In some respects Zoltan Istvan is to Live Forever Jones as Andrew Basiago was to Gabriel Green. But where Americans dismissed Jones’s belief that we can live forever, Istvan’s views, which include living forever, are not as easily brushed aside.
The first thing not easily brushed aside is his name. “If you were going to invent a human being to run for president of the United States as the first-ever candidate from the Transhumanist Party, his name would probably be Zoltan,” Alexis Madrigal quipped in an otherwise serious Huffington Post article on this 2016 presidential candidate.1 His name, however, is not the moniker of a mad pseudoscientist; it’s Hungarian, given him by his parents, who immigrated to the United States prior to his birth in 1973.
While a student at Columbia University, Istvan was introduced to views on transhumanism, a topic born in the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution with works such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and later reenergized by breakthroughs in microchips and nanotechnology. After graduating, Istvan became a war correspondent for National Geographic and other news outlets. “I had seen a lot of terrible things,” he later recalled. “It got me thinking very deeply about life and death. . . . Something in my head shifted—this idea that I don’t want to die—and I started to think about how I could dedicate myself to not dying.”2 He started to think, in other words, about transhumanism.
Being a field on the cusp of what is today science and science fiction, transhumanism has attracted a wide variety of adherents who describe it in various ways. During his presidential campaign, Istvan described it as a view that recognizes that “technology could potentially double our lifetimes, in the next twenty to forty years, through radical science like gene editing, bionic organs, and stem cell therapy. Eventually, life extension technology like this will probably even wipe out death and aging altogether.”3
Not all transhumanists would describe it that way. “The guy is a freaking loon,” fellow adherent Solomon Kleinsmith declared of Istvan. “He’s really done a huge amount of damage to the Transhumanist cause by taking his wingnut bullshit to that label.”4 Be that as it may, Istvan’s campaign advocated that, rather than hiding from or dismissing such possibilities, the nation needs to prepare for them. In one of his numerous columns in the Huffington Post he warned,
We’re all headed to a transhumanist world. Of course some won’t want to join, but it’s sort of like the Internet. If you don’t use the Internet, then you are missing out on a major piece of the new world. Transhumanism will be like that. Without upgrading your bodies, you’ll be totally left behind, both intellectually and physically. Can you imagine if you’re the only one in fifty years who doesn’t have a bionic eye that can stream media info into your brain, see 100 miles clearly, and also see ninety per cent of the light spectrum (gases, microbes, etc.)?5
Whether or not it’s inevitable, it’s not just for kooks. Writing in the Washington Post about the inclusion of transhumanism in a document issued by the National Intelligence Council, reporter Christine Emba pointed out, “Some claim, not unfairly, that these modifications aren’t so different from much more accepted technologies such as pacemakers.”6 Pacemakers are almost Old School, dating back to the 1950s. In the years since, technology has gone on to develop artificial hearts, cochlear implants, intraocular lenses, interactive prosthetics, and a growing list of electronic body parts currently being tested.
In 2013 Istvan ventured into transhumanism’s spotlight when he self-published a novel titled The Transhumanist Wager. Self-published works are rarely reviewed or, for that matter, purchased. Not so in this instance. It sold like hotcakes and, to date, has been the subject of analysis in nearly a dozen books—and that’s not counting discussions of Istvan in self-published books.7 The following year he sought to capitalize on the buzz his book created by forming the Transhumanist Party, in preparation for his presidential run. He then fit out an old bus to look like a giant coffin on wheels, its sides emblazoned with “IMMORTALITY BUS WITH TRANSHUMANIST ZOLTAN ISTVAN,” and set out on a cross-country effort to win votes.
Or not.
Or not in 2016. “Since I almost certainly won’t be elected,” he told reporters, “I have the opportunity to come up with some extraordinary policies. Some are predictions, but some aren’t. They’re policies that the larger parties will eventually be discussing.”8
The columnist Martin Wisckol reacted, “I’ve seen my share of wild-eyed would-be politicians. This guy didn’t have that look. He was calm, measured. He wasn’t ranting.”9 Similarly in his Huffington Post article Madrigal wrote, “Zoltan has helped create a forum for people to start thinking about what the world could be like in ten, twenty, or thirty years, and what politics might be necessary to meet those challenges. . . . I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that, in the next decade, the issues Zoltan cares most about will end up on the national stage.”
Not everyone in the press agreed. Or was able to resist the entertainment potential—though, in fairness, as legitimate journalists they did include at least one sentence mentioning technological advancements potentially posing major political and ethical challenges. For instance, the Buffalo News in New York reported, “When it comes to campaign promises that are bold and innovative, even revolutionary, Zoltan Istvan Gyurko stands alone.” (Third names in Hungarian are traditionally equivalent to our middle names.) “What other candidate for president is advocating government-supported immortality, or a new bill of rights for humanlike robots and cyborgs of the future?” The article then transitioned with the comparison, “And if you think Gyurko is not your kind of politician, how about Michael Ingbar and his slogan, Make America Dance Again?”10
Wisecracks also frequently headlined articles on Istvan’s campaign. “Zoltan’s Cyborg Utopia: The Transhumanist Party Presidential Candidate Wants Us to Live Forever” called to readers from atop a news report in a Massachusetts newspaper. A syndicated column bore the title “A Man Named Zoltan Is Running for President, Too, and He Wants Our Bodies.” That column was by the humorist Dave Barry, and its significance is that, even though Barry’s primary purpose was humor, he managed to convey as much about Istvan’s candidacy as ostensibly serious news reports seeking to be amusing. “If I understand him correctly,” he wrote—immediately establishing a nonjudgmental view more associated with reporters than comics—“the Transhumanists want to use science to replace our weak and frail limbs and organs and skeletons with high-tech mechanical body parts, so we can live forever.” Not a bad summary. And if you’ve ever wondered what makes a humorist such as Barry so successful, note in this example how nonjudgmental factuality was not an obstacle to his comic talent, as he followed up, “I asked Istvan where he stands on the issue of low-flow toilets, which I strongly oppose, as an American and as a human being.”11
Then note this: fanatics rarely have a sense of humor. Istvan did. “I have a very interesting position on that,” he replied. “We’re trying to upgrade humans to machines. We think pooping and peeing is a waste of time.”
On Election Day the number of write-in votes Istvan may have received was so negligible as to go unmentioned. But he did not take this to mean his presidential campaign had failed. “The real goal is to try to work and build the Transhumanist Party so that it has a much better shot at 2020 and 2024,” he told Esquire magazine. “That doesn’t mean it’s going to win in 2020 and 2024, of course, but I think we can bring the Transhumanist Party on par with the Libertarian Party or the Green Party, with the sizes of other third parties that can actually make a difference.”12 If, as he indicated he would, he repeatedly seeks the presidency, he may not only be a perennial presidential candidate; he may become our first eternal presidential candidate.
That remark may look like a joke but, as with all fringe candidates for president, not be a joke after all.