Transhumanist Politics

Glimpses into emerging transhumanist political movements and parties amid an era of great power games and world order changes.

This is essay 5 of 6 essays for 1729 Writers Cohort #1. Apply to 1729 today at  https://www.1729.com.

This post is the fifth of hopefully a series of essays that try to reflect on issues related to aspects of transhumanism, which can arguably be defined as the enhancement of the human condition through technology to achieve more longevity, cognitive abilities, emotional states, and other previously seemingly impossible feats. These series of essays hopefully serve as notes and logs on reflection points as I try to learn more about relevant issues. This current post delves into the politics of transhumanism.

First, let's do an exercise and go back in history. Imagine that you were in the middle of the 17th century. In the West, the greatest geopolitical issues of the day revolved around a brutal Thirty Years’ War and its aftermath, fought between Protestant and Catholic camps involving complex alliances of kingdoms and principalities, which cost upwards of around 8 million lives (a big number for a time when Paris, the largest European city, only numbered around 400,000). The resulting Treaty of Westphalia would redefine the “world order” in the West. And almost concurrently in the east, another series of brutal wars lasting for multiple decades saw the demise of Ming dynasty China and its conquest by the Manchus, resulting in approximately 25 million lives lost and the redefinition of "world order” in that part of the globe. Much like the early 20th century, and possibly the early-to-mid 21st century, the 17th century was consumed with big struggles and conflicts for "world order” dominance that reverberated globally.

Left: Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden charging during Thirty Years’ War. Right: Shanhai Pass during era of Ming-Manchu wars.

Now, imagine if you wrote to Emperor Ferdinand (either II or III) of the Holy Roman Empire, King Louis XIII of France, and Emperor Chongzhen of Ming dynasty China, and tried to convince them that there were more significant issues at stake than the Continental European religious wars or the Manchu incursions beyond the Great Wall — that a budding revolution in scientific method would create industrial machines that alter the scale of human production and that policies toward economy, social organization, and universal rights of the human condition would need drastic re-envisioning. Well…at best, your ideas and proposals would probably end up in a waste basket bin.

But we know all about what happened afterwards, from Descartes to Newton to Leibniz to the Industrial Revolution to modern nation state industrial complexes to the Information Age. These series of developments would prove so significant to the point that most students nearly four hundred years later learning about the 17th century would first read about the Scientific Revolution.

Oftentimes, the most seemingly significant issues that make the headlines may not be the ones that stand the test of time and hold the most significance decades or centuries into the future. Meanwhile, some seemingly less attention grabbing developments in the infancy happening concurrently in the background may end up being hailed as "the big ones.”

So, one should wonder how our descendants (if we make it that far, and I hope we do!) in the 25th century would view the developments in our times in terms of their relative historical or civilizational significance. The most significant things on a 25th century textbook about the 21st century would probably not be trade wars, tech wars, or new cold wars (they are big, but I'd bet they won't end up on top). Maybe Satoshi Nakamoto makes it on top…maybe. Or maybe, the top list also includes initial developments in transcending limits to human biology.

It is in this light that we take a look at transhumanist politics, not as seemingly fringe movements (and at the moment, many of these transhumanist entities are arguably non-mainstream), but as potentially very early sprouts of emergent forces of the future. Transhumanist politics is an emerging field that encompasses ideologies, movements, and political parties that support the advancement of the human condition through science and technology. For the remainder of the essay, we will take glimpses into various ideas within this field, as well as examples of political parties, initiatives, and network unions around transhumanism (this is not an exhaustive list).

Democratic Transhumanism

Democratic transhumanism generally marries transhumanist beliefs in human enhancement through science and technology with ideas of liberal democracy. Coined by American sociologist James Hughes in 2002, the term democratic transhumanism arguably stretches techno-progressivism to a new limit. Hughes runs the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, a nonprofit think tank that aims to combine such techno-progressivism with democratic societies. Radical and emergent technologies that supposedly improve the human condition are seen as means to help eradicate inequalities and enhance democracy. Most of the active transhumanist political organizations arguably to an extent fall under the umbrella of democratic transhumanism.

Libertarian Transhumanism

Libertarian transhumanism, on the other hand, focuses less on societal impacts and more on individual liberties as well as self-ownership. Libertarian transhumanists are generally against heavy regulations of emergent life enhancing technologies. Central to libertarian transhumanism lies the idea that using science and technology to enhance one's human condition is an unalienable right. The ideas within libertarian transhumanism can also be seen as similar the technolibertarianism embraced by many in Silicon Valley.

U.S. Transhumanist Party

The U.S. Transhumanist Party was established in 2014. In its own words, the party aims to put science, health, and technology at the forefront of politics. Its platform includes technology advocacy for achieving human longevity, addressing existential risks to humanity, and promoting technological solutions to solve longstanding social issues. Those interested in learning more can find its comprehensive platform here. And here is a reproduction of the party's core ideals (taken from its website):

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

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

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

The U.S. Transhumanist Party's founder, Zoltan Istavan, ran for President of the United States in 2016. It came to no one's surprise that this new party did not stand a chance to win. That said, the campaign did initially put transhumanist voices on a map, both figuratively and also literally, through the Immortality Bus, a bus shaped like a coffin that travelled from San Francisco to Washington D.C. to deliver the message about transhumanist potentials.

Source: Zoltan Istvan (Under Creative Commons Attribution License)

Transhumane Partei Deutschland

Inspired by Zoltan Istvan and the U.S. Transhumanist Party, Transhumane Partei Deutschland was founded in Germany in 2015. The party focuses on promoting technoprogressivism, including support for longevity research, science education, and other advancements to the human condition.

Transhumanist Party of the United Kingdom

The Transhumanist Party of the United Kingdom (or Transhumanist Party UK) was founded with similar goals as its counterparts in the United States and in Germany. In addition, as a technoprogressive activist organization, the party aims to advance the average healthspan in the UK to over 90 years, reduce social inequalities, reduce wars, promote environmentalism, and introduce more AI insight to political decision making.

2045 Initiative

The 2045 Initiative, founded in 2011 by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov, is a nonprofit and a transhumanist incubator that aim to promote human longevity and immortality, through further research and development of technologies such as brain emulation and brain uploading. Through its Avatar Project, it hopes to develop holographic humanoid avatars supported through human-computer interface. The 2045 Initiative also defines itself as an international social movement as well as a global network union of scientists. It hosts an annual congress called “Global Future 2045.”

Alianza Futurista

Alianza Futurista, founded in 2013, is a Spanish transhumanist political party that aims to achieve technological abundance, longevity and other transhumanist ideals, such as the promotion science education and the advancement of the human condition.

Humanity+

Humanity+ started in 2002 as the World Transhumanist Association by Nick Bostrom and David Pearce to globally advance transhumanist ideas and initiatives. It has since expanded to many local chapters around the world, including in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Japan, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. The organization created the Transhumanism Declaration and has organized international conferences and summits attended by thousands.

International Transhumanist Politics Hub

As the number of transhumanist parties, organizations, movements, and initiatives rise, Transhumanist Party Global was founded an international hierarchical umbrella for support and coordination. Currently, Transhumanist Party Global is undergoing rebranding and reconstruction as the International Transhumanist Politics Hub, which aims to be more non-hierarchical and decentralized network union.

Conclusions and Looking Forward

As technologies that advance the human condition develop, transhumanist parties, movements, and network unions are continuing to be on the rise. Though in the 21 century we live in an era of great power competition and geopolitical tensions (just like in the 17th century), emerging movements and unions that embrace more global human scientific progress rather than divide the world may be more key to our collective future prosperity and eventually hold more long-term significance to our descendants centuries later. As new movements such as 1729 also emerge, it would be interesting to study existing movements and initiatives, and even form collaborations with them.

This post is purely for reflection and information purposes, and it does not constitute any advocacy for any political, scientific, legal, or ethical position. For earlier posts and musings, please visit whatifwhatif.substack.com.