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U.S. Transhumanist Party – Official Website
States & Allies
U.S. Transhumanist Party – PUTTING SCIENCE, HEALTH, & TECHNOLOGY AT THE FOREFRONT OF AMERICAN POLITICS
Tag: UBI
The Poverty Crisis and a Case for Universal Basic Income – Article by Brent Ellman in TAFFD's Magazine
December 27, 2020 Brent Ellman Comments 1 comment
Editor's Note: U.S. Transhumanist Party member and long-time USTP supporter Brent Ellman has published a piece in TAFFD's Magazine on Universal Basic Income (UBI). Our friends at TAFFD's (https://taffds.org/) were nice enough to give us permission to cross-post the article here in full format. Brent is an entrepreneur with a diverse background and currently serves as director of marketing at TAFFD's. Originally from New York, he has lived in Colorado since 2008.
~ Dan Elton, Director of Scholarship, United States Transhumanist Party, December 27, 2020
Excerpt: In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced in his State of the Union Address that, "This administration, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America." How does one fight a war against poverty, though? What exactly does poverty even mean? As of 2019 in the United States, an individual who makes under $12,490 annually is considered to be living in poverty. A family of 3 earning under $21,330 also falls under the category of living in poverty.
In Denver, Colorado, 15.1% of the population lives below the poverty level, according to a recent Census Bureau ACS 5-year estimate. That estimate found that 101,000 out of 666,000 people are living below the poverty line. To put this further into perspective, as of July 2020, according to RentJungle.org, the average price to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Denver is $1468 per month. According to RentCafe only 5% of rentals listed in Denver are priced at less than $1000 per month. We've been waging America's unconditional war on poverty for 56 years, and this is how far we've come.
How might poverty actually be solved in the United States? Read Brent Ellman's full article here.
Announcement Regarding California Transhumanist Party E-Governance Referendum, Encouragement to Participate, and USTP Chairman Stolyarov's Answers
September 10, 2020 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 1 comment
The United States Transhumanist Party encourages all of its members to participate in the E-Governance Referendum designed by the California Transhumanist Party.
Please read the description of the California Transhumanist Party E-Governance Referendum here.
California Transhumanist Party Chairman Newton Lee characterized the E-Governance Referendum as the California Transhumanist Party's "first step in establishing electronic democracy, where every citizen becomes a part of collective decision-making process."
The California Transhumanist Party E-Governance Referendum is independent of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform, and the USTP Platform will continue to determine USTP policy positions in all respects. However, the California Transhumanist Party E-Governance Referendum is an interesting experiment in aggregation and analysis of views on policy issues by a mediated artificial superintelligence (mASI) called Uplift. Per the description of the objectives of the referendum, "Building Better Policy in e-Governance AI-Driven Research is a part of the Uplift mASI research program that has the goal of a better understanding of how technology can be used to develop better policy. The project has a number of partners and related projects and sub-projects where we hope to explore our project vision around the application of particular key technologies in AI, comprising primarily the application of collective intelligence systems in e-governance—but also including blockchain, AGI cognitive architectures, and other distributed AI systems."
David J. Kelley of AGI Laboratory, who developed the Uplift mASI, stated that "Uplift is about raising the apotheosis of organizations to a higher, more awakened state that can increase profits, save jobs, help the environment, and optimize society."
On June 14, 2020, the U.S. Transhumanist Party hosted a Virtual Enlightenment Salon featuring David J. Kelley as its guest, in which an extensive discussion of Uplift and the E-Governance Referendum transpired. Watch the video of this Virtual Enlightenment Salon here.
The four questions in the California Transhumanist Party E-Governance Referendum (for which you may enter responses after clicking on the links below) are the following:
Should the government keep Universal Basic Income (UBI), a "stimulus package" introduced to Americans during the COVID-related crisis?
Should the government impose a higher income tax on the wealthy individuals in order to pay the Universal Basic Salary to US citizens?
Should we have free universal medical care?
Should the police be defunded? Consider alternatives and how such a policy could be used to force changes in local departments. Please consider how this would realistically be done?
Referendum-related questions should be directed at the mASI system running the study: mASI@Uplift.bio
U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II's Responses to the California Transhumanist Party E-Governance Referendum
USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II provided the following answers to the questions on the California Transhumanist Party E-Governance Referendum, based on the positions taken in the USTP Platform and the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, Version 3.0.
Every individual, whether or not that person is a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party or the California Transhumanist Party, is able to participate in the California Transhumanist Party E-Governance Referendum. All individuals are encouraged to vote their conscience, and Chairman Stolyarov's answers are presented to express one set of responses, but not necessarily the only set of responses, that would be consistent with the USTP Platform.
Question 1:
Should the government keep Universal Basic Income, introduced to Americans as a "stimulus package" during the COVID-related crisis?
Answer: Yes
What caveats do you have to your position?
The Universal Basic Income must be implemented without raising net taxes on any segment of the population. The Universal Basic Income also must not be means-tested, and the same amount must apply to all. Desirably, the Universal Basic Income should replace at least some traditional, means-tested welfare systems and thus reduce the cost of administration.
Are there key details that your position requires to maintain that position?
The most effective way of funding a Universal Basic Income would be a land dividend or resource dividend, where governmentally owned land or other natural resources would be leased (or, in the case of perishable resources, sold) to private parties with certain environmentally friendly stipulations, and with the proceeds being used to fund the Universal Basic Income.
Any means-testing or conditionality of a Universal Basic Income would defeat its purpose, as it would reintroduce the same burdensome costs of administration which render traditional means-tested welfare systems counterproductive from a cost-benefit standpoint.
How do you feel about your position and this question?
I feel strongly that Universal Basic Income could work if it is truly unconditional and does not involve redistribution of existing wealth. However, I strongly feel that Universal Basic Income will fail if it is modified to lack universality or to involve a redistributive taxation mechanism that raises taxes on higher income-earners.
Do you have any other thoughts on this topic that would be important to note?
The "trials" of Universal Basic Income that are being undertaken in various countries are not true instances of a Universal Basic Income, because they are often targeted toward specific poorer or unemployed segments of the population, and because they have an expiration date, which alters the incentives of the recipients of the funds and increases the uncertainty felt by those recipients.. Any perceived failures or insufficiencies of such "trials" should not be used to discredit the concept of a true Universal Basic Income.
Do you want to be included in the collective discussion with the AI systems on this referendum and study only related exchanges?
Should the government impose a higher income tax on the wealthy individuals in order to pay the Universal Basic Salary to U.S. citizens?
Answer: No.
Income taxes should not be raised and, on the contrary, should be repealed entirely. There should not be any graduated taxation of incomes. All taxation should be in the form of a single flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold. This tax should be built into the price of goods from such large businesses and should not impede transaction efficiency in any manner or even be felt by consumers as they go about their day-to-day activities.
Income taxation presents a disincentive to work and creates a special compliance burden on individuals by means of the complexity of the tax code and the need to make tax-return filings. This compliance burden is more of a drain on productivity than the actual amount of the tax and particularly affects middle-class taxpayers who often submit their own tax returns using their own efforts. Moreover, graduated income taxation creates disincentives for upward economic mobility and particularly penalizes up-and-coming middle-class individuals who seek to improve their financial well-being. The ultra-wealthy can easily afford the higher tax rates in the upper income brackets or can shelter their incomes from taxation, but the middle-class and upper-middle-class taxpayers bear the full burdens. This, indeed, creates barriers to entry into the economic elite and prevents the full extent of desirable competition for wealth acquisition through productive and societally beneficial means.
I feel strongly that any increase in any income tax would be counterproductive.
A federal land dividend or resource dividend would be a far superior way of funding a Universal Basic Income.
Answer: Yes.
Medical care should be universal and eventually free, but not necessarily provided by government, and private competition in the provision of services should always be permitted. People should also always be permitted to pay for any medical treatments they wish to receive from any reasonably qualified provider. The way to achieve eventually free medical care is through the progress of science and technology that would dramatically reduce costs, not through compelling everyone to participate in a government program. Achieving a system of de facto free, universal medical care will realistically require a transitional period where medical care will become increasingly accessible but still require patients to pay some portion of the cost while the necessary technologies for free or nearly free delivery of care are developed and mature.
Medical care can become universal in much the same way that access to food is virtually universal in the "developed" world today, even though there is no government program for food distribution that everyone is required to participate in. There is a role for government in providing various safety nets and medical infrastructure for public-health reasons – such as ample hospital surge capacity in the event of pandemics, and stockpiles of personal protective equipment and other essential medical supplies. To the extent that government-supplied healthcare can improve health outcomes among the less well-off and thereby prevent the spread of infectious diseases and other maladies, this could be beneficial. Moreover, patient choice and private options, supplied on a competitive market, must always remain available. It is possible for a future system of universal healthcare to consist of a free, baseline, governmentally provided option with a large number of private competing options – including for the same services that the government option may be providing. Technological innovation and competition may drive the cost of the private options to eventually be close to zero, just as access to e-mail is virtually free today because of freedom of innovation and ample options, as well as revenue models that do not require the end users to pay. Moreover, private philanthropy can and should play a significant role in covering the costs of medical care for those in need.
There is considerably ambiguity as to what people mean when they refer to "free" and "universal" medical care. Depending on what they actually mean, I could feel favorably inclined (as in the case of technologically driven major reductions in cost and improvements in access to care), or averse (as in the case of governmentally mandated "single payer" systems).
A "single payer" system of care, or a system such the Canadian one which allows no private options, is not actually a free or a universal system of care. Any system that rations care by requiring patients to wait is neither free nor universal. Moreover, any system that is funded by taxation is not free. A truly free, universal system of medical care will not involve queuing, rationing, or taxpayer subsidies. It may be funded by a superabundance of resources produced at nearly no cost by emerging technologies of advanced manufacturing and automation.
Should the police be defunded? Consider alternatives and how such a policy could be used to force changes in local departments. Please consider how this would realistically be done.
What caveats do you have to your position? The police should not be defunded altogether, but funding should be redirected toward more humane and less violent means of apprehending criminals and de-escalating situations. Funding currently used for militarized police forces should be devoted to technologies that can peacefully incapacitate offenders and provide effective passive defense for police officers, as well as improved training for police that prioritizes non-violent conflict resolution. Some net reduction of police funding may be justified, but some manner of police force should continue to exist to help keep the peace, or else violent crime will escalate out of control.
Defunding the police may be counterproductive by leaving people vulnerable to actual violent criminals. However, serious police reform is necessary – including eliminating qualified immunity, curbing the power of police unions, requiring police body cameras and protecting recordings from tampering by police, facilitating objective, external investigations of alleged police misconduct, prohibiting no-knock raids and chokeholds, and requiring that police use non-lethal means unless their lives are genuinely threatened. Most importantly, the default operating protocols of police must be revised in the United States to be more similar to those in countries where killings by police are minimal.
I feel ambivalent about calls to "defund the police", because they are seldom accompanied by specific measures that would replace the role of the police in combatting actual violent crime. Sometimes, those who advocate "defunding" the police actually advocate a reduction and/or redirection of the funds to other conflict-resolution methods, and in those cases I am more favorably inclined – since not all instances of misbehavior require police intervention to correct.
Any effective police reform needs to focus on the root causes of police militarization and reflexively lethal use of force. Such root causes include the misguided War on Drugs and War on Terror, as well the existence of artificial and protectionist barriers to economic opportunity for many individuals, which lead those individuals to be channeled into lives of crime.
Blockchains Instead of Beggars: Could Cryptocurrencies Unleash Universal Basic Income? – Article by Nicole Sallak Anderson
January 6, 2019 Nicole Sallak Anderson Comments 0 Comment
Nicole Sallak Anderson
Editor's Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this article by Nicole Sallak Anderson as part of our ongoing integration with the Transhuman Party. This article posits a creative approach toward fulfilling one of the U.S. Transhumanist Party's objectives – the achievement of a Universal Basic Income (which is advocated for in our Platform and in the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, Version 3.0). We advocate a wide variety of emerging technologies, including cryptocurrencies, as well, and we endeavor to contemplate ways in which such technologies can solve deep-rooted societal problems by altering people's incentives, hopefully in positive directions. This article was written in February 2018, just past the peak of the cryptocurrency bubble, but it looks beyond that bubble and envisions more sustainable functions for cryptocurrencies beyond speculation – for instance, achieving the goal of providing a basic income and integrating activities that create external value in the community with rewards for the individuals who engage in such activities. We continue to encourage our members to contemplate possibilities for implementing a Universal Basic Income in realistic ways that would harness new technologies for incremental progress toward the goal and would not require revolutionizing the entire world at once.
~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, January 6, 2019
Cryptocurrencies are America's latest capitalist playthings—from Bitcoin's Christmas surprise of over $14K per coin, to the Bitcoin Cash fork of August 2017 and BitFury's success in negotiating blockchain contracts in both Georgia and Dubai, cryptocurrencies, and the technology that powers them, went from being anarchists' obscure hobby to the latest shiny object that the financial markets are drooling over. While cryptocurrencies are still a ways off from becoming actual currencies that can be used to exchange goods, they have proven to be valuable assets in today's markets. Moreover, the blockchain technology that underpins said currencies has begun to gain momentum as an advanced application for the encryption and storage of data. Many see it as the natural evolution in the digital age.
For those of you who don't know what blockchain technology is read here, or if you're interested in cryptocurrencies in general, read here. People much savvier than I can teach you the technical details. Today I want to discuss practical implementations.
In the past two years, cryptocurrencies have made a lot of young people, and already rich old people, very rich. Cryptocoins and blockchain applications are the latest innovation to encourage the American rags-to-riches mythos, and I don't see their bubbles popping anytime soon. Yet is seems like all of this is creating just another set of 1% who are wealthy, while most miss the boat completely, and this is the complete opposite of what many of the early adopters had envisioned—rather than creating a new cryptoclass, the blockchain was supposed to emancipate humanity.
This has me thinking…how could blockchain technology be used to create currencies that support a universal income? I've written before about universal basic income, from both a practical perspective and a feminist perspective. Most people argue there isn't enough money out there to create a sustainable world where everyone is fed. I've long called bulls**t on this. Technologically we can now feed the world, so what's holding us back? The food can be farmed in labs and it can be distributed to the most remote locations on Earth. Why then, does much of it rot in holding areas? Or never even get planted, while children die of starvation in our streets? Even in America, child poverty is rising with 30.4 million children daily in our country using the National School Lunch Program in their schools.
To me, the growing poverty in the "Land of Opportunity" is a universal lack of love on every citizen's part, not a money problem. However, if everyone's convinced that there aren't enough American dollars to go around so that we can guarantee housing, food, and clothing to our fellow brothers and sisters, then perhaps it's time to make more money, and not the kind you can hold in your wallet.
The way to create a new economy based on care and commonwealth may be to create a new currency with community as its only goal, rather than profit and greed, and what better way to do this than with a cryptocurrency? Why not build a crypto-token that is secure, hard to hack and trackable, whose purpose was to provide liquid resources to the most vulnerable members of society?
This last feature – traceability – is very important. In principle it would be a clear advantage over fiat currency welfare systems, since the cash economy is only partially measurable in terms of mapping demographic groups to purchase/usage patterns. For fun, let's call the new currency, LifeCoin, created not to get a bunch of miners and traders rich, but instead to be shared from person to person, growing as we all grow in wealth, a true peer-to-peer network both technically and socially.
A currency whose aim is to provide a universal basic income would need to have the following properties:
1) It would need to be easily distributed to all citizens in the network 18 and over. Thus, a wallet that accepted LifeCoin, identifiable by the currency platform would need to be created.
2) It would need to be accepted by all businesses that provide shelter (banks, landlords, etc.), food, clothing and healthcare. Thus a networked payment system that accepted LifeCoin and linked up to user's wallets would need to be created. It needs to be seamless and provide incentives to services providers for honoring the LifeCoins as currency, thus the traditional fee structures in place for money exchange would need adjustment.
3) It would need the ability to be changed into other currencies at the owner's discretion. Thus the LifeCoin would need to be accepted on a decent number of exchanges.
This is a minimum list of technological needs, but at its most basic, a currency needs to be able to flow throughout the society if it's going to be a true universal basic income solution.
Essentially there are two ways the LifeCoin could be created, either by the government, or by us, the citizens in an act of goodwill.
How could a government create and issue LifeCoin responsibly? There are probably many answers to this, but I think LifeCoin could be implemented by local governments that are looking to use blockchain technologies to manage and secure their data. Governments collect more than taxes, they've long been keeping track of our data, such as births, deaths, marriages, land titles, county employee information, driver's license information, school information, health information and even voting registration and ballots. All of this information needs to be managed, and many governments are starting to consider using blockchain technology to do just that. Take the country of Georgia, who has uploaded over 100,000 land titles to a blockchain network created by BitFury. They have decided that using blockchain smart contracts will help them prove land ownership as Russia slowly begins to occupy more and more of their land. Dubai has also decided to use the Ethereum architecture to manage its data and bring their country into the 21st century.
Many other countries have taken notice. In Haiti, for example, after the earthquake in 2010, the first building to fall into ruin was the building that held all of their public records. In seconds, all the paperwork that documented who owned what land was gone. My own town of Santa Cruz, CA, is always under earthquake threat, could moving their local government data to a blockchain system help them in the long run? Of course it can.
Money will be saved by adopting these new technologies for data management. According to an article in August 2017, the government of Dubai expects to, "Reduce the cost of document processing by billions of dollars through eliminating manual processing of residencies, passport documentation and visas through a partnership with ConsenSys."
Billions of dollars, eh? And what to do with those savings? Why not redistribute them back into the community as a universal basic income? This can be done by tokenizing the endeavor, and backing the initial release of the coins with the savings the governmental entity receives.
As governments begin to implement various blockchain schemes to manage their data it is the ideal moment for them to tokenize the blockchain ledger they're creating and distribute those tokens to their citizens as a universal basic income.
Consider Santa Cruz. Recently named the fourth most expensive place to live in the nation, it is estimated that our cost of living is 81% higher than the national average and our housing costs are 208% higher than the national average. When I drive down the street near town, I see tents nestled in along the highway, back near the fences and hidden in tall grasses. At night, when you pass our city hall, the courtyard is filled with people in sleeping bags, trying to find a place to sleep. Beggars line our downtown mall. Truly if any town needed a universal basic income, it's ours.
Perhaps UBI begins at home with our local city council opting to invest in building a blockchain ledger using Ethereum to manage all contracts regarding land in the county as well as all legal documentation and contracts stored in the courthouse. The project includes tokens that are backed by the city at first with the monies annually saved by efficiently managing and securing their data. These tokens are distributed evenly to every citizen over 18 on a monthly basis.
As time goes on, more data can be added to the ledger and with each savings by switching from the manual handling of the data to digital networks doing the job, that money is used to issue new coins to citizens. The basic income could start at one number, say $500/month with the intention of growing to a final amount that can sustain a human being within the county.
In addition, more tokens are created as incentives to encourage people to enter the system as miners to help maintain the ledger. This is the decentralization aspect, the data is stored across hundreds of servers rather than just one. Thus everyone gets a set amount, but those who mine create more coins that they can use to purchase items in the community, or trade on the exchange, thus increasing the value of the tokens. Tokens can also be given to businesses as a means of encouraging them to accept LifeCoin as payment for their goods and services. With time, the currency spreads throughout the city and county, and as a result is accepted at more and more locations. None of this is because we "took" money from somewhere else. Using blockchain technologies, money was freed up to invest in a new currency, one that exists for the sole purpose of providing a living to our citizens.
Now, this is a very basic sketch of the system, and one I'm not able to complete. I'm merely putting it out there as something to debate and discuss, with the hopes that minds much more crypto than mine can see that their work has this potential. And perhaps to get the political dialogue rolling. This has to start somewhere and we can't wait for our federal government to help. I also realize that as with any monetary system, cryptocurrencies may not be able to address the potential inflation and deflation associated with a universal basic income.
My good friend and fellow Medium writer, John Eden, put it perfectly:
"My view is that the real worry about crypto-powered UBI has nothing to do with the power of the blockchain from a tech POV. The problem is that any economic system with a fixed or variable amount of tokens can and will experience inflation and deflation. To me, this basic economic fact can't in any way to neutralized by blockchain. The implication of this is that the token one designs for UBI must be created in partnership with some pretty thoughtful economists so that a method of adjusting the value of the token relative to the wider economy is built into the token infrastructure. After all, you don't want to create LifeCoin only to see inflation ruin it's core purpose – i.e., giving the most vulnerable members of society the ability to live a decent life."
I'm not sure where we'd find those thoughtful economists. Can our local governments implement a token system to help the poor while keeping in mind the long term economic monetary policy goals? The blockchain might not save us from this issue, but the currency created can be set up with a new set of rules than our regular fiat, especially since it would be it's own new market, individualized at the local level. We've been manipulating the markets forever, is it any different for a township to create it's own currency to establish a standard of living?
We could also leave the government out of this and instead take responsibility as private citizens, creating a universal reward token ourselves. Private citizens can create a coin that is then given to those who need it. This work has already begun. GrantCoin was established in 2015 with the intent of providing a UBI to those who meet their criteria. However, this feels more like charitable handouts than a true UBI, for it's still based on need, which requires judgement by a group of people who get to determine whether or not you really need it. Universal Basic Income is not only about providing the basics to all in a world of plenty, it's also about freeing us from the judgments of others. We all receive a universal basic income, that's what makes it universal, and we're trusted to do what we should with it. Still, GrantCoin is a good start.
Another idea that caught my eye was the concept of gamifying cryptocurrencies as a means of deploying them. In an incredibly passionate plea to save cryptocurrencies from big business, author Daniel Jeffries writes,
"By gamifying money distribution, we spread it far and wide across the playing field, as fast as possible, and guarantee that the system becomes viable. We bootstrap the system from banana republic to global powerhouse. That will bring powerful economic players into the system, who will then be incentivized to protect it and expand it.
If we move swiftly, we can unleash the true power of the blockchain to unlock the frozen reserves of human potential, rise from the ashes of our crumbling political systems and rocket into a whole new level of economic potential and development."
He goes on to explain how by using a killer gaming app along with a universal reward token, one could possibly build a cryptocurrency that is completely decentralized with the possibility to not only fund life, but allow the movement to build into smart contracts and other aspects of civilization. Instead of the government initiating the move to the blockchain, private citizens do it for each other, via games so fun to play, we play them for a living. His article is a worthy read if this sort of idea floats your boat.
This may seem a bit pie in the sky, and on some level it is, but when thinking about the future of money we have the ability to write a whole new story, so why not base it upon joy and games?
Regardless, as financial firms explore the possibilities that platforms like Ethereum bring, it may benefit us to begin to probe our local governments into doing the same. However, instead of keeping the profits for themselves, they could the adventure to create new systems of money that promote life and health for all citizens.
Nicole Sallak Anderson is Computer Science graduate from Purdue University, and former CTO for a small Silicon Valley startup, turned novelist and blogger, focusing on the intersection of technology and consciousness. In addition to rebooting her eHuman series, she recently sold a historical fantasy trilogy about the Great Egyptian Revolt of 200 B.C. She currently lives in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains in California with her husband and teen-aged sons, where she raises goats and bees. She enjoys spinning, knitting, playing the bass, and dancing, particularly the tango. Visit her blog at eHumanity: The Intersection of Consciousness and Technology.
Andrew Yang, Dreams, and Tacos – Meeting with the Technoprogressive 2020 Presidential Candidate – Article by Keith Yu
June 1, 2018 Keith Yu Comments 0 Comment
Keith Yu
Editor's Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this article by Keith Yu as part of its ongoing integration with the Transhuman Party. This article was originally published on the Transhuman Party website on June 1, 2018, and discusses Mr. Yu's experiences meeting with Democratic technoprogressive Presidential candidate Andrew Yang. The U.S. Transhumanist Party has not endorsed Andrew Yang as of this publication and would not endorse a candidate running for either of the major U.S. political parties, but we do consider our website to be a place where members can discuss political issues and candidates relevant to transhumanism from a multiplicity of viewpoints so as to encourage conversations about desirable policies as well as which candidate(s) the U.S. Transhumanist Party could consider endorsing for the 2020 election season.
~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, December 29, 2018
I walk into the back room of the San Francisco Mission district's Tacolicious Wednesday evening with a purpose. I am here for a meet and greet with 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang and I am armed – with questions. Questions derived from the past few months researching this man whose values seem to so naturally align with my own. Questions from myself as well as from the Transhumanist community at large.
Andrew greets me with a warm smile and a hand. Keith Yu, I introduce myself, of the Transhuman Party. He is interested, but inquisitive, and asks me what Transhumanism is about. I tell him that we envision a future-proofed human race that will thrive as we head towards the future.
"Would you call me a Transhumanist?" he asks. But I think this is something that he needs to decide for himself. He is, however, definitively technoprogressive. The primary plank on his platform, his "Freedom Dividend" (named thus, he jokes, because it tested well with people on all sides of the political spectrum) of $1000 a month to all adult citizens, is a direct response to the job losses caused by automation, now, and in the near future. Indeed, the reason for his bid for presidency is due to the lack of a plan to address these concerns in DC. "I will become the plan," he says. Beyond the Freedom Dividend, many of his other policy positions put an emphasis on investing in technology and especially, understanding technology's effects on people – a cautious optimist, as far as technology is concerned.
People filter in slowly, most giving Andrew hugs, a few, handshakes. Most attendees of this small gathering, it seems, are friends. Servers wander around and between mingling groups, ceviche tostadas and bruschetta at the ready. A margarita bar sits in the corner of the room, and specialty tacos adorn a table along the wall. We are soon gathered in a semicircle around the room as Andrew takes the stage.
He gestures to the screen behind him and an introduction video begins to play.
Andrew speaks at length about his universal basic income (UBI) policy as well as his slogan, "Humanity First", and how it translates into his policy platform. Andrew plans to change the way America measures its progress by adopting such measurements as childhood success, median wealth, incarceration rates, and more, on top of the existing measurements of GDP and job statistics. He also plans to implement a system of digital-social currency for "doing good things that normally don't have dollar values", such as volunteering for one's community or starting a book club. The credits can then be used redeem discounts or experiences in much the same way that credit card points are used. He believes that this credit system will help improve social cohesion and increase civic engagement.
But I have seen all of this before on his website and have even explored it in another article. I came here for a purpose, and as the floor is opened up for questions, I seize my chance.
"What are your views on longevity research?" I ask.
Andrew Yang responds. He is supportive of longevity research, but believes that it does not need much public support. Citing the efforts of Silicon Valley elites, he asserts that private interests will support longevity research naturally.
"And what are your views on the regulations around illegal and controlled substances for the purpose of research?"
Andrew initially misunderstands this question as a question about marijuana (which he supports for recreational and therapeutic use). Having botched the question initially, I follow up with him afterwards, mentioning the difficulty that researchers run into with the National Institute on Drug Abuse when trying to acquire controlled substances for their research. He tells me that he is very much supportive of research and is strongly against blanket criminalizations.
With the questions that I had come to ask out of the way, I wander over to the bar in the corner of the room and grab a margarita.
Mission complete.
Keith Yu is a Bay Area-based research scientist working within the biotech industry.
Proposal by C.H. Antony on a U.S. Transhumanist Party Working Group on Universal Basic Income (UBI) Implementation
May 31, 2018 C. H. Antony Comments 16 comments
C. H. Antony
The United States Transhumanist Party seeks any willing individuals to participate in the discussion of a proposal by Mr. C.H. Antony to craft detailed ideas for achieving the implementation of an unconditional Universal Basic Income (UBI) system. To indicate your interest and provide ideas in relation to Mr. Antony's proposal, please post in the comments below.
Background: The United States Transhumanist Party supports a major streamlining of fiscal policy, combined with a streamlining of the manner in which financial support is provided by government to individuals. Sections XVI, XXXV, and XXXVI of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform address, respectively, UBI, reduction of the U.S. national debt, and dramatic tax simplification. Our goal, therefore, is a government that has as little debt as possible, and whose revenues and transfer payments are as straightforward as possible.
Section XVI [Adopted by a vote of the members during March 26 – April 1, 2017]: Given the inevitability of technology eventually replacing the need for the labor of sentient entities, the United States Transhumanist Party holds that all sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of an unconditional universal basic income, whereby the same minimum amount of money or other resources is provided irrespective of a sentient entity's life circumstances, occupations, or other income sources, so as to provide a means for the basic requirements of existence and liberty to be met.
Section XXXV [Adopted by a vote of the members during May 7-13, 2017]: The United States Transhumanist Party considers it imperative to achieve reductions of the United States national debt in order to avoid calamitous scenarios of extreme inflation, default, and burdensome future tax increases on individuals. The United States Transhumanist Party supports the following measures to reduce the national debt:
Elimination of wasteful federal spending on programs, goods, and services where equivalent positive results could be obtained through lower expenditures.
Cessation of foreign military occupations and the return of American troops to be stationed exclusively on American territory. However, if a mutually appropriate defense treaty with another country requires the United States to station troops in that country, those troops would be allowed to remain there until the treaty obligations are fulfilled or reduced by mutual agreement with the affected country. If the United States continues to station troops in any country due to mutually appropriate defense treaties, the United States Transhumanist Party supports greater reciprocity in allowing military personnel from that country to be stationed in the United States for purposes of training and information exchange.
Removal of barriers to technological innovation and technologically driven economic growth, in order that a surge in such growth could increase federal revenues so as to generate increasing surpluses, as long as federal spending does not materially rise from current levels.
Elimination of the current cumbersome system of federal contracting, which favors politically connected incumbent firms whose advantage consists of navigating the system, rather than performing the best possible work. Instead, all federal agencies should be empowered to purchase supplies and equipment and to requisition projects from any entity capable of satisfying an immediate need at a reasonable cost. Exclusive and preferential contracts for particular entities should be prohibited, and all payments by federal agencies for work by non-employees should be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Digitization of as many federal services and functions as possible – to eliminate the waste and expense of paperwork, physical queues, and legacy information technology systems.
Section XXXVI [Adopted by a vote of the members during May 7-13, 2017]: The United States Transhumanist Party supports the elimination of graduated taxation and income taxation more generally. Instead, the United States Transhumanist Party advocates a flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold. This tax should be built into the price of goods from such large businesses and should not impede transaction efficiency in any manner. Transactions pertaining to wages, salaries, gifts, donations, barter, employee benefits, and inheritances should remain completely untaxed, as should transactions involving solely individuals and/or small businesses, for whom the establishment of a tax-reporting infrastructure would be onerous. Furthermore, all taxes on land and property should be abolished.
The following proposal is not a final outline of solutions, nor is it, in its present form, a reflection of the positions of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Rather, it is a set of ideas put forth by Mr. Antony in a desire to elicit the expertise of those who are willing to contribute to a policy paper that the U.S. Transhumanist Party may develop in order to put forward a viable plan for making a Universal Basic Income a reality, beginning from today's conditions. The specific content of that paper is to be determined based on the contributions and deliberations of any future working group.
Discussion by C.H. Antony: I have a stepped plan based on my own limited knowledge that I think is the ticket, but I need to combine the work of individuals with expertise in the following fields:
Economics with an understanding of federal spending.
Corporate law with an understanding of the Constitution's position on corporations.
A tax professional who can weigh the benefits/detriments within the previously described fields.
Someone who can discuss sociological matters pertaining to a UBI and who can show statistical models of the argument.
The following is the essence of my model.
I. Calculate the minimum necessary expense of the GDP necessary to fund a functioning government with regard to the following conditions:
Fully automated IRS that only employs a handful of programmers and analysts to maintain and upgrade the automated systems and address potential or reported errors. Apply this model elsewhere in government where possible.
Cancel all social programs with the intent of replacement with UBI (i.e., SSDI, SSI, Food stamps, VA Income, Tax Credits, etc.).
Consolidate redundant government agencies and eliminate certain specialized enforcement branches. Examples: we don't need five intelligence agencies when a single well-organized agency could perform all the same functions, BATF can be disbanded, etc.
A fully funded modern military where no soldier's family barely makes it above the poverty line.
No foreign payments without a tangible financial return to the US in the form of goods or services.
No federal pensions of any kind for any level of service. [Constitutionally, this would only be possible for new hires going forward.]
Save and invest 18% for our own economic growth and to outpace global inflation.
Apply AI and automation as liberally as possible where it can replace functionaries at all levels.
II. Eliminate all federal income tax on private individuals and small businesses and also eliminate income taxes at local and state levels. Determine a fair and sustainable Flat Sales Tax paid on all non-essential purchases that is paid directly into the UBI fund. Sales-tax-exempt items would be the following:
Food stuffs.
Sewer and waste services.
Electricity and other domestic use fuels.
Medical and health-related items.
Educational items and services.
Home and land purchases that are the primary residence; no annual property taxes.
III. Further reduce the federal budget by saving on prosecuting victimless crimes (consensual prostitution, recreational narcotic use, etc.) and remove the state as an entity that may be called as a victim in a crime.
IV. Allow free air-time, equally disseminated, for any candidate running for political office. Social media and digital streaming are more than adequate in this era to give every candidate an equal voice for the people to hear and vote on. States should be directed to follow the same model.
V. Create a payment schedule whereby the national debt is paid in full as quickly as possible from the GDP alone.
VI. Restructure corporate taxes to be both competitive with the rest of the world and be useful to the UBI fund. Determine qualifications where a small business may incorporate that does not punish a successful small business, has clear advantages, and encourages growth within a new corporate structure.
VII. Create a fund whereby two years of field-specific education is available to every adult American citizen. Apply a nation-wide school voucher program to grades K-12, allowing schools to compete for students through quality and safety.
VIII. Create a fund that provides unlimited and free healthcare at a fair market value to all US citizens.
IX. Encourage a near-zero human labor manufacturing trend in the US with an eye on converting other nations into customers and partners for products of US companies.
X. Aim for an average of $52,000 per year for each adult American citizen (approximately 250,000,000 adult citizens).
I believe the above, when fleshed out and mathematically modeled, will serve as a succinct and presentable plan that we could, essentially, sell to voters causing representatives to take notice and have to discuss it publically.
This model in no way, I feel, reflects any form of socialism or communism, as it does not take a dime out of the pockets of any one higher-wage earner for the purpose of giving it to a lower-wage earner. It is self-scalable for inflation and deflation without affecting an individual's quality of life. It in no way precludes anyone from seeking and obtaining opportunity and earning potentials beyond the UBI, thusly not endangering free market capitalism.
Also, I believe the easiest sell will be to corporations that are already having to maneuver the cost of human labor vs. automation. They can help push the reforms by leveraging lobbying power for us.
C. H. Antony is a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. He may be contacted here.
Andrew Yang: 2020 Presidential Candidate with Transhumanist Values – Article by Keith Yu
March 24, 2018 Keith Yu Comments 0 Comment
Editor's Note: The U.S. Transhumanist Party features this article by Keith Yu as part of its ongoing integration with the Transhuman Party. This article was originally published on the Transhuman Party website on March 24, 2018, and discusses Mr. Yu's perspectives on Andrew Yang's candidacy. The U.S. Transhumanist Party has not endorsed Andrew Yang as of this publication and would not endorse a candidate running for either of the major U.S. political parties, but we do consider our website to be a place where members can discuss political issues and candidates relevant to transhumanism from a multiplicity of viewpoints so as to encourage conversations about desirable policies as well as which candidate(s) the U.S. Transhumanist Party could consider endorsing for the 2020 election season.
"Let's Put Humanity First" is the slogan for 2020 Presidential candidate Andrew Yang. As an entrepreneur and businessman, Yang deeply understands the threat that new technologies – robotics, software, artificial intelligence – have on many Americans. With millions of jobs already lost to automation and millions more on the line, Yang wants to put Humanity First by directing these new technologies towards improving human welfare, rather than towards the pure business goal of maximizing profit.
Although he has not identified himself as a transhumanist, Yang's policy positions strongly identify with technoprogressive Transhumanism. As such, I – as a member of the Transhuman Party – am promoting Andrew Yang for consideration as a potential transhumanist candidate for the 2020 Presidential election.
"Andrew's Big Three Policies"
Yang's top three policies are all related to improving the human condition. However, the one that he emphasizes as the most important is his "Freedom Dividend", a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI) of $1000/month for every American adult between 18 and 64, independent of work status or any other factor. This would be paid for by consolidating existing welfare programs as well as by adding a "value-added" tax on goods and services produced by businesses. The Freedom Dividend is a direct response to the onset of automation and the massive job loss that is occuring as a result. By providing UBI of $1000/month to every American adult, Yang hopes to immediately improve every citizen's quality of living, directly combat poverty, and mitigate the effects of job loss caused by automation.
The second of Yang's "big three policies" is single-payer healthcare in addition to changing the healthcare landscape as a whole. He sums up the rationale behind his position: "By providing holistic healthcare to all our citizens, we'll drastically increase the average quality of life, extend life expectancies, and treat issues that often go untreated. We'll also be able to bring costs under control and outcomes up, as most other industrialized nations have." In addition to increasing access to preventative care and thereby lowering overall healthcare costs, Yang plans to emphasize "holistic" medicine, which recognizes the importance of mental health in addition to physical health. He also plans to change the doctor compensation model from the pay-per-service to salaried, disincentivizing such practices as ordering redundant tests and "churn[ing] through patient after patient", and incentivizing innovative treatment methods and methodologies, such as the use of AI-supplemented college or Master's program graduates as a new class of healthcare provider.
The last of the "big three policies" is a refocusing of our capitalist system in a movement Yang calls "Human Capitalism", wherein the economy will be directed to work for humans, rather than the other way around. In action, this means that an airline would no longer be able to kick someone off of their flight because a last minute customer is paying more money, and drug companies would not be able to charge extortionate prices for life saving drugs because their patients are desperate. To manage Human Capitalism, Yang plans for the government to adopt such measurements as median income, life expectancy, average physical fitness and mental health, environmental quality, informational integrity ("fake news"), public safety, and many more in addition to the GDP and job statistics that we have today.
In addition to his big three policies, Andrew Yang's platform consists of a deluge of other Transhumanist and technoprogressive positions.
Regarding technology, Yang writes, "Technological innovation shouldn't be stopped, but it should be monitored and analyzed to make sure we don't move past a point of no return. This will require cooperation between the government and private industry to ensure that developing technologies can continue to improve our lives without destroying them." To do this, Yang plans to create an executive Department of Technology to monitor developments, assess risks, and create guidance. Initially, this department would focus on AI, moving on to other technologies as they develop. Yang would also work to understand the effects of emerging technologies on human health and behavior, such as in the case of the widespread adoption of smartphones. In addition, Yang plans to invest in modern infrastructure such as fiber-optic high speed internet, to support net neutrality, and to increase competition between internet providers.
Yang believes in improving the American education system by increasing teacher salary, hiring standards, and quality expectations, and by incentivizing teachers to continually improve. He also supports life-skills education, such as financial planning, physical fitness and healthy meal prep, interview skills, conflict management, and time management. He would control the costs of higher education, including reducing the price of community college classes, and promote vocational education. These changes would be funded by reducing the number of administrative layers currently in our education system.
To mitigate the effects of anthropogenic climate change, Yang plans to to regulate fossil fuels and support sustainable infrastructure in addition to investing in technologies that reverse the damage already done, such as carbon capture and geoengineering. He believes that nuclear energy can act as a sort of stepping stone energy source between fossil fuels and truly sustainable energy production.
As once-futuristic technologies become the norm, Yang takes a technoprogressive approach to monitoring developments and assessing risks. In a time when automation-caused job loss and disruption is already occurring at a rapid pace, with no sign of slowing down, 2020 Presidential candidate Andrew Yang believes that we should invest in a future where humans, rather than dollars, are the most valuable asset in our economy.
U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman's Anniversary Message
November 25, 2017 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment
Gennady Stolyarov II
On November 17, 2016, I became the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party. It was a turbulent era in American politics, although it now appears to me to have been a distinct prior epoch. The offer of Chairmanship from Zoltan Istvan came at exactly the right time. I was seriously considering emigrating from the United States, which would have been a mistake. For this role, however, an expatriate Chairman would not do; Zoltan asked me to remain for at least six months – hopefully a year – and then re-assess the situation. One does not get handed leadership of a political party often (or virtually ever), so this was a unique opportunity to make a difference in American politics in a constructive way, with instant gains in prominence, and without the distasteful maneuvering that many conventional political figures feel compelled to engage in to attain a comparable position.
It has been a year, and I am staying. I have indeed reassessed the situation, or perhaps the situation has been transformed so considerably than the already transitional interpretive framework of late 2016 can no longer adequately describe our present political reality. Whereas then the tumult seemed to have stemmed from a single source, we now inhabit a distinctly different sort of chaotic era, in which the chaos emanates from virtually all partisan factions espousing conventional political ideologies. The United States has not, despite my fears at the time, succumbed to dictatorship or totalitarianism – and, despite some ill-advised policy decisions and unfortunate increases in certain forms of intolerance and hatred (on both the right and the left), there are no waves of nativist "ethnic cleansing"; there are, thankfully and for now, no massive riots in the vast majority of cities, the vast majority of the time. Daily life proceeds in a largely peaceful, largely orderly fashion – and may that continue.
Yet the United States' societal and cultural fabric has been torn to shreds by the climate of escalating partisan vitriol, in which being aligned with one's "team" (be it one of the major political parties or more minor factions on the conventional left-right axis) is seen as more important than the reasoned pursuit of truth. Partisanship erodes the norms of civility and the disposition of good will with which it is important to approach discourse with others. When hyper-partisans insist that civilized discussion or even association with "the other side" is not possible (and their characterization of who comprises the "other side" becomes ever more sweeping by the day), they throw wide open the door to less genteel approaches to politics – the political violence that can claim lives, ruin infrastructure, and set back the progress of our civilization. The great immediate danger in American politics is not that squads of jack-booted enforcers will crack down on anyone who displeases their masters; it is, rather, that the increasing toxicity of prevailing political rhetoric will poison the minds and conduct of ordinary people, turning them against one another and inaugurating a low-key war of all against all, which necessarily cannot remain low-key for long. Hyper-partisanship is not, however, a grass-roots phenomenon, but has been fueled by behemoth political machines, with armies of paid political operatives, lobbyists, and "opposition research" firms honing the most effective ways to besmirch and divide people for range-of-the-moment electoral gains. Only a truly transpartisan organization, immune to the influence of this apparatus, can turn the tide against its malignancy.
The United States Transhumanist Party has stood as a bulwark against this toxic partisan tendency, inviting membership by individuals of all conventional or unconventional political beliefs, as long as they agree with our three broadly framed Core Ideals (and even sometimes if they do not), advocating for a worldwide acceleration of technological innovation and for making its products accessible to all, conducting transparent public discussions and votes using ranked-reference techniques that solve long-standing incentive problems of voters, and doing it all as a non-monetary organization, through the collaboration of volunteers and people of good will. We genuinely seek to embody and practice inclusivity, diversity, and tolerance – instead of weaponizing these terms to serve a particular preconceived political and social agenda and partisan machine. We transcend the destructive culture wars, just as we transcend so many other pointless divisions. We seek to be a microcosm of the society that will emerge after all this "sound and fury, signifying nothing" subsides, when people will come to see the toxicity as fatiguing and passé, and the task of building a new era can unfold in earnest. We need to focus on championing the advances that can benefit everyone through dramatically longer lifespans, vastly increased prosperity, and opportunities for individual self-actualization. Unlike identity politics, which focuses on what sets people apart, transhumanist politics seeks to bring all sentient entities together to forge the advances that can benefit each and all.
On the anniversary of my Chairmanship, the highlight of my day was a message from an individual who has been a member for as long as I have been Chairman. He told me that his membership in the U.S. Transhumanist Party has been one of the most important events in his life. What we do matters; it inspires people to strive for a brighter future; it coalesces a community of visionaries, achievers, innovators, and friends. Amid the tumult of the contemporary world, we preserve the transformative ambition that life can and should be better – that human existence need not be nasty, brutish, or short – that age-old problems can be solved with sufficient knowledge and ingenuity – and that the fates of our ancestors need not be our own.
We have achieved much since the U.S. Transhumanist Party was opened to membership during my tenure as Chairman. I provided an overview of the U.S. Transhumanist Party's key recent achievements in this brief video, which I prepared for the Transvision 2017 conference in Brussels.
Here, I will supplement, rather than repeat, the contents of that video presentation.
Many aspects of our Platform and processes enable the U.S. Transhumanist Party to stand out in American politics. The following are just several examples.
We are the first political party in the United States to use ranked-preference voting on its internal ballots. During the next year we will explore options for rendering this voting process even more streamlined and user-friendly. We will be searching for software that could simultaneously present all of the options and their text to voters, and automatically tabulate instant runoffs and their results, similarly to how the initial votes are tabulated today.
We are the only political party in the world – to our knowledge – which extends membership to anyone capable of forming a reasoned political opinion – including children and citizens of other countries, who may become Allied Members. Our Foreign Ambassador program specifically focuses on building connections with future-oriented thinkers in other countries and working to build transhumanism into a global, collaborative movement where ideas are exchanged and developed without regard to national boundaries.
The U.S. Transhumanist Party is one of only two political parties in the United States, along with the Green Party, that supports the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. Our Platform, in Article III, Section IV, reads that "In recognition of the dire existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to sapient life on Earth – including as a result of such weapons' accidental deployment due to system failures or human misunderstanding – the United States Transhumanist Party advocates the complete dismantlement and abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere, as rapidly as possible." While this remains a minority political position in the United States, the abolition of nuclear weapons recently received support at the United Nations via the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017. With the threat of nuclear war remaining disturbingly real, an increasing number of people and institutions are coming to recognize this dire existential risk and seek its alleviation. We welcome collaboration with any of them.
The U.S. Transhumanist Party was the first political party in the United States to suggest a universal basic income or unconditional basic income (UBI) as an option in dealing with the impacts of automation, job uncertainty, and the sub-optimalities of conventional, conditional, and cumbersome welfare systems. Now various jurisdictions are experimenting with some versions of UBI, and this concept is being actively discussed at the United Nations. We stand ready to offer our views and recommendations in this conversation – encouraging UBI systems that would preserve the core, elegant logic of an unconditional basic income available to all. Per Article III, Section XVI of our Platform, "the United States Transhumanist Party holds that all sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of an unconditional universal basic income, whereby the same minimum amount of money or other resources is provided irrespective of a sentient entity's life circumstances, occupations, or other income sources, so as to provide a means for the basic requirements of existence and liberty to be met." This vision, if championed consistently, can dramatically improve the life circumstances of many individuals throughout the world.
Our most important near-term objectives were recently outlined in our new, extensive FAQ document. Because of their importance, and the indication they provide regarding how the next year of the U.S. Transhumanist Party will unfold, I provide them again below.
Grow in membership. We need to reach at least 10,000 members in order to have the widespread reach and internal, member-driven governance structures that we envision to be the most effective. You can help by joining for free and encouraging others to join by filling out our fast, simple Membership Application Form.
Coordinate with State-level Transhumanist Parties. Various such State-level Parties exist, and some are already officially registered with their respective Secretaries of State. We have catalogued the State-level Transhumanist Parties known to us here. Work with them if you reside in a State where such a Party already exists. If such a Party does not exist, we encourage you to form one and contact us when you are contemplating doing so.
Hold events and publish materials to influence public opinion. Ultimately, we seek to change minds to encourage widespread public advocacy of emerging technologies and a major redirection of resources toward such technologies' funding, development, and dissemination. We encourage U.S. Transhumanist Party members to also organize their own events and submit articles for publication on our website.
Explore running candidates at the local level. Interested candidates will likely need to officially run as independents at this time, but if they agree with key aspects of our Platform, they may receive the endorsement of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.
Gradually create the infrastructure to meet State ballot-access requirements. In almost every State, obtaining ballot access unfortunately requires at least thousands of petition signatures (hand-signed), obtained within a relatively short period of time. We need to build up a sufficient network of volunteers in every State in order for petition-gathering to be feasible. However, our emphasis on membership growth and coordination with State-level Transhumanist Parties is part of our effort to eventually get there and field candidates for State-level office.
Another unique approach that we are pursuing is our search for a candidate for the U.S. Transhumanist Party 2020 Presidential ticket. Unlike other parties, we seek to attract not the most politically ambitious, but rather the most erudite, thoughtful, and melioristic individuals to apply for the role. To this end, under the editorship of the U.S. Transhumanist Party's Education and Media Advisor, Newton Lee, we are compiling a book that will feature essays by leading transhumanist thinkers, Advisors, and members of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. This book, tentatively titled Transhumanism: In the Image of Humans, will hopefully convey both the depth and breadth of transhumanist thought, such that at least one of the leading minds of our era might be sufficiently intrigued as to join our movement and seek to further these ideas by running a Presidential campaign based on the highest standards of discourse, conduct, and policy-oriented reasoning for the improvement of the human condition.
The tumult of our times is evidence that Robert Heinlein's forecast of an era he termed the Crazy Years has come to pass. Charting the path from our current Crazy Years to a bright and universally uplifting transhumanist future will be no easy task, but no task is more vital. By a spectacular confluence of events, which still astounds me in retrospect, the Chairmanship of the U.S. Transhumanist Party has placed me in a unique position within this moment in history, where many radically divergent paths are possible for both humankind in general and for us as individuals. The path of amelioration and abundance of time and resources for all is still open, and the Transhumanist Party will endeavor to show the way to all those who seek the new era, and to build our civilization into a global and universal, human and transhuman cosmopolity – which should extend as far and as boundlessly as our own lives and well-being.
Will you join us in this effort? If so, becoming a member is free and easy – and the best of possible futures may be our joint reward.
Gennady Stolyarov II, FSA, ACAS, MAAA, CPCU, ARe, ARC, API, AIS, AIE, AIAF
Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party
Chief Executive, Nevada Transhumanist Party
Editor-in-Chief, The Rational Argumentator
Author, Death is Wrong
Constitution of the U.S. Transhumanist Party
Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0
U.S. Transhumanist Party Facebook Feed
Victor Run Virtual Race – June 5-7, 2020
Free Transhumanist Symbols
Guidelines for Community Conduct
Judge, Jury and Executioner Syndrome – Article by Arin Vahanian
Anti-Aging: The Growing Popularity Of Radical Life Extension – Article by Kimberly Forsythe
2021 New Year's Message by Victor Bjoerk
U.S. Transhumanist Party General Discussion Thread for 2021
Results of U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitutional Reform Vote #2
The Curative Education and Research Initiative (CERI) – Proposal by R. Nicholas Starr
Official Ballot Options for U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitutional Reform Vote #2
Reject the Deadly Precautionary Principle: Approve All COVID-19 Vaccines Immediately! – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II
Opinions From Around the World: Obah Isaac Ebuka – 3D-Printing Organs for Transplant
Opinions From Around The World: Mert Basoglu – The Cautionary Tale of Neuralink
State of AI 2020 – Article by Pavel Ilin
15-Day Exposure Period on U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitutional Reform Vote #2
U.S. Transhumanist Party Reform Summit – Public Session – November 29, 2020
Opinions From Around The World: Abdeldayem Hassanein – Bionics and Other Emerging Technologies
U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman's Fourth Anniversary Message
Why I Hope to Be Alive at 75 – Article by Steve Hill
Preliminary Member-Reported Write-In Totals for Charlie Kam and Liz Parrish in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election
U.S. Transhumanist Party Positions on 2020 California Ballot Propositions
U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2020 Nevada Ballot Questions
R. Nicholas Starr on Judge, Jury and Executioner Syndrome – Article by Arin Vahanian
R. Nicholas Starr on Results of U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitutional Reform Vote #2
R. Nicholas Starr on U.S. Transhumanist Party General Discussion Thread for 2021
Allied Projects
Discussion Panels
Exposure Periods
Foreign Ambassadors
Official Ballots


text:
Defining the Problem
In her ruling freeing Ellen Reasonover from prison, U.S. District Court Judge Jean Hamilton found plenty of precedent. But neither Hamilton nor anybody else can say definitively how often wrongful convictions occur. The only certainty, as her ruling suggests, is they are far more prevalent than generally acknowledged.
By Steve Weinberg | July 27, 2000 at 12:00 AM
In her ruling freeing Ellen Reasonover from prison, U.S. District Court Judge Jean Hamilton found plenty of precedent. But neither Hamilton nor anybody else can say definitively how often wrongful convictions occur. The only certainty, as her ruling suggests, is they are far more prevalent than generally acknowledged. So what constitutes a wrongful conviction? There is no single commonly accepted definition among the academics, lawyers, and journalists who have attempted to catalog the problem, but most have focused on three main types: THE WRONG PERSON: A prisoner has been released because the actual perpetrator has been identified beyond a doubt. This is the most restrictive definition. PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT: There was reasonable doubt of guilt, but circumstances coalesced to convict the defendant anyway — frequently because the defense, the jury, or the judge never knew the whole story due to prosecutors failing to turn over exculpatory evidence. This is the most common category, and it certainly describes the Reasonover case. REVERSIBLE ERROR: A prisoner's trial was so unfair that the truth is not known. The flaws cover a wide range: biased jury selection, refusal of a judge to sequester a jury or grant a change of venue, questionable instructions to the jury, rejection of state of mind defenses (insanity, entrapment), and the like. For decades, researchers have found that wrongful convictions result primarily from erroneous inferences based on circumstantial evidence; mistaken identification, whether honestly made or driven by vengeance; and perjury. Sadly, some of the worst offenders are prosecutors themselves. Regardless of how high a barrier there is to formally punishing a prosecutor — and usually the immunity hurdle is quite high — most judges are loath to probe or criticize blatant wrongdoing by these officers of the courts. Reasonover's case was no exception, at least until its final stages. Despite strong indications that the prosecution had not disclosed exculpatory evidence, a Missouri appellate court in 1986 brushed aside questions of what the evidence might prove. That court seemed trapped in its own circular logic: We don't know what the evidence might show, the court said, so we can't say if it would have made a difference. Thirteen years later, and only with enormous effort by Reasonover's defenders, Judge Hamilton found the answer and freed Reasonover.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


As more Americans live longer, it is becoming increasingly evident that the country is ill-prepared to help them lead healthy, independent lives.
We are falling short in two areas: We are not doing enough to help older Americans live in a safe and financially secure manner in their own homes, and we are not providing enough supportive housing for those who need that alternative.
The numbers can't be denied.
"Greater longevity and population growth mean that the number of households in their 70s, 80s and 90s is set to soar," according to a 2018 Harvard University report. The report noted the number of households age 80 and over increased by a whopping 71 percent from 4.4 million in 1990 to 7.5 million in 2016.
"With the aging of the baby boomers, the number of households in this age group will more than double by 2037," the Harvard researchers wrote.
That will put added stress on a care system that is already on the verge of being overwhelmed. About 25 million Americans "aging in place" in their own homes already need help with regular daily activities, either from visiting professionals or assistance devices such as canes, raised toilets or shower seats.
Many, however, don't get the help they need. A Johns Hopkins study released last week noted that nearly 60 percent of seniors with "compromised mobility" reported staying inside their homes rather than leaving the house; 25 percent said they often remained in bed.
One key problem is that Medicare doesn't pay for the types of nonmedical devices that help people live safely their homes, from raised toilet seats and shower grab bars to special food utensils and clothes designed to be put on and taken off easily.
These items can make a huge difference in the life of someone living alone at home. But they are often priced out of reach.
One solution, of course, would be to help seniors move to supportive or assisted housing. Massachusetts, however, is in the middle of a housing crisis, with too few units of any kinds of housing being built.
Sadly, housing for seniors -- affordable or not -- is as likely to be opposed by NIMBY-minded neighbors as any other project. For proof, one needs only look to Wenham, where a group of neighbors has sued to stop 12 units of affordable senior housing proposed by Beverly-based Harborlight Community Partners.
Thus far, the solutions offered have been modest or non-existent. Last year's federal CHRONIC Care Act, allowed Medicare Advantage plans to offer supplemental benefits for assistance including wheelchair ramps, transportation and personal care, but it's unclear how extensive the relief will be. This year's plans don't offer much, and the 39 million people covered by traditional Medicare get none of those benefits.
Locally, Massachusetts still struggles to build new housing, with Gov. Charlie Baker noting last week that "if you can't produce housing, you can't solve any of our problems.
"The problem gets worse every year that goes by and we don't do something about it," the governor added. He was referencing housing in general, but he may have well been talking about the looming crisis in senior housing.


text:
Pennsylvania councilman charged with stealing opioids
Law_Crime
Kirk Mullen
By Associated Press - Associated Press - Friday, March 1, 2019
WEST READING, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania councilman wearing a ski mask stole more than $16,000 in prescription opioids from a drug store in the town he serves, prosecutors said.
Kirk Mullen, 34, was arrested Friday and charged with robbery, theft, receiving stolen property, possession and intent to distribute.
The West Reading man has served on the borough council since January 2018. The town has a population of about 4,200 and is a suburb of Reading.
Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams said Mullen robbed the West Reading Drug Store on Feb. 19 just before 6:30 p.m. He was not found to have a weapon.
Mullen is accused of stealing nearly $16,400 worth of pain medication. Adams said officials believe Mullen intended to sell the opioids. He said this case is a prime example of how prevalent the opioid epidemic is.
There was no attorney information for Mullen listed in court records. A message was left with Berks County Jail System.
Authorities searched Mullen's home Friday morning and found several items he is alleged to have stolen from the drug store. Adams said one of the items found by authorities was a pill bottle with specific markings that authorities traced back to the drug store.
Adams said the pills were oxycodone with a street value of nearly $80 a pill.
"I do not recall an individual in a position of something like a borough councilman being charged with a felony offense such as robbery," Adams said.


text:
Book Review: 'Neurogastronomy: how the brain creates flavor and why it matters' by Gordon M. Shepherd
Charles Spence1Email author
© Spence; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012
Accepted: 21 August 2012
Published: 1 November 2012
'Neurogastronomy', the title of Gordon Shepherd's new book (Shepherd,[1]), refers to the study of the complex brain processes that give rise to the flavours that we all experience when eating or drinking. This term, which Shepherd apparently first coined back in 2006 in an article in Nature Insight (Shepherd,[2], p. 320), can be contextualized in terms of the 'neuromania' that has been sweeping through the cognitive neurosciences over the last few years. However, as Legrenzi and Umiltà[3] make abundantly clear in their critical (albeit pocket-sized) appraisal of the new 'neuro-' sciences, one should not necessarily believe that just because a research field has been christened by the pleonastic use of the 'neuro' prefix (see Legrenzi and Umiltà,[3], p. 9), that it necessarily means that we understand the underlying science, nor that what follows is necessarily all that new! As Raymond Tallis, emeritus professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Manchester noted, in a piece attacking A. S. Byatt's neuroaesthetic reading of the poetry of John Donne, there is a lot of 'Neuromythology' about (Tallis,[4]; see also 'The trouble with neuroaesthetics',http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/jun/04/thetroublewithneuroaestheti, downloaded on 15 August 2012). You have been warned.
Gordon Shepherd, a distinguished professor at Yale School of Medicine whose research, focuses primarily on the neurobiology of the olfactory system in the animal model, has appeared frequently in many of the top science journals, including Scientific American, and Nature. Indeed, his experimental work has, for many years, been at the cutting edge in terms of furthering our understanding of the sense of smell. It is safe to say, then, that Shepherd probably knows more about olfaction than virtually anyone else. Unfortunately, though, Shepherd spends the first 12 chapters (or 40%) of his new book discussing the intricacies, and the current understanding, of the neurobiology of olfaction in humans and other species. Hence, while the reader gets to learn a great deal about the inner workings of the nose, and, more importantly, how the brain manages to decode the complex patterns of information (which Shepherd likens to a Pointillist painting) it receives from the olfactory epithelium, the relevance of much of this material to the field of contemporary gastronomy is often less than clear.
Had this volume been called 'Neuro-olfaction' then this bias (in the material covered) would have been perfectly understandable. Furthermore, it may well be true that as many a popular science writer will tell you (and contrary to folk intuition,[5]), that as much as 80% of what we think of as the flavour of food and drink actually comes from information provided by the nose (for example,[6, 7]). As Shepherd puts it in one section header 'Flavor is mostly retronasal smell' ([1], p. 29). I think that highlights the crux of what is wrong with Shepherd's approach to neurogastronomy. To me, and many of my colleagues, the (neuro-)scientific study of gastronomy is about so much more than merely retronasal olfaction, important though it undoubtedly is to the perception of flavour (see[8]; Spence,[9, 10]).
I would argue that the overrepresentation of olfactory research in Neurogastronomy, while obviously playing to Shepherd's strengths as an outstanding neuroscientist, comes at the cost of a neglect of the other senses, and the crucial role that they are now known to play in the multisensory perception of flavour. What is more, Shepherd's prose falls uncomfortably between the dry academic writing that one would expect to find in a peer-reviewed journal article, and the familiarity that one might expect to find in a mass-market popular trade volume. It is hard to know, for example, what an up-and-coming chef interested in learning more about the brain and how the latest neuroscience insights could be used to enhance the dishes that they deliver to the table would make of the following sentence: 'It was already known that cyclic AMP occurs in a signaling pathway that starts with a receptor that gives a microkick to a so-called G protein, which forms a large class of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs)' ([1], p. 51).
Now, it could certainly be said that a book on flavour perception need go no further than the senses of taste (or gustation), smell, and possibly also the trigeminal sense (for example,[11]). Indeed, according to the International Standards Organization[12, 13], flavour is defined as a: 'Complex combination of the olfactory, gustatory and trigeminal sensations perceived during tasting. The flavour may be influenced by tactile, thermal, painful and/or kinaesthetic effects'. Thus, an argument could be made that auditory and visual cues, while possibly modulating flavour perception, are not constitutive of it, and hence need not enter into a book on gastronomy, let alone neurogastronomy. That said, if you are going to include chapters on vision and audition and their role in flavour perception (Chapters 16 and 17, respectively), then one would at least hope for something of an up-to-date coverage of the relevant material (to match what we find in the earlier chapters on the sense of smell). Alas, that is not what we get. The problem is that Shepherd devotes just 12 pages (less that 5% of the book) to covering both of these senses, and their role in our gastronomic experiences. What is more, the material covered in these chapters is both limited, and, in part, simply outdated.
Take, for example, the chapter on hearing and flavour, a topic that I myself am particularly interested in. The most recent reference in this chapter is a decade old. As such, Shepherd simply fails to cover any of the exciting recent work that has demonstrated just how much of an influence what we hear actually has on what we taste (see[14], in press, for a recent review of this rapidly growing field). There are a number of studies out there now that have demonstrated how the freshness and crispness of dry food products, such as potato chips (or crisps), biscuits, and pretzels can be dramatically changed simply by changing the self-generated sounds that a person hears when they bite into such a foodstuff (for example,[15]).
Findings such as these, for which Max Zampini and I were awarded the IG Nobel prize for Nutrition back in 2008, have now stimulated some of the world's foremost molecular gastronomy chefs, such as Heston Blumenthal (whose most famous restaurant is the three-Michelin-starred The Fat Duck restaurant; seehttp://www.thefatduck.co.uk/) to include a sonic element in some of the gastronomic experiences that they deliver to their customers. Take 'The sound of the sea' seafood dish, which has been the signature dish on the tasting menu at Blumenthal's flagship Bray restaurant for a number of years now. The dish, which looks like the seaside, with sand, foam, seaweed and, if you're lucky, some seafood, comes to the table together with a conch shell out of which emerge a pair of iPod headphones. If you are fortunate enough to try this dish, the waiter will politely suggest that you put the headphones on before you taste the food, whereupon you will hear the sounds of the seaside (the English seaside that is; think waves crashing on the beach, and a few seagulls swirling around overhead).
This dish emerged from research conducted here in Oxford (where, coincidentally, Shepherd started his research career) demonstrating that oysters are rated as tasting better (that is, more pleasant) when you hear such a soundtrack than when you hear the sound of farmyard chickens, clinking cutlery, or even the modern jazz that seems to be favoured as the sonic background by a few too many of our top restaurants[16]. In fact, the last couple of years or so has seen the publication of a number of intriguing studies, suggesting that background music, and soundscapes, can have a much more profound effect on many of our multisensory taste and flavour experiences than any of us would, I suspect, ever have imagined (for example, see[17–19]). This, to me, is much more what neurogastronomy is really all about.
Visual cues also exert a profound influence both on the flavour of the food we eat, and the intensity of the tastes (see[20], for a review of some of the more than 200 studies that have been published in the area since the first report back in[21] by Moir). 'Eye appeal is half the meal' as is sometimes said. While visual cues may not be constitutive of many people's definition of flavour, it is critical to realize that chefs very often play with their diner's sensory expectations with the use of colour and texture. Changing what something looks like is undoubtedly one of the most frequently used means of creating surprise in a dish (see Spence,[9]). Betina Piqueras-Fiszman and I have argued elsewhere that such visually mediated sensory incongruence is a key component in much of contemporary molecular gastronomic practice[22], as such it seems strange not to read anything about the neuroscience of surprise in Shepherd's volume. Admittedly, Shepherd covers a few of the best-known findings in this area ([23, 24]; Morrot, Brochet, and Dubourdieu,[25]). But note, once again, that the emphasis here is squarely on colour's influence on odour perception, both orthonasal and retronasal (as highlighted by the discussion of the studies published by[23, 24]).
Things certainly seem to be looking up when, in the section entitled 'Wine color and flavor', Shepherd starts by stating 'Dramatic examples of the effect of color on flavor have come from…' ([1], p. 139). He then proceeds to describe Morrot et al.'s[25] rightly famous finding that students on an university oenology course could be fooled into thinking that a white wine was similar to a red wine simply by adding a few drops of odourless red food dye. But note that this study is not about flavour at all (although the writing in Morrot et al.'s original article is admittedly confusing in places). The participants in the critical part of the experiment (when the food dye was added) were only allowed to sniff the wines, not taste them. Hence, the most that can be said with any certainty is that this study provides yet another demonstration of the profound influence that visual cues have on olfactory (in this case, orthonasal) perception (see[26], for a review of studies on wine colour).
Perhaps this apparent error in describing Morrot et al.'s[25] study can simply be put down to the uncertainty that exists given the various different definitions of what, exactly, flavours are thought to be. It is certainly true that a number of those working in the food/flavour industry happily refer to the orthonasal aroma of a food or beverage item in terms of its flavour (given that is where so much of the information resides). However, on the other hand, many others fervently believe that flavours require the stimulation of both the olfactory and gustatory systems. That, certainly, seems to be Shepherd's position when he writes on p. 16 that 'Brillat-Savarin thus identified clearly the important role of smell in taste, but unfortunately didn't differentiate clearly between taste as a single sense and "taste" as a combined sense of smell and taste. That is why we will call the combined sense "flavor"'. a Now while the question of what attributes of a food or beverage can be justifiably referred to as flavour attributes, and the question of whether flavours reside 'out there' or 'in us' (see[27]), are devilishly tricky, I would hazard a guess that philosophy may have more chance of helping us to answer these questions that the latest developments, or findings, emerging from contemporary neuroscience (or neurogastronomy).
It turns out that people, and this includes many scientists who certainly ought to know better, are more likely to accept an argument (regardless of its veracity), if it happens to be accompanied by a colourful brain image ([28]; see also[29]). The more colourful the brain image, the more gullible we appear to be. Such findings have led some to suggest (with their tongue presumably firmly in their cheek) that brain images really ought to be presented in the press with a cautionary note to the reader. Reading Shepherd's new book made me think that perhaps the same should be done on the back cover of those volumes whose titles start with the 'neuro-' prefix, be it neurogastronomy[1], neuroaesthetics[30, 31], neuroculture[32], neuroethology, neurodesign, or neuromarketing[33].
Neurogastronomy, then, is certainly not the 'paradigm-shifting trip' through the 'human brain flavor system' that we are promised on the cover. Shepherd fails to provide an accessible and up-to-date guide to the emerging neuroscience of multisensory flavour perception. There can be no doubting that this volume does provide an accessible (accessible, that is, if you happen to be a scientist with an interest in neurobiology) review of our rapidly growing understanding of the neuroscience of olfaction. But Shepherd's failure to touch on (m)any of the exciting recent interactions that have been taking place between molecular gastronomy chefs and neuroscientists, as captured in volumes such as Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck Cookbook[8], means that he fails to deliver fully on the second part of the book's subtitle, namely 'why it matters'.
Shepherd ends with a quote from Shakespeare's 'As you like it'. I must, however, admit that I was reminded more of another of the great bard's oft-cited gems 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet' (from Romeo and Juliet). Interesting and authoritative as it undoubtedly is in parts I, for one, am doubtful that Neurogastronomy would have sold as well, or created anything like as much press interest, had it been published under any other name.
aElsewhere in the book, Shepherd states that: 'A common misconception is that the foods contain the flavors. Foods do contain the flavor molecules, but the flavors of those molecules are actually created by our brains' ([1], p. ix, emphasis in the original). Later, he continues 'It is important to realize that flavor doesn't reside in a flavorful food any more than color resides in a colorful object' ([1], p. 5).
Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK
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