The Transhumanist Wager

by Zoltan Istvan

  “The inefficiency across the land is so thick that, in all honesty, I doubt we can stay here and still pull off our dearest goals: immortality, scientific freedom, transhumanism. Even if the NFSA doesn't get stronger, it would still be a steep, uphill battle. But now, with the rearing ugly head of a much larger beast, being better funded, and turning us into criminals using police-state scare tactics, it's just going to get worse. A lot worse.

  “The entire mission is just not working here fast enough. It's in severe jeopardy. We need bigger funders on board, but they don't want to come on until they see a place where their money can actually translate into scientific progress. Progress that gives them a better shot at living substantially longer—decades and centuries longer. We need a real place dedicated to just the transhuman mission, where that is all we work on and all we do. Where we can really be citizens of our mission. A bona fide nation for transhumanists: Transhumania.

  “The scientists we currently support, the small research clinics we've founded, and the university centers we fund are just drops in the ocean of what needs to occur to reach our transhuman goals in our lifetimes. So much more needs to happen. And it must happen now, while we still have time. Before we get too old. Before the world mutilates itself more and slides into a second Dark Ages.”

  “Are you leaving us then?” Zoe asked, her question loaded. “To go find this place? To go start Transhumania?”

  “Yes, my love. I must,” Jethro answered, tenderly. “I'm going to officially announce that the leadership of Transhuman Citizen is leaving America and will restart somewhere new when it has found a proper home.”

  “That's a massive undertaking, Jethro,” Langmore said. “Think of all you've worked for here, all the progress. And what if they chase you?”

  “They won't chase us. They'll consider it a victory if we leave. In a way, they'll be right. We don't belong here—not right now. We are marginal, scattered, fragmented. We are under their thumbs all across the country, always on the lookout, always berated, always rebuked. In so many unmistakable ways, we are living within their Judeo-Christian-inspired framework: under their laws; on their real estate; in their school systems; using their bank accounts; paying their taxes; getting news from their media; having them sanction our marriages, our deaths, our children’s births.

  “Their management and regulation of our lives spans the total spectrum of American experience, from their obtuse Imperial Measurement System, to their irregularity-strangled English language. From their lobbyist-ruled government bureaucracy, to their consumer-oriented religious holidays like Christmas. From their brainless professional sports jocks cast as heroes, to their anorexic supermodels warping the concept of beauty. These are the people who made sugary colas more important than water; fast food more important than health; television sitcoms more important than reading literature. They made smoking a joint in your home a crime; going out in public without your hair tinted an embarrassment; and accidentally carrying a half-filled bottle of baby formula on an airplane a terrorist act. Do you realize 85 percent of Americans still say ‘God bless you’ after someone sneezes? And that ‘In God We Trust’ is on every U.S. dollar in circulation? Or that ‘One nation under God’ is recited every day in the Pledge of Allegiance by millions of impressionable kids?

  “From our first day alive on this planet, they began teaching society everything it knows and experiences. It was all brainwashing bullshit. Their trio of holy catechisms is: faith is more important than reason; inputs are more important than outcomes; hope is more important than reality. It was designed to choke your independent thinking and acting—to bring out the lowest common denominator in people—so that vast amounts of the general public would literally buy into the sponsorship and preservation of their hegemonic nation. Their greatest achievement was the creation of the two-party political system; it gave the illusion of choice, but never offered any change; it promised freedom, but only delivered more limits. In the end, you got stuck with two leading loser parties and not just one. It completed their trap of underhanded domination, and it worked masterfully. Look anywhere you go. America is a nation of submissive, dumbed-down, codependent, faith-minded zombies obsessed with celebrity gossip, buying unnecessary goods, and socializing without purpose on their electronic gadgets. The crazy thing is that people don’t even know it; they still think they’re free. Everywhere, people have been made into silent accomplices in the government’s twisted control game. In the end, there is no way out for anyone.

  “What seems worst of all, though, is that even the leaders don’t recognize this. The greatest danger of the whole mess is that all this Western-American conditioning has been on autopilot for centuries. Nobody is in control of it anymore. It’s a mindless goliath wandering the Earth, devouring lives, erasing potential, and following its every whim—regardless of how irrational, obscene, uneducated, enslaving, or backwards its actions are. The American Dream has become a death sentence of drudgery, consumerism, and fatalism: a garage sale where the best of the human spirit is bartered away for comfort, obedience, and trinkets. It’s unequivocally absurd.

  “Gratefully, Transhumanists think differently. We don’t belong to that feeble-minded populace. We don’t accept their rules and mandates as the gold standard of civilization and experience. We have seen their trap for what it is, and now have a very different mindset than the typical American. Yet, unfortunately, we're still really just U.S. citizens, subject to their cultural, commercial, and religious colonialism—which includes virtually zero lack of rational futuristic vision or support for our transhuman causes.

  “Ultimately, that’s why I feel Gregory is correct: we represent a huge disruption to their Judeo-Christian society. Their culture was designed to amass and preserve power to protect its conservative heritage, its nesting way of life, its consumer-addicted, Hollywood-inspired babies—all so they can remain wrapped up comfortably in their god's hands. We want to amass and preserve power to protect our lives so that no god or group of irrational people could ever hold us in their hands. It's so utterly different.”

  Zoe interrupted Jethro by saying, “But no one will leave America to go somewhere else unless that place rivals America in terms of opportunity and possibilities. Including me.”

  Jethro readjusted himself and knelt before her.

  “Of course, my love. That’s why I must build this new transhuman nation. I must amaze you all. I must convince you that it’s the most remarkable and thrilling place in the world to be. I must make you want to go there. The jobs, research possibilities, and the atmosphere must be astounding—with fantastic pay, ultramodern facilities, and amazing collaboration between respected colleagues. I need to make it so people yearn to be there. So they don't want to miss it. So they refuse to miss it. These are people you can’t buy, but have to convince through a multitude of reasons, including their rationality, their professional ambitions, and most importantly, their transhuman dreams.”

  Langmore interjected, “Hopefully, mostly their transhuman dreams. It is, after all, their existences at stake if nothing becomes of the movement. What do you think, Jethro? How much more time do you think we need before we get close to a technical immortality for humans with our science?”

  “Eight to twelve years, with enough funding. More years of experiments afterward to eliminate perils, unwanted side effects, and dead ends. In less than two decades, however, we could be at the doorstep of a reasonably waged, ongoing sentience. A place where transhumanists could easily make it into unlimited lifespans. So many of these breakthroughs are almost ours. I see and read about them all the time. Bobby Fitchenson in Maryland with his neurotech advancements. Jeannine Bernine in New Mexico with her super stem cells. Our own Phillip Maston with his genetic therapy miracles. But they could all be deeply stifled, or even lost, if this research is outlawed over the next few weeks or months. That's for sure. The NFSA must know that. Reverend Belinas and the top officials must know how close we're getting, and how momento
us some of these advances are for the human species.”

  “But you’ve said it yourself before,” Langmore said. “The full-blown Transhumania plan will cost many billions of dollars. To build those facilities, to buy an island or miles of land, to start construction on that scale, to start a real transhuman nation—that would take a thousand times more resources than we currently possess.”

  “Of course. It’s farfetched now, Preston. We need so much more in funds. And the wealthy investors and donors who could realistically make it happen must believe in its success before they give to it. They voice it every time I speak to them. Yet, it's important to come to a conclusion here—that we’re moving. That we’re starting down that road. That we're implementing a radical new strategy. We are leaving to find and build Transhumania—the transhuman nation.”

  Jethro stood up, walked over to a large world map on his wall, and observed it.

  “Preston, I need you to help me do this, to convince and lead your colleagues and the other groups to join me in creating this nation—this awe-inspiring vision of our future.”

  Jethro turned to Zoe, and painfully looked at her. “My beautiful wife, I need you most of all. To allow and encourage me to follow the path that you know I can't turn my back on.”

  Chapter 21

  Breaking news of the NFSA doubling in size to wipe out the transhumanist threat in America went viral. Media across the country rushed to capture and tell the story. The USA Daily Tribune was the first to officially print the new government slogan, “War on Transhumanism,” delivered verbatim by Senator Michaelson in his latest interview.

  IMN contributed their part by airing speculative TV news pieces about the increasingly frequent meetings between Reverend Belinas and the President of the United States: for lunch in Denver; at an awards ceremony in New York; opening a new government memorial together in Washington, D.C. The President even attended one of Belinas' sermons in Savannah, where the reverend preached that humans were made in the image of God, and that the unique image of the species was never to change unless God changed it. His sermon climaxed with, “God is not a machine, a cyborg, or a mutation. Humans should not be either—God and the Bible forbid it.”

  The American Business Times, the continent’s largest business publication, ran an op-ed piece by Senator Shuman saying the time had come to defend the institution of being human. The article warned that U.S. scientists were already conducting experiments to create anomalies of humans, including a bionic subspecies. Shuman detailed in nightmarish terms the scenario of an American future where some human beings were no different than fiendish monsters, taunting civil society and corrupting innocent, faith-minded youth.

  Around the nation, a creepy apprehension began to form in the public eye, prompted by various government reports, the media, and even individual word-of-mouth accounts. Rumors were spread of human clones walking around unhindered in a major Los Angeles university's science department. A popular television news show accused an artificial intelligence program of haunting the nation’s computers—declaring it responsible for causing car accidents in Miami, San Diego, and Dallas, when it overtook their respective traffic light grids. A bestselling author published a book detailing how a nefarious, self-replicating virus in navigation servers caused a recent commercial airplane crash in Chicago, in which 286 people died. A widely read government study explained how embryonic stem cell treatments derived from abortions were causing a soaring rise in autistic offspring. On the Internet, the most watched clip of the year was of a prototype Japanese-made cooking robot, caught attacking and wounding its owner with a knife.

  Senator Michaelson went on numerous talk shows, loudly voicing that the dignity of our species was at stake. He claimed unprecedented government force and diligence was necessary to implement the new, harsher strategies for eliminating the transhumanist threat.

  “We’re shifting gears and ratcheting up the battle to stop what could very well be the greatest menace of our time,” IMN quoted him as saying.

  Jethro Knights spent much of the past four weeks traveling in planes and taxis, talking to the leaders of the transhuman movement, revisiting donors, meeting with entrepreneurs, and trying to calm people's nerves. To each, he privately announced his plans to leave America and form Transhumania. Jethro was welcomed everywhere; however, far fewer people wanted to commit money or resources, especially to an audacious new idea like Transhumania.

  “Unfortunately,” one entrepreneur reluctantly told him, “the new mandates of NFSA make it practically a crime to be associated with funding transhumanist groups. I have a family to feed and to worry about. I've been working with you guys for fifteen years, but I’ve got to call it quits before I get in real trouble.”

  Adding to Jethro's frustration was a simple mathematical fact: There was less money to go around than the year before. The American and global economies had recently begun another decline. Stock market losses led to some business empires literally vanishing—and millions of jobs with them. The rich were bunkering up, permanently closing their wallets. The appetite for financial risk was nearing zero. Inflation shot up in the United States, as the government inevitably printed more money to fund its snowballing debt and its pet agencies like the NFSA.

  Zoe Bach accompanied Jethro on his travels when she could, her belly showing at five months like a small basketball. Despite her initial reluctance, she eventually embraced his idea of Transhumania. It was just like him, she thought, to take on something so massive, so bold, so revolutionary. She knew that she would follow him. He promised her one of his first projects in Transhumania would be the construction of the planet’s most extraordinary medical center for research and surgery.

  Despite the crumbling world outside and the daunting battle with the NFSA, it remained an extraordinary time for Zoe and Jethro. They basked in the adoration of one another and spoke often of their child’s future. Late at night, when Zoe was sleeping and gestating, Jethro would wrap his arms around her belly and feel the baby's soft kicks.

  Zoe also provided Jethro a competent sounding board. He asked her opinion on all matters regarding the operations of Transhuman Citizen. She balanced his provocative persona and forcefulness with ideas of peace, compatibility, and diplomacy. When Jethro was away on business, Zoe painted life-sized walruses, lions, and elephants on a wall in the nursery, near where the crib would go in their new large three-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto. When he came home and saw the mural, he laughed, took the paint, and began drawing friendly-looking robots, computers, and rocket ships amongst the animals.

  For Jethro, so much happiness and peace with Zoe bore strange, alien feelings. He wondered why as he jogged in the nearby foothills. He had never felt so content in his life, even though he knew so much difficult, perhaps impossible, work lay ahead. He conceded that this type of happiness was risky. His wife and imminent baby seemed unreal, a reverie too good to be lasting. A feeling of despair always accompanied moments of joy. His work, Transhuman Citizen's struggle, seemed more real, more tangible.

  In the same week Congress approved additional legislation and funding to expand the scope and powers of the NFSA, Jethro Knights was invited to the annual Transhumanism Conference, to be held this year in Washington, D.C. With all the important leaders of transhumanism gathering there, it amounted to an epic brainstorming session on how best to ensure the movement's survival. It wasn’t just in America that pressure against life extension and human enhancement science was growing; all around the globe, governments were clamping down on transhumanists and their organizations.

  Due to all that had transpired in the past two years since the Cryotask bombing, Jethro Knights was asked to be the guest of honor and lead speaker of the conference. Preston Langmore insisted on this when he met with the meeting’s organizers. He knew Jethro would use the opportunity to make his announcement of Transhumania, an idea Langmore increasingly embraced as a last-minute miracle pitch before the movement was forced underground or even d
isbanded.

  Reverend Belinas thought the conference would be the best opportunity all year to ignite a loud transhuman catastrophe in public. Why not torch the entire banquet hall, he asked himself, imagining it to be like the Book of Revelation's lake of fire. No, too dramatic. Too difficult. Maybe just a small bomb, easily hidden, to kill Jethro Knights. A clear message and death blow to the movement. Without a true radical like him—one who would rather be skinned alive than give up transhumanism—they could never accomplish anything substantial.

  A perfectly positioned bomb, Belinas decided. Then he telephoned his preeminent assassin, Katril Bentoven, and told him what he wanted.

  Bentoven was a frail, dark-haired Mexican man who wore wire-rimmed spectacles and turtlenecks. Formerly employed by a dangerous drug lord in Mexico’s prosperous narcotics trade, he was now a nationalized U.S. citizen living in one of Redeem Church’s compounds in Florida.

  “The security will be extremely tight in Washington, D.C.,” Bentoven replied on the phone, immediately understanding the gravity of Belinas’ request. “It may be impossible to get to Mr. Knights.”

  “Don't ever say the word 'impossible' to me again, Katril. You’re better than that. Just make it happen, whatever it takes. I want him gone in a thunderous, public way. In front of his wife, his friends, his admirers—in front of the world.”

  “Of course, Reverend,” Bentoven responded solemnly. “By God's will, it shall be done.”

  ************

  Even with all the top transhumanist leaders present to strategize a survival plan against the NFSA, the Transhumanism Conference in Washington, D.C. was far smaller than expected. In the past month, many transhumanists in the movement had outright quit. Few were willing to be seen at an event where their names were sure to be added to a government blacklist. The pressure of the NFSA's witch hunt—forcing unemployment, creating public harassment, and even threatening jail time—was simply too much.