Crime minister, what are your sketched out ideas about a transhuman political party?


It's hard to know where to begin, they're still pretty scattered. I think I'm going to start plugging them into the freshly installed wiki on my personal homepage. Sooner or later, anyways...

    -Euthanasia in a way that preserves the brain (suitable for cryonics) although this is iffy

I can understand the reticence that many people feel on this issue; I myself am loathe to give up too much power to the medical establishment. As someone interested in achieving indefinite lifespan, the thought of placing the power to end my life into another's hands while I am incapacitated seems vaguely disquieting. On the other hand, I have absolutely zero problems with so-called living wills or assisted suicide, because in thse types of cases a conscious, premediated decision is taken to end one's existence. Far be it from me to make life or death decisions for my fellow citizens. I have never really liked the sound of jackboots... and if someone wants to cryogenically preserve their brain, more power to them. As far as the question of paying for the processing and preservation, well, it's up to the ratepayers to decide if they're willing to subsidize that sort of procedure to potentially preserve lives, extend human history, etc. And if it's not possible, there are already private companies and insurers delving into this area.

An aside: the word "immorbidity," coined in an SF novel I can't recall if I'm not mistaken, implies unlimited lifespan subject only to mischance and entropy run amok. It'd be cool to see it used more frequently.

    -Approval for enhanching drugs, streamlining the regulatory process, and subsidising drug development.

The day the dealer on the corner slangin' dope starts pushing nootropics that restore child-like plasticity to the brain for (relative) fossils like myself is the day I develop a powerful drug habit.

I agree that regulatory mechanisms for drug development should be modified and enhanced. What exactly that would entail is a big question. I can envision a division of the Ministry of Health that simply maintains a publicly accessible database on the web into which any reputable pharmaceutical firm or medical institution can place information about drugs under development, and which any medical practitioner, drug recipient, academic researcher, etc. can obtain an account, provide their credentials, and upload information about the drug, clinical trials, and generally debate the merits, under public scrutiny, of experimental drugs. This would be a necessary prerequisite for firms to gain permission to conduct trials, and would hopefully help prevent the various sorts of skullduggery that take place in the shadowy corners of academia (thinking here of a scandal that erupted at U of T awhile back where a researcher was being pressured to downplay or hide some negative results she discovered re a drug being tried by a firm that was financially supporting certain research programs). The citizenry could then use this information to decide if they're willing to subject themselves to drug trials given their personal risk tolerance and health circumstances.

Aside from informing citizens that a drug has a particular set of adverse effects, and the associated probabilities of each potential problem, I don't see that too much else is required from the gub'mint. Informed consent is the key principle that needs to be respected. To preempt a possible objection: a person that knows little about medicine will most likely seek the assistance of a trained professional in evaluating such information.

    -Science funding and positive regulation
    -Research direction (science is already politicised...)

I definitely agree with this one. I only wish the public had more direct input on how funds were allocated to research, assuming that knowledgeable scientists had already vetted grant proposals for suitability. Being an optimist--when I'm on my lithium at least--I suspect that we'd see a lot more funds pouring into blue sky research of all kinds, but particularly space endeavours and the like. And the more I think about the idea I mentioned in passing above, that tax breaks or other incentives should be given to the very long-lived, the more I think that we'd see greater investment in longetivity research.

I do think that market incentives are probably the best way to handle these sorts of issues, just not an unfettered market. I always think of The Market in terms of a simple analogy: the nuclear reactor. Properly harnessed, nuclear energy is an incredible tool. An unrestrained nuclear reaction is a Bad Thing in the obvious way, while excessive attempts at restraint of trade make the process fizzle out. We need good economic control rods... the key, as with most things, is finding an appropriately balanced economic posture.

    -Rights to enhancement, and rights for non-humans .

As for the former, I'd love to see the wording of relevant political documents like the Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms, the U.S. Constitution, and so forth revised so that all the rights which they find inherent in "Mankind" are instead vested in the "person", making it explicit that homo sapiens species membership, having the phenotype of a standard human, etc. are irrelevant to the notion of personhood. Right now there is a mish-mash of protected characteristics, such as skin colour, that don't address the more fundamental issues.

As it is right now, if I wanted to add an extra pair of arms to my body (how handy would that be!--ahem) I'd be viewed as a freak in many quarters, but if a pair of arms were subtracted from my body I'd more likely be viewed with compassion, and my rights would be protected under the aegis of anti-discrimination against the "differently-abled", or whatever the PC-speak of the day is.

    -Space regulations and investment

I think initiatives like the X-Prize are the future here. I recall reading that NASA has got some sort of prize system established to encourage novel research in areas in which they're interested. I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work for a federal government. It certainly can't be worse than all the pork-barrel politicking that goes on in oak-panelled boardrooms at the moment. My girlfriend works for a Canadian defense contractor and the stories I've heard... well, Joe Taxpayer just woke up, face down in a dark alleyway with a lump on his head and his pants around his ankles. I can provide more colour for this imagery if desired. :)

    -Long-term environmental issues
    -New political reform

Thanks for the thoughts; I'll try and respond to these points a bit later. I'll have a look at the link you provided, and will steal shamelessly any good ideas that I find.

    A purely Transhumanist political party can never become even remotely succesful, the best hope being of about equal support to the Marijuana party.  This is because it is not a political ideaology at all but a prospective on progress and the future, a limited philosophy that lacks the depth and expansiveness to govern a country with any practicality.  In the end, a Transhumanist party offers little of any value. 

    What should instead be done is a party should be set up that has Transhumanism as a secondary ideaology.  My personal preference is a marriage between Transhumanism and Technocracy.  In which case one starts to create a comprehensive political idea that encapsulates society as a whole.  People will not vote for the Marijuana party in any significant numbers because it offers nothing else of value than the legalization of Marijuana, just as a Transhumanist party only offers a more forward thinking model of political thought, and not a political model with which to think in.  But when one adds Technocracy to the mix one now has a political framework to work in as well as the elimination of the forced short-term thinking that is in democracy.  As no politician can become succesful unless they think in a scale of one or two elections ahead, since the people are fickle by nature.

I don't see technocracy as being viable as a political party.  It's more of a model for rebuilding after discarding the current system and not particularly concerned with traditional political stances.  My view of an appropriate political platform for transhumanists would be a blend of socialism and libertarianism where people are fully provided for when needed but have full freedoms so long as they harm noone else.

    Well a technocratic party could be similar to many communist parties in which they espouse their ideals should they gain some power but not enough for absolute control of the legislature and should they gain enough control they can dissolve the governemnet and form a new one.

    A blend of socialism and libertarianism is a rather bizzare combination, considering one is about the rights of society being paramount and the other has the rights of the individual as paramount, not that one couldn't actually do it, it would just be weird and give a lot of political scientists severe headaches. 

    However, I still do not see transhumanism being politically viable within the democratic system, its far too short-sighted by nature of it dictating the upper limit of any one group's ability to create and subsequently enact/enforce policy to  the length of the term.  And in that time one is still concerned about getting re-elected, which would be hard for a transhumanist party since it is so concerned with longer-term goals and any other party can just offer instantaneous gratification the next election as they all do currently.

A wiki would be a good idea, a open source party could be very fine.
And a small example of a wiki generated party/policy is Eagle Party at wikipedia.
http://eagleparty.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page


Euthanasia
The reason I thought euthanasia for cryonics was iffy is because it would further tranish cryonics reputation. And you can always travel to a country where it is legal if you can afford it (Although I'm not sure how they kill you, it could be unsuitable.)

Drugs
Better information would definatly be good for drugs. Also allowing approving drugs for enhancing people as I understand they currently don't allow this.
This would have a good affect on average intelligence (and the economy), eventually civilised recreational drugs will be developed, and it will reduce the black market.
Also approving drugs for dual uses, using existing safety studys, and recognising other drug agencys studys.

Funding science
I'm silightly wary about the science funding, because it is done competantly at the moment and if a political party brought it into the debate it may get tangled up. But that could be worked around I'm sure. (by being subtle or making permanant changes). I agree that large-scale projects may get funded more often.

Peregryn
I think technocracy has the same problems as transhumanism, it doesn't have policys on economics etc.
Although there is such a consensus on actuall economic policy that there will be no need for a extreme econimic view. However we may need a simplified economic veiw for the voters.

Although transhumanisms perspective is long term, it can still compete on promising short term rewards for voters. It just needs to work around what it has to do to win.
I also agree with a libertarian-socialist veiw, but I't not particularly simple or appealing sadly.

Anyone want to revive this discussion in a structured way? Many transhumanist have speculated and dabled in politics. Lets give creating a political movement a try (even if it fails it will be a base to build upon, and will likely do osme good)!

Lets imagine our objective is to start a appealing political movement which will be beneficial to transhumanism. How would we do it, and what groups would we harness?
As transhumanists who are very future aware of future trends we should anticipate the trends and take advantage of that knowledge.
Here are some trends I think will happen (I have them from the united nations report and other politically orientated future documents - including sci-fi!):

-Increasing automation of work (increasing unemployment and luddite movement, and increasing socialist sentiments -as there have been historically)

-Aging demographics. Way more old people than young because of fertility rates in western countries. This means health care medicine and research which is our bag! No problem especially if we are taking a socialistish platform to take advantage of growing unemployment and unions.

-Rising gap between the rich and poor, as more "god given" things like genetic quotient and aging become malleable to people with money. historically the poor have always been a more powerful lobby, but with the power and intelligence minimum each human has naturally being less relevant I don't know if this will continue.

-Increasing global instability, more enabled and visible terrorists, climate change, immigration pressure(?), bio tech health dangers. This will cause a trend to a political movement which causes feelings of safety (as will future shock), usually a heavy handed conservative movement (lets hope the luddites don't get all of these people).

any other you can think others?

Is anyone interested in helping me craft a political base? We can invite interested mailing lists, forums and party's to contribute to building a new future proofed movement using a wiki or forum (we will have trouble with political infighting in these mediums though!). A movement which will pass beyond the traditional left right infighting and help shape the future.



P.S I think the important part of the appeal socialistic political system is its promise. We can promise a new economic 
system that will be superior to modern regulated individual desire based capatilism (this will be nothing based on idealism I promise you). For example profit orientated models are effecient currently (wehter private or public) becausewe have ~5 billion humans that spend time valueing things in terms or money and indicidual desire (how desire and advertising interact is also a problem with the current system). For examples of alternate systems look at irate bay for a reputation based economy, and wikipedia for a volnteer based economy. I'll explain more if anyone is interested?

This would only work in a society where secularism is strong, such as Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, Germany, Costa Rica, maybe Canada. I do not see it gaining enough of a stronghold in the USA (one of the most religious and science-unfriendly of all developed countries) any time soon due to their clearly broken political system.  In my opinion the USA has grown too big at its burgeoning 300 million people and needs to split into five sub-countries to function well in the future, and move to proportional representation, but that's a whole other discussion which someone from Vermont can spearhead. ;)

The immediate priorities would probably be legalizing euthanasia, legalizing performance enhancing drugs and therapies, drastically increasing funds to med and tech research, a change to preventive medicine to keep costs down, and spectacularly progressive environmental policy.  Like wassname mentioned, political reform is needed in some countries before this even has a chance of happening, particularly in the USA but also in Canada to a lesser degree.

I feel in the beginning a lot of significant, competitive enhancing would increase the divide between rich and poor, but as with most technological progress it eventually trickles down. There's just a lag factor.

Libertarianism and socialism are perfectly compatible; all you have to do is allow individuals to opt out of most social programs, and the associated taxes, as they choose.  I would see an ideal transhumanist party as combining explicit commitment to transhuman policies combined with 'libertarian socialism'.  I think such a party could ultimately succeed though it would take some time.

I've actually been thinking for some time about what it would take to establish a real, effective Transhumanist political party in Canada (and perhaps other polities) to work for real change in our society.  I'm not well up on how to create political parties, reach voters with effective information, raise funds, engage the media etc. so I may not be able to contribute much in that sense.  However I have given a lot of thought to the goals and ideology of such a party and I have worked on a sort of 'manifesto' which I would like to post here for comment and discussion.  Anyone who wishes to can feel free to use, expand or adapt this platform as they choose.  Of course this is all based on my personal values and ideals.  I would be interested in getting in touch with anyone else who is interested in forming a national Canadian Transhumanist Party to discuss possible strategies for implementing the transhumnist vision in our federation.

THE CORE VALUES OF THE TRANSHUMANIST POLITICAL PARTY

1.  DIALOGUE:  Open minded debate, willingness to listen and to compromise, are at the foundation of democracy.  We unite in decrying the partisanship and destructive image politics which have infected our federation, and other democratic polities worldwide.  Political partisanship leads to moral cowardice, social gridlock, and in the extreme to totalitarian states.  We wish to work together with all who are willing to work with us to accomplish the common goals of the betterment of society and people's lives.

2.  DIGNITY:  All people are equal in personal dignity and deserve the right to basic respect.  Human dignity is not negotiable; it is not a privilege.  It is the foundation of all rights and liberties.  We will work to eliminate discrimination and abuse of power and rank in all of its forms and to secure fundamental rights for every person in our federation and the world.  All people deserve autonomous control over their minds, bodies, lives, and property.

3.  LIBERTY:  Personal freedom of choice is the sweetest fruit of democracy.  We will work to reduce the control exercised by social institutions over individual choices.  We recognize the necessity of law enforcement and societal standards.  However, in a free society, it is not only morally necessary to attempt to persuade before we coerce; it is simply more effective.  We will seek non-authoritarian means to guide people everywhere towards the attitudes and behaviours which we believe to be beneficial.

4.  PROGRESS:  The basis of all liberal values is the ideal of material, social, and moral progress in human society.  We will work together for the betterment of the federation and of people everywhere, recognizing that the progress of one is the progress of all, and embrace proactive change in hopes of creating a better tomorrow.  Our vision is of a society in which positive change is embraced by the people and institutions of the federation, not instinctively feared and rejected.

5.  TRANSPARENCY:  A free society requires free exchange of information in order to remain free and to advance technologically, socially and morally.  We will work toward increased transparency and freedom of information in all social institutions, promote free and open education and intellectual inquiry, and support common intellectual property and information exchange.  Information is one of humanity's greatest common resources; and it is inexhaustible, but only if it is allowed to propagate.

6.  FORESIGHT:  The greatest disasters of the past century have sprung from poor planning, inadequate or biased research, and concern for short term gain over long term sustainability.  As a species, we must learn to better anticipate the consequences of our actions.  We will work to develop and apply accurate means of forecasting the potential consequences of our policies, both in the short term and in years and generations to come, and encourage others to do likewise.

7.  PROSPERITY:  The free market is the fundamental engine of human prosperity and material progress.  Prosperity, however, includes factors beyond mere profits or GNP, including regional economic health, the state of the environment, and personal quality of life.  We will develop economic policies which will maximize all forms of prosperity, for the federation and for people everywhere.  Individual economic liberty does not equate to corporate personhood, environmental devastation, or ignoring social inequality.

8.  FAIRNESS:  Personal dignity demands that all people are treated fairly and given the opportunity to work toward personal success.  We will work to establish the goal of fairness as the keystone of our systems of social justice and criminal justice, and to guarantee people everywhere fair treatment from social institutions and each other.  We will work to promote social and economic models which encourage fairness and discourage situations in which one social group benefits at another's expense.

9.  RESPONSIBILITY:  Along with the many rights we enjoy in a free society come certain responsibilities, including respect for the fundamental dignity of other people, civic participation, and to seek personal prosperity and fulfillment.  We will work to foster consciousness and fulfillment of our human responsibilities, many of which are woefully neglected.  Without open acknowledgement of our responsibilities to our fellow citizens and to ourselves, our rights and liberties are meaningless.

10.  PEACE:  Violence, coercion, intimidation, and warfare have not provided long term solutions to any of the problems of our history.  In a world of nuclear and potentially even more lethal weapons, war is a threat to the existence of our species.  While we recognize the right to self defense and the necessity of law and order, we are committed to seeking peaceful solutions to conflicts through negotiation, dialogue, peacekeeping, and reason.  On the individual scale, we will promote rehabilitation and harm reduction over retributive or coercive justice.

GOALS OF THE TRANSHUMANIST POLITICAL PARTY

Immediate Goals:

- Replace absolutist drug prohibition with reasonable, effective drug control and harm reduction policies
- Reform copyright law to allow information propagation and return rights to those who create
- Secure personal rights to self modification and to denial of imposed modification
- Legalize euthanasia and guarantee the right to death for sane and rational citizens
- Work to eliminate all forms of discrimination and guarantee personal dignity to all citizens
- Create a system to give decision makers easy access to reasonable information on the influences of technology
- Establish reasonable, effective safeguard regulations for cutting edge scientific research
- Establish reasonable, effective environmental regulations and encourage green technology research
- Expose neo-luddism and corporatist authoritarianism; raise awareness of the transhumanist options

Near-Term Goals:

- Reform democratic institutions to maximize transparency, citizen choice and participation
- Encourage the accelerated colonization of space and other extreme environments
- Create a system of common property trust to protect and manage non-monetized resources
- Accelerate the fight against mortality and aging, and establish human enhancement in Medicare
- Expand reproductive choice technologies and institutions while assuring the rights of the unborn
- Establish reasonable, effective regulations to safeguard cognitive liberty and personal privacy rights
- Reform the education system to encourage critical thinking, citizenship participation, openness and honesty in teaching
- Enshrine a Charter of Human Responsibilities and curtail corporate personhood and corporatist authoritarianism
- Secure personhood, citizenship and fundamental rights for non human entities

Long-Term Goals

- Establish a solid monetary policy and replace debt-backed 'fiat money' with a sustainable alternative
- Adopt a 'libertarian socialist' government spending structure of voluntary entitlements and voluntary taxation
- Enshrine the right to leisure and create a social wage system of universal entitlements to encourage value creation
- Vastly increase government support of science, technology development, and future prediction systems
- Reduce economic inequality between persons to the minimum possible while maintaining economic liberty
- Create guarantees of biological or digital immortality and the right to voluntarily borganize and mind merge
- Balance technological development and value creation with environmental security and sustainability
- End war, aggression and terrorism and control weapons proliferation while guaranteeing the right of personal defense
- Work toward the creation of worldwide democratic government and establishment of individual rights and liberties
 

Hi crime_minister,

I also ran for the Green Party in the last election. What riding did you run in?

While I certainly believe that transhumanist ideals must be expressed and nurtured in politics, I don't believe that a transhumanist political party would be a positive thing for our movement. Transhumanism focuses on long-term goals that are seen as radical or fringe topics by the general population. Exporting transhumanism as a whole wouldn't gain us any traction in today's climate, it's all about baby steps. Focus on fixing democracy and protecting individual and scientific liberty, everything else will come naturally.

 
Mark McAllister

The 2.0 Project: http://www.2dot0.org
 

Mark McAllister:

Hi crime_minister,

I also ran for the Green Party in the last election. What riding did you run in?

While I certainly believe that transhumanist ideals must be expressed and nurtured in politics, I don't believe that a transhumanist political party would be a positive thing for our movement. Transhumanism focuses on long-term goals that are seen as radical or fringe topics by the general population. Exporting transhumanism as a whole wouldn't gain us any traction in today's climate, it's all about baby steps. Focus on fixing democracy and protecting individual and scientific liberty, everything else will come naturally.

Mark McAllister

The 2.0 Project: http://www.2dot0.org

I think you're right, it's impractical at this point

A much more robust and formidable support group is a prerequisite

Eventually we'll need to become a political force IMO - because even an ideal liberal democracy isn't synonymous with the Abolitionist project or the values of Transhumanism.

What about deregulating the body-modification industry so people would be free to evolve?

Yeah, we need to start thinking about changing laws that protect the separation of church and state, bring about a viable political culture whereby the people can have full influence over government, laws and regulations for enhancement procedures, and laws that protect us from involuntary suffering both at birth and throughout the course of our lives.

I think a Transhumanist political state is a good long-term goal.

Posted: 21 Mar 2008 07:37 am    Post subject: Musings on Transhumanist/Abolitionist laws
Transhumanism must become a political movement - ultimately the goal is to change laws that govern public policy. IMO, the goal of Abolitionism should be accomplished through the protection of rights. So what kinds of laws should we work towards? (my opinions and 10-point plan ; 1. Rights of Enhancement - as long as a person has informed consent, has reasonable mental capacity, and is not coerced : they should be allowed to enhance themselves as they see fit. We could require an individual to sign a waiver (just as we do for dangerous stunts) showing that they fully understand the risks and seek the desired enhancement in order to enhance their lifelong individual happiness. This could allow us to move forward through the adventures of truly brave men and women. We'll also have to hold the enhancement providers fully accountable for false advertising and negligence. We should allow specialized clinics to provide biotechnological enhancements that aren't designed to treat a medically recognized disease but are meant to improve the human condition. 2. Right to Genetic health - we should prevent parents from creating children with known genetic diseases or unreasonable predisposition to disease. 3. Right to Accountable Government - Holding politicians accountable to the will of the people, campaign promises, and maintaining and enhancing transparency. Run-off voting to eliminate party monopolies. Elimination of money factor from campaigns. Elimination of mass-media political campaigns - supplanting an open forum for debate with equal access for all candidates and citizens. 4. Right to Public Media - sponsored by government grants without any specifications on content - only accountable to the will of the people. 5. Right to Sustenance - Government funded programs to provide non-animal nourishment to all citizens. 6. Animal (sentient) Rights - sentient beings with capacity to suffer should not be held captive, experimented upon, or turned into food and other consumables. 7. Right to Health care - optional health services for all citizens. 8. Right to Freedom from Nationalistic Competition - Restrictions on military funding working towards a unified human military that protects all human beings against involuntary suffering. We should be free of the threat of nations (tribes) who seek more military power above a unified human force. 9. Right to Die - we can't force people to live involuntarily. Humane methods of ending one's life should be made available. 10. Right to a Pollution Free Environment - the air, water, food, and land have been made toxic by greedy capitalists - we cannot allow this to happen.

Good luck with a transhuman political party. I would recommend getting in contact with Natasha Vita-More or Anders Sandberg on the morphological issues, nd then R. U. Sirius and his Open Party, or possibly the guys behind the Pirate Party, all which share values very close to transhuman values. Collaboration and cooperation can only help in this context. - Bryan