How About a Republican Transhumanist for President?

This article is mostly about transhumanism, not the 2020 election.

It's authored by Wesley Smith, a conservative who is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Human Exceptionalism. And, it appears in the National Review, a well known right-wing journal.

The author takes a negative view of transhumanism, but his subject for this article, Zoltan Istvan, is running as a Republican in the 2020 election.

(One interesting side note: the Republicans decided to not hold a primary/caucus in Nevada this year. If they had, Istvan may have been one of Trump's challengers.)

In my view, Zoltan's mostly a self-promoter with a religious zeal for transhumanism. He does have a little money from being a small time real estate developer, but he doesn't have the tech background or the financially clout of other transhumanists such as Ray Kurzweil (a well known inventor who works at Google) or rich entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Also, Kurzweil and Musk probably differ from Zoltan politically.

According to Wesley Smith, Zoltan insists that

"""
he is trying to save the transhumanist movement from what he describes as the fervent “leftwingism” of Silicon Valley and the socialistic views that he worries have come to permeate transhumanist advocacy generally.
"""

References

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Beshears, Fred

How About a Democratic Version of Zoltan Istvan
https://innovationmemes.blogspot.com/2020/03/how-about-democratic-version-of-zoltan.html

In this blog post, I speculate on what it might be like to have a rich version of Zoltan Istvan running for president.

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Intelligent Digital Assistants, Virtual Tutors, Mind Clones, and SuperIntelligence
by Fred M Beshears
https://innovationmemes.blogspot.com/2017/08/intelligent-digital-assistants-virtual.html

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Notes on The Artilect War: Cosmists vs Terrans by Hugo de Garis
by Fred M Beshears
https://innovationmemes.blogspot.com/2019/07/notes-on-artilect-war-cosmists-vs.html

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The perils of transhumanism.
by Fred M Beshears
https://innovationmemes.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-perils-of-transhumanism.html

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References on Transhumanism, Eugenics, and Bioethics
by Fred M Beshears
https://innovationmemes.blogspot.com/2017/09/references-on-transhumanism-eugenics.html


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Will Higher Education Enter the Artificial Immortality Business?
by Fred M Beshears
https://innovationmemes.blogspot.com/2017/08/will-higher-education-enter-artificial.html

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Smith, Wesley

A Transhumanist Runs for President
by Wesley J. Smith
February 22, 2020


https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/transhumanism-zoltan-istvan-technological-self-perfection-immortality/

"""
Zoltan Istvan foresees self-perfection and immortality through technology. What could possibly go wrong?

Every now and then, our electoral system produces one of those quintessentially American characters who coopt the energy of the presidential voting cycle to become national celebrities or elevate an obscure social movement into greater popular visibility. In the current cycle, New Age guru Marianne Williamson, who popularized A Course in Miracles, fits the archetype. So does entrepreneur Andrew Yang. But for my money, the “transhumanist” proselytizer Zoltan Istvan Gyurko (professionally known as Zoltan Istvan) is the champion at harnessing the energy generated by electoral politics to both make himself a known media personality and promote his philosophical obsessions.
"""