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What is Bitcoin? Introductory video and current Bitcoin price.

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Price...Global Vol....Diff....

I'm a big fan of Bitcoin... Regulation of money supply needs to be depoliticized.

Bitcoin is a technological tour de force.

Every informed person needs to know about Bitcoin because it might be one of the world's most important developments.

With the Bitcoin price so volatile everyone is curious. Bitcoin, the category creator of blockchain technology, is the World Wide Ledger yet extremely complicated and no one definition fully encapsulates it. By analogy it is like being able to send a gold coin via email. It is a consensus network that enables a new payment system and a completely digital money.

It is the first decentralized peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by its users with no central authority or middlemen. Bitcoin was the first practical implementation and is currently the most prominent triple entry bookkeeping system in existence.

Beware of the confusingly similar Bcash, BCH, Bitcoin Cash project.

The first Bitcoin specification and proof of concept was published in 2009 by an unknown individual under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto who revealed little about himself and left the project in late 2010. The Bitcoin community has since grown exponentially.

Satoshi's anonymity often raises unjustified concerns because of a misunderstanding of Bitcoin's open-source nature. Everyone has access to all of the source code all of the time and any developer can review or modify the software code. As such, the identity of Bitcoin's inventor is probably as relevant today as the identity of the person who invented paper.

Over $1B of investment into Bitcoin and blockchain companies has taken place resulting in thousands of companies and hundreds of thousands of individuals involved from around the world.

Nobody owns the Bitcoin network much like no one owns the technology behind email or the Internet. Bitcoin transactions are verified by Bitcoin miners which has an entire industry and Bitcoin cloud mining options. While developers are improving the software they cannot force a change in the Bitcoin protocol because all users are free to choose what software and version they use.

In order to stay compatible with each other, all users need to use software complying with the same rules. Bitcoin can only work correctly with a complete consensus among all users. Therefore, all users and developers have a strong incentive to protect this consensus.

From a user perspective, Bitcoin is nothing more than a mobile app or computer program that provides a personal Bitcoin wallet and enables a user to send and receive bitcoins.

Behind the scenes, the Bitcoin network is sharing a massive public ledger called the "block chain". This ledger contains every transaction ever processed which enables a user's computer to verify the validity of each transaction. The authenticity of each transaction is protected by digital signatures corresponding to the sending addresses therefore allowing all users to have full control over sending bitcoins.

Thus, there is no fraud, no chargebacks and no identifying information that could be compromised resulting in identity theft. To learn more about Bitcoin, you can consult the original Bitcoin whitepaper, read through the extremely thorough Frequently Asked Questions, listen to a Bitcoin podcast or read the latest Bitcoin news.

Many people new to Bitcoin are curious about how to get some. Bitcoin faucets, places where bitcoins are given away for free, have been a part of spreading Bitcoin since the earliest days. But one problem is running out of bitcoins to give! That is why we have figured out a sustainable way to give away free bitcoins with sponsors.

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What is Bitcoin? Introductory video and current Bitcoin price.

Bitcoin – DailyFX

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Bitcoin is a digital currency, sometimes referred to as a cryptocurrency, best known as the world's first truly decentralized digital currency. Bitcoin is traded on a peer-to-peer basis with a distributed ledger called the Blockchain, and the Bitcoin exchange rate to the US Dollar and other major currencies is determined by supply and demand as with other global exchange rates. The traded value of Bitcoin has proven volatile through various booms and busts in demand. Ultimately, however, many see Bitcoin as a store of value against government-backed fiat currencies.

Abbreviated as BTC, Bitcoin is actively traded against the world's major currencies across decentralized markets. Bitcoins are kept in so-called Bitcoin wallets, which depend on private keys and cryptography to secure its Bitcoins to a specific entity or user.

By comparison to government-backed global currencies, Bitcoin remains fairly complex for the typical user to acquire and use in regular transactions. Growing interest and significant global investments in Bitcoin wallet and Blockchain technology have nonetheless made buying and selling Bitcoin far more accessible to the average user. And indeed growing acceptance by government entities have ameliorated the ambiguity of legal and regulatory status for Bitcoin and Bitcoin exchanges.

You can find historical price of Bitcoin on our chart and latest news and analysis on the Bitcoin exchange rate.

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Bitcoin - DailyFX

Everything you need to know about Bitcoin mining

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Price...Global Vol....Diff.... How Bitcoin Mining Works

Where do bitcoins come from? With paper money, a government decides when to print and distribute money. Bitcoin doesn't have a central government.

With Bitcoin, miners use special software to solve math problems and are issued a certain number of bitcoins in exchange. This provides a smart way to issue the currency and also creates an incentive for more people to mine.

Bitcoin miners help keep the Bitcoin network secure by approving transactions. Mining is an important and integral part of Bitcoin that ensures fairness while keeping the Bitcoin network stable, safe and secure.

Currently, based on (1) price per hash and (2) electrical efficiency the best Bitcoin miner options are:

Bitcoin mining is the process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin's public ledger of past transactions or blockchain. This ledger of past transactions is called the block chain as it is a chain of blocks. The block chain serves to confirm transactions to the rest of the network as having taken place.

Bitcoin nodes use the block chain to distinguish legitimate Bitcoin transactions from attempts to re-spend coins that have already been spent elsewhere.

Bitcoin mining is intentionally designed to be resource-intensive and difficult so that the number of blocks found each day by miners remains steady. Individual blocks must contain a proof of work to be considered valid. This proof of work is verified by other Bitcoin nodes each time they receive a block. Bitcoin uses the hashcash proof-of-work function.

The primary purpose of mining is to allow Bitcoin nodes to reach a secure, tamper-resistant consensus. Mining is also the mechanism used to introduce Bitcoins into the system: Miners are paid any transaction fees as well as a "subsidy" of newly created coins.

This both serves the purpose of disseminating new coins in a decentralized manner as well as motivating people to provide security for the system.

Bitcoin mining is so called because it resembles the mining of other commodities: it requires exertion and it slowly makes new currency available at a rate that resembles the rate at which commodities like gold are mined from the ground.

A proof of work is a piece of data which was difficult (costly, time-consuming) to produce so as to satisfy certain requirements. It must be trivial to check whether data satisfies said requirements.

Producing a proof of work can be a random process with low probability, so that a lot of trial and error is required on average before a valid proof of work is generated. Bitcoin uses the Hashcash proof of work.

Bitcoin mining a block is difficult because the SHA-256 hash of a block's header must be lower than or equal to the target in order for the block to be accepted by the network.

This problem can be simplified for explanation purposes: The hash of a block must start with a certain number of zeros. The probability of calculating a hash that starts with many zeros is very low, therefore many attempts must be made. In order to generate a new hash each round, a nonce is incremented. See Proof of work for more information.

The Bitcoin mining network difficulty is the measure of how difficult it is to find a new block compared to the easiest it can ever be. It is recalculated every 2016 blocks to a value such that the previous 2016 blocks would have been generated in exactly two weeks had everyone been mining at this difficulty. This will yield, on average, one block every ten minutes.

As more miners join, the rate of block creation will go up. As the rate of block generation goes up, the difficulty rises to compensate which will push the rate of block creation back down. Any blocks released by malicious miners that do not meet the required difficulty target will simply be rejected by everyone on the network and thus will be worthless.

When a block is discovered, the discoverer may award themselves a certain number of bitcoins, which is agreed-upon by everyone in the network. Currently this bounty is 25 bitcoins; this value will halve every 210,000 blocks. See Controlled Currency Supply.

Additionally, the miner is awarded the fees paid by users sending transactions. The fee is an incentive for the miner to include the transaction in their block. In the future, as the number of new bitcoins miners are allowed to create in each block dwindles, the fees will make up a much more important percentage of mining income.

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Everything you need to know about Bitcoin mining

Bitcoin Price Today – Live Bitcoin Value – Charts & Market …

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Last year everyone was going bonkers for Bitcoin, and thats no surprise, seeing as how the number one cryptocurrency had an absolutely explosive price performance in 2017. Things have cooled off in 2018 as prices fell significantly, however many are still bullish about Bitcoins long-term potential.

To that end, the scarce, deflationary quality of Bitcoin makes it totally unlike traditional fiat currencies, which are usually prone to inflation and even hyperinflation in the worst of cases. That means as more investments pour into BTC, its price will likely continue to see upward pressure because there will be no supply response.

Think about how when the price of oil surges, more companies begin producing oil, which then increases the supply and acutely deflates the price of oil accordingly.

No similar supply response can never happen with bitcoins. There will never be more than ~21 million, and even contemporary estimations say more than 3 million BTC have been lost for good, making BTC considerably scarcer than many realize.

That means the BTC could potentially shoot up exponentially in future years. But how high?Lets take a look at some of the more prominent projections weve seen thrown around in recent days.

Once renowned for being a prominent Wall Street hedge fund manager, Mike Novogratz has now set his sights on the cryptocurrency space, and hes not turning back. Running the crypto-based Galaxy Investment Partners, Novogratz is betting big on the Bitcoin boom in general as his mid-term BTC price projection suggests.

Bitcoin could be at $40,000 at the end of 2018, Novogratz said. It easily could.

And for Novogratz, theres no confusion as to why that particular price point may end up really materializing. In a November 30th interview on Fox Business, Novogratz unabashedly declared that Bitcoin is going mainstream.

And Novogratz knows what mainstream and institutional looks like; he used to run a Goldman Sachs trading desk in Asia before becoming a hedge fund manager at Fortress. If he thinks the herd is coming, as it were, then we all best pay attention.

Going much more long-term, Novogratz said it was within the realm of possibility that the bitcoin market cap could one day reach the current market cap of gold, which is around a whopping $8 trillion USD.

If this reality were to materialize down the road, that would put each BTC around the $390,000 price point.

Firebrand Bitcoin pundit Max Keiser has never made his love for BTC and its potential a secret.

As such, youll commonly find him on Twitter making new price predictions based on the Bitcoin booms momentum.

For now, hes pegging his short-term bitcoin price target at $15,000. Thats a reasonable figure, to be sure, especially with BTCs parabolic price performance in Q3 and Q4 2017.

Beyond that, though, Keiser has his eye set on the impressive $100,000 BTC price milestone.

Love him or hate him, Adam Back is an OG cypherpunk whos made incalculable contributions to the cryptocurrency space as a whole. Theres a reason Satoshi Nakamoto reached out to Back (and Wei Dai) first in starting up Bitcoin.

In other words, Backs been around the block once or twice. He knows the ecosystem as well as anyone.

And its his opinion that the next major target for the bitcoin price to hit is $100,000, echoing Max Keisers aforementioned prediction.

In a recent tweet, Back even went as far to say that users should be careful selling bitcoin in 2018 because the price could rocket so acutely over the next 12 months that people wouldve made considerably more by just holding.

John McAfee is best known as the creator of the popular McAfee antivirus software. Hes also become a Bitcoin aficionado over the past several months, and he never hesitates to voice his opinions on the cryptocurrency craze accordingly.

And his opinions are exceedingly bullish, to say the least. McAfee was projecting $500,000 BTC in 2020 just a few weeks ago, but he modified his claim to be even more bold as bitcoins market surge has been moving faster than he anticipated.

Now, McAfee thinks $1 million per bitcoin will be reality by the end of 2020. Thats almost an unfathomable possibility at the moment, but maybe we havent seen anything yet. Especially if institutional interest keeps exploding.

But McAfee has even bolder ideas, to be sure. In an even newer Twitter exchange, McAfee explained that he believes the BTC price could reach into the billions one day.

Specifically, the tens of billions as he argues:

Thats certainly the most aggressive price prediction anyones made for BTC yet. But if that insane price materializes, McAfee will end up looking like even more of a madman genius than he already is.

Swedish Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge is a big proponent of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), going so far as to sarcastically call himself the CEO of Bitcoin Cash.

But that doesnt mean he doesnt respect the beast that BTC is and could be.

Bitcoin] can easily go to more than $1 million per bitcoin. Falkvinge said during a recent interview. But thats just Falkvinges conservative estimate. Hes actually more bullish than that, asserting that BTC can go as high as $5 million:

If cryptocurrency fulfills its promise, and theres no indication it wouldnt, then the equivalent of one bitcoin needs to be in the $2-5 million dollar range.

The cryptocurrency expert and venture capitalist, Tim Draper, has also given its opinion about the future price of Bitcoin. According to him bitcoin and blockchain technology are one of the best things that happened for businesses.

Mr Draper said in 2014 that Bitcoin could reach $10,000 in just three years, something that happened in 2017, exactly on the date he predicted. When he explained that bitcoin could reach that price ($10,000), the cryptocurrency was traded just at $413 dollars.

At the same time, he said that in the future Bitcoin could keep growing. About that, he is convinced that the cryptocurrency is the future and that the virtual currency market will gain its place among fiat currencies.

Bitcoin is the future currency. Why would I sell the future for the past? Why would I go and grab some weird fiat subject to the will of some governments? he commented during an interview with Bloomberg.

The world market for cryptocurrencies is 6 trillion dollars, and I think that that it will be crypto. And I am really excited about all the extraordinary things that can happen because of crypto and bitcoin.

Cameron Winklevoss is one of the two popular Winklevoss twins. The co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, stated that bitcoin could be worth 40 times its current value.

In order to explain why bitcoin could grow up to 40 times, he compared the cryptocurrency market capitalization with the market cap of gold.

During an interview with CNBC he said:

So if you look at a $100 billion market cap today, now last week it might have been more like 200, so its actually a buying opportunity, we think that theres a potential appreciation of 30 to 40 times because you look at the gold market today, its a $7 trillion market. And so a lot of people are starting to se that, they recognize the store of value properties.

He has also said that due to the fact that bitcoin has a fixed supply, it is still a very underappreciated asset. Indeed, he stated that he and his brother believe that bitcoin disrupts gold.

The Winklevoss twins emphasized that they will not sell their bitcoins even if the price surpasses $380,000 dollars. This is a special number, because if bitcoin reaches this price level, its market capitalization will be equal to golds market valuation.

An important portfolio manager that worked for more than six years in the cryptocurrency world, predicted this year that Bitcoin could reach $50,000 dollars. While speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he brought some calm to the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin could definitely see $50,000 in 2018.

At the moment of the statement, Bitcoin was traded over $11,000, days later it reached the lowest point in months when it was displayed in cryptocurrency exchanges under $6,000 dollars.

But Mr Singh said that the kind of volatility that bitcoin experienced is not unusual nor unexpected. And thats confirmed when we pay attention to the charts. In the past, Bitcoin suffered important corrections in just a few days.

Mr Singh commented:

If you look at Microsoft of Apple when they went public their stocks were very volatile because the market wasnt mature. There are not so many vendors right now who can accept cryptocurrencies but theres huge adoption on the black market.

Cryptocurrency adoption keeps growing all over the world. In past articles we wrote that enterprises are investing in blockchain technologies and virtual currencies. Businesses all around the world, including small shops and merchants, are adopting bitcoin and other currencies as a means of payment.

If the adoption trend continues, bitcoin could lead the market towards new all time highs. Additionally, payment processors are working with cryptocurrencies trying to spread their benefits.

Lets get really speculative just for the purposes of illustration the growth thats possible in the coming years.

The current market cap of all global stock markets is around $100 trillion USD. Woah, right? Accordingly, lets say that the entire cryptocurrency market one day reaches this $100 trillion cap.

And lets also say that BTC maintains its current position as hovering around a 50 percent share of the entire crypto market (though, of course, theres no reason to believe itll stay at 50 percent forever).

That would put Bitcoin as having around a $50 trillion market cap. At this point, all we need is to divide $50 trillion by the number of bitcoins in existence.

Lets go with 17 million instead of 21 million since many bitcoins have been lost already.

Alas: $50 trillion divided by 17 million = ~$2,941,176. Round up, and thats $3 million per bitcoin.

Now, we cant count our eggs before theyve hatched. Theres still quite the mountain to climb for the crypto market to get even close to hitting $100 trillion. But maybe its possible in 30 or 40 years. Maybe not at all.

Its going to be a wild ride no matter what happens between now and then, that much is for sure.

Genetic Medicine University of Chicago Department of …

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Yoav Gilad, PhD

Chief, Section of Genetic Medicine

University of ChicagoDepartment of Medicine

The Section of Genetic Medicine was created over 10 years ago to both build research infrastructure in genetics within the Department of Medicine and to focus translational efforts related to genetics. As a result, the Section of Genetic Medicine is shaping the future of precision medicine with very active and successful research programs focused on the quantitative genetics, systems biology and genomics, and bioinformatics and computational biology. The Section provides extremely valuable collaborations with investigators in the Department of Medicine who are seeking to develop new and more powerful ways to identify genetic risk factors for common, complex disorders with almost immediate clinical application.

The Section of Genetic Medicine continues to shape the future of personalized medicine with successful research programs focused on the quantitative genetic and genomic science. The Section provides extremely valuable collaborations with investigators in the Department of Medicine who are seeking to develop new and more powerful ways to identify genetic risk factors for common, complex disorders with almost immediate clinical application.

The Section of Genetic Medicine conducts impactful investigations focused on quantitative genetics, systems biology and genomics, bioinformatics and computational biology. Some recent highlights include:

/r/Libertarian: For a free society – reddit

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

If you free-form a report, we're just going to ignore it. Possibly without even looking at the post/comment you reported. There's been times where a post does break the rules, but it has been approved until a proper report is filed, and then it is removed.

This is much like the court trying you for a crime. They need to specify WHICH crime you are being tried for. If they can't, you go free. Same concept. You need to accuse them of something, which breaks the rules, then we decide if it breaks what you accused them off. And free-form reports are not rules.

While we cannot disable free-form reports for app and mobile users, we did disable it on desktop. If you cannot point out which rule it is breaking please use the pre-recorded "Other" option.

It doesn't actually break the rules, it just hurts my feelings and I want to super downvote it.

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/r/Libertarian: For a free society - reddit

Urban Dictionary: libertarian

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Libertarians are nothing more than economicconservatives (Privatize all government services, end public schools,screw the poor) who are simply not religious fuck-tards. They can beanywhere from mainstream christian to atheist, but the only thing theyhave in common is that they do not want to pay any taxes for anything,and they would rather have the government just cater to business.

A typical libertarian is someone who doesn't care about religious ormoral issues, but who wants to eliminate public schools, becauseeducation is "not a right under the constitution", and who wants toeliminate all government regulations on business, because "businessescan just police themselves"

In other words, they are amoral sociopaths who don't give a fuck abouthumanity, or about using government to build a fair, just, equitablesociety that serves all the people equally.

I bought into the whole libertarian thing a while back, but when itcame down to regulations, I realized they had a serious disconnect.Most of the libertarian literature I've seen, and most of thelibertarians I've talked to believe in "business self-regulation" likea religion. They seem to think that businesses always have the bestinterests of the people in mind, and that we don't need minimum wages,zoning regulations, safety regulations, or any regulations, because"the market must be free to go in whatever direction it goes in", "letworkers decide which businesses have the best policies by not workingfor bad companies", and "taxes only inhibit growth and prosperity".

It's all total bullshit. Everyone knows that self regulation isbullshit -- it ALWAYS has resulted in corporate aliances thatdeliberately screw customers. Just look how the self-regulation of thestock brokers and auditors, and energy companies ended up -- MCI, Tyco,Enron, Anderson-Little, and others. If a company has an opportunity toget away with screwing it's customers without accountability, THEYWILL. If a company is allowed to operate a facility with dangerouspractices that endanger workers or the surrounding community, IT WILL.

Regulations were invented for very good reasons -- to protect workers,to protect communities, and to make people and companies accounatablewhen things go horribly wrong. Libertarians want us to forget our pastrun-ins with monopolies and industry self-regulation.

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Urban Dictionary: libertarian

Introduction to Libertarianism | A Libertarianism.org Guide

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Libertarianism is the philosophy of freedom.

Its not easy to define freedom. The author Leonard Read said, Freedom is the absence of man-concocted restraints against the release of creative energy. The Nobel laureate F. A. Hayek referred to a state in which each can use his knowledge for his purpose and also to the possibility of a persons acting according to his own decisions and plans, in contrast to the position of one who was irrevocably subject to the will of another, who by arbitrary decision could coerce him to act or not to act in specific ways. Perhaps its best to understand freedom as the absence of physical force or the threat of physical force. John Locke offered this definition of freedom under the rule of law:

[T]he end of Law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge Freedom: For in all the states of created beings capable of Laws, where there is no Law, there is no Freedom. For Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others which cannot be, where there is no Law: But Freedom is not, as we are told, A Liberty for every Man to do what he lists: (For who could be free, when every other Mans Humour might domineer over him?) But a Liberty to dispose, and order, as he lists, his Persons, Actions, Possessions, and his whole Property, within the Allowance of those Laws under which he is; and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary Will of another, but freely follow his own.

That is, a free person is not subject to the arbitrary will of another and is free to do as he chooses with his own person and property. But you can only have those freedoms when the law protects your freedom and everyone elses.

However we define freedom, we can certainly recognize aspects of it. Freedom means respecting the moral autonomy of each person, seeing each person as the owner of his or her own life, and each free to make the important decisions about his life.

Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each persons right to life, liberty, and propertyrights that people possess naturally, before governments are instituted. In the libertarian view, all human relationships should be voluntary; the only actions that should be forbidden by law are those that involve the initiation of force against those who have not themselves used forceactions such as murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, and fraud.

Libertarians believe in the presumption of liberty. That is, libertarians believe people ought to be free to live as they choose unless advocates of coercion can make a compelling case. Its the exercise of power, not the exercise of freedom, that requires justification. The burden of proof ought to be on those who want to limit our freedom.

The presumption of liberty should be as strong as the presumption of innocence in a criminal trial, for the same reason. Just as you cant prove your innocence of all possible charges against you, you cannot justify all of the ways in which you should be allowed to act. James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution, said in response to a proposal that a Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution: Enumerate all the rights of man! I am sure, sirs, that no gentleman in the late Convention would have attempted such a thing.

Why do libertarians value freedom? There are many reasons.

Freedom allows each of us to define the meaning of life, to define whats important to us. Each of us should be free to think, to speak, to write, to paint, to create, to marry, to eat and drink and smoke, to start and run a business, to associate with others as we choose. When we are free, we can construct our lives as we see fit. Freedom is part of whats needed to lead a full human life.

Freedom leads to social harmony. We have less conflict when we have fewer specific commands and prohibitions about how we should livein terms of class or caste, religion, dress, lifestyle, or schools.

Economic freedom means that people are free to produce and to exchange with others. Freely negotiated and agreed-upon prices carry information throughout the economy about what people want and what can be done more efficiently. For an economic order to function, prices must be free to tell the truth. A free economy gives people incentives to invent, innovate, and produce more goods and services for the whole society. That means more satisfaction of more wants, more economic growth, and a higher standard of living for everyone.

A political system of liberty gives us the opportunity to use our talents and to cooperate with others to create and produce, with the help of a few simple institutions that protect our rights. And those simple institutionsproperty rights, the rule of law, a prohibition on the initiation of forcemake possible invention, innovation, and progress in commerce, technology, and styles of living.

In barely 250 years of having widespread economic freedom, weve escaped from the back-breaking labor and short life expectancy that were the natural lot of mankind since time immemorial to the abundance we see around us today in more and more parts of the worldthough not yet enough of the world.

What does valuing freedom mean for the libertarian view of government?

For libertarians, the basic political issue is the relationship of the individual to the state. What rights do individuals have (if any)? What form of government (if any) will best protect those rights? What powers should government have? What demands may individuals make on one another through the mechanism of government?

We try to discover the rules that govern the world, and rules that will enable us all to live together and realize those wonderful rights in the Declaration of Independencelife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The worst governments are tyrannical predators; the best embody attempts at providing the framework of rules we need to live together.

We know who and what government is. It isnt some Platonic ideal. Government is people, specifically people using force against other people. We need some method to constrain and punish the violent, the thieves and fraudsters, and other dangers to our freedom, our rights, and our security. But that shouldnt eliminate our skepticism about empowering some people to use force against others. The power that government holds is wielded by real people, not ideal people, and real people are imperfect. Some are corrupt, some are even evil. Some of the worst are actually attracted to state power. But even the well-intentioned, the honest, and the wise are still just people exercising power over other people.

Thats why Americans have always feared the concentration of power. Its why I often say that Smokey the Bears rules for fire safety apply to government: Keep it small, keep it in a confined area, and keep an eye on it.

Libertarians, as the name implies, believe that the most important political value is liberty, not democracy. Many modern readers may wonder, whats the difference? Arent liberty and democracy the same thing?

Theyre not. Much of the confusion stems from two different senses of the word liberty, a distinction notably explored by the nineteenth-century French libertarian Benjamin Constant in an essay titled The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns. Constant noted that to the ancient Greek writers the idea of liberty meant the right to participate in public life, in making decisions for the entire community. Thus Athens was a free polity because all the citizensthat is, all the free, adult, Athenian mencould go to the public square and participate in the decision-making process. Socrates, indeed, was free because he could participate in the collective decision to execute him for his heretical opinions. The modern concept of liberty, however, emphasizes the right of individuals to live as they choose, to speak and worship freely, to own property, to engage in commerce, to be free from arbitrary arrest or detentionin Constants words, to come and go without permission, and without having to account for their motives and undertakings. A government based on the participation of the governed is a valuable safeguard for individual rights, but liberty itself is the right to make choices and to pursue projects of ones own choosing.

I have attempted to sketch here what it means to be a libertarian. There are many kinds of libertarians, of course. Some are people who might describe themselves as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, or say they want the government out of my pocketbook and out of my bedroom. Some believe in the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and want the government to remain within the limits of the Constitution. Some just have an instinctive belief in freedom or an instinctive aversion to being told what to do. Some are admirers of Dr. Ron Paul and his son, Senator Rand Paul, and their campaigns against war, government spending, the surveillance state, and the Federal Reserve. Some like the writings of Thomas Jefferson or John Stuart Mill. Some have studied economics. Some have learned from history that governments always seek to expand their size, scope, and power, and must be constrained to preserve freedom. Some have noticed that war, prohibition, cronyism, racial and religious discrimination, protectionism, central planning, welfare, taxes, and government spending have deleterious effects. Some are so radical they think all goods and services could be provided without a state. In this Guide, I welcome all those people to the libertarian cause. When I talk about libertarian ideas, I mean to include the ideas of thinkers from John Locke and Adam Smith to F. A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Robert Nozick, and Richard Epstein.

The old ideologies have been tried and found wanting. All around usfrom the postcommunist world to the military dictatorships of Africa to the insolvent welfare states of Europe and the Americaswe see the failed legacy of coercion and statism. At the same time we see moves toward libertarian solutions constitutional government in Eastern Europe and South Africa, privatization in Britain and Latin America, democracy and the rule of law in South Korea and Taiwan, the spread of womens rights and gay rights, and economic liberalization in China, India, and even some countries in Africa. Challenges to freedom remain, of course, including the continuing lack of Enlightenment values in much of the world, the unsustainable welfare states in the rich countries and the interests that fight reform, the recurring desire for centralized and top-down political institutions such as the Eurozone, Islamist theocracy, and the spread of populist, antilibertarian responses to social change and economic crisis. Libertarianism offers an alternative to coercive government that should appeal to peaceful, productive people everywhere.

No, a libertarian world wont be a perfect one. There will still be inequality, poverty, crime, corruption, mans inhumanity to man. But unlike the theocratic visionaries, the pie-in-the-sky socialist utopians, or the starry-eyed Mr. Fixits of the New Deal and Great Society, libertarians dont promise you a rose garden. Karl Popper once said that attempts to create heaven on earth invariably produce hell. Libertarianism holds out the goal not of a perfect society but of a better and freer one. It promises a world in which more of the decisions will be made in the right way by the right person: you. The result will be not an end to crime and poverty and inequality but lessoften much lessof most of those things most of the time.

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Introduction to Libertarianism | A Libertarianism.org Guide

Seastead Institute, Ocean Builders promote seasteading: What …

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Thai naval officers inspecting a a floating dwelling in the Andaman Sea.(Photo: Royal Thai Navy)

Seasteading, living on floating dwelling on oceans outside nation boundaries,is beingpromoted by groups that want to test new ideas on communal living in a utopian experiment.

One groupchampioning it is the Seasteading Institute, which claims that the sea, through "floating cities,"is a way to "allow the next generation of pioneers to peacefully test new ideas for how to live together."

Another is Ocean Builders a group that describes itself as "a team of engineering focused entrepreneurs who have a passion for seasteading and plans to sell dwellings.

A floating dwelling, 12 nautical miles off the coast of Phuket, Thailand, is part of a controversy involving a Michigan native and his girlfriend.(Photo: Royal Thai Navy)

Butthis week,Chad Elwartowski, a Michigan man who sought to live on the ocean in a prototype,octagon-shaped dwellingwith his girlfriend, a Thai citizen,is in deep water with theThai government, which alleges that he infringing on its national sovereignty.

Elwartowski said he is is now on the run, and could bebe imprisoned for life or suffer the death penalty if he and his girlfriend are caught.

The Seasteading Institute says that living in international waters on permanent platformsarea way to "allow the next generation of pioneers to peacefully test new ideas for how to live together."

Michigan man living in ocean has desperate plea: Thai government 'wants us killed'

American cultural icon Smokey Bear gets a new look and voice for his 75th birthday

The institute was founded in 2008 by Patri Friedman a political economic theorist who also is the grandson of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and technology entrepreneur Peter Thiel.

It also is encouraging countries to pass legislation that could lead to moreseasteading projects.

Elwartowski, who moved into a seastead built by Ocean Builders,has suggestedthat seasteading efforts allow people a chanceto start over.

"It's basically a blank slate," he says in a YouTubevideo, promising that 20 more seasteads would be built based on what his experience. "Hopefully, with this great blank slate, we can create some great governance."

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.

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Seastead Institute, Ocean Builders promote seasteading: What ...

Seasteading Bitcoin Fans Say They’re ‘On the Run’ From Thai …

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

It was supposed to be the first seastead in international watersa small white box protruding from the waves off the coast of Phuket, Thailand, occupied by two would-be pioneers who decided to live there in the pursuit of a new life unfettered by national laws.

But now, Chad Elwartowski and Supranee Thepdet (AKA Nadia Summergirl), say theyre on the run.

According to the Bangkok Post, the Royal Thai Navy filed a criminal complaint with police under a section of the criminal code that concerns threats to national sovereignty. Violations of this section of the criminal code are punishable by life in prison or death, the Post noted.

The six-meter wide structure, known as XLII, was supposed to be the first real application of seasteading, a libertarian idea that advocates for new societies to form on structures floating in international waters. According to Ocean Builders, the startup behind the project, the structure was allegedly located in international waters, 12 miles off the coast but still within Thailands exclusive economic zone.

After it launched in early 2019, Elwartowski and Thepdetvolunteers, according to Ocean Buildersmoved in. Elwartowski, a Bitcoin enthusiast, told me he had enough in cryptocurrency holdings to retire and Thepdet posts online as Bitcoin Girl Thailand. Joe Quirk, president of the Seasteading Institute advocacy group, directed a short documentary series about the pair, titled The First Seasteaders.

We were very enthusiastic about the idea of being able to live on the new frontier, Elwartowski told me in an email. It has been my dream for 10 years to live on a seastead. Nothing will take away the fact that I was able to be free for a few moments.

Trouble started, Elwartowski said, when the couple saw news reports about the government cracking down on their home while celebrating the ongoing Thai holiday of Songkranwhich began on Saturdayon land. Fearing the potentially stiff consequences, the pair bugged out, Elwartowski told me, a phrase that essentially means fleeing. When I first contacted Elwartowski through Ocean Builders site admin email, he said, We are on the run.

According to the Bangkok Post, the Royal Thai Navy sent officers to the XLII structure on Saturday and attempted to make radio contact with the occupants, but nobody replied.

Thai officials claim that XLII obstructs a shipping route, the Post reported. Elwartowski disputed this in an email, noting that the structure is small, located in an area rife with fishing boats, and outfitted with a solar anchor light as well as a navigation beacon for nearby ships.

When Motherboard contacted the US embassy in Thailand, an after-hours duty officer did not have any information to share.

The origins of Ocean Builders are murky, apparently intentionally so. Despite Elwartowski and Thepdet arguably being the faces of the XLII project, and Elwartowski responding to the companys main email account, even while on the run, a company statement described the pair merely as volunteers excited about the prospect of living free.

In an email, Elwartowski told me he and Thepdet arrived to the project in September of last year and repeatedly referred to the companys founder as "Seatoshi," evoking Bitcoin's pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto. Ocean Builders describes itself as a team of engineering focused entrepreneurs.

In a statement, Ocean Builders acknowledged that the project team is made up of early Bitcoin adopters, but that Elwartowski didnt fund the project personally and moved in with his own sheets and dishware.

What is clear is that the modest XLII structure was hardly the end of Ocean Builders plans. The company had planned to start a pre-sale on 20 more units on Mondaya sale that is now postponed, according to a statement by Ocean Builders. A minimal, barebones structure was to sell for $150,000 USD, according to the company.

According to Elwartowski, Ocean Builders didnt liaise with the Thai government before the planned sale, and instead intended to wow officials with an impressive lineup of prospective buyers.

We wanted to see if there was enough interest before going to the Thai government, he told me. The key was we needed to show them how much money we planned on bringing in for our project. We couldn't just go to them with the hopes of something happening. So we figured we would do the sale, see if there was enough interest then get started building with the permission of the Thai tourism authority and Board of Investment.

Elwartowski said that he and Thepdet are now seeking safety and asylum.

We just want to be alive somewhere not fleeing, he told me. I may be able to get to the US embassy but Nadia is Thai. She has to leave her family behind. Her son, her mom.

If the pair do make it through, they may decide to leave seasteading behind and simply live peacefully in their new location, Elwartowski said.

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Seasteading Bitcoin Fans Say They're 'On the Run' From Thai ...

Navy to remove ‘seasteading’ floating home off Phuket coast …

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

This floating living platform, built off the coast of Phuket by an American man and his Thai wife, will be removed within one week, says the Third Navy Area commander. (Supplied photo via Achadtaya Chuenniran)

PHUKET: The Royal Thai Navy Third Navy looks set to remove "seasteading'' couple's living platform, 12 nautical miles from this island province, within a week.

Authorities have filed a complaint with Wichit police station over the floating platform set up in international waterssoutheast of Racha Yai island, said Vice Adm Sitthiporn Maskasem, commander of the Third Area, during a media briefing on Wednesday.

Representatives from concerned agencies met to discuss legal procedures to be taken against those who set up the floating structure, said Vice Adm Sitthiporn.

In the police complaint, authorities accused American national Chad Andrew Elwartowski and his Thai wife, Supranee Thepdet, with an English alias of Nadia Summergirl, of breaching Section 119 of the Criminal Code.

The section concerns acts that cause the country or parts of it to fall under the sovereignty of a foreign state, and deterioration of the state's independence.

The complaint has been filed against them for breaching Section 119 of the Criminal Code as there is evidence showing that they have publicly invited people on social media to stay at the site, which is adjacent to our territorial waters...we have laws to deal with this. It affects our sovereignty, said the Third Naval Area commander.

Officials hold a media briefing about a plan to remove the floating living structure 12 nautical miles off the coast of Phuket. (Photo by Achataya Chuenniran)

Preparations were already made to remove the floating structure from the sea as soon as possible, he said.

The structure hindered shipping navigation since fishing trawlers and cargo vessels ply the route to transport goods to Phuket, he said.

We have already prepared a vessel, equipment and manpower to move the structure. We will try to move it within a week said Vice Adm Sitthiporn.

Phuket deputy governor Supoj Rodruang Na Nong Khai said the American national, who set up the floating structure, had entered Thailand in November last year and had a temporary residence in tambon Rawai of Muang district, Phuket.

An investigation found that the man had run a Bitcoin trading business and wanted to set up an independent nation by exploiting legal loopholes, said the deputy governor.

The pair reportedly aimed to set up a permanent shelter out of any state territories by exploiting a loophole in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The practice of attempting to establish micronations that claim to be independent but are not recognised by world governments or major international organisations is expanding globally, particularly among those who become rich from cryptocurrency trading, according to officers.

Earlier, the Maritime Enforcement Coordination Centre's third area command held a news conference about the seastead, attracting coverage in both domestic and foreign media.

Navy to remove 'seasteading' floating home off Phuket coast ...

‘We just want to live.’ MI man on the run from Thai gov. for …

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

(WXYZ) A Michigan man and Bitcoin fan who wanted a life free of international laws is on the run from the Thai government for living in the first seastead off the countrys coast.

Chad Elwartowski and Supranee Thepdet (AKA Nadia Summergirl) are facing criminal charges punishable by death related to living in the waterborne structure, according to the Bangkok Post.

Chad and his wife Nadia were meant to be pioneers of seasteading an idea popular in the Libertarian culture, which advocates for societies to be set up on floating structures in international waters.

Instead, the couple, who say theyve made enough with Bitcoins to retire, is on the run.

They're accused of trying to lay claim to Thai maritime territory with their seastead, according to the Bangkok Post, that also reported that their source said officers "found evidence which led them to believe the couple was engaging in the setting up of an independent state. Such an act would have a negative impact on the country's shoreline."

The couple volunteered to be the first tenants of Ocean Builders first structure, and documented the process on video .

They moved into the floating six-meter wide structure, located 12 nautical miles off the coast of Phuket, Thailand, in March.

Trouble started when the couple saw media reports about the government cracking down, and then on Saturday, the Royal Thai Navy attempted to make radio contact with occupants of the seastead, but nobody replied, the Bangkog Post reported.

Shortly after that, Chad posted on his public Facebook page.

"I'll say it right here. Nadia and I did not design, construct or pay to have the seastead constructed. We promoted it and lived on it. We helped out by giving the builder updates and we participated in the launch. We did not decide where to put the seastead."

Yesterday, Chad updated his friends saying he and his wife are safe and in hiding.

But as long as Nadia and I are able to live through this that is all that matters to us right now. We just want to live, he posted.

'We just want to live.' MI man on the run from Thai gov. for ...

Bitcoin Couple Nadia Thepdet and Chad Elwartowski Face Death …

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Nadia Thepdet takes beautiful photos of the ocean. One recent picture on her Instagram shows the sun setting over the waves. In another, she stands on a boat off Thailands coast, holding a golden coin with bitcoin logo.

But Thepdets love of bitcoin and the sea could cost her her life.

She and her boyfriend Chad Elwartowski are cryptocurrency evangelists who tried to live out the libertarian idea of seasteading. The concept, beloved by tech types like Peter Thiel, proposes a set of floating islands in international waters. The idea is to escape countries and laws.

Now the law is coming for Thepdet and Elwartowski. The couple moved into the first off-shore house by seasteading company Ocean Builders earlier this year. Their new home was located atop an oil rig-like structure 12 miles off the Thai coast, technically in international watersbut Thailand says they werent far enough from the coast. Thai authorities accuse the couple of breaching a law prohibiting acts that endangers Thai sovereignty, according to the Bangkok Post.

Breaking the law is punishable by death, or life in prison. Now Thepdet and Elwartowski say theyre on the run.

This is ridiculous, Elwartowski wrote in a Monday Facebook post. We lived on a floating house boat for a few weeks and now Thailand wants us killed.

At its heart, seasteading is like living on a glorified houseboat. The idea has a strong fan base among a certain fringe of libertarians and anarcho-capitalists who believe in establishing a new society with little to no government.

One of seasteadings earliest and most notorious failures was Operation Atlantis, a 1968 effort to build libertarian civilization aboard a boat in international waters. The plan sank with the boat, which caught fire while leaving New York and went belly-up in a hurricane near the Bahamas. (The plans founder later tried to build paradise on an offshore oil rig that was also swept away in a hurricane.)

More modern visions of seasteading have imagined entire cities built across boats or oil rigs. Ocean Builders, which is run by early bitcoin adopters, says it wants to build the first seasteading homes. If all goes according to plan, those houses might become the beginning of a city at sea.

Some of seasteadings biggest backers come from the cryptocurrency community, where Thepdet was a minor celebrity, posting as Bitcoin Girl Thailand. The pair claimed to have generated their wealth from the untraceable digital currency, which is a favorite of libertarians.

In a Facebook post last year, Thepdet envisioned luxury homes floating on the ocean. The reality was less glamorous.

In February, Ocean Builders announced it had constructed the worlds first seastead in international waters 12 nautical miles out from Phuket, Thailand. Thepdet and Elwartowskis new home was very basic: a short, round room atop stilts.

It was also very illegal, Thailand authorities allege. If it is left untouched, it will hinder ship navigation since the route is used for the transport of oil to Phuket, a government source told the Bangkok Post. The government reportedly alleges the structure was in Thai maritime waters.

One seasteader said the couples plan to live 12 nautical miles off the coast came with legal setbacks.

12nm [nautical miles] is not the high seas, Patri Friedman, founder of the Seasteading Institute, wrote on Facebook. It is the Contiguous Zone, where a state has many rights, several of which seem likely to pertain here. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that the high seas starts at 12nm; it means they havent even spent 5 minutes reading Wikipedia.

Friedman, who has pushed an anti-democratic brand of libertarianism, is one of seasteadings leading proponents and previously led an aborted effort to create a libertarian city in Honduras.

Even the actual high seas (roughly 200+ nm from land) are not a magical realm of freedom where you can just plant a flag and be an independent polity, he continued on Facebook.

With Thai authorities searching for them, the couple is now denying allegations that they tried to undermine Thai sovereignty.

Nadia and I did not design, construct or pay to have the seastead constructed, Elwartowski wrote on Facebook. We promoted it and lived on it. We helped out by giving the builder updates and we participated in the launch. We did not decide where to put the seastead. We are enthusiastic supporters of the project who were lucky enough to be the first ones to stay on it.

The couple were back on the mainland when they started reading news reports about Thai officials raiding the seastead, they told Motherboard.

In a follow-up Facebook post, Elwartowski said he and Thepdet were safe, and that they were trying to find a way out of the country. Elwartowski is a U.S. citizen, but Thepdet is Thai and might try to apply for asylum in the U.S., he said.

Hunting us down to our death is just plain stupid and highlights exactly the reason someone would be willing to go out in middle of the ocean to get away from governments, he said.

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Bitcoin Couple Nadia Thepdet and Chad Elwartowski Face Death ...

Transhuman | Future | FANDOM powered by Wikia

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Transhumanity

A transhuman is a life form with an intelligence comparable or superior to that of humans.

It thus has the following characteristics:

A posthuman or post-human is a hypothetical future being whose capabilities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer human by current standards. A posthuman can also be described as the creature that results from radical human enhancement. In these ways, the difference between the posthuman and other hypothetical sophisticated non-humans is that a posthuman was once a human, either in its life time or in the life times of some or all of its direct ancestors. As such, a prerequisite for a posthuman is a transhuman, the point at which the human being begins surpassing his own limitations, but is still recognisable as a human person.

Posthumans could be a symbiosis of human and artificial intelligence, or uploaded consciousnesses, or the result of making many smaller but cumulatively profound technological augmentations to a biological human, i.e. a cyborg. Some examples of the latter are redesigning the human organism using advanced nanotechnology or radical enhancement using some combination of technologies such as genetic engineering, psychopharmacology, life extension therapies, neural interfaces, advanced information management tools, memory enhancing drugs, wearable or implanted computers, and cognitive techniques.

The term can also refer to the possibility of a technological singularity or that humanity or a segment of humanity will create or evolve into a "posthuman God".

Homo excelsior (Latin for "higher man") is an alternate term used in the literature of transhumanism for the posthuman.[citation needed] The use of the Latin binomial implies the transhumanist idea of participant evolution as a hypothetical human progression through an intermediary form of the transhuman to a new species distinct from Homo sapiens.

As used here, "posthuman" does not refer to a conjectured future where humans are extinct or otherwise absent from the Earth. As with other species who diverge from one another, both humans and posthumans could continue to exist.

"Posthuman" should not be confused with "posthumanism," which is a European philosophical extension of humanism.

Transhuman | Snafu Comics Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

A Transhuman or trans-human is an intermediary form between the human and the hypothetical posthuman.

The etymology of the term "transhuman" goes back to French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who wrote in his 1949 book The Future of Mankind: Liberty: that is to say, the chance offered to every man (by removing obstacles and placing the appropriate means at his disposal) of 'trans-humanizing' himself by developing his potentialities to the fullest extent.

And in a 1951 unpublished revision of the same book: In consequence one is the less disposed to reject as unscientific the idea that the critical point of planetary Reflection, the fruit of socialization, far from being a mere spark in the darkness, represents our passage, by Translation or dematerialization, to another sphere of the Universe: not an ending of the ultra-human but its accession to some sort of trans-humanity at the ultimate heart of things.

In 1957 book New Bottles for New Wine, English evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley wrote: The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. "I believe in transhumanism": once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Pekin man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny. One of the first professors of futurology, FM-2030, who taught "new concepts of the Human" at The New School of New York City in the 1960s, used "transhuman" as shorthand for "transitional human". Calling transhumans the "earliest manifestation of new evolutionary beings", FM argued that signs of transhumans included physical and mental augmentations including prostheses, reconstructive surgery, intensive use of telecommunications, a cosmopolitan outlook and a globetrotting lifestyle, androgyny, mediated reproduction (such as in vitro fertilisation), absence of religious beliefs, and a rejection of traditional family values.

FM-2030 used the concept of transhuman, as an evolutionary transition, outside the confines of academia in his contributing final chapter to the 1972 anthology Woman, Year 2000. In the same year, American cryonics pioneer Robert Ettinger contributed to conceptualization of "transhumanity" in his book Man into Superman. In 1982, American artist Natasha Vita-More authored the Transhuman Manifesto 1982: Transhumanist Arts Statement and outlined what she perceived as an emerging transhuman culture.

Many thinkers today do not consider FM-2030's characteristics to be essential attributes of a transhuman. However, analyzing the possible transitional nature of the human species has been and continues to be of primary interest to anthropologists and philosophers within and outside the intellectual movement of transhumanism.

In March 2007, American physicist Gregory Cochran and paleoanthropologist John Hawks published a study, alongside other recent research on which it builds, which amounts to a radical reappraisal of traditional views, which tended to assume that humans have reached an evolutionary endpoint. Physical anthropologist Jeffrey McKee argued the new findings of accelerated evolution bear out predictions he made in a 2000 book The Riddled Chain. Based on computer models, he argued that evolution should speed up as a population grows because population growth creates more opportunities for new mutations; and the expanded population occupies new environmental niches, which would drive evolution in new directions. Whatever the implications of the recent findings, McKee concludes that they highlight a ubiquitous point about evolution: "every species is a transitional species."

Transhuman | Snafu Comics Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia

The TransHuman Code Initiative | A new initiative that …

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Digitalization is the new normal with disruptive waves to the economy, business models, consumer choices and demands.Today, we must acknowledge that we are either building a future of technological grandeur at the expense of what makes us magnificent, or we are building a future of human grandeur with the help of magnificent technology. The path we collectively choose will determine whether our future is bleak or bright.

We urge your commitment to #maketechhuman because technology shall serve people and not people serve technology. This is humanitys manifesto for choosing wisely:

To fully reap the benefits of digitalization and technology, all humans must have quality access to connectivity. Governments shall be committed to the expansion of next-generation smart infrastructure, and establish principles of technological neutrality, through a simplified, market-oriented, and transparent regulatory environment, and through incentives to invest in less profitable areas, as well as by fostering investments for skill and capacity building.

Securing the privacy of every human being is paramount to realizing the full potential of our future. Therefore, personal data conveyed over the Internet or stored in devices connected to the Internet is owned and solely governed by the individual. It is paramount to protect all citizens in the all-digital age.AI systems should use tools, including anonymized data, de-identification, or aggregation to protect personally identifiable information whenever possible.

An array of emerging digital threats may harm citizens. Users must trust that their personal and sensitive data is protected and handled appropriately. We strongly support the protection of the foundation of AI and other technologies, including source code, proprietary algorithms, and other intellectual property. We believe governments should avoid requiring companies to transfer or provide access to technology, source code, algorithms, or encryption keys as conditions for doing business. We encourage governments to use strong, globally-accepted and deployed cryptography and other security standards that enable trust and interoperability. We also promote voluntary information-sharing on cyberattacks or hacks to better enable consumer protection.

Respecting the authority and autonomy of every human being is paramount to realizing the full potential of our future. Therefore, personal digital data will not be used as research, rationale, enticement or commodity by any entity or individual, except with the explicit, well-informed, revocable consent of the individual owner of the data.

Improving the human condition is paramount to realizing the full potential of our future. Therefore, a universal code of ethics reflecting the highest order of human values will govern the development, implementation, and use of technology.

Advancing human faculties is paramount to realizing the full potential of our future. Therefore, to that end, the secure, approved, and accountable aggregation of personal information and resources to increase our individual abilities is a fundamental objective of technology.

Advocating and innovating the greatest good for all humanity is paramount to realizing the full potential of our future. Therefore, technology, no matter how advanced, will never supersede the spiritual purposes or the moral rights and responsibilities of any human being anywhere. Technology will serve humanitys needs.

Democratizing human vision, ingenuity, and education is paramount to realizing the full potential of our future. Therefore, technology will remain humanitys greatest collaborator but never represent humanity itself.

Link:

The TransHuman Code Initiative | A new initiative that ...

THE ADVENT OF THE TRANSHUMANS – News – Dreadnought

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

The Transarchaeologists Guide to the Colonies (15th revision, 2440 CE) is a collective work designed to help freelance Transarchaeologists, tomb raiders and treasure hunters acquire and sell the most valuable technological artifacts. It is an evolving text that provides an in-depth look at the Transhumans and the legacy they left behind.

Solving the mysteries of the Transhumans starts with the massive terraforming structures they built on the Solar System's planets and moons. Archival image: Kappa Base

To find Transhuman treasure, one must have an understanding of those who created it. Before going into the field, it is important to consider the origins of the Transhumans and their journey into the depths of the Solar System.

By the late 2100s, Federal Earth had become plagued by famine and overpopulation. The advent of the Transhumans (1) brought rapid and wide-ranging solutions to the planets most pressing problems. They helped create new land, and with it new sources of food. Living conditions improved, with human lifespans reaching 130 years. Communication and cultural awareness grew as well; a golden era of peace had arrived.

(1) Transhumans are mechanical, highly advanced beings that emerged from humanitys experiments with artificial intelligence. Their exact origins are a matter of dispute among historians.

In 2210 CE, the Federal Earth government created a task force to push these advancements even further. Entrusted with the mission of ensuring the future of humanity, this groupcomprising thousands of scientists and Transhumans (2)set out to create even more livable spaces. Nicknamed the Valkyrie Venture, this teams mission was to terraform Federal Earths closest neighbors: Mars and Venus.

(2) The term Transhuman originated in news reports around the time of the Valkyrie Venture. The name stuck.

The Valkyrie Venture began with Project Fury. In just 25 years, the team was able to transform Mars into a habitable, temperate world. Although this enormous achievement fulfilled the task forces original objective, the Transhumans persuaded their human counterparts to continue with Project Morrigan (3), which resulted in the birth of a terraformed Venus by 2240. As the Valkyrie Venture came to a close, all of its scientists were assigned to work on improving life on the newly created Home Planets.

(3) Many historians identify project Morrigan as evidence of the Transhumans beginning to think for themselves.

After the Valkyrie Venture, humanitys needs were more than met. However, in 2239 CE, the Transhumans made a proposal to their masters that they couldnt refuse: immortality for the human race. With the blessing of the new Home Planet governments and minimal input from humans, the Transhumans initiated the Viking Venture. Named in the spirit of exploration, this project set its sights on transforming the outer Solar System.

Between 2260 and 2340 CE, the technological capabilities of the Transhumans developed at breakneck speeds; they tamed the asteroid belt, manipulated gravitational forces and sculpted the surfaces of planets and moons. They successfully terraformed the majority of objects in the Jovian, Cronian and Uranian systems for humanity, leaving vast treasure troves of technology in their wake.

Upon reaching Neptune in 2340 CE, the Transhumans informed the Home Planets of their intent to take it for themselves. One can only imagine the level of technology that the Transhumans had developed by this timebecause before humanity had the chance to see it, they had declared war on the machines that had created it for them.

A derelict jumpgate, known as Cillix, orbits the Jovian moon Thebe. This massive, Transhuman-built structure is one of the many lucrative tech scavenging sites.

When looking for lost artifacts, listen. When listening to rumors, keep your eyes open. Transhuman treasure has a tendency to hide. Your best bet: trick it into being found.

common Transarchaeologist adage

Historians study history. Transarchaeologists seek to dig it up, catalog each piece and divine its purpose. Below you will find a primer on what Transhuman treasure is and the larger regions in which it can be found.

A century after the Transhumans left, fragments of Transhuman treasure lay dormant, emitting mysterious signals to those who stop to listen. These relics include advanced weaponry and warp drives; however, most come from tech that was built to kick-start the terraforming process of planets and moons, such as mining towers, purification facilities and machines capable of controlling the orbits of asteroids. The Transarchaeologist hunts for artifacts of all shapes and forms; whether the size of a ship or microchip, they are relics worth possessing. While the Transhuman tech that is found may be rusted, weathered or broken, it still has the power to transform worlds.

Tech artifacts can be obtained in a variety of ways; they can be stumbled upon, traded for, won on a beteven fabricated (4). However, to increase your chances of finding a respectable cache in the traditional manner, you need to know exactly where to look.

(4) Counterfeit artifacts are big businessand a big problem. It is estimated that the majority of pieces traded on the Home Planets and in the colonies are worthless fabrications.

The terraformers on Callistos Red Sands outpost extend hundreds of kilometers below its surface into the moons subterranean ocean. Their purpose remains unclear, but the site holds ample low-value items.

This region was the first to be shaped by the Transhumans (5). During this periodknown as the Bronze Age of Post-Leap Development (2260 - 2300 CE)massive terraforming structures were built at Kappa Base on Io, Dry Dock on Ganymede and Red Sands on Callisto.

The Jovian systems proximity to the Scum Belt makes it a good starting point for novice Transarchaeologists in search of loot, but not for experienced hunters. Many of the functional, high-value items have long been scavenged; whats left are mostly weathered or broken parts. In this region, whether you find trash or treasure depends largely on your perspective.

(5) Humans established colonies in this region before and after the Transhumans. However, it was the latter who left their mark with their colossal machinery and research stations.

The Transhumans presence on Saturns moons has come to be classified as the Silver Age (2300 - 2330 CE) (6). During this time, they were able to make their Bronze-Age tech even more powerful and efficient. Transhuman mines and terraforming machines on Titan, Rhea, Lapetus, Dione and Tethys still stand as monuments to a race of machines that was developing at an exponential rate.

More remote than the Jovian system, Saturn and its satellites offer richer stores of tech artifacts. Transarchaeologists willing to spend ample time hunting around the outskirts of Ixions Beanstalks on Titan will find whole, partially functioning pieces of techfrom warp drive components to Transhuman ship modules. However, it is important to travel with protection; scavengers as well as outlaws from Sinley Bay have a strong interest in acquiring treasure.

(6) Few humans were able to explore this region before the Great Solar War. However, only a few decades after the Atlantis Battle, the Home Planets had colonized all of Saturns moons.

Spaceports across the Solar System deal in counterfeit Transhuman items, especially larger cities. One of the most notorious is New Singapore, Europa: capital of the Federal Earth colonies.

Uranus and its moons were the final celestial objects to be terraformed for humanity. During the Golden Age (2330 - 2340 CE), Transhumans were able to craft serene, delicately balanced ecosystems most of which were destroyed during the Great Solar War.

This region has produced some of the most valued and prized artifacts (7). The tough part is finding them and surviving the journey back to civilization. If one does venture this far, the Transhuman-made tropical regions of Titania, Uranus largest moon, have proven to be fertile grounds for hunting. However, it is important to avoid the many scavenger hideouts within Uranus dark, thin rings. Whatever precautions are taken in the Cronian system should be doubled for this wild, far-flung region.

(7) The most famous discovery: Transhuman diamond mines and helium 3 extractors in the upper atmosphere of Uranus. Estimates of this sites worth vary greatlybut all agree it is the most notable in the region.

Much about this dim, cold region remains a mystery. What is known is that Neptune was adopted by the Transhumans as their home planeta move that triggered the Great Solar War. Although it was damaged beyond recognition in the Atlantis Battle, this icy planet still holds traces of hyper-advanced infrastructure that was clearly leaning toward supporting non-human needs.

There are many rumors about fearless Transarchaeologists braving this frigid, isolated region. However, no one has survived to tell about it. A curious, intrepid soul reading this article will likely be the first.

Transhuman Treachery – TV Tropes

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Hey, they may be hapless victims turned bloodlusting walking corpses, but living forever in eternal beauty is a great health benefit!

Part of the Horror of being infected by The Virus is its ability to corrupt the mind of a victim, subordinating them into a Hive Mind or outright making them a sociopathic shell of their former self, intent only on killing or infecting their former loved ones.

But then there's times that a transformation doesn't brainwash, de-soul, drive insane, or demonically possess the victim. Other times the Viral Transformation causes changes that are purely cosmetic, granting amazing abilities albeit at great cost and (usually) a horrifying appearance. So what do these unwilling tranformees do? Become Phlebotinum Rebels or Vampire Refugees and use their powers to fight these monsters? Nope. They engage in Transhuman Treachery.

They sell out humanity and ally with who- or what-ever did this to them, regardless of whether or not they wanted to kill all vampires, robots, mutants, or aliens five minutes ago. There is no shock, only joy at becoming "more" than human and being able to flout society's rules.

If this FaceHeel Turn is too quick, it gives the impression that some other trope is at work, like The Dark Side, or With Great Power Comes Great Insanity. However, this trope may be justified a couple of ways. If The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body it doesn't matter that vampire Dan doesn't want to drink human blood, he has to, and trying to be friendly won't last. Alternately, someone seeking the Curse That Cures may make the painful choice to switch sides to save their life. If the setting has an ongoing "race war" against what the character has become if they don't join their new race they'll quickly face death. However, most of the time the switch in alliances comes about with alarming speed and lack of concern. At best you'll see these Big Bad Friends offer the transformation to a friend or loved one... and kill them if they refuse. The Dark Side, they have cookies.

It seems resisting these new biological impulses or avoiding becoming drunk on power is reserved solely for protagonists with Heroic Willpower.

A possible cause of Beware the Superman, this is the third sin in the Scale of Scientific Sins. Compare Sheep in Wolf's Clothing and Species Loyalty. Contrast Monsters Anonymous. May lead to forming an Anti-Human Alliance. Can overlap with Super Supremacist. Contrast Pro-Human Transhuman or Humanity Is Infectious, depending on the details.

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Lucy: [after Helsing offers her "peace" in exchange to know Dracula's whereabouts] Peace? Do you imagine I am in pain, professor? A tortured soul? Look at me, I'm magnificent! In my warm life, all that expected of pretty little Lucy was to marry well and become a broodmare. Squatting out children and dancing to my husband's whims and fancies. Now I am so much more, I had to die to become fulfilled. I am stronger than all of you, faster,the things I can see and hearI am extraordinary!

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Caleb: I gotta play by the rules here. I know how you feel, I didn't want to be a vampire either...at first. But after you get used to it, it's pretty damn cool!

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Minerva: [to the hunters during a confrontation] I am envious, to become a walking corpse at this age. Still stuck with every wrinkle of my twilight years. -Sigh- Oh well, to feel younger is a most excellent prestige. Harker: You can't possibly enjoy such a ghastly activity as drinking blood every night, Lady Westenra?! Come to your senses! Minerva: Ohoho, my dear boy, what you see as madness is just normalcy to me now. I'm sorry, but the me you know from before is dead. I'm am [Dracula's] bride now and I do not intend to upset him.

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Transhumanist politics – Wikipedia

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Transhumanist politics constitutes a group of political ideologies that generally express the belief in improving human individuals through science and technology.

The term "transhumanism" with its present meaning was popularised by Julian Huxley's 1957 essay of that name.[1]

Natasha Vita-More was elected as a Councilperson for the 28th Senatorial District of Los Angeles in 1992. She ran with the Green Party, but on a personal platform of "transhumanism". She quit after a year, saying her party was "too neurotically geared toward environmentalism".[2][3]

James Hughes identifies the "neoliberal" Extropy Institute, founded by philosopher Max More and developed in the 1990s, as the first organized advocates for transhumanism. And he identifies the late-1990s formation of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), a European organization which later was renamed to Humanity+ (H+), as partly a reaction to the free market perspective of the "Extropians". Per Hughes, "[t]he WTA included both social democrats and neoliberals around a liberal democratic definition of transhumanism, codified in the Transhumanist Declaration."[4][5] Hughes has also detailed the political currents in transhumanism, particularly the shift around 2009 from socialist transhumanism to libertarian and anarcho-capitalist transhumanism.[5] He claims that the left was pushed out of the World Transhumanist Association Board of Directors, and that libertarians and Singularitarians have secured a hegemony in the transhumanism community with help from Peter Thiel, but Hughes remains optimistic about a techno-progressive future.[5]

In 2012, the Longevity Party, a movement described as "100% transhumanist" by cofounder Maria Konovalenko,[6] began to organize in Russia for building a balloted political party.[7] Another Russian programme, the 2045 Initiative was founded in 2012 by billionaire Dmitry Itskov with its own "Evolution 2045" political party advocating life extension and android avatars.[8][9]

Writing for H+ Magazine in July 2014, futurist Peter Rothman called Gabriel Rothblatt "very possibly the first openly transhumanist political candidate in the United States" when he ran as a candidate for the United States Congress.[10]

In October 2014, Zoltan Istvan announced that he would be running in the 2016 United States presidential election under the banner of the "Transhumanist Party."[11] By May 2018, the Party had nearly 880 members, and chairmanship had been given to Gennady Stolyarov II.[12] Other groups using the name "Transhumanist Party" exist in the United Kingdom[13][14][15] and Germany.[16]

According to a 2006 study by the European Parliament, transhumanism is the political expression of the ideology that technology should be used to enhance human abilities.[17]

According to Amon Twyman of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), political philosophies which support transhumanism include social futurism, techno-progressivism, techno-libertarianism, and anarcho-transhumanism.[18] Twyman considers such philosophies to collectively constitute political transhumanism.[18]

Techno-progressives also known as Democratic transhumanists,[19][20] support equal access to human enhancement technologies in order to promote social equality and prevent technologies from furthering the divide among socioeconomic classes.[21] However, libertarian transhumanist Ronald Bailey is critical of the democratic transhumanism described by James Hughes.[22][23] Jeffrey Bishop wrote that the disagreements among transhumanists regarding individual and community rights is "precisely the tension that philosophical liberalism historically tried to negotiate," but that disagreeing entirely with a posthuman future is a disagreement with the right to choose what humanity will become.[24] Woody Evans has supported placing posthuman rights in a continuum with animal rights and human rights.[25]

Riccardo Campa wrote that transhumanism can be coupled with many different political, philosophical, and religious views, and that this diversity can be an asset so long as transhumanists do not give priority to existing affiliations over membership with organized transhumanism.[26]

Some transhumanists question the use of politicizing transhumanism.[who?] Truman Chen of the Stanford Political Journal considers many transhumanist ideals to be anti-political.[27]

Democratic transhumanism, a term coined by James Hughes in 2002, refers to the stance of transhumanists (advocates for the development and use of human enhancement technologies) who espouse liberal, social, and/or radical democratic political views.[28][29][30][31]

According to Hughes, the ideology "stems from the assertion that human beings will generally be happier when they take rational control of the natural and social forces that control their lives."[29][32]The ethical foundation of democratic transhumanism rests upon rule utilitarianism and non-anthropocentric personhood theory.[33] Democratic transhumanist support equal access to human enhancement technologies in order to promote social equality and to prevent technologies from furthering the divide among the socioeconomic classes.[34]While raising objections both to right-wing and left-wing bioconservatism, and libertarian transhumanism, Hughes aims to encourage democratic transhumanists and their potential progressive allies to unite as a new social movement and influence biopolitical public policy.[29][31]

An attempt to expand the middle ground between technorealism and techno-utopianism, democratic transhumanism can be seen as a radical form of techno-progressivism.[35] Appearing several times in Hughes' work, the term "radical" (from Latin rdx, rdc-, root) is used as an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the root or going to the root. His central thesis is that emerging technologies and radical democracy can help citizens overcome some of the root causes of inequalities of power.[29]

According to Hughes, the terms techno-progressivism and democratic transhumanism both refer to the same set of Enlightenment values and principles; however, the term technoprogressive has replaced the use of the word democratic transhumanism.[36][37]

Hughes has identified 15 "left futurist" or "left techno-utopian" trends and projects that could be incorporated into democratic transhumanism:

These are notable individuals who have identified themselves, or have been identified by Hughes, as advocates of democratic transhumanism:[38]

Science journalist Ronald Bailey wrote a review of Citizen Cyborg in his online column for Reason magazine in which he offered a critique of democratic transhumanism and a defense of libertarian transhumanism.[22][23]

Critical theorist Dale Carrico defended democratic transhumanism from Bailey's criticism.[39] However, he would later criticize democratic transhumanism himself on technoprogressive grounds.[40]

Libertarian transhumanism is a political ideology synthesizing libertarianism and transhumanism.[28][41][42]Self-identified libertarian transhumanists, such as Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, are advocates of the asserted "right to human enhancement" who argue that the free market is the best guarantor of this right, claiming that it produces greater prosperity and personal freedom than other economic systems.[43][44]

Libertarian transhumanists believe that the principle of self-ownership is the most fundamental idea from which both libertarianism and transhumanism stem. They are rational egoists and ethical egoists who embrace the prospect of using emerging technologies to enhance human capacities, which they believe stems from the self-interested application of reason and will in the context of the individual freedom to achieve a posthuman state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. They extend this rational and ethical egoism to advocate a form of "biolibertarianism".[43]

As strong civil libertarians, libertarian transhumanists hold that any attempt to limit or suppress the asserted right to human enhancement is a violation of civil rights and civil liberties. However, as strong economic libertarians, they also reject proposed public policies of government-regulated and -insured human enhancement technologies, which are advocated by democratic transhumanists, because they fear that any state intervention will steer or limit their choices.[45][46][23]

Extropianism, the earliest current of transhumanist thought defined in 1988 by philosopher Max More, initially included an anarcho-capitalist interpretation of the concept of "spontaneous order" in its principles, which states that a free market economy achieves a more efficient allocation of societal resources than any planned or mixed economy could achieve. In 2000, while revising the principles of Extropy, More seemed to be abandoning libertarianism in favor of modern liberalism and anticipatory democracy. However, many Extropians remained libertarian transhumanists.[28]

Critiques of the techno-utopianism of libertarian transhumanists from progressive cultural critics include Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron's 1995 essay The Californian Ideology; Mark Dery's 1996 book Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century; and Paulina Borsook's 2000 book Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech.

Barbrook argues that libertarian transhumanists are proponents of the Californian Ideology who embrace the goal of reactionary modernism: economic growth without social mobility.[47] According to Barbrook, libertarian transhumanists are unwittingly appropriating the theoretical legacy of Stalinist communism by substituting, among other concepts, the "vanguard party" with the "digerati", and the "new Soviet man" with the "posthuman".[48] Dery coined the dismissive phrase "body-loathing" to describe the attitude of libertarian transhumanists and those in the cyberculture who want to escape from their "meat puppet" through mind uploading into cyberspace.[49] Borsook asserts that libertarian transhumanists indulge in a subculture of selfishness, elitism, and escapism.[50]

Sociologist James Hughes is the most militant critic of libertarian transhumanism. While articulating "democratic transhumanism" as a sociopolitical program in his 2004 book Citizen Cyborg,[31] Hughes sought to convince libertarian transhumanists to embrace social democracy by arguing that:

Klaus-Gerd Giesen, a German political scientist specializing in the philosophy of technology, wrote a critique of the libertarianism he imputes to all transhumanists. While pointing out that the works of Austrian School economist Friedrich Hayek figure in practically all of the recommended reading lists of Extropians, he argues that transhumanists, convinced of the sole virtues of the free market, advocate an unabashed inegalitarianism and merciless meritocracy which can be reduced in reality to a biological fetish. He is especially critical of their promotion of a science-fictional liberal eugenics, virulently opposed to any political regulation of human genetics, where the consumerist model presides over their ideology. Giesen concludes that the despair of finding social and political solutions to today's sociopolitical problems incites transhumanists to reduce everything to the hereditary gene, as a fantasy of omnipotence to be found within the individual, even if it means transforming the subject (human) to a new draft (posthuman).[51]

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Transhumanist politics - Wikipedia

Yudkowsky – Simplified Humanism

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Danzig

Frank Sulloway once said: Ninety-nine per cent of what Darwinian theory says about human behavior is so obviously true that we dont give Darwin credit for it. Ironically, psychoanalysis has it over Darwinism precisely because its predictions are so outlandish and its explanations are so counterintuitive that we think, Is that really true? How radical! Freuds ideas are so intriguing that people are willing to pay for them, while one of the great disadvantages of Darwinism is that we feel we know it already, because, in a sense, we do.

Suppose you find an unconscious six-year-old girl lying on the train tracks of an active railroad. What, morally speaking, ought you to do in this situation? Would it be better to leave her there to get run over, or to try to save her? How about if a 45-year-old man has a debilitating but nonfatal illness that will severely reduce his quality of life is it better to cure him, or not cure him?

Oh, and by the way: This is not a trick question.

I answer that I would save them if I had the power to do so both the six-year-old on the train tracks, and the sick 45-year-old. The obvious answer isnt always the best choice, but sometimes it is.

I wont be lauded as a brilliant ethicist for my judgments in these two ethical dilemmas. My answers are not surprising enough that people would pay me for them. If you go around proclaiming What does two plus two equal? Four! you will not gain a reputation as a deep thinker. But it is still the correct answer.

If a young child falls on the train tracks, it is good to save them, and if a 45-year-old suffers from a debilitating disease, it is good to cure them. If you have a logical turn of mind, you are bound to ask whether this is a special case of a general ethical principle which says Life is good, death is bad; health is good, sickness is bad. If so and here we enter into controversial territory we can follow this general principle to a surprising new conclusion: If a 95-year-old is threatened by death from old age, it would be good to drag them from those train tracks, if possible. And if a 120-year-old is starting to feel slightly sickly, it would be good to restore them to full vigor, if possible. With current technology it is not possible. But if the technology became available in some future year given sufficiently advanced medical nanotechnology, or such other contrivances as future minds may devise would you judge it a good thing, to save that life, and stay that debility?

The important thing to remember, which I think all too many people forget, is that it is not a trick question.

Transhumanism is simpler requires fewer bits to specify because it has no special cases. If you believe professional bioethicists (people who get paid to explain ethical judgments) then the rule Life is good, death is bad; health is good, sickness is bad holds only until some critical age, and then flips polarity. Why should it flip? Why not just keep on with life-is-good? It would seem that it is good to save a six-year-old girl, but bad to extend the life and health of a 150-year-old. Then at what exact age does the term in the utility function go from positive to negative? Why?

As far as a transhumanist is concerned, if you see someone in danger of dying, you should save them; if you can improve someones health, you should. There, youre done. No special cases. You dont have to ask anyones age.

You also dont ask whether the remedy will involve only primitive technologies (like a stretcher to lift the six-year-old off the railroad tracks); or technologies invented less than a hundred years ago (like penicillin) which nonetheless seem ordinary because they were around when you were a kid; or technologies that seem scary and sexy and futuristic (like gene therapy) because they were invented after you turned 18; or technologies that seem absurd and implausible and sacrilegious (like nanotech) because they havent been invented yet. Your ethical dilemma report form doesnt have a line where you write down the invention year of the technology. Can you save lives? Yes? Okay, go ahead. There, youre done.

Suppose a boy of 9 years, who has tested at IQ 120 on the Wechsler-Bellvue, is threatened by a lead-heavy environment or a brain disease which will, if unchecked, gradually reduce his IQ to 110. I reply that it is a good thing to save him from this threat. If you have a logical turn of mind, you are bound to ask whether this is a special case of a general ethical principle saying that intelligence is precious. Now the boys sister, as it happens, currently has an IQ of 110. If the technology were available to gradually raise her IQ to 120, without negative side effects, would you judge it good to do so?

Well, of course. Why not? Its not a trick question. Either its better to have an IQ of 110 than 120, in which case we should strive to decrease IQs of 120 to 110. Or its better to have an IQ of 120 than 110, in which case we should raise the sisters IQ if possible. As far as I can see, the obvious answer is the correct one.

But you ask where does it end? It may seem well and good to talk about extending life and health out to 150 years but what about 200 years, or 300 years, or 500 years, or more? What about when in the course of properly integrating all these new life experiences and expanding ones mind accordingly over time the equivalent of IQ must go to 140, or 180, or beyond human ranges?

Where does it end? It doesnt. Why should it? Life is good, health is good, beauty and happiness and fun and laughter and challenge and learning are good. This does not change for arbitrarily large amounts of life and beauty. If there were an upper bound, it would be a special case, and that would be inelegant.

Ultimate physical limits may or may not permit a lifespan of at least length X for some X just as the medical technology of a particular century may or may not permit it. But physical limitations are questions of simple fact, to be settled strictly by experiment. Transhumanism, as a moral philosophy, deals only with the question of whether a healthy lifespan of length X is desirable if it is physically possible. Transhumanism answers yes for all X. Because, you see, its not a trick question.

So that is transhumanism loving life without special exceptions and without upper bound.

Can transhumanism really be that simple? Doesnt that make the philosophy trivial, if it has no extra ingredients, just common sense? Yes, in the same way that the scientific method is nothing but common sense.

Then why have a complicated special name like transhumanism ? For the same reason that scientific method or secular humanism have complicated special names. If you take common sense and rigorously apply it, through multiple inferential steps, to areas outside everyday experience, successfully avoiding many possible distractions and tempting mistakes along the way, then it often ends up as a minority position and people give it a special name.

But a moral philosophy should not have special ingredients. The purpose of a moral philosophy is not to look delightfully strange and counterintuitive, or to provide employment to bioethicists. The purpose is to guide our choices toward life, health, beauty, happiness, fun, laughter, challenge, and learning. If the judgments are simple, that is no black mark against them morality doesnt always have to be complicated.

There is nothing in transhumanism but the same common sense that underlies standard humanism, rigorously applied to cases outside our modern-day experience. A million-year lifespan? If its possible, why not? The prospect may seem very foreign and strange, relative to our current everyday experience. It may create a sensation of future shock. And yet is life a bad thing?

Could the moral question really be just that simple?

Yes.

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Yudkowsky - Simplified Humanism

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