Humanity+

The newly elected Board members of Humanity+ are Max More, Howard Bloom and Thomas McCabe. Welcome!

Humanity+ sends a sincere thank you to all candidates who ran for the Board. You are valued members and we look forward to working with you in building our future.

Dear Humanity+ Membership:

The voting for candidates to fill three (3) seats on the Board of Directors is open. Please VOTE HERE for the candidate(s) you think would best work with Humanity+’s new direction and accomplishing the goal of building an even more substantial, worldwide forum for the future of humanity.

Having been a Board member for the past year, I have enjoyed working with our chair Ben Goertzel, our Treasurer Amy Li, and our other current Board members Todd Huffman, Mike LaTorra, David Orban and Michael Vassar. I am hoping that the 3 new board members will complement and enhance this excellent group.

There are numerous examples of how Humanity+ effectively partners with its members and others to achieve tangible results. My view is that the most important element of the Board is our ability to work together as a team and support each other’s projects, combining ambition for the organization’s growth with respect for each other and the organization—both valued characteristics and essential ingredients.

It is satisfying to see such high-quality candidates, each with his or her own unique set of skills and experiences, running for our Board seats.

See you at the pool!

Natasha Vita-More
Board of Directors and Secretary, Humanity+

Some of the world’s most influential conferences spotlight technology and business. Others focus on emerging technologies and ethics, economics, and social change. And still others are concerned with media technologies and human-computer integration, gaming, virtuality and immersivity.

If only these distinct domains of expertise could be synthesized into one conference!

That is precisely the goal of Humanity+ in producing its conferences over the past decade. Starting with TransVision 03-07 and then Convergence 08, and now its H+ Summit, the goal of Humanity+ is to concentrate on synthesizing information through the lens of the future.

It does not go unnoticed that a distinct characteristic of the H+ Summits is to motivate mind-shifting ideas. Our public outreach on near and far futures is substantiated by our historical collection of works from prominent thinkers, which form the worldview of transhumanism and which are solidly based in science, technology and the humanities. This collection of ideas includes philosophical explorations into the basis for knowledge and science and technologies developments for expanding that knowledge toward engaging the most current and exciting technologies of today—biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial general intelligence, and astronomy, space exploration, industrial design, literature and the visual arts and entertainment.

Humanity+’s next H+ Summit “Live Long and Prosper” will be taking a look at superlongevity and ways in which we can prosper–our health, wellness, and vitality during a difficult global economy. The summit is currently slated for November 5, 6 and 7, 2010, in Los Angeles.  Watch this space for more details, and see the registration page at EventBrite as well.

Some of the topics of discussion will be superlongevity—living beyond the 122-123 limited lifespan; the truths and fallacies of the health field, including pharmacology, fitness and nutrition; and the most recent research on living longer and healthier. Of equal significance will be discussions on how we can afford to live longer during a time of economic hardship. Topics will include investment strategies for the long-term, spending and financial wisdom, including issues concerning the private and public sectors for economic growth and development.

Transhumanism is supportive of extending the human lifespan through technological innovations. This cannot be accomplished without health and vitality. Now is the time to be proactive about physical and intellectual fitness and exercise our body and our mind. And with this said, I hope to give a talk 1 on One Prescription for FITNESS (Vita-More and Christian, 2001), which was written primarily for women with a focus on aerobics, aerobics, muscle building and yoga. Interestingly enough now that I think about it, I realize that it ought to focus on human transformational fitness—not gender-specific fitness issues. Perhaps I’ll create a trilogy: human, transhuman, and posthuman fitness. Can you imagine a “fitness” book for our future multiple selves in cyberspace? Now that would be fun (and there is no telling what a collaborative team of designers and AGI researchers might come up with)!

Until then, I invite you to think about your own physical and intellectual fitness and our next H+ Summit and join us as we take look at extreme life and ways in which we can prosper—our health, wellness, and vitality during a difficult global economy.

Natasha Vita-More

The start of the voting for the interim Board elections of Humanity+ has been postponed by one week to Aug 13. This means that you have one extra week to renew your membership, send in your nomination (or nominate somebody), and then start and participate in the voting process for the next two weeks.

A reminder of some details:
- all Full Members of Humanity+ can be nominated (or nominate themselves) for the Board of Directors
- all Full Members of Humanity+ can vote in the interim elections from Aug 13 to Aug 27
- you can join Humanity+ any time, and the yearly memberships expire Dec 31 each year
- you can also decide to join with an automatic monthly donation, which continues until you stop
- the candidate statements of nominees are going to be posted online on Aug 13
- the voting will occur on the dedicated online group on Yahoo accessible to Full Members

Questions? Ask them in the comments!

After serving as Executive Director of Humanity+ for 15 months Alex Lightman has recently resigned. During his term, Lightman organized H+ Summits in Irvine, California and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and participated in negotiating the return of H+ magazine to Humanity+. On behalf of Humanity+, we thank him for his efforts and wish him the best with his projects.