Transhumanism
Zoltan Istvan is the first unashamedly and unabashedly openly transhumanist presidential candidate in the history of the United States. His political campaign, his Immortality Bus Tour and his book the Transhumanist Wager, have managed to get a huge amount of global media coverage and stir a debate.
Zoltan Istvan is the first Transhumanist Party member to run for president of the United States. He, began a life-changing solo, multi-year sailing journey around the world at the age of 21 with 500 handpicked books, mostly classics. He’s explored over 100 countries—many as a journalist for the National Geographic Channel—writing, filming, and appearing in dozens of television stories, articles, and webcasts.
His journalistic work has also been featured by The New York Times, Outside, Wired UK, Slate, Vice, San Francisco Chronicle, BBC Radio, CNN, CBS, RT, Fox News, the Travel Channel, and in much other media.
"Should we use science and technology to overcome death and become a stronger species?"
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In addition to his award-winning coverage of the war in Kashmir, he gained worldwide attention for pioneering and popularizing the extreme sport of volcano boarding. Istvan later became a director for the international conservation group WildAid, leading armed patrol units to stop the billion-dollar illegal wildlife trade in Southeast Asia.Back in America, he started various successful businesses, from real estate development to film-making to viticulture, joining them under ZI Ventures. He is a philosophy and religious studies graduate of Columbia University and resides in San Francisco with his daughters and physician wife. Istvan recently published The Transhumanist Wager, an award-winning fictional thriller describing philosopher Jethro Knights and his unwavering quest for immortality via science and technology.
Istvan writes futurist and transhumanist-themed blogs for The Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and Vice’s Motherboard. Zoltan is also founder of the Transhumanist Party and is early in the process of beginning a 2016 US presidential campaign.
"Should we use science and technology to overcome death and become a stronger species?" asks Istvan on the Immortality Bus tour.
For good or for bad, much of that debate around Istvan's campaign has been revolving not only around Istvan’s ideas but also around his personality and leadership style. With much of the criticism coming from within the wider transhumanist community itself. Whatever the case may be, when I heard that Istvan is visiting Toronto for WEST conference I thought that I can’t pass the opportunity to get him for a Singularity 1on1 interview.
