First and foremost, I would like to express thanks and congratulations to all of the organisers and volunteers, for an ambitious project well executed. It would have been relatively easy to put on a small meeting of sympathetic attendees, but instead TV14 offered a platform to multiple points of view (some quite openly anti-transhumanist) in the spotlight of national media attention. Difficult questions were raised, and their importance communicated to a wider audience. That, and I am very glad to report that the French transhumanists are a great bunch of people, cheerfully and constructively engaging with a national populace whose attitude toward rapid techno-social change seems to range from passive skepticism to active resistance.

Beyond the general success of the conference, I was particularly pleased by the prominence given to consideration of Technoprogressivism as a worldview. Technoprogressivism advocates an active embrace of advanced technologies to free people not just from biological but also sociological constraints, opposing all forms of authoritarianism and inequality of opportunity.

My own engagement was fruitful, involving a number of discussions (including two public ’roundtable’ sessions) in which Social Futurism was acknowledged as a synonym for and aspect of Technoprogressive thought. One of those sessions followed a particularly interesting talk by Dr. James Hughes of the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies (IEET), in which he emphasised commonalities between Libertarian and Communitarian lines of thought, both descended from Enlightenment ideals. We need more of that kind of thinking if we are to transcend narrow political orthodoxies and truly engage with the promise of emerging technologies.

All of this comes at a good time for the Zero State & WAVE organisations, which have recently taken the final step in adopting Social Futurism as their unifying philosophy, and cemented that relationship by becoming affiliates or aspects of the Institute for Social Futurism (ISF). Given that, I was particularly glad to participate in a meeting on the Friday night (salon style; très ‘fin de siècle’!) at which a Technoprogressive Declaration was developed. The ISF chose to sign and support the declaration without hesitation, as did Technoprog! and others present.

It is my belief that the declaration speaks to the hopes and concerns expressed by members of Zero State and WAVE in the past, and accurately represents the position of the ISF, that issues of technological and social change are strongly interrelated. The declaration is offered below in a spirit of transcending the traditional politics of Left and Right where possible, in order to focus on a future in which the promise of technological change is made available to everyone who wants it.

Technoprogressive Declaration

Original text can be found here, at IEET.org:

Here at the Transvision 2014 in Paris we just concluded a meeting of the technoprogressive caucus to draft a statement of common principles. The meeting consisted of the members of Technoprog!: AFT, Amon Twyman representing Zero State/Institute for Social Futurism, David Wood from the London Futurists, and me (J. Hughes) from IEET. The result is below. We are inviting individual and organizational co-signators. Please let me know if you would like to add your or your organization’s name. We would like to collect co-signators between now and the end of the year, so you don’t have to decide immediately.

Technoprogressive Declaration

The world is unacceptably unequal and dangerous. Emerging technologies could make things dramatically better or worse. Unfortunately too few people yet understand the dimensions of both the threats and rewards that humanity faces. It is time for technoprogressives, transhumanists and futurists to step up our political engagement and attempt to influence the course of events.

Our core commitment is that both technological progress and democracy are required for the ongoing emancipation of humanity from its constraints. Partisans of the promises of the Enlightenment, we have many cousins in other movements for freedom and social justice. We must build solidarity with these movements, even as we intervene to point to the radical possibilities of technologies that they often ignore. With our fellow futurists and transhumanists we must intervene to insist that technologies are well-regulated and made universally accessible in strong and just societies. Technology could exacerbate inequality and catastrophic risks in the coming decades, or especially if democratized and well-regulated, ensure longer, healthy and more enabled lives for growing numbers of people, and a stronger and more secure civilization.

Beginning with our shared commitment to individual self-determination we can build solidarity with

• Organizations defending workers and the unemployed, as technology transforms work and the economy


• The movement for reproductive rights, around access to contraception, abortion, assisted reproduction and genomic choice


• The movement for drug law reform around the defense of cognitive liberty


• The disability rights movement around access to assistive and curative technologies


• Sexual and gender minorities around the right to bodily self-determination


• Digital rights movements around new freedoms and means of expression and organization

We call for dramatically expanded governmental research into anti-aging therapies, and universal access to those therapies as they are developed in order to make much longer and healthier lives accessible to everybody. We believe that there is no distinction between “therapies” and “enhancement.” The regulation of drugs and devices needs reform to speed their approval.

As artificial intelligence, robotics and other technologies increasingly destroy more jobs than they create, and senior citizens live longer, we must join in calling for a radical reform of the economic system. All persons should be liberated from the necessity of the toil of work. Every human being should be guaranteed an income, healthcare, and life-long access to education.

We must join in working for the expansion of rights to all persons, human or not.

We must join with movements working to reduce existential risks, educating them about emerging threats they don’t yet take seriously, and proposing ways that emerging technologies can help reduce those risks. Transnational cooperation can meet the man-made and natural threats that we face.

It is time for technoprogressives to step forward and work together for a brighter future.