Why Im Running for President As the Transhumanist Candidate

Its a wild request to ask a nation to consider electing you as their president, especially when youre a transhumanistsomeone who advocates for using science and technology to radically change and improve the human species. But Im doing it.

Last October, I declared my 2016 US candidacy under the newly formed Transhumanist Party, which I founded, and promised my community of techno-optimists Id do everything I could to use my campaign as a way to speed up the arrival of robotic hearts, brain implants, artificial limbs, exoskeleton suits, and indefinite lifespansall of which are just a small part of the radical science transhumanists aim to make a standard part of peoples lives.

The Transhumanist Party may seem fringe to some, but its not. Its mainly made up of scientists, engineers, futurists, and people who love technology. And while we dont have a formal paying membership process, my officers and I estimatebased on social media, event turnouts, and donationswe now have about 25,000 supporters in the US. We also have approximately 40 volunteers and more signing up every week. Globally, there are now almost 25 Transhumanist Parties on five different continents, each with its own rules that it determines best within its national framework.

My presidential campaign has been nothing short of a whirlwind. Take this morning for example. I woke up to my iPad beeping relentlessly with inbound messagesdozens of emails, Facebook posts, and tweets asking my policies on everything from artificial wombs, to a proposed moratorium on AI research, to the Baltimore riots. After brewing coffee, I answered as many requests as I could.

Later, I began the tedious business of negotiating a reality TV contract on my campaign. After taking my 4-year-old daughter to preschool, I returned to my desk and typed up a blog post supporting Chinese scientists editing the genome, then put together my slideshow for an upcoming speech in Vancouver, then worked with a designer on the Transhumanist Partys latest bumper sticker. Finally, I spent a half-hour checking out bus companies for my campaigns summer bus tour, scheduled to start this July on the West Coast.

By noon I was almost caught up on most urgent campaign matters and starting to look forward to my mid-day jog when the flow was broken by one my communications managers asking how I planned to answer inquiring press on 3D-printed guns. This is a sticky issue.

Generally, transhumanists love anything 3D-printedespecially when it concerns human organs and bionicsbut the question at hand was whether manufacturing a lethal weapon is going too far, especially when anyone could do it by buying a 3D-printer off Ebay for a under $2000?

Guns play an integral part in thousands of accidental deaths, murders, and armed robberies every year in America, so the ability to quickly, cheaply, and anonymously make them in your home or even in your car is highly contentious. I generally advocate for giving people nearly all liberties, but I had no idea how to answer this question, and neither did any of my staff. An advisor said we should check out what the US Constitutions Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) said about 3D-printers. We laughed, thinking it ridiculous to try governing a country with a 226-year old document in the transhumanist age.

People ask me all the timesince they know Im not going to win the presidency (third party candidates never win)if Im enjoying the campaign. Ive never thought about it like that.

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Why Im Running for President As the Transhumanist Candidate