The U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party: The Last, Best Hope for Transhumanist Politics
Gennady Stolyarov II
The Transhuman National Committee of the United States (TNC) has disbanded, and the Transhuman Party is being integrated into the U.S. Transhumanist Party. We (including our State-level affiliates) are now the sole transhumanist political organization in the United States.
The United States Transhumanist Party issues this statement to bring attention to a series of rapid developments during January 2019, at the end of which our political party (including its State-level affiliates) remains the sole transhumanist political organization in the United States. As Chairman of this sole transhumanist political organization, I am determined to continue to grow it and maintain its distinctive identity and purpose above the toxic “mainstream” partisan fray. I invite all transhumanists to apply for free membership within our growing and vibrant party, which has reached 1,282 members and continues to expand daily.
In short succession, the following events recently transpired.
Integration of the Transhuman Party
The Transhuman Party, a 25-member experimental splinter party founded in October 2017, recently became defunct due to lack of activity. On December 30, 2018, I acquired the website (not yet edited except for the statement on the front page) and Facebook page for the Transhuman Party and issued a standing invitation to its former members to become members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, with an option to take Officer or Advisor roles. So far approximately half of the former Transhuman Party members have accepted the offer, and the process of integration is ongoing, with the intention to continue to issue such invitations as time advances.
The Transhuman Party was originally formed because its members disapproved of the term “Transhumanist Party” having been trademarked by Zoltan Istvan. (This matter is extensively addressed in the U.S. Transhumanist Party FAQ. Furthermore, Zoltan Istvan has not had any role in the governance of the Transhumanist Party since November 2016 and has also specifically stated that he views favorably the course that the Transhumanist Party has taken; from this one can conclude that he has no desire or reason to intervene.)
However, to assuage any concerns of those who criticized the existence of the trademark, there will now exist two options for how to call our party. Accordingly, the name “Transhuman Party” will be preserved. Previous efforts by former Transhuman Party members to trademark this term had been abandoned, and any such efforts are likely to fail from a legal standpoint due to the similarity of this term to the term “Transhumanist Party”. However, it is desirable to preserve “Transhuman Party” as a non-trademarked term that those who object to the trademark of “Transhumanist Party” may use to enable their participation in our organization nonetheless.
Accordingly, the full name of our organization hereby becomes “United States Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party”. Members henceforth have the choice to refer to it as either the “Transhumanist Party” (the trademarked term) or the “Transhuman Party” (the non-trademarked term), using these terms either together or apart or interchangeably, as they please. We hope that these options will enable individuals to bypass arguments over the trademark and collaborate on substantive matters with the knowledge that at least one (and most likely both) of these terms will remain available for us to use, no matter what.
The U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party seeks to be a “big tent” for the transhumanist movement. We welcome the involvement and perspectives of the original Transhuman Party members, as well as others from various backgrounds and organizations within the broader transhumanist community. Our eventual aim is to end transhumanist infighting to the extent possible and to replace it with a deliberative and democratic process where ideas are civilly and constructively discussed and translated into suggestions for policies and general technological, societal, and cultural improvements.
The new logo of the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party intentionally allows the party’s name to be read as either “Transhumanist Party” or “Transhuman Party”. The color scheme also places emphasis on the term “human”; we are the only political party in the United States with the word “human” in our name. This is justified, as our ultimate focus is the well-being of humans (and other sentient entities) and the championing of technological and societal improvements that enable all humans to overcome their limitations, actualize their potential, and live and improve without bound.
Dissolution of the Transhuman National Committee of the United States (TNC)
The Transhuman National Committee of the United States (TNC) was originally formed in October 2015 as an alternative transhumanist political organization that sought to eventually form a Political Action Committee (PAC) but never officially did so.
On January 25, 2019, the Board of the Transhuman National Committee of the United States (TNC) voted unanimously to disband the TNC. Two Officers of the U.S. Transhumanist Party – Gennady Stolyarov II and B.J. Murphy – were members of the TNC Board and were present at the virtual TNC Board meeting of January 25, 2019.
The U.S. Transhumanist Party acknowledged the validity of the reasons for the dissolution of the TNC. We had long considered the TNC to be an Allied Organization but took a fundamentally different approach from that espoused by the TNC Chair – e.g., the U.S. Transhumanist Party is a non-monetary, all-volunteer organization and therefore is not reliant on funding, whose cessation essentially ended the viability of the TNC. Furthermore, the U.S. Transhumanist Party favors a principles-based, idea-oriented, and pluralistic approach to public outreach, education, and transformation of the intellectual and cultural landscape – whereas the TNC sought (unsuccessfully) to become a lobbying organization and to adopt the often questionable tactics of mainstream politics. Playing by the rules of mainstream politics is a self-defeating approach, as I explained in “The Great Transhumanist Game” video series (Part 1 and Part 2); the unscrupulous expert political operatives will win every time. Only by changing the rules to those of the new era of our civilization and leading by example under those rules, can transhumanists hope to effectuate constructive change notwithstanding existing political roadblocks.
However, in order to salvage any of the beneficial objectives of the TNC, the U.S. Transhumanist Party reached out in hopes of enabling the people who were involved in it to continue their political activism under the auspices of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. I extended a standing offer to any of the former TNC Officers and Board Members to take on roles as Officers, Advisors, or Ambassadors within the U.S. Transhumanist Party, depending on their individual circumstances, skill sets, and preferences.
Unfortunately, the former TNC Chair used the proxy votes at the last TNC Board meeting to push through a series of divisive and contested statements which encouraged transhumanists to work within the two major political parties instead of any minor political parties or the U.S. Transhumanist Party. I offered motions to surgically excise these counterproductive recommendations from the statements, and the majority of TNC Board members present on the call expressed similar concerns regarding the former TNC Chair’s attempts to push through what was clearly not a consensus position within either the TNC or the broader transhumanist community – much of which remains interested in a distinctively transhumanist political approach. It is unfortunate that, because of the TNC Chair’s use of the proxy votes at his disposal, the TNC’s last gesture will be one of division rather than unification. This outcome illustrates one reason for the TNC’s failure – an approach which favored adversarial “hardball” tactics over attempts to reach consensus. However, as the last remaining transhumanist political organization in the United States, the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party can carry on in expressing its principled views and eschewing the tragi-comical theater that “mainstream” politics has become. The tactics of contemporary political operatives are inimical to the nobler mindset that is needed to build the next era of our civilization. Adversarial “hardball” is precisely one of the unfortunate aspects of the present that needs to be transcended if we are to overcome the roadblocks that stand in the way of technological, cultural, and policy progress.
As I expressed in a statement to the TNC Board, I consider the two main parties to have thoroughly discredited themselves. The Democratic and Republican Parties are essentially committing suicide via their tactics of partisan toxicity that set people against one another and prevent constructive policy discussions and solutions. The recent fiasco of the U.S. federal government shutdown is just the most recent example of this toxicity getting in the way of even routine operations.
The transhumanist movement is indeed small at this stage, although we are growing and are much larger than we were several years ago. That being said, if transhumanists attempt to work within the two major parties, they will just contribute infinitesimally to these gargantuan political machines that have wrongfully subsumed American political discourse. This is exactly what happened to the Futurist Party, which rendered itself irrelevant when it endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2015; it essentially then became just one of the numerous feeder organizations into the Democratic Party, which ultimately benefited the Hillary Clinton campaign. While the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party welcomes all individual transhumanists – including those who also participate in the major political parties in some capacity – it cannot, as an organization, endorse any of the major political parties or their candidates due to the concern that such endorsements would subsume the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party within the partisan fray, where completely unrelated “wedge” issues are used solely to perpetuate animosity and strife at the expense of constructive exploration of future possibilities.
Contrary to the opinions of the former TNC Chair, the value of the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party (or any other standalone transhumanist organization, for that matter) is that it can stand above that toxic fray and look toward long-term policy solutions and shifting the climate of ideas. It does not matter if we can elect candidates to the office in the immediate future (although James Schultz and I put forth valiant efforts in 2018). We will, of course, continue to endorse other independent or nonpartisan candidates in the coming years and use each electoral race as an educational opportunity. Our nomination process for the 2020 Presidential election will hopefully attract unprecedented participation within the transhumanist community as well as considerable external interest in transhumanist political discourse. Our main vision, however, is far longer-term. The key is for the Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party to exist and to remain active in the meantime, with whatever resources and volunteer efforts are available at its disposal. This dynamic of activity and gradual growth is one that I believe can be sustained indefinitely until a power vacuum arises when the two main parties implode. (This will happen eventually, but it is impossible to predict when.) If the Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party is ready to step into the vacuum and, in the meantime, establishes a reputation for respectable, thoughtful discourse, advocacy, and activism, then it may be possible to become a major player on the political scene virtually overnight once that power vacuum forms. In the meantime, we should continue gradually, patiently building up the infrastructure that would enable us to take advantage of that inflection point.
The U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party continues to grow in membership and expand its reach. An easy and highly effective contribution that anyone can make is to sign up for free membership, which takes less than a minute and brings additional benefits to the member. The TNC and its statements are now only part of history, but we have a future to build. As Chairman of the sole surviving political transhumanist organization in the United States, I am committed to preserving and growing a distinctive alternative to the two main political parties, whose very existence and example in deed are what transhumanists need in order to overcome the continually downward-spiraling political “mainstream” in the United States. The path toward this goal includes the necessity of achieving a widespread recognition of common purpose or at least non-antagonism within the transhumanist movement itself. Eventually a vacuum will form within the political landscape, and the party that survives with integrity will be the one that gets to fill that vacuum. Anyone who wishes to join us in taking the high road toward transhumanist unity and the next era of our civilization is welcome to do so.
~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, January 26, 2019
One thought on “The U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party: The Last, Best Hope for Transhumanist Politics”
This is exciting!