Esoteric Synaptic Events: Transhumanism and the Dawn of …

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As fewer and fewer people actually read, infographics are taking over.

Now there's one for transhumanism. In all likelihood there's probably been one or more than a few, even, knocking around the Interwebs for a while, but this is a recent one I've come across from Futurism.com. I must admit, it's handy. I know that's coming on the heels of an opening sentence that bemoans infographics as yet another nail in literacy's coffin, but in a way, it works.

I often find myself having to convince others of the massive leaps transhuman technology is taking and how close we are to utterly transformative developments. I'm talking about innovations that will completely change our lives for the better. The predictions on the inforgraphic are all taken from Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near, the same text I use for my class on transhumanism. As Kurzweil points out in that book, exponential growth can be a deceptive thing. When you stand at the base of a cliff, you can't always see just how high the top is from you. So it is with revolutionary technologies. This infographic allows me to present someone with a trajectory for the future in an at-a-glance format.

Here are few predictions for the years ahead:

2019 -The digital world makes paper books and documents almost entirely obsolete. -Computers are embedded in just about every piece of our environment (walls, furniture, etc.) -Manufacturing, agriculture, and transportation are almost entirely automated/run by robots.

2029 -VR eyeglasses and headphones are replaced with brain implants. -Artificial intelligence claims to be conscious, self-aware. -Cybernetic replacements are available for most every part of the human body.

2030s -Nanotech is inserted directly into the brain, allowing for the control of incoming and outgoing signals. -Similarly, nanobots in the brain can elicit emotional responses.

2045 -The Singularity occurs.

2049 -Artificial food is assembled by nanomachines. -The line between reality and virtual reality is blurred due to the innovation of "foglets," tiny, self-assembled robots.

2099 -There are humans around at the time of this writing who are still alive and well in 2099. -Artificial intelligence creates supercomputers the size of planets. -Organic human beings are a very small minority of the intelligent life on Earth.

As to that latter point, my snarky self might say that's how things already are, but I'll refrain from being a curmudgeon.

While I'm still not crazy about the use of the term "Singularity" and I would like to see more of Kurweil's predictions for genetic engineering, that does not negate the other useful information present in the graphic. After all, the meat of it comes from Kurzweil...and he's chief engineer at Google! Before anyone accuses me of Appeal to Authority, that was tongue in cheek. Still, it is unlikely that Kurzweil would have been given such a position at such a powerful outfit if at least a few smart people didn't think he was on to something. The years ahead may not develop exactly as he predicts, but then what does? If transhumanism develops even halfway as Kurzweil describes, we are in for very interesting times.

This is happening, people. Get used to it.

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Immortality: Silicon Valley’s latest obsession ushers in the transhumanist era – South China Morning Post

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Zoltan Istvan is launching his campaign to become Libertarian governor of the American state of California with two signature policies. First, hell eliminate poverty with a universal basic income that will guarantee US$5,000 per month for every Californian household for ever. (Hell do this without raising taxes, he promises.)

The next item in his in-tray is eliminating death. He intends to divert trillions of dollars into life-extending technologies robotic hearts, artificial exoskeletons, genetic editing, bionic limbs and so on in the hope that each Californian man, woman and AI (artificial intelligence) will eventually be able to upload their consciousness to the Cloud and experience digital eternity.

What we can experience as a human being is going to be dramatically different within two decades, Istvan says, when we meet at his home in Mill Valley, California. We have five senses now. We might have thousands in 30 or 40 years. We might have very different bodies, too.

I have friends who are about a year away from cutting off their arm and replacing it with a prosthetic version. And sure, pretty soon the robotic arm really will be better than a biological one. Lets say you work in construction and your buddy can lift a thousand times what you can. The question is: do you get it?

For most people, the answer to this question is likely to be, Erm, maybe Ill pass for the moment. But to a transhumanist such as Istvan, 44, the answer is, Hell, yes! A former National Geographic reporter and property speculator, Istvan combines the enthusiasm of a child whos read a lot of Marvel comics with a parodically presidential demeanour. Hes a blond-haired, blue-eyed father of two with an athletic build, a firm handshake and the sort of charisma that goes down well in TED talks.

Like most transhumanists (there are a lot of them in California), Istvan believes our species can, and indeed should, strive to transcend our biological limitations. And he has taken it upon himself to push this idea out of the Google Docs of a few Silicon Valley dreamers and into the American political mainstream.

Twenty-five years ago, hardly anybody was recycling, he explains. Now, environmentalism has conditioned an entire generation. Im trying to put transhumanism on a similar trajectory, so that in 10, 15 years, everybody is going to know what it means and think about it in a very positive way.

What were saying is that over the next 30 years, the complexity of human experience is going to become so amazing, you ought to at least see it

Zoltan Istvan

I meet Istvan at the home he shares with his wife, Lisa an obstetrician and gynaecologist with Planned Parenthood and their two daughters, six-year-old Eva, and Isla, who is three. I had been expecting a gadget-laden cyber-home; in fact, he resides in a 100-year-old loggers house built from Californian redwood, with a converted stable on the ground floor and plastic childrens toys in the yard. If it werent for the hyper-inflated prices in the Bay Area (Its sort of Facebook yuppie-ville around here, says Istvan) youd say it was a humble Californian homestead.

Still, there are a few details that give him away, such as the forbidding security warnings on his picket fence. During his unsuccessful bid for the presidency last year he stood as the Transhumanist Party candidate and scored zero per cent a section of the religious right identified him as the Antichrist. This, combined with Lisas work providing abortions, means they get a couple of death threats a week and have had to report to the FBI.

Christians in America have made transhumanism as popular as its become, says Istvan. They really need something that they can point their finger at that fulfils Revelations.

Istvan also has a West Wing box set on his mantelpiece and a small Meccano cyborg by the fireplace. Its named Jethro, after the protagonist of his self-published novel, The Transhumanist Wager (2013). And there is an old Samsung phone attached to the front door, which enables him to unlock the house using the microchip in his finger.

A lot of the Christians consider my chip a mark of the beast, he says. Im like, No! Its so I dont have to carry my keys when I go out jogging.

Istvan hopes to chip his daughters before long for security purposes and recently argued with his wife about whether it was even worth saving for a university fund for them, since by the time they reach university age, advances in artificial intelligence will mean they can just upload all the learning they need. Lisa won that argument. But hes inclined not to freeze his sperm and Lisas eggs, since if they decide to have a third child, 10 or 20 or 30 years hence, theyll be able to combine their DNA.

Even if theres a mischievous, fake-it-till-you-make-it quality to Istvan, theres also a core of seriousness. He is genuinely troubled that we are on the verge of a technological dystopia that the mass inequalities that helped fuel US President Donald Trumps rise will only worsen when the digital revolution really gets under way. And he despairs of the retrogressive bent of the current administration: Trump talks all the time about immigrants taking jobs. Bulls**t. Its technology thats taking jobs. We have about four million truck drivers who are about to lose their jobs to automation. This is why capitalism needs a basic income to survive.

And hes not wrong in identifying that emerging technologies such as AI and bio-enhancement will bring with them policy implications, and its probably a good idea to start talking about them now.

Stephen Hawkings question to China: will AI help or destroy the human race?

Certainly, life extension is a hot investment in Silicon Valley, whose elites have a hard time with the idea that their billions will not protect them from an earthly death. Google was an early investor in the secretive biotech start-up Calico, the California Life Company, which aims to devise interventions that slow ageing and counteract age-related diseases. Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel has invested millions in parabiosis: the process of curing ageing with transfusions of young peoples blood.

Another biotech firm, United Therapeutics, has unveiled plans to grow fresh organs from DNA. Clearly, it is possible, through technology, to make death optional, the firms founder, Martine Rothblatt, told a recent gathering of the National Academy of Medicine in Los Angeles.

In attendance were Google co-founder Sergey Brin, vegan pop star Moby and numerous venture capitalists. Istvan fears that unless we develop policies to regulate this transition, the Thiels of this world will soon be hoarding all the young blood for themselves.

Clearly, it is possible, through technology, to make death optional

Martine Rothblatt

Istvan was born in Oregon in 1973, the son of Hungarian immigrants who fled Stalins tanks in 1968. He had a comfortable middle-class upbringing his mother was a devout Catholic and sent him to Catholic school and an eye for a story. After graduating from Columbia University, he embarked on a solo round-the-world yachting expedition, during which, he says, he read 500 works of classic literature. He spent his early career reporting for the National Geographic channel from more than 100 countries, many of them conflict zones, claiming to have invented the extreme sport of volcano boarding along the way.

One of the things he shares in common with Americas current president is a fortune accrued from real estate. While he was making films overseas in the noughties, his expenses were minimal, so he was able to invest all of his pay cheques in property.

AlphaGos China showdown: Why its time to embrace artificial intelligence

So many people in America were doing this flipping thing at the time, explains Istvan. I realised very quickly, Wow! I could make enough money to retire. It was just quite easy and lucrative to do that.

At his peak, he had a portfolio of 19 fixer-upper houses, most of which he managed to sell before the crash of 2008. He now retains nine as holiday rentals and uses the proceeds to fund his political campaigns (he is reluctant to name his other backers). Still, he insists hes not part of the 1 per cent; the most extravagant item of furniture is a piano, and his groceries are much the same as you find in many liberal, middle-class Californian households.

Istvan cant think of any particular incident that prompted his interest in eternal life, other than perhaps a rejection of Catholicism.

Fifty per cent of me thinks after we die we get eaten by worms, and our body matter and brain return unconsciously to the cosmos [] The other half subscribes to the idea that we live in a holographic universe where other alien artificial intelligences have reached the singularity, he says, referring to the idea, advanced by Google engineer Ray Kurzweil, that pretty soon we will all merge with AI in one transcendental consciousness.

However, when Istvan first encountered transhumanism, at university via an article on cryonics (the practice of deep-freezing the recently dead in the hope that they can be revived at some point), he was sold. Within 90 seconds, I realised thats what I wanted to do in my life.

After a near-death experience in Vietnam he came close to stepping on a landmine Istvan decided to return to America and make good on this vow. I was nearing 30 and Id done some great work, but after all that time Id spent in conflict zones, seeing dead bodies, stuff like that, I thought it would be a good time to dedicate myself to conquering death.

He spent four years writing his novel, which he proudly claims was rejected by more than 600 agents and publishers. Its a dystopian story that imagines a Christian nation outlawing transhumanism, prompting all the billionaires to retreat to an offshore sea-stead where they can work on their advances undisturbed (Thiel has often threatened to do something similar).

Istvan continued to promote transhumanism by writing free columns for Huffington Post and Vice, chosen because they have strong Alexa rankings (ie, they show up high in Google search results).

I wrote something like 200 articles, putting transhumanism through the Google algorithm again and again, he says. I found it a very effective way to spread the message. I covered every angle that I could think of: disability and transhumanism; LGBT issues and transhumanism; transhumanist parenting.

Hes proud to say hes the only mainstream journalist who is so devoted to the cause. A lot of people write about transhumanism, but I think Im the only one who says, This is the best thing thats ever happened!

Why your biological age may hold the key to reversing the ageing process

Istvans presidential campaign was an attempt to take all of this up a level. It sounds as if he had a lot of fun. He toured Rust Belt car parks and Deep South mega-churches in a coffin-shaped immortality bus inspired by the one driven by Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters to promote LSD in the 1960s.

His platform Make America Immortal Again earned a fair amount of publicity, but Americans seemed ill-prepared for such concepts as the AI imperative (the idea that the first nation to create a true AI will basically win everything, so America had better be the first) and the singularity. At one point, he and his supporters were held at gunpoint by some Christians in Alabama.

The experience taught him a salutary lesson: unless you are a billionaire, it is simply impossible to make any kind of dent in the system. Hence his defection to the Libertarian Party, which vies with the Greens as the third party in American politics. Every town I go to, theres a Libertarian meet-up. With the Transhumanists, Id have to create the meet-up. So theres more to work with.

The Libertarian presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, received 3.27 per cent of the votes last year, including half a million votes in California. About seven or eight million are likely to vote in the California governor race, in which context, half a million starts to become a lot of votes, Istvan explains.

His own politics are somewhere between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, he admits, and he has a hard time converting the right wing of his new party to causes such as basic income. (The general spirit of libertarian America is, Hands off!) But he believes transhumanism shares enough in common with libertarianism for the alliance to be viable; the core precepts of being able to do what you like as long as you dont harm anyone else are the same. And the gubernatorial campaign serves as a primary for the 2020 presidential election, when he believes the Libertarian candidate will have a feasible chance of participating in the television debates.

But whats wrong with death? Dont we need old people to die to make space for new people? And by extension, we need old ideas and old regimes to die, too. Imagine if William Randolph Hearst or Genghis Khan were still calling the shots now. And imagine if Mark Zuckerberg and Vladimir Putin were doing so in 200 years. Innovation would cease, the species would atrophy, everyone would get terribly bored. Isnt it the ultimate narcissism to want to live forever?

Istvan does concede that transhumanism is a very selfish philosophy. However, he has an answer for most of the other stuff.

Im a believer in overpopulation Ive been to Delhi and its overcrowded, he says. But if we did a better job of governing, the planet could hold 15 billion people comfortably. Its really a question of better rules and regulations.

And when discussing the desirability of eternal life, he turns into a sort of holiday rep for the future.

What were saying is that over the next 30 years, the complexity of human experience is going to become so amazing, you ought to at least see it, Istvan says. A lot of people find that a lot more compelling than, say, dying of leukaemia.

Still, it comes as little surprise that hes finding live for ever an easier sell than give money to poor people in 21st-century America.

I cant imagine basic income not becoming a platform in the 2020 election, he insists. And if not then, at some point, someone is going to run and win on it. The Republicans should like it because it streamlines government. The Democrats should like it because it helps poor people. Right now, Americans dont like it because it sounds like socialism. But it just needs a little reframing.

Basic-income experiments are already under way in parts of Canada, Finland and the Netherlands, but how would he fund such an idea in the US? He cant raise taxes libertarians hate that. And he doesnt want to alienate Silicon Valley.

If we did a better job of governing, the planet could hold 15 billion people comfortably

Zoltan Istvan

How do you tell the 1 per cent youre going to take all this money from them? It wouldnt work, he says. They control too many things. But Istvan has calculated that 45 per cent of California is government-controlled land that the state could monetise.

A lot of environmentalists are upset at me for that, saying, Woah, Zolt, you want to put a shopping mall in Yosemite? Well, the reality is that the poor people in America will never be able to afford to go to Yosemite. Im trying to be a diplomat here.

And he insists that if Americans miss those national parks when theyve been turned into luxury condos and Taco Bells, theyll be able to replenish them some day if they want.

Theres nanotechnology coming through that would enable us to do that, Istvan argues. We have GMOs [genetically modified organisms] that can regrow plants twice as quick. In 50 or 100 years, were not even going to be worried about natural resources.

Such is his wager that exponential technological growth is around the corner and we may as well hurry it along, because its our best chance of clearing up the mess weve made of things thus far.

The safety of genetically-modified crops is backed by science

Didnt the political developments of 2016 persuade him that progress can be slow and sometimes go backwards? Actually, Istvan argues that what were witnessing are the death throes of conservatism, Christianity, even capitalism.

Everyone says the current pope is the best one weve had for ages, that hes so progressive and whatever. Actually, Catholicism is dying, says Istvan. Nobodys giving it any money any more, so the pope had better moderate its message. As for capitalism, all of this nationalism and populism are just the dying moments.

Its a system that goes against the very core of humanitarian urges. And while its brought us many wonderful material gains, at some point we can say, Thats enough. In the transhumanist age, we will reach utopia. Crime drops to zero. Poverty will end. Violence will drop. At some point, we become a race of individuals who are pretty nice to each other.

But now weve talked for so long that Istvan needs to go and pick up his daughters from childcare. He insists that I join him. What do his family make of all of this?

My wife is a bit sceptical of a lot of my timelines, he says. Lisa comes from practical Wisconsin farming stock, and its a fair bet that her work with Planned Parenthood keeps her pretty grounded. They met on dating website match.com. Does she believe in all this stuff?

I dont want to say shes not a transhumanist, he says, but I dont think shed cryogenically freeze herself tomorrow. I would. Im like, If you see me dying of a heart attack, please put me in a refrigerator. She thinks thats weird.

We arrive at the community centre where Istvans daughters are being looked after. They come running out in summer dresses, sweet and sunny and happy to be alive. Both of them want to be doctors when they grow up, like their mum.

The Times/The Interview People

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Immortality: Silicon Valley's latest obsession ushers in the transhumanist era - South China Morning Post

Transhumanism : Scientist successfully upload a Worms Mind into the body of a Robot (Dec 17, 2014) – Video

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Transhumanism : Scientist successfully upload a Worms Mind into the body of a Robot (Dec 17, 2014)
SOURCE: http://www.rt.com VIDEO RESPONSE: Tom Horn : Transhumanism Cybernetics Nephilim Giants Genetically Modified Humans (Mar 23, 2014) ...

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Transhumanism : Scientist successfully upload a Worms Mind into the body of a Robot (Dec 17, 2014) - Video

A Poisoned World – Pt 126 – Transhumanism (pt 5) Nano Technology Death Chips – Video

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A Poisoned World - Pt 126 - Transhumanism (pt 5) Nano Technology Death Chips
APW Vol. 18 - Trans-Humanism https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoYNGjvDZYC4I6EDPTMNRlDxbPO40CiGP Download/view the on-going APW series here: http://APoisonedWorld.webs.com.

By: APoisonedWorld1

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A Poisoned World - Pt 126 - Transhumanism (pt 5) Nano Technology Death Chips - Video

Transhumanism’s Extropy Institute – Transhumanism for a …

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Extropy Institute continues to support critical research and development of sciences and technologies of human enhancement. For further information on our 2004 Vital Progress Summit please follow this link: About the VP Summit

In late 2006, Extropy Institute closed. ExI's Strategic Plan explains the details of this decision and the potential for the future of ideas that were generated during ExI's lifetime.

The philosophy of Extropy continues on into the future.

This website is the "Library of Transhumanism, Extropy and the Future". The Extropy e-mail list continues to be very active and is the main venue for transhumanists and one of the best places on the Internet to meet transhumanists for challenging and creative discussions about the future. ____________________________________

Welcome to website of Extropy Institute, the original force behind the philosophy and global cultural movement of transhumanism. We welcome you to join our efforts in promoting The Proactionary Principle.

The world needs critical thinkers now! What is Extropy Institute? Extropy Institute is a think tank ideas market for the future of social change brought about by consequential technologies.Our Board of Directors, Advisors and Proactive Supporters bring together diverse ideas about the future.Our approach is proactive, our focus critical, and our ideas are principled in addressing social concerns and questions that will make or break the future of humanity. Extropy Institute has been pioneering critical and creative thinking about the future for the past 17 years.

The Mission of ExI has been to serve its members by ensuring a reputable, open environment for discussing the impacts of emerging technologies and for collaborating with diversely-skilled experts in exploring the future of humanity.

As a philosophical and cultural organization, our goals include being an international resource for strategic thinking about the future. Specific outcomes of our vision over the years have been recognized through publications, conferences, virtual summits, university courses, extropy-chat email list, and members' projects; working toward designing our future. The outcomes are located on our resources page. _______________________________________________________________]

Support the ideas vital to our future by participating in the globalcommunity and become proactive and support the Proactionary Principle.

The current project: ExI Project No. 1 - PROACTIONARY PRINCIPLE As human lives and the global environment become ever more interconnected with technology, we become increasingly responsible for making wise decisions about how to use it. We need a balanced opinion on how to apply technology to human needs. We should not reject the products of applied science; neither should we implement powerful new technologies without foresight and proactive preparation. Above all, we must not tackle the decisions of the future with the cognitive habits of the past. We need new, smarter ways to evaluate the opportunities and dangers issuing from nanotechnology, genetics, machine intelligence, climate engineering, or neurological modification. The Proactionary Principle (ProP) is designed explicitly for this purpose.

The Mission of ExI in its transformational change is to serve its members by developing a core group to encourage and support the furtherance of the Proactionary Principle.

Vision: Our core group uses the most advanced decision-making and forecasting methods to promote critical and creative thinking about emerging technologies. We advise the public and private sectors on policies and initiatives to better manage risks and maximize benefits and opportunities arising from emerging technologies. Our passion is helping others to improve decision-making about these technologies, especially those presenting challenges without precedentsometimes even affecting the human condition itself.

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Transhumanism's Extropy Institute - Transhumanism for a ...

TransVision review: the social angle to technology and transhumanism – Video

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TransVision review: the social angle to technology and transhumanism
Many of the world #39;s leading transhumanist and technoprogressive thinkers and critics gathered in Paris for the "TransVision 2014" conference from 20-22 November, http://transvision2014.org/....

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TransVision review: the social angle to technology and transhumanism - Video