The usual topics debated in American presidential elections are going around unprecedented national debt levels, undocumented immigration, clean energy, social security, unemployment, the economy, Medicare, taxes, international politics, the role of the U.S. on the global state, North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs and climate change.
To these, we could expect this year to add the increasing tensions with the Russians, after their involvement in the Ukrainian crisis. On this kind of issues, we expect to hear political debates from both Democratic and Republican candidates during their presidential election campaigns. However, in case of Zoltan Istvan, he is a very different type of candidate for the presidency of the U.S. and his electoral platform might be surprising for most of us.
Zoltan Istvan, despites the fact that his name is not well known to the mainstream media, is the founder and the president of the American Transhumanist Party. This political organization is promoting on using science and technology advances in order to solve most of the world's problems. And one of the ambitious goals of the transhumanist movement is nothing less than to solve the issues of death and aging. The Transhumanist Party of America has the aim to transform research for anti-aging and longevity solutions in a political issue as big as social security, Medicare or immigration.
For Istvan and the transhumanist movement, aging and death are not natural phenomena but rather the biggest plagues of our times. Since the big advancements in science and technology in the 21st century, humankind can find the cure, according to them. According to the president of the Transhumanist Party, most of his presidential campaign is focused on explaining to the electors that aging is actually a disease and as any disease it can be cured.
Aging and death for an advanced and intelligent species as Homo Sapiens is not something natural as we are used to thinking. As he explains in an interview for Tech Insider, to not be using our technology and science for achieving everyone's longevity is out of the question. This is not an option anymore, for the members of the Transhumanist Party.
According to Istvan, the Federal government did not make a priority from investing in longevity research until now. But with him as president, this situation would dramatically change, Istvan said. For now, the 42-year-old founder of the American Transhumanist Party is having a very original presidential campaign. He is traveling across America in an "Immortality Bus", to campaign on his political platform of getting a cure for aging and make his electors live forever. He is going to explain on every stop in every small provincial town that using science and technology can make us all live forever.
His bus tour will have a group of scientists and other transhumanists reminding people that we have now a real chance of stopping death. But, of course, for this to happen we need to take action and change the investment priorities of the federal government. Without the proper funding of the anti-aging research, all these wonders of modern medicine are not going to happen by themselves.
The so-called "Immortality Bus" is starting its campaign tour on the west coast. It will make stops in cities across America and warn electors that under the current status quo there are not enough resources allocated for anti-aging and life extension research.
Istvan explained that he has the conviction, like other members of the transhumanist movement, that merging human biology with technology can make possible in which it is possible to cure all diseases, including aging. This would also have as the consequence of a radical extension of life. For example, using stem cells, bionic organ, genetic engineering, nanobots and other emerging technologies it will make possible unlimited life extension.
However, all this will only become possible when Americans would become conscious on the amazing possibilities of the modern science. Citizens have to demand from the government to allocate more funding on longevity research. And the first step can be electing Istvan from the Transhumanist Party as president in 2016.
Istvan also thinks that we all have just been conditioned to believe that aging is just a natural part of existence. According to the president of the Transhumanist Party, this is just a mental program and the job of his party is to un-condition us of the old ways of thinking.I
"It might have been the natural program until we reached the 21st century, but now robotics, artificial intelligence, bionics and genomics give scientists and medical community a real chance of stopping death and aging," he added. This will happen when we all we start treating them as being something "similar to a disease than some natural phenomenon."
