Thanks to Luke Robert Mason, I’ve now got up to speed on the controversy surrounding Zoltan Istvan’s candidacy for the US Presidency in 2016. Istvan is a Columbia philosophy and religion graduate and author of the science fiction book, The Transhumanist Wager. But he is perhaps nowadays best known from driving a coffin-shaped bus across the United States to dramatize his primary policy commitment – namely, that the US government should work towards extending the life expectancy of its citizens indefinitely.

This has serious budgetary implications, which Istvan addresses by calling for a withdrawal from America’s military entanglements, which will free up funds that can then be used to boost biomedical research and insure a basic national income—a kind of Welfare Safety Net 2.0, if you will, for a future that is likely to involve significant technologically based unemployment. Apparently Istvan plans to end his tour by doing a Martin Luther 2.0 and nailing a list of Transhumanist theses to the door of the US Capitol in Washington.

As a non-profit educational organization IEET does not endorse any political party or candidate for office. However, it is consistent with our mission, and within our legal mandate as a nonprofit organization, to facilitate the discussion about political strategies and programs for futurists and technoprogressives. We will be inviting essays representing multiple points of view on the efforts to build transhumanist parties and their policies, and on the candidacy of Zoltan Istvan in particular. – The Management

Istvan has been disowned by many key Transhumanist thinkers and has even alienated self-avowed Transhumanist groups, especially those with religious affiliations. In fact, I do not know of any self-avowed Transhumanist group which has endorsed his presidential campaign, other than his own one-man party. Yet he is sufficiently media savvy to realize that some ‘serious’ presidential candidates might pivot in the direction of his policies – especially once he abandons his own campaign (something that he has already hinted at). After all, there is a critical mass of libertarian voters who don’t naturally align with either the Democrats or the Republicans, who nevertheless find Istvan attractive because he flatters them as smarter than average ‘can do’ sort of people who aren’t afraid to let political judgement follow the lead of cutting edge science and technology.

But at least as important, Istvan comes across as a down-to-earth, family-oriented person. This by itself is quite an achievement for someone who declares his Transhumanism loud and proud. After all, transhumanists have been lampooned for being weird, nerdy and creepy – as in this video sporting more than 1.3 million hits on YouTube. Moreover, instead of his Ivy League education, Istvan advertises his love of extreme sports (he apparently invented ‘volcano surfing’). This too is a very good look for Transhumanists, especially in light of the proactionary principle, which elevates risk-seeking to a defining feature of the human condition.

Of course, one doesn’t need to engage in extreme sports to be proactionary. Nevertheless, it does convey a sensibility that dovetails nicely with the sort of ‘transcendental’ style of marketing championed by Jason Silva, which would make Abraham Maslow proud. In contrast, some signature Transhumanist projects contain such a strong dystopian dimension that they don’t come across as proactionary at all. For example, the UK is currently blighted – or blessed, depending on how you look at it – with ‘Centres for the Study of Existential Risk’, which focus exclusively on pre-empting the harms that might be caused by the success of ‘superintelligent’ machines. This strikes me as a gift to adherents of the principle exactly opposed to proactionary – namely, precautionary.

Even the drive towards cryonics still looks a desperate effort by rich people to avoid death – perhaps just like they try to avoid taxes. Regardless of its true scientific merits and moral appeal, cryonics appears not only precautionary but also anti-democratic. Perhaps this is all just a public relations problem, but PR is a necessary component of any intelligent democratic campaign. Thus, in the spirit of Istvan, cryonics enthusiasts should devote at least as much effort to making the process affordable to ordinary people as to improving the deep-freeze techniques themselves. For his part, Istvan is focussing mainly on keeping the bodies of our birth around forever in ways that nicely segue into more politically recognizable concerns relating to healthcare.

Generally speaking, Transhumanists need to come up with ways to democratize their message, such as Istvan has done by getting a silicon chip implant and making it seem like a routine visit to the doctor. Yes, these are ‘gimmicks’ – but as gimmicks they’re memorable and they get people thinking about deeper issues. Istvan’s numerous radio and television appearances testify to the point. Moreover, Istvan has been very responsive to journalists and members of the general public, an impression reinforced by the London Telegraph journalist and Dark Net author, Jamie Bartlett, who covered the first phase of Istvan’s ‘Immortality Bus’ tour across the United States. Bartlett and I recently discussed Istvan’s campaign and Transhumanist politics more generally at the annual general meeting of the Transhumanist Party UK, videos of which can be found here.

Needless to say, one may substantially disagree with Istvan on matters of policy – as I myself do. For example, I regard immortality as such to be of much less immediate political concern than ensuring a legal and economic regime that fosters the sorts of advances in science and technology that are necessary for any Transhumanist utopia to be realized. Admittedly, this is not such a sexy objective but it is no less serious – and certainly more tractable—from a legislative standpoint. But in any case, it would be disingenuous to deny that Istvan’s campaign is based on both principles and policies that are recognizably ‘Transhumanist’.

Indeed, the great virtue of Istvan’s fixation on immortality is that it reminds us that any political movement needs a distinctive focal message or objective to which it can always return. In this respect, a great political liability of the ‘technoprogressive’ style of Transhumanism which presents itself as this movement’s ‘voice of reason’ is that it too often sounds like old-fashioned social democracy with some high-tech toys. Yet, this is a time when ‘social democracy’ as a political brand is in serious decline, even among the people previously known as ‘workers’, who in recent elections throughout the world have increasingly voted for a more neo-liberal state. While I personally believe that there is much to be salvaged in social democracy, it will need to be re-invented – and actively sold—in a changed political world where its virtues can no longer be taken for granted.

Finally, on the matter of Transhumanism and religion, although not a church-goer I believe that Transhumanism would be the most grotesque form of techno-narcissism without a grounding theological vision. And indeed, Istvan does have a pretty clear theological vision. It basically involves one or perhaps more of us becoming gods, beating all the odds and against all the naysayers. To be sure, it’s a vision that doesn’t correspond to any of the established churches – and is even inimical to them. However, without knowing about the formative role of the Abrahamic religions on the Western psyche – not least on their greatest modern opponent, Nietzsche – Istvan’s vision would be sheer fantasy, as opposed to a fantasy that might be worth turning into reality.

In this respect, Istvan and his religious Transhumanist opponents are engaged in the sort of internal squabble familiar from the annals of Christian heresy. Whereas Istvan believes that we can become gods through sheer self-determination, his opponents believe that becoming more godlike means behaving oneself in terms laid down in, say, the Bible. But of course, a great many other people do not believe that, one way or another, humans as a species have some special relationship with the source of all being, a faith common to theistic and atheistic Transhumanists alike. It is when dealing with these unbelievers in human potential – say, the precautionary ‘down-winging’ environmentalists who see us as just one among many species with no special gifts or entitlements – that Istvan and more religious Transhumanists will see each other as very much on the same side.