Transhumanism Strategy Boils Down to Choosing a Crowdfunding Project
Maria Konovalenko
2015-03-18 00:00:00
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​The only question is how can we do all of this?

Often, when a person gives advice that we need to do this and that, they have a feeling that they solved the problem. However, “this and that” won’t just appear by itself. There is merely a feeling that the problem is solved. This is how a person solves the problem of being involved in transhumanism by giving a piece of advice.

It should be noted that all pure transhumanists projects either failed, or lead a miserable existence, or degenerated into something unreliable. This does not mean that things are very bad. There is a general tide of science that raises all boats. Our task is to accelerate this process. And this is something that doesn’t work too well.

The goal looks pretty complicated. We have $ 100, but we need to do the work worth $10 billion.

We have a bunch of arguments about the rightness of transhumanist ideas, backed by thousands of facts and impeccable ethical position. We are talking about the absolute value of human life. We’re talking about the extending of human abilities and building a better future.

No one actually is particularly interested in this argument.

The society does not think rationally. Otherwise, one would be satisfied with a simple statement: “Not everything possible has been done to achieve human immortality.” The necessity of bringing to life all transhumanist projects logically follows from this one argument.

In fact, not only everything possible hasn’t been done, but even one-thousandth part of what can be done still hasn’t been accomplished.

When I say ‘transhumanists projects’, I mean life extension, advancing human capabilities, nanotechnology, biohacking, cryonics, approaching the singularity, creating Artificial Intelligence, solving of AI friendliness problem, internet of things, and preventing existential risks.

The society needs emotions rather than rational arguments. In this regard, we also have a set of wishes, what should be done: studying motivation to radical life extension, increasing the prestige of the transhumanists movement, emergence of a capable leader, and more fun.

We can measure the results of our work by the number of people involved, the volume of publications and fundraising. I believe that our performance should be measured only by the amount of money raised. Publications are meaningless by themselves if they don’t directly lead to raising funding for transhumanist projects.

I have in mind a complex of organizational activities in the field of business, science, politics, NGOs, education, mass media and social networks. But I offer measuring the work quality in money only.

By launching a crowdfunding campaign for any important project, such as mammal body transplantation, we will probably collect only about $2,000 of the necessary $20-50 million dollars. Right now, we do not have the social support for direct financing transhumanist projects.

Nevertheless, it is in crowdfunding where I see the implementation of transhumanism strategy.

It is both the creating the community, and influencing the politics and business, and fundraising.

I propose having the discussion about the transhumanism strategy exactly about the selection of crowdfunding projects. It makes no sense to talk about whether or not overpopulation will occur, should we argue with nature and if we get bored. It makes no sense to put forward wishful thinking that we have to make a viral video. Our debate within transhumanism should be about which crowdfunding project we focus our efforts on.

After all, crowdfunding is a quick way to understand whether the project will be successful or not. If the first project is not successful – we proceed to the next one. Among others, this approach will help to create an efficient group of people that ultimately will change everything.

So, what are these projects?

I think that they should be marketing tools for implementing transhumanist ideas. I think that in many ways the strategy of transhumanism is in creating mobile applications by means of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing.

Besides, the very existence of this kind of apps is a mandatory marker of success for transhumanism.

Here are some examples of what those could be. I would love to get some feedback on these ideas.




  1. “Stop Alzheimer’s” app – the daily set of logic brainteasers of the appropriate level, dietary advice, news on ways to improve cognitive abilities.

  2. “Your senator” app tracks public events of a given senator, or governor of your state, invites you to participate in them, offers to sign petitions and participate in rallies, puts the hashtag on a trending political topic.

  3. «Longevity Cookbook» app – recipes, scientific news on life extension. Boosting motivation due to «karma» growth and competitive elements with other users. The app will track and remind about actions aimed at extending of one’s own life.



These are just some examples, any other ideas may work.

My plan is simple. Here’s the idea: team building – preparing a crowdfunding campaign – crowdfunding – project implementation – a new round of investment.

The subject can range from forming a political committee, and creating causes of aging diagnostics, to using AI in social networks and the putting together a music band.

Once the community of contributors is created, we can focus their efforts directly on research projects in life extension and on lobbying government programs on longevity. My take home message is the main question now is what crowdfunding projects we should be focusing on.