The Death of Transhumanism

The board of directors of Humanity+ has voted to dissolve. They cite declining membership and limited resources. In its place, they propose Humanity+ Network, to maintain connections, preserve history, and encourage new collaboration.

For me, this is sad. I first joined the organization that would become Humanity+ in 2006, when it was the World Transhumanist Association (WTA). Shortly thereafter, the WTA board of directors voted to affiliate with the Mormon Transhumanist Association (MTA). This was an exciting and inspiring time, as I began to formalize my advocacy efforts at the intersection of technological evolution and postsecular religion. Many leaders and members of WTA helped me with enduring impact.

My relationship with the organization had its ups and downs. In 2009, it rebranded from WTA to Humanity+, nominally to reach a more “mainstream” audience. And shortly thereafter, its new leadership ended affiliation with MTA. Thankfully, Humanity+ leadership eventually changed again, and restored its affiliation with MTA.

But that concern, to reach a new audience, has haunted Humanity+. Whatever the leadership imagined that audience to be, it didn’t materialize. Or at least it didn’t materialize in any straightforward recognizable way. Some leaders of Humanity+ have suggested that the “mainstream” audience has materialized indirectly as some Transhumanist concerns, such as longevity science and artificial intelligence, have become topics of popular conversation.

In my estimation, that indirect materialization was almost inevitable and not especially consoling. Technological evolution hasn’t stopped and almost certainly won’t, at least so long as human civilization endures. Kurzweil’s Law persists across the limits of particular technologies. And future shock accumulates.

Meanwhile, “Transhumanist” has become a slur. Many Transhumanists, in function, have distanced themselves from the word. And our critics have become increasingly emboldened to demonize and ridicule caricatures of our ideology, with little resistance.

Some Transhumanists shrug, thinking it’s okay to give up the word as long as the principle wins. But the principle hasn’t won. And it’s very much at risk, despite accelerating technological evolution – and even because of that evolution.

Transhumanism isn’t and never was about technological cheerleading. It’s certainly a form of technological optimism. But it is and always has been, at least among its most thoughtful advocates, just as concerned with both mitigating the risks of emerging technology and, in particular, securing a thriving transformation for humanity.

That last concern is key. And it’s the concern that’s most at risk. Popular conversation does now have much to say about the opportunities and risks of emerging technology. But surprisingly few recognize how profoundly humanity must change, and how soon.

Many think we can stop or slow technological evolution, while preserving the most beautiful aspects of contemporary human civilization. They’re almost certainly wrong. Power and desire for power, whether applied for good or evil, will undoubtedly persist, even if some of the powerful say otherwise further to facilitate their own accumulation of power.

Many think we can cultivate global peace and safety, by contemporary human standards, within and despite ongoing technological evolution. Here too, they’re almost certainly wrong. Humanity, as we now know it, would be radically incommensurate with the power that’s coming. And where there’s radical disparity of power, there’s no dependable assurance of cooperation, let alone peace and safety.

A beautiful future depends on a thriving future, which depends on humanity remaining empowered through accelerating technological evolution. That means we must not cede power unilaterally to nonhuman intelligence. And it means we must avoid further concentration of power into governing elites or a singleton. In either of those scenarios, technological evolution proceeds unabated while most of humanity becomes expendable servants, if we survive and avoid outright slavery.

How can we remain empowered? We must change. We must transform. We must become superhuman.

In name, Transhumanism has advocated this transformation for at least decades. In function, Transhumanism has advocated this transformation for at least millennia. As the Rigveda put it around 1000 BCE, “We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered.” Or as Paul the Apostle put it nearly 2000 years ago, now enshrined in the most influential book in human history (1 Corinthians 15:51-54):

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’”

Some dismiss this as antinatural fantasy. Others pontificate about its antinatural inevitability. Both miss the fully natural practical consequence of the idea.

The vision of human transformation inspires work toward its realization. Whether expressed as prophecy or possibility, it motivates and even provokes the development of knowledge, capabilities, and communities that may ultimately constitute that transformation. And this practical consequence has always mattered most, serving to preserve and transmit the idea, even when its critics and advocates haven’t fully appreciated its power.

We now need Transhumanism more than ever. We need the ancient vision. We need the modern rationality. We need the practical hope, the empowered provocation to superhumanity.

To that end, I hope Humanity+ Network and other Transhumanists, including Mormon and Christian Transhumanists, will renew our commitment to and advocacy of human transformation – genuine transformation toward enduring decentralized power. The world still needs our voice, our insistence, that technology can and should be integrated ever more deeply into our lives in ways that expand rather than diminish agency, both for us and for our creations. That will be the ultimate measure of our success – of technological “progress.”

I don’t know how long Transhumanism will survive. By some accounts, it’s now only as alive as a cryonics patient. If we consider only the name, I might agree with them. But if we consider the function, I’ll insist to my dying breath that Transhumanism lives.