Transhumanism is an ideological movement aiming to improve human intellect, physiology and society through technological and scientific means. It is due to this reliance on technology, and any relevant impedance of scientific progress, that it suffers a lack of implementation; this largely arises through a deficiency of technology capable of enhancing the human body satisfactorily, as well as a lack of desire or need to do so. Due to these inhibitions, Transhumanism has hit an impasse, with some proponents borrow from other ideologies to provide clarity where Transhumanism and/or technology does not. Indeed, the vague definition of its core philosophy, to improve humanity through technology, allows Transhumanism to span almost the entire political spectrum, as this ideal only emphasizes the improvement of humanity and not how best to arrange such endeavours. Regardless of supplemental policy, this central principle of Transhumanism is sufficient enough for its advocates to claim it holds several solutions to economic and social issues, which this text intends to explore and evaluate.

To do so, one must select a method of assessment, and given the pioneering nature of Transhumanism, one has attempted a similarly speculative approach in evaluating it; given the departure it takes from conventional societal norms, it seems only appropriate, if not essential, to gauge Transhumanism’s by means previously unconsidered. To this end, however, one must not depart entirely from a reasonable representation of society; indeed, the attempted model stems from general reflection and consideration of human history and societies, with some effort made toward ensuring it could easily express hypothetical societies possible in the future. This lead to a general, axiomatic model of society, including an appropriate metric for gauging societal arrangement, which was considered preferable to a more restrictive and unqualifiable approach.

This theme of summarization is also extended to Transhumanism, the vague nature of which obviously suffers a lack of focus. Thus, this text also attempts to define a set of Transhumanist principles to act as a basis for Transhumanism and allow it to stand alone, without supplementation from other ideologies; these principles themselves stem from the aforementioned model, and as such are compatible with it, allowing for straightforward evaluation. This same approach is even applied to general aspects of current, conventional societies, for comparison and motivation, establishing the main reasons for considering Transhumanism.

(look for part 2…)