The Transhumanist Wager

by Zoltan Istvan

  Jethro jumped up and shouted, “What the hell are you doing?”

  The six feet between them felt endless. Everything around them turned colder, almost icy. The brightness in the sky disappeared from cloud cover.

  “I'm about to teach you a lesson in life—and on love.”

  Jethro knew immediately what she was doing: jumping. Suicide for her was just a birth. A form of quantum evolution. And she meant it. This whole damn time, she meant it.

  “Zoe, don't do it. Please back away.”

  “Do you know how often I think about this?”

  He didn't care. He glanced to see if there was ledge or something below her. There wasn't.

  “No I don't—and right now I don't want to. I just need you to back away.”

  Jethro began subtly pulling in the rope attached to her. She wasn't going too far, as long as he could keep his balance on the cliff's edge and not slide over himself. He calculated whether or not he could. He wasn’t sure because the mud was tricky.

  “I think about it often enough. It's not just my job that makes me like this. It's what I believe. It comes in my dreams. In my patients' last moments. In your eyes when we’re making love. In my every breath.”

  Zoe saw Jethro pulling in the rope—and smiled. With the accuracy of a surgeon’s hand, in one swift motion she quickly unclipped herself and let the rope fall. It hit the ground underneath her with a thud, and toppled off the edge.

  Jethro's fury turned to disbelief. “Zoe, come on now? We can talk this out.”

  “We've talked enough,” she shouted at him. “A hundred times by now, wouldn't you say?”

  “What do you want me to do? What can I do?”

  “To have the faith to jump with me—to believe it's okay.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “It’s not insane. Or it’s as insane as everything else in this world. I want you to believe it’s okay.”

  “But I do believe it's okay. In fact, I'm convinced it would be amazing. You know that. A true peak experience. But also quite stupid. Very, very stupid.”

  “Well, at least you've gotten that far.”

  “I'm farther along than you think. Perhaps farther than you. But this is not my path.”

  “And not keeping me in your life because of obstinate transhumanist ideals is your path? How childish and stupid!” she cried, wobbling near the edge, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

  “Zoe, I didn't say that yet. That decision is not made. I'm still trying to get through it, but that one will take time.”

  “How much time? It's an insult to me that you have to get through it when you know how we feel about each other. How amazing and unique and special this is.”

  “I'm sorry. It's not meant to be an insult. You could also look at it as something noble.”

  “Noble? And what if jumping here is noble? Since you know I believe I'll only find another version of myself, perhaps an even better one,” she said.

  “Zoe, be reasonable.”

  But she wasn't able to be reasonable. She wasn’t fully there anymore. Tears were cascading down her cheeks, her abundant emotions, faith, and feelings drowning her. She wasn't only speaking to Jethro anymore, but to something deep inside herself.

  She drifted towards the edge, already off balance.

  “Zoe, please. Not like this.”

  “You're being stubborn, my love. Without justification. Just a man afraid of the unknown in his heart. When there's so much more out there to embrace.”

  “It's much more complicated than that,” Jethro insisted.

  “No it's not. But it doesn't matter anyway. Because I think you'll always save me. Always look for me. I think we made our choice a long time ago. I felt it right when I saw you for the first time. Even if you can't have me now.”

  Jethro saw her balance failing and doubted that she could pull herself back anymore.

  Zoe tilted over, her body speed gaining momentum in the air, until finally she was falling headfirst, uncontrollably. She didn't flinch, but accepted it serenely, watching him as she began a thousand-foot drop.

  Jethro Knight’s mind screamed. Instinctively, he took a step—then another, and another—and lunged at her in the mud, his body hitting the ground hard and sliding towards the cliff face. In front of him, his outstretched right hand aimed for any piece of Zoe it could grasp. It reached her swiftly falling upside-down leg, barely, his fingers clamping down on her right ankle with all his strength. Her weight jerked him forward, downward, almost over the edge. He countered with his empty hand, pushing himself up on one knee, and digging his right foot into the cliff. A sharp rock scraped his shin bloody. He swayed, trying to pull her back, starting to lose his balance. His right foot stumbled, skidded in the mud, his boot coming to within an inch of the edge before stopping. He dropped to his butt as her weight began pulling him over the precipice. In the last instant before they were both gone, his left heel pushed vigorously into the mud, digging deep, helping to mobilize his weight, to fortify his stability. Then, with furious strength, he arched his back and neck, grasping out, and yanked her up to the edge in one sweeping motion. They fell to the ground together, his right foot totally hanging over the cliff now. Behind him, his left hand frantically dug for a secure hold in the brown sludge. With his other hand he grabbed Zoe’s jeans and dragged her to him.

  Then they were still, her body wrapped against his chest. The embracing pair balanced precariously on the edge. Mud was on their faces and clothes.

  After many seconds in silence, she looked at him and smiled peacefully.

  “See, you saved me,” he heard her whisper.

  The words weren't only for him, but to everything else that also surrounded them.

  Jethro Knights shook his head slowly. Sweat poured off his brows. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes were red with danger. He pulled Zoe tightly into him, bringing her mouth to his, and kissed her forcefully. Behind her back, his right hand reached for the rope and violently yanked it in. He grabbed the end and quickly clipped her back on to him.

  “Let’s get on with our journey—we have a long way home,” he ordered. A discordant vibe in the air brimmed from the severity of his voice.

  “Of course, my love. But I still don't think you're going to be able to keep me yet, one way or the other.”

  Chapter 10

  It was the moment after spending three months together, after innumerable bouts of making love and talking late into the Kashmiri nights, with bombs hurling and hissing in the distance. After frantic knocks at two in the morning for the doctor who spoke with ghosts, because she was immediately needed in the hospital tent. After scores of road excursions to other villages on scooters. After side trips, trekking in the snowcapped mountains together. And after skinny-dipping in the valley's rivers—that Jethro Knights solemnly confessed to Zoe Bach: I love you.

  He was in love with her fiercely incisive mind. Her body that perfectly fit his. Her iron work ethic and competence as a surgeon. Her faith in destiny taking care of itself. Her dark, death-wish soul aspiring for passion and life.

  Jethro reeled back in distress at the full realization. Something novel had been seeded inside him during the past few months, and was now budding. It challenged him to his core. He needed to leave. Depart as soon as possible. Get away from her so he could gather his thoughts. The man who prided himself on being rational and unemotional was being crushed by his heart. He was feeling emotions of wanting to protect Zoe to the point of giving his own life for her. He even questioned if he was sailing only to find her, and not his immortality or the best path to pursuing transhumanism.

  He found himself wondering—practically fantasizing—if immortality was really just gifted through the temple in her belly. Here was a man who never understood love of another and now was completely engulfed by it. His rational mind cried out that it was a trick, a woe that threw him into melancholy, into a battle with his own desires and reason. This was worse than any of the storms, more
dangerous than the seventy-foot wave from Hurricane Talupa, more chaotic than the death roll on Contender.

  Jethro Knights was not afraid of love. His heart and mind were simply without experience, without a map. Because he was neither wounded nor compromised, he was not educated in these matters. Yet, here he was, shocked at the stunning task before him. Spending his life with Zoe Bach, pursuing their bliss. It was such an obvious choice. So natural. You don't meet a loving, wild, adventurous, life-seeking doctor out in a war zone and pass it up. You don't walk away and not support and protect her in any way you can for the rest of your life. Millions of years of biology was speaking to him, was shouting at him, was motivating him. This was the once-in-a-lifetime chance described by so many of the great books he read—their tributes to the altar of love. So many had passionately raved of the irresistible beckoning and unmatched dream.

  Despite it all, Jethro forced himself to end the relationship. He forced himself to finish what he wanted to do: sail around the world and discover himself, continue his quest for immortality, and find the direction it should take. He took a week off from staying with Zoe and flew to Tibet to write another International Geographic travel article. In those few days he taught himself to shut down his heart. To not pay attention to its yearnings. To still his emotions.

  When he returned to Kundara, he embraced her and made love to her for one enduring, sleepless night—then said farewell at dawn.

  Leaving Zoe was the most painful experience Jethro had ever endured. The wound smarted, twisted, left him with insomnia, left him unable to eat for days. He lost weight, caught the flu, coughed all night in bed, watched his hair follicles turn gray. Jethro forced himself not to contact her again. He didn't want to keep in touch. He couldn't bear both worlds. Zoe cried, laughed, threatened, and finally screamed at him when she saw him walk off at dawn, carrying his backpack and camera. She marveled at his heart. At his stubborn mind. So ardent, so desiring of knowledge and power, so needing to fathom and control the universe and its mysterious ways.

  For the first few days after he left, Zoe felt little more than a phantom, empty and void. She could hardly believe he was gone; that he would really insist on halting their extraordinary path of love. Then, over the next few weeks, she gathered her peace, accepted it, forced herself to believe it was okay, and practiced her quantum thoughts. She chose to deliberately lose herself in her work and focus on her career. She was leaving Kashmir soon too, back to her residency in San Francisco. The endless hours in the operating room would help get her mind off him.

  Besides, deep down inside, she knew he would be back. She could wait. This was just the beginning.

  ************

  Jethro Knights arrived in Singapore, his heart concealed in the most cavernous part of his mind. He finished the remaining maintenance on his yacht, and a week later departed through the Straits of Malacca, lightning casting its way across the water in front of him. He was bound for the Indian Ocean.

  He reached Sri Lanka in his third year away from New York City, and stopped in Galle to re-provision and research the highlands for an article. There, Jethro had all his mail forwarded to him from the past twelve months. In the small postal box were school loan consolidation offers, alumni donation requests, U.S. Census Bureau questionnaires, chain store coupons, health insurance notifications, driver’s license renewal forms, and much more. All system garbage, thought Jethro, who was so far removed from the nine-to-five world with its oppressive tax statements, life insurance premiums, and cable bills.

  At the bottom of the package he noticed another letter, slightly crumbled but recently mailed. It bore the insignia of the World Transhumanist Institute. The name of its president, Dr. Preston Langmore, was in the upper left corner. He opened the envelope and read:

  Dear Jethro Knights,

  I recently had the pleasure of reading your Victoria University senior thesis: Rise of the Transhuman Citizen. In all my readings on the subject of transhumanism, few essays have moved me so much. Your paper reads like the arrival of a revolutionary manifesto—a new planet discovered in a long-established galaxy. The ethics and ideas of TEF and the omnipotender are radical but simple, raw but convincing. They are also, refreshingly, without a hint of remorse.

  The paper has been getting some notable attention recently—mostly in the underground circles of our movement. Transhumanists have taken over the liberty to post it everywhere on the Internet. I’ve seen it on a dozen websites and blogs.

  In light of this, I’ve been trying to contact you, but have found it quite difficult to do so. Recently, Dean Graybury, whom I’ve known for years, assisted me. He informed me that you’d built a boat and were sailing around the world—writing articles for International Geographic. He put me in touch with your editor, Francisco Dante, who has given me this address to reach you.

  If you are the man who wrote Rise of the Transhuman Citizen, please contact me. I am most interested in your welfare and in making use of your eloquent articulation, if in fact you are still interested in transhumanism.

  Yours truly,

  Dr. Preston Langmore, President

  World Transhumanist Institute

  478 Fernright Avenue, NW

  Washington, D.C. 20004

  Before Jethro departed the following week for the Red Sea, he wrote back to Langmore. Jethro thanked him for the letter and welcomed correspondence with him. Jethro informed him of his travels, his articles, and the books he was reading. He also wrote of his unyielding commitment to his own immortality and the field of transhumanism. He told Langmore that the sailing trip was both a test and a training mission: a time to strengthen his core self so he could successfully accomplish his long-term objectives in life.

  Jethro promised to regularly check his personal email when he could. Soon they began corresponding frequently and candidly via the Internet.

  One of Jethro’s earliest emails to Langmore read:

  Good Morning Preston,

  Thank you for that transhumanism essay you forwarded three days ago. It was an engaging read. Tomorrow I’m leaving again, headed up the coast of Africa. Just came through bullet-ridden Yemen. Filthy, dangerous, and brutal. It's hard to fathom that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and that nearly one in four on the planet are now Muslim. Don't people realize the teachings of the Koran are totally incompatible with a free, functional society? Don't people see how male-chauvinistic and xenophobic its ideas are? All the women here are totally covered up in black—I can't even see their eyes. How do they expect to live in a world when half the population can't see or be seen? Just like the Bible and other major religious texts, the pages of the Koran are not remotely suited to instruct humankind.

  Unfortunately, most of my travels have increasingly led me to feel cross at many cultures, societies, and governments. There's much to scoff at with the human race, much to criticize, much to transform. Honestly, most of it should be scrapped and recast entirely.

  Nevertheless, some things I do appreciate—at least in small doses. The authenticity of the indigenous peoples of the South Pacific, for example. The honor and efficiency of the few remaining Japanese Samaria clans I visited. The unyielding militants in Kashmir, as misled as they are. Or that magnificent floating community I sailed by near Singapore—where, apparently, they create their own laws. Still, I see mass culture as a formidable enemy. It seems to me, this is the most dangerous thing about people's perspectives on immortality and transhumanism. Culture has been based for centuries on fear and on God or a divine power delivering us from that fear. And not what we can do as a species or as individuals, especially in science and technology.

  Feel free to send me more of your thoughts and essays.

  Sincerely,

  Jethro

  Langmore emailed back more essays and also related personal anecdotes of his own travels, including the lessons and perspectives he had accumulated along his extensive path of transhumanism. In one email, Langmore sent eight favorit
e quotes of his youth to Jethro, knowing the young man would appreciate the intensity and wisdom in them:

  1) I'm a skeptic of humankind, but a believer of its potential.

  2) There's one sure way to destroy yourself: by not being honest.

  3) Life is essentially a choice between pursuing personal godhood or dust.

  4) The evolution of humans is long overdue for a major upgrade.

  5) People may not be interested in life extension, but life is interested in extending them.

  6) All levels of society must be subject to the sanctity of the individual.

  7) Transhumanists have a religion; it consists of asking the question, Why?

  8) The soul of a human being is that which wants to survive in life-threatening situation.

  Jethro smiled when he read the quotes, and responded by emailing his own set of gathered imperatives:

  Preston,

  Here are the meditations I've found essential to me so far—to get what I want out of life. I read and consider them every day. And, on occasion, add to them or even rewrite them.

  Cheers,

  Jethro

  1) Let my thoughts always utilize statistical analysis of value as the highest means of interpretation possible—then let my actions follow the best, most logical path derived from that information. Form follows function.

  2) Strive to always know and recognize the difference between my rational and emotional self. Slavery to emotions (or anything else) is slavery to the universe—and by its nature, counter to TEF and the omnipotender. Slavery is its own variation of death.