The Transhumanist Wager

by Zoltan Istvan

  The same week, he boarded a commercial plane back to Palo Alto and emptied his apartment, throwing away all nonessential items. Much of it was Zoe Bach's stuff. There were other things too: a crib, a baby jogging stroller, a book on choosing baby names. He placed them all into a rusty blue trash dumpster outside, trying to restrain his anguish and just make it through the day. From then on, he would be living on his plane, or in a hotel, or wherever. He didn’t want a home again—not until he built it in Transhumania.

  Jethro ordered his secretary to catch up on the past rent for the foreign offices and to send the landlords flattering gifts. Beijing, Paris, Buenos Aires, and Sydney were all two months behind on lease payments, and evictions had been threatened. Jethro also instructed his secretary to immediately prepare the groundwork for opening new offices in Delhi, Panama City, Vancouver, Tokyo, Dubai, Moscow, and Johannesburg, complete with new transhumanist hires.

  “But Janice, let’s plan to close the Palo Alto headquarters publicly. Make sure the media finds out somehow. Slip them an anonymous email. Let's move to a much smaller place, like a studio office in downtown San Francisco. Pick a cockroach-infested building in a shoddy part of town. That'll give them something to squawk about. Oh, and effective immediately, double the salaries of the three employees who stayed, including yourself. But do it quietly. All very quietly.”

  “Jethro, this is going to make huge news. That's a staggering amount of money. America and the world are sure to find out.”

  “No, they're not. Listen to me very carefully. No one is to know about this money. Not for a long while. I'm not even going to tell Preston Langmore.”

  “But the country will see what comes of it.”

  “Oh, they will see for sure. They’ll see it when we steal their best people away from them and beat them at their own game by building from scratch a new nation that rivals anything on this planet. For now, however, we’re going to play dead. Let the NFSA and anti-transhumanists lose guard. Let them think they’ve won the War on Transhumanism. Then we'll resurrect in a way they can't fight against.”

  ************

  Six days later, Transhuman Citizen's Palo Alto headquarters was officially closed. Janice Mantikas didn't need to contact the press about the event. Reverend Belinas' people, who spied on Jethro Knights’ office every day, notified the media and insisted they cover it.

  Belinas placed proud calls to IMN, the USA Daily Tribune, and other media outfits, issuing boastful quotes. “We are cleaning up our cities. We are cleaning up America. The transhumanists wanted to take away all that is good and human in our nation. Thankfully, the people have not allowed that. Our faiths have not allowed that. God has not allowed that. Together, we have saved our humanity.”

  IMN sent out a news crew, which filmed boxes being carried from the defunct Palo Alto office and put into a small, beat-up moving truck. The cameramen followed the truck to an outdated sixteen-story building in downtown San Francisco, where Jethro’s three employees were holing up in a small studio. Paint was peeling off the sides of the mid-rise, and people wearing inexpensive suits smoked cigarettes in front of its squeaky, revolving entrance door. The manager of the building was interviewed by a reporter, questioned what it was like on the ninth floor, where Transhuman Citizen was renting by the week.

  “Really, it's where many of the city’s struggling outfits move, often when they just need a studio or a one-room office. Usually companies there don’t last long; they often fold within weeks. It’s what we in the renting business call ‘a transient floor.’”

  In addition to the humiliating press coverage, public speculation ran rampant that the transhuman movement, once so prominent in science and avant-garde culture, was going into permanent hibernation. Everywhere, scientists and technologists abandoned their transhuman ties and ambitions. Life extension and human enhancement organizations across the country simply disappeared, many without a trace. Discrimination and ridicule against transhumanism became openly encouraged by police, religious organizations, and conservative outfits in the media. Criminal lawsuits and civil complaints were filed against those like Jethro Knights and Dr. Preston Langmore, who tried to keep their organizations and missions afloat. Anti-transhumanists laughed, saying the immortality fad had run its natural course.

  IMN interviewed a colorful pastor from Redeem Church’s San Francisco branch. He was quoted as saying, “Of course, the transhumanists lost. Their radicalism was doomed from the start. What did they want to do? Replace us with robots, computers, and all things egotistically man-made. How absurd. Every one of us is a sinner, and our great goal in life is to work towards being forgiven for our sins so that we may one day unite with our Lord in heaven—and not perpetuate our devilish egos on Earth.”

  A month later, Amanda and Gregory Michaelson invited Reverend Belinas over to their vacation beach house in the Hamptons, to celebrate their successes. It was an intimate dinner, commencing with toasts of a limited reserve Vibolta Champagne. The Michaelson's new Filipino butler wore cumbersome white gloves, accidentally fumbling the main entree, Duck a l'Orange—one of six courses. A decadent Portuguese Almond Blancmange with caramel glaze arrived as the last dish. A 1961 Burgundy Pinot Noir, picked from her father's cellar, accompanied the feast.

  Dinner prompted much gossipy chit-chat. The drunker the trio became, the more they gregariously complained about the tenuous state of the world. Gregory ranted about his lazy constituents who didn’t want to work, just wanted food stamps galore and endless financial handouts. Amanda cursed the butler's clumsiness and the gardener's laziness. Belinas complained about the lack of new donors for his church, citing the devastated global economy. But each ultimately laughed about their squabbles. It was their way of parading their high-mannered superiority. They were surefire winners, their popularity and success at an all-time high.

  In a recent front-page article about Reverend Belinas and Senator Michaelson, the USA Daily Tribune wrote:

  The team that preserved our glowing humanity. They stopped the transhumanists from robbing us of ourselves.

  The article was accompanied by a huge color photo spread of the preacher and Gregory, concentrating on important documents strewn all over a large hickory table in the U.S. Capitol.

  Across America, the transhumanists had disbanded. Those few left were outcasts, shoved to the fringe of society. The NFSA had succeeded in creating a national environment where “transhumanism” was not a curious word bound to the future, but a filthy one cast into the gutter. Similar to the words “heroin” or “prostitution.”

  Belinas reminded Gregory during a final toast in the Hamptons that there was still important work to accomplish. With the sound of the ocean's waves thumping the shore in the background, he spoke of Gregory’s future as if it were his own. Gregory didn’t mind. He knew better than to upset his best friend and mentor. Or also, his now-loving wife. Amanda smiled at him, generously pouring affection and praise on him that night. A run for the U.S. Presidency was next, Gregory admitted to them almost shyly.

  The cheerful evening drove well past midnight, with each of them basking in the light of their triumphs, each of them feeling righteous and untouchable. When they awoke the next morning, however, each was dreary and hungover, feeling aged; they needed more prescription medications and escape from their aching bodies. Their moods were dour. Each thought begrudgingly, I'm growing old and will die someday. And no matter how much money, power, or public stature they possessed or acquired in life, they could do nothing about it.

  ************

  When the interior construction work on Jethro Knights’ jet was finished, he rendezvoused with it in Mexico on an obscure, isolated airstrip in Oaxaca. Later that night, he leaned against one of the jet's landing tires, exhausted from the rush of hiding Transhuman Citizen’s new resources and downsizing the group’s San Francisco presence. Jethro stared at the chicken taco in his hand, thinking he should be hungrier and ready for sleep. Instead, excitement edged in him.r />
  Finally, I can begin the search for Transhumania, he thought.

  The search for the perfect place to achieve immortality and other transhuman goals was complex and demanding. Foremost, it needed to be extremely isolated. Scarred and flabbergasted by how transhumanism and his organization had disappeared in America in just a few short years, Jethro wanted a place for their rebirth far outside the reach of the planet's strongest societies and their governments. He needed transhumanism and its new nation to be fully exempt from the rest of civilization and its ideas of right and wrong. Jethro was not concerned with belonging to the human race any longer or adhering to any of its accepted standards. He hardly identified himself with the human species anymore. His mindset took him far outside that concept.

  Jethro felt he should be a genuine philosophical machine, following the most expedient path to immortality. That machine needed to plug in somewhere where nothing and no one would interrupt it and cut off its power. Eventually, they would try. He knew it. The world was too afraid of what he wanted. The obvious choice for the transhuman nation was an island akin to a massive sailboat, he thought, fondly recalling the isolation of his circumnavigation. The ocean surrounding him could now be a security and a barrier.

  The island should not be too large or unmanageable. He could build housing and research structures upward towards the sky. It needed an efficient harbor to dock boats for supplies. And an airport for transportation. He could construct them. The island shouldn't be populated at all. Only with scientists and staff loyal to the mission. The island needed to be something that Transhuman Citizen could legally buy and own outright, unconditionally. The country and person selling it to them must be able to do that without interference or qualms from another country like America. The island should have some natural resources; however, enough money could overcome that. So maybe that was not really necessary, he thought. It should be free of natural disasters and weather issues, at least to some extent. But again, those could be dealt with in other ways.

  Jethro already knew what he planned for Transhumania: three circular skyscrapers of different heights, interconnected by multiple sky bridges. Each building would be covered in varying hues of glass siding that resembled a computer chip’s inner circuitry. During the day, the skyscrapers would mirror their surrounding environment: the sky, the sun, the clouds, the ocean, the city, and the people. During the night, the towers would light up and blend together, forming a brilliant mountain of luminosity. The trio of skyscrapers would create a riveting symbol and manifestation of a futuristic transcendent species and its new world.

  Jethro intended to have one skyscraper for science, one for technology, and one where the researchers would live, play, and relax. Everything the nation built and produced would astonish and lead in functional innovation. He was determined to create an extraordinary environment like no other place on Earth, where creative human enhancement and life extension research was the highest goal and motive. Where everyone was someone, and the best in the world at what they did. He wanted the best transhuman scientists, technology innovators, computer programmers, medical doctors, and researchers. He wanted the best engineers, designers, builders, artists, and philosophers. He also wanted the best military experts and weapons specialists to defend the nation.

  He wanted a place where everyone would make a solemn pledge: to keep their beliefs and practices in religion and spirituality—if they existed at all—completely to themselves, out of the domain and influence of the public, and never letting it interfere with their work. Furthermore, he wanted people to believe in and be prepared to defend the transhuman mission and essential tenants of the TEF Manifesto.

  This was, in a strange way, to be a utopia—a world designed as one could imagine and dream it. It must be the best place to live on the planet. People must yearn to want to go there, to ditch their homelands and become an intimate part of its great task. They must feel endowed, inspired, transported. They must believe passionately in the sense of purpose, of belonging, of entitlement, of life-giving commitment to Transhumania.

  After dinner, Jethro boarded his plane and powered up his computer to browse satellite images of Earth on the Internet. His search parameters for a suitable site for Transhumania turned up islands off West Africa, the Caribbean, and Tonga in the South Pacific.

  West Africa had too much war and strife, he thought. It might scare off scientists whom he needed to live and work there. The Caribbean was too America-friendly, too near in proximity to the NFSA. Tonga was a Christian nation. They wouldn't allow a non-religious nation to just break off and be independent. Jethro was adamant about needing his own sovereign state. There was no exception to that.

  For three hours, he researched exotic, uninhabited islands and found many. Unfortunately, they all belonged to someone. All had ties to the powerful A10, the ten wealthiest countries in the world: China, Russia, England, Japan, Germany, India, Australia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.A. The A10 gave the rest of the world nearly all its policy dictates. It was critical for Transhumania's success to not be a part of any political affinities, or any geographical domain, or any existing culture. Jethro didn't want to be within close reach of anything anti-transhumanist. Was that possible? he wondered. Was there a piece of land like that on the planet?

  With no answer, he shut down his computer and went outside into the warm night air. He walked toward the end of an isolated airstrip. Beyond it was a small sandy beach. He wandered along the water's edge underneath the stars, considering his dilemma. When he came to the end of the beach and rounded the bay's corner, he saw in the distance a massive array of lights emanating from a ten-story tower atop the ocean. It was a huge oil platform as long as a football field, lit up in every corner, creating energy for the human race—a floating world of production. Jethro flashed back to the “seasteading” project he saw while sailing near Singapore, a trial run of the first floating community.

  His search for the perfect island nation was over. He didn't need to find or buy one. He was going to build one from scratch. The largest one ever designed. A floating nation that could support tens of thousands of transhuman scientists.

  Chapter 25

  It was the most unexpected, most superlative meeting Rachael Burton had ever attended. She sat across from Jethro Knights in a small café in Norway, suspiciously eying the worn notebook in his hands. At forty-nine years old, Burton was the world's undisputed leader of designing and building oil platforms. Her work had been featured dozens of times in popular trade journals and magazines. Her curriculum vitae was eight pages long. The engineers and architects on her team were the most talented in the field, tripping over each other for the chance to work for her.

  Burton was disenchanted with her career, however. She believed her potential and expertise were unrealized. She longed to get her company away from the energy world, and instead build communities on her platforms: floating cities. In graduate school in Holland, she was the first to term this “seasteading.” The cabinets in her office were filled with dream project blueprints she’d designed but never built. University islands. Moveable medical centers. Skyscrapers jettisoning out of the water, with immaculate gardens and jungles around them. Planned resorts that floated from continent to continent, not subject to any laws or nation. Or even to bad weather; they could simply motor out of the way of storms. Developers could choose anything in cities like that—everything was possible. Unfortunately, projects like she envisioned were not even being considered anymore. The clobbered global economy made the enormous budgets required for it impossible.

  After returning to his jet plane with his epiphany, Jethro Knights discovered Burton's website when he did an Internet search for “floating city.” He scoured her content for hours, examining every futuristic drawing he could find. Jethro didn't know design ideas like that existed. They were brilliant and daring. Highrises shooting upwards toward the sky in extravagant precision, yet bound to the sea. Some of her seasteading projects had
airstrips and stadiums. Others had golf courses and water parks weaving their way in between soaring housing, commercial, and industrial complexes.

  Burton seemed the perfect architect to design Transhumania. She was an outspoken atheist and had loose ties to European transhumanist groups. Then Jethro read a recent article about her. There was a catch. There usually was with visionaries like her. She was tricky to work with, even impossible some said. She possessed a manner of complete and uncompromising ego. The article's headline read: Reatlan Development Drops Famed Architect: Burton Scares Off Another Project.

  “Don’t tell me ideas, grandpa—I tell you ideas!” she was quoted by the magazine as saying. She had been shouting at an elderly billionaire client over a disagreement about a building’s facade. The stunned man said nothing, but quickly instructed security to escort her out of his office, canceling her contract five minutes later.

  After staying up all night, filling his notebook with drawings and ideas from her website, Jethro was ready to meet Burton in person and discuss the construction of Transhumania. She was near Oslo, where her latest oil platform was being finished. He called her secretary in the morning and scheduled a meeting. He departed the next day from Mexico to meet her in the Norwegian capital.

  At first glance, upon greeting each other in the far corner of an intimate Scandinavian cafe, Jethro liked Burton— a lot. She was a short Dutch woman, barely five feet tall, but muscular and intense. Her movements were animated and energetic, yet sharply controlled. Jethro noticed that her green eyes never left his, not even for a moment.

  “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice,” he said, sitting down with her at a private table.