Candidate statement for the Humanity+ Board
Alyssa’s statement for the August 2010 Humanity+ Board of Directors interim election (held to fill the seats vacated when Alex Lightman resigned as Executive Director). She was elected and would, the following spring, be appointed Executive Director herself.
I first became interested in transhumanism when I was eleven. Since that time, I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects with many different transhumanist organizations — from Humanity+, to the Singularity Institute, the Lifeboat Foundation, Ray Kurzweil’s website KurzweilAI.net, Betterhumans LLC, and the Future of Humanity Institute through their website Less Wrong . Although I am currently studying at Yale University, and have enjoyed my time there a great deal, I can honestly say that the transhumanist community far exceeds the Yale student body in both the quantity and quality of interesting ideas.
Since Humanity+ was founded twelve years ago, we have all gained an immensely greater understanding of the promise and impact of human self-modification and accelerating technological progress. Now it is time, I firmly believe, for us to embark on the journey of, not just discussing these technologies, but actively influencing and contributing to their development. For we, as some of the very first intelligent creatures to ever exist, have been handed a golden opportunity — to not just understand the future, but to make it better than it would have otherwise been, for us and for our descendants during the trillions of years to come.
Some might wonder how we can do this effectively, since Humanity+ is still a relatively small organization (though I have pushed, and will continue to push, hard for its growth). The answer lies in the curious gap that has opened up in modern society. On the one hand, we have corporations — who pursue only technologies which will generate an immediate near-term return, and who (for the most part) avoid doing anything too radical, for fear of upsetting institutional investors. On the other hand, we have academia — which is free to explore the infinite possibilities of future technologies, but whose output is measured in papers and citations, rather than number of lives changed or patents filed. Into this gap have poured a large number of the most interesting projects of the past thirty years, including the free software movement, the RepRap project, and the DIYBio groups. As a professional software engineer, I have not the foggiest idea how I could possibly write even ten percent of the code I produce without these projects, even though their budgets are very small or nonexistent.
Therefore, if elected, I would make it my goal to have Humanity+ complete at least one nontrivial engineering, software, biotech, or other technology development project that helps further transhumanist objectives by the end of 2011. It may be necessary to start small, but with every project, our collective expertise will grow, and we’ll become more adept at handling difficulties. In the Humanity+ community, we have already brought together the ideas, the talent, and the desire to make something like this happen. All that remains is simply to decide on a project, and then get out there and do it.
In addition to this, I will continue pushing the existing projects of Humanity+ forward at an accelerating pace. I firmly believe that the major role I played during 2009’s and this year’s Singularity Summit, including managing the website and registration system, would be of significant help for the coming Humanity+ Summit in L.A. this November. I have been writing for H+ Magazine for over a year now, and hope to continue my efforts to expand the magazine and make it a primary source for transhumanist journalism. And I also greatly desire to build individual websites and social networks for the local chapters of Humanity+, so that those passionate about our cause can more easily participate in face-to-face meetups and collaboration with those close to them.
In summary, I ask that you join me in pushing for a better future, for ourselves, for Humanity+, and for our distant, posthuman descendants.