Transhumanist Street Actions Continue In Washington, D.C.

Transhumanist and longevity activist Maria Konovalenko in front of the White House. (Photo by Turchin Alexei)

On August 17, in front of the White House gates, Russian Transhumanists Maria Konovalenko and Turchin Alexei, both members of the Longevity Party, traveled to Washington, D.C. to demand more extensive research on aging and age-related diseases.

Crowds swarmed in to take pictures of the White House, but little did they know dedicated activists for radical life extension would be present as well. As members of the Longevity Party, their main focus of action is in ensuring that anti-aging research is put front and center throughout the political landscapes of the United States. To not take aging seriously would be to maintain the status quo – imminent death.

Maria Konovalenko and her friend Lisa demanding anti-aging research funding in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Turchin Alexei)

Several signs were present during the demonstration, from “I Demand Funding For Antiaging Research” to a simple sign saying “Immortality.” Both Maria Konovalenko and Turchin Alexei laid out a sign which went into detail of what their party calls “Achieving Personal Immortality Roadmap.”

“The roadmap to personal immortality is the most complete list of actions,” said Alexei, “which one should do to live forever. The most obvious way to reach immortality is to defeat aging.” Their roadmap devises several different plans in achieving this:

1. To achieve negligible senescence – or what gerontologist  Aubrey de Gray calls ‘Longevity Escape Velocity’ – by growing new organs, either by stem cells or 3D printing, and subsequently whole bodies, which would also require active maintenance via nanobots;
2. To ensure a safety protocol in case their plans to defeat aging aren’t met before their own untimely death, which would be achieved via cryonics – the cryopreservation of either your head or whole body until the disease in which killed you can be cured and yourself resuscitated back to life;
3. A risky, but otherwise necessary option, to upload your conscious mind into a separate, artificial brain in the hopes of achieving what is dubbed “digital immortality,” in case neither anti-aging research nor cryonics results in your indefinite life extension; and
4. If all else fails, there is at least the hope – albeit highly unlikely – to achieve “immortality” by means of either “quantum immortality,” resuscitation by future super A.I.’s, being rematerialized by simple cataloged information of your life and genetic code, etc.

Longevity Party members Turchin Alexei (L) and Maria Konovalenko (R) holding up a sign detailing their ‘Immortality Roadmap’. (Photo by Turchin Alexei)

Like the past actions for Transhumanism in California and New York earlier this year, while the number of people participating were few, the message was large and loud – indefinite life extension, now! The topics of longevity and Transhumanism has grown and continues to grow as it reaches into the limelight of mainstream politics. With the help of the Longevity Party, the prospect of a Transhuman future could very well be within our grasp in the coming years.

To quote Maria Konovalenko’s pleading to the whole world watching in, “Do it like me, do it together with me, do it better than me!”