The traditional issues of an American presidential campaign are the immigration, wage gap. taxes and climate change. These are the kind of issues we expect both Democratic and Republican candidates to debate during their campaigns. But Zoltan Istvan is a different type of presidential candidate than we are used with. For him, another policy issue is on top of the list.
Istvan is the founder of the Transhumanist Party, a political organization focused on using advances in science and technology to solve all the problems in the world. His campaign is centered on solving death and aging. Istvan seeks to transform longevity research in an issue as big as immigration or social security.
For the president of the Transhumanist Party, aging and death are the biggest plagues of our time but has come the time when science and technology can find the cure. According to Istvan, a major part of his campaign is focused on explaining to American electors that actually aging is a disease and not something natural as we are used to thinking. In an interview for Tech Insider, Istvan declared that to not be using science and technology in the 21th century for achieving everyone's longevity "should not be allowed anymore."
"Until now, unfortunately, the Federal government doesn't seem to make investing in longevity research one of its priorities," Istvan said. For this reason, the 42-year-old president of the Transhumanist Party is planning to travel across the country next month to campaign on his political platform of using science and technology to live forever.
His bus tour called the "Immortality Bus" will have a group of scientists and other transhumanists touring the nation to remind people that we have a real chance of stopping death but unless we take action to stop it is not going to happen by itself.
The so-called "Immortality Bus" will kick off on the west coast, making stops in cities across the nation and warning that there are not enough resources currently being allocated for investments in anti-aging and life extension research.
Istvan declared that he believes, like other transhumanists, that merging technology with human biology can cure all diseases, including aging, and it can radically extend life. For instance, using bionic organs as transplants, stem cells factories, nanobots, genetic engineering and other emerging technologies will make possible achieving unlimited life extension. But this will only become possible when people themselves become conscious on the possibilities of the modern science and demand that the government allocates more on longevity research.
Istvan believes that people have just been conditioned to think that aging is just a natural part of existence. But, according to him, that's just a program and the job of the Transhumanist Party is to un-condition that. This was the program until we reached the 21st century, but now genetics and bionics and robotics give scientists a real chance of stopping death and aging, treating them as something "similar to a disease than some natural phenomenon."
