Is Jethro Knights A Model For Transhumanists or Is He Too Extreme?

 Ideas  

In Zoltan Istvan's The Transhumanist Wager, the book's protagonist Jethro Knights employs very extreme methods to make his philosophy come to pass.  Is this a model for today's transhumanists, or does Knights go too far?

Certainly among the most popular and provocative recent explorations of transhumanism in the last few years has been Zoltan Istvan's The Transhumanist Wager.  The books protagonist, Jethro Knights is a philosopher-king for the future, in a plot that closely mirrors Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.  Istvan wrote the book, "hoping to change people's ideas of what a human being is and what it can become."

In the book, Knights develops his philosophical manifesto for transhumanism which he calls, Teleological Egocentric Functionalism, or TEF.  The goal of the transhumanist is to lead to the "omnipotender," an omniscient being capable of controlling all aspects of the world.  The Transhumanist Wager is a play on Pascal's Wager, where all humans bet their lives whether God lives or not.

Jethro felt he should be a genuine philosophical machine, following the most expedient path to immortality.

"Jethro felt he should be a genuine philosophical machine, following the most expedient path to immortality."

TEF is predicated on logic, a simple wager that every human faces:

If a reasoning human being loves and values life, they will want to live as long as possible—the desire to be immortal. Nevertheless, it's impossible to know if they're going to be immortal once they die. To do nothing doesn't help the odds of attaining immortality—since it seems evident that everyone will die someday and possibly cease to exist. To try to do something scientifically constructive towards ensuring immortality beforehand is the most logical conclusion.

Beyond the imperative of attaining immortality, TEF also follows Knight's Three Laws of Transhumanism to help individuals efficiently navigate the future.

1) A transhumanist must safeguard one's own existence above all else.
2) A transhumanist must strive to achieve omnipotence as expediently as possible—so long as one's actions do not conflict with the First Law.
3) A transhumanist must safeguard value in the universe—so long as one's actions do not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

For Knights, morality is defined through TEF as the amount of time we have left to live.Part of the philosophy also involves the The Humanicide Formula, which is to be used to determine who should live or die.

The optimum transhuman trajectory of civilization is that which creates the most efficient way to produce omnipotenders.  Currently, the best way to accomplish this is to achieve as expediently as possible the highest amount of productive transhuman life house in the maximum amount of human beings; however not all human beings will be a net-positive in producing omnipotenders.  Any individual who ultimately hampers the optimum transhuman trajectory of civilization should be eliminated.  The Humanicide Formula addresses these issues directly.  It determines whether an individual should live or die based on an algorithm measuring transhuman productivity in terms of that individual's remaining life hours, their resource consumption in a finite system, and their past, present and potential future contributions.

Knights creates a new nation of willing scientists on the world’s largest seasteading project, Transhumania. When the world declares war against the floating city, demanding an end to its renegade and godless transhuman experiments and ambitions, Knights strikes back, leaving the planet forever changed.
"This is why I have stated in public that I cannot go as far as Jethro. He may be right in his dark logic, he may be philosophically correct, but it is too blatantly inhuman for me personally," claims Istevan. Jethro Knights is partially based on a autobiographical events, like Istvan's own sailing trip around the world, and the fact that he is married to a doctor, yet he claims the character itself is an artistic creation.  "I don't believe the character of Jethro is necessarily reachable."

"Even people that really like the book end up disliking him," admits Istvan.

In The Transhumanist Wager, extremes are painted in simple strokes for the purposes of the plot, claims Istvan.  "The book is written for the person who has not thought about these things," claims Istvan.

Knights even describes how TEF should make people try to act like computers, to explore and even attain a “cold precisionlike morality” and a “harsh machine-like objectivity.”   Among the controversial ideas Knights and his fellow transhumanists act out would transfer those billions from programs that fund society's most vulnerable — or as Knights says, "lazy welfare recipients," "mentally challenged, "uneducated repeat criminals" and "obese second-rate citizens bankrupting our medical system."

Perhaps the most jarring example of the callous way Knights employs TEF is when the panel on Transhumania is evaluating applications for the Immortality Grant.  A case is presented from a mother of five from three marriages, but, "She's unemployed, lives in a trailer park, is barely able to feed her family, and how has been diagnosed with brain cancer.  She says she wants to live longer so she can teach her kids how to be responsible, upright people."

One of Jethro's colleagues responds, "What a waste of time.  Send her six feet of rope to hang herself." Knights replies, saying the cost of the rope isn't worth it."

Such discussions probably do go on everyday in doctor's offices and similar panels, but for Istvan to give this characteristic to Knights, along with the actual killing he orders later in the book is very extreme.

Once Transhumania has forced the capitulation of the world, Knights employs seemingly draconian dictatorial measures to achieve transhuman ideals.

Transhumania will implement a strict worldwide family planning policy: People who can reasonably and successfully raise children will be allowed to procreate and encouraged to do so; all others will not be allowed to procreate.  Transhumania will support and and advance the best healthcare and medical innovation possible - but insists that all people acquire it themselves at their own expense if they desire it...

If country rulers, politicians, and officials tried to negotiate or hold on to their former power, they were killed by robots patrolling the planet on Transhumanian aircraft.  

Related articles The Transhumanist Reader  Zoltan Istvan: The Transhumanist Wager Is A Choice We'll All Have To Make  Do You Want to Live Forever?

As Chris T. Armstrong writes, "The important thing to focus on is the context that drives those actions. The world in which this story takes place is a relatively near-future earth, but one in which many examples of push-back against transhumanism, that are just beginning to emerge today, have grown tremendously in response to future successes of transhumanist technologies and ideas."

Armstrong is currently writing a book that explains and explores the ideas of the Transhumanist Wager, titled, "At Any Cost...A Guide to The Transhumanist Wager."

Istvan has suggested that in the coming years everyone will be faced with the Transhumanist Wager, and that the polarity and tension caused by it in society will escalate, and people will need to choose sides.  Where his novel simplifies world into black and white, and the actions of the world's governments into fundamentalist absolutists, shades of grey will be more apparent as we begin to increasingly face the issues transhumanism presents.

Istvan has stated, that his own views are best reflected as both Knights, and the character of his wife, Zoe Bach.  "Zoe represents the confusion of these ideas in my own mind, and trying to put them forth." Istevan has suggested that a sequel to the book, may involve Zoe coming back and arguing with Jethro over the world he has created.

That said, there have been polarizing forces in the world in the past including megalomaniac dictators, religious differences and others.  Transhumanists working as a coordinated, purposeful force as they do in Istvan's book could conceivably do the same.  Adopting the author's TEF philosophy and implementing it as ruthlessly as Knights does might be the result of potential Redeem Church-like religious fundamentalism and strong attitudes a dystopian future.

Knights may also be interpreted as more of a model of what a self-aware, super-intelligent AI might become, and what type of morality it could employ. Merging with technology is the most expedient way for immortality to be achieved according to may transhumanists, and for Istvan this represents one of the greatest unknown, and potentially dangerous risks for humanity.

"Morality is defined by the amount of time you have left to live. I firmly believe that. Everyone when they're at the end of their life or they only have a couple days left to live makes very different moral choices," Istvan told the Marin News. "The Transhumanist Wager is really about how far do you take technology and science to make yourself the very strongest entity that you can become, and that's the question; if you could become all-powerful, would you do that?"

While most of us can relate to, or at least imagine relating to Knights killing Reverend Belinas out of revenge, and self-preservation, do you think the aims of transhumanism justify acting as the character in The Transhumanist Wager does?

By 33rd Square

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