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The stock market is tanking, North and South Korea are on the brink of war, and a cartoon character from a dystopian future is the most popular candidate for US President at the moment. But don’t despair. While most things are garbage, there are some things in the world that aren’t. Like this adorable kid who just got his own high-tech bionic hand.

Nine-year-old Josh Cathcart was often bullied in school for having just one hand. But he’s about to become the coolest kid in school, thanks to his new i-limb, developed by a company called Touch Bionics. The hand can be programmed via an iPad app.

“I made myself a bagel yesterday. I can open bottles and packets with it. I can stack up blocks, I can build Lego with it and I can pull my trousers up,” he told The Guardian. While he’s not the youngest to ever get a bionic hand, he’s the youngest that this company has fitted the device for. He’ll grow out of it in about a year and need a new one, and his parents have started fundraising to pay for it.

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A video on transhumanism, the Transhumanist Party, and my presidential campaign is out on BuzzFeed. It starts right before the 8-min mark and goes for 5 minutes. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOPSDcN0t8w and BuzzFeed site: http://www.buzzfeed.com/brandensueper/does-technology-contro.…jfGPZ2bka


We’re all going to die. Check out more awesome videos at BuzzFeedVideo! http://bit.ly/YTbuzzfeedvideo MUSIC Lizard Lounge Mrs Rossas Smile Pluck And Blow Und…

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My new story for Vice Motherboard exploring the human journey into eventually becoming a machine: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-i-advocate-for-becoming-a-machine And also if you haven’t donated to the Immortality Bus Indiegogo campaign, there are only a few hours left to do so: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/immortality-bus-with-pres…406#/story


Biology is simply not the best system out there for our species’ evolution. It’s frail, terminal, and needs to be upgraded. In fact, even machines may be upgraded in the future too, and rendered as junk as our intelligences figure out ways to become beings of pure organized energy. “Onward” is the classic transhumanist mantra.

No matter what happens, to move forward in the transhumanist age, we need to let go of our egos and our shallow sense of identity; in short, we need to get over ourselves. The permanence of our species lies in our ability to reason, think, and remember who we are and where we’ve been. The rest is just an impermanent shell that changes—and it has already been changing for tens of millions of years in the form of sentient evolution.

Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, author of The Transhumanist Wager, and founder of and presidential candidate for the Transhumanist Party. He writes an occasional column for Motherboard in which he ruminates on the future beyond natural human ability.

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https://youtube.com/watch?a&feature=youtu.be&v=TFErQ3XM__c

An interview on transhumanism done by London Real:


Zoltan Istvan — Transhumanist — PART 1/2. FREE FULL EPISODE: http://londonreal.tv/zoltan-istvan This week’s guest on London Real is Zoltan Istvan, US Presidential candidate for the Transhumanist Party. Istvan’s stated aim is to “change the conversation” on transhumanism.

Transhumanism could be described as the use of technology to enhance human capabilities, both mental and physical.

As Istvan points out in this interview, the ultimate goal is transcending biological death.

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This is an interesting story in one of Italy’s top 3 papers/sites about life extension science and millennials living beyond 100 years of age. It also features transhumanism: http://numerus.corriere.it/2015/08/06/i-millennials-camperan…ermettere/ and the English: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://…rev=search


Le tendenze della statistica ci dicono che chi oggi ha vent’anni ha ottime probabilità di arrivare ai cento in buona salute. Forse anche molto di più, se avranno successo le battaglie del Partito Transumanista che si presenta alle elezioni americane del 2016 con l’obiettivo di puntare più risorse sulla lotta all’invecchiamento. Ma come si configura un mondo di persone tanto longeve? L’allungamento della vita potrà beneficiare tutte le popolazioni o soltanto una fascia di privilegiati? Già oggi la speranza di vita nei Paesi più poveri è mediamente inferiore di 18 anni rispetto ai Paesi più ricchi e anche in Italia ci sono tre anni di differenza tra Milano e Napoli. E come si ridisegna un sistema sociale nel quale le persone vivranno venti o trent’anni più di oggi?

Un autobus rosso a forma di bara, con tanto di fiori finti sul tetto, percorre le strade degli Stati Uniti. Lo ha voluto il leader del Partito transumanista Zoltan Istvan, candidato alle elezioni presidenziali del 2016. Istvan non diventerà presidente, ma il suo messaggio non è banale: con il suo tour elettorale, vuole attirare l’attenzione sulla battaglia contro l’invecchiamento. Chiede più fondi per la ricerca e per le cure sanitarie, più carriere nelle attività tecnologiche, nell’intelligenza artificiale e nella medicina.

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