Tag: Cure aging

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

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

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Dan Elton, Ph.D.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s not just Coughlin


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

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

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

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

Appendix: biological reality

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

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

Risk of death vs. age

From Our World in Data

Energy expenditure vs. age

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

Cancer incidence vs. age

Figure from the National Cancer Institute.

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

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

Cognitive ability vs. age

Figure showing data from the Seattle Longitudinal Study.

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

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

Grip strength vs. age

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

Footnotes

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

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

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

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

The Unnatural Objection to Life Extension – Article by Arin Vahanian

The Unnatural Objection to Life Extension – Article by Arin Vahanian

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Arin Vahanian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Results of Platform Vote #8 and Adopted Sections on COVID-19 Responses

Results of Platform Vote #8 and Adopted Sections on COVID-19 Responses

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The U.S. Transhumanist Party conducted its fourteenth vote of the members and the eighth vote on its platform planks between March 25 and March 28, 2020. Official ballot options can be found here.

Detailed results of the voting have been tabulated here. In two instances, where no majority was reached in the first round of voting, options were selected based on the ranked-preference method with instant runoffs.

As a result, the following new or amended sections of Article VI of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution were adopted.

These sections are also compiled in a special area of the USTP Platform pertaining to COVID-19 responses.

Watch U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II and Vice-Chairman J. Ben Zion discuss the results of the vote on the Debt Nation show with Steele Archer here.

It is time to reorient the economy and society toward pursuit of public health and longevity. We are already effectively on a war footing, so let us take the war on the offensive against death and disease. Either the world will succumb to this pandemic, or we can turn around the situation to step fully into the Transhuman Era. The U.S. Transhumanist Party is proud to put forward these proactive ideas for winning this war.

Section XCVIII [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 United States 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 United States 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 United States 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 United States 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 United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: 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 United States 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 United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: 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 United States Transhumanist Party advocates for immediate admittance through security checkpoints of the vast majority 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 United States 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 United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: 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 United States Transhumanist Party emphasizes the importance of reversing biological aging as rapidly as possible and thereby protecting more lives from future pandemics. Accordingly, the United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: In response to the dire shortage of ventilator components and other crucial equipment in hospitals treating COVID-19 patients, the United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 United States 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 United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: In recognition that unsanitary living conditions are a primary cause of the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States Transhumanist Party supports establishing a rapid three-month training and certification program for hundreds of thousands 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 United States 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 United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: The United States 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 [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 25-28, 2020]: Given the extreme delays, bottlenecks, and expenses created by the mandatory approval processes on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States Transhumanist Party supports abolishing the FDA and replacing it with a Radical Life Extension Administration (RLEA), whose mandate would be to prioritize the rapid development of potential disease cures, treatments, and vaccines – including any possible cures or vaccines for COVID-19, as well as treatments to mitigate and reverse the disease of biological aging, the major risk factor for COVID-19. The RLEA would allow the marketing and collection of patient data on any potential cure, treatment, or vaccine which has passed affordable safety testing at a reasonably acceptable threshold.

Official Ballot Options for Platform Vote #8 on COVID-19 Response

Official Ballot Options for Platform Vote #8 on COVID-19 Response

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The 3-day electronic voting period on the eighth set of proposed platform planks of the U.S. Transhumanist Party in response to the COVID-19 crisis (21 potential planks in total) will occur from 1:01 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time on March 25, 2020, to 1:01 p.m.  U.S. Pacific Time on March 28, 2020. All members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party (USTP) who have applied before 1:01 p.m. on March 25, 2020, will be eligible to vote, as long as they have expressed agreement with the three Core Ideals of the USTP or have otherwise been rendered eligible to vote at the discretion of the Chairman.

All members who are eligible to vote will be sent a link to an electronic submission form whereby they will be able to cast their ballot.

When you are voting, it is strongly recommended that you keep this page of official ballot options and the submission form open simultaneously in different windows so that you can reference the relevant options as you vote on them. Due to space limitations, the submission form does not list the entire text of all the options.

It is also recommended that you set aside at least thirty minutes to consider and vote on all of the options and read their text closely, as some of the options contain minor variations upon other options. 

For some questions, electronic voting is  conducted by a ranked-preference method on individual articles where more options are possible than would be accommodated by a simple “Yes” or “No” vote. Members should keep in mind that the ranked-preference method eliminates the incentives for strategic voting – so members are encouraged to vote for the options that reflect their individual preferences as closely as possible, without regard for how other members might vote.

Results of the voting will be tabulated during late March 2020, with the intent to announce the results approximately 2-3 days after all votes have been submitted.

NOTE: The titles of the questions and potential Sections are descriptive and informational only and will not appear in the final adopted platform planks (which will be incorporated into Article VI of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution). They are intended as concise guides to the subject matter of the questions and potential Sections. Likewise, the letters assigned to Sections within this ballot will not reflect the numbering of the final adopted provisions, which will depend on which Sections are selected by the membership.

NOTE II: The inclusion of any proposals on this ballot does not indicate any manner of endorsement for those proposals by the U.S. Transhumanist Party at this time – except to place those proposals before the members to determine the will of the members with regard to whether or not the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform should incorporate any given proposal.

Voter Identification

E-mail address

Provide the same e-mail address you used to register for U.S. Transhumanist Party membership. Your ballot will be cross-referenced to our membership rolls, and only ballots with matching e-mail addresses will be counted.

What is your name?

At minimum, first and last name are required, unless you are publicly known by a single-name pseudonym which is not itself a common name. Your identity will not be publicly disclosed by the Transhumanist Party, unless you choose and/or authorize its disclosure. The nature of the selections made by the members may be disclosed, but, if they are, each individual vote will not be associated with the identity of the voter but rather will be presented in an anonymized manner.

Navigate the Options

Proposed Platform Sections

Question I. Section E8-A. Rapid Construction of Hospitals
Question II. Section E8-A. Rapid Construction of Hospitals – Ancillary Provisions
Question III. Section E8-B. Emergency Universal Basic Income
Question IV. Section E8-C. Full Compensation of Affected Businesses and Workers
Question V. Section E8-C. Full Compensation of Affected Businesses and Workers – Ancillary Provisions
Question VI. Section E8-D. Elimination of Bottlenecks at Airports
Question VII. Section E8-E. Rapid Domestic Deployment of Military Personnel from Overseas
Question VIII. Section E8-F. Rapid Research into Cures for COVID-19, Common Cold, and Influenza
Question IX. Section E8-G. Emergency Funding Package for Anti-Aging Research
Question X. Section E8-H. Micropayments for Citizen-Science Initiatives
Question XI. Section E8-I. Rapid 3D-Printing of Ventilator Components and Other Crucial Medical Equipment
Question XII. Section E8-J. Refocusing of the Education System toward Remote Learning
Question XIII. Section E8-J. Refocusing of the Education System toward Remote Learning – Ancillary Provision
Question XIV. Section E8-K. Mandatory Free Housing of the Homeless
Question XV. Section E8-L. Rapid Training for Medical Personnel
Question XVI. Section E8-M. Universal Free COVID-19 Testing
Question XVII. Section E8-M. Universal Free COVID-19 Testing – Ancillary Provision
Question XVIII. Section E8-N. Establishment of Facilities to Store Essential Supplies
Question XIX. Section E8-N. Establishment of Facilities to Store Essential Supplies – Ancillary Provision
Question XX. Section E8-O. Collaboration with Other Nations on Pandemic Response
Question XXI. Section E8-P. Creation of Packages of Emergency Medical Supplies
Question XXII. Section E8-Q. Educational Programs on Epidemics
Question XXIII. Section E8-R. Repeal of “Certificate of Need” Laws
Question XXIV. Section E8-S. Patentless Development of Vaccines
Question XXV. Section E8-T. Utilization of Robots to Assist Patients and Vulnerable Individuals
Question XXVI. Section E8-U. Abolition of the Food and Drug Administration and Its Replacement with a Radical Life Extension Administration

Proposed Platform Sections

Question I. Section E8-A. Rapid Construction of Hospitals

Rank-order the Section E8-A Options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. You may include the option for “No Section of this sort” in your rank-ordering, and it does not need to be your most favored option if you do so. (For instance, some voters might favor some options but think that no language is preferable to some of the other options.)

If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

☐ Option E8-A-1. [Proposal for Rapid Construction of Permanent Hospitals] The United States 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 United States 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.

Once the new permanent hospitals have been established, the United States 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 United States 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 United States 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.

☐ Option E8-A-2. [Proposal by Marlin Adams for Rapid Construction of Temporary Hospitals]

The United States Transhumanist Party advocates for rapid construction of temporary 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.

The United States 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.

☐ Option E8-A-NO. No Section of this sort.

Question II. Section E8-A. Rapid Construction of Hospitals – Ancillary Provisions 

If Section E8-A regarding the rapid construction of hospitals is adopted as part of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, shall any of the following ancillary provisions be appended to that Section?

Select all the options you support. (You can select multiple options for this question.)  Any option receiving the majority of votes cast will be included in the ultimately adopted plank, unless Option E8-A-NO prevails in the vote on Question I above. If you do not favor any of the options below, then you may leave this question blank.

☐ Ancillary Provision E8-A-i. [Based on Proposal by Martin van der Kroon] Architectural designs for the rapidly constructed hospitals should be prepared and updated as new and superior building techniques and technologies are developed.

☐ Ancillary Provision E8-A-ii. [Based on Proposal by Jason Geringer] Architectural designs for the rapidly constructed hospitals should 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.

☐ Ancillary Provision E8-A-iii. [Based on Proposal by Sylvester Geldtmeijer] Architectural designs for the rapidly constructed hospitals should 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.

☐ Ancillary Provision E8-A-iv. [Based on Proposal by Sylvester Geldtmeijer] The United States 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.

☐ Ancillary Provision E8-A-v. [Based on Proposal by Martin van der Kroon] While many unoccupied sites could be used as locations for the new hospitals, burial sites, especially native burial grounds, and other areas that have cultural or historical sensitive backgrounds should be avoided if possible. This is to prevent depriving native minorities of their ancestral legacies, as well as possible litigation afterward, which could lead to forceful closure of a hospital or medical facility after the emergency has subsided, leaving the situation with two losing sides.

Question III. Section E8-B. Emergency Universal Basic Income

Rank-order the Section E8-B Options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. You may include the option for “No Section of this sort” in your rank-ordering, and it does not need to be your most favored option if you do so. (For instance, some voters might favor some options but think that no language is preferable to some of the other options.)

If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

☐ Option E8-B-1. The United States 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, 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.

☐ Option E8-B-2. [Based on Suggestion by Marlin Adams to Extend UBI to the Immediate Aftermath of the Outbreak] The United States 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.

☐ Option E8-B-NO. No Section of this sort.

Question IV. Section E8-C. Full Compensation of Affected Businesses and Workers

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

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 United States 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; and

(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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question V. Section E8-C. Full Compensation of Affected Businesses and Workers – Ancillary Provisions

If Section E8-C regarding the full compensation of affected businesses and workers is adopted as part of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, shall any of the following ancillary provisions be appended to that Section?

Select all the options you support. (You can select multiple options for this question.)  Any option receiving the majority of votes cast will be included in the ultimately adopted plank, unless Option E8-A-NO prevails in the vote on Question I above. If you do not favor any of the options below, then you may leave this question blank.

☐ Ancillary Provision E8-C-i. [Based on Proposal by Jason Geringer] The United States Transhumanist Party holds that any businesses receiving such compensation should be prohibited from engaging in buybacks of their own stocks.

☐ Ancillary Provision E8-C-ii. The United States Transhumanist Party holds that any businesses receiving such compensation should be prohibited from increasing executive pay if that pay currently exceeds $500,000 per executive per year.

Question VI. Section E8-D. Elimination of Bottlenecks at Airports

Rank-order the Section E8-D Options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. You may include the option for “No Section of this sort” in your rank-ordering, and it does not need to be your most favored option if you do so. (For instance, some voters might favor some options but think that no language is preferable to some of the other options.)

If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

☐ Option E8-D-1. 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 United States Transhumanist Party advocates for immediate and unconditional admittance through security checkpoints of all 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.

☐ Option E8-D-2. [Based on Proposal by Ophelia_Drowned to Remove Unconditional Admittance, Replace It with Admittance of the Vast Majority] 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 United States Transhumanist Party advocates for immediate admittance through security checkpoints of the vast majority 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.

☐ Option E8-D-NO. No Section of this sort.

Question VII. Section E8-E. Rapid Domestic Deployment of Military Personnel from Overseas

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question VIII. Section E8-F. Rapid Research into Cures for COVID-19, Common Cold, and Influenza

Rank-order the Section E8-F Options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. You may include the option for “No Section of this sort” in your rank-ordering, and it does not need to be your most favored option if you do so. (For instance, some voters might favor some options but think that no language is preferable to some of the other options.)

If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

☐ Option E8-F-1. The United States 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 United States 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.

☐ Option E8-F-2. [Based on Suggestion by Marlin Adams for Government Funding and Ownership of the Cure and Its Free Distribution] The United States 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 United States 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 United States 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.

☐ Option E8-F-3. [Option Mentioning Free Distribution of the Cure for COVID-19 But No Mention of Nature of Ownership] The United States 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 United States 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 United States Transhumanist Party advocates for any cure for COVID-19 to be distributed free of charge to those infected with the virus.

☐ Option E8–F-NO. No Section of this sort.

Question IX. Section E8-G. Emergency Funding Package for Anti-Aging Research

Rank-order the Section E8-G Options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. You may include the option for “No Section of this sort” in your rank-ordering, and it does not need to be your most favored option if you do so. (For instance, some voters might favor some options but think that no language is preferable to some of the other options.)

If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

☐ Option E8-G-1. 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 United States Transhumanist Party emphasizes the importance of reversing biological aging as rapidly as possible and thereby protecting more lives from future pandemics. Accordingly, the United States Transhumanist Party advocates for an emergency $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.

☐ Option E8-G-2. [Suggestion by Mike DiVerde for a Permanent, Annual $100 Billion Funding Package.]  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 United States Transhumanist Party emphasizes the importance of reversing biological aging as rapidly as possible and thereby protecting more lives from future pandemics. Accordingly, the United States 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.

☐ Option E8-G-NO. No Section of this sort.

Question X. Section E8-H. Micropayments for Citizen-Science Initiatives

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XI. Section E8-I. Rapid 3D-Printing of Ventilator Components and Other Crucial Medical Equipment

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

In response to the dire shortage of ventilator components and other crucial equipment in hospitals treating COVID-19 patients, the United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XII. Section E8-J. Refocusing of the Education System toward Remote Learning

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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 United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XIII. Section E8-J. Refocusing of the Education System toward Remote Learning – Ancillary Provision

If Section E8-J regarding refocusing the education system toward remote learning is adopted as part of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, shall the following ancillary provision be appended to that Section?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XIV. Section E8-K. Mandatory Free Housing of the Homeless

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

In recognition that unsanitary living conditions are a primary cause of the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XV. Section E8-L. Rapid Training for Medical Personnel

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States Transhumanist Party supports establishing a rapid three-month training and certification program for hundreds of thousands 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XVI. Section E8-M. Universal Free COVID-19 Testing

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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 United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XVII. Section E8-M. Universal Free COVID-19 Testing – Ancillary Provision

If Section E8-M regarding universal free COVID-19 testing is adopted as part of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, shall the following ancillary provision be appended to that Section?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XVIII. Section E8-N. Establishment of Facilities to Store Essential Supplies

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XIX. Section E8-N. Establishment of Facilities to Store Essential Supplies – Ancillary Provision

If Section E8-N regarding establishment of facilities to store essential supplies is adopted as part of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, shall the following ancillary provision be appended to that Section?

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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XX. Section E8-O. Collaboration with Other Nations on Pandemic Response

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States Transhumanist Party holds that, as a pro-active 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXI. Section E8-P. Creation of Packages of Emergency Medical Supplies

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXII. Section E8-Q. Educational Programs on Epidemics

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXIII. Section E8-R. Repeal of “Certificate of Need” Laws

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXIV. Section E8-S. Patentless Development of Vaccines

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXV. Section E8-T. Utilization of Robots to Assist Patients and Vulnerable Individuals

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

The United States 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.

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXVI. Section E8-U. Abolition of the Food and Drug Administration and Its Replacement with a Radical Life Extension Administration

Shall the following language be adopted as a new Section within the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform?

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

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

 

Emergency 7-Day Exposure Period for Platform Vote #8 on COVID-19 Response Platform Proposals

Emergency 7-Day Exposure Period for Platform Vote #8 on COVID-19 Response Platform Proposals

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The U.S. Transhumanist Party (USTP) announces its upcoming emergency eighth Platform vote in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the extreme urgency of the situation, the duration of the exposure period shall be shortened to 7 days, and the duration of the voting period shall be shortened to 3 days.

Watch this special episode of the Debt Nation show, in which USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II outlines the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s emergency proposals for responding to the COVID-19 epidemic. This episode also features analysis and commentary by host Steele Archer.

A vote will be scheduled on some or all of the items below once they have been exposed for at least 7 days. For each item, a 3-day voting period is expected to be opened at the earliest on Wednesday, March 25, 2020.

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.

After the exposure period, a 3-day electronic voting period will occur. Instructions for electronic voting will be sent to members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Party via e-mail at that time. All individuals who are members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party as of the end of the exposure period and who have expressed agreement with its three Core Ideals will be eligible to vote thereafter. You can still vote if you become a member during the exposure period, so please apply here if you are interested. During the 3-day electronic voting period, you will still be able to become a member – but you will only be able to vote in subsequent elections, since we seek for voting on any given issue to be done by those members who have had an opportunity to thoroughly consider that issue and be involved in deliberations regarding it.

Electronic voting will be conducted by a ranked-preference method if more than a single option is presented for the wording of a particular plank or segment of a plank. Members will be able to rank-order their preferred selections on each individual Platform Section. The original text of each Section will be available for selection, as well as any reasonable amendments proposed by any member. Leadership of the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party reserves the right to edit any proposed amendment for correctness of spelling and grammar. “No Section of this sort” will also be a choice, and any Section where a majority of votes favors this option will be not be adopted. Members will also be able to abstain from voting on any given Section.

The ranked-preference method has the advantage of eliminating a “winner-take-all” or “first-past-the-post” mentality and preventing people from being channeled into voting for sub-optimal choices (in their view) just because they fear an even less palatable alternative prevailing. Within the ranked-preference methodology, if no option obtains a clear majority as voters’ first choice, the option having the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated from consideration, and all those who voted for that option will have their votes assigned to their second-choice options. This process of elimination continues until one particular option has a clear majority of votes.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party encourages all members to participate in this process and for other transhumanists to sign up for membership during the exposure period. 

The Section titles below are provisional and will be replaced with official numbers for each plank that is adopted. The Section titles are informational only and will not be included in the adopted versions of the platform planks.

Section E8-A. Rapid Construction of Hospitals

Option E8-A-1. [Proposal for Rapid Construction of Permanent Hospitals] The United States 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 United States 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.

Once the new permanent hospitals have been established, the United States 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 United States 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 United States 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.

Option E8-A-2. [Proposal by Marlin Adams for Rapid Construction of Temporary Hospitals]

The United States Transhumanist Party advocates for rapid construction of temporary 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.

The United States 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.

[Questions on Section E8-A will allow members to select any, all, or none of the ancillary provisions below, with any measure receiving a majority of the votes being included in the ultimately adopted plank. The ancillary provisions are compatible with each of the main options above.]

Ancillary Provision E8-A-i. [Based on Proposal by Martin van der Kroon] Architectural designs for the rapidly constructed hospitals should be prepared and updated as new and superior building techniques and technologies are developed.

Ancillary Provision E8-A-ii. [Based on Proposal by Jason Geringer] Architectural designs for the rapidly constructed hospitals should 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.

Ancillary Provision E8-A-iii. [Based on Proposal by Sylvester Geldtmeijer] Architectural designs for the rapidly constructed hospitals should 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.

Ancillary Provision E8-A-iv. [Based on Proposal by Sylvester Geldtmeijer] The United States 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.

Ancillary Provision E8-A-v. [Based on Proposal by Martin van der Kroon] While many unoccupied sites could be used as locations for the new hospitals, burial sites, especially native burial grounds, and other areas that have cultural or historical sensitive backgrounds should be avoided if possible. This is to prevent depriving native minorities of their ancestral legacies, as well as possible litigation afterward, which could lead to forceful closure of a hospital or medical facility after the emergency has subsided, leaving the situation with two losing sides.

Section E8-B. Emergency Universal Basic Income

Option E8-B-1. The United States 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, 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.

Option E8-B-2. [Based on Suggestion by Marlin Adams to Extend UBI to the Immediate Aftermath of the Outbreak] The United States 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 E8-C. Full Compensation of Affected Businesses and Workers

Option E8-C-1. 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 United States 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; and

(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.

[Questions on Section E8-C will allow members to select any, all, or none of the ancillary provisions below, with any measure receiving a majority of the votes being included in the ultimately adopted plank. The ancillary provisions are compatible with each of the main options above.]

Ancillary Provision E8-C-i. [Based on Proposal by Jason Geringer] The United States Transhumanist Party holds that any businesses receiving such compensation should be prohibited from engaging in buybacks of their own stocks.

Ancillary Provision E8-C-ii. The United States Transhumanist Party holds that any businesses receiving such compensation should be prohibited from increasing executive compensation if that compensation currently exceeds $500,000 per executive per year.

Section E8-D. Elimination of Bottlenecks at Airports

Option E8-D-1. 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 United States Transhumanist Party advocates for immediate and unconditional admittance through security checkpoints of all 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.

Option E8-D-2. [Based on Proposal by Ophelia_Drowned to Remove Unconditional Admittance, Replace It with Admittance of the Vast Majority] 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 United States Transhumanist Party advocates for immediate admittance through security checkpoints of the vast majority 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 E8-E. Rapid Domestic Deployment of Military Personnel from Overseas

Option E8-E-1. The United States 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 E8-F. Rapid Research into Cures for COVID-19, Common Cold, and Influenza

Option E8-F-1. The United States 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 United States 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.

Option E8-F-2. [Based on Suggestion by Marlin Adams for Government Funding and Ownership of the Cure and Its Free Distribution] The United States 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 United States 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 United States 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.

Option E8-F-3. [Option Mentioning Free Distribution of the Cure for COVID-19 But No Mention of Nature of Ownership] The United States 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 United States 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 United States Transhumanist Party advocates for any cure for COVID-19 to be distributed free of charge to those infected with the virus.

Section E8-G. Emergency Funding Package for Anti-Aging Research

Option E8-G-1. 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 United States Transhumanist Party emphasizes the importance of reversing biological aging as rapidly as possible and thereby protecting more lives from future pandemics. Accordingly, the United States Transhumanist Party advocates for an emergency $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.

Option E8-G-2. [Suggestion by Mike DiVerde for a Permanent, Annual $100 Billion Funding Package.]  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 United States Transhumanist Party emphasizes the importance of reversing biological aging as rapidly as possible and thereby protecting more lives from future pandemics. Accordingly, the United States 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 E8-H. Micropayments for Citizen-Science Initiatives

Option E8-H-1. The United States 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 E8-I. Rapid 3D-Printing of Ventilator Components and Other Crucial Medical Equipment

Option E8-I-1. In response to the dire shortage of ventilator components and other crucial equipment in hospitals treating COVID-19 patients, the United States 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 E8-J. Refocusing of the Education System toward Remote Learning

Option E8-J-1. The United States 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 United States 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.

[A question on Section E8-J will allow members to select or reject the following ancillary provision being included in the ultimately adopted plank. The ancillary provision is compatible with the main option above.]

Ancillary Provision E8-J-i. [Based on Proposal by Marlin Adams]

The United States 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 E8-K. Mandatory Free Housing of the Homeless

Option E8-K-1. In recognition that unsanitary living conditions are a primary cause of the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the United States 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 E8-L. Rapid Training for Medical Personnel

Option E8-L-1. The United States Transhumanist Party supports establishing a rapid three-month training and certification program for hundreds of thousands 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 E8-M. Universal Free COVID-19 Testing

Option E8-M-1. The United States 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 United States 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.

[A question on Section E8-M will allow members to select or reject the following ancillary provision being included in the ultimately adopted plank. The ancillary provision is compatible with the main option above.]

Ancillary Provision E8-M-i. [Based on Proposal by Sylvester Geldtmeijer]

The United States Transhumanist Party also advocates for COVID-19 testing kits to be developed that could result in test 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 E8-N. Establishment of Facilities to Store Essential Supplies

Section E8-N-1. [Based on Proposal by Martin van der Kroon] The United States Transhumanist Party advocates for the establishment of facilities, such as warehouses, where essential supplies are 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.

[A question on Section E8-N will allow members to select or reject the following ancillary provision being included in the ultimately adopted plank. The ancillary provision is compatible with the main option above.]

Ancillary Provision E8-N-i. [Based on Proposal by Sylvester Geldtmeijer] 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 E8-O. Collaboration with Other Nations on Pandemic Response

Section E8-O-1. [Based on Proposal by Martin van der Kroon] The United States Transhumanist Party holds that, as a pro-active 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 E8-P. Creation of Packages of Emergency Medical Supplies

Section E8-P-1. [Based on Proposal by Martin van der Kroon] The United States 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 E8-Q. Educational Programs on Epidemics

Section E8-Q-1. [Based on suggestion by Martin van der Kroon]

The United States 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 E8-R. Repeal of “Certificate of Need” Laws

Section E8-R-1. The United States 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 E8-S. Patentless Development of Vaccines

Section E8-S-1. [Based on suggestion by Sylvester Geldtmeijer]

The United States 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 E8-T. Utilization of Robots to Assist Patients and Vulnerable Individuals

Section E8-T-1. [Based on suggestion by Sylvester Geldtmeijer]

The United States 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 E8-U. Abolition of the Food and Drug Administration and Its Replacement with a Radical Life Extension Administration

Section E8-U-1. [Based on suggestion by J. Ben Zion and Gennady Stolyarov II]

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

Nicola BagalĂ  Interviews Reason of the Fight Aging! Blog and Repair Biotechnologies

Nicola BagalĂ  Interviews Reason of the Fight Aging! Blog and Repair Biotechnologies

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Reason
Nicola BagalĂ 

Editor’s note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this article by our guest Nicola BagalĂ , originally published by our allies at the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation (LEAF) on May 14th, 2018. In this article, Mr. BagalĂ  interviews Reason, an activist who has been helping scientists to cure age-related diseases and posting in-depth commentary on a blog dating back to the 2000s. Reason has helped multiple fundraisers and contributed much more to the progress of life-extension research. The topics of the interview range from a quick biography of Reason’s involvement in fighting age-related diseases, to a discussion of when aging will be defined as a disease by the FDA. The interview also covers Reason’s new company, called Repair Biotechnologies.

~Bobby Ridge, Assistant Editor, June 25, 2019

Most people interested in rejuvenation and life extension are familiar with Fight Aging!, one of the very first rejuvenation advocacy blogs dating back all the way to the early 2000s; if you’re one of them, then you certainly are familiar with Reason, the man behind FA!.

Over the years, Reason has been a patient yet relentless advocate, acting not only as an information provider for the public but also helping out innumerable organizations and companies in the field of rejuvenation biotechnology in financial and other ways. Back in the day when SRF didn’t exist yet, Reason was a volunteer for Methuselah Foundation; eventually, he helped fund companies such as Oisìn Biotechnologies, CellAge, and LysoCLEAR; and, earlier this month, Reason and Bill Cherman co-founded Repair Biotechnologies, a company focused on gene therapy for rejuvenation, as announced on FA!.

Bill Cherman is an investor in the rejuvenation community who, just like Reason, has contributed to development of many ventures in the field. He is a holder of a gold medal in the Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad, a BA in economics, and a candidate in the Master of Biotechnology Enterprise and Entrepreneurship program at Johns Hopkins. He founded Front Seat Capital, a venture capital firm looking to invest in startups with the potential to change the world.

Repair Biotechnologies, which is presently looking for a Chief Science Officer, will kickstart its activities with a project on thymic regeneration in partnership with Ichor Therapeutics—the creators of LysoCLEAR, Antoxerene, and RecombiPure. The goal of the company, as you can imagine, is to shorten the journey of rejuvenation therapies from the lab to the clinic.

It is extremely heartening to see more and more rejuvenation-focused companies and organizations sprouting and building up to the turning point when this emerging field of science will cease being fringe and become a hot topic not only in the relatively small circle of biogerontology (where it has been one for a while now) but also in business and public discourse. We’re very grateful to Reason and Bill for taking us yet another step closer to the finish line and for answering our questions.

We’d like to ask some details of your story as a rejuvenation advocate. When and under what circumstances did it become clear to you that aging is a problem?

While it would be delightful to claim that I am a rational entity who came to that conclusion through utilitarian thought, in fact, it was more of a bolt from the blue. For no apparent reason, it suddenly came to me one evening that I didn’t want to die – and not in the academic way that most people hold that conviction but a deep, visceral, adrenaline-laden realization of the sort in which one accepts immediately that something important in life has been done and determined, a corner turned. Before that happened, I was no more than passingly interested in aging as a topic, but afterwards
 well, I woke up. Of course, that was a long time ago now, far prior to my present understanding of what is plausible and possible, and realization on its own achieves nothing. It took years to learn enough to progress any sort of understanding as to how a non-life-scientist could make a difference.

We have noticed that there has been a sea change in both progress and enthusiasm from the academic community for rejuvenation biotechnology and targeting aging directly to prevent age-related diseases. Have you observed a similar rise in support, and what factors, if any, do you think are driving this?

I think that these things progress in cycles, based on the timescale of human collaboration. It takes a few years to go from desire to setting up an organization, a few years for the organization to get somewhere, and a few years for others to be inspired to their ventures by the organization. Bootstrapping only looks smooth in hindsight. We have been transitioning from one business cycle to another these past few years, which looks like a big leap in enthusiasm as it occurs, but the roots of this were set down five to ten years ago. I would say those roots included the final tipping point studies for senolytics, the spin-off of the SENS Research Foundation from the Methuselah Foundation, the injection of funding for SENS around then, and a number of other, related items.

It we look around today, a bigger community is planting a larger crop of seeds that will come to fruition in the mid-2020s, and today’s seeds include startup biotechnology companies in the SENS space, new advocacy initiatives like LEAF hitting their stride, and so forth.

Thanks to the efforts of many advocates, yours included, public perception of rejuvenation is also shifting. How close do you think we are to widespread acceptance?

I don’t think acceptance matters – that might be the wrong term to focus on here. Acceptance will occur when the therapies are in the clinic. People will use them, and everyone will conveniently forget all the objections voiced. The most important thing is not acceptance but rather material support for development of therapies. The help of only a tiny fraction of the population is needed to fund the necessary research to a point of self-sustained development, and that is the important thing. Create beneficial change, and people will accept it. Yet, you cannot just go and ask a few people. Persuading many people is necessary because that is the path to obtaining the material support of the necessary few: people do not donate their time and funds to unpopular or unknown causes; rather, they tend to follow their social groups.

Last year, you talked about the importance of sustained advocacy being as important as supporting the research itself. You wrote about a number of approaches to advocacy, including ours. Have you noticed an improvement in the quality of advocacy since then, and do you still maintain that professional advocacy is as important to the cause as research is?

Fishing for compliments? I’m very pleased with the progression of LEAF and with advocacy in general in our space. People have come and gone over the years, but this latest group of advocates appears to have set up shop for the long term. That is important and a welcome change. I can’t keep writing Fight Aging! forever, if only because hands and schedules eventually give way under the accumulated burdens of the years. There must be far more voices doing this same sort of work, all in their own varied ways. Diversity and redundancy are both important aspects of advocacy – many people arguing in their own ways for a given point of view are needed in order to persuade the world at large.

Presently, rejuvenation is a relatively unknown topic; people who say they’re against this technology probably don’t think it’s a concrete possibility anyway. However, as more important milestones will be reached—for example, robust mouse rejuvenation—this might change. Do you think that these milestones will result in opponents changing their attitudes or becoming more entrenched?

Opposition to human rejuvenation therapies is almost entirely irrational; either (a) it’s a dismissal of an unfamiliar topic based on the heuristic that 95% of unfamiliar topics turn out to be not worth the effort when investigated further, or (b) it’s a rejection of anything that might result in sizable change in personal opinion, life, and plans, such as the acceptance of aging and death that people have struggled to attain. This sort of opposition isn’t based on an engagement with facts, so I think a sizable proportion of these folk will keep on being irrational in the face of just any scientific advance or other new factual presentation short of their physicians prescribing rejuvenation therapies to treat one or more of their current symptoms of aging.

On the other hand, there will be steady progress in winning people over in the sense of supporting rejuvenation in the same sense as supporting cancer research: they know nothing much about the details, but they know that near everyone supports cancer research, and cancer is generally agreed to be a bad thing, so they go along. Achieving this change is a bootstrapping progress of persuading opinion makers and broadcasters, people who are nodes in the network of society. Here, milestones and facts are much more helpful.

After years of financially supporting other rejuvenation startups, you’re now launching your own company focused on gene therapies relevant to rejuvenation. What drove your decision to do this?

In the course of funding companies, one learns a great deal about the bounds of what might be achieved and the sort of work that is needed: it isn’t uncommon for investors to become entrepreneurs and vice versa. There are large overlaps in the mental toolkits required, and it is a logical evolution seen from either side. Moreover, in the course of investing in startups, one meets people in the community, such as my cofounder Bill, who intend to both fund and run companies, and it turns out that we work together quite well. As in all such things, it has a lot more to do with happenstance leading to the right arrangements of people and much less to do with the technical landscape at the time.

Your company’s first objective is thymic regeneration. Why do you think the thymus is the ideal initial target for your work?

It is a very straightforward goal, with a lot of supporting evidence from the past few decades of research. It think it is important to set forth at the outset with something simple, direct, and focused, insofar as any biotechnology project can be said to have those attributes. This is a part of the SENS rejuvenation research agenda in the sense of cell atrophy: the core problem is loss of active thymic tissue, which leads to loss of T cell production and, consequently, immunodeficiency. However, the immune system is so core to the health of the individual that any form of restoration can beneficially affect a great many other systems. The many facets of the immune system don’t just kill off invading pathogens; they are also responsible for destroying problem cells (cancers, senescent cells), and they participate in tissue maintenance and function in many ways.

You are using gene therapy; why have you chosen this delivery method specifically and not, for example, a small-molecule approach?

If your aim is to raise or lower expression of a specific protein, and you don’t already have a small molecule that does pretty much what you want it to do without horrible side-effects, then you can pay $1-2M for a shot at finding a starting point in the standard drug discovery databases. That frequently doesn’t work, the odds of success are essentially unknown for any specific case, and the starting point then needs to be refined at further cost and odds of failure. This is, for example, the major sticking point for anyone wanting to build a small-molecule glucosepane breaker – the price of even starting to roll the dice is high, much larger than the funding any usual startup crew can obtain.

On the other hand, assuming you are working with a cell population that can be transduced by a gene therapy to a large enough degree to produce material effects, then $1-2M will fairly reliably get you all the way from the stage of two people in a room with an idea to the stage of having animal data sufficient enough to start the FDA approval process.

You are working with SRF spin-off company Ichor Therapeutics; what was the reason for choosing to work with Kelsey and the Ichor team?

Because they are great. Kelsey has achieved considerable success, bootstrapping from nothing but a plan, and has an excellent team. Their philosophy of development dovetails well with ours, both in terms of short-term development of a biotech startup and in the longer term of how we’d like to see this industry develop over the next 10-15 years.

Will your company focus on lab work, or do you plan to run human trials once a sufficiently advanced stage has been reached?

We’re absolutely signed up for the end-to-end path of getting a therapy into the clinic. That is the whole point of the exercise – to bring therapies into general availability. Of course, there will be a great deal of lab work to accomplish between here and there.

The FDA doesn’t recognize aging as a disease, so it won’t approve drugs to target it directly. Is this a problem for your company’s activities?

Remember that when talking to the FDA, one usually starts with just a small patient group with a single age-related condition, a fraction of everyone that might eventually be helped. This is done to control costs and ensure the best possible chance of a successful approval by narrowing the focus to a very clear, simple experiment. After this, one expands to larger patient groups and more expensive trials. As it happens, the effects of immunosenescence on health are so widespread and similar from individual to individual that it wouldn’t be hard to pick a clearly defined condition and patient population that covers near everyone in late life. Unfortunately, one would have to have very deep pockets indeed to pick that as the first option for entering the approval process – one has to work up to it.

What are Repair Biotechnologies’ possible future targets after thymic regeneration?

We’re looking into a couple of interesting options, guided by the SENS philosophy of damage repair, but it is very challenging to say at this stage which of them will prove the most advantageous to attempt. Obviously, at this stage, the primary focus has to be on success in our first venture.

What do you think are currently the most promising research avenues within each rejuvenation therapy subfield?

We have a challenge today in that we have the DNA of a patient advocacy community trying to get work to proceed at all. So, for fifteen years, our measure of success was “are people paying more attention to this?” Now, we have to start thinking like a development community, in which success revolves around “does this implementation actually work in humans, and how well does it work, and how much does it cost?”

In all too many cases, we don’t yet know the answers to these questions: the data isn’t there yet for senolytics, for example. So, you can look at senolytic efforts and know who has the most funding and attention but have no idea which of the therapeutic approaches actually represent the most significant progress at the end of the day. For all we know, dasatinib might turn out to be the most cost-effective of all of the current small-molecule approaches, with everything everyone has done since then coming in a poor second-best, and we won’t find this out for years, as no one has any incentive to run the necessary large-scale trials on an existing drug.

Dr. de Grey is hopeful, but not certain, that immunotherapy might make OncoSENS unnecessary. What do you think?

I have long thought that canonical OncoSENS – whole-body interdiction of lengthening of telomeres – might be rendered unnecessary by sufficiently advanced incremental progress in other areas of cancer research. That said, it should be so cost-effective that it is hard to imagine “sufficiently advanced incremental progress” not incorporating interference with telomeres in some way. People other than SENS-funded groups are working on it, after all.

If you think about it, restoring the immune system to youthful capacity should also help to achieve this goal; there is evidence to suggest that age-related immune dysfunction drives age-related cancer risk and that this correlates well with thymic decline. The world will still need highly effective, low-side-effect cancer therapies even if everyone has the cancer risk profile of a young adult, of course, but far less frequently.

What do you realistically expect might happen, over the next 25 years, in terms of rejuvenation research results, funding, clinical applications, and availability?

Well, that’s an essay in and of itself. I think my views on the technology itself are fairly widely known: I’ve written a few short essays on likely ordering of development. The funding will  continue to grow year-over-year to the degree that any success is achieved in the clinic. However, everything takes a very long time in medicine due to the way in which regulation works, no matter how fast the technology is running in the labs, and the pace of technological progress in biotechnology is accelerating. At some point, the system exemplified by the FDA will break because cheap and effective therapies coming out of the labs will be so far ahead of what is available in the clinic that they will leak out into some other form of commercial development. Who knows what that will look like? Perhaps it will be a network of overseas non-profits that run their own, lighter and faster, validations of trials and presentations of human data gathered from participating clinics. I think that next-generation gene therapies, evolutions of CRISPR, will likely precipitate this sort of reordering of the landscape.

Do you expect that aging might relatively soon be officially considered a disease, or a co-morbid syndrome, by WHO and the FDA?

No. Regulation typically lags behind reality by many years. What will probably take place is some sort of battle of wills and lawyers over widespread off-label use for rejuvenation therapies, most likely senolytics, that have only been narrowly approved for specific age-related conditions. That will go on for a while and, ultimately, generate sufficient critical press attention to induce regulators to back off from trying to suppress that off-label use and, instead, accept aging as an approved indication. This hypothetical scenario could run a decade or more from beginning to end.

The availability of rejuvenation therapies doesn’t depend only on their cost; it also depends on how they’re regulated in each specific country. Do you imagine “rejuvenation tourism” will exist for long, or at all, before these treatments are part of the standard medical toolkit everywhere?

The development of stem cell therapies is the example to look at here. These therapies were available via medical tourism for a decade prior to the first approved treatments in the US, and this continues to be the case even afterwards, as only a narrow slice of therapies have been approved. Medical regulation is slow-moving, and so medical tourism will be long-lasting. I think this will work exactly the same way for other broad classes of therapy, such as gene therapies.

What is, in your view, the biggest bottleneck to progress in aging research?

Either (a) the lack of funding for research and early-stage startup development or (b) the low number of entrepreneurs, one of the two. Probably funding, as money can be used to craft an 80/20 solution to the shortage of entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurs can only reliably solve the lack of funding problem if there are a lot of them. Almost every specific instance of things not moving forward that I’ve seen could be addressed by a well-thought-out application of funds to the situation.

The chasm between academic research and early-stage commercial development is also a sizable issue. The academic side does a terrible job of reaching out to find entrepreneurs and companies that can carry forward their research to benefit patients. The entire biotechnology industry (entrepreneurs, investors, bigger companies and funding entities) collectively does a terrible job of reaching back into the academic community to fund, encourage, and adopt the most promising research. So, projects that should move instead languish for years because no one is taking the obvious steps to improve on the situation.

Right now, there don’t seem to be any unexpected problems with the science that might jeopardize the development of rejuvenation. Do you think that any particular areas of research might run into difficulties down the road?

No. I think all the unexpected problems will be implementation details. It is perfectly possible to have the correct strategy and the wrong tactics, and this happens all the time in complex fields such as biotechnology – it doesn’t take much of an error in interpreting research results to derail the original plan and require a new direction. Most such challenges are short-term and can be worked around with some loss of time and money, but there are certainly past instances in which the company is lost because there is no viable way to salvage a better path.

This is what happened to one of the early AGE-breaker efforts, the development of ALT-711: removing AGEs still seems very much a correct approach to the age-related stiffening of tissues, but a drug that works in rodents will do nothing in people because the physiologically relevant AGEs are completely different. At that time, the researchers didn’t have that critical piece of information. We will no doubt see similar stories occur again in the future.

Caloric restriction and exercise may also potentially convey some small increase in life expectancy. Given that the goal is to reach longevity escape velocity, do you practice a particular diet or exercise program, and would you encourage people to consider such approaches?

I have always suggested that people look into the simple, reliable things they can do for better health. The way to look at this is through the lens of cost-effectiveness. Calorie restriction and exercise are cheap, easy, and highly reliable. They don’t adjust your life expectancy by decades, but since they are cheap, easy, and reliable, you should still look into it. There are many different ways to approach both, so just because an attempt fails or isn’t palatable, that’s no excuse to give up on the whole endeavor. At the end of the day, it is a personal choice, of course. We can always choose to be less healthy; that’s easy to do in the present environment.

You’ve written many articles on the topic of self-experimentation on FA. Can you summarize your views?

The current self-experimentation community – and here I include many disparate groups, only tenuously linked, with interests in nootropics, anti-aging, muscle building, and so forth – is woefully disorganized and ill-educated when it comes to the risks and scientific knowledge of the compounds they try. If one in twenty of the people who have tried dasatinib as a senolytic have (a) read the papers on pharmacokinetics in human volunteers, (b) recalculated likely human doses from the senolytic animal studies and compared them with human chemotherapy studies, or (c) actually tested the compound delivered by a supplier to ensure purity, I would be astoundingly surprised.

The bar for quality and safety in this community needs to be raised, and that is the primary purpose behind my writing articles on self-experimentation. Whatever I say, people are going to be out there trying senolytics – many of these compounds are cheap, easily available, and hyped. What they should be doing instead of rushing in is thinking for themselves and reading widely. If I can do a little to help make that happen, then all to the good.

What is your take-home message for our readers?

There is always a way to help accelerate the development of rejuvenation therapies – there is always something that one can do and feel good enough about doing to do it well. Don’t know what that something might be? Then talk with people in the community. Reach out, go to meetings, post online. Don’t force it. It will come to you in time.

Nicola Bagalà is a bit of a jack of all trades—a holder of an M.Sc. degree in mathematics; an amateur programmer; a hobbyist at novel writing, piano, and art; and, of course, a passionate life extensionist. After his interest in the science of undoing aging arose in 2011, he gradually shifted from quiet supporter to active advocate in 2015, first launching his advocacy blog Rejuvenaction before eventually joining LEAF. These years in the field sparked an interest in molecular biology, which he actively studies. Other subjects he loves to discuss to no end are cosmology, artificial intelligence, and many others—far too many for a currently normal lifespan, which is one of the reasons he’s into life extension.

Wealth, Power, and the Prospect of Reversing Aging – Article by Arin Vahanian

Wealth, Power, and the Prospect of Reversing Aging – Article by Arin Vahanian

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Arin Vahanian

I often ask myself, “Why do wealthy and/or influential people seem to support spending billions of dollars on weapons and exploring outer space, when, with their massive wealth and resources, they could help reduce human suffering and dramatically improve the quality of life for billions of people?”

And this question takes me back to a discussion I had last year with gerontologist Aubrey de Grey, during which he recounted to me a meeting he had with an ultra high-net-worth (UHNW) individual. The purpose of the meeting was to raise money for aging and life-extension research, and the UHNW individual refused to donate to SENS Research Foundation, or even to get involved, stating something to the effect of, “It won’t happen in my lifetime.”

That response perplexed me. Here we had a very successful and intelligent person, who, rather than help ensure his own children (as well as others’ children) could live a healthier and longer life, refused to do anything, for the simple reason that he did not believe we could make much progress on reversing aging in his lifetime.

While this is indeed a selfish way to look at things, it is by no means uncommon. In fact, I have been racking my brain recently, trying to figure out why the people who are best-equipped to do something about life extension and aging, do not do so (or do not do enough).

To be fair, there are a few wealthy and influential people who support research into aging and life extension, the most notable being entrepreneur Jim Mellon. However, they seem to be the exception rather than the norm.

Indeed, why do people like Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk, who possess incredible resources and influence, choose to spend money and time on attempting to colonize hostile, uninhabitable planets hundreds of millions of kilometers away, especially considering that they and their loved ones (if they are lucky to live long enough) will die of aging-related causes such as heart disease, dementia, and cancer?

While I cannot speak for the aforementioned people, I believe there are several reasons why people in a position of power or wealth refuse to do much about supporting research on aging.

The first reason is that aging and death have been considered inevitable. Indeed, even though we have been able to put a human being on the Moon, we have been unable to prevent a single human being from aging. Enormously wealthy and successful people tend to be quite pragmatic, and so I imagine that they would not want to fund an endeavor or be a part of something they believed had no chance of success. However, we have evidence that we are making progress on this front, or at the very least, that reversing aging and implementing life-extension technologies are worthy endeavors.

In fact, in 2005, MIT Technology Review organized a panel of world-renowned experts (including molecular biologists) and offered a $20,000 prize to anyone who could disprove the SENS research program and demonstrate that reversing aging is not worthy of consideration. However, none of the contestants were able to do so. On the other hand, there is no evidence that human life is sustainable on any other planets in our solar system (while human life is perfectly sustainable on Earth), and by most professional estimates, it would take incredible technological advancements and financial resources to even enable people to temporarily stay on a planet such as Mars. We should also consider the fact that there have been no studies performed on the massive changes that would occur to the human body as a result of living on another planet.

Thus, it actually appears more realistic to work on reversing aging than it would be to work on colonizing other planets. But even if we are not able to completely reverse aging, what if we were able to slow aging? Wouldn’t it be desirable to have an additional five to 10 years of healthy life? Any progress we could make on life extension would be worth it, given that it would directly add healthy years to a person’s life. One thing is for certain – doing nothing ensures that very little will change, and that humans will more than likely continue living this average lifespan of 79 or so years (with very modest improvements over time), with much of it in the later years being in sickness and poor health.

Another reason for the refusal to fund aging and life extension research may be a rather pessimistic one. It is entirely possible that billionaires and governments are hedging their bets in the event that climate change or some other scenario causes wide-scale suffering (the likes of which have never been seen before) and a potential destruction of the planet, along with the rapid extinction of the human species. If that were the case, and Earth was about to be destroyed, it would make sense to pour resources into colonizing other planets. However, I think the likelihood of something like this occurring, at least in the near future, is extremely slim. Further, we have much evidence to support the fact that the planet could sustain a larger population and that technological improvements, as well as renewable energy, and seasteading, can prevent such an apocalyptic scenario from occurring. In fact, despite the challenges we are facing in terms of sustainability, we are making good progress, and it seems unreasonable to me to give all of this up, throw in the towel, and chase a pipe dream of living on another planet (when the one we have now is perfectly suited to human life). Also, given that we have the technology to save our planet from being engulfed in chaos and destruction, but do not currently have the technology to live on other planets, wouldn’t it make sense to save Earth first, rather than attempting to embark upon costly journeys to other planets, especially journeys that have little guarantee of success?

Yet another reason may be that many people, including those in a position of power, have bought into the idea of an afterlife. However, if we are completely honest with ourselves, there is no evidence that an afterlife exists, whereas there is evidence that we are making progress with reversing aging, even if that progress is arriving at a pace that is slower than we would have liked. With that being said, I would never want to deny anyone the right to believe in whatever they want. The question is, however, whether it is beneficial to adopt a zero-sum attitude to this matter. The fact is, believing in an afterlife and contributing to aging and life-extension research are not mutually exclusive. One can have any religious beliefs one likes, and subscribe to the idea that there is an afterlife, while also contributing to the beauty of existence here on Earth.

Finally, working on a cause such as reversing aging appears to not be as exciting as the prospect of exploring Mars, which is why people would rather update their LinkedIn (or Tinder) profile with “Entrepreneur” or “Swashbuckling Adventurer” or “Arms Dealer”, even, rather than “Gerontologist”.  In all seriousness, though, I have always found the idea of exploring faraway lands, as well as other planets, to be exciting. But if human beings are excited about exploring the unknown, shouldn’t we also be interested in exploring a process as complex as aging, especially given that there is much we still do not know about it? Also, the implications of making advancements in this field are huge. This is because the un-sexy work that gerontologists are doing will lead to us living longer, healthier lives, and so this very important work should not be ignored. In fact, it is a massive waste of resources to try to colonize uninhabitable planets at the expense of ensuring good health and longevity, when all of humanity battles with disease and death. It would even be more noble to focus our efforts on eliminating poverty (something that the Chinese government, for instance, has dedicated its efforts to).

I do not wish to dissuade anyone from exploring outer space, but neither should we avoid doing what needs to be done on our planet. I only wish to ask whether spending billions on space exploration is the best use of resources at our disposal, considering that there is still much work to be done here on Earth.

As mentioned previously, it should not be a zero-sum game. In an ideal world, we could dedicate resources to both aging research and space exploration. However, when the budget for NASA is $21.5 billion and the budget for aging research at the National Institute on Aging is $40 million, one has to start asking questions. Actually, one could argue neither budget is large enough, especially given that the U.S. Department of Defense budget is $686 billion.

Why do we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on missiles and bombs to combat a highly-exaggerated threat, when there is the absolute certainty that billions of people will suffer and then die, many of them prematurely, due to aging-related diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and dementia?

What makes exploring outer space so much more important than ensuring that billions do not die prematurely from aging-related diseases? Will picking up and holding red dust on a hostile, uninhabitable planet be more fulfilling than holding one’s child or loved one in one’s arms?

What does it say about our society when we are content to allow friends and family members to perish in undignified ways, while we dream about stockpiling as many weapons as possible, reliving fictional fantasies inspired by comic books and movies, and ignoring challenges here on Earth?

These are questions we must ask ourselves, and, more importantly, must demand those in power to ask themselves. At the end of the day, if we as a society are comfortable with the tradeoffs and decide en masse that dealing weapons and exploring outer space are more important than working on curing disease, reversing aging, and ensuring that everyone on Earth lives a dignified life, then we can rest assured knowing that we gave this most important of topics much consideration.

However, given the facts, I do not think we have reached that point yet. We have, however, reached a point where there is promise that we are making progress in fighting aging, and it is irresponsible and reckless to ignore these gains while entertaining fantasies of living on other planets. It makes little sense to try to live in a dignified manner on a dangerous, inhospitable, isolated planet that is not suitable for human life, when we are having difficulty living in a dignified manner here on Planet Earth (a planet that is perfectly suited to human life). The solution is not to dream about moving to Mars while leaving the elderly and unhealthy here to die. The solution is also not to increase defense funding, when we already have more weapons than we know what to do with. The solution is to help our brothers and sisters here on Earth live longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives. And thus, this is a call to action for those of you who are in a position of power or wealth and who can dedicate resources to ensuring that your loved ones, and everyone else’s loved ones, can live better.

One thing I would like to ask UHNW individuals and politicians is, what will you do with the great wealth, status, and power you have accumulated? Will you play golf and remark that “it won’t happen in my lifetime”? Or will you actually do something to ensure that your children won’t be doomed to a short life, during which they will suffer from debilitating disease and eventually die?

Arin Vahanian is the Director of Marketing for the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party.

Transhumanism and a Cure for Depression – Article by Arin Vahanian

Transhumanism and a Cure for Depression – Article by Arin Vahanian

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Arin Vahanian

In the quest to transcend humankind’s limits and take humanity to its next level of development physically, mentally, emotionally and socially, much is written and discussed about topics such as life extension and human augmentation. And this is for good reason, as humans have strived, since the beginning of time, to overcome their limits, do more, and be better. This includes, of course, living longer and healthier, which is among the most noble of all human goals.

However, in the midst of all this, there is a topic that is seldom discussed in Transhumanist circles, and that is the topic of depression, a condition which, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), affects more than 300 million people worldwide.

Making matters worse is the fact that depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, a major contributor to disease, and in some cases, leads to suicide.

Given these facts, one would think more should be done to combat the plague of depression, but alas, we appear to be stuck with outdated treatments for a condition that cripples large segments of humanity and for many, threatens the very possibility of living longer and healthier.

Contrary to what many people may believe, an individual suffering from depression cannot simply “snap out of it,” and there is, as of yet, no established cure for depression, as there is for diseases such as smallpox. Indeed, depression is a particularly thorny problem to solve for many reasons, which include the fact that diagnosing it isn’t as cut and dried as other conditions, but also that the treatments for it have thus far not been very efficacious.

Those treatments include pharmacological (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, such as Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft), non-pharmacological (cognitive behavioral therapy), and technological (cranial electrotherapy stimulation) solutions. However, if we are honest with ourselves, the data reveals that what we have been doing hasn’t been very effective, given that depression is on the rise worldwide. According to the WHO, the total estimated number of people living with depression worldwide increased by 18.4 percent between 2005 and 2015 to 322 million. Even if this increase is due to better and more accurate diagnoses, the incidence of depression isn’t decreasing, which is cause for concern.

Given these statistics, it is time to do something other than what has been done before. It is time for a new approach and a new way of thinking when it comes to treating and curing depression. Transhumanism may offer that light at the end of the tunnel. Indeed, Transhumanism may very well be humanity’s best hope for a cure for depression, because it leaves no stone unturned in the quest to live a life of fewer limits, as well as improved health, and greater happiness and fulfillment. Imagine what could be done to solve depression if we approached treatment and a cure not in the standard ways, but by harnessing the full power of science and technology to do whatever it takes to assist the hundreds of millions of people who are suffering.

For instance, why is the technology of deep brain stimulation approved for treating Parkinson’s Disease, which, according to the Parkinson’s Foundation, affects 10 million people worldwide, but not approved for treating depression, which affects more than 300 million people globally? Scientific and technological breakthroughs should be leveraged to relieve the suffering of all people, and not just a few. This is the promise of Transhumanism – that all humans are worthy of a cure for what ails them, and therefore, all people inflicted with depression should get the help they need so that they can transcend the condition that threatens to wreck their lives.

Why is it that the most commonly-prescribed treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which are the SSRIs Paxil and Zoloft, require daily dosing for many weeks to months, and have little to no effect in curing PTSD? On the other hand, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, conducted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), has been proven to treat PTSD successfully in two to three sessions, yet it remains illegal as a Schedule 1 drug. This is the promise of Transhumanism – that we should look for creative, out-of-the-box ways to relieve suffering, which includes pharmacological, non-pharmacological, technological, and scientific methods.

If we are really serious about curing depression, as opposed to just putting bandages on a gaping wound in humanity’s well-being, we will have to do much more than we are doing right now, and we will have to reassess the way we are treating depression.

But why focus on depression, besides the fact that it destroys the lives of many millions of people and the treatments so far have been ineffective in curing it? Because depression does not care whether you are young or old, whether you are black or white, whether you are rich or poor, and whether you are physically healthy or not. Depression is an equal-opportunity destroyer of life. While heart attacks and pancreatic cancer may end lives quickly, depression ends lives slowly, ruthlessly robbing people of their happiness, sadistically stripping away their dignity, and mercilessly beating and drowning them in a dark, dreary swamp with little hope for a better future.

It is inhuman to ignore the plight of those suffering from depression and to give up the fight for a brighter, happier future for every individual on Earth. Transhumanism not only offers hope for a better future through inspiring and motivating humans to transcend their limits, but it also encourages us to look at problems from many different angles, and to dedicate our efforts toward actually resolving the challenges that humanity is facing.

Many Transhumanists are, understandably, focused on life extension and reversing aging, since life is the most precious thing we have. But life is a lot less beautiful when one is trapped in an inescapable labyrinthine nightmare, enfeebling one’s mind and tormenting one with endless movie-like scenes of their perceived past failures. In a sense, some people with depression feel there is not much point in attempting to extend their lives when they are continuously engulfed in profound sadness.

But the truth of the matter is that it is not people suffering from depression who have failed; it is we as a society who have failed them.

One of the ways we can rectify this situation and offer a real solution for those battling depression is by advocating for and creating breakthrough technologies and medicines that will successfully treat and cure this dreadful condition that has ruined so many precious, promising lives. Transhumanism is not just about advocating for life extension, it is also about advocating for a better quality of life through leveraging advances in science and technology to treat conditions such as depression.

Arin Vahanian is Director of Marketing for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

The First Step Toward Reversing Aging and Curing Disease – Article by Arin Vahanian

The First Step Toward Reversing Aging and Curing Disease – Article by Arin Vahanian

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Arin Vahanian

The dawn of every new year brings renewed hope and numerous promises made by individuals across the world to improve their lot in life, whether through increased exercise, a new diet, or a career change. However, according to extensive research conducted on the topic, most of these resolutions are seldom kept long-term, and many people eventually revert back to old habits and modes of thought.

While failing to keep a promise to oneself to find a new job may not have catastrophic consequences for that person, an entire society or parts of the world falling short of goals such as reversing climate change may have disastrous implications for the rest of the world.

However, this article isn’t necessarily about saving the world. It’s about a topic that is very near and dear to me; specifically, personal responsibility, especially when it comes to longevity.

Whether we read about this topic, discuss it with others, watch interviews with experts and laypeople, or read polls, almost everyone would agree that the idea of living longer and healthier is very appealing to them.

Why is it, then, that observing people’s actions reveals that many of us do things that will prevent us from living longer and healthier? Why do so many people who claim longevity is important to them turn around and engage in behaviors such as overeating, smoking tobacco products, not exercising regularly, and so on?

Thankfully, there are some people out there who take longevity and health seriously, and these individuals eagerly follow new developments and hope for the scientific breakthroughs that will finally reverse aging and cure debilitating diseases that have plagued humankind for so long.

However, the first step toward curing disease and reversing the process of aging does not start with the chemists who come up with new medicines or the gerontologists who study aging or the governments that fund projects; it starts with the individual.

If you don’t believe me, simply take a closer look the next time you are at a restaurant or supermarket and observe what many people are purchasing and putting in their bodies. You may well be shocked at the sorts of things we are consuming on a daily basis. Several decades ago, there was a fear that humanity would face starvation on a global scale, but that threat never materialized. In fact, we now have far more food than we know what to do with. Indeed, our problem isn’t that we do not have enough food, it is that we have too much food, and too much of what we consume is unhealthy, thus reducing our life span and health span.

Even if we may not want to admit it, the first step toward living a longer and healthier life is entirely in our hands.  The actions we take on a daily basis determine, in no small part, whether we can put ourselves in a situation to take advantage of the advances in medicine and technology that may cure us of disease and reverse the process of aging in our bodies and minds.

In my humble opinion, it is irresponsible for someone to neglect their health and well-being while at the same time waiting and hoping for a cure for aging or disease. There is, currently, no magic pill one can take that will cure them of poor health or magically reverse aging. Thus, the impetus is on each person to do all they can to take care of themselves and their health, while the organizations and individuals that are working on curing disease and reversing aging come up with the requisite scientific and technological breakthroughs. In fact, we could even argue that in addition to managing one’s health and diet very closely, we should do more to support the organizations and individuals dedicated to curing disease and reversing senescence, but that is perhaps another topic for another time.

Of course, by focusing on personal responsibility, I do not wish to ignore the numerous situational and socioeconomic factors that may contribute to people being unable to fully take responsibility for their health. Some people, due to conditions such as extreme poverty, are not in a position to take control of their lives in the way those of us in developed countries are able to. Similarly, though, I do not wish to ignore the plight of many residents of developed countries who face hardships (of the medical variety or otherwise) every day that prevent them from fully taking the advice in this article. Life is not black-and-white, but rather, gray, and I would never advocate for the law of the jungle in any society.

Thus, I also want to make clear that we as a society should do whatever we can to ensure that people who need medical care receive the care that they need, in a cost-effective and dignified manner. In a world of abundance, there is no reason why people suffering from curable conditions (or otherwise) should go untreated, and no reason why anyone should be bankrupted by medical bills. However, these are not the persons I have dedicated this article to. A tragedy of modern life is that so many people are easily able to make changes in their life that would lead to a healthier and longer life, but instead choose to not do so, and continue engaging in destructive behaviors.

Regardless of your views on disease and aging, it is not unreasonable to say that we should, at the very least, do whatever is in our power to take care of our own health.

Therefore, the next time you think about gorging yourself on donuts and guzzling the soda offered at the next company party, you might want to reconsider, because what many people are eating and drinking is literally killing them.

The next time you decide to sit at home and watch TV instead of doing 20 minutes of light exercise at the park or the gym, remember that lethargy has consequences.

The next time you tell yourself “I’ll quit smoking someday,” or “I’ll start exercising when I have more time,” please pause for a moment and ask yourself whether you are really being honest.

I do not wish to insinuate that we should try to be perfect all the time when it comes to health, diet, and exercise. Indeed, there is no way to get it right all the time, and the occasional piece of cake or glass of beer won’t derail your journey toward good health if you’re consistently and methodically taking good care of yourself. Rather, what I believe we should strive for is doing the best that we can on a daily basis, and if we need to make minor changes, to take small steps toward improvement every day.

There is a famous quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi that goes, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” I agree wholeheartedly, and would add that we must be the change we wish to see in ourselves. Because no one is more responsible for your own personal well-being than you. And no one can do as much for your own longevity as you can.

Arin Vahanian is Director of Marketing for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

The Case for Life Extension – Article by Arin Vahanian

The Case for Life Extension – Article by Arin Vahanian

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Arin Vahanian

“I wish I could live 10 to 20 years less,” said no one ever. In fact, I have never met anyone who didn’t want to live at least a few more years of a healthy, active life. Yet, incredibly, there appears to be some controversy about the topic of life extension. Specifically, there seems to be some pushback from critics, who have attacked life extension as “irresponsible” and “harmful,” cite overpopulation and resource constraints, and in turn paint doomsday scenarios that would occur if human beings were to live longer lives.

With this article, I hope to begin a discussion to eventually lay this controversy to rest, as well as assuage any concerns the general public may have about the growing life-extension movement. For the desire to live longer and healthier is not only natural to the human condition, but I believe it is one of the noblest goals for human beings to strive for.

There are many good reasons to support life extension, but here I shall provide a few reasons why, just to get the conversation started. Firstly, many people already support life extension. Anti-aging products as well as hormone replacement products and therapy generated about $50 billion of revenue in 2009 in the United States alone, according to the American Medical Association. If this isn’t an indication that people are very interested in life extension, I don’t know what is. While the efficacy of some such products and therapies has come into question, that in itself would be a good reason to develop this field so that more efficacious and better products could be developed. This would ensure that we adequately address the enormous demand for life-extension products and therapies.

Not only are many people already interested in life extension, but extending the human lifespan is something we have been working on for quite a while. In fact, the global average life expectancy has more than doubled since the year 1900. This necessarily raises the question,”Why should we stop now?” It seems illogical, unreasonable, and, in fact, inhumane to me to stop working on something so crucial – increasing life expectancy so that more people can have more of what is the most beautiful experience on Earth, the human experience. Therefore, why not dedicate more resources and funding to something that most people are already interested in, consider to be a huge priority in their lives, and which we have already been working on for a very long time?

Also, as I pointed out in a previous article on aging, there are practical reasons why we would want to support life extension. Making progress in life extension means each of us will have additional time with which to do things that are important to us. Imagine if you had an additional 10 to 20 young years of life. Think about all that could be accomplished during this time. The additional time you have in your life might help you come up with a cure for cancer, help eliminate poverty, or fulfill some other important accomplishment that humanity would benefit greatly from. As I mentioned in my article on aging, extending the human lifespan would result in us being able to work on other things that are important to the human race, thereby creating a virtuous cycle of improvement and progress. Imagine the number of world-changing ideas and products that never came to fruition because someone passed away. Let’s make sure that humanity is never robbed again of something it needs, just because of the untimely end of people who could have made a positive contribution.

In addition to logical and practical reasons why we should support life extension, it turns out that concerns about overpopulation and resource scarcity have been overblown. According to biologist Dr. Aubrey de Grey, life-extension therapy could postpone or eliminate menopause, thereby allowing women to space out their pregnancies over more years. What this would do is decrease the yearly population growth rate.

Further, according to Dr. Max More, CEO of Alcor, not to mention numerous other reputable sources, including The World Bank and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the worldwide population growth rate is slowing down and is projected to eventually stabilize and begin falling. Nowhere is this more apparent than in countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain, China, Russia, and even the United States, where birth rates are below the 2.1 live births per woman required to just maintain population equilibrium. Additionally, even countries such as India, which used to have a very high birth rate, have seen huge declines in birth rates in recent years.

In terms of resource scarcity, according to the World Food Programme, while it is true that an estimated 124 million people in 51 countries are facing food insecurity, this is due to reasons such as conflict and political instability, rather than food shortages. In fact, according to a study published in Environmental Science & Technology, the problem of malnourishment is a distribution problem, rather than a production one. Indeed, India actually has a food surplus, but wastes an extraordinary amount of food, leading to a large number of undernourished people. Therefore, the problem is a supply-chain and political problem, rather than a resource problem, and we are not running out of food, as some people have claimed.

Finally, according to the World Health Organization, worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. No matter where you might live, taking a quick glance around you will likely reveal that this is indeed the case. While there are a litany of causes of obesity, lack of food is not one of them. Thus, we actually have too much food around the world, rather than not enough. Indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations demonstrated, in a landmark study, that per capita food availability for the world as a whole has risen in recent decades, and the number of chronically undernourished people has been cut by more than 50 percent in just a few decades. Therefore, we have more than enough food to feed everyone.

The same exaggerated fears have been stoked about other resources, such as energy, water, and land, and all have been overcome or handled over the course of human history. It turns out that human beings have been remarkably successful at coming up with solutions to these challenges over the years, and I do not think that we will, all of a sudden, lose this resourcefulness, dedication, and ability to master our environment.

Naturally, over the last few decades, not to mention centuries, doomsday prognostications by people such as cleric and scholar Thomas Malthus, biologist Paul Ehrlich, and economist Stephen Leeb, have not come true, and in fact, in many cases, have been utterly debunked.

Finally, on a moral, ethical, and indeed, human level, it seems cruel to inhibit human beings to living a certain amount of time, and no more. To this end, I have a simple question for those who are opposed to life extension based on the idea that there is a predetermined amount of time that all humans are supposed to live.

Would you tell a parent being ravaged by stage 4 cancer or a sibling suffering from cystic fibrosis that they do not deserve to live any longer because their time is up and that this is the “natural order of things”? Everyone deserves to live a dignified, healthy, and fulfilling life, and it is cruel for us to appoint ourselves judge, jury, and executioner.

So I ask people who are vehemently against life extension, “Do you believe that we are qualified to decide how long others should live?” Further, if you support cancer treatment that would prolong the life of a loved one by a few months or few years, why would you not support treatment that would prolong their healthy life for a few more years?

Since the beginning of time, humans have always strived to improve their lot in life, to seek growth in many aspects of the human experience, and to overcome challenges and hardships. Just as it would be absurd for someone to say that they want to regress, devolve, and live a shorter life, it would be equally absurd for us to say we would not want to live longer, healthier lives. Thus, it is natural for humans to support life extension, if not for themselves, then at least for others who desire it, because to reject it would be equivalent to rejecting life, and rejecting the experience of being human.

Anyone who truly cherishes life and how valuable it is, should at least consider the vast number of possibilities that life extension would bring. Of course, it is up to each person to decide for themselves whether they would want to live healthier and longer lives, and we are not the decision-makers for everyone else. This is a personal decision that must be explored by each individual. I am confident that the more we communicate our message that life extension is natural as well as desirable for the development of human beings and the planet, the more people will be on board with something that is frankly very obvious: life extension is a noble cause, and one that is very much worth exploring.

Arin Vahanian is Director of Marketing for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Why Toyota Is a Transhumanist Company – Article by Arin Vahanian

Why Toyota Is a Transhumanist Company – Article by Arin Vahanian

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Arin Vahanian

When people think about the company that most embodies Transhumanism, Google certainly comes to mind. With subsidiaries such as its R&D facility Google X (dedicated to launching ambitious technologies that aim to make the world a better place), and its biotech company Calico (dedicated to combating aging and associated diseases), not to mention other projects it is involved in, Google seems to be well-poised to carry the Transhumanist torch.

However, one company that I believe has been flying under the radar in this regard, but also embodies Transhumanism, is Toyota. While it might not be the first organization many people think of when they think about Transhumanism, and while its products are not nearly as revolutionary as Google’s, it would be unfair to not also include Toyota among the firms most responsible for spreading the values of Transhumanism.

The main reason why I believe this to be the case is related to the Japanese art and science of continuous improvement, called Kaizen. As I wrote in my book Kaizen for Men, the philosophy of Kaizen assumes that our way of life, which includes our work life, social life, and home life, should be constantly improved. We do this by taking small steps toward improving processes, products, services, habits, and actions. In essence, the spirit of Kaizen is that there should be some sort of improvement every day.

There are many ways in which Toyota uses Kaizen, but here I shall specify a few ways the firm approaches continuous improvement, and then relate it to the philosophy of Transhumanism.

First, the Toyota Production System is dedicated not only to improving products and processes, but also to eliminating waste and inefficiencies in an organization. Just as Toyota uses PDCA, an improvement cycle methodology to solve problems found on the shop floor, and just as Toyota seeks to eliminate different types of waste in its manufacturing process (such as defect correction, inventory, and overproduction), Transhumanists seek to find ways every day to improve the human condition, and to eliminate waste and inefficiency from our lives. An example of this would be the Transhumanist pledge to improving the quality of life through increased funding for science and technology, as well as support for inventions such as bionic prostheses, which now allow people who previously lost limbs, to live more productive lives, and to better function as members of society.

Next, Toyota’s dedication to finding the root cause of problems (through tools such as the 5 Whys method and the Cause and Effect diagram), rather than just addressing the symptoms, is similar to the way Transhumanists are addressing the challenges brought forth by aging, cancer, and rare diseases. The hope is that by finding the root cause of these issues, as opposed to just prescribing medication and hoping for the best, that we can eradicate illnesses that have been plaguing humanity for centuries.

Further, at Toyota, the practice of Hansei, or self-reflection, involves acknowledging one’s own mistakes and pledging improvement. For instance, at Toyota, even if a task is completed successfully, teams hold a self-reflection meeting, whereby team members help identify failures experienced along the way and create a plan for future efforts. This insistence on acknowledging current limitations and stressing improvement in order to build a better future is exactly what Transhumanists have been dedicated to since the very founding of the movement.

Finally, Toyota is not just Transhumanist in the way that it builds products or helps its employees improve. It is also Transhumanist in the way that it communicates its values and markets its products. The slogan for Lexus, Toyota’s luxury line of automobiles, is “The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection.” What could be more Transhumanist than this? When most people think of Toyota, they think of high-quality, reliable, well-designed products sold at a reasonable price. For better or worse, the automobile has become a staple of modern living for many decades now, and few things seem as normal to us now as getting into a car and driving away to some destination, be it our workplace, a friend’s house, or a vacation destination.

Therefore, just as the automobile has become commonplace in our lives, and just as Toyota has become known as a reputable company releasing quality products that meet the needs of many people, so Transhumanism must become the most popular philosophy when it comes to improvement and self-actualization. Transhumanism isn’t a fringe movement, it’s the human movement.

After all, I imagine that almost all people would consider improvement to be quite positive, and would consider actualizing oneself to be one of the most rewarding and valuable goals in the human condition.

This is the promise of Transhumanism. Just as Toyota seeks to be better every day, and to release better products every day, so we must all decide to be better every day, and to seek continuous improvement. This is why I believe that Kaizen and Transhumanism are linked at the core. Because just as we must take steps every day toward releasing better products and services, we must work every day toward being better human beings and building a future our children would want to live in.

Arin Vahanian is Director of Marketing for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

 

 

The Case for Reversing Aging – Article by Arin Vahanian

The Case for Reversing Aging – Article by Arin Vahanian

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Arin Vahanian

As incredulous as it may seem, I have had numerous people ask me why I support research and funding for reversing the aging process.

The usual arguments against stopping or slowing aging are that there is some sort of natural process or natural order of things, and that human beings shouldn’t be “playing God.”

In this short article, I would like to present my personal views on aging and why I believe it is perfectly natural, and in fact, desirable, for human beings to want to overcome this limitation, or at least, slow it down.

We humans have a very peculiar relationship with aging and death. On the one hand, people spend rather large sums of money on products or services that help them look and feel younger and healthier. In essence, what these people are communicating through their spending habits is that they have a desire to slow down the aging process. Yet any talk of actually reversing the aging process is met with puzzled looks or even dismissal by the very same people. On the other hand, most people dread the condition of death but have resigned themselves to the idea that there is nothing we can do about it. So while we tend to believe that death is unavoidable, we somehow also think that it won’t happen to us for a while longer, and so we put these very important topics on the back burner and refuse to think further about them or consider how to overcome them.

My personal viewpoint is that nothing gets solved without there being some sort of action toward solving it. Problems do not normally resolve themselves.

To those who ask why we should spend money, time, and effort on reversing aging, I shall present three reasons why I believe it is beneficial for us to do so.

Firstly, human beings have always wanted to improve, to grow, and to overcome hardships and challenges. Saying that there is some natural order of things is not a valid argument against reversing the aging process.

Imagine if we had, in the past, accepted a shortened lifespan as the natural order of things. It’s good that we didn’t, because global average life expectancy has more than doubled since the year 1900.

Imagine if we had, in the past, accepted a chaotic, uncomfortable, and dangerous life as the natural order of things. It’s good that we didn’t, because we came up with inventions such as electricity, the Internet, the X-ray, indoor plumbing, heating, and so forth.

Imagine if we had, in the past, accepted our young sons and daughters having their precious lives cut short by illness as the natural order of things. It’s good that we didn’t, because we now have cures for dysentery, malaria, and tuberculosis.

The fact is that the human condition involves us progressing, overcoming limitations, and being better human beings. Hence, it is natural for human beings to want to overcome undesirable situations, and I would imagine that most people would state that poverty, disease, and aging are undesirable.  

Next, reversing the process of aging will give each one of us additional time that we need in order to accomplish other lofty goals. Imagine if you had an additional 10 or 20 young years of life. How much more could you accomplish during that time? We could spend more time on goals such as eliminating poverty, coming up with a cure for cancer, working toward world peace, and so forth. I find it hard to imagine that someone could argue against having more time in life to work on their personal purpose, vision, and mission. Therefore, reversing the process of aging would result in us being able to work on other things that are important to the human race, thereby creating a virtuous cycle of improvement and progress.

Finally, perhaps the most beautiful aspect of the human condition is having a human experience. The human experience includes things such as building relationships with other people, enjoying the splendors of a warm summer afternoon with friends or family, and partaking in any number of stimulating and rewarding activities, such as reading, exercising, and doing charity work.

To those of you who are in a romantic relationship, I ask, wouldn’t you want more time and more opportunities to be with your spouse or partner? Imagine never hearing your partner whisper sweetly in your ear again, or forever losing the overwhelming pleasure of making love to them, or no longer experiencing the rewarding growth you’ve experienced with them since you became a couple.

To those of you who are parents, I ask, wouldn’t you want to ensure that your children live long, happy, and productive lives? Imagine if your son or daughter could have more time and more opportunities to become the person who will finally find a cure for depression, or start a movement that helps brings us closer to world peace, or become a source of inspiration for many people around the world through starting an organization, but they won’t, because we have accepted a “natural order of things.”

To those of you who are actively involved in an ambitious project or important cause that means a lot to you, I ask, wouldn’t you want more time and more energy to work on these things that are meaningful to you? Imagine never being able to work on fulfilling your purpose or vision in life.

There are many more reasons why I believe we should focus on reversing aging, but the three reasons above are a good starting point for us to more seriously consider this most important of issues.

Let’s even assume for a moment that implausible scenarios such as reincarnation and life after death are real. Why wouldn’t we want to live this current life better? I do not believe it is mutually exclusive to believe in life after death and also want to live our current lives better. Throwing up our hands in defeat and accepting things as they currently are does not lead to progress and growth; it leads to atrophy.  

So before we give up the good fight and resign ourselves to an old and decrepit future, we must ask ourselves what we are living for.

If I had to give just one reason for wanting to reverse aging, it would be pretty simple: I love life too damn much.

What’s your reason?

Arin Vahanian is Director of Marketing for the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Our Moral Obligation to Cure Aging – Aubrey de Grey Interviewed by Why? Radio

Our Moral Obligation to Cure Aging – Aubrey de Grey Interviewed by Why? Radio

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Dr. Aubrey de Grey

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Dr. Aubrey de Grey in this interview explains and advocates for curing of aging, i.e., rejuvenation of the old to become youthful; preventing the youth from being old biologically, and other related points.

Aubrey de Grey is the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s Anti-Aging Advisor. He is a biomedical gerontologist based in Cambridge, UK and Mountain View, California, USA, and is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California-based 501(c)(3) charity dedicated to combating the aging process. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, the world’s highest-impact peer-reviewed journal focused on intervention in aging.

This interview was conducted by Why? Radio, a program of the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life. You can also find it here.