Whatever you think of transhumanism, one thing is quite certain: the transhumanist movement is alive, healthy and growing.

Whatever you think of transhumanism, one thing is quite certain: the transhumanist movement is alive, healthy and growing. In any ordinary week in the world of bioethics, several articles will be published exploring one aspect or other of transhumanism.

Consider, for example, Zoltan Istvan, best-selling author and self-proclaimed “transhumanist visionary”. Istvan has published 20 articles this year in the Huffington Post on transhumanism. He recently announced that he intends to run as a representative of the Transhumanist Party in the 2016 US presidential elections.

There is also a fully-fledged international transhumanist society, Humanity +. The organisation, founded in 1998, runs seminars around the world to discuss the latest developments in human enhancement technologies. The also organisation publish the online quarterly Humanity + magazine, a publication dedicated to discussing transhumanist news and ideas.

In a recent blog post, Wesley Smith argued that the transhumanist vision was a mere ‘utopian fantasy land’. A small army of transhumanist supporters came to the support of the movement, commenting extensively on the article and criticising Smith’s argument. 

The rise of the transhumanist movement
Xavier Symons
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transhumanism
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Xavier Symons

Xavier Symons is a bioethicist and scholar in residence at the Kennedy Institute for Ethics at Georgetown University.

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