Sleeping is the latest “illness” that the U.S. trans humanist party presidential candidate wants to cure. He also wants to eradicate death and perfect almost every aspect of the human body.
“I hate sleeping and always have. I see sleeping as an early form of dipping in and out of death. Sleeping is probably the most wasteful thing all humans do, but like everyone else, I’m a slave to my body and mind, and I require sleep to function normally,” said Istvan.
The transhumanist has tried everything not to sleep: “I chugged coffee and popped [caffeine pills] daily, sometimes up to five tablets a day.”
Eventually, caffeine stopped keeping Istvan awake and sleep got the better of him. But Istvan wasn’t ready to admit defeat. “To make sleeping more worthwhile, I read a few books on how to dream better and how best to record my thoughts after I awoke.
“I tend to dream big, especially when I do certain wacky drugs. I took up lucid dreaming. I learnt how to fly on demand, dream in vivid colours and control to some extent what I wanted to do,” told Istvan.
Istvan is interested in military research into keeping troops awake and focused for longer, stating that a technique that sends mild electrical currents through the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (at the front of the brain) is “promising”.
Zoltan travels in a bus shaped like a coffin Source: Zoltan Istvan
Where it all began
It was after Istvan, who was working as a journalist at the time, nearly stepped on an unexploded bomb in Vietnam that his thinking changed and he devoted himself to the trans humanist movement – a movement that believes in the use of technology to avoid death.
He has since wrote a book, the Transhumanist Wager, on the story of the Jethro Knights, a philosopher criticises democratic politics and eventually enforces an authoritarian regime.
Recently, Istvan has distanced himself from his book but still subscribes to some absolutism theories. “If you actually have a benevolent dictator that could be great for the country.”
Although the presidential candidate is quick to clarify the ultimate goal would be to have a truly altruistic artificial intelligence president serving the best interests of the people.
Looking off into the distance, or taking a quick nap? Source: Zoltan Istvan
Driving trans humanism one bus journey at a time into the mainstream
Istvan is interested in making his party appeal to a wide audience. “The real goal is to get millions and millions [of people] to consider longevity issues, transhumanism, cyborgism and how they’ll affect the future.”
He wants to make the party as centrist as possible and doesn’t intend to let the rich keep immortality technology for themselves.
To spread his ideas Istvan has been travelling around the United States in a coffin shaped immortality bus that was founded through a crowd funding campaign. He admits the bus is a publicity stunt – but its certainly working.
A vision for far future – not just the future
The trans humanist U.S. presidential candidate is certainly far more concerned by the long-term future in comparison with other candidates whose campaigns have focused on IS, Iraq and the U.S. economy.
But it’s unclear just when Istvan’s idea of longevity could actually come into force; nobody knows when the artificial intelligence that he dreams of and yearns for will be a reality.
But he’s an optimist: “We may not knock out artificial intelligence for another 50 years. We might find the human brain is so much more complex than we ever thought. But we might all have 3-D-printed organs so that we’re able to easily live that much longer.”
However absurd Istvan and his coffin bus may sound, he’s not delusional. “There’s no real chance of winning this time around. What I have done myself is I’ve actually emailed Hillary Clinton team and said ‘Look, are you looking for a technology advisor?’”
Istvan is just as determined to get his foot into the door of the White House as he is about living in a sleep-less world. He expects scientists to have come to a point where humans only need two hours of sleep in the next 25 years.
Signing off his column for Motherboard he wrote: “Sleeping a third of my away – or approximately 26 years on average – is not only insane, but tragic.”
