Philosophy and the Future: A Transhumanist Examination of Where We’re Going

After publishing his bestselling novel The Transhumanist Wager in 2013, Zoltan Istvan began frequently writing essays about the future. A former journalist with National Geographic, Istvan’s essays spanned topics from the Singularity to cyborgism to radical longevity to futurist philosophy. He also wrote about politics as he made a surprisingly popular run for the US Presidency in 2016, touring the country aboard his coffin-shaped Immortality Bus, which The New York Times Magazine called “The great sarcophagus of the American highway…a metaphor of life itself.” Zoltan’s provocative campaign and radical tech-themed articles garnered him the title of the “Science Candidate” by his supporters. Many of his writings—published in Vice, Quartz, Slate, The Guardian, Yahoo! News, Gizmodo, TechCruch, Psychology Today, Salon, New Scientist, Business Insider, The Daily Dot, Maven, Cato Institute, The Daily Caller, Metro, International Business Times, Wired UK, The San Francisco Chronicle, Newsweek, and The New York Times—went viral on the internet, garnishing millions of reads and tens of thousands of comments. His articles—often seen as controversial, provocative, and secular—elevated him to worldwide recognition as one of the de facto leaders of the burgeoning transhumanism movement. Here are many of those watershed essays again, organized, edited, and occasionally readapted by the author in this comprehensive nonfiction work, Philosophy and the Future: A Transhumanist Examination of Where We’re Going—part of a forthcoming box set book collection of his work focusing on futurism, secularism, life extension, politics, philosophy, transhumanism and his early writings. Also included are some of Zoltan’s new essays, never published before. Enjoy reading about the future according to Zoltan Istvan.


Meet Zoltan Istvan

Zoltan Istvan biography

Zoltan Istvan is widely recognized as a leading international futurist, technologist and America’s first science political candidate. In his 20s, Zoltan started as a journalist at National Geographic Channel. Later, he became a successful real estate developer during the boom years, and still own many properties. Zoltan was also a director at a major wildlife nonprofit, WildAid. In his late 30s, Zoltan began penning futurist and political opinion essays for major media, and has written over 200 articles in the last five years. Zoltan’s public work has received hundreds of millions of views, much of it through his political and science activism. He was the 2016 presidential candidate for the Transhumanist Party and delivered the original Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol. He was also a party endorsed 2018 libertarian California Governor candidate. Zoltan has spoken at the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, Microsoft, Harvard and was the opening keynote at the Financial Times Camp Alphaville. He is a graduate of Columbia University, and lives in San Francisco with his physician wife and two young daughters. In a 5000-word feature on his work, The New York Times wrote Zoltan is “polite and charismatic” and has a “plausibly Presidential aura.”