Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: geopolitics

Jamie Bartlett’s new book Radicals features #transhumanism in his opening chapter. He’s on a book tour and discusses his time on the Immortality Bus for about 10 minutes in this video below:

Society is badly served by the limited set of ideas which occupy our cultural mainstream. To cope with the increasing pace of change, we need big new ideas. Where might these ideas come from?

In this London Futurists presentation, Jamie Bartlett, Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think tank Demos, shared his thoughts on a number of “radical” outsiders — a variety of individuals, groups and movements who reject the way we live now, and who are attempting to find alternatives.

Drawing on material from his recent book, “Radicals: Outsiders changing the world”, the talk gives particular attention to: Zoltan Istvan, Transhumanist Party candidate for the US President; Tommy Robinson of Pegida UK; and and Vít Jedlička, the founder of the self-declared libertarian micronation Liberland.

The event was chaired by David Wood. The camera was operated by Kiran Manam.

Apologies for the poor audio quality for the first eight minutes of the recording (before the main audio recorder was switched on, oops…)

For more details about this event, see https://www.meetup.com/London-Futurists/events/238148196/.

For more details about the speaker’s book, see https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radicals-Jamie-Bartlett-ebook/dp/B01K6ROZPC.

Read more

In early 2015, when transhumanist US Presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan announced he would transform a 38-foot bus into a giant coffin and drive it across America to deliver a Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol, many in the transhumanism community reacted with contempt and ridicule. Two years later, the Immortality Bus–created as a provocative symbol of resistance against death–has become one of the most recognized futurist projects in the world. The New York Times called the bus “the great brown sarcaphogus of the American highway…a metaphor of life itself.”

Today feature films, documentaries, and even a likely final home in a major museum are being worked on for the Immortality Bus. Hear Zoltan Istvan describe his captaining of the “coffin bus”, and learn what really happened during this historic journey.

This talk was filmed for the purposes of News2Share Editor-in-chief Ford Fischer’s new documentary film, Transhuman.

Filmed by ford fischer and alejandro alvarez. edited by ford fischer

Please contact Ford Fischer at [email protected] or call (573) 575-NEWS to license video. Photos and additional footage may be available upon request.

Support News2Share on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FordFischer

See more at http://News2share.com

Read more

My event starts at 4:30PM and is at: Carolina Theatre, Cinema 1 309 W Morgan St, Durham, NC 27701 The Immortality Bus, despite controversy and resistance from some transhumanists, defied many odds and has become one of the widely discussed pieces of art and events in the futurist world. Come watch never before seen slides on how the bus, science activism, and my presidential campaign made its way across America and delivered the Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol. http://sched.co/AGbE & https://moogfest2017.sched.com/artist/info6094

Read more

My Immortality Bus trip and transhumanist presidential campaign is the subject of the first chapter (40 pages long). Grab a copy of this excellent book and read about radical personalities attempting to change the world: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radicals-Jamie-Bartlett-ebook/dp/B01K6ROZPC/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1488876454&sr=8-1

Read more

A new story out on #transhumanism:

In the Basic Income America Facebook group, Zoltan Istvan, a transhumanist who recently ran for president, shared his Wired article, Capitalism 2.0: the economy of the future will be powered by neural lace. He (along with many others) argues Wall Street, law offices, engineering firms, and more will soon be mostly void of humans.

I think I mostly agree with him. Algorithms will far surpass human ability to achieve the best possible outcomes (Nash equilibrium). Having read Super Intelligence, the Master Algorithm, The Age of Em, books on evolution, lectures, interviews, etc… I think we’re approaching an important moment in human history where we have to figure out morality so we can build it into the proto-AI children we are giving birth to. I’ve even toyed around with a fun idea related to the simulation hypothesis. Maybe we exist as a simulation, repeating the birth of AI over and over again until we figure out a way to do it without destroying ourselves or turning the universe into computonium.

I’ve argued the world may need a Universal Basic Income and Steem Power might power it. I’ve also discussed the morality of artificial intelligence. I’m a big fan of Ray Kurzweil and love hearing him lecture about the future longevity we might enjoy, but I also recognize how fragile biological life is compared to exponentially growing super intelligence. I’ve heard the concerns by Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and others, and to me, they are convincing.

So where does this leave us? What do you think of Zoltan’s article? Are we approaching the “If you can’t beat them, join them” moment in our evolution as a species? Will we one day all become transhumanists?

Read more

A critical article on my work by The Rouser with some mangled facts in it for effect. But still worth reading: https://rousernews.com/2017/05/08/why-zoltan-istvan-isnt-a-true-libertarian/ #libertarian #transhumanism

Zoltan Istvan is a journalist and blogger who strongly supports transhumanism, a concept that promotes the idea that humans can utilize the advancement of technology in order to live forever. His rise to stardom began after writing a controversial sci-fi novel called The Transhumanist Wager, but he is also well known due to some of his rather outlandish statements. In 2016, Istvan ran as an independent candidate for president with very little support. He is now running for California governor as a libertarian, and though he is promising a libertarian platform, some of his ideals and scientific views seem to promote another worldview. This could be because he lacks experience of either a scientific or political background.

While transhumanism promotes the idea that humans can advance technology to eventually live forever, it also suggests that this goal will be achieved without any ethical consequences.

Its proponents believe that humans will take this next step through robots, which will require a rewriting of ethical codes for the new species. Most transhumanists also avoid mentioning the ethical problems of making civilization hackable or the potential of a technological enslavement. Unfortunately, some people, like Istvan, are actually going into politics based off of this transhumanist mindset.

Read more

A nice new write-up on my governor run: https://humanityplus.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/this-transhumanist-politician-wants-to-be-governor-of-california/ #transhumanism

It’s a good time to be a transhumanist politician. As faith in the political establishment declines, new technologies, from gene editing to artificial intelligence, are transforming our lives faster than ever. The transhumanist author and politician Zoltan Istvan agrees. He thinks the time is ripe for pro-science and technology governance, and for leaders who will embrace the technologies that could fundamentally transform our conceptions of what it means to be human.

Istvan is a maverick who appears to thrive in an ‘outsider’ role. He self-published a sci-fi novel, The Transhumanist Wager, in 2013, which became a surprise bestseller on Amazon. In 2016, he made an unlikely run for US president as the leader of the Transhumanist Party. Now, he’s making a bid for Governor of California in the 2018 election under a Libertarian Party ticket.

As a libertarian, Istvan believes in promoting “maximum freedom and personal accountability,” a sentiment that gels well with his championing of human enhancement technologies and robot and cyborg rights.

Like all transhumanists, Istvan believes in using science and technology to enhance human capabilities and transcend current biological limits. He wants to be smarter, live longer, and eventually merge with advanced technologies to become a posthuman being—one that is impervious, or at least resilient, to aging, and most mortal risks.

Read more

Podcast on transhumanism and libertarianism with Cuddle Pile (their show is also on iTunes, Stitcher, GooglePlay, etc). It’s a fun interview.

Cuddle Pile 27 Libertarianism & Transhumanism (with Zoltan Istvan and Tempest McGee)

Here it is! The moment we have all been waiting for! ZOLTAN ISTVAN calls into the show! AKA the guy Tony voted for in the 2016 Presidential election. Now he is running for Governor of California!

Also joining us is Tempest McGee. You might remember us mentioning her on the Valentine’s Day episode. We referred to her as “X-Files” girl. What does she have to do with Zoltan? THEY’RE BOTH LIBERTARIANS! What is a Libertarian? Tune into find out!

00:00 Intro

Read more

New article by Transhumanist Party:

Gennady Stolyarov II

The Spring 2017 issue of the magazine Issues in Science and Technology, published by the National Academy of Sciences, features an article by Professor Steve Fuller, the Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. This article, entitled “Does this pro-science party deserve our votes?” discusses the Transhumanist Party from the time of Zoltan Istvan’s 2016 run for President.

In this article, which offers both positive discussion and critiques of Istvan’s campaign, Professor Fuller writes:

What Istvan offered voters was a clear vision of how science and technology could deliver a heaven on earth for everyone. The Transhumanist Bill of Rights envisages that it is within the power of science and technology to deliver the end to all significant suffering, the enhancement of one’s existing capacities, and the indefinite extension of one’s life. To the fans whom Istvan attracted during his campaign, these added up to “liberty makers.” For them, the question was what prevented the federal government from prioritizing what Istvan had presented as well within human reach.

Read more

This is a fair enough article, though I believe I’m more Libertarian than it paints me. I think a lot of people forget or simply don’t know my book The Transhumanist Wager (how I started my futurist career back in 2009) is known by many as transhumanist libertarian manifesto. Also, ideas from my past political campaign do not always correspond to my current gubernatorial run:

Like many libertarians, I was initially excited when Zoltan Istvan announced his candidacy for Governor of California.

Istvan is the founder of the Transhumanist Party and author of “The Transhumanist Wager,” which is considered a manifesto on transhumanist philosophy. The basic premise of transhumanism is that the next step in human evolution will be to improve our bodies and expand our lifespan with radical technology, eventually leading towards immortality. While he still needs to obtain the nomination, having someone announce their intents this early gave me hope that maybe the party would have a shot at making an impact in the California mid-terms.

As I learned about his transhumanist ideas, I became increasingly hopeful that his views on radical science and medical technology would be able to appeal to the far-left base of California and introduce a wider range of people to libertarianism. However, after doing some research I’m not so sure Istvan is the best candidate to represent the Libertarian party.

On the surface, the former presidential candidate seems to align with the libertarian views of bodily autonomy (transhumanists call it morphological freedom) and the non-aggression principle, he even called himself a left-libertarian on the Rubin Report.

Read more