Lifeboat Foundation

The Evening Standard reviews the new book Radicals whose opening chapter is about transhumanism and my 2016 presidential campaign:

With the apparent collapse of Ukip and the defeat of Marine Le Pen, perhaps those of us fretting about the decline of liberal democracy may breathe easier. Still, many established Western parties remain in decline. And we have yet to deal with the consequences of the “populist” spasms that gave us Brexit and the absurd President Trump. This is the climate that impels Jamie Bartlett, of think tank Demos, to examine some of the new “radicals”.

Radicalism is important, he believes, because it is a source of new ideas: even if liberal democracy is forced to argue with racists or anti-democratic radicals, that should help make it stronger.

Continue reading “Outsiders Changing the World” »

Lifeboat Foundation readers are aware that the world has become progressively more chaotic. Part of the danger comes from centralized points of failure. While large institutions can bear great stress, they also cause more harm when they fail. Because there are so few pillars, if one collapses, the whole system is destroyed.

For instance, prior to the federal reserve system, bank runs we extremely common. However, since the financial system consisted of small, competing institutions, failure was confined to deficient banks. So while failure was frequent, it was less impactful and systemic. In contrast, after the establishment of the federal reserve, banks became fewer and larger. Failures, while more infrequent, were large scale catastrophes when they occurred. They affected the whole economy and had longer impact.

This is even more important in political systems, which are the foundation of how a society operates. In order to have a more robust, antifragile social order, systems must be decentralized. Rather than a monopolistic, static political order, there must be a series of decentralized experiments. While failures are inevitable, it can be localized to these small experiments rather than the whole structure.

Continue reading “Startup Societies Summit: A Decentralized Governance Trade Show” »

Join me today for this! https://www.meetup.com/transhumanism-78/events/240040904/ #transhumanism

The Transhumanist Party presidential candidate and a Libertarian candidate for California governor, Zoltan Istvan, will join Agah Bahari in a 45-minute conversation for the live recording of an episode of “NEOHUMAN with Agah Bahari” podcast, following by 30-mins of Q&A (predetermined based on prior submissions).

With his wildly popular US Presidential run as a science candidate, bestselling book The Transhumanist Wager, and powerful speeches at institutions like the World Bank, Zoltan Istvan has literally transformed transhumanism into a thriving worldwide phenomenon. He is often cited as the global leader of the radical science movement. A humanitarian activist and former journalist for National Geographic, Zoltan has been compared in major media to a young Al Gore and described as a modern-day Ayn Rand.

Continue reading “The Toronto Transhumanism Meetup Group” »

I finally found a copy of my radio interview at Stanford University last month discussing how I’d pay for a #basicincome by leasing out federal land (called a “Federal Land Dividend”). It’s an hour long interview with a guests asking questions: We discuss transhumanism too.

In this April 18, 2017 episode, we speak with Zoltan Istvan, who ran for President in the Transhumanist party, and is now running for California Governor as a Libertarian. He proposes a Universal Basic Income, funded by the leasing of federal lands. How does this compare to the Georgist ideal of a citizen’s dividend funded by land rents?

One of the missions of Lifeboat Foundation has always been to contemplate the protection of our fragile Spaceship-Earth and to contemplate a day when we may need to migrate from this tiny stage. Yesterday, that day may have been moved a lot closer. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday, I had a fantasy. One that I passionately hoped would become reality. Minutes before Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, I began to daydream…

• I dreamt that Trump might listen to his top science advisors and his daughter
• I dreamt that he might not gamble our existence on his minority opinion that humans cannot help rescue the environment.
• I dreamt that he would recognize that clean energy jobs trump legacy coal mining
• I dreamt that he would avoid export tariffs for failing to respect international norms
• I dreamt that he would stop pandering to Yahoos and stand for something worthy and undeniable

No such luck! The USA has lost its Mojo—at least while it is led by a man with no grasp of science, history, morals or a global perspective. As Trump begun to speak, I was sucked into a cruel nightmare. But this nightmare is reality. It’s the reality of a buffoon representing you and me in our nation’s highest office.

Question: Time for a thought experiment. Can you guess the answer?…

Continue reading “Reaction: Trump Decision to Withdraw from Paris Accord” »

Jamie Bartlett’s new book Radicals features #transhumanism in his opening chapter. He’s on a book tour and discusses his time on the Immortality Bus for about 10 minutes in this video below:

Society is badly served by the limited set of ideas which occupy our cultural mainstream. To cope with the increasing pace of change, we need big new ideas. Where might these ideas come from?

Continue reading “Radicals — Outsiders changing the world” »

In early 2015, when transhumanist US Presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan announced he would transform a 38-foot bus into a giant coffin and drive it across America to deliver a Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol, many in the transhumanism community reacted with contempt and ridicule. Two years later, the Immortality Bus–created as a provocative symbol of resistance against death–has become one of the most recognized futurist projects in the world. The New York Times called the bus “the great brown sarcaphogus of the American highway…a metaphor of life itself.”

Today feature films, documentaries, and even a likely final home in a major museum are being worked on for the Immortality Bus. Hear Zoltan Istvan describe his captaining of the “coffin bus”, and learn what really happened during this historic journey.

Continue reading “Zoltan Istvan: How the Immortality Bus Changed Transhumanism Forever” »

My event starts at 4:30PM and is at: Carolina Theatre, Cinema 1 309 W Morgan St, Durham, NC 27701 The Immortality Bus, despite controversy and resistance from some transhumanists, defied many odds and has become one of the widely discussed pieces of art and events in the futurist world. Come watch never before seen slides on how the bus, science activism, and my presidential campaign made its way across America and delivered the Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol. http://sched.co/AGbE & https://moogfest2017.sched.com/artist/info6094

My Immortality Bus trip and transhumanist presidential campaign is the subject of the first chapter (40 pages long). Grab a copy of this excellent book and read about radical personalities attempting to change the world: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radicals-Jamie-Bartlett-ebook/dp/B0…sr=8-1