34.8% of IEET poll responders selected “Cryonics and Resurrection” in a recent survey that inquired about life-after-death preferences. 27.7% selected, instead, the category, “Uploaded in a Non-Biological Medium,” and 24.1% chose “Either is Fine.”

• • • (549) Hits • (3) Comments • Full Story...

TopTenz.net selected IEET as #1 non-profit in the category, “Straight Outta Science Fiction.” The website touts IEET as the best organization to fund if you want to “fight Terminators by making yourself into an immortal cyborg…”  NPOs trailing IEET include the Mormon Transhumanist Association (#5), Humanity+ (#6), and the Singularity Institute (#8).

• • • (831) Hits • (1) Comments • Full Story...

In a recent IEET poll, 50% of responders claimed that if they had the ability to function optimally without sleep, they would abandon repose altogether.

• • • (788) Hits • (21) Comments • Full Story...

IEET Managing Director Hank Pellissier was notified that he will be soon be given a $3,000 grant from Terasem Movement, Inc. for an “immortality project.” Volunteers Needed!

• • • (884) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

What did IEET visitors read, watch, and comment on last month? Space, drugs, sex, death, religion and urban design provided high traffic. Statistics with links are provided.

• • • (621) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

IEET Director and Board Member George Dvorsky is offering an online four-week seminar on transhumanism at The Center for Free Inquiry, teaching alongside John Shook, CFI director of education and AHA education coordinator. The course will run from May 1 to May 31.

• • • (1042) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

From April 30 to May 3, IEET Board Director George Dvorsky will be guest blogging at io9, the popular daily publication that covers science, science fiction, and the future.

• • •

Debate is academically steaming on whether or not Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche’s philosophy specifically represents… Transhumanism. The topic was initiated by IEET Fellow Stefan Sorgner, who wrote his original article, “Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism”  in the Journal of Evolution and Technology.

• • • (1088) Hits • (2) Comments • Full Story...

IEET Fellows Natasha Vita-More and Ben Goertzel received the most votes (#1 and #2, respectively) in the Humanity+ Board of Directors election that concluded April 15th.  IEET congratulates them, and we look forward to working with them in the upcoming year.

• • •

Melbourne, Australia is the setting of a Humanity+ Conference on “Future Science and Technology” on May 5-6. IEET Fellows Natasha Vita-More and Aubrey de Grey will be presenting lectures, the performance artist Stelarc is also on the bill, and Russell Blackford is a possible guest.

• • • (942) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

NASA agrees with IEET Board member George Dvorsky’s conclusion that “...we could conceivably get going on the [Dyson Sphere] project in about 25 to 50 years, with completion of the first phase requiring only a few decades.”

• • • (1211) Hits • (2) Comments • Full Story...

Approximately 200 essays and 200 videos have been posted at IEET since 2012 began. Let’s peek back and examine our most popular and provocative offerings, calculated in hits and comments.

• • • (1377) Hits • (2) Comments • Full Story...

IEET Fellows Natasha Vita-More and Ben Goertzel are candidates for the Humanity+ Board of Directors. Both are long-time transhumanists who have provided decades of service to techno-progressive causes.

• • • (1190) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

In mid-February, Owen Nicholas, a recent graduate of Nottingham University in the UK, volunteered to help IEET out as an intern. Since then, he has single-handedly written four essays, including the #11 Most Popular 2012 First Quarter article, “Meditation Boosts the Brain”. Additionally, his recent article, “Will Iran get to the Moon?” has been awarded with a reposting by the World Future Society.

• • • (637) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

We asked “Do you believe in a universal Basic Income Guarantee?  What amount would be satisfactory?” More than half of respondents approved of a universal stipend of something between the poverty level and the median income, and another 9% approved of a universal stipend of something less than the poverty level.

• • • (1527) Hits • (3) Comments • Full Story...

Eager to work with an ambitious think tank that promotes techno-progressiveness? Want to hobnob with visionary intellectuals on a regular basis?

• • • (1556) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

Two weeks ago we asked how pills that safely “make people nicer by increasing their patience and empathy” should be regulated. Of the more than 250 people who voted, two thirds endorsed wide access to such drugs. (We will be sponsoring a conference at NYU in two weeks to discuss the topic of moral enhancement.)

• • • (2296) Hits • (31) Comments • Full Story...

Reports have been issued from the family, indicating that they believe Mike is safe and thanking IEET members for their help.

• • • (2051) Hits • (8) Comments • Full Story...

IEET Board Member George Dvorsky was recently interviewed by Stephen Euin Cobb at The Future and You Podcast. They spoke for nearly three hours, so the interview was broken into three separate episodes.

• • • (988) Hits • (8) Comments • Full Story...
(988) Hits • (8) Comments • Link

The IEET is pleased to announce the appointment of Nikki Olson as an IEET Affiliate Scholar and veteran transhumanist thinker David Pearce as an IEET Fellow.

• • • (1118) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

All the anti-H+ essays generated by the four year Templeton grant to the Arizona State University project on Transhumanism have been published in Germany.

• • • (1159) Hits • (7) Comments • Full Story...

Last month we asked “Is it ethical for an advanced military to use drones or robots to attack enemy soldiers?”  A third of you want military drones and robots banned, and a quarter believed they were unproblematic. But the center of opinion was that they should be under human control or used by both sides.

• • • (939) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

In January, IEET Executive Director J. Hughes and IEET Fellow Wendell Wallach met with representatives of the Japanese Consortium on Applied Neuroscience (Japanese, English). They visited Trinity College as part of a national tour to meet with American neuroethicists.

• • • (1027) Hits • (1) Comments • Full Story...

The IEET will begin publishing short science fiction pieces that reflect on the social, moral, political, economic or philosophical consequences of future technologies, in particular pieces that touch on the IEET’s core issues - the ethics and policy dimensions of life extension, human enhancement, moral enhancement, non-human personhood, structural unemployment and catastrophic risks. 

• • • (1905) Hits • (6) Comments • Full Story...

Check out the new IEET donation premiums. And suggest your own.

• • • (966) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

IEET Fellow Douglas Rushkoff is releasing A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division, a gripping graphic novel about a group of elite gamers who are also teen idols, reality TV stars, carefully developed corporate assets… and some things they haven’t been told. Like all the best SF, ADD will tell you much more about the present than any hundred news sites would.

• • • (1196) Hits • (1) Comments • Full Story...

On Friday afternoon, January 13, 2012, at noon, a new journal dedicated to the promotion of unlimited life-extension (“Let Us From Now On”), in cooperation with the Israeli Transhumanist community, will hold a demonstration by the Trumpeldor Cemetery in Tel Aviv, against Deathism, and for Life-Extension‫.
‬

• • • (1405) Hits • (3) Comments • Full Story...
(1405) Hits • (3) Comments • Link

By a margin of nearly three to one, IEET readers responding to a recently concluded poll said morality can and should be separate from religion.

• • • (1452) Hits • (1) Comments • Full Story...

We’ll answer that question by posting a daily countdown of the top 12 articles published on our blog this year, based on how many total hits each one has received.

• • • (982) Hits • (0) Comments • Full Story...

After six years serving as the IEET’s Chairman of the Board, Nick Bostrom will be stepping down and assuming the role of IEET Senior Fellow. And after three years service as managing director of the IEET, Mike Treder will be stepping down to be an IEET Fellow.  IEET Affiliate Scholar Hank Pellissier will be replacing Mike as Managing Director.

• • • (2942) Hits • (122) Comments • Full Story...