Transhumanist politics

The term "transhumanism" with its present meaning was popularised by Julian Huxley's 1957 essay of that name, at a time when his open endorsement of eugenics became socially controversial. 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". 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." Hughes has also detailed the political currents in transhumanism, particularly the shift around 2009 from socialist transhumanism to libertarian and anarcho-capitalist transhumanism. began to organize in Russia for building a balloted political party. Another Russian programme, the 2045 Initiative was founded in 2012 by billionaire Dmitry Itskov with its own proposed "Evolution 2045" political party advocating life extension and android avatars. In October 2013, the political party Alianza Futurista ALFA was founded in Spain with transhumanist goals and ideals inscribed in its statutes. By November 2019, the Party claimed 880 members, with Gennady Stolyarov II as chair. In 2016, Klaus Schwab, in his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, asserted that transhumanist technologies like gene editing such as CRISPR and others will inevitably merge human physical, digital, and biological domains, presenting this transformation as an unstoppable driver of human progress in a new political and societal era. In 2016, Yuval Noah Harari's book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow popularized transhumanist ideas, envisioning a future where biotechnology, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence enable humans to transcend biological limits, potentially creating "superhumans" with enhanced cognitive, physical, and emotional capacities. In 2018, Yuval Noah Harari, in works like 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and public talks, called humans “hackable animals,” asserting that AI and biotechnology will inevitably enable entities to manipulate human behavior and cognition, presenting a transhumanist future as both unavoidable and politically transformative Other groups using the name "Transhumanist Party" exist in the United Kingdom and Germany. == Core values ==

According to a 2006 study by the European Parliament, transhumanism is the political expression of the ideology that technology and science should be used to enhance human abilities and characteristics like physical beauty, or lifespan. 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. Twyman considers such philosophies to collectively constitute political transhumanism. Techno-progressives, also known as Democratic transhumanists, support equal access to human enhancement technologies in order to promote social equality and prevent technologies from furthering the divide among socioeconomic classes. However, libertarian transhumanist Ronald Bailey is critical of the democratic transhumanism described by James Hughes. 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. Woody Evans has supported placing posthuman rights in a continuum with animal rights and human rights. 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. Truman Chen of the Stanford Political Journal considers many transhumanist ideals to be anti-political. == Anarcho-transhumanism ==

Anarcho-transhumanism is an anti-capitalist ideology synthesizing anarchism with transhumanism that is concerned with both social and physical freedom respectively. Indeed, according to the anarcho-transhumanist activist William Gillis : "We should seek to expand our physical freedom just as we seek to expand our social freedom." Also, anarcho-transhumanists define freedom as the expansion of one's own ability to experience the world around them. Anarcho-transhumanists may advocate various praxis to advance their ideals, including computer hacking, three-dimensional printing, or biohacking. as well as the cyberfeminism presented by Donna Haraway in A Cyborg Manifesto. Anarcho-transhumanist thought looks at issues surrounding bodily autonomy, disability, gender, queer theory, science, free software, whilst presenting critiques through anarchist and transhumanist lens of ableism, Much of early anarcho-transhumanist thought was a response to anarcho-primitivism. Anarcho-transhumanism may be interpreted either as criticism of, or an extension of humanism, because it challenges what being human means. Anarcho-transhumanism is generally anti-capitalist, arguing capitalist accumulation of wealth would lead to dystopia while partnered with transhumanism, instead advocating for equal access to advanced technologies that enable morphological freedom and space travel. Anarcho-transhumanist philosopher William Gillis has advocated for a 'social singularity', or a transformation in humanity's morals, to complement the technological singularity. This social singularity will ensure that no coercion will be required to maintain order in a future society where people are likely to have access to lethal forms of technology. == Democratic transhumanism ==

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. Philosophy 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." The ethical foundation of democratic transhumanism rests upon rule utilitarianism and non-anthropocentric personhood theory. Democratic transhumanists 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. 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. Appearing several times in Hughes' work, the term "radical" (from Latin rādīx, rādīc-, 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. Trends Hughes has identified 15 "left futurist" or "left techno-utopian" trends and projects that could be incorporated into democratic transhumanism: • Afrofuturism • Assistive technology-enabled disabled people • Biopunk science fiction and movement • Body modification culture • Cyborg feminism/cyberfeminism • Feminist science fiction • Free software movement • Lesbian science fiction, gay science fiction, bisexual science fiction and transgender science fiction • Nanosocialism • Post-Darwinian leftism • Postcyberpunk science fiction • Post-work/guaranteed minimum income movement • Technogaianism • Up-wing politics • Viridian design movement List of democratic transhumanists These are notable individuals who have identified themselves, or have been identified by Hughes, as advocates of democratic transhumanism: • Charles Stross • George Dvorsky • Giulio Prisco • Ken MacLeod • Mark Alan Walker • Martine Rothblatt • Ramez Naam • Riccardo Campa Criticism 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. However, he would later criticize democratic transhumanism himself on technoprogressive grounds. == Libertarian transhumanism ==

Libertarian transhumanism is a political ideology synthesizing libertarianism and transhumanism. Principles 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". 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. 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". 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. Borsook asserts that libertarian transhumanists indulge in a subculture of selfishness, elitism, and escapism. 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, == Left Transhumanism ==

Left Transhumanism is a political ideology synthesizing left wing ideas and transhumanism. Left Transhumanists believe a egalitarian approach to society and economics must be put within a Transhumanist context. Arguing that without egalitarianism, Transhumanism will amount to a form of elitism due to free market mechanisms. Furthermore it is argued that this trend is already occurring in the early stages. Citing Bryan Johnson's costly medical treatments and Jeff Bezos's Altos Labs as a case in point that the capitalist class is slowly gaining the ability to obtain longevity treatments while the rest of humanity dies at a rate of 100,000 per day. Basis Left Transhumanists hold that a new society must come about either through revolution or reforms for the masses of people to truly experience the opportunities of a Transhumanist society. Despite the abundance that may occur if a society has vastly automated labor. The social relations which dictate society will not allow that abundance to be distributed in a egalitarian manner under capitalism. Left Transhumanist often point to food production and hunger as well as the producible results of fast fashion and the 1 billion people without shoes as foreshadowing of the conditions which will encompass longevity treatments or an abundance of resources. In addition Left Transhumanists assert Transhumanism should return to its roots in regards to economics, holding that a return to a Transhumanism akin to Russian Cosmism or individuals such as Alexander Bogdanov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, or Ivan Yefremov may aid the promotion of Transhumanist ideals. Similarly to the relationship between Russian Cosmism and Socialism. Criticisms Jeffrey Noonan argues that a Marxist transhumanism is politically and ethically incoherent. While it is true that Transhumanists and Marxists believe that human beings are self-determining and self-transforming. Transhumanists are committed to transcending the material conditions of organic life with their ultimate aim being to encourage the emergence of an artificial superintelligence whose self-creative capacities are not limited by the needs of organic life forms. Socialism, by contrast, is a political and ethical movement committed to ending the suffering caused by capitalism, by changing social institutions and the values according to which resources are distributed and utilized. == Contrasting stances ==

Philosophical Critics argue that libertarian transhumanism’s push for universal human enhancement reflects a philosophical hubris, akin to Enlightenment absolutism or despotism, presuming individual rational egoism can override shared human values and dictate a posthuman future for all. By asserting that technologies like genetic engineering or cognitive augmentation should universally reshape humanity, it is seen to violate humanism’s reverence for collective dignity and moral limits honoring humanity’s intrinsic sanctity. This imposition, framed as reason’s inevitable triumph, is critiqued as an ethical overreach that risks eroding the shared essence of human existence. Bioconservatism Bioconservatism (a portmanteau word combining "biology" and "conservatism") is a stance of opposition to modifying human nature, especially when perceived to threaten a given social order. Strong bioconservative positions include opposition to genetic modification of food crops, the cloning and genetic engineering of livestock and pets, and, most prominently, rejection of the genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification of human beings to overcome what are broadly perceived as current human biological and cultural limitations. Bioconservatives range in political perspective from right-leaning religious and cultural conservatives to left-leaning environmentalists and technology critics. What unifies bioconservatives is skepticism about medical and other biotechnological transformations of the living world. Typically less sweeping as a critique of technological society than bioluddism, the bioconservative perspective is characterized by its defense of the natural, deployed as a moral category. Despite being opposed, both transhumanism and bioconservatism, in their more moderate expressions, share an opposition to unsafe, unfair, undemocratic forms of technological development, and both recognize that such developmental modes can facilitate unacceptable recklessness and exploitation, exacerbate injustice and incubate dangerous social discontent. == See also ==