December 06, 2008
A bloke in Europe
1. Transcend!
Strive to remove the evolved limits of our biological and intellectual inheritance, the physical limits of our environment, and the cultural and historical limits of society that constrain individual and collective progress. 2. Pragmatism.
Use whatever tools prove effective toward this goal. Technology, and the intellectual disciplines used to develop it, are currently among the most effective such tools. 3. Memetic propagation.
Support the proliferation of transhumanist principles and goals, consciously setting an example that others may follow or promoting the principles of transhumanism directly. Spread awareness of the dangers of technophobia, coercion, anti-humanism and other destructive ideologies. 4. Achievement.
Whether seeking health, fitness, intellectual goals, or financial or social success or political accomplishment, strive to achieve your individual ambitions. Cooperate with other innovators and optimists to reach goals both personal and global. 5. Diversity.
Promote human efforts to grow and adapt to an ever-changing universe. Tolerate people of all schools of thought that do not seek to limit the extent or variety of your achievement. Discourage any attempts to impose will or ideas through coercion. 6. Evolution.
These principles should evolve, in order to address the needs of future Transhumanity; but resist any change in the principles that limits transhuman activity.
About this document
by Alexander Chislenko The following is a draft Transhumanist principles that has been put forward and discussed by a group of Transhuman list members. The idea of writing the Principles belongs to Alex Bokov, who has also been a major driving force in the discussions. Other participants include Anders Sandberg, Rich Artym, Nancie Clark, Romana Machado, Sasha Chislenko, Mark A. Plus, and Christopher T. Brown.
The purpose of these Principles is to define a "consensus platform" of Transhumanism that would allow us to see what ideas and goals we have in common as a group, and to present them to people trying to understand what this transhumanism is all about.
This purpose apparently cannot be achieved by a small group of people, so the following document is just a draft that as we hope will be discussed and modified on the list, after which we can agree on the first "official" version of Principles.
The point of preliminary discussion was to spare the list members from a flood of technical details. The complete archive of the discussion is currently available at http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/refs/Principles_Archive.html
