The Transhumanist Party is a political party in the United States. The party's platform is based on the ideas and principles of transhumanist politics, e.g., human enhancement, human rights, science, life extension, and technological progress.
History
The Transhumanist Party was founded in 2014 by Zoltan Istvan. Istvan became the first political candidate to run for office under the banner of the Transhumanist Party when he announced his candidacy for President of the United States in the United States presidential election of 2016. As part of his campaign Zoltan and a cadre of transhumanist activists and embedded journalists embarked on a four-month journey in the coffin-shaped Immortality Bus, which traveled on a winding cross-country route from San Francisco to Washington D.C. The Transhumanist Party has been featured or mentioned in many major media sites, including the National Review, Business Insider, Extreme Tech, Vice, Wired, The Telegraph, The Huffington Post, The Joe Rogan Experience, Heise Online, Gizmodo, and Reason. Political scientist Roland Benedikter said the formation of the Transhumanist Party in the USA was one of three reasons transhumanism entered into the mainstream in 2014, creating "a new level of public visibility and potential impact."
November 2016–2018
Following the end of the 2016 presidential election, after Zoltan's 2016 presidential campaign was completed, Gennady Stolyarov II became the Chairman of the party and the organization was restructured. Under Chairman Stolyarov, the party adopted a new Constitution, which included three immutable Core Ideals in Article I, Section I:
New positions were founded, including Pavel Ilin became Secretary, Dinorah Delfin Director of Admissions and Public Relations, Arin Vahanian as Director of Marketing, Sean Singh as Director of Applied Innovation, Brent Reitze as Director of Publication, Franco Cortese as Director of Scholarship, and B.J. Murphy as Director of Social Media. Restructured advisor positions included Zoltan Istvan as Political and Media Advisor, Bill Andrews as Biotechnology Advisor, Jose Cordeiro as Technology Advisor, Newton Lee as Education and Media Advisor, Keith Comito as Crowdfunding Advisor, Aubrey de Grey as Anti-Aging Advisor, Rich Lee as Biohacking Advisor, Katie King as Media Advisor, Ira Pastor as Regeneration Advisor, Giovanni Santostasi as Regeneration Advisor, Elizabeth Parrish as Advocacy Advisor, and Paul Spiegel as Legal Advisor.
The U.S. Transhumanist Party held six Platform votes during January, February, March, May, June, and November 2017, on the basis of which 82 Platform planks were adopted. The U.S. Transhumanist Party holds votes of its members electronically and is the first political party in the United States to use ranked-preference voting method with instant runoffs in its internal ballots.
In May 2018 the New York Times reported the U.S. Transhumanist Party as having 880 members. On July 7, 2018, the U.S. Transhumanist Party reached 1,000 members and released a demographic analysis of its membership. This analysis showed that 704 members, or 70.4%, were eligible to vote in the United States, whereas 296 or 29.6% were allied members.
During this time, the Transhumanist Party hosted several expert discussion panels, on subjects including artificial intelligence, life extension, art and transhumanism, and cryptocurrencies. Chairman Stolyarov has also hosted in-person Enlightenment Salons, which were aimed at cross-disciplinary discussion of transhumanist and life-extensionist ideas under the auspices of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.
On August 11, 2017, at the Fest 2017 conference in San Diego, California, Chairman Stolyarov gave an address entitled "The U.S. Transhumanist Party: Pursuing a Peaceful Political Revolution for Longevity", which provided an overview of the U.S. Transhumanist Party's key principles and objectives. In October 2017 Hank Pellissier founded the "Transhuman Party" following a trademark dispute with Zoltan Istvan's continued ownership of the 'Transhumanist Party' trademark. In response to Pellissier, the U.S. Transhumanist Party published its FAQ, where a significant portion was devoted to explaining the history of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, its current interactions with Zoltan Istvan and the scope of his involvement, and the reasons for his continued ownership of the 'Transhumanist Party' trademark. The Transhuman Party became defunct in late 2017 due to lack of activity and its domain name and Facebook page were acquired by the US Transhumanist Party.