My work is featured in Reason today via a review on book Radicals, which opens with a controversial chapter on my transhumanist presidential run: http://reason.com/blog/2017/07/12/theres-no-harm-in-fantasizing-about-a-be #transhumanism
In Radicals Chasing Utopia, transhumanist enthusiasm gets a bad rap.
My new article from Vice Motherboard on liberty and privacy. This is one of my most ambitious philosophical works yet: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjx5y5/liberty-might-be-better-served-by-doing-away-with-privacy #Libertarian
If tech is surveilling us constantly, we need the ability to use it to watch the watchers.
Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, transhumanist, author of The Transhumanist Wager, and a Libertarian candidate for California Governor.
The constant onslaught of new technology is making our lives more public and trackable than ever, which understandably scares a lot of people. Part of the dilemma is how we interpret the right to privacy using centuries-old ideals handed down to us by our forbearers. I think the 21st century idea of privacy—like so many other taken-for-granted concepts—may need a revamp.
When James Madison wrote the Fourth Amendment—which helped legally establish US privacy ideals and protection from unreasonable search and seizure—he surely wasn’t imagining Elon Musk’s neural lace, artificial intelligence, the internet, or virtual reality. Madison wanted to make sure government couldn’t antagonize its citizens and overstep its governmental authority, as monarchies and the Church had done for centuries in Europe.
It’s amazing how fast science and emerging technologies are moving but most people seem to not care and want to break their emotional trance on trivial, emotional laden, propaganda filled news and views. Even though, this new science and emerging technology will have a profound effect on their lives and the lives of their children.
Human Extinction and using technological singularity and transhumanism to back up human consciousness to save and evolve the human race.
Great story in Politico Magazine on #transhumanism and a future AI President. My direct digital democracy ideas and others are mentioned: “Istvan, for one, envisions regular national elections, in which voters would decide on the robot’s priorities and how it should come out on moral issues like abortion; the voters would then have a chance in the next election to change those choices. The initial programming of the system would no doubt be controversial, and the programmers would probably need to be elected, too. All of this would require amending the Constitution, Istvan acknowledges.”
Yes, it sounds nuts. But some techno-optimists really believe a computer could make better decisions for the country—without the drama and shortsightedness we accept from our human leaders.
A fun list to check out on people influencing the global discussion on robots: http://www.onalytica.com/blog/posts/robotics-top-100-influencers-brands/ #transhumanism
A list of the top 100 robotics influencers & brands driving the most engagement in 2016, including quotes from the experts!
Check out what I’m doing July 25! #Comedy! Please join me if you can. http://sanfrancisco.carpediem.cd/events/4056859-eureka-at-pianofight/ #transhumanism #CaliforniaGovernor
Interested in becoming post-Human? What if it promised you eternal six-packs? Still on the fence? Then come join Eureka! as we host transhumanist Zoltan Istvan and learn more about how the future of technology will transform humankind.
Zoltan Istvan is an American transhumanist, journalist, entrepreneur, and Libertarian futurist. Formerly a reporter for the National Geographic Channel, Zoltan now writes futurist, transhumanist, libertarian and secular themed articles for major media, including Vice’s Motherboard, Wired, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and Newsweek. Zoltan regularly appears on television and video channels discussing futurist topics. He is one of the world’s most influential transhumanists and believes transhumanism will grow into a mainstream social movement in the next decade. He is the author of The Transhumanist Wager, a philosophical science fiction novel. In 2017, he announced his intent to run for Governor of California in the 2018 election as Libertarian.
Joining hosts Allen Saakyan and Kevin Whittinghill will be the hilarious comedy stylings of Chris Conatser (Learn from Me Comedy) and Allison Page (Killing My Lobster).
And now, a little bit about PianoFight!
This is one of the first articles I’ve seen specifically on #Judiasm and #transhumaism, with input by rabbis. Naturally the article is cautious, but interesting too.
Transhumanism, an intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities, a concept once limited to the realm of science-fiction, is now becoming more of a reality than ever before. The once outlier philosophy is quickly becoming mainstream, an accepted part of the social conscience that is the new religion for the anti-religious, including its own Messianic vision.
There are many aspects to the transhumanism philosophy, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, including physical longevity through medical breakthroughs and/or merging mankind with machines. Many transhumanists advocate transferring the sum total of a person’s knowledge and experiences into a computer and recreating the individual as a form of artificial intelligence ( AI ) in order to extend an individual’s life.
In its most extreme form, transhumanism advocates limiting human population. This extreme philosophy is criticized for being eugenicist master-race ideology and infringing on basic reproductive rights.
Rabbi Avraham Arieh Trugman, director of Ohr Chadash Torah Institute, noted that as in any social reform, the driving intention behind the movement is the key element, the factor that decides whether it will be a positive or negative influence on human history.
The prospect of attaining superior intelligence or physical attributes may be tempting or appear liberating, but cybernetic enhancement could, theoretically, also be used as a means of control. Whoever manufactures the technologies that augment humans would be in a very powerful position and wield an immense degree of control over their human customers (or subjects). Moreover, cybernetically enhanced humans could see their microchips hacked, have their sensations detected by unwanted parties and stored in a database, or be at risk of receiving unsolicited or unpleasant impulses. Might we evolve from homo sapiens to homo servus?
The dream that we may one day transcend our physical and intellectual barriers through advancements in cybernetics and nanotechnology could became a reality during this century. But would this be a blessing or a curse?
As science expands its frontiers and technology continues to evolve, ideas once deemed fanciful or considered part of science fiction find themselves within the realm of possibility. New discoveries may give rise to unique potential and perils, as the field of ethics struggles to keep pace with the latest technological advancements. The dream that one day we humans may eclipse our physical and mental fetters through augmentation by cybernetics or nanotechnology could become a reality. Although transhumanism and posthumanism are considered modern concepts, the idea of improving or transcending the human condition has been explored in philosophy and literature since at least the mid-19th century.
In his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche introduced the concept of the Übermensch (overman or superman) as a goal towards which humans ought to strive, whereby they take control of their own destinies, work collectively towards the betterment of humanity and create a higher set of ideals to give their existence greater meaning. Nietzsche wrote “Man is something that shall be overcome.” (The notion of Übermensch was later corrupted by the Nazis, who integrated it into their perverse racial theories).
This is the oldest and largest art magazine by circulation in the world. For the first time, it has #transhumanism in its search engines. A main task of mine all these years has been spreading that word and concept. My talk at #Moogfest on the Immortality Bus is covered a bit in this story.
L ast month, as bidding was underway at Sotheby’s for what would prove to be a stratospheric Jean-Michel Basquiat sale, Lonnie Holley, a 67-year-old artist who was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and has worked for decades in various folksy and homegrown modes, was preparing to take the stage at a sports bar in Durham, North Carolina. He was sitting at a table in the back, in a place that stank of burgers and beer. An audience of a few dozen had convened for the occasion, though it was hard to distinguish between Holley fans and regular denizens of the Bullpen, a joint next door to the stadium for the beloved local minor-league baseball team, the Durham Bulls. Night-game lights were bright outside. Televisions above the bar showed the Bulls making easy work of the Gwinnett Braves, in town for a weekend series from Georgia. The air was thick and languid in the way it tends to be on a deep, hot Southern summer night.
Holley is a hero to some: as an artist, he has made formidable paintings and sculptures that have been collected by the Souls Grow Deep Foundation and exhibited by museums and institutions all over, and as a musician, he has forged an unforgettable sound with a stirring voice and stewing electronics. For all his accomplishments, though, Holley remains underappreciated—certainly not as known in the worlds of either art or music as he should be.
So first came an introduction. Tim Duffy, the founder of Music Maker Relief Foundation, an organization devoted to preserving musical traditions of the South, took to a microphone and lavished Holley with praise, running down a list of laurels and markers of a legacy still in the making. “Thumbs up for Mother Universe,” Duffy said, thankful for the cosmic conception of an artist he clearly revered.
