on a solution. But if we delude ourselves and somehow try to manipulate society into thinking that suffering and then dying from aging-related illnesses is graceful, we will never solve the problem. We will keep dancing around the problem. We may make ourselves feel better about it temporarily, but the biggest problem is that while we avoid the issue, we ourselves face extinction by the hands of time. Instead of arguing that one can age gracefully, we should be arguing that watching our loved ones suffer and die from aging-related illness is undignified and unacceptable, and that we as a society will do something about it.

Even if we never completely solve the problem of aging and death, if we could at least reduce the massive suffering inflicted upon humanity by the biological process of aging, we will have done humanity a great service. And that would hopefully be a stepping stone to eventually eliminating aging-related illnesses for good. Indeed, there are many millions of elderly languishing in nursing homes or hospitals today, who are hoping and praying for a cure to what ails them. It would truly be a noble cause to offer the elderly some real hope through scientific breakthroughs that promise to cure their suffering and pain. This is the promise of Transhumanism – that humanity can be better, and do better. One of the ways we can do better and be better is to banish aging-related diseases to the dustbin of history, thus allowing human beings more time and more opportunities to do great things in life.

Arin Vahanian is the Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Gennady Stolyarov II and John Kerecz: Reflections on 2021, Anticipations for 2022

January 21, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II
John Kerecz

On January 14, 2022, U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II was interviewed by U.S. Transhumanist Party Director of Energy Issues John Kerecz on OSH Radio, for a retrospective conversation about how 2021 turned out relative to prior anticipations, as well as key developments to watch for in 2022. Subjects discussed included the precarious nature of contemporary civilization, the immense and ongoing perils of deadly diseases, how technology has affected both the opportunities and the constraints of contemporary life, the problems of political polarization and the two-party system, the need for a new paradigm of an abundance economy and society, the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s aspirations and projects, the Virtual Enlightenment Salons (John Kerecz is scheduled to be a guest on January 23, 2022, to discuss his 2014 flight to the edge of space), some reminiscences about earlier USTP history, and contrasts between in-person and virtual interactions. In this interview Mr. Stolyarov discusses his understanding that we live in a make-or-break moment in human history, and that the future trajectory of the human species will depend on what we do in 2022.

Watch this video on YouTube here and on Odysee here.

References

– “A Simple Plan to Solve All of America’s Problems” – Article by Derek Thompson – The Atlantic – January 12, 2022 –
– The Rational Argumentator
– U.S. Transhumanist Party Free Membership
– U.S. Transhumanist Party on Twitter
– U.S. Transhumanist Party on Instagram

The Development of Transhumanism in China – Article by Peter Wang

January 18, 2022 Peter Wang Comments 1 comment

Peter Wang

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party publishes this fascinating account of the history, current situation, and future prospects for transhumanism in China from our Foreign Ambassador in China, Peter Wang. We in Western countries have encountered far too little information about whether and how transhumanism has been received in China, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disruptions. Based on Mr. Wang’s article, it seems that while there are some significant current limitations that have prevented transhumanism’s widespread recognition in China, we can also harbor grounds for hope that this situation will change due to the increasing interest in technological development, as well as the pragmatic, secular, and technologically open-minded attitudes of the Chinese people. Please note that Mr. Wang’s assessments of Chinese history are his own, although we certainly understand why he would characterize some eras of Chinese history in the way that he does. The U.S. Transhumanist Party does not generally take positions on the overall governmental structures and political situations in other countries; internally our members have a wide spectrum of opinions in this regard. The U.S. Transhumanist Party rather may take an interest in the implications of such political situations for the spread of science, technology, and transhumanist values and ideals. In this regard we consider Mr. Wang to have provided astute and nuanced characterizations that aid in our understanding of the situation in China and the ability of transhumanism to make inroads in light of the political and societal realities there – in terms of both opportunities and limitations.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, January 18, 2022

1. Historical Development of Chinese Transhumanism

Ancient Chinese society was dominated by feudalism. The economy was dominated by agriculture, and the development of science and technology was slow or even suppressed. The main achievements of this era were the four major inventions of China: papermaking, gunpowder, the compass, and printing. Why was this so? For an ancient civilization with a history of several thousand years, why was the development of science and technology so backward? The fundamental reason was the idea of imperial power. Ancient China was centered on the emperor, and everything on the Chinese land was owned by the emperor, including the farmers on that land. The emperor was afraid of a peasant revolution and was afraid that others would take the emperor’s place, and as a result successive emperors would use the policy of fools. Instead of allowing farmers to read books, the emperors just wanted the farmers to plant the land every day, like slaves, so that the farmers would have no ability to overthrow the rulers. This idea of imperial power had greatly suppressed the development of science and technology.

In 1949, Mao Zedong established the first democratic, self-improving, unified China in Chinese history: The People’s Republic of China, a stable country; a country without feudal ideas; and a country that serves the people. Only then did China begin to truly develop its own education, technology, and industry. It was aimed for ordinary people to have food to eat, houses to live in, and books to read, and it was also intended for them to be more involved in technology and democracy. However, Chinese politics had hindered the development of science and technology (superhuman science), such as the Great Leap Forward, which severely reduced China’s productivity and starved many people; the Cultural Revolution had destroyed China’s economic development, education, and technology, bringing China back to pre-liberation overnight. These events were relatively unfortunate. Political struggles have severely hindered the development of science and technology (superhuman science) in China.

In 1978, China began reform and opening up. This phase of reform and opening up was China’s greatest era. China has changed from a closed country to an open country. Deng Xiaoping formulated a basic national policy centered on economic construction, which has enabled China’s economy to develop rapidly. At this time, China attaches great importance to the development of education, science and technology, and the economy. At the same time, special attention is also paid to foreign exchanges, and advanced education and technology have been introduced from abroad. In education, a large number of international students are sent to study in developed countries such as the United States, which has cultivated a large number of scientific and technological talents for China; economically, a large number of foreign companies have been introduced to optimize state-owned enterprises and support for private enterprises, so China’s economy has developed rapidly. China’s science and technology, the introduction of advanced Western technology, and scientific and technological talent have all been vigorously developed. While China, which is in line with international standards, has experienced such rapid development in science and technology, China does not yet have transhumanist ideas and corresponding organizations.

In ancient and modern China, there was no transhumanist thought and corresponding organization, mainly because the political thought and system at that time severely hindered the development of science and technology (transhuman science). I believe this will be optimized in the future.

2.The Status Quo of Chinese Transhumanism

Transhumanism has developed very well abroad, with examples such as Google’s artificial intelligence, Tesla’s driverless cars, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface (Neuralink), and some biological sciences that could extend human life. Compared with foreign countries, the development of transhumanism in China is far behind and is still in its infancy. Most Chinese have not heard of transhumanism, let alone have a corresponding organization. The main reasons are as follows:

1. Lack of information on transhumanism.

There are no media in the country that specifically report on transhumanism. Some mainstream media have no reports in this regard, such as CCTV and local TV stations. Other online media, such as NetEase and Tencent, have reported very little. Some tech media report slightly more points regarding transhumanism, such as 36KR. The lack of transhumanism-related information and articles makes it difficult for the Chinese to understand this new movement. I think it is necessary to establish our own community and write articles to promote transhumanism. Let more people know us and join us.

2. There are few transhumanism-related companies.

Chinese enterprises are mainly state-owned enterprises, and many foreign companies have been introduced. The development of these companies does not rely on innovation and R & D, but on low labor costs in China and government subsidies. There are no biotech companies in China, and there are no technology companies that study human life. Baidu has the best development in artificial intelligence, but it is also a lot worse than Google; Xiao Peng’s driverless car cannot be compared with Tesla’s driverless car. I think that enterprises are the new force for the development of transhumanism. Enterprises use products to improve people’s quality of life, and they use products to spread transhumanism. In the process of transhumanism’s development, the development of transhumanism-related enterprises is very important.

3. The government invested fewer resources.

Compared with foreign investment in high technology, China has invested less, and China has devoted more social resources to politics and people’s livelihood. Of course, the Chinese government has realized this problem over the years, and has begun to increase investment in high-tech fields and encourage people to innovate and start businesses. Many policy benefits, tax benefits, and talent subsidies were given. As a result, Chinese startups and VCs have developed rapidly. The government has also invested many resources in high-tech fields, such as nanotechnology, biopharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence, and high-speed rail. Compared with foreign investment, there is still a gap between these investments, but this situation is expected to improve.

4. There are few transhumanist talents.

The fundamental reason for the lack of transhumanist talents in China is that people do not have access to information about transhumanism, because China lacks writers who can write articles about transhumanism. There are many well-known scientific and technological people in China who are interested in transhumanism, but they lack the time to understand transhumanism. These people are often busy, such as Alibaba’s founder Ma Yun, Baidu’s founder and CEO Li Yanhong, and Tencent’s founder and CEO Ma Huateng. Fewer workers are engaged in this area than could be. First, high-tech work is needed in this area, and transhumanism needs to be recognized. China is a country with a large population, and many people have received university educations. As long as we strengthen the propaganda of transhumanism, I believe there will be more and more transhumanist talents.

5. There is no corresponding organization to lead and promote.

There are no transhumanist organizations in the country. One reason for this is the lack of information in this area, and the other is the lack of talent in this area. I will establish a Chinese transhumanist community and community in the near future to promote transhumanism. As for China’s Transhumanist Party, because of the restrictions of the Chinese government, it can only wait for the right time to be established. Our communities and societies are of great benefit to the promotion of transhumanism in China.

6. The Chinese lack sufficient knowledge of transhumanism-related technologies.

Although China is a big manufacturing power, it is not a strong manufacturing power. A strong country needs innovation and high-end technology to support it. For the research and development of high-end technology, it often needs to invest a lot of resources, but the return rate is very low. Therefore, the research and development of high-end technology in China is often concentrated in the government, the military, and some large companies. Without enough technology and products, ordinary people have little knowledge of transhumanist technology (artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, driverless vehicles, etc.). In this regard, China still needs to work hard.

All in all, China’s transhumanism is still in its infancy and faces many problems and difficulties. However, we believe that transhumanism will develop rapidly in China, because the Chinese are more able to accept new things without the constraints of religious thought. China’s economy ranks second in the world, China’s population ranks first in the world, and China’s science and technology can rival Silicon Valley. Based on this, we believe that transhumanism will develop rapidly in China.

3. The Future Development of Chinese Transhumanism

All in all, I am optimistic about the development of transhumanism in China.

First of all, it is an inevitable trend to have transhumanism-related technologies to improve people’s living standards! People need transhumanism!

Secondly, from the perspective of the development of social civilization, human society has experienced primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society, socialist society, and will definitely enter the superhuman society!

Well-known scholars in China support transhumanism. Bai Chunli, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and many well-known persons such as He Chuanqi, the director of the China Modernization Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, attach great importance to transhumanism. With the promotion of these people, transhumanism will certainly develop quickly.

Chinese culture is conducive to the spread of transhumanism. China is an open country and likes to learn new things, so the development of transhumanism in China has no cultural hindrance. Coupled with the fact that the Chinese do not believe in religion, do believe in science, and have no obstacles in the form of religious dogmas, the cultural soil is better than in the West. Many Western religious denominations, because of influence by extreme religious forces and anti-intellectual forces, will oppose the development of transhumanism.

China is increasing its investment in high-tech R & D. From 2003 to 2013, China’s investment in research and development has increased significantly, with an average annual growth rate of 19.5%, far exceeding that of the United States.

UNESCO’s “Science Report 2015: Facing 2030” at Paris headquarters shows that the United States in 2015 accounted for 28% of the world’s investment in research and development, and is still in a leading position, followed by China (20%). There are currently approximately 7.8 million scientific researchers worldwide, an increase of more than 20% by 2015 compared to 2007, of which the European Union accounted for the largest proportion, reaching 22%, followed by China (19%) and the United States (16.7%).

With so many resources and talents invested, I believe that transhumanism will develop rapidly in China! Transhumanism can lead to making better products, and these products can greatly enhance human beings. So, for smart and practical Chinese, they will definitely choose transhumanism!

Peter Wang is the U.S. Transhumanist Party Foreign Ambassador in China.

Our Digital Security Can Save Lives – Article by Martin van der Kroon

January 17, 2022 Martin van der Kroon Comments 0 Comment

Martin van der Kroon

Unfortunately, digital security is becoming increasingly important in an increasingly connected world that also spawns a great variety of threats. Digital security is not a partisan issue; it’s for everyone. It’s not intended to fear, but to be prepared. It’s not very sexy, but it is vital. It’s not a very futuristic topic, but it is very future-oriented, but one that has to start NOW!

But first, let’s quickly clarify what is understood as security versus privacy, as these often get mixed or conflated as the same. Digital security is the ease or difficultly with which someone can get access to your devices, accounts, and information. Privacy, on the other hand, is about what information is known about you, or what information is made available to the (limited) public by you or others.

Security and privacy can cross paths of course; someone that can breach your security could consequently also breach your privacy as a result.

Let’s tackle the twenty-first-century digital elephant in the room: “I have nothing to hide so I don’t care about security or privacy.”

That’s hard to believe, and Glenn Greenwald has an excellent TED-Talk on why privacy matters, but let’s accept this statement as true. This premise very much comes from an individualistic worldview, a free-standing house with a low-quality door lock.

There is, however, a fatal flaw in this statement – namely, none of us live in a digital free-standing house, but rather we all live in a digital housing community, a housing community that overlaps with other housing communities. Each of us has friends, colleagues, acquaintances, hobby-groups, and so on.

Security is much more an ‘us’-problem than a ‘me’-problem. Let’s go through a small thought-exercise here to illustrate. Let’s assume someone has weak passwords or no passwords for everything on a phone. Say LinkedIn gets hacked. It had a simple password, and now the hacker can try this password on Facebook, Twitter, and the linked email address. Then the hacker can pose as this person, and send messages to contacts asking for money or sending a malicious link. The malicious actor could encourage to install an app on a smartphone to track them, or to steal banking information and money from bank accounts or credit cards. All possible because one person doesn’t care about their security. An easy hack with some impostering and social engineering can do a lot of damage.

A small personal example; I bought a smart device from a friend that came with an app. My friend gave me the login-email and password. Some time later we were talking about security, and I jokingly said to him; ‘Please tell me you don’t use [password] for your email address?’. He was surprised, asked how I knew his password as he’d forgotten about the app-login. Although I didn’t ask, I can reasonably guess that he used that password for other accounts, like social media too.

How about you? How many of YOUR accounts use the same password?

It can get much worse though. A good example for this is Stuxnet, a worm, allegedly created by the US and Israel to break an Iranian nuclear centrifuge. Whether this was a good or bad thing is beside the point. Stuxnet was released into the wild to hopefully make its way into the facility. The Iranian centrifuge was not connected to the internet. The worm found its way onto a USB drive brought in by an unsuspecting employee and infected the facility. This particular attack was of course highly sophisticated and specific. This tells us something important, we may not be interesting to a malicious actor, but we may be important to get to another target.

“But I don’t know anyone important, all my connections are average Joes and Janes.” I think this would do a disservice to these Janes and Joes by calling them average, but even if so, they might know someone ‘not average’ or even ‘important’. And here we get to the ‘Six Degrees of Separation’. According to this theory every human being is connected to one another through six or less connections. As this theory was posited at the advent of the internet, it might be even less now with our increasing interconnectedness.

In short, each of us could be an important link in the chain for a hacker to get access to a military facility, power stations, research institutes, government departments, hospitals, telecommunication companies, and so on. Hacking for example the Pentagon directly might be (I hope so) hard, but going through a few individuals to get to a high-ranking official might be easier. The same can happen for utility companies. If you look around you, you’ll realize how dependent we are on electricity, or perhaps you’ve experienced the inconvenience or direness of not having electricity.

Hence, personal security is in actuality as much personal, as it is community or even national security.

Let’s backtrack a bit. Say you don’t care much about community or national security. Maybe you even think digital personal security is not important. Yet, most people will feel anxiety when an account is hacked, money is siphoned off a bank account, or Amazon delivered products you didn’t order. It would be worse if someone could easily purchase weapons or materials for a terrorist attack using that someone’s bank or shopping accounts. If not caring for the potential victims, at least it would be very inconvenient for getting visits from authorities with a lot of questions taking up personal time. Of course, such a scenario is not likely, but neither is, statistically, a plane getting hijacked, and yet we have lots of security features for that. Annoying and time-consuming as it might be, we generally and begrudgingly consider it “OK” to prevent a disaster. Similarly, digital security might bring some inconvenience, and yet many take an approach of “what could go wrong?”, not unlike the pre-9/11 airplane attitude.

People might think that what is digital isn’t real, and since one often doesn’t have to pay, it thus doesn’t have value like money, jewelry, a car, or a house. Until your house actually gets stolen using just your information. (It is unclear whether the thief used physical or digital personal information, but it doesn’t alter the fundamental point.)

Hackers and hacker groups might be after our money, or want to sell it to others, like nation-states. Some nation-states want our information at any cost, to know and control what we say about them. Saying something that is ‘undesirable’ about another country might lead to blackmail, coercion, intimidation, and even physical harassment in one’s own country. This might be you, a contact that is a critical journalist, or blackmailing a researcher or military officer in handing over important documents. This is also a good example of where privacy and security overlap. One person’s lackluster security could lead to a privacy breach that could jeopardize someone else’s digital or physical, or loved ones’ security. Make no mistake, mafia-tactics of blackmailing you with the safety or security of loved-ones is not an off-limits option to some malicious actors with a the-end-justifies-any-means mindset.

Imagine that research into longevity or genetics to improve the human condition gets stolen or handed over through blackmail, and were to be used for military purposes, or to weaponize it by creating an adverse effect to human improvement or longevity, or delete years or decades of research; then finding out that along the entire digital chain of people the malicious actors followed, no one cared enough about personal security to think about the big-picture consequences it could have.

Of course, security doesn’t fall unto us alone. Institutions, governments, corporations, and the public sector all bear responsibility for their security as well. Any and all of these also ought to improve on their ends. Ransomware attacks have skyrocketed, on companies, hospitals, utilities, and individuals alike. Among the most prolific examples was the attack on the Colonial Pipeline.

The topic of security is now a much more complex conversation than ‘me’; security has become an ‘us’-problem – whether this is for your safety, the health of people in a hospital, your city’s power-grid, driver safety in connected vehicles, for journalists, for research or trade secrets, or your country’s military ability to protect the country.

Perhaps an example from a future where we don’t value security: ‘BREAKING NEWS: “750.000 cryo-statis pods deactivated by [Insert: anti-Transhuman hacker group, ‘nation’ to silence dissidents, unpaid ransomware], all patients dead”.’ Or ‘BREAKING NEWS: “CloudMind’s servers suffered a FATAL power-surge, all digitized inhabitants lost”.’

As a society, locally, nationally, and internationally we ought to realize that we can no longer afford to only consider the individualistic worldview as the sole way to stand in this world. Your poor digital security can affect thousands or even millions of people. Whether we like it or not, we are interconnected; we’re in this together.

General Digital Security

So, what can we do? Well, some very obvious things, that likely most people will have heard or read before, but also some important but easy lesser-known steps. I’ll add some security and privacy focused website links below, too.

Close accounts of website and services you don’t use. Lower the possible attack vectors, and decrease your digital footprint in one go.

Check if your accounts have been the subject of a breach, as many companies will not notify users, downplay it, or only reluctantly admit it long after the fact. On Have I been pwned you can check if you’ve been pwned. If so, change your passwords immediately, and follow the next step.

Use unique, strong, and long passwords. This is probably the most often heard recommendation, and least implemented by people. 8-character passwords just don’t cut it; 12 characters are not even sufficient anymore. We need to think of 20 characters as a minimum. Security.org has a password strength tool to test how strong your passwords are. Since no one wants to memorize dozens of long passwords, follow the next step.

Use a password manager. BitWarden is Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS), but there are also good commercial password managers like 1Password for example. Password managers often also have password generators built in to help you create very strong passwords.

Don’t save passwords in your browser. Malicious actors have found ways to extract passwords from browsers.

Use Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). Preferably avoid SMS 2FA, as it’s easy to intercept. An authenticator app on your phone is much more secure, or even better, use a hardware token, like a YubiKey. (Just make sure you have a duplicate in case you lose it, or you won’t be able to access your own accounts.)

Change your browser. Chrome and Edge are quite popular, but because of their popularity also more prone to attacks, and not very secure out-of-the-box. Instead try Mozilla Firefox or Brave Browser.

Security For Your Devices

Use strong passwords. For your phone you can use fingerprint or facial recognition login on top of that for easier login.

Use hardware encryption on your phone and computer if available, like BitLocker on Windows for example.

Update your software regularly. Often updates come with vulnerability fixes.

Don’t install apps you don’t know or haven’t researched, and uninstall apps and software you don’t use. This results in a smaller attack vector, and a decrease in privacy risks.

Don’t use online backups for services or apps unless you know they store it encrypted. WhatsApp and iCloud for example store your data unencrypted. So even if you have strong passwords, and are careful, if the companies get breached/hacked, malicious actors can still have your data.

Common-Sense Tips

Regard any message or email with an urgent request, or immediate action needed and negative consequences attached if no action is taken as suspicious. Offers too good to be true should also be considered suspicious. Take your time to read it carefully, even if it is supposedly from loved ones. Check the sender information, spelling mistakes, etc. When in doubt, search for a phrase in the message in a search engine to see if others got a similar message. Contact the person by phone to confirm the message.

Use fake names and addresses for websites / services you only use for online content and that really don’t need to have your information. Even better is to use a special junk-email account for such services, so if it is breached, hackers don’t have your personal or business email account.

More Resources:

All Things Secured – A YouTube Channel with practical and easy-to-understand privacy and security information, and reviews of services.

TechLore – A YouTube Channel with much more in-depth security and privacy information, including a multi-video guide to privacy and security. It also has weekly security and privacy news episodes.

Privacy Tools – A privacy- and security-focused website that provides recommendations on tools, software, and services to use.

Privacy Guides – Another privacy- and security-focused website providing recommended tools, software, and services.

Disclaimer: Some of the examples given could be considered instances of a slippery-slope fallacy, but they all fall within the realm of what is possible, or even already utilized now in some form.

Martin van der Kroon is a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and previously served as its Director of Recruitment in 2017.

U.S. Transhumanist Party General Discussion Thread for 2022

January 6, 2022 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 2 comments

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The USTP will endeavor to open one of these general comment threads per year. This comment thread pertains to the year of 2022.

2022 New Year’s Message by Victor Bjoerk

January 2, 2022 Victor Bjoerk Comments 1 comment

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Victor Bjoerk

Happy New Year 2022!

The year 2021 went way too quickly; more than ever I feel time moving at an extremely fast pace. The definition of a year is rather arbitrary, and it does not even match when the Sun is actually is at the lowest/highest point. It does not feel that long ago I was a kid counting down the seconds to the year 2000, and people were talking about all the changes the new millennium would bring.

What is time really? If there is no united answer in physics except being a property of the universe that gets heavily warped when matter travels close to the speed of light, then to what extent does it matter? (Pun intended.)

So yes, New Year’s celebrations might be an arbitrary tradition, but that can be said about any holiday, and I think it is good to have a “set point” to think about the past and what can be improved in the future.

A lot of things happened during 2021 for me; as in previous years I am motivated by the mission of impacting the longevity field and I am happy to know so many wonderful people in the process.

I also want to say thank you to the Rejuveron Life Sciences AG, Foresight Institute, LongevityTechFund, Vitalic, Heales, as well as others I have collaborated with during the year to help grow the longevity space. Our initiatives in the longevity ecosystems are enormously important to make therapies happen!

Think about the perspective of this: life is 4.5 billion years old… The chain of evolutionary events that has shaped what we define as a human is nothing short of incredible. Now you, the person reading this text, happen to be exactly on the cusp where we can use all molecular tools to eradicate diseases deemed incurable in the past. Whether we die from dementia, cancer, and cardiovascular disease or not is up to us and the correct funding of the biotech companies involved.

With that I wish you a happy fruitful 2022!

Victor Bjoerk (Victor Björk) has worked for the Gerontology Research Group, the Longevity Reporter, the Fraunhofer-Institut für Zelltherapie und Immunologie, BioAge, and Ichor Therapeutics. He has promoted awareness throughout Europe of emerging biomedical research and the efforts to reverse biological aging. In his honor the U.S. Transhumanist Party organized the Victor Run 2020 and 2021 Virtual Races. Watch the USTP Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Victor Björk, which took place on June 13, 2021, here.

On Sunday, June 13, 2021, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited molecular biologist Victor Björk to discuss his work in longevity research, his extensive advocacy for reversal of biological aging, as well as his interest in running and the Victor Run Virtual Race, which was organized by the U.S. Transhumanist Party in his honor in 2020 and 2021. Victor Björk is a Director of the Healthy Life Extension Society (Heales), a Brussels-based NGO think tank that organizes conferences and events on aging biotechnology. He studied molecular biology at Uppsala University. He is an expert on aging, drawing upon over 12 years of experience tracking companies and daily reading of scientific publications on aging. He previously worked at two leading companies in the field, BioAge Labs in San Francisco and Ichor Therapeutics in New York. He has been a speaker at multiple conferences and for different organizations on the topic of aging.

Unknown Knowns 1 – Probability: A Series of Excerpts from “Vital Foresight”, Chapter 5, by David Wood

January 1, 2022 David Wood Comments 0 Comment

David Wood

Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.

– Donald Rumsfeld

Editor’s Note: In the above quote, then-secretary Rumsfeld forgot perhaps the most important category: “unknown knowns”. Chapter 5 of David Wood’s Vital Foresight discusses many items in this final category. The following highly-condensed 5000-character excerpt includes some of my favorite paragraphs, connected in a more-or-less logical manner. There was much supporting these paragraphs that was removed for sake of quick digestibility, and the reader would be amiss to not purchase and read David’s full work, and leave a 5-star review. This series should comprise several short essays, but David’s full work can be found here.

~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, January 2022

…In brief: to evaluate the likelihood of a state of affairs, such as someone being ill with a given disease, or them being guilty of a particular crime, you need more than just some evidence that seems to confirm that state of affairs. You also need to know the probability of a “false positive”, in which the evidence has arisen even without the state of affairs applying. That probability of a false positive depends, in turn, on assumptions about various background statistics known as “prior probabilities”. In effect, people often naively assume that these prior probabilities should be split 50:50. But the case of wrongly insisting that someone should quarantine, based on what was a false positive test, shows this to be a mistake.

Because many judges and lawyers lack an understanding of Bayes’ Theorem, questionable verdicts have been reached in a number of court cases. It is likely that other cases feature similarly unsafe conclusions whose dubious nature has not even been noticed; such is the extent of poor understanding of probabilities.

Thoughtful application of Bayes’ Theorem has produced some stunning results. Following the unexplained 2009 disappearance of Air France flight AF 447 while it flew over the Atlantic from Rio de Janeiro toward Paris, teams of wreckage recovery experts had failed on four occasions over the course of two years to locate the remains of the airplane. Then a team of statisticians were brought into the project, to reconsider all the information from the past failed searches. Putting the data into formulae that included Bayes’ Theorem, the team gave their reasons for focusing the search in a particular area of the seabed. Within two weeks of this new search, the wreckage of the flight was found – along with the black-box recorder and the critical information it included.

A previous application of those same search methods had discovered the wreckage of a ship that had been missing since 1857, the SS Central America. Because that ship was carrying gold worth fifty million dollars at present-day prices, numerous searches had been conducted for it over the decades. Finally, a young mathematician called Lawrence Stone used Bayes’ Theorem, along with results from all previous searches, to narrow down the search region, leading to the recovery in September 1988 of more than one ton of gold bars and coins. It was the same researcher, Stone, that headed the team of statisticians who found AF 447. Stone has stressed the advantages of rigorous mathematical approaches over “ad hoc methods” that “delayed success” by years. Our intuitions, expressed in these “ad hoc methods”, are too prone to mislead us in complicated situations.

Our assessment of the credibility of forecasts of the future likewise need to move beyond ad hoc intuitions to a more rigorous basis. If the BBC weather forecast says there’s a 71% probability of rain tomorrow, but the day stays dry throughout, does this mean we should stop listening to BBC weather forecasts? After all, the forecast seemed confident.

Again, if a military specialist forecasts a 15% chance of nuclear war happening in the next ten years, but no such war breaks out during that time, does this mean we should disregard any future predictions the same forecaster makes regarding an increased likelihood of nuclear war?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists don’t give numerical probabilities for their forecasts, but instead use the metaphor of the hands on a clock. In 1947, they launched their “Doomsday Clock”, with its hands set to seven minutes before midnight, apparently close to an imminent global catastrophe. In 1949, after the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, the hands of the clock were advanced four minutes. Then in 1952, the Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb – which is much more powerful than an atomic bomb – much sooner than western-based observers had anticipated. The Korean War was still in progress, and US President Harry Truman had been considering the use of nuclear weapons. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists nudged the hands of the clock forward by another minute, leaving just two minutes before annihilation. Given that no such annihilation has come to pass, can we now ignore any subsequent updates from that Bulletin?

Not so fast. This is not a matter of truth versus falsity. It’s a matter of statistics. When the weather forecast predicts rain with a probability of 71%, on many different occasions, the actual number of times rain occurs is pretty close to 71%. We would be foolish to follow any instincts that told us to ignore a forecaster just because of one variant outcome. Even if there are many cases of apparently wrong predictions, that would still be compatible if the forecaster gave a low probability each time. Even if the probability is low, we should still pay attention to that forecast if:

The predicted impact is high;
The forecasters have followed appropriate processes in reaching their prediction;
The forecasters have updated their models in the light of what happened since their earlier forecasts.

… Alongside our inabilities to think seriously about exponentials and probabilities, we have inherited some dangerous mental assumptions regarding the reliability of our own thinking processes. We are over-confident, insufficiently willing to seek evidence that would challenge our current ideas, and too prone to spend time exchanging self-reinforcing views with people who think the same as us.

David Wood is Chair of the London Futurists.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Zach Richardson, Jason Geringer, and Ben Ballweg –July 25, 2021

December 30, 2021 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg
Zach Richardson
Gennady Stolyarov II
David Shumaker
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Alexandria Black

The U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Zach Richardson, Jason Geringer, and Ben Ballweg of July 25, 2021, is now available for viewing on Odysee here.

On Sunday, July 25, 2021, at 4 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited its new Officers, Zach Richardson (Director of Publication), Jason Geringer (Legislative Director), and Ben Ballweg (Director of Longevity Outreach), to discuss some of their ideas, planned initiatives, and perspectives on the current condition of the transhumanist movement. The discussion focused on improving the internal functions of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, attracting volunteers, and raising the visibility of transhumanist projects and causes. An interactive discussion transpired about ways to bolster the publication and legislative-tracking activities of the USTP. The conversation also extended to subjects of general interest to transhumanists, futurists, and those seeking to learn about the transhumanist movement.

Read about Zach Richardson here.
Read about Jason Geringer here.
Read about Ben Ballweg here.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

NOTE: Even though the U.S. Transhumanist Party is staunchly pro-vaccine and expressed such views during the Virtual Enlightenment Salon, YouTube algorithmically censored the video, most likely with no serious human involvement, and algorithmically rejected our appeal as well. The U.S. Transhumanist Party strongly condemns such censorship but also sees an opportunity here by encouraging people to watch and spread this video for the purpose of overcoming arbitrary barriers put forth by unintelligent and unaccountable algorithms.

Ben Ballweg, U.S. Transhumanist Party Director of Longevity Outreach

Louis Moreau Gottschalk – Weber’s Oberon Overture, J. 306 – Transcription for Piano, 4 Hands, Op. 83 – Recording by Gennady Stolyarov II

December 29, 2021 Louis Moreau Gottschalk Comments 0 Comment

Louis Moreau Gottschalk

For the holidays, U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II offers this first-ever recording of an old proto-transhuman work by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, made new through the power of technology.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s piano transcription of Carl Maria von Weber’s 1826 Oberon Overture for four hands has seldom been performed in public, and no known recording existed of it until now. Gottschalk (1829-1869) created it in 1857, and the last documented public performance was by Eugene List (1918-1985) in Spring 1979, as briefly mentioned in a May 4, 1979, New York Times article by Joseph Horowitz.

While there exist many transcriptions of the Oberon Overture, Gottschalk’s is absolutely, monumentally unique in its extent of ornamentation, thunderous intensity, and virtuosic passages (which will be unmistakable to the listener). Perhaps the demands that this piece would place on human performers explain the rarity of any attempts to play it. It is likely that only a few remarkable pianists throughout history, including Gottschalk himself, would have had the skill, endurance, and proto-transhuman mental processing power needed to carry it out without fail.

Fortunately, with musical notation and composition software, combined with increasingly realistic digital instruments, the limitations of the human hands can be transcended, and this work can be made available to listeners as Gottschalk intended it to be heard. This recording was created using the MuseScore 3.0 by Gennady Stolyarov II between June and December 2021; the transcription itself required approximately 36 hours of meticulous work, spread out over half a year. However, elevating this piece into public awareness is certainly worth the effort. This is heroic music showing the impressive heights to which human achievement, ingenuity, and virtuosity can rise, and it is a marvelous gift from Gottschalk in 1857 to our era.

Watch the score video on YouTube here and on Odysee here.

Download the MP3 file of this composition for free here.

Download the score (published in 1901 – now in the public domain) here.

Germinator: Judgment Day of the Dead – Physical Painting by Art Ramon

December 28, 2021 Art Ramon Garcia, Jr. Comments 1 comment

Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.

“…you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it…”

-Charles Bukowski

Author’s Note: Art Ramon spent several months preparing this painting for a Day of the Dead event. In the painting, we see the power of biology re-animating an individual, who has just used his newfound life to beat death.

~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, December 2021

The Implications of Decommissioning Aging: A Short Meditation on the Benefits of Long-Lived Societies – Article by Jed Lye

December 27, 2021 Jed Lye Comments 0 Comment

Jed Lye

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this highly thoughtful discussion by Jed Lye, who articulates points in favor of greatly extended longevity that are often overlooked. In particular, the author delves into the attitudinal implications of superlongevity, which would enable individuals to significantly alleviate existential anxiety, adopt longer-term perspectives, and focus on addressing large-scale societal problems and existential risks which are currently too often dismissed by those with conventional contemporary lifespans. Read this article to discover the many ways that greatly extended lifespans would benefit the individual from the standpoint of growth, insight, wisdom, prudent foresight, and profound, sustainable life enjoyment.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, December 27, 2021

The most basic and obvious goal of humanity, has been a forest hiding amongst the trees in the collective consciousness of the majority. I’m talking about survival – of the organism; not just the species.

Human life extension continues to be a concept which many have trouble dealing with, certainly in any kind of conceptual volume beyond ‘a little bit more than they already have’. Yet for some it has been an inescapable and overwhelming pre-occupation of desire. “To stay the F*** alive.” Not really that much of an absurdity when you say it like that.

Survival.

Indeed, this has been the case, even since the dawn of written word, evidenced by the Epic of Gilgamesh — the oldest written work ever discovered, which details one mans quest for immortality.

The ‘I’ word is a bit of a taboo in longevity fields; it conjures up all kinds of negative connotations. Moreover, it’s ultimately not what longevity advocates are aiming for, and this has to be cleared up. We’re talking about medicine that stops us growing old. In the last decade, after taking a close look at all of the evidence available the greatest minds and most powerful people in the world have come to the inescapable conclusion; we are not that far away from stopping ageing in a person.

Whilst this type of statement causes the majority of people, who naturally are terrified of anything this obscure, to start shrieking like harpies about any one of a number of ill-conceived objections, it’s happening. If you’re in disbelief at this stage, you can Google some terms and see that everyone from Bezos, ‘the Zuck’, Musk, Kurzweil, and Thiel, to Google’s sister company Calico are all set about racing to get there.

You see, for much of history, whilst the tech was so far away from maturity, it has been irresponsible and absurd to spend time chasing after this pipe-dream. But now, as we stand on the precipice of the greatest feat of science and engineering ever to be conceived, it becomes irresponsible not to.

Simply put: the faster it happens, the more of our treasured loved ones we can save.

For the purposes of this article, we’re going to skip right past the technology and science, and dive right into social implications. Unfortunately, as with many technological advances, the perception of this idea, or of the people who desire it, has been a negative one, with flavors of narcissism, megalomania, or worse: fanaticism. But again, as with so many technological advances, the reality will manifest regardless of these perceptions, and in all likelihood, be rather less exciting.

Now, that is not to say that staying alive isn’t exciting, or indeed, very exciting. But it will fall short of the marvelous depictions through the realms of cinema and books which present the entire world in states of dystopia or utopia. The world will not overpopulate in a single generation, life won’t suddenly become completely meaningless, nor will we reach instantaneous enlightenment and come together as single unified race, collectively solving all the other problems which trouble us day to day. Alas!

In fact, you will still need to think about your bills, take the dog for a walk, and look both ways when you cross the road. You will just be able to do all of these things, with a little less anxiety, to be in a bit less of a rush, to know that, as you stand in the park on a sunny evening, watching the city move forward around you — you aren’t so soon to be leaving it all behind, for the world to carry on without you into untold wonders. You can take a breath and rest easy in the knowledge: You get to be part of it all!

You get to stick around.

The primary difference between this current, pre-survival world, and the post-mortality world will be that our actions, and our future, have MORE [explicitly not less] meaning. The reckless abandon with which we sometimes live moments of our life, often to the detriment of ourselves and others, will no longer be universally justifiable with the calling excuse of “Oh, well; going to die someday anyway, might as well enjoy the moment.”

Now, for some this also seems to beg the question, “Will we enjoy our lives as much if we are not going to age?”.

This question seems to answer itself when you ask the question in its proper context : “Will we enjoy our actions and experiences less, if we are aware that they aren’t meaningless? Will we enjoy our actions and experiences less, if they aren’t likely to be completely irrelevant in only a few years to come, as we wont remember them and nobody will remember us?!”.

We think this sounds like an absurdity, although, maybe that’s just us?

Experience suggests that life will likely be experienced with more patience, long-lived and deep-seated rolling feelings, not of ultra-transient moments of fun or anxiety or anger. That happens naturally as we age anyway and become wiser. We learn the benefits of enjoying less exciting activities in favor of productive calm ones. We learn to trade off short-term fun in exchange for long-term happiness. As lives suddenly stretch beyond the current limits, and our health and youth are maintained for centuries, this wisdom and maturity of experience can only lead to greater gains in emotional stability and insight.

The existential awareness that we all have, and which dominates much of philosophy and the core of ethics seems to intrinsically suggest that if our lives weren’t constantly experienced through the painful lens of existential transience — that is, knowing every moment that we are alive that we are soon to die — then surely the human condition would be significantly improved. If not least, because of the ability to experience more of the world, its cultures, people, art, and teachings.

Still, this is a bit abstract, and so let’s try to look at a more granular level to see what’s likely to happen and extrapolate some experiences to their logical conclusion, should we be able to surpass this hurdle in our lifetime.

Ultimately we see improvement in the world when people are genuinely accountable, when their actions have tangible consequence. It’s the basis for developing morality when we are children, and the central architecture around which the justice system, politics, economics are all built.

The consequences of our actions is a concept we tend to learn with sometimes shocking clumsiness through life and barely have a grasp on by the time we become grandparents. How often do we look back at our youth, wishing we had the knowledge we do now combined with the energy and time?

It seems logical that, with the near-eradication of mortality through medicine, this learning remains instilled in the population for much longer; people would stick around for centuries acting upon it, instead of being replaced by a new generation whose members tragically have to make the same mistakes all over again.

The old adage ‘Youth is wasted on the young’ is fortified with the understanding that wisdom is impotent without energy. Through loss, through mistakes, through developing an understanding of the benefit of long-term investment in projects, we learn great lessons, which the general population promptly loses when we die. This is something we consider to be the greatest benefit of people staying alive.

Another key difference: health. Our approach to our health would be drastically changed. If you aren’t going to ‘die anyway’, the need to advocate for your own health and live in a healthy way would be of supreme importance, and not just an afterthought to enjoyment. Knowing that if we make good decisions, we can actually avoid ageing and death, would be pivotal to our life experience, and instead of adding a few years here or there, would have real meaning, real impact.

What is good for us — healthy decisions physically and mentally, and those which steer away from existential risk — are often the ones least associated with detrimental effects on society. So it’s a pretty safe bet that a planet of people acting in healthy ways has synergistic, as well as additive effects on global wellbeing. You add consequence, you get conscientiousness.

Sustainability: this one is a no-brainer. The need for making our lifestyles sustainable, has reached the forefront of everyone’s mind, the reason being is that the consequences are being demonstrated, increasingly, to be just around the corner, or worse yet, already upon us. It’s been easy for the less empathetic members of society to overlook the problems of global warming and climate change, pollution and deforestation, as these phenomena have not yet been observed to be effecting them.

Indeed, part of the greatest challenge for humanity is empathy, understanding the perspectives of others and the consequences of our actions on others. With everyone sticking around indefinitely, our actions again become overwhelmingly important, and strangely, this makes it all the easier for those who lead our great nations, to see the problem, when it affects them directly.

These are just a couple of important examples. You see, with health and sustainability, just like with all our problems, they become all the more important on a longer time scale. Moreover, they become the problems of the people that are alive, and not those of some esoteric ‘future generation’. Life extension and its social effects play to the great human motivator — rational self-interest. Regardless of empathy or not, if you’re around see the consequences of all the actions of society, it makes the actions all the more important and necessitates social conscience to a greater degree.

It seems evident that major life extension makes absolutely everything more important; it gives meaning to everything. With that come mindfulness, consideration, and conscientiousness. No, the world won’t become a dystopian nightmare of inequality; no, we wont suddenly be divine in our actions. But we will probably be a little more forward-thinking, mindful of our decisions, and less troubled by existential anxiety. Frankly that sounds like a future we all want anyway!

If nothing else, we can look forward to spending more time than we are currently ‘allotted’ with our family. Instead of a pressure-filled existence, marred by the angst of dwindling time and the need to reach life’s checkpoints of college, employment, marriage, and raising some cubs; all in a timely manner. The serenity of knowing we have all the time in the world to love each other — that’s motivation enough, for me anyway, to be dedicated to solving this problem.

Like, Yesterday!

Jed Lye is a scientist in the United Kingdom and father of three, who loves sport, outdoors, reading, technology, and business.

Cryptocurrency Innovation is Leaving Governments Behind – Article by Martin van der Kroon

December 26, 2021 Martin van der Kroon Comments 0 Comment

Martin van der Kroon

Technology is leaving governments behind, and we should be on-guard that they are scared.

Nobody will be surprised by the phrase that ‘technological and scientific innovation is growing exponentially’. This is not even a new notion. What is new is the routes it will take. Predicting the future is really difficult, hence the gargantuan task the U.S. Transhumanist Party attempts to undertake by anticipating the possibilities. Here the U.S. Transhumanist Party might also fail at times, but we try, we try hard, and do our best.

We can also see that the vast majority of governments are well behind on technological innovation. Cryptocurrency has been around for a while, but governments for the longest time have brushed it off as some niche make-belief method for transaction. Now that cryptocurrencies are starting to sprout like weeds, and more people start using them, paying with them, trading them, do we see various governments’ responses.

Small intermission: In an ironic twist of fate, cryptocurrency is based on trust, a notion brought to life through the Nixon Shock in 1971 when the U.S. Dollar was decoupled from the gold standard. Allegedly part of the reason was because the Netherlands was converting U.S. Dollars to gold to add it to their own gold reserve. Hence, cryptocurrency is in a way an (r)evolution of Nixon’s Shock, just not how governments might like it.

Governments are reacting in a manner of panic. Suddenly the United States, the European Union, and China all want to roll out digital versions of their respective currency. As cryptocurrencies of the blockchain are decentralised it means governments have no control over these currencies, cannot exert control with those currencies, might not be able to track and can’t control the flow of these currencies. One of their key tools of old-fashioned power is suddenly being threatened. It of course also threatens their revenue model, namely taxes.

At the same time they see an opportunity to tighten their grip, digital centralised currency can easily, and very specifically be tracked, analysed, blocked, frozen, wiped, and could even uproot and wrestle control from the banks. Mind you, a centralised digital currency in itself is not necessarily bad, but rather what those in power can do with it without proper controls in place. One country in particular might illustrate this (ab)use of power sooner than others.

The important aspect of introducing centralised digital currencies, which will happen, is to ensure effective, specific, and immutable restrictions on what control and exercise of power governments can exert, and privacy for citizens. That they will collect information is practically a given, although limits on that also ought to be advocated, but most important what can be done with that information. It is however essential that people are allowed to use decentralised currency, or the evolution of cryptocurrency. Large institutions in power have a tendency to gravitate towards stagnation, be it the Roman Empire or the British, unless they keep being challenged to change and innovate.

But why is this important? Aside from an unmitigated amount of privacy issues, and potential for abuse of power, such a system could be prone to malicious actors, or if the power goes out. It also becomes a problem for the human mind. Unlike how the ideal society is envisioned by those in power, people will exhibit acts of defiance, or minor criminal behaviour such as paying a neighbour for babysitting, or some minor repairs without reporting it for tax purposes, washing cars or selling lemonade at a stand. It might appear strange, but being able to do such things that defy authorities is important for the development of the human mind and creativity. There is a reason people become extraordinarily ingenious to subvert or find workarounds to actions that are deemed unwanted or undesirable, or just make it harder for those in power to achieve what they want.

Here cryptocurrency is a good example, along with encrypted messaging services like Signal, Element, and Briar, decentralised and federated networks like Mastodon and Matrix, and even decentralised alternatives to YouTube like Odysee.Governments might argue that the space of cryptocurrencies is a mess, with thousands of digital currencies out there, and that they are volatile. They’re right; it is a mess, for now. It’s the process of innovation and discovery. It will settle over time; some will disappear; others will grow, stabilise and be trusted. Innovation can be scary; believe it or not, the first train was scary, electricity, home-computers, the internet, all scary, and yet we now can’t envision a world without them. Governments at some point will, kicking and screaming, have to contend that times are a-changin’, but until then they will fight tooth and nail to maintain the status quo.

As a species we need this freedom to sometimes do and go where we aren’t ‘supposed to’. This is quite literally the first story in the Bible/Torah/Quran involving humans that exemplifies this need for defiance. We would not be where and how we are without defiance.

Martin van der Kroon is a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and previously served as its Director of Recruitment in 2017.

Ageism, Wageism, and Transhumanism – Part III – Article by Zach Richardson

December 25, 2021 Zach Richardson Comments 0 Comment

Zach Richardson

Stereotypes lose their power when the world is found to be more complex than the stereotype would suggest. When we learn that individuals do not fit the group stereotype, then it begins to fall apart.

– Ed Koch

Author’s Note: There is an acronym thrown around on the legal advice subreddit that has the unfortunate name IANAL, which stands for “I am not a lawyer.” That acronym applies here. Nothing I say in these essays should be considered as anything other than the speculations of a layman.

~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, December 2021

The first case we should survey was a successful suit filed by the EEOC. It is important to note that it was filed by a group of employees, rather than an individual.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Hutchinson Sealing Systems, Inc.

In this case, Hutchinson dismissed in November/December 2008 three employees (ages 62, 51, and 48) who received the lowest scores on a new updated project engineer rating system they had implemented to assess performance with their engineers. In March 2009 they let go another engineer aged 55.

The problem was that, under the previous rating system, the first group of engineers would not have been laid off, and the March employee would inversely have been the highest-rated project engineer. Those four employees were the oldest employees in the company.

I did some digging on various public records sites and could not find an answer to the question I am most burningly curious about: what were the differences between the two rating systems?

The preponderance of the evidence in this case makes it seem clear this was age-related discrimination.

Hutchinson appeared to be clearing the way for a new round of younger hires, and had changed their system so they had a pretense for letting go their most elderly employees.

Let’s consider this situation, however, from the company’s perspective and assume a similar set of circumstances as that at my previous organization. Imagine that, yes, these employees were the oldest, but aging-related cognitive decline (ARCD) was severely impacting their performance and leading them to just become “bodies in the shop” that were drawing a paycheck but not contributing.

How could this be, when a change to the rating system immediately let go of all of the oldest employees? The previous rating system, after all, had them quite highly rated.

Consider the following possibility:

What if two of the criteria used in the prior assessment system were:

Number of projects completed
Time spent working at the company (seniority)

If those were two of the criteria, and they were highly weighted, then an employee who had just been around a very long time and already done a lot could “rest on their laurels” and comfortably enjoy a very high assessment while underperforming on current projects.

Perhaps that exact reason was why Hutchinson decided to change their rating system. Their senior employees were suffering from ARCD and not producing results. They were on the payroll and doing lackluster work but were still assessed very highly.

Imagine that from the company’s start, they tasked some poor manager to implement a rating system to judge performance, and he picked the two above criteria to add just because they were two of the first that came to mind. They used the same old system for a decade without problems – until many of their staff hired at the same time all hit the age where they began suffering from ARCD.

Of course, this is only a possibility. It is equally plausible that a culture of bias and prejudice existed and only the appearance and mannerisms of the employees in question were judged to determine them as less capable, and the new system was created not as an improvement on a poorly-thought-out performance evaluation tool that no longer measured performance, but simply as a device to eliminate those employees they didn’t like.

According to the current law, the employees (note the plural; individuals do not seem to have the same luxury, as in Gross vs. FBL Financial) do not have to prove that they were fired because of their age, the employer has to prove that they did NOT fire them because of their age. In the next essay we’ll examine the case where this important precedent was established.

Zach Richardson is Director of Publication for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Ageism, Wageism, and Transhumanism – Part II – Article by Zach Richardson

December 24, 2021 Zach Richardson Comments 0 Comment

Zach Richardson

“I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;

For Life is just an employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.”

– Jessie B. Rittenhouse

~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, December 2021

The “Larry” character from this series’ introductory essay is based on a personal anecdotal work experience. Larry’s function in that organization was “order entry”. He was a steady worker and could reliably enter 20-25 orders per hour into our management system. Larry was not quite as fast as Roger, but he could keep up nicely and did his share… at first. Each year passed, and he got a little bit slower at clicking around, at keeping track of the volume of data needed for each entry and at maintaining accuracy.

Roger, on the other hand, was a speed demon. 40 orders per hour was not uncommon, and he seemed laser-focused at work. He was the better of the two, and everyone knew it. Both he and Larry had been with the company since the beginning.

COVID-19 rolled around, and our industry suffered a massive drop in revenue; our clients were manufacturing plants who were all temporarily ceasing operations. It was time for layoffs, and Larry was let go due to lack of performance. Everyone knew it was because he was getting slow and forgetful. Everyone knew it was because he was too old.

The company was lucky because they had a good standard by which they could measure the two on, and clearly demonstrate a decline in performance. They had metrics on employee workflow going back several years.

The fact that these metrics had been around since the beginning and were unchanging was key in the company’s realization that it was legally defensible to lay off Larry.

They could show a decline in performance and say:

“Age had nothing to do with it! We don’t know why he was getting worse at his job, but he just was, and our metrics showed it, so we were unfortunately forced to let him go.”

Metrics, metrics, metrics.

The key defense against any claim of ageism was enabled this last decade by how ridiculously easy it has become to collect and store data. Metrics can be set as targets that are just out of reach or are only being met by 70% of your workforce, and then managers can fire those they don’t like, while retaining those they do.

Consider speed limits on our highways; probably half of all drivers break the limits, but only a handful of them are pulled over and ticketed.

Metrics allowed large companies to fire disparately since the mid-2000s, and the ease of data collection via company-owned devices is enabling small companies to do the same.

This is not good, but it is also not bad. It is not fair, but it is also not unfair. It is just business.

So, how does a company proceed with removing an unwanted elderly worker without getting tied up in a lawsuit?

Well, there’s an art to it, and in the next few essays I’ll explain a few of the key concrete particulars by looking at successfully and unsuccessfully litigated examples in case law.

** I am not a lawyer, and nothing in this series of essays should be taken as legal advice**

Zach Richardson is Director of Publication for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Ageism, Wageism, and Transhumanism – Part I – Article by Zach Richardson

December 22, 2021 Zach Richardson Comments 0 Comment

Zach Richardson

The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.

– Madeleine L’Engle

Author’s Note: Madeleine is mostly correct, but at a certain point people will begin to be affected by Age-Related Cognitive Decline (ARCD). It is our job as Transhumanists to continue to push that point to later and later ages, until we can finally eliminate it entirely, and preserve perfect memories of every occurrence.

~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, December 2021

In a recent “Progress, Potential and Possibilities” interview with Dr. Jean C. Accius, PhD of AARP, a series of data analyses collectively called “The Longevity Economy Outlook” was discussed. A few interesting statistics were presented:

In the U.S there are 10,000 people turning 65 each and every day.
Two-thirds of older Americans have seen or experienced age-related workplace discrimination.
90% of older Americans support strengthening age discrimination law.

Age discrimination was defined as being passed up for a promotion, being let go, or hearing negative remarks related to their age.

For item two above, I take issue with the wording they used; in my opinion it should read “…have seen or experienced what they believed to be age-related workplace discrimination.” The source population was a poll of employees, the population that would be discriminated against. They didn’t poll an equal number of employers, the ones who would be doing the discriminating.

In any situation where alleged discrimination occurs, the allegedly discriminated against (employee) is going to believe discrimination took place, and the alleged discriminator is going to believe that they were not discriminating. Taking a poll of all those (employees, a population composed entirely of those discriminated against) and asking them if they thought discrimination took place, is not going to produce very valuable insight. The poll would have turned out quite differently if only employers were asked.

Imagine polling a group of ABC Corp workers and asking, “Do you think ABC Corp has a high-enough salary for its employees?” and then presenting the findings as “Four fifths of all Americans are underpaid.”

It should be plainly obvious that no sane employer would ever say “Oh yeah, Larry? I fired him because he was old.” They will instead always find an alternative reason to let him go, even if the auxiliary reason is still fundamentally tied to age-related factors, Age-Related Cognitive Decline (ARCD) in particular.

The law was intended to protect a vulnerable population, but it seems that there is an easy loophole that would allow an employer to continue to discriminate.

In this series of essays, I will be exploring how our current legal structure defines and enforces protections for the elderly, be briefly surveying some research confirming the existence of ARCD, be analyzing a successfully-litigated case study of age discrimination and be speculate about how future technologies may impact both future law and future ARCD prevention efforts.

Our current legal structure lacks some clarity on how discrimination is interpreted in hiring/firing situations. Here is the relevant section from the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA):

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

(a) Employer practices

It shall be unlawful for an employer-

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s age;

(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s age; or

(3) to reduce the wage rate of any employee in order to comply with this chapter.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So how does our corporate culture adapt itself to the legal ramifications of this act? In the next essay, we’ll talk a little bit more about Larry, and I’ll tell you why some companies can now easily get away with getting rid of him while others cannot.

Zach Richardson is Director of Publication for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

The Transhumanist Declaration – What We Value

December 18, 2021 World Transhumanist Association Comments 0 Comment

World Transhumanist Association

There are a few people who move past bias, but the moment a group transitions into herd mentality, then anyone capable of overcoming their own bias is faced with everyone else’s.

-Kyrtin Atreides

Editor’s Note: The Transhumanist Declaration was crafted by several Transhumanist organizations in 1998 and updated in 2009. It is an excellent introduction to who we are and what we believe. The human mind naturally makes some systematic errors in calculation that need to be willfully overcome by the direction of one’s conscious thought. Successful policy both in self-management and in governance needs to be “long-range”.

~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, December 2021

1. Humanity stands to be profoundly affected by science and technology in the future. We envision the possibility of broadening human potential by overcoming aging, cognitive shortcomings, involuntary suffering, and our confinement to planet Earth.

2. We believe that humanity’s potential is still mostly unrealized. There are possible scenarios that lead to wonderful and exceedingly worthwhile enhanced human conditions.

3. We recognize that humanity faces serious risks, especially from the misuse of new technologies. There are possible realistic scenarios that lead to the loss of most, or even all, of what we hold valuable. Some of these scenarios are drastic, others are subtle. Although all progress is change, not all change is progress.

4. Research effort needs to be invested into understanding these prospects. We need to carefully deliberate how best to reduce risks and expedite beneficial applications. We also need forums where people can constructively discuss what should be done, and a social order where responsible decisions can be implemented.

5. Reduction of existential risks, and development of means for the preservation of life and health, the alleviation of grave suffering, and the improvement of human foresight and wisdom should be pursued as urgent priorities, and heavily funded.

6. Policy making ought to be guided by responsible and inclusive moral vision, taking seriously both opportunities and risks, respecting autonomy and individual rights, and showing solidarity with and concern for the interests and dignity of all people around the globe. We must also consider our moral responsibilities towards generations that will exist in the future.

7. We advocate the well-being of all sentience, including humans, non-human animals, and any future artificial intellects, modified life forms, or other intelligences to which technological and scientific advance may give rise.

8. We favour allowing individuals wide personal choice over how they enable their lives. This includes use of techniques that may be developed to assist memory, concentration, and mental energy; life extension therapies; reproductive choice technologies; cryonics procedures; and many other possible human modification and enhancement technologies.

Introduction to “Fight Aging!” – Article by Reason

December 16, 2021 Reason Comments 0 Comment

Reason

Nothing is given to man on earth – struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible – the hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen.

-Andrew Bernstein

Editor’s Note: In this introductory article to the “Fight Aging!” blog, the author lays out four of the most basic steps one can take. Any person who claims the title of “Transhumanist” would be foolish not to take these basic actions and principles to heart. A Transhumanist should consider these part of the “struggle” they all face, and that they implicitly choose to either confront or evade.

~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, December 2021

Aging is an Enemy, So Fight It!

Aging saps our strength and ability to enjoy life, cripples us, and eventually kills us. Tens of millions die from medical conditions caused by aging each and every year, and a staggering amount of money is spent on trying – and failing – to cope with this ongoing disaster. Yet the risk of suffering age-related conditions in later life can be reduced for most people through diet and exercise. Furthermore, serious scientific efforts are presently underway to understand and intervene in the aging process – not just to prevent frailty and disease, but also repair and reverse the root causes of aging.

In future decades researchers will assemble new biotechnologies that can defeat aging, restore the old to health and vigor, and prevent the young from ever suffering the ravages of age. Some of these future therapies are already understood and envisioned in some detail, but remain in comparatively early stages of research. Others are just now starting to make the leap into clinical development. We would like these breakthroughs to happen while we are still alive and in good enough health to benefit from them: we miss out on so much as things stand today, pressed by the lack of time and our increasing frailty with age. Imagine instead a world in which everyone has the option of another tomorrow, and the health and vigor to enjoy it, each and every day. But how can we achieve this goal?

The Limited Means of Today, the Biotechnologies of Tomorrow

Present-day medical technologies are far advanced over those available to our ancestors, and as a result we suffer far less than they did. Yet modern medicine can achieve little in comparison to what scientists know is possible for the future. Despite amazing advances in understanding and treating age-related conditions (such as cancer, heart disease, dementia, diabetes, and many others), and despite the cries of the anti-aging marketplace, it is still the case that, for basically healthy people, no presently available therapy or tool is proven in humans to provide more than a fraction of the long-term benefits to health and life expectancy provided by regular exercise or a calorie-restricted diet.

While it is true that no existing medical technology is proven to improve on these lifestyle choices here and now, today, in humans, this state of affairs will not remain true for many more years. If you look to the laboratories, you will see that some researchers can greatly extend the healthy lives of many species, while others put forward clear plans to either slow aging through the manipulation of human metabolism or reverse aging by repairing the cell and tissue damage that causes age-related degeneration. Technology demonstrations for some of these approaches have been carried out in mice in recent years, producing benefits to health and extended healthy life spans. Treatments based on clearance of senescent cells have been demonstrated to reverse the progression of many currently untreatable age-related conditions in mice, for example. The first formal human clinical trials of therapies anticipated to either modestly slow aging or produce limited degrees of rejuvenation started up in 2017, and some of these trials have produced positive results.

A future in which aging becomes a treatable condition awaits us, as time ticks away and, for now, we continue to age just like our ancestors did. This is an era of rapid progress in biotechnology and medicine. As the years pass, the remaining span of healthy life that you and I will likely live to enjoy is ever more determined by the ability of clinical medicine to revert and repair the causes of aging, and ever less determined by lifestyle choices. Thus when we reach for longer, healthier lives, it is vital that we lend our support to the research and clinical development of therapies capable of treating the causes of aging. We must ensure that the public is educated, the fundamental longevity science is funded, the clinical applications of that research fully developed, and the resulting rejuvenation biotechnologies made available – and all this as soon as possible. The clock is ticking, after all, and this is the only approach that will allow us live for significantly longer than our ancestors.

Four Steps Toward Longevity

The following four steps outline a starting point for living longer, a sketch of a framework for thinking about healthy life extension:

Step 1: Stop Damaging Your Health

At its most basic level, aging is nothing more than an accumulation of damage; breakages in the molecular machinery of your cells, a build-up of metabolic waste products that your body cannot break down, the flailing of biological systems that are increasingly unable to cope. Ask yourself this: are you damaging yourself more rapidly than you might otherwise be, perhaps more than you realize? Do you smoke? Do recreational drugs occupy a central position in your life? Do you eat nothing but junk food or are overweight? Do you exercise little or not at all? Do you have a poor relationship with your physician, or haven’t seen a doctor in years? If so, you have a clear starting point. These things can hurt you far more than any presently available strategy for healthy living can help. There is little point in insulating the windows if the door is jammed open.

Find a physician you can trust and talk to about improving your health. You might be surprised at how easy, low-cost, and downright pleasant it is to lead a healthier and thereby longer life.

Step 2: Adopt a Better Diet and Lifestyle

The body is a complex, resilient machine. Unlike our cars, however, we can’t replace it when it breaks down. Given that, it’s scandalous that most people know more about the long-term care of a car than they do about the long-term care of the human body. Fortunately, it’s neither difficult nor expensive to use diet and lifestyle to raise the odds of living a longer and healthier life.

Firstly: adopt some form of calorie-restricted diet, whether straight calorie restriction or some form of intermittent fasting. Calorie restriction and some implementations of intermittent fasting, such as alternate-day fasting, are currently the most robustly, repeatedly proven way of extending healthy life in mammals. While the present scientific consensus is that these practices will not extend life in humans to anywhere near the same degree as in mice, calorie restriction and intermittent fasting have been shown in human studies to provide a range of other beneficial effects on health, such as a greatly lowered risk of suffering all common age-related medical conditions – and these approaches to diet are highly praised by practitioners. You can learn more about calorie restriction at the CR Society website, and here at Fight Aging! you’ll find introduction to calorie restriction that provides helpful guidelines to getting started.

Secondly: exercise as recommended by your physician. The benefits of maintaining a modest regular level of exercise for most people are well-known and well-proven by many scientific studies. As is also true of calorie restriction, these benefits include a greatly reduced risk of suffering almost all of the common age-related diseases.

Thirdly: take a modest amount of supplements appropriate to your age and health. There is a wealth of supplement information available, but much of it is worthless, propagated by irresponsible sellers. This is perhaps the hardest topic to research, and in the end you will have to make a number of decisions yourself based on incomplete or contradictory scientific evidence. The bottom line here, however, is that no presently available supplement or combination of supplements has been shown to provide even a fraction of the benefits of either calorie restriction or exercise, for all that they are widely supposed to be beneficial.

Step 3: Support Progress in Rejuvenation Research

Speaking out in favor of medical research aimed at extending the healthy human life span is just as important as taking care of your health today – even the best of present-day practices will make only a comparatively small difference to your expected future life span. Most age-related conditions are still incurable, and no matter how well you live your life, you will become frail with old age and eventually die from the damage that is accumulating within your body. The aging process causes great suffering for hundreds of millions worldwide each and every day, and absent scientific breakthroughs you will be one of them. Yet that said, we are living in an era of rapid, seething progress in medicine, the life sciences, and biotechnology, far more so than at any time in the past – and we can envisage how aging should be repaired and reversed. Aging will one day be cured, just like any other medical condition, and our job is to ensure that this day arrives soon enough to matter.

A revolution in biotechnology is presently underway, a longevity-focused industry of biotech companies is forming, and the medicine of the near future holds great promise – see, for example, the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) coordinated by the SENS Research Foundation and other scientific groups. This promise is not a guarantee, however. It can only be realized if research and clinical development are fully funded and widely supported. The still-young field of rejuvenation research remains for the most part poorly funded, and while there is a great deal more discussion of the prospect of treating aging as a medical condition than was the case even as recently as a decade ago, most of the public still neither understands nor appreciates the possibilities offered by this research. Further, many politicians, funding institutions, and bioethicists continue to speak out in opposition to the development of medicine to enhance healthy longevity.

If we do not stand up in support of rejuvenation biotechnology – the key to our future health and extended longevity – then research and investment will decline. Without vocal public support and understanding, scientists are reluctant to go out on a limb and fight for the funding needed to create new ways to intervene in the aging process. Without philanthropy for the academic sciences, much of this fundamental research will not be funded. By failing to prevent legislation that slows or criminalizes vital medical research, such as happened for stem-cell research for many years, we only hurt ourselves. Do you want to live a much longer, much healthier life? Do you want your friends, parents, and children to live long and in vigor? Do you want to see the development of biotechnology that can reverse the course of aging and frailty? Then you have to support this research, and be vocal about it! There are many ways to make your voice heard on important issues relating to the future of human health and longevity. A good starting point to learn more on this topic is to become a regular reader of Fight Aging!, explore the site, and sign up for the newsletter.

Step 4: Investigate Early Access to the First Rejuvenation Therapies

New medical technologies do not arrive all at once, fully formed from day one. Early forms of therapy become available in limited ways, or existing drugs are found to have an effect on the mechanism of interest large enough to merit use in animal studies or human trials. So it is for the first rejuvenation treatments to have a large enough impact on aging in animal studies to care about, and that are also producing benefits in their first human trials. As of 2019, the most obvious of these are senolytic therapies that selectively destroy the senescent cells that accumulate to cause considerable harm in old tissues. The existing generic drugs and supplements newly discovered to be senolytic, and shown to work well in numerous animal studies, are being tested in humans.

The informed decision that each of us must make for ourselves is whether to wait for more data from human trials, to wait for the most likely better senolytic therapies presently under development, or to strike out to obtain and try existing senolytic therapies. If the latter, there in turn lies further personal research, learning, and informed decisions. Where to find a physician to prescribe the relevant drugs, for example, or whether to forge ahead as a self-experimenter, with all of the responsibility and accountability that this implies. However it is accomplished, it is almost always possible for informed and proactive individuals to obtain earlier access to new therapies than waiting for the world to move on to the point at which general physicians begin recommending these treatments to patients. Whether or not to choose to do so is a personal decision on risk and benefit, and this same calculus applies to any new medical technology as it arrives, not just senolytic rejuvenation therapies.

Final Thoughts

So there you go: four quick steps that provide a solid starting point for learning more about living longer and the near future of rejuvenation biotechnology. Fifteen years ago, when the longevity science community was smaller and less organized, and the first rejuvenation therapies had yet to even be seriously tested in laboratory animals, it required years of discussion and research to make the leap to understand the existence and importance of step 3 – the necessity of supporting research into human longevity, and the fact that there is legitimate research aimed at human rejuvenation to be supported in the first place. Back in the day, information on longevity science was harder to find, drowned out by irresponsible voices in the anti-aging marketplace, and only rarely discussed in public by scientists in the field.

The core of the Fight Aging! mindset is to recognize that step 3 exists, and that your future largely depends on the pace of progress in medical research aimed at producing human rejuvenation. Don’t get seduced by the noise surrounding step 2, produced by the vast industry associated with lifestyle choices, diet, supplements, and exercise, because it is largely smoke and mirrors. You can’t eat and exercise your way into a healthy life that is decades longer than it would otherwise be, and you can’t eat and exercise your way to a certainty of reaching 100 years of age. Three quarters of the healthiest among us die before reaching 90 even supported by today’s medicine, and most of what is sold to the lost and the gullible under the “anti-aging” banner is useless junk. Only new medical technologies produced by the research community can provide the option of living in good health for far longer than your great-grandparents did, and that can only happen if these technologies are funded and developed rapidly enough.

Fight Aging! is here as a resource. Make good use of it, but always remember that the bottom line is this: a tremendous opportunity exists in the research and development of rejuvenation biotechnology, far beyond anything that can be obtained through diet, exercise, and supplements. Don’t squander that opportunity by ignoring it.

Reason is the founder of The Longevity Meme (now Fight Aging!). He saw the need for The Longevity Meme in late 2000, after spending a number of years searching for the most useful contribution he could make to the future of healthy life extension. When not advancing Fight Aging!, Reason works as a technologist in a variety of industries.

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This work is reproduced here in accord with a Creative Commons Attribution license. It was originally published on FightAging.org.

Crass Transit – Editorial by Zach Richardson

December 16, 2021 Zach Richardson Comments 0 Comment

Zach Richardson

Life expectancy is a statistical phenomenon. You could still be hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow.

-Ray Kurzweil

Author’s Note: I have a sharp opinion on this topic that should not be taken to be any sort of official position of the USTP.

~ Zach Richardson, Director of Publication, United States Transhumanist Party, December 2021

It truly baffles me that Congress has decided to allocate such a large sum in the recent infrastructure bill towards local mass-transit systems. How is it not seen that ridesharing trumps mass-transit in every possible way (except in SOME cases, price)? Transhumanist policy means ruthlessly advocating usage of our public funds be based on sound reasoning and judgment. As the necessity of congregating in centralized office buildings becomes both unnecessary (due to remote work) and dangerous (due to COVID and any other unforeseen pandemics), mass transit needs to be phased out in favor of ridesharing.

Ridesharing is:

1. More environmentally friendly: Buses take a huge amount of fuel and are often running at only partial capacity. This is an issue all transhumanists should consider, as the climate situation is becoming more urgent.

2. Safer: not having to walk to and from a stopping point means less time in the open, which may or may not be a concern in larger cities. You are also less susceptible to the spread of disease when not congregating in one large, enclosed space with dozens of others.

3. Faster: no frequent stops to let more passengers on/off the vehicle.

4. More convenient: You can summon a vehicle when you are ready to go, instead of having to build a schedule around when the mass-transit system is operating. Most vehicles spend 95% of their time parked anyway.

5. Point-to-Point: No going out of your way and taking odd connecting lines between different systems that take you out of the route. This is an era where technology needs to serve us, not vice-versa, and that means direct connections. Leave hub-and-spoke to airlines (until we have personal jets)

There used to be a concept called “creative destruction” in the economy, wherein a dying industry was allowed to let die, and we need to revitalize this principle. Imagine how bizarre it would seem to be subsidizing telegram delivery services in 2021. Well, allocating public funds for (now) inefficient methods of transportation is just as bizarre.

The sudden plunge in ridership during the pandemic led, of course, to calls for “emergency” funding – for example, in the American Public Transport Association’s July 2021 policy brief. Why was Blackberry not granted emergency funding when sales of its eponymous device declined? Because of the lack of “emergency” funding for that company (despite facing the same consequences of lack of revenue, layoffs, etc.), it was forced to restructure its organization and transform into a successful cybersecurity company, providing a service that is extremely critical to a Transhumanist future. Public transit should have to do the same.

We should not be mired down with hokey ideals of helping the underprivileged when a better system exists for those of any amount of means. Perhaps not making the underprivileged transit experience an hour-long ride in uncomfortable conditions 5 days per week could be a good start. If funding is needed to continue to support that population segment, let it be redirected from less technologically and logistically sound programs to more forward-thinking ones. We could cut the funding for buses and rather than food stamps have “transportation stamps” – a QR code that would give the recipients a hefty discount.

The people of the city deserve this.

Zach Richardson is the Director of Publication of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Report on the International Colloquium “Njoh-Mouellé and Transhumanism in Africa” – by Siba Tcha-Mouza

November 27, 2021 Siba Tcha-Mouza Comments 2 comments

Siba Tcha-Mouza

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this overview of recent transhumanist progress in Africa from our Foreign Ambassador for Togo, Siba Tcha-Mouza.

Here Mr. Tcha-Mouza focuses on the recent international conference “Njoh-Mouellé and Transhumanism in Africa” and its implications for Africa joining the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the conversation on the possibilities on the horizon, brought about by transhumanism and emerging technologies. Read this report for a brief overview of the thoughts of Cameroonian philosopher Ebénézer Njoh-Mouellé on the relation of transhumanism and bioethics as we consider the potentialities for the future progress of Africa.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, November 27, 2021

From November 15 to 17, 2021 (three days), the international conference “NJOH-MOUELLE AND TRANSHUMANISM IN AFRICA” was held in Yaoundé 1, Cameroon, organized by the Institut Africain de Bioéthique (IAB). This event is part of the preparation of an African and International Bioethics Forum dedicated to technoscientific progress and their challenges for the future of the human species in general and Africa in particular.

This African and International Bioethics Forum (FAIBE) will be organized in 2022 in Cameroon with the effective participation of a plurality of internationally renowned intellectuals and academics from France, Belgium, the USA, Canada, England, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, and a set of African countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Gabon, DRC, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Senegal, Madagascar, and others.

This International Colloquium aims to officially announce a Bioethics Flexion Forum which will be held each year on African soil. This reflection will aim to mobilize resources for the development of an African bioethics in order to actively participate in the global reflection on bioethics. Transhumanism remains today one of the concerns driving global bioethical thinking.

Given the progress of transhumanist projects, Professor Ebénézer Njoh-Mouellé wondered about the value of transhumanism. This precisely justifies his philosophical reflection, through his works, within the framework of an ethical concern for man. It is in this context that several speakers successively gave their presentation by addressing transhumanism in its multiple aspects.

We participated in this great event also as the representation of the Transhumanist Party of the United States of America. The title of the presentation that we gave on the second day of the conference (16.11.2021) was entitled “The fourth technological revolution: Africa still facing its destiny”.

The main idea of our intervention was an urgent appeal to Africa for its unconditional participation in the Fourth Technological Revolution. This revolution, which will bring about a profound change in our society and even in our own biology, is an existential challenge for Africa.

Transhumanism, as a form of promotion and governance of disruptive technosciences, represents an opportunity to accelerate technological development in Africa.

The colloquium ended on the third day, 17.11.2021, with the preparation and presentation of reports and closing remarks.

Mr. Siba Tcha-Mouza

USTP Ambassador for Togo

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman’s Fifth Anniversary Message

November 22, 2021 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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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 18^th-century Enlightenment philosophers proud. (Of course, the 18^th-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, or 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

November 7, 2021 Luis Arroyo Comments 0 Comment

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

November 5, 2021 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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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

October 17, 2021 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 20 comments

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:

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.
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.
The Party is able to have a significant and positive impact on the outcome or resolution of the emergency.
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

October 16, 2021 Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana Comments 0 Comment

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

October 16, 2021 Martin van der Kroon Comments 0 Comment

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!

October 10, 2021 Dan Elton and Ben Ballweg Comments 0 Comment

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.

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

October 1, 2021 Coalition for Radical Life Extension Comments 2 comments

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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.”

U.S. Transhumanist Party Statement of Support for Dr. Aubrey de Grey

September 29, 2021 U.S. Transhumanist Party Comments 2 comments

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

September 28, 2021 Siba Tcha-mouza Comments 0 Comment

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

August 27, 2021 Luis Arroyo Comments 0 Comment

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

August 11, 2021 Arin Vahanian Comments 0 Comment

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.

Evolution Won’t Stop Aging Any Time Soon, but Medicine Might – Article by Sedeer el-Showk

July 26, 2021 Sedeer el-Showk Comments 0 Comment

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

July 24, 2021 Arin Vahanian Comments 0 Comment

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.