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U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2024 Nevada Ballot Questions

U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2024 Nevada Ballot Questions

Gennady Stolyarov II


The United States Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party offer the following statements of position on the ballot questions currently before Nevada voters in the 2024 General Election.

Summary
Nevada State Question 1 – Remove Constitutional Status of Board of Regents Amendment: Neutral
Nevada State Question 2 – Revising Language Related to Public Entities for Individuals with Mental Illness, Blindness, or Deafness Amendment: Neutral
Nevada State Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative: Strongly Support
Nevada State Question 4 – Remove Slavery as Punishment for Crime from Constitution Amendment: Support
Nevada State Question 5 – Sales Tax Exemption for Diapers Measure: Support
Nevada State Question 6 – Right to Abortion Initiative: Neutral
Nevada State Question 7 – Voter Identification Initiative: Oppose

Nevada State Question 1 – Remove Constitutional Status of Board of Regents Amendment

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to remove certain provisions governing the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education and its administration of the State University and certain federal land grant funds and to provide additional legislative oversight of public institutions of higher education through regular independent audits, without repealing the current statutory election process or other existing statutory provisions relating to the Board of Regents?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are generally neutral as to the structure of oversight over educational institutions and so do not take a strong position as to whether Nevada universities are overseen by a separately elected Board of Regents or directly by the Legislature. Furthermore, Ballot Question 1 would not actually dissolve the Board of Regents, but rather would place it under the oversight of the Legislature instead of its powers being provided for in the Nevada Constitution. Therefore, the day-to-day governance of Nevada’s State-funded higher-education institutions may not be changed in significant ways.

BallotPedia notes that “An amendment to remove the constitutional status of the Board of Regents was also on the 2020 ballot in Nevada. Voters defeated this amendment by 50.15%-49.85%.”

The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party were similarly neutral on Ballot Question 1 in 2020. There was a favorable component of the 2020 Ballot Question 1, which is absent from the 2024 Ballot Question 1, and which would have mandated for the Legislature to provide by law for “the reasonable protection of individual academic freedom at Nevada’s public higher education institutions” –. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are supportive of strengthening protections for individual academic freedom and regret that the current iteration of Ballot Question 1 did not preserve that aspect. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party do see some potential risks of politicization of higher education that may arise from Ballot Question 1 if a Legislature interferes directly in overseeing the content taught or the manner of individual expression permitted on a university campus, without specific protections for individual academic freedom being provided for by law.

However, the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party would generally consider the issues involved in the structure of university governance to be outside the purview of specifically transhumanist political advocacy. Therefore, members are encouraged to vote their conscience on this ballot question by consulting their own individual understandings of the relevant matters.

Nevada State Question 2 – Revising Language Related to Public Entities for Individuals with Mental Illness, Blindness, or Deafness Amendment

Wording of Question: “Shall Section 1 of Article 13 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to: (1) revise the description of the persons who benefit from institutions that the State is required to foster and support; (2) replace the term “institutions” with “entities”; and (3) add entities for the benefit of persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities to the types of entities that the State is required to foster and support?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are ultimately neutral on Ballot Question 2. Question 2 proposes to replace the current reference to “Institutions” with “Entities” and the current reference to benefiting “the Insane, Blind and Deaf and Dumb” with “persons with significant mental illness, persons who are blind or visually impaired, persons who are deaf or hard of hearing and persons with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities”. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party do not take a strong position on revising language solely with the intention of appearing more sensitive, or avoiding terms that some might perceive to be offensive, although this should not be the sole motivation for a change, and Section XL of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform does oppose “the doctrine of censorship, now prevalent on many college campuses in the United States, in the name of […] avoiding subjectively perceived offense.” Wording revisions to a Constitution, however, are not in themselves censorship, in that the expression of any idea by anyone is not being forcibly suppressed, and there may instead be a genuine attempt to determine what superior, more accurate, or more generally palatable wording to describe a particular subject matter might be.

There is a more substantive possible aspect to Ballot Question 2, which ultimately addresses which institutions or entities the State of Nevada would be constitutionally obligated to support. For instance, not all “persons with significant mental illness” might fit under the older category of “the Insane”, and the category of “persons with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities” is a new addition, as such persons should not rightfully be referred to as “Insane” under any framework. Proponents of Ballot Question 2 may consider it worthwhile for the State of Nevada to provide financial support to entities treating individuals with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities. However, the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform and Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0 ultimately do not take a position on whether such support should be governmentally provided. Article VII of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0 states, “All sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care. A system of universal health care does not necessitate any particular means, policy framework, source, or method of payment for delivering health care. A system of universal health care may be provided privately, by governments, or by some combination thereof, as long as, in practice, health care is abundant, inexpensive, accessible, and effective in curing diseases, healing injuries, and lengthening lifespans.” Therefore, it remains the decision of individual members of the U.S. and Nevada Transhumanist Parties regarding whether they would consider governmental support for treating individuals with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities to be the best means for overcoming those disabilities. It is possible for an individual member to agree with this, but it is also possible for another individual member to consider private institutions or individually motivated action to be more effective in overcoming at least some intellectual or developmental disabilities than State-funded institutions or entities might be.

Section XVIII of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform states that “The United States Transhumanist Party supports work to use science and technology to be able to eliminate all disabilities in humans who have them.” However, it is not clear whether any additional entities that would receive State support as a result of Ballot Question 2 would be focused on actually eliminating disabilities or only on helping people adapt to those disabilities. The latter may be a goal toward which some individual members of the U.S. and Nevada Transhumanist Parties may be sympathetic, but it is not a sufficiently or specifically transhumanist goal, nor is it one that the U.S. Transhumanist Party or Nevada Transhumanist Party take a position on – other than to express the hope that the individuals who are currently adapting to any disability will someday be freed from that disability through medical cures or technological augmentations that render the disability irrelevant to their day-to-day functioning.

Nevada State Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to allow all Nevada voters the right to participate in open primary elections to choose candidates for the general election in which all voters may then rank the remaining candidates by preference for the offices of U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Controller, Attorney General, and State Legislators?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: In the view of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party, this is the single most important ballot measure in Nevada political history, as it has the potential to break the stranglehold of the duopoly on Nevada politics. Voters already approved Ballot Question 3 once in 2022, by a vote of 52.94% in favor. However, the Nevada Constitution requires any ballot measures that provide amendments to the Constitution to be passed by voters twice. This 2024 election is therefore decisive for Ballot Question 3, and the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party strongly encourage all Nevada residents who care about having genuine electoral choices to vote in support of Question 3.

The plurality of Nevada voters are independent of the major political parties, and yet they are currently unable to meaningfully influence many local races where a major-party primary determines that party’s nominee, who then receives no meaningful competition at the ballot box in the general election. Moreover, Nevada, as a “battleground” electoral state, often features great pressure applied on voters to support the “lesser evil”, despite many Nevada voters being rightly disillusioned with both the Republican and the Democratic “options” provided to them. Ranked-preference voting eliminates the incentive to vote strategically or for a “lesser evil” to the exclusion of one’s genuinely preferred candidate, since one can provide a complete rank-ordering of one’s preferences rather than limit oneself to one choice.

Section XXX of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform states that “The United States Transhumanist Party supports replacing the current ‘winner-take-all’ electoral system with proportional representation, ranked preference voting, and other devices to minimize the temptations by voters to favor a perceived ‘lesser evil’ rather than the candidates closest to those voters’ own preferences.” Thus, support for ranked-choice voting is directly embedded in our Platform. Furthermore, Section XIX of the USTP Platform reads, in part, “The United States Transhumanist Party supports an end to the two-party political system in the United States and a substantially greater inclusion of ‘third parties’ in the political process through mechanisms such as proportional representation and the elimination of stringent ballot-access requirements.” Allowing open access to primaries and enabling ranked-preference voting in the general election would certainly lower the barriers to entry to candidates who do not belong to either of the duopoly parties.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party has successfully implemented ranked-preference voting in multiple of its internal votes. There is every reason to expect that ranked-preference voting could be implemented with similar success for the much simpler top-five ballots in Nevada general elections that would be developed if Question 3 were to be approved by the voters (twice, the first time this year). The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party strongly encourage every Nevada voter to support Ballot Question 3.

The opponents of Ballot Question 3 have included both the Republican and Democratic Parties and various politically connected special-interest advocacy groups; this should be quite revealing about what these establishment factions find to be threatening to their power. A ranked-choice voting system would break the ability of these powerful interests to manipulate the public through “lesser evil” arguments; politicians, to receive serious consideration, would actually have to at least pretend to be for the greater good rather than merely a lesser evil!

An astonishing and disgraceful plethora of misrepresentations about Ballot Question 3 have been propagated by the opposing establishment interests:
· Opponents claim that ranked-choice voting would be confusing to voters – as if people do not intuitively know how to rank-order their options; to suggest this is to insult the intelligence of nearly voter!
· Opponents claim that people would be forced to rank-order multiple candidates, when the text of the proposed Constitutional amendment specifically would allow a voter to “mark as many choices as the voter wishes” (Article 15, Section 18, Paragraph 3).
· Opponents claim that ranked-choice voting would violate the principle of “one person, one vote”, when in fact every eligible voter would still cast one ballot and would have the option to rank-order as many candidates as that voter wishes – from as few as one to as many as five. If a voter only chooses to indicate one candidate, or any number fewer than five, that voter is not disenfranchised by that voluntary decision, just as a person who is eligible to vote but chooses not to vote is not disenfranchised by their own choice. No serious argument can be made that the principle of “one person, one vote” is violated just because some people choose not to vote. By extension, no serious argument can be made that this principle would be violated just because some people would choose to rank-order fewer than all of the candidates.

For an extensive discussion of how ranked-choice voting works, the USTP encourages everyone to view our Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Kit Muehlman and FairVote Washington, as well as a subsequent, in-depth presentation by FairVote Washington on the technical workings of proportional ranked-choice voting.

Nevada State Question 4 – Remove Slavery as Punishment for Crime from Constitution Amendment

Wording of Question: “Shall the Ordinance of the Nevada Constitution and the Nevada Constitution be amended to remove language authorizing the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party support Ballot Question 4. The Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0 states in Article XXV, “No sentient entity shall be held in slavery or involuntary servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” There are no exceptions provided for the prohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude in the Transhumanist Bill of Rights. Question 4 would align the Nevada State Constitution with the Transhumanist Bill of Rights.

It has been noted in the various explanations of this ballot question that it would not result in the abolition of prison work programs, which may, if administered properly, have benefits such as enabling prisoners to learn marketable skills and to have a path toward integration into peaceful and productive economic life upon their release from prison. However, the prohibition of involuntary servitude would mean that prisoners would have the prerogative to opt into those work programs, and that prison labor would not be used as punishment for an offense in and of itself. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party would concur that prison work programs should be voluntary for the prisoners and should be offered as opportunities, not as punishments.

Nevada State Question 5 – Sales Tax Exemption for Diapers Measure

Wording of Question: “Shall the Sales and Use Tax Act of 1955 be amended to provide an exemption from the taxes imposed by this Act on the gross receipts from the sale and the storage, use or other consumption of diapers?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: Section XXXVI of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform expresses support for “a flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold.” The U.S. Transhumanist Party, in its most recent Exposure Period, considered an amendment to Section XXXVI, which would add the language, “This tax would not be imposed on life necessities, defined as goods that are consumable in the near term and whose primary purpose is to facilitate human survival.” The Nevada Transhumanist Party already included this language on July 26, 2024, within Section V of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform.

Currently, the State of Nevada lacks an income tax and has a state sales tax, from which various goods considered to be necessities are excluded. Diapers can be considered to facilitate the survival, with a basic amount of dignity, of certain humans who need them. Based on the principle that the cost of necessities should be excluded from any manner of sales tax, which already appears to be reflected in Nevada law and in the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform, and which also did not meet any opposition during the Exposure Period for Platform Vote #9, the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party support Ballot Question 5.

Nevada State Question 6 – Right to Abortion Initiative

Wording of Question: “Should the Nevada Constitution be amended to create an individual’s fundamental right to an abortion, without interference by state or local governments, whenever the abortion is performed by a qualified healthcare professional until fetal viability or when necessary to protect the health or life of the pregnant individual at any point during the pregnancy?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are intentionally and conscientiously neutral on the question of abortion, which is one of the most divisive and intractable issues in American politics today. Its intractability stems from the existence of an inherent conflict of rights, which cannot be resolved using contemporary technology.

Section LXXXIV of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform offers a potential future solution to this divisive issue in the form of ectogenesis, “the ability of organisms to be incubated and to grow to the point of independent survival, within an artificial environment that provides such organisms with all the necessities of biological survival and development.” Ectogenesis posses the promise of “alleviating the burdens of human pregnancy and rendering the divisive debate over abortion obsolete by reconciling the right to life of a fetus with the freedom of a woman to choose not to carry that fetus.”

However, ectogenesis for humans is not yet available. During the present time, abortion is being utilized to an escalating extent by both major political parties as a wedge issue designed, through the extreme responses to it from both sides, to polarize and divide the population over situations that are unlikely to affect most people personally. It is for this reason that the U.S. Transhumanist Party de-emphasizes the abortion issue in its Platform and rhetoric. Under the status quo, this issue cannot be constructively resolved. We need technology, such as ectogenesis, to render abortion, and especially the abortion debate, obsolete.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party’s founder, Zoltan Istvan, who is personally a supporter of abortion rights, articulated this point of view in his August 3, 2019, editorial in the New York Times, “The Abortion Debate Is Stuck. Are Artificial Wombs the Answer?

The U.S. Transhumanist Party also recognizes that its members have a broad spectrum of views on the abortion issue. The USTP, in striving to be a big-tent organization, has intentionally avoided creating any manner of litmus test on this issue vis-à-vis its membership.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party does note, by way of a factual observation, that abortion is currently legal in Nevada statute up to 24 weeks (6 months), and thus if Ballot Question 6 is defeated, this would not affect the status quo in regard to the legality and availability of abortions in Nevada. Ballot Question 6 proposes to establish a right to abortion within the Nevada Constitution and would extend the timeframe of legal abortion “until fetal viability or when necessary to protect the health or life of the pregnant individual at any point during the pregnancy”. If enacted, Ballot Question 6 would thus likely broaden the timeframe during which abortions would be legal, in many cases substantially beyond 6 months.

Accordingly, individual members are free to vote their conscience, or to abstain from voting, on Ballot Question 6, however they may choose.

Nevada State Question 7 – Voter Identification Initiative

Wording of Question: “Should the Nevada Constitution be amended to require voters to either present photo identification to verify their identity when voting in-person or to provide certain personal information to verify their identity when voting by mail ballot?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party seek to render it easier, not harder, for people (and sentient entities more generally) to be able to vote in elections. As a party with the broadest franchise of any organization known to it – extending the prerogative for Allied Membership to “any being capable of logical reasoning and of the expression of political opinions” (U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution, Article II, Section X) – and enabling Allied Members to vote in its internal elections, the USTP is supportive of making voting as accessible as possible to as many sentient entities as possible. The USTP practices this in its internal voting processes, where electronic, ranked-preference voting has been used with significant success and with robust verification that only genuine USTP members (and not, for instance, non-sentient bots that serve a particular special interest) have been the ones casting votes.

While it is not inherently in conflict with the USTP’s values to require some manner of identification to render a person eligible to vote, the USTP does not consider a requirement of voter identification at the time of voting to be necessary for this purpose. When an individual registers to vote, it is already the case in Nevada that one of several listed forms of identification needs to be produced to demonstrate that this person is a U.S. citizen residing in the district where this person is seeking to register to vote. It is not necessary, once a person is registered to vote, to duplicatively require the same voter identification when that person seeks to cast their ballot. Per the official Arguments Against Passage of Question 7 on the Nevada Sample Ballot, “impersonating someone else at the polls [almost] never happens. One study found that that out of more than a billion votes cast, it happened 31 times – statistically zero. You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning.”

Furthermore, requiring hard-copy voter identification at the time of voting reinforces an already-obsolete paper-based voting system which should, as soon as the technology is viable and deployable at scale, be replaced with an electronic, blockchain-based system using which people could securely verify their identities and vote from the comfort of their homes.

In practice, Ballot Question 7 would limit who is able to vote in Nevada and would, through procedural barriers, deprive some number of U.S. citizens who are legally eligible to vote and properly registered to vote from being able to vote in practice. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party view such an outcome as contrary to their support for enfranchising more sentient entities. Accordingly, the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are opposed to Ballot Question 7.

U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2022 Nevada Ballot Questions

U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2022 Nevada Ballot Questions

Gennady Stolyarov II


The United States Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party offer the following brief statements of position on the ballot questions currently before Nevada voters in the 2022 General Election.

Summary
Nevada State Question 1 – Equality of Rights Amendment: Support
Nevada State Question 2 – Minimum Wage Amendment: Neutral
Nevada State Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative: Strongly Support

Nevada State Ballot Question 1 – Equality of Rights Amendment:

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended by adding a specific guarantee that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by this State or any of its cities, counties, or other political subdivisions on account of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry, or national origin?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party consider it necessary to support Ballot Question 1 because of the broader commitment to universal rights expressed in the Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0. Article I of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights reads, in part, that “All sentient entities are entitled, to the extent of their individual decisions, to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, social, or planetary origin, property, birth (including manner of birth), biological or non-biological origins, or other status.” The text of Nevada State Ballot Question 1 recognizes equality of rights for a subset of the above-listed sentient entities and is therefore a step in the correct direction. In the prohibition on governmental entities denying or abridging rights on the basis of the attributes mentioned, Ballot Question 1 expresses the essential principle that individuals should be treated as individuals, not members of larger, mostly circumstantial identity groups. This is affirmed in Article X of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, which states, in part, that “Morphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics, including as yet undefined subcategorizations that may arise as sapience evolves.” The rights of an individual should therefore not be abridged, especially by governments, simply because the individual happens to belong to a broader category whose definition is many times outside the scope of that individual’s personal choices.

Nevada State Ballot Question 2 – Minimum Wage Amendment:

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended, effective July 1, 2024, to: (1) establish the State’s minimum wage that employers must pay to certain employees at a rate of $12 per hour worked, subject to any applicable increases above that $12 rate provided by federal law or enacted by the Nevada Legislature; (2) remove the existing provisions setting different rates for the minimum wage based on whether the employer offers certain health benefits to such employees; and (3) remove the existing provisions for adjusting the minimum wage based on applicable increases in the cost of living?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are neutral on Ballot Question 2, as both of our parties’ Platforms are silent on the issue of the minimum wage, whether it should exist at all, whether higher or lower amounts of the minimum wage are preferable, and whether or not the presence of any health benefits should be able to count toward satisfying a portion of any minimum-wage requirement. Accordingly, our members in Nevada are encouraged to vote their conscience on this ballot question by consulting their own individual understandings of the relevant matters.

Nevada State Ballot Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative:

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to allow all Nevada voters the right to participate in open primary elections to choose candidates for the general election in which all voters may then rank the remaining candidates by preference for the offices of U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Controller, Attorney General, and State Legislators?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: In the view of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party, this is the single most important ballot measure in Nevada political history, as it has the potential to break the stranglehold of the duopoly on Nevada politics. The plurality of Nevada voters are independent of the major political parties, and yet they are currently unable to meaningfully influence many local races where a major-party primary determines that party’s nominee, who then receives no meaningful competition at the ballot box in the general election. Moreover, Nevada, as a “battleground” electoral state, often features great pressure applied on voters to support the “lesser evil”, despite many Nevada voters being rightly disillusioned with both the Republican and the Democratic “options” provided to them. Ranked-preference voting eliminates the incentive to vote strategically or for a “lesser evil” to the exclusion of one’s genuinely preferred candidate, since one can provide a complete rank-ordering of one’s preferences rather than limit oneself to one choice.

Section XXX of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform states that “The United States Transhumanist Party supports replacing the current ‘winner-take-all’ electoral system with proportional representation, ranked preference voting, and other devices to minimize the temptations by voters to favor a perceived ‘lesser evil’ rather than the candidates closest to those voters’ own preferences.” Thus, support for ranked-choice voting is directly embedded in our Platform. Furthermore, Section XIX of the USTP Platform reads, in part, “The United States Transhumanist Party supports an end to the two-party political system in the United States and a substantially greater inclusion of ‘third parties’ in the political process through mechanisms such as proportional representation and the elimination of stringent ballot-access requirements.” Allowing open access to primaries and enabling ranked-preference voting in the general election would certainly lower the barriers to entry to candidates who do not belong to either of the duopoly parties.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party has successfully implemented ranked-preference voting in multiple of its internal votes. There is every reason to expect that ranked-preference voting could be implemented with similar success for the much simpler top-five ballots in Nevada general elections that would be developed if Question 3 were to be approved by the voters (twice, the first time this year). The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party strongly encourage every Nevada voter to support Ballot Question 3.

For an extensive discussion of how ranked-choice voting works, the USTP encourages everyone to view our Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Kit Muehlman and FairVote Washington, as well as a subsequent, in-depth presentation by FairVote Washington on the technical workings of proportional ranked-choice voting.

 

Politics Drops Its Pretenses – Article by Jeff Deist

Politics Drops Its Pretenses – Article by Jeff Deist


Jeff Deist
December 28, 2019
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Can the increasing politicization of life in America be stopped, or even slowed?

To be sure, average Americans do not want this. Most people prefer not to lead overly political lives, beyond perhaps voting once in a while and grumbling about taxes or potholes. Most people prefer to focus on work, family, hobbies, sports, or a million other pursuits instead of politics. We watch the game instead of attending the Tuesday night city council meeting. But increasingly we all feel the pressure, drawing us inexorably into a highly-politicized world which demands we take binary “sides” on Trump, impeachment, abortion, guns, climate change, and far more. This politicization seeps into our jobs, family lives, neighborhoods places of worship, social interactions, and even our sports and entertainment.

The most salient feature of national politics in 2019 America is its lack of pretenses. The two political Americas, represented by Red and Blue teams, no longer pretend to share a country or any desire to live peaceably together. Much has been made of this cold civil war on both the Left and Right, and much of what has been made is probably over-hyped. Americans, after all, are materially comfortable, soft, addled, diabetic, and rapidly aging; the over-65 population is set to double in the coming decades. Hot civil wars require lots of young men with nothing to lose who are not busy playing Fortnite. But the overall mood of the country is decidedly hostile and suggestive of irreconcilable differences.

So how does our political system address this? By throwing gasoline on the fire, in the form of another national election in 2020. That looming contest already tells a story, it’s not about healing or coming together. Today the political class is more open about its desire to hurt and punish opponents; in fact, revenge and punishment feature prominently in the political narratives that fill our media feeds.

Hillary Clinton recently quipped that maybe she should run against Donald Trump in 2020 and “beat him again,” openly positioning her personal vendetta as the rationale for seeking the presidency. “The issues,” such as they are, take a distant backseat to her more pressing goal of defeating both Trump and his voters in a visceral way. Her 2020 candidacy, should it materialize, will coalesce around revenge: voters failed her not once but twice, in 2008 and 2016. Her campaign, almost by necessity, will be a scorched-earth exercise in revenge against the Deplorables.

Her potential Democratic primary rival Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, appeared last week at an LGBT equality town hall—organized by CNN for the express purpose of further politicizing sex and sexuality (so much for pre-political rights). In response to a softball question about gay marriage (likely planted), Warren sneered that a hypothetical religious man should marry a woman “if he can get one.” Needless to say the audience loved it, which tells us less about Warren’s safe, vanilla views than it does about the setting and mood of attendees. Identity politics is required, not optional.

These presidential aspirants, like Trump, no longer care to maintain a facade of representing all Americans or smoothing over divisions when elections are over. Nobody runs for president to represent all Americans, and of course, nobody could in a far-flung country of 330 million people. Candidates who give lip service to the idea, as Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang have, gain little traction in the media-driven bloodsport. The presidency is about winning either Red or Blue America, not both, and presidential candidates will be far more open about this in 2020—and with their hostility for the Electoral College. They are in the business of winning at all costs, not persuading. 51% of the electorate will do, and the rest deserve to suffer for not going along with the program.

The standard explanations and justifications for politics are breaking down. Democratic consensus and needful compromise and good governance were always empty bromides, but today our political overlords understand and pander to an altogether different mood. The Trump presidency, like the Brexit vote, was never accepted by the same elites who spent the early 21st century gushing about the sanctity of democracy. The entire pretense for democratic politics, ostensibly the peaceful transfer of political power and the consensual organization of human affairs, now gives way to new and uncomfortable questions. What if we cannot vote our way out of this? What if the structural problems of debt and entitlements and central banking and foreign policy cannot be solved politically? What if the culture wars are unwinnable? What if we have reached the end of politics as an instrument for keeping American society together?

Democracy and politics will not alleviate our problems; only committed individuals working in the intermediary institutions of civil society can. Democratic elections can work locally, and in small countries or communities; Switzerland’s system of express subsidiarity comes to mind. And clearly the best hope for America’s survival will come through an aggressive form of federalism or subsidiarity, one that dramatically reduces the winner-take-all stakes of national elections. But mass democracy, in a country as large as America, is a recipe for strife, bitterness, endless division, and much worse.

Murray Rothbard said in Power and Market that “ballots are hailed as substitutes for bullets.” But in modern America, politics leads us closer to war, not closer to peace and justice and comity. Why should we accept weaponized mass politics when we have civil society, markets, and non-state institutions?

We need an anti-politics movement just as surely as we need an antiwar movement.

Jeff Deist is president of the Mises Institute, where he serves as a writer, public speaker, and advocate for property, markets, and civil society. He previously worked as a longtime advisor and chief of staff to Congressman Ron Paul, for whom he wrote hundreds of articles and speeches. Mr. Deist also spent many years as a tax attorney advising private equity clients on mergers and acquisitions.

This article was published on Mises.org and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution United States License, which requires that credit be given to the author.

Third Virtual Debate Among U.S. Transhumanist Party Presidential Candidates – September 14, 2019

Third Virtual Debate Among U.S. Transhumanist Party Presidential Candidates – September 14, 2019

John J. Kerecz
Charles Holsopple
Rachel Haywire
Kimberly Forsythe
Kristan T. Harris
Moderated by Gennady Stolyarov II


The Third Virtual Debate among the U.S. Transhumanist Party Presdidential Primary candidates has been the highest-quality and most substantive debate yet! Watch it here.

The first of the final two official debate segments among the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party primary candidates for President of the United States occurred on Saturday, September 14, 2019, at 5 p.m. Pacific Time and was co-hosted by Steele Archer of the Debt Nation show. In this segment candidates John J. Kerecz, Charles Holsopple, Rachel Haywire, Kimberly Forsythe, and Kristan T. Harris answered crowdsourced questions on character and leadership, radical life extension, health care, universal basic income, foreign policy, the U.S. federal budget, and various other matters.

See the original debate stream on the Debt Nation show here, including the pre-debate and post-debate shows held on the same day.

Learn about the USTP candidates here.

View individual candidate profiles (5 of 9 candidates spoke in this debate; the remaining 4 are scheduled to speak on Tuesday, September 17, 2019):

All of the candidates were thoughtful, substantive, and contributed many excellent ideas to a complex and civil discussion. We hope for the same with the September 17, 2019, Fourth Virtual Debate among Candidates Johannon Ben Zion, Jonathan Schattke, Matt Taylor, and Vrillon! (Tune into The Unshackled YouTube channel to watch that debate live at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Time on September 17, 2019.)

Join the USTP for free here, no matter where you reside. Those who join by September 21, 2019, will be eligible to vote in the Electronic Primary which will begin on the next day.

Transhumanist Political Developments in the United States – Gennady Stolyarov II Presents at the VSIM-2019 Conference

Transhumanist Political Developments in the United States – Gennady Stolyarov II Presents at the VSIM-2019 Conference

Gennady Stolyarov II


On September 6, 2019, Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party (USTP), presented virtually to the Vanguard Scientific Instruments in Management (VSIM-2019) Conference in Ravda, Bulgaria, on the subject of recent transhumanist political developments in the United States. Watch Mr. Stolyarov’s presentation here.

See Mr. Stolyarov’s presentation slides (with interactive hyperlinks) here.

Subjects covered during the presentation included the following:

– Version 3.0 of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights
– The #IAmTranshuman Global Campaign – (See the two video compilations here and here)
– The USTP’s first legislative success in Nevada in hosting the Cyborg and Transhumanist Forum and achieving an amendment to Assembly Bill 226
– The USTP’s project to create an abundance of free transhumanist symbols, available for anyone to use –
– The forthcoming USTP Presidential Primary Election (see the candidate profiles)

Join the USTP for free, no matter where you reside, here. Those who join by September 21, 2019, will be eligible to vote in the Electronic Primary which will begin on the next day.

Become a Foreign Ambassador for the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Apply here.

Announcement of Third and Fourth Virtual Debates Among U.S. Transhumanist Party Presidential Candidates – Gennady Stolyarov II Interviewed by Steele Archer of Debt Nation

Announcement of Third and Fourth Virtual Debates Among U.S. Transhumanist Party Presidential Candidates – Gennady Stolyarov II Interviewed by Steele Archer of Debt Nation

Gennady Stolyarov II
Steele Archer


On September 10, 2019, U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II was again interviewed by Steele Archer of Debt Nation, this time to discuss the two forthcoming official final virtual debates of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Presidential primary season.

Watch the interview here.

3rd Virtual Debate: Candidates ForsytheHarrisHaywireHolsopple, and Kerecz – Saturday, September 14, 2019, at 5:00 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time – See more details here.

4th Virtual Debate: Candidates Ben ZionSchattkeTaylor, and Vrillon – Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time – See more details here.

The Debt Nation show will co-host the debates, which will be livestreamed from The Unshackled YouTube channel.

Remember to join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free before September 21, 2019, in order to be eligible to vote in the Electronic Presidential Primary that follows. Join here, no matter where you reside.

 

The United States Transhumanist Party and the Politics of Abundance – Essay by Gennady Stolyarov II in “The Transhumanism Handbook”

The United States Transhumanist Party and the Politics of Abundance – Essay by Gennady Stolyarov II in “The Transhumanism Handbook”

Gennady Stolyarov II


U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II’s essay “The United States Transhumanist Party and the Politics of Abundance” is available in the newly published master compilation, The Transhumanism Handbook, edited by Newton Lee, the California Transhumanist Party Chairman and U.S. Transhumanist Party Education and Media Advisor, and published by Springer Nature. This book is a milestone publication in transhumanist thought, and the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party encourages everyone to purchase it and read it in full. Fortunately, Mr. Stolyarov is able to share his own chapter – 60 pages within the book – for free download here: https://www.rationalargumentator.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Stolyarov_USTP_Politics_of_Abundance.pdf.

Read “The United States Transhumanist Party and the Politics of Abundance” for a detailed explanation of the premises behind transhumanist politics and what the U.S. Transhumanist Party stands for. This essay is current through year-end 2018, and various other significant developments have occurred since then. However, this essay should give readers a strong impression of the USTP’s values, operating procedures, areas of focus, and aspirations for the future.

Abstract: “The depredations of contemporary politics and the majority of our era’s societal problems stem from the scarcity of material resources and time. However, numerous emerging technologies on the horizon promise to dramatically lift the present-day constraints of scarcity. The United States Transhumanist Party, in advocating the accelerated development of these technologies and seeking to influence public opinion to embrace them, is forging a new political paradigm rooted in abundance, rather than scarcity. This new approach is simultaneously more ambitious and more civil than the status quo. Here I illustrate the distinguishing features of the Transhumanist Party’s mode of operation, achievements, and plans for the future.”

Purchase the Transhumanism Handbook on Amazon here.

Become a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party for free, no matter where you reside. Click here.

Click on the image of the first page above to read the essay in full. 

Gennady Stolyarov II and Tobias Teufel Discuss Science, Technology, Politics, and Transhumanism

Gennady Stolyarov II and Tobias Teufel Discuss Science, Technology, Politics, and Transhumanism

Tobias Teufel
Gennady Stolyarov II


On July 9, 2019, U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II conversed with Tobias Teufel, a transhumanist from Germany and Allied Member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, regarding a variety of subjects – including a comparison / contrast of the voting systems in Germany and the United States, robotics, 3D printing, space colonization, life extension, possibilities for persuading those who are reluctant to accept emerging technologies, as well as some thoughts that Mr. Teufel had in connection with the recent First Virtual Debate of the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s Presidential primary candidates. Overall, Mr. Teufel shared some excellent insights regarding technological possibilities – including many that are open to ordinary people today – and some promising ways in which the Transhumanist Party can continue to reach out and educate the public about ongoing technological advances and their uses. Watch the conversation on YouTube here.

Become a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party for free, no matter where you reside. Apply here in less than a minute.

Transhumanist Ideas for Reforming Political Processes and Improving Government Accountability – Presentation by Gennady Stolyarov II

Transhumanist Ideas for Reforming Political Processes and Improving Government Accountability – Presentation by Gennady Stolyarov II

Gennady Stolyarov II


On February 13, 2019, Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party, spoke to the Young Americans for Liberty Chapter at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) in a wide-ranging discussion on the intersection of technology and politics and the types of reforms that could pave the way to the new technological era of major progress and radical abundance. Watch Mr. Stolyarov’s presentation on YouTube here.

Mr. Stolyarov discussed policy positions from the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, such as support for ranked-preference voting, greatly lowered ballot-access thresholds, simultaneous nationwide primaries, shorter campaign seasons, AI-assisted redistricting, germaneness rules for legislation, minimum consideration timeframes for amendments, and the general desirable shift in the balance away from special-interest lobbies and toward intelligent laypersons.

See Mr. Stolyarov’s presentation slides here.

Become a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside. Apply here in less than a minute.

Watch Mr. Stolyarov’s interview of Ray Kurzweil at RAAD Fest 2018.

Watch the presentation by Gennady Stolyarov II at RAAD Fest 2018, entitled, “The U.S. Transhumanist Party: Four Years of Advocating for the Future”.

 

Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2018 Nevada Ballot Questions

Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2018 Nevada Ballot Questions

The New Renaissance Hat
Gennady Stolyarov II
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The Nevada Transhumanist Party offers the following brief statements of position on the ballot questions currently before Nevada voters in the 2018 General Election.

Summary
Question 1: Support
Question 2: Support
Question 3: Support
Question 4: Support
Question 5: Oppose
Question 6: Oppose

 

Ballot Question 1 Marsy’s Law Crime Victims’ Rights Amendment Support

Wording of Ballot Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to: (1) remove existing provisions that require the Legislature to provide certain statutory rights for crime victims; and (2) adopt in their place certain expressly stated constitutional rights that crime victims may assert throughout the criminal or juvenile justice process?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the Nevada Transhumanist Party: The Nevada Transhumanist Party supports Ballot Question 1 as an expansion of the rights of crime victims to render those rights more symmetrical to the protections that those accused of criminal acts already receive. The Nevada Transhumanist Party strongly holds that due process is vital for both the accused and the victim of a crime. Section X of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform states, in part, that “each individual should be sentenced based solely on the consideration of the nature of that individual’s crime, its context, and its severity.” However, the nature, context, and severity of a crime can only be ascertained if victims are permitted to participate in the justice process, with full protections of their safety and right to be heard. One of the most important protections of Ballot Question 1 is “To have all monetary payments, money and property collected from any person who has been ordered to make restitution be first applied to pay the amounts ordered as restitution to the victim.” This shifts the focus of the justice system toward compensating the victim, instead of simply enriching the state. A restitution-oriented justice system is ideal where the damage from a crime can be repaired or compensated monetarily, as this approach actually endeavors to make the victims whole and thereby undo as many of the ill effects of the crime as possible. The more lives can be repaired in this way, the fewer obstacles to innocent individuals’ flourishing will exist, and the faster our society will progress in economic, moral, and technological dimensions.

 

Ballot Question 2 Sales-Tax Exemption for Feminine Hygiene Products Support

Wording of Ballot Question: “Shall the Sales and Use Tax Act of 1955 be amended to provide an exemption from the taxes imposed by this Act on the gross receipts from the sale and the storage, use or other consumption of feminine hygiene products?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the Nevada Transhumanist Party: The Nevada Transhumanist Party supports Ballot Question 2 as a protection for the morphological freedom of individuals. The morphological freedom of female individuals is infringed by asymmetrical taxation of products that those individuals uniquely require. While the Nevada Transhumanist Party does not oppose sales taxes per se, exemptions from sales taxes for the necessities of life are reasonable if such taxes pose impediments to individual quality of life or even the ability to afford those necessities.

 

Ballot Question 3Energy Choice Initiative Support

Wording of Ballot Question: “Shall Article 1 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Legislature to provide by law for the establishment of an open, competitive retail electric energy market that prohibits the granting of monopolies and exclusive franchises for the generation of electricity?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the Nevada Transhumanist Party: The Nevada Transhumanist Party supports Ballot Question 3 to eliminate the coercive energy monopoly currently held by NV Energy and allow individuals to choose their utility and source of energy, much like they are able to choose which furniture or which cars to buy today. NV Energy has used its monopoly position to stifle and penalize the deployment of economical rooftop solar systems, which allow homeowners to autonomously generate their own electricity and even earn some money doing so. The suppression of such opportunities is a travesty of justice and needs to be reversed.

The NV Energy monopoly is not only harmful to technological progress, renewal energy, and affordable electricity costs; it is also a danger to the health and safety of homeowners. This is because of NV Energy’s arcane, deliberately circular call-center system, which gives consumers “the runaround” when consumers attempt to contact NV Energy to request emergency service related to failures in the electrical panels on their homes. NV Energy has connected the main circuit-breakers on many such panels to its “smart meters”, which require the intervention of an NV Energy technician to disable to that the circuit-breakers can be worked on and repaired or replaced. However, NV Energy does not offer consumers a dedicated emergency response to promptly allow access to those consumers’ own electrical systems in situations where hours and even minutes matter for preserving life and property.

The Nevada Transhumanist Party considers particularly reprehensible the “No on 3” campaign in Nevada – orchestrated and almost exclusively (99.99%) financed by NV Energy and its connected organizations – which has been disingenuous in its messaging and which has created many mistaken impressions on the part of the public. Question 3 would only deprive NV Energy of its monopoly powers; it would not mirror the California-style (pseudo)-“deregulation” of the late 1990s, nor would it thwart any renewable-energy projects. Quite the contrary, it has been NV Energy and only NV Energy that has stifled efforts by consumers and rooftop-solar installers to create genuine alternatives to NV Energy’s electrical grid and its intentionally cumbersome and restrictive policies.

Question 3, indeed, would require that the Nevada Legislature “ensure that protections are established that entitle customers to safe, reliable, and competitively priced electricity;” and “protect against service disconnections and unfair practices” – protections that are currently absent because of the NV Energy monopoly’s political connections, asymmetrical lobbying clout, and the regulatory capture of the Public Utilities Commission.

Nevada’s voters overwhelmingly approved Question 3 in 2016 (72.36% voted in favor). Now that NV Energy has launched a last-ditch campaign in reaction to the jeopardy in which its monopoly finds itself, voters should inform themselves and see through the misleading rhetoric of the “Coalition to Defeat Question 3” (i.e., NV Energy). The Nevada Transhumanist Party staunchly supports Question 3 as the pathway toward major technological progress and innovation in the realm of energy, harnessing the forces of market competition to provide cleaner, more affordable electricity for all Nevadans.

 

Ballot Question 4 Medical Equipment Sales Tax Exemption AmendmentSupport

Wording of Ballot Question: “Shall Article 10 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Legislature to provide by law for the exemption of durable medical equipment, oxygen delivery equipment, and mobility enhancing equipment prescribed for use by a licensed health care provider from any tax upon the sale, storage, use, or consumption of tangible personal property?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the Nevada Transhumanist Party: The Nevada Transhumanist Party supports Ballot Question 4 to exempt durable medical equipment from sales and use tax. These taxes can often run into the thousands of dollars for sick and dying patients and could compromise the quality of their care. We support any measure that helps make medical equipment affordable and more widespread.

 

Ballot Question 5Automatic Voter Registration via DMVOppose

Wording of Ballot Question: “Shall Chapter 293 of the Nevada Revised Statutes be amended to establish a system that will automatically register an eligible person to vote, or update that person’s existing Nevada voter registration information, at the time the person applies to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles for the issuance or renewal of any type of driver’s license or identification card, or makes a request to change the address on such a license or identification card, unless the person affirmatively declines in writing?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the Nevada Transhumanist Party: The Nevada Transhumanist Party opposes Ballot Question 5. While the Nevada Transhumanist Party supports efforts to render voter registration easy and seamless, the particular requirements of Ballot Question 5 would entail the DMV being mandated to insert disclosures that encourage voters to select a major political-party registration by including a statement “that the person will not be able to vote at a primary election for candidates for partisan offices of a major political party unless the person indicates a major political party affiliation”. Such wording – which would essentially compel a State agency to advertise for the major political parties – would further skew the political arena toward the major political parties and would entrench their dominance. Voter registration should furthermore always occur on an opt-in, rather than opt-out, basis; this is the only approach that consistently respects individual autonomy and choice to participate in the political system or to abstain from such participation. Opting in should be easy and made available through a variety of methods (including electronic, same-day registration), but the presumption of registration can create logistical difficulties for some individuals and conceivable situations where an automatic “updated” registration generates needless contradictions in a person’s registration status, which would actually render it more difficult for that person to subsequently cast a vote.

 

Ballot Question 6Renewable Energy Standards Initiative Oppose

Wording of Ballot Question: “Shall Article 4 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require, beginning in calendar year 2022, that all providers of electric utility services who sell electricity to retail customers for consumption in Nevada generate or acquire incrementally larger percentages of electricity from renewable energy resources so that by calendar year 2030 not less than 50 percent of the total amount of electricity sold by each provider to its retail customers in Nevada comes from renewable energy resources?“ (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the Nevada Transhumanist Party: The Nevada Transhumanist Party opposes Ballot Question 6. While the Nevada Transhumanist Party supports economical renewable energy and the acceleration of efforts to develop technologies to render as much of our energy supply renewable as possible, the ability to affordably generate 50 percent of the total electricity through renewable energy resources is ultimately a technological challenge, not a political one. If the technology is ready, and the market is robust and competitive enough to deploy it to consumers at more attractive prices than fossil-fuel energy, then a 50-percent or greater renewable proportion of electricity will be achieved by 2030 without the need for a mandate. If, however, the technology cannot yet render renewable energy competitive with fossil fuels, then the only effect of the mandate would be to push up costs and constrict supply of electricity to consumers. The surest way to bring about a future of greater renewable energy is to repeal the NV Energy monopoly which has been standing in its way. Through competition, both technological and marketing innovations will thrive and will deliver renewable energy solutions to consumers.  Ballot Question 3, rather than Ballot Question 6, is therefore a superior means toward that goal.

 

Mr. Stolyarov is the Chief Executive of the Nevada Transhumanist Party and Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.
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Become a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside. Fill out our free Membership Application Form here. It takes less than a minute!
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This post may be freely reproduced using the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 License, which requires that credit be given to the author, Gennady Stolyarov II (G. Stolyarov II). Find out about Mr. Stolyarov here.