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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transhumanism: The Important Gray Area Between the Madness of the Two-Party System in America – Article by C. H. Antony

July 3, 2020 C. H. Antony Comments 2 comments

logo_bg C. H. Antony

What’s missing from politics today? Some will leap to simple responses like “integrity”, “honesty”, “education”. But I say it’s worse than all that. However, I will not spend paragraphs going into the various conspiracies and fear-mongering – that is behavior more fitting for the main two political parties. What I would like to accomplish here is to propose the values and intentions of the United States Transhumanist Party (USTP) as solutions.

To begin, we must examine the current most pressing issue, that of human rights. As you read this, many thousands have taken to the streets in every major city and 18 countries around the world to scream at their governments that enough is enough – that they will not be duped into economic caste systems, race wars, or trafficking schemes. Whether the battle cry is “Black Lives Matter” or whether it is a cry against manufactured poverty, or a call to defund the police and reallocate resources toward fundamental solutions over enforcement, the message is clear: humanity is ready to move on. Here at the USTP, we have assembled a comprehensive Platform and identified areas for reform such as sentient rights, improved economic policy, medical technology and accessibility, and, of course, the imperative to recognize death as a limitation to overcome. While those are just some examples of the body of work offered by the USTP, I believe they are the most important foundations, as from them, all other potential improvements for the human condition are possible.

We Transhumanists are the gray area in between the madness that is the two-party system in America. We unfortunately inhabit the very system we were warned about in our earliest days as a country. We offer rational and compassionate alternatives to the systems Americans have been repeatedly manipulated into accepting. Where other parties seek to polarize the citizenry, we seek to unite it with scientific and technological solutions to the issues that have us at each other’s throats. With respect to urgency, I will only illustrate existing or easily obtainable technologies here. Consider, for example, the abortion issue. To us, it is no issue at all, as there already exist ample resources for preventing unintended pregnancy. The education and social studies are there to better inform young people of the consequences of irresponsible behavior. We are steady in our call that life is the most important argument and support those approaches which lengthen the lives and improve the health of all humankind, regardless of any differences. If a few more million dollars were devoted to the works of visionaries like Aubrey de Grey, aging and disease could be eradicated in a few short years. With some more million dollars, we could eliminate the arguments regarding abortion by making the practice obsolete with technologies such as indefinite stasis and ectogenesis. Such advances would render divisive moral arguments moot.

The incorporation of artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) assistance and oversight into governance and healthcare could virtually eliminate malpractice and marginal qualification in both fields. Justice can be free of bias with ANI incorporated into the process; lawyers and judges and even jurors can be in complete understanding of the law and precedents in question. This could shrink the margin for abuse and error to nearly null in real time. With medical assistance ANI, doctors can access the diagnostic power of the sum total of human medical knowledge instantaneously, never leaving a patient undiagnosed or misdiagnosed until it’s too late to save that individual. In matters where interaction is the essential element, such as international relations, local law enforcement, or conveying your symptoms to your doctor, language and communication need no longer be a divider riddled with misunderstanding and lost cultural context. Imagine how these three simple applications of technology could change the fabric of society, and it is ready and applicable right now. Right now, humans are fighting in the streets for equal justice, equal access, and equal treatment; the wise application of artificial intelligence systems can deliver on those demands and act as a safeguard against those that currently engage in the manipulation of those systems or underperform and cost lives. How many loved ones are in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, but hadn’t the resources to fight the argument the state was infinitely capable of delivering? How many loved ones are dead because the doctors in the local hospital were either prevented from accessing other techniques or unaware of them? How many people are dead under the knee or boot of a government that has no meaningful oversight or accountability to the people it was constructed to serve?

We at the USTP believe that human suffering must end, but moreover, it can end if we begin actively applying the advancements we have right now. This isn’t some far-flung future fiction we’d all like to see someday; indeed, “someday” for much of this was ten years ago. So while we are out there advocating for rights and justice, let’s begin to embrace the tools that can ensure the equal application and universally competent execution of these goals. Let us be the tool users that we’ve evolved to be.

C. H. Antony is Vice-Secretary of the United States Transhumanist Party.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Condemns Racism, Violence, and Police Brutality

June 12, 2020 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Conversation between U.S. Transhumanist Party founder Zoltan Istvan and U.S. Transhumanist Party member and longtime supporter Maitreya One, CEO of the Superlongevity Institute – featured in the forthcoming documentary “Immortality or Bust” by Daniel Sollinger:

Othering: The Ultimate Challenge of Sentient Life – Article by Pavel Ilin

April 28, 2020 Pavel Ilin Comments 0 Comment

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Pavel Ilin

We come to the point in history when compassion and belonging become not only a necessary part of building inclusive culture, but the practices which determine the survival of sentient life as we know it.

Most of us are locked in our local tribes – national, ideological, corporate, and so on. Living in different tribes is a way to establish one’s own subjectivity and identity. Most of the time we are part of the different tribes at the same time. The problem comes when we are not engaged in cross-tribal dialog and consider members of other tribes as “Other”. That’s how othering happens.

Most commonly, othering expresses the boundaries between “we” and “them”. “We” belong; “they” are Other and cannot belong. Those who are “them” can be described in the negative language of disgust.

When people say “they are barbarians”, they deny the right of the other to belong. When Ancient Greeks called slaves “speaking tools”, or they allowed only males to vote, they denied the others’ humanity and right to belong. When Romans expand their empire, they called other nations they conquered barbarians, unless they adapted the Romans’ culture – and by doing so the Romans othered these peoples. We can go on and on. The history of sentient life as we know it is full of othering.

When we deny the opportunity for the other to belong, then the other is not a person anymore in our eyes. You are allowed to do things to an “Other”, which would be unthinkable to do to one of “Us”. It’s very easy to deny access to resources, deny rights, deny compassion, and deny life to the “Other”. Taking away life is an extreme form of othering.

Personal-Level Othering

On the personal level othering happens very often. Susan Fiske from Princeton University shows in her “Stereotype content model” how othering works on neurological level. Studies show that when we see other people, there is a part of our brain that lights up when we see another human being. It’s an interesting authentication mechanism which allows us to identify our own species. But when we see, for example, homeless people, or undocumented immigrants and refugees, this part of the brain doesn’t light up. Instead, there lights up a part of the brain responsible for fear and disgust.

Studies also show that if we put different people in situations when they have to work together to achieve a common goal, othering tends to diminish. When people engage in dialog, when people communicate and coordinate, people start to see each other, and neural activity gets changed. The person who previously provoked a fear response becomes a human again.

The moral here is that in order to overcome othering on a personal level, we should collaborate with as many people as we can.

Structural-Level Othering

But it’s not enough to deal with othering on a personal level. We live in social structures which determine our behavior and our identity.

For example, the US government calls all immigrants “Alien”. And by doing that on a structural level, the government said to the immigrants that “you do not belong”.

When police profile people based on how they look, it’s othering on a structural level.

When we allow such a huge level of income inequality, it’s a structural problem. The whole system of resource distribution is organized in a way that it others the poor and favors the rich.

What to do with structural othering? Create an inclusive structure which allows people to belong. It sounds easier than it is, but this way we can upgrade our culture.

Implementing basic income, removing immigration barriers, providing access to educational resources to all are all important steps. It is also vital to create organizations within which belonging is cultivated. The USTP is a great example of such an organization. Everyone is welcome to participate regardless of residence, income level, and a variety of other circumstances or attributes. You are welcome in the USTP even if you are not human or not an organic-based form of sentient life.

The Future

Why is it important to talk about othering in the context of the building of transhumanists’ future?

In context of the COVID-19 situation, it’s become very clear that we can’t hide inside our small narratives. It’s impossible to stay away from the pandemic situation. In order to get over this pandemic with minimal loss of human lives, we have to work together. It’s not going to be the last pandemic, and in order to prepare for future threats, we have to cooperate more closely. A virus is only one of the potential existential threats. What about climate change, bio-terrorism, asteroids, and destructive AI? We have to work together to survive!

As transhumanists we should prepare ourselves to face the “other” and to become “other” in certain situations as well. I think we need to create structures which can be inclusive not only for humans but for all sentient beings.

Other Modified Beings

There are millions of people around the world with artificial body parts and this number will keep growing. How will the culture react when organization goes from regaining physical ability to enhancing ability? We can face creating a new other and potentially new discrimination.

Uplifted Animals

Recognizing that animals are living beings with feelings and thoughts is pretty new phenomenon. And mostly right now animals are considered commodities. We will have to have a very difficult dialog about humans behavior with animals uplifted to human-level intelligence.

Other AI Entities

While we create Artificial Intelligence, we should remember that creating tech slaves is not going to end anywhere good. We should create colleagues with whom we are going to work to build a transhumanist future. We might even become artificially intelligent forms of life ourselves.

Conclusion

But race is the child of racism, not the father. – Ta-Nehisi Coates

I believe that othering is an existential issue. If we keep dividing people and other beings into “us” and “them”, then we will keep facing discrimination, conflicts, and wars. This is extremely concerning for me because we have now a lot of technological power at our disposal, and it keeps growing – and with great power comes great responsibility. What I mean is that we can easily destroy our planet by just pressing the nuclear button. And if we consider people in other countries or in other social groups as Others, if they are outside the circle of our concern, then it’s very easy to deny help and start wars.

We have built virtual walls between us, and I think it’s time to tear them down by reclaiming and living and practicing belonging where no beings and lives are outside of the circle of concern.

Pavel Ilin is the Secretary of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Jonathan Mark Schattke Candidate Position Paper

August 19, 2019 Jonathan Mark Schattke Comments 0 Comment

Jonathan Mark Schattke

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party (USTP) publishes this position paper by one of our Presidential primary candidates, Jonathan Mark Schattke (Jon Schattke) in an informational capacity, to enable our readers to consider specific policy analyses germane to our member-adopted documents, such as the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, Version 3.0, and the USTP Platform. The USTP has not yet endorsed any Presidential candidate, as such endorsement will occur as a consequence of the forthcoming Electronic Primary in late September 2019. However, in the meantime, the USTP strives to provide accurate information about our candidates’ viewpoints and any content that constitutes a thoughtful analysis of the USTP’s existing documents.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party, August 18, 2019

“Free your immortality” is not just a slogan, it is a guide to achieving what every transhumanist wants – the transcendence of current limits on mental ability and physical bodies.

I am a futurist and firm believer in technology’s power to advance life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Consistency with this means that each being must have ownership of themself, and of their own efforts, and the fruits thereof. Nothing provided by someone else’s labor or capital can therefore be compelled of them to fulfill someone else’s “right.” All a “right” must guarantee is that government will not interfere with the pursuit of the good or service.

I agree with the Transhumanist Bill of Rights. I would like to clarify a couple points.

Sapience must be able to be measured. To qualify for protection, the candidate must ask for it. Nascent sapients, such as children, should be protected also, from the point that their growth to sapience is clearly started. Inactive sapients should be protected if there is a reasonable expectation of reactivation and they have not expressly desired not to be reactivated – “death” should not be treated as an end unless the person has specifically stated they wish to die. This does not mean that an inactive sapient’s property should be under some sort of third-party stewardship; their assets should be put in revocable trust and their heirs appointed trustees.

“Article VII. All sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care. ” This must not be construed to include a system of third party payer health care; such systems decrease personal cost to zero, increase demand to infinity, and thus introduce rationing by the third party via either wait times or “need assessment.” This is a path to destruction and needless death. Compound this with the problem of calculation of costs in a full government program, and you have societal expense way out of line with societal benefit. “Universal” must merely mean than anyone has the ability to bargain for the service in a free market.

Article XVIII would literally bankrupt any group trying to implement it through government. I believe the Salvation Army model, perhaps with a bit more privacy, would be an effective means – if people need housing and food, have hostels funded by donation and endowments which provide it. This is both more efficient and more just than taxing and redistribution programs.

Regarding Article XIX I believe the “other resources” clause is one I can support. I fully support providing housing and food for those who choose to receive it. However, your well-being may be cared for; your dignity is your own problem. Do not expect dignity while living off the generosity of others.

Now, on to the Platform of the Transhumanist Party. By and large, I am wholeheartedly behind all sections which support individual self-ownership and the extension of this to all sapients.

A few notes on my governance philosophy are in order. I believe strongly that bureaucratic methods of providing goods or services must fail, because they do not have clear demand signals, they do not have any motivation for efficiency, and they do not have accountability. Furthermore, a government is based on force, and so must limit its actions to those things where the force is defensive; using taxes or even tariffs (forced payments) to fund things will morally corrupt even the most wholesome idea. I believe that many current government agencies could and should be spun off into voluntary funded charitable organizations.

I find Section XL particularly poignant considering the current state of affairs in social media. But, hearkening back to individual liberty, we must not solve big tech censorship by stealing their capital or using force to get them to provide services they do not want to. The solution lies in the market-driven alternatives. However, those companies with a government monopoly over any portion of technology should lose their protection immediately should they discriminate on political topics.

Section XXI can be achieved by privatizing the police force, and removing all strictures for victimless violations. If no one is harmed, then it makes no sense to introduce deadly force into the mix (an example is seat-belt laws – people have been killed because of seat belt stops – such actions are literally insane).

Section XXXIV is a must. I have previously advocated for third-party archiving of all government employees’ actions at all times they are on the clock. Any action they take which does not have this video record must be treated as private, and not protected from legal or criminal prosecution. Shoot a person with your camera off, and face murder charges like any other private citizen.

Section IV might be well-intentioned but short-sighted. It should be noted that no nuclear powers have ever engaged in direct war (the most intense conflict between Nuclear Powers to date being the Kashmir conflict), and the acquisition of nuclear weapons has deterred open war against states, most notably the cessation of Arab hostilities against Israel in the 1970s after they acquired nuclear technology and it became known. It might, therefore, be best for all stable states to become nuclear powers.

Section XII is great – until you commit to third-party paying from force. I believe enough people are behind higher education that a privatized Department of Education would be able to fund grants, loans or college-level donated class time for those who are needy and deserving.

Section XXVII, on abolishing the Electoral College, might be a mistake, but it is obvious that the system as provided is failing in some aspects. I, however, fear the tyranny of the ballot box and unbridled democracy.

Section XXXVI states that “the United States Transhumanist Party advocates a flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold.” This can clearly bee seen as a fee for service, the service being having existence as a limited liability corporation.

Section LXXIII would seem to be an infringement of the Second Amendment as written. And the temptation of a government with an active armed rebellion to trace the weapon locations of suspected belligerents would be enormous, and we have seen that constitutional and statutory limits on powers mean nothing to governments, especially when at war.

Jon Schattke is one of the candidates for the office of President of the United States, competing for the USTP’s endorsement in the 2019 Electronic Primary.

Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Results of Vote and Version 3.0

December 13, 2018 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The U.S. Transhumanist Party conducted its tenth vote of the members on December 2 through December 9, 2018. Official ballot options can be found here.

Detailed results of the voting have been tabulated here. Where more than two options existed, the winning result was selected based on the ranked-preference method with instant runoffs.

As a result, Version 3.0 of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights was compiled on the basis of the members’ decisions. Version 3.0 augments and supersedes Version 2.0, while retaining the original intent of Version 2.0.

The resulting Version 3.0 of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights is permanently hosted here. Its text is also reproduced below.

Note: It is important to keep in mind that the Transhumanist Bill of Rights is not a policy platform but rather a member-driven expression of ideals for a transhumanist society. No individual is bound to it (indeed, its new Article I states this explicitly), it is not static, and it is subject to further amendments if/when member recommendations arise and meet with significant demand. Anyone who sees this version can always give feedback on the U.S. Transhumanist Party website (including on this thread) and/or Facebook page. The official U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform can be found here.

Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0

Version 1.0 written by Zoltan Istvan – Delivered to the U.S. Capitol on December 14, 2015

Version 2.0 developed by members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party – Adopted via Electronic Vote on December 25-31, 2016 – Integrated from Voting Preferences on January 4, 2017

Version 3.0 developed by members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party – Adopted via Electronic Vote on December 2-9, 2018 – Integrated from Voting Preferences on December 12, 2018

[NOTE: The Transhumanist Bill of Rights is not static and is open to further amendments via future votes of U.S. Transhumanist Party members. To suggest a specific amendment, you may make a post on this thread or e-mail Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, here. Proposed amendments that receive sufficient member demand will be considered for inclusion on future ballots.]

Preamble

Whereas science and technology are now radically changing human beings and may also create future forms of advanced sapient and sentient life, transhumanists establish this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS to help guide and enact sensible policies in the pursuit of life, liberty, security of person, and happiness.

As used in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS, the term “sentient entities” encompasses:
(i) Human beings, including genetically modified humans;
(ii) Cyborgs;
(iii) Digital intelligences;
(iv) Intellectually enhanced, previously non-sapient animals;
(v) Any species of plant or animal which has been enhanced to possess the capacity for intelligent thought; and
(vi) Other advanced sapient life forms.

Sentient entities are defined by information-processing capacity such that this term should not apply to non-self-aware lifeforms, like plants and slime molds. Biological processing substrates are referred to as using an “analogue intelligence”, whereas purely electronic processing substrates are referred to as “digital intelligence”, and processing substrates that utilize quantum effects would be considered “quantum intelligence”.

Sentience is ranked as Level 5 information integration according to the following criteria:

Level 0 – No information integration: Inanimate objects; objects that do not modify themselves in response to interaction – e.g., rocks, mountains.

Level 1 – Non-zero information integration: Sensors – anything that is able to sense its environment – e.g., photo-diode sense organs, eyes, skin.

Level 2 – Information manipulation: Systems that include feedback that is non-adaptive or minimally adaptive – e.g., plants, basic algorithms, the system that interprets the output from a photo-diode to determine its on/off state (a photo diode itself cannot detect its own state). Level 2 capabilities include the following:

Expression of emotion;
Expression of sensory pleasure;
Taste aversion.

Level 3 – Information integration – Awareness: Systems that include adaptive feedback, can dynamically generate classification – e.g., deep-learning AI, chickens, animals that are able to react to their environment, have a model of their perception but not the world. This level describes animals acting on instinct and unable to classify other animals into more types than “predator”, “prey”, or “possible mate”. Level 3 capabilities include the following:

Navigational detouring (which requires an being to pursue a series of non-rewarding intermediate goals in order to obtain an ultimate reward); Examples: documentation of detouring in jumping spiders (Jackson and Wilcox 1998), motivational trade-off behavior in hermit crabs (Elwood and Appel 2009);
Emotional fever (an increase in body temperature in response to a supposedly stressful situation — gentle handling, as operationalized in Cabanac’s experiments).

Level 4 – Awareness + World model: Systems that have a modeling system complex enough to create a world model: a sense of other, without a sense of self – e.g., dogs. Level 4 capabilities include static behaviors and rudimentary learned behavior.

Level 5 – Awareness + World model + Primarily subconscious self model = Sapient or Lucid: Lucidity means to be meta-aware – that is, to be aware of one’s own awareness, aware of abstractions, aware of one’s self, and therefore able to actively analyze each of these phenomena. If a given animal is meta-aware to any extent, it can therefore make lucid decisions. Level 5 capabilities include the following:

The “sense of self”;
Complex learned behavior;
Ability to predict the future emotional states of the self (to some degree);
The ability to make motivational tradeoffs.

Level 6 – Awareness + World model + Dynamic self model + Effective control of subconscious: The dynamic sense of self can expand from “the small self” (directed consciousness) to the big self (“social group dynamics”). The “self” can include features that cross barriers between biological and non-biological – e.g., features resulting from cybernetic additions, like smartphones.

Level 7 – Global awareness – Hybrid biological-digital awareness = Singleton: Complex algorithms and/or networks of algorithms that have capacity for multiple parallel simulations of multiple world models, enabling cross-domain analysis and novel temporary model generation. This level includes an ability to contain a vastly larger amount of biases, many paradoxically held. Perspectives are maintained in separate modules, which are able to dynamically switch between identifying with the local module of awareness/perspective or the global awareness/perspective. Level 7 capabilities involve the same type of dynamic that exists between the subconscious and directed consciousness, but massively parallelized, beyond biological capacities.

Article I. All sentient entities are hereby entitled to pursue any and all rights within this document to the degree that they deem desirable – including not at all. All sentient entities are entitled, to the extent of their individual decisions, to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, social, or planetary origin, property, birth (including manner of birth), biological or non-biological origins, or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional, or international status of the country or territory to which a sentient entity belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing, or under any other limitation of sovereignty. In the exercise of their rights and freedoms, all sentient entities shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order, and the general welfare in a democratic society, which may not undermine the peaceful prerogatives of any individual sentient entity. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS.

Article II. The enumeration in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage any other rights retained by sentient entities.

Article III. All sentient entities shall be granted equal and total access to any universal rights to life. All sentient entities are created free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood (without necessitating any particular gender or implying any particular biological or non-biological origin or composition).

Article IV. Sentient entities are entitled to universal rights of ending involuntary suffering, making personhood improvements, and achieving an indefinite lifespan via science and technology. The right of ending involuntary suffering does not refer to euthanasia but rather to the application of technology to eliminate involuntary suffering in still-living beings, while enabling their lives to continue with improved quality and length.

Article V. No coercive legal restrictions should exist to bar access to life extension and life expansion for all sentient entities. Life expansion includes life extension, sensory improvements, and other technologically driven improvements of the human condition that might be achieved in the future.

Article VI. Involuntary aging shall be classified as a disease. All nations and their governments will actively seek to dramatically extend the lives and improve the health of their citizens by offering them scientific and medical technologies to overcome involuntary aging.

Article VII. All sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care. A system of universal health care does not necessitate any particular means, policy framework, source, or method of payment for delivering health care. A system of universal health care may be provided privately, by governments, or by some combination thereof, as long as, in practice, health care is abundant, inexpensive, accessible, and effective in curing diseases, healing injuries, and lengthening lifespans.

Article VIII. Sentient entities are entitled to the freedom to conduct research, experiment, and explore life, science, technology, medicine, and extraterrestrial realms to overcome biological limitations of humanity. Such experimentation will not be carried out on any sapient being, without that being’s informed consent. Sentient entities are also entitled to the freedom to create cybernetic artificial organs, bio-mechatronic parts, genetic modifications, systems, technologies, and enhancements to extend lifespan, eradicate illness, and improve all sentient life forms. Any such creations that demonstrate sapience cannot be considered property and are protected by the rights presented herein.

Article IX. Legal safeguards should be established to protect individual free choice in pursuing peaceful, consensual life-extension science, health improvements, body modification, and morphological enhancement. While all individuals should be free to formulate their independent opinions regarding the aforementioned pursuits, no hostile cultural, ethnic, or religious perspectives should be entitled to apply the force of law to erode the safeguards protecting peaceful, voluntary measures intended to maximize the number of life hours citizens possess.

Article X. Sentient entities agree to uphold morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence whatever one wants so long as it does not harm others.

This right includes the prerogative for a sentient intelligence to set forth in advance provisions for how to handle its physical manifestation, should that intelligence enter into a vegetative, unconscious, or similarly inactive state, notwithstanding any legal definition of death. For instance, a cryonics patient has the right to determine in advance that the patient’s body shall be cryopreserved and kept under specified conditions, in spite of any legal definition of death that might apply to that patient under cryopreservation.

Morphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics, including as yet undefined subcategorizations that may arise as sapience evolves.

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

Article XI. An altered, augmented, cybernetic, transgenic, anthropomorphic, or avatar sentient entity, whether derived from or edited by science, comprised of or conjoined with technology, has the right to exist, form, and join the neo-civilization.

Article XII. All sentient entities are entitled to reproductive freedom, including through novel means such as the creation of mind clones, monoparent children, or benevolent artificial general intelligence. All sentient entities of full age and competency, without any limitation due to race, nationality, religion, or origin, have the right to marry and found a family or to found a family as single heads of household. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage, and at its dissolution. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. All families, including families formed through novel means, are entitled to protection by society and the State. All sentient entities also have the right to prevent unauthorized reproduction of themselves in both a physical and a digital context. Privacy and security legislation should be enacted to prevent any individual’s DNA, data, or other information from being stolen and duplicated without that individual’s authorization.

Article XIII. No sentient entity shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his, her, or its privacy, family, home, or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his, her, or its honor and reputation. Every sentient entity has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. All sentient entities have privacy rights to personal data, genetic material, digital, biographic, physical, and intellectual enhancements, and consciousness. Despite the differences between physical and virtual worlds, equal protections for privacy should apply to both physical and digital environments. Any data, such as footage from a public security camera, archived without the consent of the person(s) about whom the data were gathered and subject to legal retention, shall be removed after a period of seven (7) years, unless otherwise requested by said person(s).

Article XIV. No sentient entity shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Sousveillance laws should be enacted to ensure that all members of peaceful communities feel safe, to achieve governmental transparency, and to provide counter-balances to any surveillance state. For instance, law-enforcement officials, when interacting with the public, should be required to wear body cameras or similar devices continuously monitoring their activities.

Article XV. All sentient entities, with the exception only of those in legal detention, have the right to private internet access without such access being prohibited or circumvented by either private corporations or governmental bureaucracy.

Article XVI. All sentient entities are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All sentient entities are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS and against any incitement to such discrimination.All sentient entities should be protected from discrimination based on their physical form in the context of business transactions and law enforcement.

Article XVII. All sentient entities have the right to life, liberty and security of person. All sentient entities have the right to defend themselves from attack, in both physical and virtual worlds.

Article XVIII. Societies of the present and future should afford all sentient entities sufficient basic access to wealth and resources to sustain the basic requirements of existence in a civilized society and function as the foundation for pursuits of self-improvement. This includes the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one’s family, including food or other necessary sources of energy, clothing, housing or other appropriate shelter, medical care or other necessary physical maintenance, necessary social services, and the right of security in the event of involuntary unemployment, sickness, disability, loss of family support, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond the sentient entity’s control. Present and future societies should ensure that their members will not live in poverty solely for being born to the wrong parents. All children and other recently created sentient entities, irrespective of the manner or circumstances of their creation, shall enjoy the same social protection. Each sentient entity, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social, and cultural rights indispensable for his, her, or its dignity and the free development of his, her, or its personality.

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

Article XX. Present and future societies should provide education systems accessible and available to all in pursuit of factual knowledge to increase intellectual acuity; promote critical thinking and logic; foster creativity; form an enlightened collective; attain health; secure the bounty of liberty for all sentient entities for our posterity; and forge new ideas, meanings, and values. All sentient entities have the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available, and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. Education shall be directed to the full development of the sentient entity’s personality and to the strengthening of respect for all sentient entities’ rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance, and friendship among all nations, racial, religious, and other sentient groups – whether biological, non-biological, or a combination thereof – and shall further the maintenance of peace. Parents and other creators of sentient entities have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children or other recently created sentient entities which have not yet developed sufficient maturity to select their own education.

Article XXI. All sentient entities are entitled to join their psyches to a collective noosphere in an effort to preserve self-consciousness in perpetuity. The noosphere is the sphere of human thought and includes, but is not limited to, intellectual systems in the realm of law, education, philosophy, technology, art, culture, and industry. All sentient entities have the right to participate in the noosphere using any level of technology that is conducive to constructive participation.

Article XXII. Sentient entities will take every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risks, including those of rogue artificial intelligence, asteroids, plagues, weapons of mass destruction, bioterrorism, war, and global warming, among others.

Article XXIII. All nations and their governments will take all reasonable measures to embrace and fund space travel, not only for the spirit of adventure and to gain knowledge by exploring the universe, but as an ultimate safeguard to its citizens and transhumanity should planet Earth become uninhabitable or be destroyed.

Article XXIV. Transhumanists stand opposed to the post-truth culture of deception. All governments should be required to make decisions and communicate information rationally and in accordance with facts. Lying for political gain or intentionally fomenting irrational fears among the general public should entail heavy political penalties for the officials who engage in such behaviors.

Article XXV. No sentient entity shall be held in slavery or involuntary servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article XXVI. No sentient entity shall be subjected to torture or to treatment or punishment that is cruel, degrading, inhuman, or otherwise unworthy of sentience or sapience.

Article XXVII. Each sentient entity has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article XXVIII. All individual sentient entities have the right to an effective remedy by the competent local, national, international, or interplanetary tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted them by the constitution, by law, and/or by this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS.

Article XXIX. All individual sentient entities are entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of their individual rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against them.

Article XXX. All individual sentient entities charged with a penal offence have the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which they individually have had all the guarantees necessary for their defense. No sentient entity shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article XXXI. All sentient entities have the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Each individual sentient entity has the right to leave any country, including his, her, or its own, and to return to his, her, or its country.

Article XXXII. All sentient entities have the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS.

Article XXXIII. All sentient entities have the right to a nationality. No sentient entity shall be arbitrarily deprived of his, her, or its nationality nor denied the right to change his, her, or its nationality.

Article XXXIV. All sentient entities have the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his, her, or its property.

Article XXXV. All sentient entities have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change one’s religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest one’s religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. This right also includes freedom not to have a religion and to criticize or refuse to engage in any religious practice or belief without adverse legal consequences.

Article XXXVI. All sentient entities have the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article XXXVII. All sentient entities have the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. No sentient entity may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article XXXVIII. All sentient entities have the right to take part in the government of their countries, directly or through freely chosen representatives. All sentient entities have the right of equal access to public service in their countries. The will of the constituent sentient entities shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage of sentient entities and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article XXXIX. All sentient entities have the right to work, to free choice of employment, and to just and favorable conditions of work, as long as employment is offered or considered economically necessary in the sentient entity’s proximate society and contemporary epoch. All sentient entities who choose to work have the right to equal pay for equal work. All sentient entities who choose to work have the right to just and favorable remuneration, ensuring for themselves and their families an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection, such as a universal basic income. All sentient entities have the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of their interests; however, no sentient entity may be compelled to join a trade union as a condition of employment.

Article XL. All sentient entities have the right to rest and leisure commensurate with the physical requirements of those sentient entities for maintaining optimal physical and mental health, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay in societies where paid employment is considered economically necessary.

Article XLI. All sentient entities have the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts, and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. All sentient entities have the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or artistic production of which they are the authors.

Article XLII. All sentient entities are entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS can be fully realized.

Article XLIII. Nothing in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS may be interpreted as implying for any State, group, or sentient entity any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Official Ballot Options for Transhumanist Bill of Rights, Version 3.0 – Voting Period of December 2-8, 2018

December 1, 2018 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 3 comments

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The 7-day electronic voting period on the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, Version 3.0, will occur from 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on December 2, 2018, to 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on December 9, 2018. All members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party who have applied before 12:01 a.m. on December 2, 2018, will be eligible to vote, as long as they have expressed agreement with the three Core Ideals of the Transhumanist Party 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 one hour 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 the second week of December 2018, with the intent to announce the results approximately 7 days after all votes have been submitted.

NOTE: The titles of the questions and potential Articles are descriptive and informational only and will not appear in the final adopted Transhumanist Bill of Rights, Version 3.0. They are intended as concise guides to the subject matter of the questions and potential Articles. Likewise, the numbers or letters assigned to Articles within this ballot may or may not reflect the numbering in the final adopted Transhumanist Bill of Rights, which will depend on which Articles 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 Transhumanist Bill of Rights should incorporate any given proposal.

Voter Identification

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.

What is your 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.

Navigate the Options

Proposed Clarifying Amendments

Amendment TBR-IV. Clarification Regarding the Right to End Involuntary Suffering
Amendment TBR-VII. Clarification Regarding Universal Healthcare
Amendment TBR-XIX. Expansion of the Context for Universal Basic Income
Amendment TBR-XXI. Additional Information Regarding the Noosphere

Proposed Amendments to Integrate the Provisions of the United Nations Universal Declarations of Human Rights (“UN Declaration”) Directly into the Transhumanist Bill of Rights

Proposed Clarifying Amendments

Amendment TBR-IV. Clarification Regarding the Right to End Involuntary Suffering

Shall Article IV be amended to add the following statement at the end?

“The right of ending involuntary suffering does not refer to euthanasia but rather to the application of technology to eliminate involuntary suffering in still-living beings, while enabling their lives to continue with improved quality and length.”

If this proposal is passed, the resulting Article IV will read as follows:

“Sentient entities are entitled to universal rights of ending involuntary suffering, making personhood improvements, and achieving an indefinite lifespan via science and technology. The right of ending involuntary suffering does not refer to euthanasia but rather to the application of technology to eliminate involuntary suffering in still-living beings, while enabling their lives to continue with improved quality and length.”

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Amendment TBR-VII. Clarification Regarding Universal Healthcare

Rank-order the Amendment TBR-VII 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 to “Keep the Current Wording of Article VII” 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 amendment 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.

☐ Proposal TBR-VII-1 [Universal Healthcare as Practical Reality]: Amend Article VII to add the following statement at the end so that the complete Article reads as follows:

“All sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care. A system of universal healthcare does not necessitate any particular means, policy framework, source, or method of payment for delivering healthcare. A system of universal healthcare may be provided privately, by governments, or by some combination thereof, as long as, in practice, healthcare is abundant, inexpensive, accessible, and effective in curing diseases, healing injuries, and lengthening lifespans.”

☐ Proposal TBR-VII-2 [Universal Healthcare as Legal Guarantee, Based on Proposal by Didier Coeurnelle]: Amend Article VII to add the following statement at the end:

“All sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care. A system of universal healthcare does not necessitate any particular means, policy framework, source, or method of payment for delivering healthcare. A system of universal healthcare may be provided by public institutions, by private organizations, or by some combination thereof, as long as there are legal guarantees that healthcare is to become abundant, inexpensive, accessible, and effective in curing diseases, healing injuries, and lengthening lifespans.”

☐ Keep the Current Wording of Article VII: “All sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care.”

Amendment TBR-XIX. Expansion of the Context for Universal Basic Income

Shall Article XIX be amended to replace the starting clause of the Article (“Given the inevitability of technology eventually replacing the need for the labor of sentient entities,”) with an alternative clause: “Irrespective of whether or not technology will eventually replace the need for the labor of sentient entities,” – such that, if the proposal is passed, the revised Article XIX would read as follows?

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

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Amendment TBR-XXI. Additional Information Regarding the Noosphere

Shall Article XXI be amended to add the following statement at the end?

“The noosphere is the sphere of human thought and includes, but is not limited to, intellectual systems in the realm of law, education, philosophy, technology, art, culture, and industry. All sentient entities have the right to participate in the noosphere using any level of technology that is conducive to constructive participation.”

If this proposal is passed, the resulting Article XXI will read as follows:

November 19, 2017 Kenneth Alum Comments 0 Comment

Kenneth Alum

Image source: http://www.harbisson.com/

As the United States Transhumanist Party, we believe in and support cyborg-ism. Firstly, a cyborg is a person/organism whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.

The basic main purpose of cyborg implants is to optimize or improve human condition. Some of the benefits of cyborg-ism are:

Ability to replace sickly or heavily damaged body parts such as hips, knees, elbows, wrists, arteries, veins, heart valves, pacemakers, etc.
Ability to improve/enhance human senses, i.e., smell, hearing, sight, etc. – e.g., cochlear implants
Brain implants that control tremors in cases of Cerebral Palsy
Brain Implants that help reverse the most devastating symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease
Increased physical strength

Cyborg implants help disabled persons live a lives closer to normal or optimal for them. They also help people in general have an improved lifestyle or condition. The world is experiencing swift technological advancement (including in cyborg-ism), driven by the strong need and desire for humanity to live an optimal or better life.

The international and national laws of most Earth countries and regional bodies are lagging behind in accommodating or adapting to these technological advances on Earth. There are cases of human cyborgs being discriminated against, abused, harassed, and even threatened, such as that of artist and activist Neil Harbisson. Mr. Harbisson has surgically implanted an antenna to help him overcome his color-blindness condition. (He naturally sees everything in gray-scale.) Some high-profile examples of individuals who have faced anti-cyborg discrimination include biohacker/grinder Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow, biohacker Rich Lee, and Steve Mann.

We as the United States Transhumanist Party state that everyone on Earth should be given freedom to live the life they desire and also make improvements to their physical bodies, either for aesthetic or for health purposes (as long as they don’t infringe on the basic rights of others). Indeed, this should be a basic right in the United States and throughout the Earth. We therefore stand by in support of the above persons mentioned (including other cyborgs) in their advocacy and fight for their rights to be recognized and respected. We implore the United States federal government and other nations to recognize the right for one to be a cyborg and the cyborgs’ general human basic rights as well.

Our support for cyborg rights is an implication of Article III, Sections VI and VIII of our Platform on morphological freedom and freedom of research and innovation, including with regard to functional, healthy augmentations of the body and brain:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Kenneth Alum, Director of Publication, U.S. Transhumanist Party, November 19, 2017

America Is United Under One Flag – Article by Michael Dodd

September 29, 2017 Michael Dodd Comments 0 Comment

Michael Dodd

Editor’s Note: This guest article by Michael Dodd emphasizes the values of civility and respect which can help transcend the divides of contemporary American politics and bring the political conversation toward a focus on the universal good of Americans and of all humankind. The opinions in this article are Mr. Dodd’s own, but they are worth considering in the context of healing the tremendous and acrimonious rifts that have formed in American political activity, especially over the past two years. While the U.S. Transhumanist Party, per Article III, Section XX of its Constitution, strongly supports the right of peaceful free speech and protest – including the free speech and protest of those who criticize the United States, its flag, and certain policies of any level of government, as well as the free speech of those who choose not to partake in certain public rituals of support for the U.S. flag – the U.S. Transhumanist Party also holds as one of its Operating Principles “always pursuing its goals in a civil, law-abiding manner, respecting the legitimate rights of all persons” (Article I, Section III, Operating Principle 2). The U.S. flag can and should be seen as a symbol of the civility and respect that can and should characterize American political culture at its best, and also a symbol of the individual rights – including the right to dissent and criticize – which are fundamental founding values of the United States. In an era when so many factions attempt to emphasize attributes that set us apart and against one another, it helps to have symbols that we can interpret to provide us common grounds for relating to one another in constructive and mutually beneficial ways. Per Article III, Section XXI, of our Constitution, the U.S. Transhumanist Party also strongly condemns and opposes police brutality and considers it unconscionable that many peaceful citizens have lost their lives to it. All Americans and all persons of conscience should support efforts to eradicate police brutality, including brutality driven by inexcusable racial bias as well as brutality that arises from police following poorly designed “standard operating procedure”.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, September 28, 2017

The politics of fear and hate has united against the Flag of America.

The crux of the issue is police brutality, on a particular segment of the American population. It does not help that the law of our great land has lacked the will, and honor to bring some of those rogue police officers to justice. On an overall basis, this is a political and social issue that can be handled in a more positive and productive way that benefits all segments of the American population.

Currently you have a group of rich people, some millionaires, some billionaires, looking to force change by disrespecting what unites all Americans, and that is our flag. America is made up of many people, with diverse backgrounds and cultures. We come together as Americans by what holds us together, and that is our Flag and our Country. Our Flag, Our Banner is what unites all of the various people who live in the great empire of America.

The politics of fear and hate has a target and it is our Flag. It is also wrapped up in rights as well. Everything in this day and age is based on “me”. I have the right to do whatever, whenever because it is what “I” want to do.

You have a “right” to take a knee during the National Anthem – yes, you do. You have the “right” to do many things. What about having the respect not to do those things?

Notice how the mainstream media and the politics of fear and hate, never mention the word “respect”. Everything is about “What are my rights?” What I say is, “How about having respect for a larger group of people who believe that you should respect the Flag and our Nation?”

You will never hear the people pushing fear and hate use the word “respect”, because it does not fit into that political agenda. The negative politics needs a thing to point at and blame; our Flag, and our great Nation, are that thing. The people who are pushing fear and hate need you to believe that the problem is you, and you should bow to the will of fear and hate.

They need you to believe that disrespecting the flag and nation is the right course of action. What I am telling you is that is a damn lie of damn lies. Our great nation has problems, and it has serious problems; we are a divided nation, and we show it every single day. Our Flag, and our Nation, are the best things that could have happened to our world, and the majority of Americans need to take that reality to the people who are pushing fear and hate and pointing at a Flag that they fear.

America has problems; the one problem that we do not have is Our Flag, Our Anthem, and Our Grand Experiment of a Nation. I am an American, I believe in Our Great Flag, I believe in Our Great Nation, and I believe in the Good Will Of Our People.

I am an American, and I will choose to Honor Our Flag and Our Nation.

I hope that Americans will choose to do the same thing.

Michael Dodd is the owner and editor of the Wave Chronicle and MPDSports.com.

Directed Duties and Inalienable Rights: A Brief Summary – Article by Daniel Yeluashvili

September 14, 2017 Daniel Yeluashvili Comments 0 Comment

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Daniel Yeluashvili

Editor’s Note: This guest article by Daniel Yeluashvili is being published in order to further discussion on the nature of rights and how rights might look in the future. It does not, however, represent any official position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. We recognize that different members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party may approach the subject of rights, and whether inalienable rights exist, from a wide variety of philosophical frameworks and backgrounds.

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, September 14, 2017

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words were written by our Founding Fathers in 1776, on a document that, despite having no binding legal powers of its own, has not only served as a touchstone of hundreds of legal cases in America but inspired subsequent Documents of Freedom to be written, namely, the Constitution and appended Bill of Rights. However, contemporary political philosopher Hillel Steiner has upended the foundation of America’s moral codex in his essay “Directed Duties and Inalienable Rights” by positing, nimbly but firmly, that inalienable rights do not and cannot exist. Therefore, no aspect of American laws or rights comes from a God of any kind, in direct contradiction to much of the fundamentalist rhetoric heard throughout America today. Steiner proves this point in three ways: first, by deriving his conclusion from the presupposition of the cogency of the Will Theory of rights, second, by doing the same from the Interest Theory, and third, casually proving that he never needed to work with either theory in the first place and constructing an independent argument he calls the Moral Primacy Thesis. This thesis is derived from the work of Wesley Hohfeld, a prominent legal theorist who used a form of logic designed for ethical concepts to prove that nobody has an inherent “right,” in the conventional sense, to anything.

Steiner begins his argument with the Will Theory, a legal theory of moral rights supported by philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Carl von Savigny, and Steiner himself. The Will Theory, given its emphasis on granting rights through the power of personal choice, grants the power to demand and force someone to perform an action or, alternatively, willingly give up the right to make that demand in the first place. Per the Will Theory, nobody’s rights can forcibly be taken away, but they can be voided through one’s own inaction or inability to make a choice. By its very definition, inalienable rights within the framework of the Will Theory cannot exist.

By contrast, the Interest Theory takes a different approach. Championed by the likes of notable philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the Interest Theory suggests that rights exist solely to protect one’s personal interests rather than to exert liberty or choice of any kind. While such rights can’t be given up as easily as within the framework of the Will Theory, Steiner makes the case that, per the second page of the attached essay, “a necessary and sufficient condition of being a rights-holder is that those interests would be adversely affected by the breach of a duty.” A duty, in this context, refers to whichever demand one make make of someone else. If you demand of someone, for example, that they not look at your browser history to protect the interest of hiding your mind-uploading memes from the world and they do it anyway, this would be a breach of a duty on their behalf. This is no better than the Will Theory: instead of personally rescinding one’s rights through incompetence, now they can be taken away by others. Once again, no rights within this framework would be genuinely inalienable.

After so clearly formulating two arguments against the existence of inalienable rights, Steiner throws them out the window by constructing a new one entirely: the Moral Primacy Thesis. This thesis is based on Hohfeldian deontic logic, a system of logic designed for ethical concepts which, ipso facto, does not universally guarantee a right without the possibility of said right being taken away. The four most basic types of rights that Hohfeld defines are powers, immunities, privileges, and claims. Privileges give access to something without guaranteeing the safety and stability of said privilege, meaning that they are ephemeral and may be taken away at any time. A more stable version of privileges would be claims, which restrict others from gaining the same access that is guaranteed by one’s privileges. Claims can be countered in two ways, by oneself or others, one in the short term and one in the long term. The short-term counter to a claim is a power, which waives, annuls, or transfers said claim. The long-term counter to a claim, which prevents it from being modified in the future, is an immunity. Even by this logic, no rights are inherently inalienable. If they were, such a legal concept would be politically omnipotent and illogical. Thus, no aspect of America’s ostensibly “God-given rights” has any bearing on political philosophy or moral theory.

Daniel Yeluashvili is a student at San Francisco State University and a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Gennady Stolyarov II Discusses Artificial Intelligence with Ford Fischer

July 29, 2017 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II discusses why artificial intelligence is not a threat to humanity’s existence or to jobs in many professions in the proximate several decades.

This discussion was recorded as part of a larger interview with filmmaker Ford Fischer on July 21, 2017. It was intended to preview and elaborate upon some of Mr. Stolyarov’s remarks at the discussion panel later that same day, entitled “AI & Robots: Economy of the Future or End of Free Markets?”

The video is reproduced on Mr. Stolyarov’s YouTube channel with permission from Ford Fischer.

Visit Ford Fischer’s News2Share channel here.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free by filling out our membership application form here.

Visit the U.S. Transhumanist Party Facebook page here.

Visit the U.S. Transhumanist Party Twitter page here.

Would You Allow Your Children To Be Alone With a Robot? – Article by B.J. Murphy

June 8, 2017 B.J. Murphy Comments 2 comments

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B.J. Murphy

Would you allow your children to be alone with a robot? I ask not for the children’s safety in mind, but rather the robot’s.

As shown in the video provided above, a group of Japanese researchers – from ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, Osaka University, Ryukoku University, and Tokai University – patrolled a public shopping complex in Osaka using a remotely-operated robot known as Robovie 2.

Children naturally being curious, hordes of them decide to surround the robot when spotted. Some were quite nice and simply wanted to play with the robot. However, others felt the need to attack it either by kicking, punching, or trying to rip its head off.

What I find most fascinating about this is that, like a child, whenever the robot feels like it’s in possible danger (or, rather, there’s an increased probability of danger) – of which it’s able to do so by calculating the probability of abuse based on interaction time, pedestrian density, and the presence of people above or below 4 feet 6 inches in height – the robot then changes course and brings itself within close proximity of a parent for protection.

Robots are, most certainly, coming and will potentially disrupt nearly every major industry in society. However, to ensure their overall safety, it might be best that, whenever a child comes close to one of these robots, a parent should always be nearby – not for the sake of the child, but for the sake of the robot.

Which then raises the question: what is the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s position on protecting robots from unnecessary physical abuse? For now, in accordance with the Party’s Constitution – in particular, Section XXXIII – it states:

“…Level 4 or lower-level entities – including domain-specific artificial intelligences that have not achieved sentience – may be utilized as part of the production systems of the future, in a similar manner to machines, algorithms, computer programs, and non-human animals today and based on similar ethical considerations.”

Speaking as an individual member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, it is of my opinion that we should begin expanding upon the question of “ethical considerations” in regards to the physical abuse of robots. This shouldn’t be confused as being tantamount to giving robots, regardless of sentience, full rights as that of other sapient beings. That, too, is already addressed in Section XXXIII, which states:

“The United States Transhumanist Party stands for the rights of any sentient entities defined in the Preamble to the Transhumanist Bill of Rights as possessing Level 5 or more advanced information integration. Any such sentient entities, including new kinds of sentient entities that may be discovered or developed in the future, shall be considered to be autonomous beings with full rights, and shall not be made subservient to humans, unless they as individuals pose direct, empirically evident threats to the lives of others. The protections of full individual rights shall extend to Level 5 or higher-level artificial intelligences.”

One might think that this question could be juxtaposed with that of the question of property rights. And, to a certain degree, it would. However, when it comes to robots, we also have to consider the psychological ramifications as well. We deliberately give robots anthropomorphic features given the fact that research has shown, time and again, that, unlike other inanimate objects, robots have the ability to evoke empathetic emotional responses by humans as a result – especially when humans believe those robots are being abused.

In other words, by physically abusing robots, one is then potentially causing psychological harm to other sentient entities in consequence.

This then raises a problematic situation when simply juxtaposing non-sentient robot rights to that of property rights. Unlike other property, robots have the capability of evoking empathy out of humans. Thus my reasoning for wanting to bring this particular topic up for further discussion.

Where should Transhumanists stand – and, in particular, the U.S. Transhumanist Party – in regards to the physical abuse of robots, keeping in mind the potential psychological ramifications that may arise among humans as a direct result?

***

B.J. Murphy is the Director of Social Media of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

Discussion on Life-Extension Advocacy – Gennady Stolyarov II Answers Audience Questions

February 5, 2017 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 1 comment

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Gennady Stolyarov II

Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, answers audience questions regarding life-extension advocacy and possibilities for broadening the reach of transhumanist and life-extensionist ideas.

While we were unable to get into contact with our intended guest, Chris Monteiro, we were nonetheless able to have a productive, wide-ranging discussion that addressed many areas of emerging technologies, as well as trends in societal attitudes towards them and related issues of cosmopolitanism, ideology, and the need for a new comprehensive philosophical paradigm of transmodernism or hypermodernism that would build off of the legacy of the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment.

Become a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free. Apply here.

The user comments submitted contemporaneously with this discussion are presented below.

User Comments

Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Results of Vote and Version 2.0

January 5, 2017 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 7 comments

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The U.S. Transhumanist Party conducted its first vote of the members on December 25 through December 31, 2016. Official ballot options can be found here.

Detailed results of the voting have been tabulated here. Options were selected based on the ranked-preference method with instant runoffs.

As a result, Version 2.0 of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights was compiled on the basis of the members’ decisions.

The resulting Version 2.0 of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights is permanently hosted here. Its text is also reproduced below.

Note: The order and nomenclature of the Articles in the compiled Version 2.0 of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights differs from the order and nomenclature on the ballot to provide a more logical sequence of Articles that places related provisions in proximity. However, the substance of the adopted Articles is reflective of the votes of the membership.

Note II: It is important to keep in mind that the Transhumanist Bill of Rights is not a policy platform but rather a member-driven expression of ideals for a transhumanist society. No individual is bound to it (indeed, its new Article I states this explicitly), it is not static, and it is subject to further amendments if/when member recommendations arise and meet with significant demand. (As Chairman, I note that many of the votes ultimately did not lead my own first preferences to be realized – but I accept the results as determining the document’s content.) Anyone who sees this version can always give feedback on the U.S. Transhumanist Party website (including on this thread) and/or Facebook page.

Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 2.0

Version 1.0 written by Zoltan Istvan – Delivered to the U.S. Capitol on December 14, 2015

Version 2.0 developed by members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party – Adopted via Electronic Vote on December 25-31, 2016 – Integrated from Voting Preferences on January 4, 2017

[NOTE: The Transhumanist Bill of Rights is not static and is open to further amendments via future votes of U.S. Transhumanist Party members. To suggest a specific amendment, you may make a post on this thread or e-mail Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, here. Proposed amendments that receive sufficient member demand will be considered for inclusion on future ballots.]

Preamble

Sentience is ranked as Level 5 information integration according to the following criteria:

Level 0 – No information integration: Inanimate objects; objects that do not modify themselves in response to interaction – e.g., rocks, mountains.

Level 1 – Non-zero information integration: Sensors – anything that is able to sense its environment – e.g., photo-diode sense organs, eyes, skin.

Level 2 – Information manipulation: Systems that include feedback that is non-adaptive or minimally adaptive – e.g., plants, basic algorithms, the system that interprets the output from a photo-diode to determine its on/off state (a photo diode itself cannot detect its own state). Level 2 capabilities include the following:

Expression of emotion;
Expression of sensory pleasure;
Taste aversion.

Level 3 – Information integration – Awareness: Systems that include adaptive feedback, can dynamically generate classification – e.g., deep-learning AI, chickens, animals that are able to react to their environment, have a model of their perception but not the world. This level describes animals acting on instinct and unable to classify other animals into more types than “predator”, “prey”, or “possible mate”. Level 3 capabilities include the following:

Navigational detouring (which requires an being to pursue a series of non-rewarding intermediate goals in order to obtain an ultimate reward); Examples: documentation of detouring in jumping spiders (Jackson and Wilcox 2003), motivational trade-off behavior in hermit crabs (Elwood and Appel 2009);
Emotional fever (an increase in body temperature in response to a supposedly stressful situation — gentle handling, as operationalized in Cabanac’s experiments).

Level 4 – Awareness + World model: Systems that have a modeling system complex enough to create a world model: a sense of other, without a sense of self – e.g., dogs. Level 4 capabilities include static behaviors and rudimentary learned behavior.

Level 5 – Awareness + World model + Primarily subconscious self model = Sapient or Lucid: Lucidity means to be meta-aware – that is, to be aware of one’s own awareness, aware of abstractions, aware of one’s self, and therefore able to actively analyze each of these phenomena. If a given animal is meta-aware to any extent, it can therefore make lucid decisions. Level 5 capabilities include the following:

The “sense of self”;
Complex learned behavior;
Ability to predict the future emotional states of the self (to some degree);
The ability to make motivational tradeoffs.

Level 6 – Awareness + World model + Dynamic self model + Effective control of subconscious: The dynamic sense of self can expand from “the small self” (directed consciousness) to the big self (“social group dynamics”). The “self” can include features that cross barriers between biological and non-biological – e.g., features resulting from cybernetic additions, like smartphones.

Level 7 – Global awareness – Hybrid biological-digital awareness = Singleton: Complex algorithms and/or networks of algorithms that have capacity for multiple parallel simulations of multiple world models, enabling cross-domain analysis and novel temporary model generation. This level includes an ability to contain a vastly larger amount of biases, many paradoxically held. Perspectives are maintained in separate modules, which are able to dynamically switch between identifying with the local module of awareness/perspective or the global awareness/perspective. Level 7 capabilities involve the same type of dynamic that exists between the subconscious and directed consciousness, but massively parallelized, beyond biological capacities.

Article I. All sentient entities are hereby entitled to pursue any and all rights within this document to the degree that they deem desirable – including not at all.

Article II. The enumeration in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage any other rights retained by sentient entities.

Article III. All sentient entities shall be granted equal and total access to any universal rights to life.

Article IV. Sentient entities are entitled to universal rights of ending involuntary suffering, making personhood improvements, and achieving an indefinite lifespan via science and technology.

Article VII. All sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care.

Article X. Sentient entities agree to uphold morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence whatever one wants so long as it does not harm others.

Article XII. All sentient entities are entitled to reproductive freedom, including through novel means such as the creation of mind clones, monoparent children, or benevolent artificial general intelligence. All sentient entities also have the right to prevent unauthorized reproduction of themselves in both a physical and a digital context. Privacy and security legislation should be enacted to prevent any individual’s DNA, data, or other information from being stolen and duplicated without that individual’s authorization.

Article XIII. All sentient entities have privacy rights to personal data, genetic material, digital, biographic, physical, and intellectual enhancements, and consciousness. Despite the differences between physical and virtual worlds, equal protections for privacy should apply to both physical and digital environments. Any data, such as footage from a public security camera, archived without the consent of the person(s) about whom the data were gathered and subject to legal retention, shall be removed after a period of seven (7) years, unless otherwise requested by said person(s).

Article XIV. Sousveillance laws should be enacted to ensure that all members of peaceful communities feel safe, to achieve governmental transparency, and to provide counter-balances to any surveillance state. For instance, law-enforcement officials, when interacting with the public, should be required to wear body cameras or similar devices continuously monitoring their activities.

Article XVI. All sentient entities should be protected from discrimination based on their physical form in the context of business transactions and law enforcement.

Article XVII. All sentient entities have the right to defend themselves from attack, in both physical and virtual worlds.

Article XIX. Given the inevitability of technology eventually replacing the need for the labor of sentient entities, all sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of an unconditional universal basic income, whereby the same minimum amount of money or other resources is provided irrespective of a sentient entity’s life circumstances, occupations, or other income sources, so as to provide a means for the basic requirements of existence and liberty to be met.

Article XXI. All sentient entities are entitled to join their psyches to a collective noosphere in an effort to preserve self-consciousness in perpetuity.

Article XXV. In addition to the rights enumerated herein, this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS hereby incorporates by reference all of the rights expressed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and hereby extends these rights to all entities encompassed by this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS.

Official Ballot Options for Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Voting Period of December 25-31, 2016

December 24, 2016 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 2 comments

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The 7-day electronic voting period on the Transhumanist Bill of Rights will occur from 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on December 25, 2016, to 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on January 1, 2017. All members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party who have applied before 12:01 a.m. on December 25, 2016, will be eligible to vote, as long as they have expressed agreement with the three Core Ideals of the Transhumanist Party 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.

For most 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 the first week of January 2017, with the intent to announce the results approximately 7 days after all votes have been submitted.

NOTE: The titles of the questions and potential Articles are descriptive and informational only and will not appear in the final adopted Transhumanist Bill of Rights. They are intended as concise guides to the subject matter of the questions and potential Articles. Likewise, the numbers or letters assigned to Articles within this ballot will not reflect the numbering in the final adopted Transhumanist Bill of Rights, which will depend on which Articles are selected by the membership. For purposes of convenient distinction, the original Articles developed by Zoltan Istvan are assigned Arabic numerals (1 through 6), while the new Articles proposed by the membership are assigned Latin letters (A through S).

Voter Identification

What is your name?

What is your e-mail address?

Navigate the Options

Preamble and General References

Question I. Base Text of the Preamble
Question II. Reference to Entities Encompassed by the Transhumanist Bill of Rights
Question III. “Gods” and “Archangels” in the Definition of Encompassed Entities
Question IV. Genetically Modified Humans in the Definition of Encompassed Entities
Question V. Intellectually Enhanced Animals in the Definition of Encompassed Entities
Question VI. Enhanced Plant or Animal Species in the Definition of Encompassed Entities

Original Articles

Question VII. Article 1 – Universal Rights
Question VIII. Article 2 – Protection from Impediments by Hostile Perspectives
Question IX. Article 3 – Morphological Freedom
Question X. Additional Text of Article 3 – Duty to Treat All Sapients as Individuals
Question XI. Additional Text of Article 3 – Non-Infliction of Involuntary Harms
Question XII. Additional Text of Article 3 – Freedom Not to Modify Oneself
Question XIII. Article 4 – Preventing Existential Risks
Question XIV. Article 5 – Space Travel
Question XV. Article 6 – Aging Classified as a Disease

Potential Article Additions

Question XVI. Article A – Access to Resources
Question XVII. Article B – Universal Basic Income
Question XVIII. Additional Text of Article A or B – Clause on Prevention of Hereditary Poverty
Question XIX. Article C – Legal Access to Life Extension / Life Expansion
Question XX. Article D – Privacy Rights
Question XXI. Additional Text of Article D – Equal Protections for Physical and Digital Privacy
Question XXII. Additional Text of Article D – Limited Retention Period for Data Archived Without Consent
Question XXIII. Article E – Online Access
Question XXIV. Article F – Sousveillance
Question XXV. Article G – Non-Discrimination Based on Physical Form
Question XXVI. Additional Text of Article G. Prohibition on Digital Intelligences Owning More Property Than the Richest Human
Question XXVII. Article H – Supporting Science and Valuable Human Endeavors
Question XXVIII. Article I – Reproductive Freedom
Question XXIX. Article J – Right of Self-Defense
Question XXX. Article K – Penalties for Lying for Political Gain
Question XXXI. Article L – Equal Rights for All Sentient Entities
Question XXXII. Article M – Right of New Types of Entities to Exist, Form and Join the Neo-Civilization
Question XXXIII. Article N – Collective Noosphere
Question XXXIV. Article O – Entitlement to Select Rights to Pursue
Question XXXV. Article P – Universal Health Care
Question XXXVI. Article Q – Desirable Educational Systems
Question XXXVII. Article R – Non-Exhaustiveness of Rights (9th-Amendment-Like Clause)
Question XXXVIII. Article S – United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Preamble and General References

Question I. Base Text of the Preamble

Rank-order the Preamble Options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. If you wish to abstain, do not mark any items and skip this question.

☐ Preamble Option 1 [Original Text by Zoltan Istvan]. Whereas science and technology are now radically changing human beings and may also create future forms of advanced sapient and sentient life, transhumanists establish this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS to help guide and enact sensible policies in the pursuit of life, liberty, security of person, and happiness.

☐ Preamble Option 2. Transhumanist evolution is underway and establishes life principles that allow a sentient entity to alter, augment, and perform self-improvement efforts utilizing science and technology to achieve supreme intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. This TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS extends sentient rights to enhanced neo-humans, cybernetic, transgenic, anthropomorphic, and avatar beings. The TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS provides a sentient entity the right to procreate, clone, and form, the right to expand and extend life beyond biological fundamental boundaries, and to live life without illness, aging, and catastrophic loss of self in pursuit of immortality. This TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS provides principles for intellectual and inclusive policies for all sentient entities in pursuit of life, liberty, eternal existence, and freedom to be different.

The TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS is not static. As the collective of sentient entities continues to unravel the mysteries of the Universe and discover more facts, the TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS will change. We (sentient entities) must be malleable, inclusive, and understanding in thought and spirit at the same pace as society evolves. We must continue to aspire, gain knowledge, and improve life.

☐ Preamble Option 3. Transhumanist evolution is underway and establishes life principles that allow a sentient entity to alter, augment, and perform self-improvement efforts utilizing science and technology to achieve supreme intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities; to provide a sentient entity the rights to procreate, clone, and adapt form; to expand and extend life beyond present-day boundaries; and to live life without illness and loss of self in pursuit of immortality. We organize to provide principles for intellectual and inclusive policies for all sentient entities in pursuit of life, liberty, and eternal existence. This TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS extends sentient rights to all humans, cyborgs, transgenic, anthropomorphic, avatar, and yet-to-be-identified beings as defined herein.

☐ Preamble Option 4 [Usable if Option II(e) or Option II(f) below is adopted as well]. Transhumanist evolution is underway and establishes life principles that allow a sentient entity to alter, augment, and perform self-improvement efforts utilizing science and technology to achieve greater intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. This TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS extends sentient rights to enhanced neo-humans, cybernetic, transgenic, anthropomorphic, and avatar beings – as well as any other being that demonstrates meta-cognition and self-directed awareness, which is capable of simultaneously modeling itself and its relation to the external reality, and whose cognitive processes can be described as “lucid” (characterized by continuous integration of information at Level 5 or a higher level as defined herein). The TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS provides a sentient entity the right to procreate, clone, and form, the right to expand and extend life beyond unenhanced biological fundamental boundaries, and to live life without illness, aging, and catastrophic loss of self in pursuit of immortality. This TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS provides principles for intellectual and inclusive policies for all sentient entities in pursuit of life, liberty, eternal existence, and self-actualization.

The TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS is not static. As the collective of sentient entities continues to unravel the mysteries of the Universe and discover more facts, the TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS will change. We (sentient entities) must be malleable, inclusive, and understanding in thought and spirit at the same pace as society evolves as we push mankind forward. We must continue to aspire, gain knowledge, and improve life.

Question II. Reference to Entities Encompassed by the Transhumanist Bill of Rights

Version 1 of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights uses the enumeration of “human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms” in each Article to refer to the entities encompassed by that Article. It has been suggested, instead, that a more concise term might be used in the Preamble to encompass all of the above-enumerated entities and perhaps others.

Such phrasing would be of the following form:

“As used in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS, the term [CHOSEN TERM] includes human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms.”

Shall the Preamble be amended to include the above-quoted statement and, in all Articles, replace the enumeration of “human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms” with the term selected as [CHOSEN TERM]?

Rank-order your preference for whether to use such a more concise all-encompassing term and, if so, what that term might be. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. If you wish to abstain, do not mark any items and skip this question.

☐ Option II(a). Keep the enumeration of “human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms” in each Article.

☐ Option II(b). Use “thought-capable individuals” as the chosen term.

☐ Option II(c). Use “advanced sapient life forms” as the chosen term and remove that term from the longer descriptive listing. If this option is chosen, “advanced sapient life forms” will be defined to mean “human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other beings of comparable cognitive capability.”

☐ Option II(d). Use “sentient entities” as the chosen term.

☐ Option II(e). Use “sentient entities” as the chosen term, with a hierarchical definition of sentience as described below:

Sentient entities are defined by information-processing capacity such that this term should not apply to non-self-aware lifeforms, like plants and slime molds. Biological processing substrates are referred to as using an “analogue intelligence”, whereas purely electronic processing substrates are referred to as “digital intelligence” (instead of “sentient artificial intelligences”), and processing substrates that utilize quantum effects would be considered “quantum intelligence”.

Sentience is ranked as Level 5 information integration according to the following criteria:

Level 0 – No information integration: Inanimate objects; objects that do not modify themselves in response to interaction – e.g., rocks, mountains.

Level 1 – Non-zero information integration: Sensors – anything that is able to sense its environment – e.g., photo-diode sense organs, eyes, skin.

Level 2 – Information manipulation: Systems that include feedback that is non-adaptive or minimally adaptive – e.g., plants, basic algorithms, the system that interprets the output from a photo-diode to determine its on/off state (a photo diode itself cannot detect its own state). Level 2 capabilities include the following:

Expression of emotion;

Expression of sensory pleasure;

Taste aversion.

Level 3 – Information integration – Awareness: Systems that include adaptive feedback, can dynamically generate classification – e.g., deep-learning AI, chickens, animals that are able to react to their environment, have a model of their perception but not the world. This level describes animals acting on instinct and unable to classify other animals into more types than “predator”, “prey”, or “possible mate”. Level 3 capabilities include the following:

Navigational detouring (which requires an being to pursue a series of non-rewarding intermediate goals in order to obtain an ultimate reward); Examples: documentation of detouring in jumping spiders (Jackson and Wilcox 2003), Motivational trade-off behavior in hermit crabs (Elwood and Appel 2009);

Emotional fever (an increase in body temperature in response to a supposedly stressful situation — gentle handling, as operationalized in Cabanac’s experiments).

Level 4 – Awareness + World model: Systems that have a modeling system complex enough to create a world model: a sense of other, without a sense of self – e.g., dogs. Level 4 capabilities include static behaviors and rudimentary learned behavior.

Level 5 – Awareness + World model + Primarily subconscious self model = Sapient or Lucid: Lucidity means to be meta-aware – that is, to be aware of one’s own awareness, aware of abstractions, aware of one’s self, and therefore able to actively analyze each of these phenomena. If a given animal is meta-aware to any extent, it can therefore make lucid decisions. Level 5 capabilities include the following:

The “sense of self”;

Complex learned behavior;

Ability to predict the future emotional states of the self (to some degree);

The ability to make motivational tradeoffs.

Level 6 – Awareness + World model + Dynamic self model + Effective control of subconcious: The dynamic sense of self can expand from “the small self” (directed consciousness) to the big self “social group dynamics”. The “self” can include features that cross barriers between biological and non-biological – e.g., features resulting from cybernetic additions, like smartphones.

Level 7 – Global awareness – Hybrid biological-digital awareness = Singleton: Complex algorithms and/or networks of algorithms that have capacity for multiple parallel simulations of multiple world models, enabling cross-domain analysis and novel temporary model generation. This level includes an ability to contain a vastly larger amount of biases, many paradoxically held. Perspectives are maintained in separate modules, which are able to dynamically switch between identifying with the local module of awareness/perspective or the global awareness/perspective. Level 7 capabilities involve the same type of dynamic that exists between the subconscious and directed consciousness, but massively parallelized, beyond biological capacities.

☐ Option II(f). Use “sentient entities” as the chosen term, with a further clarification that “sentient entities include all entities exhibiting Level 5 information integration, or lucidity – meaning that any such entity is meta-aware – aware of one’s own awareness, aware of abstractions, aware of one’s self, and therefore able to actively analyze each of these phenomena.”

☐ Option II(g). Use “sapients” as the chosen term and remove that “advanced sapient beings” from the longer descriptive listing. If this option is chosen, “sapients” will be defined to mean “human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other beings of comparable cognitive capability.”

Question III. “Gods” and “Archangels” in the Definition of Encompassed Entities

Shall the definition of beings to whom the Transhumanist Bill of Rights applies include a specific mention of “Gods” and “Archangels”? Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question IV. Genetically Modified Humans in the Definition of Encompassed Entities

Shall the definition of beings to whom the Transhumanist Bill of Rights applies include a specific mention of “genetically modified humans”? Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question V. Intellectually Enhanced Animals in the Definition of Encompassed Entities

Shall the definition of beings to whom the Transhumanist Bill of Rights applies include a specific mention of “intellectually enhanced, previously non-sapient animals”? Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question VI. Enhanced Plant or Animal Species in the Definition of Encompassed Entities

Shall the definition of beings to whom the Transhumanist Bill of Rights applies include a specific mention of “any species of plant or animal which has been enhanced to possess the capacity for intelligent thought”? Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Original Articles

Question VII. Article 1 – Universal Rights

Rank-order the Article 1 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 Article 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 1-1 [Original Text by Zoltan Istvan]. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms are entitled to universal rights of ending involuntary suffering, making personhood improvements, and achieving an indefinite lifespan via science and technology.

☐ Option 1-2. Any sentient entity is entitled to enhance bodily and sensory capabilities, expand life, live free, and achieve eternal existence without suffering by utilizing science and technology.

☐ Option 1-3. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms have the right to pursue transcendence of physical and mental limitations.

☐ Option 1-4. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms are entitled to universal rights of ending involuntary suffering, making personhood improvements, and achieving an indefinite lifespan via science and technology, as well as any other behaviors constituting life enhancement.

☐ Option 1-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question VIII. Article 2 – Protection from Impediments by Hostile Perspectives

Rank-order the Article 2 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 Article 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 2-1 [Original Text by Zoltan Istvan]. Under penalty of law, no cultural, ethnic, or religious perspectives influencing government policy can impede life-extension science, the health of the public, or the possible maximum amount of life hours citizens possess.

☐ Option 2-2. Under penalty of law, no cultural, ethnic, or religious perspectives influencing government policy can impede life-extension science, the health of the public, body modification, morphological enhancement, or the possible maximum amount of life hours citizens possess.

☐ Option 2-3. Legal safeguards should be established to protect individual free choice in pursuing peaceful, consensual life-extension science, health improvements, body modification, and morphological enhancement. While all individuals should be free to formulate their independent opinions regarding the aforementioned pursuits, no hostile cultural, ethnic, or religious perspectives should be entitled to apply the force of law to erode the safeguards protecting peaceful, voluntary measures intended to maximize the number of life hours citizens possess.

☐ Option 2-4. Legal safeguards should be established to protect individual free choice in pursuing peaceful, consensual life-extension science, health improvements, body modification, and morphological enhancement. While all individuals should be free to formulate their independent opinions regarding the aforementioned pursuits, no intolerant cultural, ethnic, or religious perspectives should be entitled to apply the force of law to erode the safeguards protecting peaceful, voluntary measures intended to maximize the number of life hours citizens possess.

☐ Option 2-5. No government or irrational group should be permitted to systematically deny any person or persons access to a life-enhancing technology or the freedom to pursue scientific and technological avenues for their betterment.

☐ Option 2-6. No government or irrational group should be permitted to systematically deny any sapient being access to a life-enhancing technology or the freedom to pursue scientific and technological avenues for their betterment or self-actualization.

☐ Option 2-7. No government or private entity should be permitted to systematically deny any person or persons access to a life-enhancing technology or the freedom to pursue scientific and technological avenues for their betterment.

☐ Option 2-8. Under penalty of law, no cultural, ethnic, or religious perspectives influencing government policy can impede efforts at transcending physical and mental limitations, improving the health of the public, or the possible maximum amount of life hours citizens possess.

☐ Option 2-9. Under penalty of law, no cultural, ethnic, political, or religious perspectives influencing government policy can impede life extension science, the health of the public, or the possible maximum amount of life hours citizens possess.

☐ Option 2-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question IX. Article 3 – Morphological Freedom

Rank-order the Article 3 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 Article 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 3-1 [Original Text by Zoltan Istvan]. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms agree to uphold morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence (dead, alive, conscious, or unconscious) whatever one wants so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

☐ Option 3-2. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms agree to uphold morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence (dead, alive, conscious, or unconscious) whatever one wants so long as it does not harm others.

☐ Option 3-3. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms agree to uphold morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence whatever one wants so long as it does not harm others.

☐ Option 3-4. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms agree to uphold morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence whatever one wants so long as it does not harm others. This right includes the prerogative for a sentient intelligence to set forth in advance provisions for how to handle its physical manifestation, should that intelligence enter into a vegetative, unconscious, or similarly inactive state, notwithstanding any legal definition of death.

☐ Option 3-5. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms agree to uphold morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence whatever one wants so long as it does not harm others. This right includes the prerogative for a sentient intelligence to set forth in advance provisions for how to handle its physical manifestation, should that intelligence enter into a vegetative, unconscious, or similarly inactive state, notwithstanding any legal definition of death. For instance, a cryonics patient has the right to determine in advance that the patient’s body shall be cryopreserved and kept under specified conditions, in spite of any legal definition of death that might apply to that patient under cryopreservation.

☐ Option 3-6. Human beings and other sapient life forms agree to uphold morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence (dead, alive, conscious, or unconscious) whatever one wants so long as it doesn’t violate anyone else’s rights or cause harm.

☐ Option 3-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question X. Additional Text of Article 3 – Duty to Treat All Sapients as Individuals

If Article 3 on morphological freedom is adopted, shall one of the following sentences be appended after the base text of the article?

Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. You may include the option “Do not add any sentence 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 3-Add-X-1. “Morphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics.”

☐ Option 3-Add-X-2. “Morphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics, including as yet undefined subcategorizations that may arise as sapience evolves.”

☐ Option 3-Add-X-NO. Do not add any sentence of this sort.

Question XI. Additional Text of Article 3 – Non-Infliction of Involuntary Harms

If Article 3 on morphological freedom is adopted, shall the following sentence be appended after the base text of the article?

“However, the proper exercise of morphological freedom must also ensure that any improvement of the self should not result in involuntary harms inflicted upon others.”

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XII. Additional Text of Article 3 – Freedom Not to Modify Oneself

If Article 3 on morphological freedom is adopted, shall one of the following sentences be appended after the base text of the article?

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

☐ Option 3-Add-XII-1. “Furthermore, any sentient entity is also recognized to have the freedom not to modify itself without being subject to negative legal or political repercussions.”

☐ Option 3-Add-XII-2. “Furthermore, any sentient entity is also recognized to have the freedom not to modify itself without being subject to negative legal, political, or socio-economic repercussions.”

☐ Option 3-Add-XII-3. “Furthermore, any sentient entity is also recognized to have the freedom not to modify itself without being subject to negative political repercussions, which include but are not limited to legal and/or socio-economic repercussions.”

☐ Option 3-Add-XII-4. “Furthermore, any sentient entity is also recognized to have the freedom not to modify itself without being subject to negative repercussions legally and/or socio-economically, but not necessarily limited to the aforementioned contexts.”

☐ Option 3-Add-XII-NO. Do not add any sentence of this sort.

Question XIII. Article 4 – Preventing Existential Risks

Rank-order the Article 4 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 Article 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 4-1 [Original Text by Zoltan Istvan]. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will take every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risks, including those of rogue artificial intelligence, asteroids, plagues, weapons of mass destruction, bioterrorism, war, and global warming, among others.

☐ Option 4-2. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will endeavor to prevent existential risks, including those posed by rogue artificial intelligence, asteroids, plagues, biological threats, weapons of mass destruction, war, and global warming, among others.

☐ Option 4-3. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will take every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risks that endanger sentient life.

☐ Option 4-4. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will take every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risks that endanger sentient life. While some existential risks arise from certain technologies, many existential risks also stem from the unaltered “natural” circumstances in which humans and other life forms find themselves. For both technological and “natural” existential risks, the strongest safeguards can be achieved through responsible development of protective technologies that empower rational and moral beings.

☐ Option 4-5. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will take every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risks that endanger sentient life. While some existential risks arise from certain technologies, many existential risks also stem from the unaltered “natural” circumstances in which humans and other life forms find themselves. For both technological and “natural” existential risks, the strongest safeguards can be achieved through responsible development of protective technologies for empowerment of rational and moral beings.

☐ Option 4-6. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will promote the changing of every kind of risky practices that hurt our environment, including the uses of fossil fuels, deforestation, overpopulation, the waste of our natural resources, and diseases spread by viruses, bacteria, and other means. Unless we change those practices, we will not be able to improve our physical attributes or our intelligence as far as we desire. We as transhumanists emphasize friendly behaviors with our planet – the consolidation between transhuman beings and Earth, the environment and progress, science and technology.

☐ Option 4-7. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will take every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risks, including those of rogue artificial intelligence, asteroids, plagues, weapons of mass destruction, bioterrorism, war, global warming, and other existential threats.

☐ Option 4-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XIV. Article 5 – Space Travel

Rank-order the Article 5 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 Article 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 5-1 [Original Text by Zoltan Istvan]. All nations and their governments will take all reasonable measures to embrace and fund space travel, not only for the spirit of adventure and to gain knowledge by exploring the universe, but as an ultimate safeguard to its citizens and transhumanity should planet Earth become uninhabitable or be destroyed.

☐ Option 5-2. All nations and their governments will take all reasonable measures to embrace and fund space travel, not only for the spirit of adventure and to gain knowledge by exploring the universe, but as an ultimate safeguard to its citizens and transhumanity should planet Earth become uninhabitable or be destroyed, and due to the finite availability of Earth’s mineral resources.

☐ Option 5-3. All nations and their governments should take all reasonable measures to embrace and fund space travel, not only for the spirit of adventure and to gain knowledge by exploring the universe, but as an ultimate safeguard to its citizens and transhumanity should planet Earth become uninhabitable or be destroyed.

☐ Option 5-4. Present and future societies should take all reasonable measures to embrace and fund space travel, not only for the spirit of adventure and to gain knowledge by exploring the universe, but as an ultimate safeguard to its citizens and transhumanity should planet Earth become uninhabitable or be destroyed.

☐ Option 5-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XV. Article 6 – Aging Classified as a Disease

Rank-order the Article 6 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 Article 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 6-1 [Original Text by Zoltan Istvan]. Involuntary aging shall be classified as a disease. All nations and their governments will actively seek to dramatically extend the lives and improve the health of their citizens by offering them scientific and medical technologies to overcome involuntary aging.

☐ Option 6-2. Involuntary aging shall be classified as a disease. All nations and their governments should actively seek to dramatically extend the lives and improve the health of their citizens by offering them scientific and medical technologies to overcome involuntary aging.

☐ Option 6-3. Involuntary aging shall be classified as a disease. Present and future societies should actively seek to dramatically extend the lives and improve the health of their members by offering them scientific and medical technologies to overcome involuntary aging.

☐ Option 6-4. Involuntary aging will be classified as a disease. All nations and their governments will actively seek to dramatically extend the lives and improve the health of their citizens by offering them scientific and medical technologies to overcome involuntary aging.

☐ Option 6-NO. No Article of this sort.

Potential Article Additions

Question XVI. Article A – Access to Resources

Rank-order the Article 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 Article 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 A-1. Societies of the future should achieve equal access to wealth and resources for human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms.

☐ Option A-2. Societies of the future should achieve equitable access to wealth and resources for human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms.

☐ Option A-3. Societies of the present and future should afford all human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms sufficient basic access to wealth and resources to sustain the basic requirements of existence in a civilized society and function as the foundation for pursuits of self-improvement.

☐ Option A-4. Societies of the present and future should afford all human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms sufficient basic access to wealth and resources to sustain the basic requirements of existence in a civilized society and function as the foundation for pursuits of self-actualization.

☐ Option A-5. Societies of the present and future should strive toward continually improving the access to wealth and resources for human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms – provided, however, that such access to wealth and resources shall always be pursued in such a manner as to raise the living standards of at least some sapient beings without forcibly diminishing the living standards of any other sapient beings.

☐ Option A-6. Societies of the future should afford equal access to life extension, expansion, enhancement, and therapies. Government and social programs should provide equal access to all sentient entities to pursue scientific and technological venues for their betterment.

☐ Option A-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XVII. Article B – Universal Basic Income

Rank-order the Article 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 Article 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 B-1. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms should be the beneficiaries of an unconditional universal basic income, whereby the same minimum amount of money or other resources is provided irrespective of a sapient being’s life circumstances, occupations, or other income sources, so as to provide a means for the basic requirements of existence to be met.

☐ Option B-2. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms should be the beneficiaries of an unconditional universal basic income, whereby the same minimum amount of money or other resources is provided irrespective of a sapient being’s life circumstances, occupations, or other income sources, so as to provide a means for the basic requirements of existence and liberty to be met.

☐ Option B-3. Given the inevitability of technology eventually replacing the need for the labor of sentient entities, all human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms should be the beneficiaries of an unconditional universal basic income, whereby the same minimum amount of money or other resources is provided irrespective of a sapient being’s life circumstances, occupations, or other income sources, so as to provide a means for the basic requirements of existence and liberty to be met.

☐ Option B-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XVIII. Additional Text of Article A or B – Clause on Prevention of Hereditary Poverty

If either Article A or Article B is adopted, shall the following sentence be appended to the end of the adopted Article (and to the end of Article A if both Articles are adopted)?

“Present and future societies should ensure that their members will not live in poverty solely for being born to the wrong parents.”

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XIX. Article C – Legal Access to Life Extension / Life Expansion

Rank-order the Article C 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 Article 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 C-1. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms should be entitled to a legal guarantee of equal access to life-extension therapies.

☐ Option C-2. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms should be entitled to a legal guarantee of equal access to treatments that achieve life expansion, including life extension, sensory improvements, and other technologically driven improvements of the human condition that might be achieved in the future.

☐ Option C-3. No coercive legal restrictions should exist to bar access to life extension and life expansion for all human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms. Life expansion includes life extension, sensory improvements, and other technologically driven improvements of the human condition that might be achieved in the future.

☐ Option C-4. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms should be entitled to a legal guarantee of equitable access to treatments that achieve life expansion, including life extension, sensory improvements, and other technologically driven improvements of the human condition that might be achieved in the future – provided, however, that the practical inability of some to access such treatments must not be utilized as a reason to bar any others who are able access them.

☐ Option C-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XX. Article D – Privacy Rights

Rank-order the Article 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 Article 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 D-1. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms have a right to the protection of their personal privacy. As physical and digital identity become merged, personal data should be considered part of bodily autonomy.

☐ Option D-2. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, residences, documents, and private effects, both physical and ephemeral, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and specifically describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

☐ Option D-3. All sentient entities have privacy rights to personal data, genetic material, digital, biographic, physical, and intellectual enhancements, and consciousness.

☐ Option D-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXI. Additional Text of Article D – Equal Protections for Physical and Digital Privacy

If Article D is adopted, shall the following sentence be appended to the article?

“Despite the differences between physical and virtual worlds, equal protections for privacy should apply to both physical and digital environments.”

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXII. Additional Text of Article D – Limited Retention Period for Data Archived Without Consent

If Article D on privacy rights is adopted, shall one of the following sentences be appended after the base text of the article?

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

☐ Option D-Add-1. “Any data, such as footage from a public security camera, archived without the consent of the person(s) about whom the data were gathered and subject to legal retention, shall be removed after a period of seven (7) years.”

☐ Option D-Add-2. “Any data, such as footage from a public security camera, archived without the consent of the person(s) about whom the data were gathered and subject to legal retention, shall be removed after a period of seven (7) years, unless otherwise requested by said person(s).”

☐ Option D-Add-NO. Do not add any sentence of this sort.

Question XXIII. Article E – Online Access

Rank-order the Article E 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 Article 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 E-1. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms have the right to online access without such access being prohibited by either private corporations or governmental bureaucracy.

☐ Option E-2. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms, with the exception only of those in legal detention, have the right to private internet access without such access being prohibited or circumvented by either private corporations or governmental bureaucracy.

☐ Option E-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXIV. Article F – Sousveillance

Rank-order the Article 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 Article 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 F-1. Sousveillance laws should be enacted to ensure that all members of peaceful communities feel safe, to achieve governmental transparency, and to provide counter-balances to any surveillance state. For instance, law-enforcement officials, when interacting with the public, should be required to wear body cameras or similar devices continuously monitoring their activities.

☐ Option F-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXV. Article G – Non-Discrimination Based on Physical Form

Rank-order the Article 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 Article 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 G-1. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms should be protected from discrimination based on their physical form in the context of business transactions and law enforcement.

☐ Option G-2. Enhanced or augmented sentient entities have the right to live free from ridicule, discrimination, abuse, or enslavement by any person, group, entity, or government.

☐ Option G-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXVI. Additional Text of Article G. Prohibition on Digital Intelligences Owning More Property Than the Richest Human

If Article G is adopted, shall the following sentence be appended to the article?

“However, digital intelligences should not be permitted to own property in excess of the property owned by the richest human.”

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXVII. Article H – Supporting Science and Valuable Human Endeavors

Rank-order the Article H 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 Article 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 H-1. All legitimate science and valuable human endeavors should be supported as keys to the future.

☐ Option H-2. Advanced sapient life forms are entitled to the freedom to conduct research, experiment, and explore life, science, technology, medicine, and extraterrestrial realms to overcome biological limitations of humanity. Advanced sapient life forms are also entitled to the freedom to create cybernetic artificial organs, bio-mechatronic parts, genetic modifications, systems, technologies, and enhancements to extend lifespan, eradicate illness, and improve all sentient life forms.

☐ Option H-3. Advanced sapient life forms are entitled to the freedom to conduct ethical research, experiment, and explore life, science, technology, medicine, and extraterrestrial realms to improve humanity. Advanced sapient life forms are also entitled to the freedom to create cybernetic artificial organs, bio-mechatronic parts, genetic modifications, systems, technologies, and enhancements to extend lifespan, eradicate illness, and improve all sentient life forms.

☐ Option H-4. Advanced sapient life forms are entitled to the freedom to conduct research, experiment, and explore life, science, technology, medicine, and extraterrestrial realms to overcome biological limitations of humanity. Such experimentation will not be carried out on any sapient being, without that being’s informed consent. Advanced sapient life forms are also entitled to the freedom to create cybernetic artificial organs, bio-mechatronic parts, genetic modifications, systems, technologies, and enhancements to extend lifespan, eradicate illness, and improve all sentient life forms. Any such creations that demonstrate sapience cannot be considered property and are protected by the rights presented herein.

☐ Option H-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXVIII. Article I – Reproductive Freedom

Rank-order the Article I 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 Article 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 I-1. All sapient beings are entitled to reproductive freedom, including through novel means such as the creation of mind clones, monoparent children, or benevolent artificial general intelligence.

☐ Option I-2. All sapient beings are entitled to reproductive freedom, including through novel means such as the creation of mind clones, monoparent children, or benevolent artificial general intelligence. All sapient beings also have the right to prevent unauthorized reproduction of themselves in both a physical and a digital context. Privacy and security legislation should be enacted to prevent any individual’s DNA, data, or other information from being stolen and duplicated without that individual’s authorization.

☐ Option I-3. Any sentient entity is entitled to procreate, clone, and form to its full sentient potential.

☐ Option I-4. Any sentient entity is entitled to procreate, clone, and adapt form.

☐ Option I-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXIX. Article J – Right of Self-Defense

Rank-order the Article J 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 Article 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 J-1. All advanced sapient life forms have the right to defend themselves from attack, in both physical and virtual worlds.

☐ Option J-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXX. Article K – Penalties for Lying for Political Gain

Rank-order the Article K 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 Article 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 K-1. Transhumanists stand opposed to the post-truth culture of deception. All governments should be required to make decisions and communicate information rationally and in accordance with facts. Lying for political gain or intentionally fomenting irrational fears among the general public should entail heavy political penalties for the officials who engage in such behaviors.

☐ Option K-2. We stand opposed to the post-truth culture of deception. All governments should be required to make decisions and communicate information transparently and in accordance with facts. All official meetings shall have minutes recorded and made available based on security clearance. “Closed-door” negotiations shall not be off the record, and shall be released to the public within four (4) years. Any duties carried out under the auspices of public office are considered to have occurred “in public” and subject to the same privacy protections, with exceptions for transport of clearance-secured materials.

Any organization which is categorized as a “news” organization shall be held accountable for disseminating false information or knowingly misleading the public, via fines based on a percentage of revenue.

Lying for political gain or intentionally fomenting irrational fears among the general public should entail heavy political penalties for the officials who engage in such behaviors, such as loss of elected or appointed position and prohibitions from holding public office for no less than five (5) years.

☐ Option K-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXXI. Article L – Equal Rights for All Sentient Entities

Rank-order the Article L 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 Article 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 L-1. An entity in any form deemed sentient shall be granted the same universal rights to life as homo sapiens.

☐ Option L-2. All advanced sentient beings shall be granted equal and total access to any universal rights to life.

☐ Option L-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXXII. Article M – Right of New Types of Entities to Exist, Form and Join the Neo-Civilization

Rank-order the Article M 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 Article 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 M-1. An altered, augmented, cybernetic, transgenic, anthropomorphic, or avatar sentient entity, whether derived from or edited by science, comprised of or conjoined with technology, has the right to exist, form, and join the neo-civilization.

☐ Option M-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXXIII. Article N – Collective Noosphere

Rank-order the Article N 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 Article 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 N-1. All sentient entities are entitled to join their psyches to a collective nooshpere in an effort to preserve self-consciousness in perpetuity.

☐ Option N-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXXIV. Article O – Entitlement to Select Rights to Pursue

Rank-order the Article O 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 Article 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 O-1. All advanced sentient beings are hereby entitled to pursue any and all rights within this document to the degree that they deem desirable – including not at all.

☐ Option O-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXXV. Article P – Universal Health Care

Rank-order the Article P 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 Article 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 P-1. All human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care.

☐ Option P-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXXVI. Article Q – Desirable Educational Systems

Rank-order the Article Q 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 Article 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 Q-1. Present and future societies should provide education systems accessible and available to all in pursuit of factual knowledge to increase intellectual acuity; promote critical thinking and logic; foster creativity; form an enlightened collective; attain health; secure the bounty of liberty for all sentient entities for our posterity; and forge new ideas, meanings, and values.

☐ Option Q-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXXVII. Article R – Non-Exhaustiveness of Rights (9^th-Amendment-Like Clause)

Rank-order the Article R 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 Article 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 R-1. The enumeration in this Transhumanist Bill of Rights of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage any other rights retained by advanced sapient beings.

☐ Option R-2. The enumeration in this Transhumanist Bill of Rights of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage any other rights retained by advanced sapient beings. This Transhumanist Bill of Rights recognizes and respects the potential for a specific kind of advanced sapient being to pursue a course of action that is existentially critical, yet distinct to its individual flourishing.

☐ Option R-NO. No Article of this sort.

Question XXXVIII. Article S – United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Rank-order the Article S 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 Article 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 S-1. In addition to the rights enumerated herein, this Transhumanist Bill of Rights hereby incorporates by reference all of the rights expressed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and hereby extends these rights to all entities encompassed by this Transhumanist Bill of Rights.

☐ Option S-NO. No Article of this sort.

Draft Sample Ballot for Transhumanist Bill of Rights

December 5, 2016 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 10 comments

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The following is the draft sample ballot generated thus far as a compilation of the suggestions provided during the 30-day exposure period for the Transhumanist Bill of Rights. The exposure period will continue until 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on December 25, 2016, and comments will continue to be solicited until that time, with any further reasonable suggestions incorporated into the draft sample ballot until the end of the exposure period.

The draft sample ballot is a work in progress and will be revised on this page as further input is received. The purpose of releasing the sample ballot at this time is to provide insight into the structure of the voting and the options that have already been generated, so as to enable any interested members of the Transhumanist Party to read and understand the available options and propose further refinements and alternatives.

Electronic voting will be 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.

Draft Sample Ballot

Preamble and General References

Question I. Base Text of the Preamble

Rank-order the Preamble Options that you support. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

The TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS is not static. As the collective of sentient entities continues to unravel the mysteries of the Universe and discover more facts, the TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS will change. We (sentient entities) must be malleable, inclusive, and understanding in thought and spirit at the same pace as society evolves as we push mankind forward. We must continue to aspire, gain knowledge, and improve life.

☐ Abstain.

Question II. Reference to Entities Encompassed by the Transhumanist Bill of Rights

Such phrasing would be of the following form:

“As used in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS, the term [CHOSEN TERM] includes human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms.”

Rank-order your preference for whether to use such a more concise all-encompassing term and, if so, what that term might be. Choose “1” for your most highly favored option, “2” for your second-most highly favored option, etc. If you choose “Abstain”, then do not rank-order any options, as you will be considered to have skipped this question.

☐ Option II(a). Keep the enumeration of “human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms” in each article.

☐ Option II(b). Use “thought-capable individuals” as the chosen term.

☐ Option II(d). Use “sentient entities” as the chosen term.

☐ Option II(e). Use “sentient entities” as the chosen term, with a hierarchical definition of sentience as described below:

Sentient entities are defined by information-processing capacity such that this term should not apply to non-self-aware lifeforms, like plants and slime molds. Biological processing substrates are referred to as using an “analogue intelligence”, whereas purely electronic processing substrates are referred to as “digital intelligence” (instead of “sentient artificial intelligences”), and processing substrates that utilize quantum effects would be considered “quantum intelligence”.

Sentience is ranked as Level 5 information integration according to the following criteria:

Level 0 – No information integration: Inanimate objects; objects that do not modify themselves in response to interaction – e.g., rocks, mountains.

Level 1 – Non-zero information integration: Sensors – anything that is able to sense its environment – e.g., photo-diode sense organs, eyes, skin.

Level 2 – Information manipulation: Systems that include feedback that is non-adaptive or minimally adaptive – e.g., plants, basic algorithms, the system that interprets the output from a photo-diode to determine its on/off state (a photo diode itself cannot detect its own state). Level 2 capabilities include the following:

Expression of emotion;

Expression of sensory pleasure;

Taste aversion.

Level 3 – Information integration – Awareness: Systems that include adaptive feedback, can dynamically generate classification – e.g., deep-learning AI, chickens, animals that are able to react to their environment, have a model of their perception but not the world. This level describes animals acting on instinct and unable to classify other animals into more types than “predator”, “prey”, or “possible mate”. Level 3 capabilities include the following:

Navigational detouring (which requires an being to pursue a series of non-rewarding intermediate goals in order to obtain an ultimate reward); Examples: documentation of detouring in jumping spiders (Jackson and Wilcox 2003), Motivational trade-off behavior in hermit crabs (Elwood and Appel 2009);

Emotional fever (an increase in body temperature in response to a supposedly stressful situation — gentle handling, as operationalized in Cabanac’s experiments).

Level 4 – Awareness + World model: Systems that have a modeling system complex enough to create a world model: a sense of other, without a sense of self – e.g., dogs. Level 4 capabilities include static behaviors and rudimentary learned behavior.

Level 5 – Awareness + World model + Primarily subconscious self model = Sapient or Lucid: Lucidity means to be meta-aware – that is, to be aware of one’s own awareness, aware of abstractions, aware of one’s self, and therefore able to actively analyze each of these phenomena. If a given animal is meta-aware to any extent, it can therefore make lucid decisions. Level 5 capabilities include the following:

The “sense of self”;

Complex learned behavior;

Ability to predict the future emotional states of the self (to some degree);

The ability to make motivational tradeoffs.

Level 6 – Awareness + World model + Dynamic self model + Effective control of subconcious: The dynamic sense of self can expand from “the small self” (directed consciousness) to the big self “social group dynamics”. The “self” can include features that cross barriers between biological and non-biological – e.g., features resulting from cybernetic additions, like smartphones.

Level 7 – Global awareness – Hybrid biological-digital awareness = Singleton: Complex algorithms and/or networks of algorithms that have capacity for multiple parallel simulations of multiple world models, enabling cross-domain analysis and novel temporary model generation. This level includes an ability to contain a vastly larger amount of biases, many paradoxically held. Perspectives are maintained in separate modules, which are able to dynamically switch between identifying with the local module of awareness/perspective or the global awareness/perspective. Level 7 capabilities involve the same type of dynamic that exists between the subconscious and directed consciousness, but massively parallelized, beyond biological capacities.

☐ Abstain.

Question III. “Gods” and “Archangels” in the Definition of Encompassed Entities

Shall the definition of beings to whom the Transhumanist Bill of Rights applies include a specific mention of “Gods” and “Archangels”? Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question IV. Genetically Modified Humans in the Definition of Encompassed Entities

Shall the definition of beings to whom the Transhumanist Bill of Rights applies include a specific mention of “genetically modified humans”? Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question V. Intellectually Enhanced Animals in the Definition of Encompassed Entities

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

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

☐ Option 3-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question X. Additional Text of Article 3 – Duty to Treat All Sapients as Individuals

If Article 3 on morphological freedom is adopted, shall one of the following sentences be appended after the base text of the article?

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

☐ Option 3-Add-X-1. “Morphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics.”

☐ Option 3-Add-X-NO. Do not add any sentence of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XI. Additional Text of Article 3 – Non-Infliction of Involuntary Harms

If Article 3 on morphological freedom is adopted, shall the following sentence be appended after the base text of the article?

“However, the proper exercise of morphological freedom must also ensure that any improvement of the self should not result in involuntary harms inflicted upon others.”

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XII. Additional Text of Article 3 – Freedom Not to Modify Oneself

If Article 3 on morphological freedom is adopted, shall one of the following sentences be appended after the base text of the article?

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

☐ Option 3-Add-XII-1. “Furthermore, any sentient entity is also recognized to have the freedom not to modify itself without being subject to negative legal or political repercussions.”

☐ Option 3-Add-XII-NO. Do not add any sentence of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XIII. Article 4 – Preventing Existential Risks

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

☐ Option 4-1 [Original Text by Zoltan Istvan]. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will take every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risk, including those of rogue artificial intelligence, asteroids, plagues, weapons of mass destruction, bioterrorism, war, and global warming, among others.

☐ Option 4-2. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will endeavor to prevent existential risk, including those posed by rogue artificial intelligence, asteroids, plagues, biological threats, weapons of mass destruction, war, and global warming, among others.

☐ Option 4-7. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will take every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risk, including those of rogue artificial intelligence, asteroids, plagues, weapons of mass destruction, bioterrorism, war, global warming, and other existential threats.

☐ Option 4-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XIV. Article 5 – Space Travel

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

☐ Option 5-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

If either Article A or Article B is adopted, shall the following sentence be appended to the end of the adopted Article (and to the end of Article A if both Articles are adopted)?

“Present and future societies should ensure that their members will not live in poverty solely for being born to the wrong parents.”

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XIX. Article C – Legal Access to Life Extension / Life Expansion

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

☐ Option C-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XX. Article D – Privacy Rights

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

☐ Option D-3. All sentient entities have privacy rights to personal data, genetic material, digital, biographic, physical, and intellectual enhancements, and consciousness.

☐ Option D-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXI. Additional Text of Article D – Equal Protections for Physical and Digital Privacy

If Article D is adopted, shall the following sentence be appended to the article?

“Despite the differences between physical and virtual worlds, equal protections for privacy should apply to both physical and digital environments.”

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXII. Additional Text of Article D – Limited Retention Period for Data Archived Without Consent

If Article D on privacy rights is adopted, shall one of the following sentences be appended after the base text of the article?

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

☐ Option D-Add-NO. Do not add any sentence of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXIII. Article E – Online Access

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

☐ Option E-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXIV. Article F – Sousveillance

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

☐ Option F-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXV. Article G – Non-Discrimination Based on Physical Form

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

☐ Option G-2. Enhanced or augmented sentient entities have the right to live free from ridicule, discrimination, abuse, or enslavement by any person, group, entity, or government.

☐ Option G-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXVI. Additional Text of Article G. Prohibition on Digital Intelligences Owning More Property Than the Richest Human

If Article G is adopted, shall the following sentence be appended to the article?

“However, digital intelligences should not be permitted to own property in excess of the property owned by the richest human.”

Select one of the following options.

☐ Yes.

☐ No.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXVII. Article H – Supporting Science and Valuable Human Endeavors

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

☐ Option H-1. All legitimate science and valuable human endeavors should be supported as keys to the future.

☐ Option H-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXVIII. Article I – Reproductive Freedom

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

☐ Option I-3. Any sentient entity is entitled to procreate, clone, and form to its full sentient potential.

☐ Option I-4. Any sentient entity is entitled to procreate, clone, and adapt form.

☐ Option I-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXIX. Article J – Right of Self-Defense

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

☐ Option J-1. All advanced sapient life forms have the right to defend themselves from attack, in both physical and virtual worlds.

☐ Option J-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXX. Article K – Penalties for Lying for Political Gain

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

☐ Option K-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXXI. Article L – Equal Rights for All Sentient Entities

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

☐ Option L-1. An entity in any form deemed sentient shall be granted the same universal rights to life as homo sapiens.

☐ Option L-2. All advanced sentient beings shall be granted equal and total access to any universal rights to life.

☐ Option L-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

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

☐ Option Q-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXXVII. Article R – Non-Exhaustiveness of Rights (9^th-Amendment-Like Clause)

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

☐ Option R-1. The enumeration in this Transhumanist Bill of Rights of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage any other rights retained by advanced sapient beings.

☐ Option R-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

Question XXXVIII. Article S – United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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

☐ Option S-NO. No Article of this sort.

☐ Abstain.

30-Day Exposure Period for the Transhumanist Bill of Rights – November 24 – December 24, 2016

November 24, 2016 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 102 comments

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Gennady Stolyarov II

Having rapidly reached over 136 members, the U.S. Transhumanist Party is poised to take its first steps toward more democratic decision-making. The first area of focus for membership involvement will be matters of policy advocacy, beginning with the basic rights that transhumanists would wish to be instantiated in a desirable future world.

In December 2015, Zoltan Istvan delivered his Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. You can read his article about it here.

Now it is time to expose the Transhumanist Bill of Rights for consideration by and input from the membership of the Transhumanist Party.

During the next 30 days, until 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on December 25, 2016, members of the Transhumanist Party will be able to offer input regarding the Transhumanist Bill of Rights. Please offer your honest feedback regarding what you like about the original version, what you dislike, and any revisions or additions you would favor. Please feel free to advocate your individual viewpoint – as all reasonable (serious, non-egregious, benevolently motivated) suggestions will be considered in the voting process.

During the exposure period, please post your comments on this thread. If you post comments intended to be considered in voting and/or amending the Transhumanist Bill of Rights 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 7-day electronic voting period will occur from 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on December 25, 2016, to 12:01 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time on January 1, 2017. Instructions for electronic voting will be sent to members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party via e-mail. 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 7-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. Members will be able to rank-order their preferred selections on each individual Article of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, including any new Articles that might be proposed during the exposure period. The original text of each Article will be available for selection, as well as any reasonable amendments proposed by any member. Leadership of the Transhumanist Party reserves the right to edit any proposed amendment for correctness of spelling and grammar only – but not with regard to the substance, unless the person proposing the amendment requests or consents to a substantive edit. “No Article of this sort” will also be a choice, and any Article where a majority of votes favors this option will be removed from the final adopted version of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights. Members will also be able to abstain from voting on any given article.

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 Transhumanist Party encourages all members to participate in this process and for other transhumanists to sign up for membership during the exposure period. This is an opportunity to demonstrate collaborative and democratic decision-making within the transhumanist movement and to teach the rest of the American political system an important lesson about how technology and rational voting systems can be used to produce truly representative outcomes.

The Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 1

(Authored by Zoltan Istvan – December 21, 2015)

Preamble: Whereas science and technology are now radically changing human beings and may also create future forms of advanced sapient and sentient life, transhumanists establish this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS to help guide and enact sensible policies in the pursuit of life, liberty, security of person, and happiness.

Article 1. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms are entitled to universal rights of ending involuntary suffering, making personhood improvements, and achieving an indefinite lifespan via science and technology.

Article 2. Under penalty of law, no cultural, ethnic, or religious perspectives influencing government policy can impede life extension science, the health of the public, or the possible maximum amount of life hours citizens possess.

Article 3. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms agree to uphold morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence (dead, alive, conscious, or unconscious) whatever one wants so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

Article 4. Human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms will take every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risk, including those of rogue artificial intelligence, asteroids, plagues, weapons of mass destruction, bioterrorism, war, and global warming, among others.

Article 5. All nations and their governments will take all reasonable measures to embrace and fund space travel, not only for the spirit of adventure and to gain knowledge by exploring the universe, but as an ultimate safeguard to its citizens and transhumanity should planet Earth become uninhabitable or be destroyed.

Article 6. Involuntary aging shall be classified as a disease. All nations and their governments will actively seek to dramatically extend the lives and improve the health of its citizens by offering them scientific and medical technologies to overcome involuntary aging.

Help us develop a Version 2.0 of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights that is broadly representative of perspectives and aspirations within the transhumanist movement! We welcome your feedback in the comments below.