Constitution of the New York Transhumanist Party
Article I. Immutable Principles of the New York Transhumanist Party
The New York Transhumanist Party is defined at its core by the following principles. While the
remainder of the Party’s platform, bylaws, and operations may in the future be subject to
alterations by decisions of the membership, the statements below are considered immutable and
may not be altered.
Section I. Core Ideals:
Ideal 1.
Ideal 2.
The New York Transhumanist Party supports significant life extension achieved through the progress of science and technology.
The New York Transhumanist Party supports a cultural, societal, and political atmosphere informed and animated by reason, science, and secular values.
Ideal 3.
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to use science, technology, and
rational discourse to reduce and eliminate various existential risks to the human species.
Section II. Immutable Operating Principle:
1 – Renunciation of Violence:
The New York Transhumanist Party renounces all violence, except in self-defense against a clear, immediate act of physical aggression. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that violent political activism is never permissible or just. The New York Transhumanist Party commits to always pursuing its goals in a civil, law-abiding manner, respecting the legitimate rights of all persons. The New York Transhumanist Party shall not condone and shall necessarily and automatically disavow all violent criminal acts. Any person who commits a violent criminal act is automatically disassociated from the New York Transhumanist Party in all respects until and unless that person has made appropriate restitution or has fully undergone the appropriate penalties pursuant to applicable law. However, this commitment to exclusively peaceful action does not preclude the New York Transhumanist Party from criticizing any ideas or behavior which are contrary to reason, morality, common sense, or the principles and objectives of the New York Transhumanist Party and/or United States Transhumanist Party Core Ideals and Platform.
2- Avoidance of Wedge Issues:
The New York Transhumanist Party shall strive to avoid any emphasis of wedge issues – where a wedge issue is understood to be any issue that is intentionally used by either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party in the United States to divide the population of the United States into factions supporting either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, as applicable, and vehemently opposing individuals who do not support their chosen party. Examples of wedge issues include conventional Democratic Party or Republican Party positions on abortion, firearms, and controversies surrounding matters that utilize terms such as “race”, “gender”, and “sexual orientation”. Avoidance of the emphasis of wedge issues does not preclude the New York Transhumanist Party from attempting to address or resolve the fundamental problems that underlie such issues; however, any attempt at a resolution should endeavor to be creative, original, civil, technologically and rationally grounded, and focused on seeking to reconcile the legitimate values and interests of as many individuals involved with such issues as possible while avoiding any intentional alienation or demonization of any individual, including individuals with different points of view from those of any member or Officer of the New York Transhumanist Party. Avoidance of the emphasis of wedge issues also requires the New York Transhumanist Party to refrain from expressing one-sided agreement with the well-publicized, stated positions of either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party on these wedge issues. The longer a time that the Democratic Party or the Republican Party has held a particular position on a wedge issue, the greater is the presumption that this is a partisan position designed to divide the population, and therefore the greater is the need for the New York Transhumanist Party to avoid expressing that particular position.
3 – Prohibition on Denunciation of Individuals Based on
Circumstantial Attributes:
In absolutely no situation shall the New York Transhumanist Party or any Officer thereof denounce any individual or suggest that such individual is unqualified to comment or to hold or express an opinion on a given issue on account of that individual’s circumstantial attributes – including, but not limited to, skin color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, religion or lack thereof, sexual orientation or lack thereof, or any other attribute other than the consideration of the specific thinking of that individual as an individual only and not as
a member of any circumstantially defined group. This Immutable Operating Principle does not preclude rational critique of the opinions of any individual or organization based on the specific content of those opinions.
Article II. Officers
As of October 17, 2022, the following individuals shall hold roles as Officers in the New York Transhumanist Party.
1. Chairman: Daud Sheikh
2. Vice-Chairman: Luis Arroyo
The list of Officers above and the effective date of this list is subject to automatic updates without further member votes in the event of a change in the individual holding any Officer position, provided that such a change occurs in accordance with the processes outlined in the provisions of this Article.
Section II:
New Officer positions may be created, and vacancies in Officer positions may be filled in the event of a departure of any Officer. Any individual may apply for an Officer position that becomes vacant. Any appointment of an Officer to a new or vacant position shall be effective upon a two-thirds affirmative vote of those Officers who take active part in the deliberations regarding such an appointment at any time during a discussion period of three days, and with the subsequent approval of the Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party.
Section III:
The Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may, by a majority vote of the Officers affirmatively voting, veto any Officer appointment to the New York Transhumanist Party that is determined by the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party to be contrary to the interests of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party.
Section IV:
The Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party shall hold office for life or for an indefinite duration of time, until or unless the Chairman submits a voluntary resignation. In the event that the Chairman submits a voluntary resignation, the Chairman shall appoint a successor, with the agreement of the majority of the Officers of the New York Transhumanist Party. If the successor accepts the appointment, then that appointed successor shall become the new Chairman for life or an indefinite duration of time. If the successor rejects the appointment, then the present Chairman shall continue to hold office until a successor can be found to accept the appointment.
Section V:
The Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party shall be responsible for the principal decision-making and organizational activities of the New York Transhumanist Party, including but not limited to the maintenance of the New York Transhumanist Platform and the development of discussion and outreach events involving the general public. The Chairman shall have the authority, but not the obligation, to proclaim and determine the structure of any meeting, convention, assembly, or other forum for conducting the business of the New York Transhumanist Party at any time at the Chief Executive’s discretion. However, the Chairman of the New York Transhumanist Party may not make any decision contrary to the positions of the
United States Transhumanist Party as stated in the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party or any official statements which derive their justification from the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party.
Section VI:
The Vice-Chairman shall temporarily assume the duties of the Chairman in the event of the Chairman’s absence and the absence of a contrary delegation of authority from the Chairman. In the event of the resignation of the Chairman, the Chairman may designate a successor. In the absence of a designation of a successor by a departing Chairman, the Vice- Chairman shall become the Chairman. However, the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may, by a majority vote of the Officers affirmatively voting, veto any subsequent Chairman appointment which the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party determine to be contrary to the interests of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party.
Section VII:
The Chairman may, at the Chairman’s discretion, call for an election to the position of Chairman with at least two months of advance notice. To be eligible to run in such an election, any candidate for the position of Chairman requires the approval of two-thirds of existing New York Transhumanist Party Officers who occupy their positions at the time the election is first announced.
Section VIII:
By majority vote and with the approval of the Chairman, the Officers of the New York Transhumanist Party may place on probation an Officer who fails to fulfill the duties of his or her office as specified in the applicable documents developed by the New York Transhumanist Party to describe such duties. The probation period shall last as long as the Officers deem appropriate by majority vote, and shall include a written contract with deadlines and criteria for the fulfillment of duties. In the event that the terms of the probation period and/or contract are violated, the subject Officer may be removed from office by a majority vote and with the approval of the Chairman. An Officer may also be removed from office if a majority vote, with the approval of the Chairman, determines that the subject Officer has been entirely inactive and non-responsive and would therefore not be able to abide by the terms of any probation period. If an Officer has been entirely inactive and non-responsive for a period of three consecutive months, then that Officer shall be deemed to have vacated his or her position, unless the Officer affirmatively indicates a desire to remain in that position via a written communication to the Chairman. Such a determination of inactivity may also be made by a majority vote of the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party in the event of any apparent inability of a majority of the Officers of the New York Transhumanist Party to convene to make such a determination. The Chairman may take measures at the Chairman’s sole discretion to restrict, contain, sanction, or discipline any Officer considered to be acting in an intentionally hostile manner toward the New York Transhumanist Party and/or United States Transhumanist Party. Any Officer discovered to be engaged in criminal activity, planning an internal coup, or spreading false allegations about other Officers to third parties or to the public, may, at the sole discretion of the Chairman, be immediately restricted from any or some portion of that Officer’s role within the New York Transhumanist Party upon discovery of such actions. A restriction is not an expulsion and is subject to subsequent evaluation by the remaining Officers. Upon subsequent evaluation, such restricted Officer may be removed from his or her Officer role and/or expelled from the New York Transhumanist Party by means of a majority vote of the other Officers, if those other Officers determine it proper to do so.
Article III. Membership
Section I:
The New York Transhumanist Party shall have two categories of members: New York Members and Allied Members.
Section II:
New York Members shall be those individuals who lawfully reside within the State of New York and are eligible to vote in New York elections. New York Members may participate in any activities of the New York Transhumanist Party and receive any delegations of authority at the discretion of the Chairman.
Section III:
Allied Members may be any individuals, of any age, nationality, and place of residence – with the exception of those persons eligible to be New York Members. Allied Members may participate in any activities of the New York Transhumanist Party and receive any delegations of authority at the discretion of the Chairman – provided, however, that Allied Members may not be eligible to vote in New York elections pursuant to applicable New York law.
Section IV:
Allied Membership in the New York Transhumanist Party is open to any being capable of logical reasoning and of the expression of political opinions. Specifically, if sentient artificial intellects or intelligent extraterrestrial life forms are discovered at any time after the founding of the New York Transhumanist Party, such entities shall be eligible for Allied Membership.
Section V:
The Chairman may delegate any authority of the Chairman or of the New York Transhumanist Party more generally – with the exception of the authority to accept or reject candidates for political office – to any New York Member or Allied Member of the Transhumanist Party for any specified length of time, or indefinitely until the delegation is revoked at the discretion of the Chairman. All such delegations of authority shall be in writing. A person receiving a delegation of authority by the Chairman shall be known as a Member
Delegate. However, the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party may, by a majority vote of the Officers affirmatively voting, revoke any delegation of authority which the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party determine to be contrary to the interests of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party.
Article IV. Alliances
Section I:
In addition to beneficial alliances with any private individuals, the New York Transhumanist Party may cooperate with any other political party or candidate for the achievement of specific goals consistent with the New York Transhumanist Party Platform – provided, however, that the New York Transhumanist Party shall not advocate for the election of any candidate running in direct opposition to a candidate of any Transhumanist Party in the United States. An alliance with an individual or political party outside of the New York Transhumanist Party does not thereby commit the New York Transhumanist Party to support any initiative of the other individual or political party outside the specific scope and purpose for which the alliance was formed.
Section II:
Despite the ability to form beneficial alliances, the New York Transhumanist Party shall not become a subsidiary, a feeder organization, or any other subordinate organization of any other political party, especially the Democratic or Republican Parties. The New York Transhumanist Party shall strive to the utmost to avoid becoming a convenient tool of either the Democratic or the Republican Parties in either of these parties’ cultural, political, and/or ideological conflicts with the other party.
Article V. Amendments
Section I:
This Constitution, with the exception of immutable principles in Article I and Platform Sections adopted from the United States Transhumanist Party in Article VI, may be amended by a majority of the votes of the actively voting membership of the New York Transhumanist Party. However, the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party shall have the authority to veto any amendments to this Constitution which are considered by the Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party to be contrary to the interests of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party.
Section II:
Any documents subordinate to this Constitution, such as bylaws or documents specifying the day-to-day operations of the New York Transhumanist Party, may be adopted by a two-thirds (2/3) majority vote of all Officers present at any internal organizational meeting called for that purpose, or submitting their consent via electronic written communication in lieu of such internal organizational meeting.
Section III:
With the exception of complete, verbatim citations of the United States Transhumanist Party Platform (where such citations may not be selective or omit essential context), any proposed amendment to this Constitution or any other action of the New York Transhumanist Party which either directly or indirectly mentions or addresses the subjects of (i) reproduction or (ii) reproductive choice or (iii) measures taken in response to reproductive acts would, in order to become effective, need to receive an affirmative vote of the greater of: (a) ten (10) members of the New York Transhumanist Party; or (b) the majority of the members of the New York Transhumanist Party voting on the matter of the specific amendment or other action. In the absence of receiving the greater of (a) ten (10) members of the New York Transhumanist Party; or (b) the majority of the members of the New York Transhumanist Party voting on the matter of the specific amendment or other action, such specific amendment or other action may not be adopted by the New York Transhumanist Party.
Article VI. Platform of the New York Transhumanist Party, as Adapted
from the Platform of the United States Transhumanist Party
Preamble:
The provisions of this Article are adopted from the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party and reflect the provisions of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party verbatim, with the exception that “New York Transhumanist Party” is substituted for “United States Transhumanist Party”. The New York Transhumanist Party shall be required to maintain consistency with the United States Transhumanist Party Platform and therefore shall automatically adopt any subsequent changes to Article VI of the Constitution of the United States Transhumanist Party and shall retain any content of the United States
Transhumanist Party Platform while that content remains part of the United States Transhumanist Party Platform.
Section I:
The New York Transhumanist Party strongly supports individual privacy and liberty over how to apply technology to one’s personal life. The New York Transhumanist Party holds that each individual should remain completely sovereign in the choice to disclose or not disclose personal activities, preferences, and beliefs within the public sphere. As such, the New York Transhumanist Party opposes all forms of mass surveillance and any intrusion by governmental or private institutions upon non-coercive activities that an individual has chosen to retain within his, her, or its private sphere. However, the New York Transhumanist Party also recognizes that no individuals should be protected from peaceful criticism of any matters that those individuals have chosen to disclose within the sphere of public knowledge and discourse.
Section II:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports all acceptance, tolerance, and inclusivity of individuals and groups of all races, genders, classes, religions, creeds, and ideologies. Accordingly, the New York Transhumanist Party condemns any hostile discrimination or legal restrictions on the basis of national origin, skin color, birthplace, ancestry, gender identity, or any manner of circumstantial attribute tied to a person’s lineage or accident of birth. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party strongly opposes any efforts to enforce said restrictions regardless of cause or motivation thereof. Additionally, any institution that uses violence, suppression of free speech, or other unconstitutional or otherwise illegal methods will
be disavowed and condemned by the New York Transhumanist Party, with an efficient, non-violent alternative to said institution being offered to achieve its goals if they align with the Party’s interests.
Section III:
The New York Transhumanist Party holds that the vast majority of technologies are beneficial to human well-being and should be enthusiastically advocated for and developed further. However, a minority of technologies could be detrimental to human well-being and, as such, their application, when it results in detrimental consequences, should be opposed. Examples of such detrimental technologies include nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, mass-surveillance systems such as those deployed by the National Security Agency in the United States, and backscatter X-ray full-body scanners such as those used until 2013 by the Transportation Security Administration in the United States. Furthermore, the New York
Transhumanist Party is opposed to the deliberate engineering of new active pathogens or the resurrection of once-existing pathogens, whose spread might not be able to be contained within laboratory settings. While it is impossible to un-learn the knowledge utilized in the creation of such technologies, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that all such knowledge should only be devoted toward peaceful, life-affirming, rights-respecting purposes, going forward.
Section IV:
In recognition of the dire existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to sapient life on Earth – including as a result of such weapons’ accidental deployment due to system failures or human misunderstanding – the New York Transhumanist Party advocates the complete dismantlement and abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere, as rapidly as possible. If necessary for geopolitical stability, synchronized multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation treaties should be pursued, strengthened, and accelerated in the most expeditious manner. If, however, multilateral agreements among nations are not reached, then the New York
Transhumanist Party advocates that all nuclear powers, especially the United States and Russia, should undertake unilateral nuclear disarmament at the earliest opportunity in order to preserve civilization from accidental annihilation.
Section V:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports concerted research in effort to eradicate disease and illness that wreak havoc upon and cause death of sapient beings. We strongly advocate the increase and redirection of research funds to conduct research and experiments and to explore life, science, technology, medicine, and extraterrestrial realms to improve all sentient entities.
Section VI:
The New York Transhumanist Party upholds morphological freedom—the right to do with one’s physical attributes or intelligence whatever one wants so long as it does not directly harm others.
The New York Transhumanist Party considers morphological freedom to include the prerogative
for a sentient intelligence to set forth in advance provisions for how to handle its physical
manifestation, should that intelligence enter into a vegetative, unconscious, or similarly inactive
state, notwithstanding any legal definition of death. For instance, a cryonics patient should be
entitled to determine in advance that the patient’s body shall be cryopreserved and kept under specified conditions, in spite of any legal definition of death that might apply to that patient under cryopreservation.
The New York Transhumanist Party also recognizes that morphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics, including as yet undefined subcategorizations that may arise as sapience evolves. The New York Transhumanist Party is focused on the rights of all sapient individuals to do as they see fit with themselves and their own reproductive choices.
However, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that the proper exercise of morphological freedom must also ensure that any improvement of the self should not result in involuntary harms directly inflicted upon others. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party recognizes any sentient entity to have the freedom not to modify itself without being subject to negative political repercussions, which include but are not limited to legal and/or socio-economic repercussions.
The New York Transhumanist Party recognizes the ethical obligations of sapient beings to be the purview of those individual beings, and holds that no other group, individual, or government has the right to limit those choices – including genetic manipulation or other biological manipulation or any other modifications up to and including biological manipulation, mechanical manipulation, life extension, reproductive choice, reproductive manipulation, cryonics, or other possible modifications, enhancements, or morphological freedoms. It is only when such choices directly infringe upon the rights of other sapient beings that the New York Transhumanist Party will work to develop policies to avoid potential infringements.
Section VII:
The New York Transhumanist Party strongly supports and emphasizes all values and organized efforts related to the cultivation of science, reason, intelligence, and rational thinking.
The New York Transhumanist Party places no reliance upon any and all sources of information that cannot stand up to rational scrutiny.
The New York Transhumanist Party places no reliance upon any individual, organization, or belief system that intentionally distorts empirically verifiable evidence, including but not limited to scientific and historical evidence, to serve its own agenda.
The New York Transhumanist Party places no reliance upon any position or belief system that contains arguments built upon logical fallacies (with exemption granted to arguments containing both fallacious and logically defensible premises).
Section VIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports maximum individual liberty to engage in scientific and technological innovation for the improvement of the self and the human species. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party supports all rationally, scientifically grounded research efforts for curing diseases, lengthening lifespans, achieving functional, healthy augmentations of the body and brain, and increasing the durability and youthfulness of the human organism. The New York Transhumanist Party holds that all such research efforts should be rendered fully lawful and their products should be made fully available to the public, as long as no individual is physically harmed without that individual’s consent or defrauded by
misrepresentation of the effects of a possible treatment or substance.
Section IX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports all emerging technologies that have the potential to improve the human condition – including but not limited to autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, economical solar power, safe nuclear power, hydroelectricity, geothermal power, applications for the sharing of durable goods, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, rapid transit, 3D printing, vertical farming, electronic devices to detect and respond to trauma, and beneficial genetic modification of plants, animals, and human beings.
Section X:
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates the construction of a self-repairing, self-maintaining smart infrastructure which incorporates the distribution of energy, communications, and clean potable water to every building.
Section XI:
In supporting peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the New York Transhumanist Party endorses the thorium fuel cycle, which provides for a safe and nearly limitless energy source in the absence of the development of practical thermonuclear fusion.
Section XII:
The New York Transhumanist Party holds that present and future societies should provide education systems accessible and available to all in pursuit of factual knowledge to increase intellectual acuity; promote critical thinking and logic; foster creativity; form an enlightened collective; attain health; secure the bounty of liberty for all sentient entities for our posterity; and forge new ideas, meanings, and values.
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to reduce the cost of education while improving its access. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party supports freely available, open-source, methods of learning, teaching, credentialing, and cultural creation that integrate emerging technologies into every facet of the learning process. The New York Transhumanist Party primarily advocates private innovation to deliver such educational improvements, but also advocates the application of these improvements to all publicly funded educational institutions. The New York Transhumanist Party holds that every person should aspire toward intellectual, moral, and esthetic enlightenment and sophistication and should contribute toward bringing about a new Age of Reason, where the highest reaches of intellectual activity are attainable and
eagerly pursued by the majority of the population.
The United States has upheld basic education since the American Revolution. The New York Transhumanist Party believes, in keeping with what basic education was in the 1700s, relative to the state of technology given the advancement in society at the time, that ‘basic’ education should be defined as college, and that a key part of our agenda is to help encourage a more successful generation by paying for a ‘basic’ education up to and including college degrees.
Section XIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the involvement of intelligent laypersons in the political process to counteract and neutralize the influence of politically connected special interests and their paid representatives. The New York Transhumanist Party supports all electronic and other technologies that can inform and empower intelligent laypersons to monitor and contribute to political discussions and decisions.
Section XIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports an end to the costly drug war, which is often an infringement upon the lives and liberties of innocent citizens who do not use drugs but fall victim to militant enforcement of drug prohibitions. The New York Transhumanist Party supports legalization of mild recreational drugs such as marijuana.
Section XV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to significantly reduce the massive incarcerated population in America by using innovative technologies to monitor criminals outside of prison. All mandatory sentencing laws should be abolished, and each individual should be sentenced based solely on the consideration of the nature of that individual’s crime, its context, and its severity.
Section XVI:
Irrespective of whether or not technology will eventually replace the need for the labor of sentient entities, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that all sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of an unconditional universal basic income, whereby the same minimum amount of money or other resources is provided irrespective of a sentient entity’s life circumstances, occupations, or other income sources, so as to provide a means for the basic requirements of existence and liberty to be met.
Section XVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party holds that present and future societies should take all reasonable measures to embrace and fund space travel, not only for the spirit of adventure and to gain knowledge by exploring the universe, but as an ultimate safeguard to its citizens and transhumanity should planet Earth become uninhabitable or be destroyed.
Section XVIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports work to use science and technology to be able to eliminate all disabilities in humans who have them.
Section XIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports an end to the two-party political system in the United States and a substantially greater inclusion of “third parties” in the political process through mechanisms such as proportional representation and the elimination of stringent ballot-access requirements. The New York Transhumanist Party also seeks to limit the influence of lobbying by politically connected special interests, while increasing the influence of advocacy by intelligent laypersons.
Section XX:
The New York Transhumanist Party strongly supports the freedom of peaceful speech; religious, non-religious, and anti-religious philosophical espousal; assembly; protest; petition; and expression of grievances. The New York Transhumanist Party therefore strongly opposes all censorship, including censorship that arises out of identity politics and the desire to avoid perceived offensive behavior.
Section XXI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports a concerted effort by governments and by public opinion to eradicate police brutality against peaceful citizens, such that violent force is only utilized against individuals who actually pose an imminent threat to human lives.
Section XXII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts at political, economic, and cultural experimentation in the form of seasteads and micronations. Specifically, the New York Transhumanist Party recognizes the existence and sovereignty of the Principality of Sealand, the Republic of Molossia, and the Free Republic of Liberland, and supports the recognition of these entities by all governments and political parties of the world.
Section XXIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the rights of children to exercise liberty in proportion to their rational faculties and capacity for autonomous judgment. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party strongly opposes all forms of bullying, child abuse, and censorship of intellectual self-development by children and teenagers.
Section XXIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the promotion of animal welfare to the extent it does not conflict with human well-being. However, the New York Transhumanist Party opposes “animal liberation” movements that seek to return animals to the wilderness or espouse any attempts to separate domesticated animals from human influence. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the prohibition of cruelty to animals and a complete abolition of euthanasia of healthy animals by animal shelters. The New York Transhumanist Party supports a complete prohibition on the killing of non-contagious, non-aggressive dogs, cats, dolphins, whales, elephants, horses, tortoises, parrots, and primates. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the development and widespread consumption of artificially grown, biologically identical meat products that do not involve the killing of animals.
Section XXV:
The New York Transhumanist Party welcomes both religious and non-religious individuals who support life extension and emerging technologies. The New York Transhumanist Party recognizes that some religious individuals and interpretations may be receptive to technological progress and, if so, are valuable allies to the transhumanist movement. On the other hand, the New York Transhumanist Party is also opposed to any interpretation of a religious doctrine that results in the rejection of reason, censorship, violation of individual rights, suppression of technological advancement, and attempts to impose religious belief by force
and/or by legal compulsion.
Section XXVI:
The New York Transhumanist Party holds that each of its members should vote or abstain from voting in accordance with that member’s own individual conscience and judgment. If an official or candidate of the New York Transhumanist Party expresses a preference for any particular non-transhumanist candidate for office, then no national or State-level New York Transhumanist Party, nor any individual transhumanist, ought to be in any manner bound to support that same non-transhumanist candidate.
Section XXVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates Constitutional reform to abolish the Electoral College in the United States Presidential elections and render the plurality of the popular vote the sole criterion for the election of President.
Section XXVIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates greatly shortening the timeframe for electoral campaigns. The current two-year election season, combined with voters’ short memories, renders it possible for both genuine merits and egregious transgressions of candidates to be forgotten by the time of voting. Longer campaign seasons also perpetuate the “horse-race” mentality on the part of the media and result in the search for contrived election drama in order to drive views and campaign contributions. The ensuing acrimony, misinformation, and outright violence are detrimental to the fabric of a civilized society. Election
seasons should be as short as possible, to enable all relevant information to be disseminated quickly and be considered by most voters within the same timeframe as their decisions are made.
Section XXIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates abolishing all staggered party primaries and for all primary elections to be held on the same day across the entire country. With staggered party primaries, individuals voting later – solely because of the jurisdiction in which they reside – find their choices severely constrained due to the prior elimination of candidates they might have preferred. The staggered primary system tends to elevate the candidates who are least palatable to reasonable voters – but have the support of a vociferous, crass, and often violent fringe – toward frontrunner positions that create the pressure for other members of the political party to follow suit and reluctantly support the worst of the nominees.
Section XXX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports replacing the current “winner-take-all” electoral system with proportional representation, ranked preference voting, and other devices to minimize the temptations by voters to favor a perceived “lesser evil” rather than the candidates closest to those voters’ own preferences.
Section XXXI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the right of any jurisdiction to secede from the United States specifically in opposition to policies that institutionalize racism, xenophobia, criminalization of dissent, and persecution of peaceful persons. The New York Transhumanist Party does not, however, condone any secession for the purposes of oppressing others. Therefore, the secession of the Confederate States in 1860 was illegitimate, but a future secession of a State may be justified in reaction to violent crackdowns by the federal government against individuals based on individuals’ national origin or ancestry.
Section XXXII:
The New York Transhumanist Party encourages every reasonable precaution to prevent existential risks that endanger sentient life. While some existential risks arise from certain technologies, many existential risks also stem from the unaltered “natural” circumstances in which humans and other life forms find themselves. For both technological and “natural” existential risks, the strongest safeguards can be achieved through responsible development of protective technologies that empower rational and moral beings.
Section XXXIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party stands for the rights of any sentient entities defined in the Preamble to the Transhumanist Bill of Rights as possessing Level 5 or more advanced information integration. Any such sentient entities, including new kinds of sentient entities that may be discovered or developed in the future, shall be considered to be autonomous beings with full rights, and shall not be made subservient to humans, unless they as individuals pose direct, empirically evident threats to the lives of others. The protections of full individual rights shall extend to Level 5 or higher-level artificial intelligences. However, Level 4 or lower-level entities – including domain-specific artificial intelligences that have not achieved sentience – may be utilized as part of the production systems of the future, in a similar manner to machines, algorithms, computer programs, and non-human animals today and based on similar ethical considerations.
Section XXXIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party holds that sousveillance laws should be enacted to ensure that all members of peaceful communities feel safe, to achieve governmental transparency, and to provide counter-balances to any surveillance state. For instance, law- enforcement officials, when interacting with the public, should be required to wear body cameras or similar devices continuously monitoring their activities.
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the use of technologies which increase monitoring of police action and policing activities, with expressed goals of increasing policing accountability.
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for a requirement that data pertaining to recordings of police action be transmitted and recorded beyond police control, so as to be protected from falsification, deletion, and selective curation by police.
Section XXXV:
The New York Transhumanist Party considers it imperative to achieve reductions of the United States national debt in order to avoid calamitous scenarios of extreme inflation, default, and burdensome future tax increases on individuals. The New York Transhumanist Party supports the following measures to reduce the national debt:
1. Elimination of wasteful federal spending on programs, goods, and services where equivalent positive results could be obtained through lower expenditures.
2. Cessation of foreign military occupations and the return of American troops to be stationed exclusively on American territory. However, if a mutually appropriate defense treaty with another country requires the United States to station troops in that country, those troops would be allowed to remain there until the treaty obligations are fulfilled or reduced by mutual agreement with the affected country. If the United States continues to station troops in any country due to mutually appropriate defense treaties, the New York
Transhumanist Party supports greater reciprocity in allowing military personnel from that country to be stationed in the United States for purposes of training and information exchange.
3. Removal of barriers to technological innovation and technologically driven economic growth, in order that a surge in such growth could increase federal revenues so as to generate increasing surpluses, as long as federal spending does not materially rise from current levels.
4. Elimination of the current cumbersome system of federal contracting, which favors politically connected incumbent firms whose advantage consists of navigating the system, rather than performing the best possible work. Instead, all federal agencies should be empowered to purchase supplies and equipment and to requisition projects from any entity capable of satisfying an immediate need at a reasonable cost. Exclusive and preferential contracts for particular entities should be prohibited, and all payments by
federal agencies for work by non-employees should be determined on a case-by-case basis.
5. Digitization of as many federal services and functions as possible – to eliminate the waste and expense of paperwork, physical queues, and legacy information technology systems.
Section XXXVI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the elimination of graduated taxation and income taxation more generally. Instead, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates a flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold. This tax should be built into the price of goods from such large businesses and should not impede transaction efficiency in any manner. Transactions pertaining to wages, salaries, gifts, donations, barter, employee benefits, and inheritances should remain completely untaxed, as should transactions involving solely individuals and/or small businesses, for whom the establishment of a tax reporting infrastructure would be onerous. Furthermore, all taxes on land and property should be abolished.
Section XXXVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports more proportional representation of professions and occupations among legislative and executive government officials, instead of a system in which the plurality of political offices are held by attorneys. In particular, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that a greater proportion of politicians should possess training in mathematics, engineering, and the physical and biological sciences.
Section XXXVIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports emerging alternative energy sources and their technological implementations. However, the New York Transhumanist Party opposes government subsidies for any energy source – including fossil fuels. Instead, the New York Transhumanist Party holds that superior, cleaner, and more efficient energy sources will also tend to become less costly and more broadly adopted under a system of unfettered market competition and innovation.
Section XXXIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the creation of a “Transhumanist Olympics” where augmentations and modifications of the human body would not disqualify persons from competing.
Section XL:
In addition to its opposition to intolerant interpretations of religious doctrines, the New York Transhumanist Party is furthermore opposed to any interpretation of a secular, non-religious doctrine that results in the rejection of reason, censorship, violation of individual rights, suppression of technological advancement, and attempts to impose certain beliefs by force and/or by legal compulsion. Examples of such doctrines opposed by the New York Transhumanist Party include Stalinism, Maoism, Neo-Malthusianism or eco-primitivism, the death-acceptance movement, and the doctrine of censorship, now prevalent on many college campuses in the United States, in the name of “social justice”, combating “triggers” or “microaggressions”, or avoiding subjectively perceived offense.
Section XLI:
The New York Transhumanist Party understands that the role of President comes with great power and responsibility towards all citizens equally, regardless of ethnicity, race, sex, gender, religious conviction or lack thereof, political position, or societal class. It is the New York Transhumanist Party’s view that the President, as an authority figure and head of state, should lead by example. The function of the President is to oversee and support the improvement of well-being for all United States citizens, and the welfare of the nation as a whole.
The New York Transhumanist Party recognizes that the power of the Executive Branch of the federal government has expanded far beyond the originally conceived Constitutional framework, so as to predominate over the Legislative and Judicial Branches, as well as over the institutions of civil society and individuals. The New York Transhumanist Party supports greatly curtailing and restricting the role of the U.S. President so as to confine that role within parameters originally conceived by the framers of the U.S. Constitution – particularly with regard to eliminating the unacceptable current prerogatives to unilaterally launch nuclear strikes and conduct military attacks, and to imprison, spy on, and assassinate Americans and others without due process.
Section XLII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to minimize conflicts of interest for government officials created by private businesses, religious institutions, not-for-profit organizations, special-interest groups, and certain individuals. However, the New York Transhumanist Party recognizes that the best way to minimize such conflicts of interest is not to micromanage the conduct of government officials – which can prevent petty improprieties but is inherently unable to avert the most damaging conflicts of interest among the highest echelons of power. Rather, the most promising solution is to reduce the scope of special economic privileges and protections that any government official would be capable of granting, thereby greatly diminishing the incentives of various special interests to even attempt to influence government
officials.
Section XLIII:
Irrespective of the means by which a government obtains its funds – be it from taxation or from other sources – the New York Transhumanist Party understands that a necessary function of government is to responsibly allocate such funds to protect the rights and increase the well-being of its citizens and other individuals within its jurisdiction. If a government requires the public to contribute to its funding, then the services, utilities, and research produced by that government should be easily and freely accessible to members of the public who have contributed such funds. Any government expenditure should be premised on the goal of increasing the well-being of citizens and other individuals within the government’s jurisdiction in the short, medium, and long terms, with the understanding that government exists to serve the people, and should allocate funds wisely with the intent of maximizing value per dollar for the purpose of protecting individuals’ rights and promoting their well-being.
Section XLIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to have proposed laws accompanied by projections of expected results, including short-term, medium-term, and long-term effects. Such analysis should be based on scientific research and evidence and supported by the scientific and/or academic community with relevant subject-matter expertise. The intent is to have laws proposed to be created for the present day, and for such laws to function or improve in the future.
Section XLV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to depoliticize the appointment of Supreme Court Justices, and to further incentivize their impartiality toward political viewpoints.
Section XLVI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to revisit, condense, and simplify the law, with a focus on resolving issues among conflicting laws and closing illogical loopholes within the law.
Section XLVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to have bills proposed without sub-sections or provisions unrelated to the main subject of the bill. A single-subject or germaneness rule for bills would:
1. Simplify bills, rendering them more accessible and less convoluted;
2. Enable a focused vote for or against a bill without the possibility of having to accept or reject an embedded unrelated provision; and
3. Prevent an unrelated provision from being buried within a bill as a possible tactic to have it passed.
Section XLVIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to limit protectionism and subsidization of an industry or group of companies. The exception to this would be that of extenuating circumstances, such as natural disasters or catastrophes, in which case a limited window of support could be approved. The New York Transhumanist Party understands that in a free-market society, private businesses, in order to continue their existence, ought to adapt to market changes instead of being shielded from such changes.
Section XLIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to increase autonomy of individuals to decide over their own bodies and holds that individuals should have the legal right to undertake procedures including gender reassignment, hysterectomies, vasectomies, technological augmentation, cosmetic alterations, genetic enhancements, and physical supplementation at or after the age of 18 years, as long as this does not create health hazards or threats to other individuals.
Section L:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the autonomy of an individual to decide on the continuation of that individual’s own life, including the right to choose or not to choose life-extending medical treatments. The New York Transhumanist Party does not consider it practicable or desirable for suicide to be illegal but discourages suicide from a moral standpoint, and furthermore considers that the legal right of suicide should only pertain to the individual and should not extend to any euthanasia or direct administration of a life-ending substance or procedure by any other person. The New York Transhumanist Party has grave concerns with anybody but the individual acting to hasten the end of that individual’s life.
Although each individual should be free to decide upon the duration of his, her, or its own life, the New York Transhumanist Party supports cultural changes and discussions that would encourage all individuals to undertake life-prolonging choices and activities. Advances in medical technology would facilitate more open-ended lifespans and would enable individuals to choose either finite or indefinite lengths of their lives. However, if individuals are recognized as having this autonomy, the New York Transhumanist Party is interested in persuading as many people as possible to decide to preserve their irreplaceable lives instead of hastening their end.
With regard to any legalization of assisted suicide or measures to provide patients with life-ending prescriptions, the New York Transhumanist Party supports stringent legal safeguards to ensure that each individual patient’s choice with regard to such matters is entirely free and uncoerced, and that there is no steering of any particular individual toward a life-ending choice by family members, medical practitioners, health insurers, activists, or any other individual or organization standing to benefit financially from the end of a patient’s life. However, efforts to persuade an individual to prolong his, her, or its life should not be restricted.
The New York Transhumanist Party opposes the emergence of any financially motivated lobby or industry whose primary business model would be assisted suicide or euthanasia, as the existence of such a lobby could create incentives and policies to steer people toward life-ending choices, including through legislation that might favor such “choices” in not-quite-voluntary situations. Instead, any prescription for a life-ending substance should only be provided as an incidental service by a patient’s primary-care physician, with the express written consent of at least one other unaffiliated physician, and the substance in question should only be allowed to be self-administered by the patient directly after a pre-defined time period since the obtaining of the prescription. Once the substance is prescribed, no medical practitioner should be permitted to benefit financially based on any specific choice of the patient to self-administer the substance to end the patient’s life. This position should not be construed to restrict any non-financially motivated political advocacy on the subject of assisted suicide, which involves individuals expressing their views on this subject in a public forum, when those individuals do not stand to gain financially from others choosing to obtain a life-ending substance.
Section LI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to establish a cross-border or international organ-donation system so that organ donors who wish to do so may donate their organs in a foreign country. This could pertain to Americans working or traveling in foreign countries, but also foreigners or travelers who pass away within U.S. borders. This system would be particularly useful for saving lives with organs that have a very short preservation duration, and would take too long to be sent to the country of the donor’s nationality.
Section LII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to increase the ability for public sousveillance on the functioning of government officials, in particular those who may propose laws, during negotiations and deliberations on proposing bills and national and international trade agreements. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to make the current hosting of live-streams from United States Congress more user-friendly and accessible to the public, accompanied by links to proposed bills where applicable.
Section LIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to have a mandatory standard clause or affidavit, affirming that a Representative, Senator, or other Legislative Branch lawmaker proposing a piece of legislation, such as a bill in Congress, has no conflict of interest between serving the public and serving other parties, such as special-interest groups. The clause would have to be signed and dated by the representative before the legislation is allowed to be proposed.
Section LIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports increasing broad accountability of Federal Government departments, agencies, and entities, especially those tasked with national security and / or criminal investigations, to the United States Congress. Currently some agencies may receive government funding without any accountability as to what the funding is used for, often based on arguments that this information is ‘classified’ or ‘may not be revealed in the interest of national security’. This is irresponsible use of taxpayer money. The New York Transhumanist Party does acknowledge that such entities or agencies may have security concerns regarding the publication of details of their budget plans. As such, the New York Transhumanist Party supports setting up a special non-partisan security budgetary review committee where more details of budget plans would have to be provided before considering to provide funds to an agency or entity.
Section LV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to consolidate and reduce some redundancies among agencies and entities tasked with national security and law enforcement, as well as to reduce the number of such agencies and entities currently in operation. However, while supporting the elimination of parallel redundancies which can create problems, the New York Transhumanist Party recognizes that certain types of hierarchical redundancies can help with quality control.
Section LVI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to ensure that no United States Representative or Senator may be obstructed in their ability to vote on any piece of legislation, or be kept from the Senate or House of Representatives for intra- or extra-curricular political-party activities which interfere with their primary task as representatives of the people within government. For example, protections should exist to prevent situations where Representatives or Senators are forced by their political parties to do fundraising calls during a vote on a bill.
Section LVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to restrict and limit civil asset forfeiture laws, and other laws that assist law-enforcement agencies in circumventing the Fourth Amendment, such as asset seizure, or detainment or arrest in situations where no criminal charges have been filed, except as part of an active interrogation of a person suspected of a crime or unless the person detained or arrested poses a clear and probable danger of inflicting physical harm upon others or their property.
Section LVIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to investigate questionable, but currently legal, actions by law-enforcement agencies that have over time garnered critical attention by the public. The safety of the public could benefit from such actions being revisited or revised to limit abuse and to close legal loopholes.
Section LIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party considers it important for impartial, objective investigations of alleged police and other law-enforcement misconduct to be pursued. While law-enforcement agencies should not be prohibited from internally investigating potential abuses within their own ranks, such investigations should never be considered exclusive or conclusive, and further external checks and accountability should be instituted. As part of providing such checks and accountability, investigations regarding misconduct, negligence, abuse, criminal activity, felonies, and misdemeanors allegedly committed by police, district attorneys, and judges, should, in addition to any internal investigation, also be conducted by a civilian
organization outside the justice system. The intent of this requirement is to limit the possibility of favorably biased or preferential treatment of a member of a given law-enforcement agency by that person’s colleagues, and to restore confidence by the public that an investigation into police misconduct is done as objectively as possible.
Section LX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to limit the possibility for police, district attorneys, and judges to favor one another through mutual “back-scratching” accommodations which may cause a particular criminal matter to be resolved in a manner inconsistent with the true facts of the situation or the requirements of applicable law.
Section LXI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to prevent members of Congress from receiving special benefits, subsidies, and tax breaks that other citizens do not receive, and that are not necessary to function as a member of Congress. This limitation would pertain, for example, to health-care subsidies that are inaccessible to other citizens. However, this limitation would not prevent members of Congress from obtaining working conditions and job-related benefits of the sort which are broadly available, without regard to rank or degree of influence, to other Americans working within the private or public sectors.
Section LXII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to uphold the Rights of the Child as prescribed therein. This would include abolishing the death penalty for minors federally.
The New York Transhumanist Party, however, opposes restrictions on the rights of parents to choose to homeschool their children in any manner that respects the children’s basic freedom of conscience. Any ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child should not be construed to restrict any peaceful, rights-respecting practice of homeschooling.
Section LXIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party opposes those specific cultural, religious, and social practices that violate individual rights and bodily autonomy. Examples of such unacceptable practices are forced marriage (including child marriage), male and female genital mutilation, and honor killings.
Section LXIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to create a reasonable minimum timeframe between the proposal of a bill and the voting procedure. To ensure a reasonable timeframe is proportional to the number of pages of a proposed bill, a time period per each specified amount of pages could be adopted. For example, and without committing to specific numerical magnitudes, a 24-hour period within a working week per every 20 pages could be adopted to ensure all members of Congress involved have sufficient time to read through and study a proposed bill’s implications. Such measures would prevent a bill from being
introduced shortly before the voting process. They would also have the added side effect that proposals might become more concise, as the length of a bill would influence the consideration time.
In addition to this, after the proposal has been submitted, any amendments must be explicitly discussed in a public forum with the same degree of thorough consideration and same rules pertaining to the timeframe of consideration as allowed for the original proposal.
Section LXV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to ensure a jury is fully informed on its rights and responsibilities, including jury nullification. The New York Transhumanist Party also supports efforts to prevent false claims being made regarding the rights and responsibilities of the jury.
Section LXVI:
As an intermediate step toward the goal of complete nuclear disarmament and a potential pragmatic compromise in any future negotiations for disarmament, the New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to significantly reduce the United States nuclear stockpile, and to replace or transfer a small part (between 1 percent and 10 percent) of this stockpile, to mobile nuclear platforms such as submarines. An enemy may currently target the stationary nuclear bombs directly. Having a largely hidden mobile fleet of nuclear bombs would render it much more difficult for any enemy to target the nuclear arsenal, while still maintaining the nuclear deterrent option in sufficient capacity. This would further have the effect of lowering the budget required to maintain the nuclear stockpile, as it could be drastically downsized.
Section LXVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the right for individuals to have autonomy over, and utilize their bodies to earn money, including through activities such as prostitution, as long as such activities arise from a person’s own free will (e.g., not under duress), and the person is not endangering the health or well-being of others, including but not limited to the communication of sexually transmissible diseases.
Legalization would give those who wish to engage in prostitution the safety and protection of the law – for example, so that they may report abuse and would not be prone to being exploited. It would also open the possibility for such individuals to unionize if they wish to do so. Furthermore, legalization would decrease government spending on what is ultimately a ‘moral crusade’.
However, the New York Transhumanist Party unequivocally condemns any manner of human trafficking, child exploitation, and other abuse that involves a violation of the autonomy and consent of any individual. The legalization of prostitution should be combined with stronger efforts to combat these dangerous and exploitative practices.
The legalization of prostitution could furthermore enable more effective action against human trafficking and involuntary exploitation, as, when prostitution is legalized, employees in this industry would become subject to the protections of the law. Legalization would help focus resources on combating the trafficking of humans rather than catching workers who chose this profession voluntarily.
Section LXVIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party holds that any statement made by an elected official and/or public servant to members of the public in a public forum as part of that official’s or public servant’s job duties, and available to be heard, read, or otherwise understood in a public setting, physical or digital, should be considered a part of the public record and treated as an official statement of their office and position. This requirement does not extend to statements made by an elected official and/or public servant in the capacity of a private citizen or in the expression of a personal opinion or other position unrelated to the exercise of the official’s or public servant’s job duties.
Section LXIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party holds that state and federal governments should establish an artificial intelligence (AI) analysis system for measuring risk of proposed legislation. Such a system could provide an impartial look at what legislation could cause harm or unintended consequences. Submitted policies would receive a score from 0 to 100, and the AI system would state what possible negative impacts may result. This system should be publicly accessible for submissions and for security audit. This is not intended to create or enact laws, but simply to serve as a tool to measure risk versus reward.
Section LXX:
The New York Transhumanist Party strongly opposes the possibility for any political party to determine the boundaries and borders of any voting district. The New York Transhumanist Party supports measures that require any efforts to have the districts potentially redrawn, when necessary due to migration for example, to be left to an automated system such as an artificial intelligence (AI) designed for this task.
Section LXXI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to remove the possibility for a President to sign an international agreement among two or more nations by executive order. This would prevent a President from engaging in international affairs without support from the Congress, and likewise would make it more difficult to exit an international agreement, as support from Congress would need to exist in order for such an exit to occur. This would furthermore ensure that the United States becomes a more trustworthy nation in the eyes of the international community.
Section LXXII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to create a framework for an international or world passport. This framework could, for example, be administered through the United Nations, and the passport could be valid only for those countries who have proven to meet the standards, set by participating countries, required to ensure safety. Given that the European Union has an ID valid within its borders, and the United States has a similar agreement with Canada, imagining these forms of identification being combined shows that a world passport is not a farfetched or alien idea.
Section LXXIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to mandate that new firearms will be produced with an embedded registration chip, as well as the registration number engraved on the firearm. The chip would have a registration number, a ‘trace online’ code, and a ‘lost or stolen’ code. The firearm would be accompanied by a physical and digital certificate of ownership with a registration number, the ‘trace online’ number, and the ‘lost or stolen’ number. The embedded chip would render it much harder to make the firearm untraceable. The number and codes involved would have to be unique identifiers.
When a firearm would be lost or stolen, the owner of the firearm and holder of the certificate would report the firearm to the authorities as lost or stolen using the ‘lost or stolen’ number. The intent of having a separate reporting number is to ensure that, in the event that a firearm is stolen or taken without consent, the offender cannot report the firearm as stolen, or as found again. When a firearm owner suspects the firearm is simply mislocated – for example, in the car or in the house, or perhaps taken by a family member, the owner could trace the firearm online via GPS on an online map, using the ‘trace online’ code. The ‘trace online’ code would never be revealed to law enforcement.
Law enforcement would have a device that can confirm the registration number of a firearm in close proximity, similar to contactless payments. On the other hand the detection range would be greater when a firearm has been reported lost or stolen by the owner of the firearm in question with the ‘lost and stolen’ number. A firearm that would not have been reported lost or stolen to law enforcement by the owner of the firearm with the ‘lost or stolen’ number would not be traceable from a greater distance by law enforcement.
This would ensure the privacy, safety, and peace of mind of firearm owners who might otherwise feel law enforcement would trace firearms without legal justification. At the same time, this measure would decrease the probability of stolen firearms never being found, and possibly ending in the hands of people with ill intent.
Section LXXIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the creation of an office of a Public Civil-Rights Prosecutor. Our current justice system is flawed. Only people with substantial wealth can afford lawyers to take legal action against those who attack a person’s rights. While there are organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which offer help for some cases, their ability to do so is severely limited and typically non existent in the lower courts. A Public Civil-Rights Prosecutor’s office will help guarantee that, no matter
who a person is or the position of the offending party, a person’s rights cannot be assailed without consequence.
Section LXXV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports lowering spending by the Department of Defense and the U.S. Military, which amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars per year and includes unchecked wastefulness. Reducing military spending would free up money for more important goals, such as curing disease, which collectively kills many more people than military conflict or war by an exponential degree.
Section LXXVI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to hold institutions, corporations, and states accountable for usage of federal money with a specific intended purpose. When an entity has been granted any form of funding with a specifically intended purpose, such as disaster relief or specific educational funds, and these funds are misappropriated or used for other purposes well outside of the scope of what they were intended for, the entity in question ought to restitute the funding that was made available.
Section LXXVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports increases in the budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Numerous biotech CEOs have recently made the case to increase the NIH budget, because the NIH conducts research that their companies would not be able to invest in, as investments not leading directly to a product would affect the bottom line. 33% of all the publications from NIH research are cited in corporate patents, so it stimulates new product development. A major driver for economic progress and reducing the suffering of those in pain, the NIH is essentially a public charity that brings us into the future. Whether one supports limited or expansive government, the NIH does not seek to regulate anything nor impose laws on anyone. It exclusively conducts medical research to help the sick.
Section LXXVIII:
The U.S. New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to reinstate the rights to vote for convicted felons who have received and served their punishment, in order to present them the opportunity to participate in society as otherwise normal citizens.
Section LXXIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports repealing the current requirement in the United States that drugs or treatments may not be used, even on willing patients, unless approval for such drugs or treatments is received from the Food and Drug Administration. Such requirements are a profound violation of patient sovereignty; a person who is terminally ill is unable to choose to take a risk on an unapproved drug or treatment unless this person is fortunate enough to participate in a clinical trial. Even then, once the clinical trial ends, the treatment must be discontinued, even if it was actually successful at prolonging the person’s life. This is not only profoundly tragic, but morally unconscionable as well. The most critical reform needed is to allow unapproved drugs and treatments to be marketed and consumed. If the FDA wishes to strongly differentiate between approved and unapproved treatments, then a strongly worded warning label could be required for unapproved treatments, and patients could even be required to sign a consent form stating that they have been informed of the risks of an unapproved treatment. This reform to directly extend many lives and to redress a moral travesty should be the top political priority of advocates of indefinite life extension. Over the coming decades, its effect will be to allow cutting-edge treatments to reach a market sooner and thus to enable data about those treatments’ effects to be gathered more quickly and reliably. Because many treatments take 10-15 years to receive FDA approval, this reform could by itself speed up the real-world advent of indefinite life extension by over a decade.
Section LXXX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to increase opportunities for entry into the medical profession. The current system for licensing doctors is highly monopolistic and protectionist – the result of efforts by the American Medical Association in the early 20th century to limit entry into the profession in order to artificially boost incomes for its members. The medical system suffers today from too few doctors and thus vastly inflated patient costs and unacceptable waiting times for appointments. Instead of prohibiting the practice of medicine by all except a select few who have completed an extremely rigorous and cost- prohibitive formal medical schooling, governments in the Western world should allow the market to determine different tiers of medical care for which competing private certifications would emerge. For the most specialized and intricate tasks, high standards of certification would continue to exist, and a practitioner’s credentials and reputation would remain absolutely essential to convincing consumers to put their lives in that practitioner’s hands. But, with regard to routine medical care (e.g., annual check-ups, vaccinations, basic wound treatment), it is not necessary to receive attention from a person with a full-fledged medical degree. Furthermore, competition among certification providers would increase quality of training and lower its price, as well as accelerate the time needed to complete the training. Such a system would allow many more young medical professionals to practice without undertaking enormous debt or serving for years (if not decades) in roles that offer very little remuneration while entailing a great deal of subservience to the hierarchy of an established institution. Ultimately, without sufficient doctors to affordably deliver life-extending treatments when they become available, it would not be feasible to extend these treatments to the majority of people.
Section LXXXI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports reforms to the patent system that prevent the re-patenting of drugs and medical devices, or the acquisition of any exclusive or monopoly rights over those drugs and devices, once they have become generic or entered the public domain. Appallingly, many pharmaceutical companies today attempt to re-patent drugs that have already entered the public domain, simply because the drugs have been discovered to have effects on a disease different from the one for which they were originally patented. The result of this is that the price of the re-patented drug often spikes by orders of magnitude compared to the price level during the period the drug was subject to competition. Only a vibrant
and competitive market, where numerous medical providers can experiment with how to improve particular treatments or create new ones, can allow for the rate of progress needed for the people alive today to benefit from radical life extension.
Section LXXXII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports reforms to reduce the lengths of times over which medical patents could be effective. Medical patents – in essence, legal grants of monopoly for limited periods of time – greatly inflate the cost of drugs and other treatments. Especially in today’s world of rapidly advancing biotechnology, a patent term of 20 years essentially means that no party other than the patent holder (or someone paying royalties to the patent holder) may innovate upon the patented medicine for a generation, all while the technological potential for such innovation becomes glaringly obvious. As much innovation consists of incremental improvements on what already exists, the lack of an ability to create derivative drugs and treatments that tweak current approaches implies that the entire medical field is, for some time, stuck at the first stages of a treatment’s evolution – with all of the expense and unreliability this entails. Even with shortened patent terms, the original developer of an innovation will still always benefit from a first-mover advantage, as it takes time for competitors to catch on. If the original developer can maintain high-quality service and demonstrate the ability to sell a safe product, then the brand-name advantage alone can secure a consistent revenue stream without the need for a patent monopoly.
Section LXXXIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party opposes any development or deployment of weapons systems that are capable of killing or injuring human beings in the absence of an explicit command by a human being to take action in every specific instance. Autonomous drones, vehicles, or other combat systems may not be permitted to make life-or-death decisions on the basis of a program, algorithm, predictive model, or any other means other than a specific decision by a human being who is closely familiar with the circumstances surrounding any given military situation. Accordingly, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and other initiatives to abolish all autonomous weapons and preclude the development of such weapons.
Section LXXXIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports research into the process of ectogenesis, the ability of organisms to be incubated and to grow to the point of independent survival, within an artificial environment that provides such organisms with all the necessities of biological survival and development. Furthermore, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the widespread deployment and use of the technology of ectogenesis once such technology becomes safe and practical. Ectogenesis has the potential to benefit humans and other species alike, restoring extinct species and bolstering the numbers of endangered species, as well as alleviating the burdens of human pregnancy and rendering the divisive debate over abortion obsolete by reconciling the right to life of a fetus with the freedom of a woman to choose not to carry that fetus.
Section LXXXV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports any relaxation or elimination on caps in the United States federal budget regarding spending on scientific and technological research, including research in medicine and public health. Funding for science that can improve the human condition should not be subject to the vagaries of partisan political standoffs over the federal budget. Accordingly, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the Raise the Caps initiative and any other elimination of artificial restrictions of the allocations of funding to scientific and technological projects.
Section LXXXVI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to give citizens more accessible and safer ways to report misconduct, corruption, constitutional rights violations, international human rights violations, and other similar infractions by police, including local police departments, as well as by federal law-enforcement agencies, such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to an investigative organization, whether civilian in nature or a special investigative department within the judicial system.
Such efforts could, for example, involve having a mandate that every police department and federal law-enforcement agency website have a ‘banner’ on its website that allows citizens to report misbehavior by said police department or federal law-enforcement agency via a national reporting system. Reporting of misbehavior would not inhibit any constitutional rights, such as filing a lawsuit.
If a valid complaint is found after investigation, this could result in a fine, a reduction of funding, or a reduction of salary for the responsible officials as a means of punishment. Said money would be allocated back to the relevant level of government to increase the well-being of citizens.
A periodic report of all reported missteps by law-enforcement agencies should be made publicly available, including breakdowns of valid and invalid claims, as well as reports per region, among other useful breakdowns.
Section LXXXVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports a requirement that any educational institution that receives federal funding must greatly reduce its expenditures on internal bureaucracy and administration, in part by eliminating the requirement for students to complete any hard-copy paperwork and by enabling ubiquitous free, electronic completion and submission of all required forms.
Section LXXXVIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports a requirement that any educational institution that receives federal funding must openly publish all even partially federally funded research produced by that institution in readily downloadable electronic format without any cost to the general public, including any paywalls or access fees from academic journals that feature such research. This requirement would not apply to research projects solely supported by private funds or which do not require funding altogether; in those circumstances, the direct authors of such research would retain copyright to it and the ability to publish it in the manner they see fit.
Section LXXXIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports a prohibition against police being equipped with military-grade hardware, including assault weapons, military armored vehicles, or any other offensive equipment primarily designed for battlefield use.
Section XC:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports a requirement for police to be equipped with rubber bullets as standard ammunition and only to use regular, lethal bullets in situations where there is an immediate and previously known threat to the safety of members of the general public. More generally, police should be trained to use every possible technique for non-lethal incapacitation of offenders, prior to any recourse to lethal force.
Section XCI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to encourage police departments to use electric vehicles. This would have the advantages of reducing emissions of pollutants into the air, as well as moving police forces away from militarized vehicles, which are less likely to be electrically powered.
Section XCII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the installment of monitoring systems in police vehicles to track whether the police are violating traffic laws, with the exception of situations where speeding or other technical infractions may be necessary to apprehend other known or suspected violators or criminal offenders. The ability of police to violate traffic laws with impunity is damaging to public perception, as law enforcement should first and foremost set an example for society to follow. By holding law enforcement accountable for minor infractions such as traffic violations, it will be possible to develop a police force that
serves as an example to the public.
Section XCIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to provide a path to legalization for all current undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States, free of restrictions based on country of origin, economic status, education, length of residency, or any other criteria, other than history of violent criminal activity.
Section XCIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts to end detention of all migrants for immigration violations not related to violent crimes. All current people serving jail terms for immigration issues with no additional crimes involved with the arrest must be released, and the path to citizenship started immediately. Those for whom an additional charge was involved would need to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, with serious infractions – such as any violent offenses – potentially justifying additional detainment.
Section XCV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports measures to modernize and streamline the immigration process and eliminate the backlogs for those already in the queue. The New York Transhumanist Party advocates simplifying the documentation process, eliminating all requirements for filling out hard-copy paperwork, and utilizing technology to cut wait times and bureaucratic delays.
Section XCVI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the immediate abolition of all private prison facilities and the termination of arrangements with private contractors for detention or immigration and border enforcement. Punishment for crimes, except for situations of self-defense from the immediate commission of a crime, should be a function reserved for government alone and should never involve a profit motive, which creates incentives to artificially inflate the appearance of criminal behavior and the punishment of lesser infractions. In order to preserve the capacity for inmates and detainees to be housed in humane conditions, the United States Federal Government, as well as State and local governments, should have the prerogative to appropriate the facilities previously used by private prisons and private detention contractors, after providing appropriate one-time compensation for the property involved.
Section XCVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the establishment of a federal land dividend, whereby currently unused federal lands, with the exception of national parks, national forests, and notable landmarks, will be leased to private corporations that agree to operate in an environmentally conscientious manner, with the proceeds of the lease funding a universal basic income for the United States population.
Section XCVIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for rapid construction of hospitals to begin immediately throughout the United States, with one new hospital constructed for every 50,000 in population. Rapid construction techniques, pioneered in China during the COVID-19 outbreak, should be utilized in the United States to build new hospitals in 10 days or less. However, unlike the rapidly constructed Chinese hospitals, the new hospitals constructed in the United States should become permanent.
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for immediately waiving any zoning restrictions and building codes that would in any manner delay, prevent, or interfere with such rapid construction of hospitals.
Architectural designs for the rapidly constructed hospitals should:
(i)
Be prepared and updated as new and superior building techniques and technologies are developed;
(ii)
Include plans for multi-purpose facilities for patient care and research, or protocols for how to flexibly convert patient-care facilities into research facilities and vice versa as the need arises;
(iii)
Include separate entrances and generally separate facilities for patients infected with COVID-19 and all other patients, so as to effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19 to hospital visitors who do not have it.
Once the new permanent hospitals have been established, the New York Transhumanist Party supports a mandate for these hospitals to remain open to patients and fully staffed in perpetuity, regardless of profitability or patient influx. After the COVID-19 outbreak subsides, the new hospitals would provide major additional capacity to respond to epidemics and also conduct research on fighting diseases, including biological aging.
After the construction of the new hospitals, the New York Transhumanist Party supports an indefinite obligation for the U.S. federal government to indefinitely remedy any shortfall in funds to a new hospital in order to prevent its closure. Any hospital receiving such federal assistance shall be limited in the charges it may impose for its services to 110% of the cost of providing such services.
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the construction and retrofit of buildings adjacent to the hospitals, which could be used for any of a variety of unrelated purposes in normal times, but which could rapidly be converted into hospital space in times of pandemics by means of features that enable easy customizability, modularity, and accessibility to patients and medical personnel.
The New York Transhumanist Party views a vast and permanent expansion of hospital capacity as a necessary component of a permanent reorientation of the economy and broader society toward the pursuit of improved public health and widespread life extension. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the extent of the disruption and suffering that can occur if these goals are not made explicit and not supported by guaranteed allocations of resources immune from macroeconomic vicissitudes.
Section XCIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports for an immediate, universal, unconditional basic income of at least $1000 per month to be provided to every United States citizen for the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak and its immediate aftermath, without regard for individuals’ means or other sources of income. The priority for this program should be to prevent massive and irreparable economic disruptions to the lives of Americans in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Section C:
In recognition of the severe, sudden, and often all-encompassing adverse economic impacts resulting from governmental measures taken to limit the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, and in the conviction that the principles of justice require that governmental policies – even if necessary, unavoidable, or beneficial on balance – not damage innocent parties without just compensation, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the United States federal government to take the following actions:
(i)
Fully compensate all adversely affected businesses for all loss of income and property resulting from governmental measures taken to contain the COVID-19 epidemic. The New York Transhumanist Party holds that any businesses receiving such compensation should be
(a)
Prohibited from engaging in buybacks of their own stocks;
(b)
Prohibited from increasing executive pay if that pay currently exceeds $500,000 per executive per year.
(ii)
Fully compensate all individuals who lost their jobs or self-employment income, or suffered a reduction in working hours, as a result of governmental measures taken to contain the COVID- 19 epidemic. This compensation shall be in addition to, and not a substitute for, the universal basic income received by those individuals.
Section CI:
In recognition that the recent screening bottlenecks at United States airports create situations of unacceptable crowding which further contribute to the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for immediate admittance through security checkpoints of the vast majority of travelers currently waiting at airports in the United States. Such travelers may be required to subsequently undergo health screenings at other facilities within the United States within a certain period of time, as long as such screenings do not involuntarily place the individuals being screened in close physical proximity to one another.
Section CII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the recall of all United States military personnel from overseas stations as soon as possible and their deployment for the purpose of rapid hospital construction in the United States, as well as for providing rapid emergency aid and essential infrastructure improvements. Continued military presence abroad only unnecessarily exposes American troops to the risk of infection, while the expertise of American military personnel in crisis response is urgently needed within American borders.
Section CIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the rapid research into effective cures and vaccines for COVID-19 and the harnessing of synergies from this research to also develop a cure for the common cold and more effective vaccination against influenza. Such research should proceed with no barriers, subject to the researchers’ expression of ethical intentions, and any regulations or processes that would delay the progress of such research should be immediately waived or repealed. In the effort to accelerate progress in this field, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for an immediate $100 billion funding package for the rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine, with all volunteers being accepted into human trials as soon as practicable. The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for government funding and ownership of any cure for COVID-19, to be distributed free of charge to those infected with the virus.
Section CIV:
Because biological aging is the number-one risk factor for mortality and severe complications from COVID-19 infections, as well as infections of virtually every sort, the New York Transhumanist Party emphasizes the importance of reversing biological aging as rapidly as possible and thereby protecting more lives from future pandemics. Accordingly, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for a permanent, annual $100 billion funding package for anti-aging research, to be immediately distributed to leading research organizations in the field whichhave in the past specifically identified the defeat and reversal of biological aging as their goals.
Section CV:
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the immediate institution of a program of micropayments to everyone participating in citizen-science initiatives, such as Foldit, with the specific aim of developing cures or vaccines for COVID-19. Micropayments should be proportional to the amount of time and/or computing power spent contributing to any given initiative, with additional bounties provided for results with meaningful practical applications.
Section CVI:
In response to the dire shortage of ventilator components and other crucial equipment in hospitals treating COVID-19 patients, the New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the rapid 3D-printing of additional components through both private and governmental initiatives, as well as the deployment of on-site 3D-printers in every hospital and medical clinic to enable the future production of such components on demand. Immediate bounties should be offered by federal, state, and local government to individuals and businesses capable of producing such components. Policy initiatives should empower individuals and communities to explore the suitability of alternative manufacturing processes to produce needed parts and equipment to deal with the crisis.
Section CVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for an immediate allowance for remote learning to satisfy the completion or graduation requirements of all K-12 schools and all publicly funded colleges and universities indefinitely going forward. Not only is physical proximity not necessary for effective learning in light of rapidly advancing technologies allowing immersive interaction at a distance, but the encouragement of remote learning also allows individuals more flexibility in advancing at their own pace and focusing on subjects and skill sets which result in the greatest fulfillment and most improved life prospects. The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the maximal adoption of diverse homeschooling approaches throughout the United States, suited to the individual aptitudes, preferences, and learning styles of students.
The New York Transhumanist Party also supports refocusing the education system on producing the goods and services necessary to maintain United States independence, including vocational studies in electricity, metalwork, ceramics, auto mechanics, graphic arts, and coding in the classroom.
Section CVIII:
In recognition that unsanitary living conditions are a primary cause of the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the New York Transhumanist Party supports the immediate and mandatory housing of the homeless, achieved by means of the rapid construction of tiny homes, including 3D-printed homes, without regard for building codes or zoning regulations, which must be immediately waived to allow such construction.
Every homeless individual discovered by local authorities would be required to move into a separate small home free of monetary cost and would be granted free conditional title to the home. The conditions of the title would be that the new homeowner would be obligated to perform litter-cleanup and other community-service duties for a specified time period per day under supervision, until and unless he or she is able to find different or better housing independently. The new housing communities would be subject to actively enforced covenants and restrictions prohibiting alcohol and recreational drugs. Such prohibitions will have the side benefit of transitioning the homeless toward meaningful social participation and useful work.
Section CIX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports establishing a rapid three-month training and certification program for hundreds of thousands of medical personnel specifically for responding to the COVID-19 outbreak and other pandemics. While the newly trained medical practitioners would not be full-fledged medical doctors, they would be provided with fundamental knowledge of epidemiology, first aid, sanitary practices, and patient care, including the operation of the devices used to assist severely ill patients. This would greatly supplement the available personnel to respond effectively to the COVID-19 outbreak and also anticipate future pandemics.
The new COVID-19 medical responders would be compensated generously and selected from among high-performing students and other populations with demonstrated competence and aptitude for learning. For any first responders with student loans, those loans would be forgiven in exchange for a commitment to serve until the COVID-19 pandemic is eradicated. Those medical responders who remain in their positions afterward will receive continuous training on effective pandemic response so as to be in a superior position to anticipate, prevent, and mitigate future outbreaks.
Section CX:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the immediate deployment of as many COVID-19 diagnostic tests as possible to the general population, with the aim of achieving universal testing of every American, even those without symptoms, free of charge. Universal testing is necessary to understand the true prevalence of COVID-19 infections and the proportion of serious cases and fatalities relative to actual total cases, not merely reported cases. This would enable a true understanding of the extent of the epidemic’s spread as well as how the rates of serious complications and death compare to the common cold and influenza. The New York Transhumanist Party supports generous aid to both private and governmental research teams working in parallel on developing effective testing kits and approaches, particularly those which do not require large numbers of people to congregate.
The New York Transhumanist Party also advocates for COVID-19 testing kits to be developed that could result in tests being self-administered by individuals in their own homes and then mailed to laboratories for evaluation. This would minimize the physical contact of individuals being tested with medical practitioners and other patients.
Section CXI:
The New York Transhumanist Party advocates for the establishment of facilities, such as warehouses, where essential supplies would be temporarily stored in large quantities in case of emergencies such as COVID-19. Distributors would supply to these warehouses a large surplus of essential goods, and hospitals, medical research facilities, pharmaceutical companies, and other medical organizations would get their normal supplies, including masks, soap, hand-sanitizer, and common device components, from there in the event of any shortages. In case of an epidemic, there will be enough supplies on hand to provide such institutions for a prolonged period of time.
The essential supplies stored by such facilities would include ready-made hazmat suits that could be distributed to both medical practitioners and the population at large in the event of a highly contagious disease outbreak, along with clear and layperson-friendly instructions of how to put on and use the hazmat suits effectively.
Section CXII:
The New York Transhumanist Party holds that, as a proactive measure, the United States should spearhead an initiative to collaborate with other wealthy nations, or by means of the World Health Organization (WHO), to set up a financial and material package of supplies and infrastructure to be deployed anywhere in the world in case a pathogen is found that needs to rapidly be contained in a foreign nation. This could be particularly important if the origin country is one that cannot itself manage to contain the outbreak due to poverty or lack of resources. This could help prevent a pathogen from ever coming to the United States.
A committee or part of an existing office should research and collaborate with other nations to learn and establish best or improved practices and update emergency plans accordingly. Likewise such collaborative efforts could establish which practices are not effective and remove those accordingly.
Section CXIII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports efforts by the federal government to begin an initiative in collaboration with businesses to create packages of emergency medical supplies, akin to a first-aid kit box, for civilians to buy for an affordable price, and offered for free to those who fall below the poverty line. Such a package could include advanced face masks, hand-sanitizer, soap, latex gloves, and other important items for effective epidemic response. The kit should come with clear instructions on how and when to use it, as well as instructions regarding self-quarantining and the express notice that the kit should not be re-sold, because the health and safety of everyone depends on the maximum number of people participating. This advance provision of response kits would have the effects of lowering the pressure on supply when there is an emergency and enabling people to be better prepared from the start, thus immediately limiting the spread of a pathogen.
Section CXIV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the inclusion of education on epidemic crises in the curricula of schools. Science-based instruction on key attributes of epidemics and pandemics, historical instances, and effective responses could be incorporated within related courses, such as biology.
Section CXV:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the immediate and complete repeal of all “certificate of need” laws, which currently, in many jurisdictions, prohibit the construction of new hospitals or the expansion of capacity of existing hospitals, unless “need” is demonstrated using arbitrary criteria overseen by incumbents within the hospital industry. “Certificate of need” laws are entirely deleterious and have no redeeming features of any sort. They constitute pure protectionism for the incomes of incumbents, at the expense of available and affordable health care, especially in times of increased strain, such as pandemics.
Section CXVI:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the development of vaccines under conditions that do not afford patents to the developers but instead compensate the developers in the form of bounties for safe, effective vaccines and their rapid production and deployment. Patents, as grants of exclusive monopoly privilege for as long as twenty years, operate to limit the supply of a vaccine and render it artificially expensive. Bounties and other forms of compensation based on production and distribution of vaccines would be better aligned with the urgent public interest in those vaccines’ rapid availability to the general population.
Section CXVII:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the deployment of robots and automated systems wherever possible to assist COVID-19 patients and individuals who are at greater risk for serious complications from COVID-19. These systems could include autonomous vehicles, food-delivery robots and drones, and production robots in as many industries as possible to reduce the human presence in factories while continuing to manufacture many goods necessary for human life and well-being.
Section CXVIII:
Given the extreme delays, bottlenecks, and expenses created by the mandatory approval processes on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the New York Transhumanist Party supports abolishing the FDA and replacing it with a Radical Life Extension Administration (RLEA), whose mandate would be to prioritize the rapid development of potential disease cures, treatments, and vaccines – including any possible cures or vaccines for COVID-19, as well as treatments to mitigate and reverse the disease of biological aging, the major risk factor for COVID-19. The RLEA would allow the marketing and collection of patient data on any potential cure, treatment, or vaccine which has passed affordable safety testing at a reasonably acceptable threshold.
Article VII. Unique Positions of the New York Transhumanist Party
Section I:
The New York Transhumanist Party supports the United States Transhumanist Party and any of its officially nominated or endorsed candidates for Federal office.
Section II:
The New York Transhumanist Party condemns homeless sweeps within New York City and calls for providing homes and apartments to the homeless by various means and aiding mutual-aid groups that engage in homeless outreach.
Section III:
The New York Transhumanist Party calls on the New York City government to do its full part in providing migrants to New York City with the necessary means to survive and prosper within the 5 boroughs of New York City, such as housing, healthcare, and other services that New York City or New York State can offer, without predatory tactics that hinder other organizations or groups that are only there to help.
Article VIII. Candidates
Section I:
In order to be eligible to become endorsed by the New York Transhumanist Party as a candidate for any local or state office, an individual must satisfy the following criteria.
(i)
The individual satisfies the minimum qualifications pursuant to applicable law for holding the office for which the individual seeks to run.
(ii)
The individual has never committed any violent crime. A violent crime includes physical injury or destruction inflicted upon any person. A violent crime also includes physical damage or destruction inflicted upon property. As used in this subsection, the term “violent crime” includes but is not necessarily limited to the following: murder, manslaughter, rape, human trafficking, domestic violence, robbery, assault, battery, looting, arson, and rioting.
(iii)
The individual has never committed any financial crime which had any victim, including but not limited to fraud, embezzlement, theft, cybercrime, or financing of violent or criminal groups.
(iv)
The individual has never engaged in documented acts of cyberbullying, cyber-harassment, or intentional spreading of false accusations against another individual online.
(v)
The individual has never engaged in acts understood to be of a highly unacceptable nature
within every contemporary agricultural, industrial, or post-industrial society.
(vi)
The individual has never engaged in acts which are understood by the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party to have been undertaken by that individual primarily for the purposes of generating shock value or for transgression for the sake of transgression.
​(vii)
The individual must agree to participate in any process designated by the Officers of the United States Transhumanist Party and/or the New York Transhumanist Party for the determination of whether or not that individual may be endorsed as a candidate and to respect the outcome of that process, no matter whether or not that individual is ultimately endorsed as a candidate.
(viii)
The individual must agree to work collaboratively with the United States Transhumanist Party and the New York Transhumanist Party during the campaign season and not to disparage the United States Transhumanist Party or the New York Transhumanist Party as well as not to work contrary to the interests and goals of the United States Transhumanist Party or the New York Transhumanist Party during that time.
(ix)
The individual must never have disparaged the United States Transhumanist Party or the New York Transhumanist Party or any of its current Officers in good standing within any written publication or public video or audio recording. This criterion does not, however, preclude constructive criticism, and a reasonable-person test shall be used to differentiate constructive criticism from disparagement.
(x)
The individual must commit to running for office as a candidate endorsed by the New York
Transhumanist Party until the conclusion of the election in which the individual seeks to be a
candidate.
(xi)
The individual must have never reneged on a prior commitment to run for office as a candidate endorsed by the United States Transhumanist Party or the New York Transhumanist Party until the conclusion of the election in which the individual sought to be a candidate.
(xii)
The individual must never have falsely alleged any electoral malfeasance on the part of the United States Transhumanist Party or the New York Transhumanist Party.
(xiii)
The individual must never have undertaken or threatened to undertake any legal action or make any formal complaint to an external entity against the United States Transhumanist Party or the New York Transhumanist Party or any Officer thereof in good standing.
(xiv)
The individual must express agreement with the Core Ideals of the New York Transhumanist Party as described in Article I, Section I, of this Constitution.
(xv)
The policy positions of the individual should have significant areas of alignment with the United States Transhumanist Party Platform as adopted by the New York Transhumanist Party and as described in Article VI of this Constitution.
(xvi)
The individual must agree, in that individual’s public statements, to either (a) specifically and openly express support for transhumanism and/or life extension; or (b) specifically and openly reference the endorsement of that individual by the New York Transhumanist Party and/or the United States Transhumanist Party.
Section II:
The Officers of the New York Transhumanist Party may utilize any additional criteria, including the Officers’ individual assessments of the candidate’s character, personality, and reliability, in order to determine whether or not to render the candidate eligible for endorsement by the New York Transhumanist Party.
Section III:
The Officers of the New York Transhumanist Party may, at their discretion, delegate the process of endorsing any candidate to the United States Transhumanist Party.