Final Report: Transhumanism: Are you ready to transform?

 Maribeth Suganuma

HST 401 - Professor Horgan

2 May 2025

Transhumanism: Are you ready to transform?

“I don’t have the right to tell people what they want to do with their body.” - Shamar White

You may think this refers to transgender rights and you would be correct, but imagine what it could mean beyond the conformities of changing just your gender. In an effort to learn more about what humans could look like in the future, I interviewed Shamar White, who coincidentally is my boyfriend.

 

Shamar White is a 22 year old graduate student who currently works as a substitute teacher, pictured above. In 2024, he graduated from Montclair State University with a dual bachelors’ degree in Economics and Political Science. In November 2024, Shamar joined the United States Transhumanist Party and became a legislative analyst. His job is to analyze written legislation from across the country and determine whether it is for or against the values of the Transhumanist Party. 

Transhumanism dates back to 1923 from a British geneticist named John Burdon Sanderson Haldane. He created the Haldane theory that states organic molecules get more complicated as they evolve. Transhumanism itself is a philosophical and intellectual movement that is interested in enhancing the human body with future technologies. The goal is to reach a post-human state where we gain a longer life span. Philosophers and researchers in this field generally study potential dangers and benefits of these types of technologies. 

There are a number of Transhumanist parties in the entire world, but I want to focus on the United States Transhumanist Party (USTP) because it has a greater effect on my everyday life since I live in the states. The USTP was founded on October 7, 2014 by a man named Zoltan Istvan, pictured below. Currently, it is led by Gennady Stolyarov since 2016. Their website says there are over 4,600 members in the party, but Shamar told me that number has not been updated in many years. There are likely more members since their groups and affiliated-groups with active members, on Discord alone, have upward to 3,000 people.  

Referencing the USTP website, their values are based in elongating and improving the human condition through science and technology. Their main focus is creating policies and legislation that promote equal rights and backing their reasonings with science and technology.  In November 2024, Shamar wrote an analysis report called the “Report on the Montana Right to Try Act - Analysis” posted on the USTP’s website. This report was over a 100 pages long detailing all the different aspects of the act. In short, the act advocates for more research in innovative medical practices and giving patients more access and autonomy over the decision of the type of treatment they want. This act should help promote advancements in experimental treatment and dismantle restrictions that prevent investigational treatments. Shamar believes policies like this and others, are a blueprint for the future of transhumanist policies. However, he is worried that the policy does not mention topics such as affordability, transparency, and accountability on the medical practitioner and patient side. 

Through my interview with Shamar, I got to learn his perspective on Transhumanist ideas and the USTP.  To begin with, I wanted to gain an understanding of how serious the party is among our US political system. In Shamar’s words, the party is “Politically based in pro human-rights, pro sanctity of life, pro equal rights, and very pro technology.” He continued on to describe the organization of the party. Shamar referred to Istvan, the founder of the party, as an old guard. An old guard is a leader that is stuck in their ways and does not consider new ways or ideas. It seems like the party has some quarrels with their current leader, but this speculation was not confirmed. 

Shamar mentioned that there are transhumanists who have won local level elections such as town counsel member, Gerald Shield, the Transhumanist party member who became town councilmember of the Town of Berwyn Heights in Maryland, pictured above. He officially registered as a Transhumanist on his voter registration card and was the first member to hold a political position in North America from 2016 to 2018. Shields wrote an article, “My Path to Transhumanism and Becoming the First Transhumanist Party Member to Hold Political Office in North America” posted on the USTP’s website. It describes his journey and hopes for improvement in the party to move it forward. However, I was unable to find any information regarding the other members who supposedly served.  

In general, the party is a big tent party. Each member’s social or economic views can range from conservatism, liberalism, leftists, or republicans. However, everyone is still a transhumanist. Shamar referred to them as “techno-libertarians”, “techno-communists”, etc… The party is unified with the understanding of progressing human life through technology, but there are many views on what that will look like. The technology ranges from artificial intelligence, biomimicry which is imitating real life organisms, geoengineering which is manipulation of the climate system, implants such as bionic arms, or even chips in your skin. These future ideas extend to robotic birds that help pollination, cyborgs, human made coral reefs, even brain implants that make you smarter. 

Shamar’s vision for the future is a new project he has been working on called Technogia. It combines three ideas, gaian systems theory, ecosocialism, and transhumanism. The gaian systems theory is an ideas to create a self regulating government system that treats the earth as an entity to maintain or a living organism. Ecosocialism is creating a circular economy with blockchain resource distribution. From my understanding circular economy with block chain distribution is a collection of copies of data on multiple devices basically ensuring data is open source and the economy is able to reuse every resource that is manufactured. 

When I think of the future, I always hope for some type of utopia where everyone is happy and well. Shamar believes that Transhumanism is about building a template for a utopia where everyone is free to do whatever they want with their body. I questioned why the USTP does not decide what the future will look like in terms of human transformation. Shamar reiterates that there is a wide variety of thinkers in the party that have different visions. However, Shamar personally believes that the future will have a mix of everyone’s visions since everyone has equal rights and are free to decide what they want to do with their body. Transhumanism has a huge impact on the cultural and technological advancement of our society, but has not been a dominant political force.

Shamar is agnostic in faith. He believes “Whatever makes me me, can not be changed by the form I take. If I knowingly make the decision to change my consciousness then I have the freedom to do that, but I don't think it will change who I am as a sentient being”. He believes his humanity can not be taken away from him just because he has some type of body augmentation. 

In terms of genetic modification, Shamar emphasizes that the party is in unified agreement that safety is the number one priority. Shamar is mainly concerned with the 1% taking over by conducting unethical testing and making the new technology inaccessible to the general public. He believes that everyone should have morphological freedom and become whoever they want to be, ”I don’t have the right to tell people what they want to do with their body.”

Now, I wanted to question what the future might look like. I asked Shamar, Do you think this type of human augmentation can cause inequality or a type of discrimination based on your choices? He told me that Transhumanist ideals by itself do not have the power to progress or stop current racism, but whoever is in charge in the future will lead us with their social ideals. Shamar believes that transhumanism will lead us to an environmental stateless society like bioregional communities, where communities are demarcated by the type of environment like wetlands or deserts in the southwest. He personally believes that our society will be similar to communism but not anarchy. 

Of course, I had to save my best question for last. If there was a human that became a fish and started killing a lot of fish for no reason, how would you react? Transhumanism is not against criminal law. If there is someone doing something to harm someone else then they are going against human life extensions, effectively going against transhumanism. I was really curious about different possible scenarios that could arise. Obviously this question is just a little out there, but if transhumanism is focused solely on the advancement of technology how will laws dictating personal safety be defined.

Personally, with new emerging technologies like Elon Musk's service robot and artificial intelligence becoming more advanced, anything seems to be possible now. Some issues I have with the party is its neglect of promoting an environmentally friendly society, a non-capitalist economy, or even looking to create solutions for current societal conflicts. The USTP does heavily advocate for equal rights in their values but I personally think they are more focused on just advancement of technology to create a technologically advanced world. With the addition of Shamar’s Technogia vision, I believe my issues with promoting an environmentally friendly society and creating a non-capitalist economy are resolved. It will do true good for the world with its grassroots approach to helping the human race technologically advance. Possibly in my children’s generation, this party will become an integral part of our society, where almost everyone will be transhumanist but we will still have bipartisan politics. So maybe their envisions for the future could become true as long as people are free to become and live how they want. 

References

"Oparin-Haldane Theory." Encyclopædia Britannica, 2025, https://www.britannica.com/science/Oparin-Haldane-theory.​

"Values of the U.S. Transhumanist Party." U.S. Transhumanist Party, https://transhumanist-party.org/values/.​H+Pedia+22Transhumanist Party+22Transhumanist Party+22

White, Shamar. "Report on the Montana Right to Try Act – Analysis by Shamar White." U.S. Transhumanist Party, 21 Nov. 2024, https://transhumanist-party.org/2024/11/21/report-montana-right-to-try/.​Transhumanist Party

Shields, Gerald. "My Path to Transhumanism and Becoming the First Transhumanist Party Member to Hold Political Office in North America." U.S. Transhumanist Party, 3 May 2021, https://transhumanist-party.org/2021/05/03/gerald-shields-1st-transhumanist-officeholder/.​Transhumanist Party+6Transhumanist Party+6Transhumanist Party+6