Transhumanist Wager, The (34 page)

“From our first day alive on this
planet, they began teaching society everything it knows and experiences. It was
all brainwashing bullshit. Their trio of holy catechisms is: faith is more
important than reason; inputs are more important than outcomes; hope is more
important than reality. It was designed to choke your independent thinking and
acting—to bring out the lowest common denominator in people—so that vast
amounts of the general public would literally buy into the sponsorship and
preservation of their hegemonic nation. Their greatest achievement was the
creation of the two-party political system; it gave the illusion of choice, but
never offered any change; it promised freedom, but only delivered more limits.
In the end, you got stuck with two leading loser parties and not just one. It
completed their trap of underhanded domination, and it worked masterfully. Look
anywhere you go. America is a nation of submissive, dumbed-down, codependent,
faith-minded zombies obsessed with celebrity gossip, buying unnecessary goods,
and socializing without purpose on their electronic gadgets. The crazy thing is
that people don’t even know it; they still think they’re free. Everywhere,
people have been made into silent accomplices in the government’s twisted
control game. In the end, there is no way out for anyone.

“What seems worst of all, though,
is that even the leaders don’t recognize this. The greatest danger of the whole
mess is that all this Western-American conditioning has been on autopilot for
centuries. Nobody is in control of it anymore. It’s a mindless goliath
wandering the Earth, devouring lives, erasing potential, and following its
every whim—regardless of how irrational, obscene, uneducated, enslaving, or
backwards its actions are. The American Dream has become a death sentence of
drudgery, consumerism, and fatalism: a garage sale where the best of the human
spirit is bartered away for comfort, obedience, and trinkets. It’s
unequivocally absurd.

“Gratefully, Transhumanists think
differently. We don’t belong to that feeble-minded populace. We don’t accept
their rules and mandates as the gold standard of civilization and experience.
We have seen their trap for what it is, and now have a very different mindset
than the typical American. Yet, unfortunately, we're still really just U.S.
citizens, subject to their cultural, commercial, and religious
colonialism—which includes virtually zero lack of rational futuristic vision or
support for our transhuman causes.

“Ultimately, that’s why I feel
Gregory is correct: we represent a huge disruption to their Judeo-Christian
society. Their culture was designed to amass and preserve power to protect its
conservative heritage, its nesting way of life, its consumer-addicted,
Hollywood-inspired babies—all so they can remain wrapped up comfortably in
their god's hands. We want to amass and preserve power to protect our lives so
that no god or group of irrational people could ever hold us in their hands.
It's so utterly different.”

Zoe interrupted Jethro by saying,
“But no one will leave America to go somewhere else unless that place rivals
America in terms of opportunity and possibilities. Including me.”

Jethro readjusted himself and knelt
before her.

“Of course, my love. That’s why I
must build this new transhuman nation. I must amaze you all. I must convince
you that it’s the most remarkable and thrilling place in the world to be. I
must make you want to go there. The jobs, research possibilities, and the
atmosphere must be astounding—with fantastic pay, ultramodern facilities, and
amazing collaboration between respected colleagues. I need to make it so people
yearn to be there. So they don't want to miss it. So they
refuse
to miss
it. These are people you can’t buy, but have to convince through a multitude of
reasons, including their rationality, their professional ambitions, and most
importantly, their transhuman dreams.”

Langmore interjected, “Hopefully,
mostly
their transhuman dreams. It is, after all, their existences at stake if nothing
becomes of the movement. What do you think, Jethro? How much more time do you
think we need before we get close to a technical immortality for humans with
our science?”

“Eight to twelve years, with enough
funding. More years of experiments afterward to eliminate perils, unwanted side
effects, and dead ends. In less than two decades, however, we could be at the
doorstep of a reasonably waged, ongoing sentience. A place where transhumanists
could easily make it into unlimited lifespans. So many of these breakthroughs
are almost ours. I see and read about them all the time. Bobby Fitchenson in
Maryland with his neurotech advancements. Jeannine Bernine in New Mexico with
her super stem cells. Our own Phillip Maston with his genetic therapy miracles.
But they could all be deeply stifled, or even lost, if this research is
outlawed over the next few weeks or months. That's for sure. The NFSA must know
that. Reverend Belinas and the top officials must know how close we're getting,
and how momentous some of these advances are for the human species.”

 “But you’ve said it yourself
before,” Langmore said. “The full-blown Transhumania plan will cost many
billions of dollars. To build those facilities, to buy an island or miles of
land, to start construction on that scale, to start a real transhuman
nation—that would take a thousand times more resources than we currently
possess.”

“Of course. It’s farfetched now,
Preston. We need so much more in funds. And the wealthy investors and donors
who could realistically make it happen must believe in its success before they
give to it. They voice it every time I speak to them. Yet, it's important to
come to a conclusion here—that we’re moving. That we’re starting down that
road. That we're implementing a radical new strategy. We are leaving to find
and build Transhumania—the transhuman nation.”

Jethro stood up, walked over to a
large world map on his wall, and observed it.

“Preston, I need you to help me do
this, to convince and lead your colleagues and the other groups to join me in
creating this nation—this awe-inspiring vision of our future.”

Jethro turned to Zoe, and painfully
looked at her. “My beautiful wife, I need you most of all. To allow and
encourage me to follow the path that you know I can't turn my back on.”

Chapter 21

Breaking news of the NFSA doubling
in size to wipe out the transhumanist threat in America went viral. Media
across the country rushed to capture and tell the story. The
USA Daily
Tribune
was the first to officially print the new government slogan, “War
on Transhumanism,” delivered verbatim by Senator Michaelson in his latest
interview.

IMN contributed their part by
airing speculative TV news pieces about the increasingly frequent meetings
between Reverend Belinas and the President of the United States: for lunch in
Denver; at an awards ceremony in New York; opening a new government memorial
together in Washington, D.C. The President even attended one of Belinas'
sermons in Savannah, where the reverend preached that humans were made in the
image of God, and that the unique image of the species was never to change
unless God changed it. His sermon climaxed with, “God is not a machine, a
cyborg, or a mutation. Humans should not be either—God and the Bible forbid
it.”

The
American Business Times
,
the continent’s largest business publication, ran an op-ed piece by Senator
Shuman saying the time had come to defend the institution of being human. The
article warned that U.S. scientists were already conducting experiments to
create anomalies of humans, including a bionic subspecies. Shuman detailed in
nightmarish terms the scenario of an American future where some human beings
were no different than fiendish monsters, taunting civil society and corrupting
innocent, faith-minded youth. 

Around the nation, a creepy
apprehension began to form in the public eye, prompted by various government
reports, the media, and even individual word-of-mouth accounts. Rumors were
spread of human clones walking around unhindered in a major Los Angeles
university's science department. A popular television news show accused an
artificial intelligence program of haunting the nation’s computers—declaring it
responsible for causing car accidents in Miami, San Diego, and Dallas, when it
overtook their respective traffic light grids. A bestselling author published a
book detailing how a nefarious, self-replicating virus in navigation servers
caused a recent commercial airplane crash in Chicago, in which 286 people died.
A widely read government study explained how embryonic stem cell treatments
derived from abortions were causing a soaring rise in autistic offspring. On
the Internet, the most watched clip of the year was of a prototype
Japanese-made cooking robot, caught attacking and wounding its owner with a
knife.

Senator Michaelson went on numerous
talk shows, loudly voicing that the dignity of our species was at stake. He
claimed unprecedented government force and diligence was necessary to implement
the new, harsher strategies for eliminating the transhumanist threat.

 “We’re shifting gears and
ratcheting up the battle to stop what could very well be the greatest menace of
our time,” IMN quoted him as saying.

Jethro Knights spent much of the
past four weeks traveling in planes and taxis, talking to the leaders of the
transhuman movement, revisiting donors, meeting with entrepreneurs, and trying
to calm people's nerves. To each, he privately announced his plans to leave
America and form Transhumania. Jethro was welcomed everywhere; however, far
fewer people wanted to commit money or resources, especially to an audacious
new idea like Transhumania.

“Unfortunately,” one entrepreneur
reluctantly told him, “the new mandates of NFSA make it practically a crime to
be associated with funding transhumanist groups. I have a family to feed and to
worry about. I've been working with you guys for fifteen years, but I’ve got to
call it quits before I get in real trouble.”

Adding to Jethro's frustration was
a simple mathematical fact: There was less money to go around than the year
before. The American and global economies had recently begun another decline.
Stock market losses led to some business empires literally vanishing—and
millions of jobs with them. The rich were bunkering up, permanently closing
their wallets. The appetite for financial risk was nearing zero. Inflation shot
up in the United States, as the government inevitably printed more money to
fund its snowballing debt and its pet agencies like the NFSA.

Zoe Bach accompanied Jethro on his
travels when she could, her belly showing at five months like a small
basketball. Despite her initial reluctance, she eventually embraced his idea of
Transhumania. It was just like him, she thought, to take on something so
massive, so bold, so revolutionary. She knew that she would follow him. He
promised her one of his first projects in Transhumania would be the
construction of the planet’s most extraordinary medical center for research and
surgery.

Despite the crumbling world outside
and the daunting battle with the NFSA, it remained an extraordinary time for
Zoe and Jethro. They basked in the adoration of one another and spoke often of
their child’s future. Late at night, when Zoe was sleeping and gestating,
Jethro would wrap his arms around her belly and feel the baby's soft kicks.

Zoe also provided Jethro a
competent sounding board. He asked her opinion on all matters regarding the
operations of Transhuman Citizen. She balanced his provocative persona and
forcefulness with ideas of peace, compatibility, and diplomacy. When Jethro was
away on business, Zoe painted life-sized walruses, lions, and elephants on a
wall in the nursery, near where the crib would go in their new large
three-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto. When he came home and saw the mural, he
laughed, took the paint, and began drawing friendly-looking robots, computers,
and rocket ships amongst the animals.

For Jethro, so much happiness and
peace with Zoe bore strange, alien feelings. He wondered why as he jogged in
the nearby foothills. He had never felt so content in his life, even though he
knew so much difficult, perhaps impossible, work lay ahead. He conceded that
this type of happiness was risky. His wife and imminent baby seemed unreal, a
reverie too good to be lasting. A feeling of despair always accompanied moments
of joy. His work, Transhuman Citizen's struggle, seemed more real, more
tangible.

In the same week Congress approved
additional legislation and funding to expand the scope and powers of the NFSA,
Jethro Knights was invited to the annual Transhumanism Conference, to be held
this year in Washington, D.C. With all the important leaders of transhumanism
gathering there, it amounted to an epic brainstorming session on how best to
ensure the movement's survival. It wasn’t just in America that pressure against
life extension and human enhancement science was growing; all around the globe,
governments were clamping down on transhumanists and their organizations.

Due to all that had transpired in
the past two years since the Cryotask bombing, Jethro Knights was asked to be
the guest of honor and lead speaker of the conference. Preston Langmore
insisted on this when he met with the meeting’s organizers. He knew Jethro
would use the opportunity to make his announcement of Transhumania, an idea
Langmore increasingly embraced as a last-minute miracle pitch before the
movement was forced underground or even disbanded.

Reverend Belinas thought the
conference would be the best opportunity all year to ignite a loud transhuman
catastrophe in public. Why not torch the entire banquet hall, he asked himself,
imagining it to be like the Book of Revelation's lake of fire. No, too
dramatic. Too difficult. Maybe just a small bomb, easily hidden, to kill Jethro
Knights. A clear message and death blow to the movement. Without a true radical
like him—one who would rather be skinned alive than give up transhumanism—they
could never accomplish anything substantial.