Laissez-Faire Institute

Transhumanism: the next step of civilization

Jan Krepelka

http://laissez-faire.ch/en/articles/transhumanism-the-next-step-of-civilization/

Originally published on July 29th, 2014, on Laissez-faire.ch as “Transhumanism: the next step of civilization” by Jan Krepelka.

Footnotes have been continuously extended since. Part two has been heavily extended, and the footnotes re-numbered, in 2018-2019. This version has been generated on 2021-09-18.

French translation: “Le transhumanisme : la prochaine étape de la civilisation”.

Table of contents

1. 1. Transhumanism as a libertarian right

1. 1.1. The right to live vs the duty to die

2. 1.2. Individualism vs collectivism

3. 1.3. Universal rights vs subjective values

4. 1.4. Freedom of association vs religious power

5. 1.5. Presumption of freedom vs precautionary principle

6. 1.6. Power over nature vs power over people

2. 2. The impossibility of a non-libertarian future

1. 2.1. Economic growth vs starvation

2. 2.2. Immortality vs the State’s interests

3. 2.3. Civilization vs politics

1. 2.3.1. Private monies vs back to barter

2. 2.3.2. Long-term investment vs short-term leeching

3. 2.3.3. Voting is evil versus voting for the lesser evil

4. 2.4. Anarchy vs extinction

1. 2.4.1 Life vs mass murder

2. 2.4.2 Armed freemen vs disarmed slaves

5. 2.5. Individuals vs the void

3. 3. Libertarian ethics as the moral and legal framework of the new era

1. 3.1. Individual vs collective power over genetics

2. 3.2. Individual rights vs genetical differences

3. 3.3. Identical rights vs equality

4. 3.4. Rights and liberties vs forbidden-or-mandatory

5. 3.5. The tough question: who has rights?

4. Conclusion

Transhumanism: the next step of civilization

Transhumanism is the next step of civilization, and laissez-faire is its justification, its prerequisite and its limit:

- One, it’s the only philosophy that provides an adequate justification for transhumanist freedom, and a solid response to those who oppose it;

- Two, it’s the only philosophy that allows mankind to survive long enough and prosper enough to be able to afford transhumanist progress;

- Three, it’s the only philosophy that expands into a rational and consistent framework for handling the new ethical questions that technological progress raises.

1. Transhumanism as a libertarian right

“

Freedom, Immortality and the Stars!

L. Neil Smith1-1

”

1.1. The right to live vs the duty to die

Laissez-faire encapsulates in one word the whole philosophy of liberty: let do. Or, more eloquently: let everyone do whatever they want with whatever is theirs. Libertarians consider both that everyone should be free to do whatever they want with whatever is theirs, and that everyone has the right to do whatever they want with whatever is theirs. It is both a descriptive and a normative position: how the world is (we have that right) and how it should be (that right should be more widely acknowledged). Laws can either recognize our rights or not: whether they do or do not doesn’t affect our rights, it affects our effective freedom1-2.

Besides a freedom and a right, laissez-faire also translates as an obligation: let us do, that is, do not commit aggressions against us. The non-aggression principle, the law of equal liberty, the identity of rights of all individuals1-3: I do not have the right to commit aggression against anyone, and no one has the right to commit aggression against me. Anyone who respects this obligation is a civilized being. Anyone who doesn’t is a criminal1-4. Laws, again, are irrelevant in this respect, they can either acknowledge this reality or deny it. Arresting an aggressor is legitimate defense. Arresting a non-aggressive person is an aggression in itself, and therefore a crime.

Thus, legitimate duties are merely the mirror of legitimate rights. Any sort of other, fake obligations, will in fact inevitably conflict with those real rights and obligations. Fake rights and fake obligations can be more accurately described as attempts by some individuals to use force to extort money or time from other individuals (by claiming a “right” to it or claiming that you would have an “obligation” to do something at their service). Those are anti-conceptual perversions of words, as absurd grammatically as they are ethically1-5.

Laws can call any sort of behavior “crime”, but calling “crime” any sort of behavior that is not an aggression by an actual person (or group of people) against another actual person (or group of people) is a grammatical absurdity. You cannot commit a crime against “yourself” or “society” anymore than you can “rain someone” or “suicide someone”.

The right to do what I want with what is mine, of course, starts with my body. It is the reason for the prohibition of rape, beating and maiming. It is the reason why it is my holy right to choose to work or not to work1-6, to have sex or not to have sex (for free or for money, with one person or more people, opposite sex or same sex, etc.), to take drugs or not to take drugs, to live alone, in a family or in a group, to get married or stay single.

But all of the above start from a more fundamental right: the right to my own life. The right to kill myself if I wish, and, more importantly, the prohibition for anyone else to kill me without my authorization. And of course, the right to defend myself against anyone who would trample that right.

Thus, we have no duty to die, and no one has the right to force us to. The options of seeking protection against sickness, aging, pain and death all derive from our right to our own life. We have the right to defend ourselves against all of these afflictions, through any means which don’t infringe on the same rights of others. And we have the duty to grant other individuals the respect of those same rights: to not infringe upon their life, to not infringe upon their physical integrity, to not prevent them from preserving their health and longevity.

1.2. Individualism vs collectivism

The main opposition to this right has come from the pretense by some people to claim rights over other people’s lives. Its main philosophical justification, under one form or another, has been collectivism. The opposition between individualism and collectivism, is indeed the basic issue in the world today1-7.

However, since only individuals can actually act and make decisions, any group decision is, in the end, the decision of some individuals1-8. Collectivism is not only ethically wrong, it’s also, again, grammatically wrong: only individuals can eat, love, think, decide1-9.

The real dichotomy, properly understood, is therefore not whether individuals decide or a mystical “collective” decides1-10. The issue is who decides over what. The possible answers are: each individual decides for themselves, or, some decide for others.

That is why this dichotomy can also be restated as that between humanism and constructivism1-11: the first considers that all individuals have the same universal rights (qua human beings), whereas the latter amounts to claiming that some individuals have the right to impose their decisions on others (usually under the pretense of knowing better than them what is good for them, disrespecting their rationality), thus constructing society as central planners.

Which leads us to yet another way of stating the same opposition: the free market (the agora, ἀγορά, agorism) versus politics (πόλις)1-12. On the free market, each individual decides for themselves; in politics, everyone decides for everyone else. Individualists want nothing to be political, collectivists want everything to be political1-13.

The individualist thinks in terms of individuals, not collectives, people, not groups. Individuals are not expendable: unlike a constructivist, a humanist doesn’t treat people as pawns in a game. Individualists don’t care about the survival of nations, races, species. Only the survival of each individual being has any relevance. Individuals are not cells of a larger organism, for which only the survival of the organism would matter whereas the aging, dying and replacement of the cells would be irrelevant. Individuals are the only relevant organism level, the living and thinking unit, the acting agent1-14.

Human rights are individual, private property rights. There can be crimes only against individuals, there cannot be “crimes against society”, “crimes against God”, “crimes against the State”, “crimes against the country”, “victimless crimes”, or “crimes against the human species”1-15.

1.3. Universal rights vs subjective values

“

And that’s when I knew, that’s when I knew that the conversation with society has changed profoundly in this last decade. It is no longer a conversation about overcoming deficiency. It’s a conversation about augmentation. It’s a conversation about potential.

Aimee Mullins1-16

”

The corollary of the constructivists’ disrespect for other people’s rationality is a lack of understanding of the subjectivity of values.

The value of something is a value of something for somebody. There is no “absolute value” and there is no “intrinsic value”1-17. Yet again, it’s grammar: value needs the for preposition.

Thus, there is no relevant distinction between human needs and human desires1-18. In economics terms, we all strive to increase our utility. There is no relevant definition of “needs” that everyone should have a “right” to, and “desires” that would be a superfluous luxury. Unless rights infringements are concerned, there is not some value of one person that would give that person the right to disregard another person’s priorities and coerce that person under the pretense of their own preferences. Preferences are not morality, and morality is not rights. Interfering with another person’s utility maximizing schemes is not a matter of a “superior good” or “utility comparisons”, it’s a matter of rights1-19. Rights are universal and can be enforced, whereas values and preferences are subjective and personal.

The anti-transhumanists define some arbitrary, unjustified limit regarding what level of science, progress, technology, research, life improvement (and free market, for that matter), thus ultimately health and life, is to be “permitted”, or even funded1-20. Libertarians see no such limit. No anti-transhumanist Luddite actually practices the logical conclusion of his philosophy of death: living as an animal and dying either in childbirth, as an infant or through any common infection.

For there is no moral difference between using a disinfectant on your wound and taking a pill to reverse aging. Both are a manifestation of our desire and right to live, and to use whatever peaceful means we wish to achieve it. There is no moral difference between using a wheelchair if you can’t walk, getting new legs, or genetically preventing such handicaps in the first place1-21. There is no moral difference either between preventing, indemnifying, alleviating the effects of, or reversing altogether the effects of accidents, and using the same options when these handicaps are by birth1-22.

1.4. Freedom of association vs religious power

Most of the opposition to the alleviation of pain, aging and death has come from religions, either directly or through religion-inspired pseudo-moralities enshrined into law.

Laissez-faire, of course, defends absolute freedom of religion. But it doesn’t defend it per se. It defends it as part of a much wider philosophy. It defends freedom of religion as a consequence of the freedom of expression and the freedom of association. And it defends both of these as mere consequences of property rights, the principle of non-aggression. There can be conflict between freedom of religion and other freedoms, but not among correctly defined property rights, which all include their own limit: my right to do whatever I want with what is mine never includes a right to do it with what is not mine. Freedom of religion, thus, is a consequence of property rights—not an excuse for trampling them.

As libertarians, we have nothing to say about God, or about religion in general. And we would have nothing to say, qua libertarians, about religious organizations, if they limited themselves to expressing opinions about which behaviors lead to heaven and which lead to hell, about the meaning of life or about the origin of the world. We would have nothing to say against any religion, if they stayed out of politics. If they didn’t use—or attempt to use—the State to commit violence against us in order to force us to finance them, and force their religious views upon us by enacting laws justified on religious grounds that have no relevance whatsoever for all the non-believers to whom they’ll nevertheless apply as well.

Philosophically, most religions embrace pain, suffering and death, as sacrifice, as martyrdom, as tests of one’s worth, as measures of value, as necessities, as God’s will, as opportunities to make moral choices, as challenges to ensure a better post in the afterlife, etc1-23. They oppose man’s improvement and quest for immortality, considering as blasphemy our getting closer to God-like achievements. They consider the afterlife, not immortality, as the priority to consider1-24.

Religions usually oppose various aspects or degrees of progress, especially medical, be it vaccination, blood transfusion (Jehovah’s witnesses1-25), organ sale (Catholic Church1-26), medically assisted procreation, pre-implantation diagnosis1-27, etc.

Which of course, goes completely against the aim of transhumanism. As far as laissez-faire is concerned, it only upholds the right of every individual to choose for themselves. If religions impose their views on no one, and merely defend pain, suffering and death as a personal choice, they can be tolerated as any sort of masochistic practice or cult whose members are only free willing consenting adults. If not, if they try to use their philosophical justification of pain, suffering and death to impose them unto others through legislation, then alas they go clearly against the laissez-faire non-aggression stance as well1-28.

1.5. Presumption of freedom vs precautionary principle

Libertarians have always defended the presumption of innocence, and its political version, the presumption of freedom1-29. Applied to new technologies, it means that if someone wants to ban something, the burden of proof rests on them, to demonstrate that it constitutes an aggression and should be banned.

The attack against this principle, most harmful to transhumanism, has come from its opposite, the “precautionary principle”1-30, which has been criticized by libertarians.

The banning of new technologies should require, to the very least, strong proof of their harm... and not just some “precautionary” decisions decided by “ethical committees” who offer no rational argument for their infringements on our rights.

1.6. Power over nature vs power over people

“

Violence is the tool of the state. Knowledge and the mind are the tools of free people.

Lew Rockwell1-31

”

And lastly, the opposition between laissez-faire and the state, between the economic means and the political means, has also been the conflict between growth and stagnation, technology versus bureaucracy, entrepreneurs versus the status quo. In the end, it’s a very old conflict, and it boils down to civilization versus barbarism1-32.

Transhumanists and libertarians care about achieving technological progress, controlling nature, expanding the power of individuals over nature. Statists (in both senses: defending both the static, non-dynamic view of the world and the state) care about redistributing power in a static world view, achieving power over other men. Relative power status is more important to them than the absolute wealth growth of mankind and the individuals that compose it1-33.

To us, on the other hand, technological progress, individual freedom, personal development, and transhumanism, are all part of a dynamic progression of individuals towards more absolute wealth, power over nature, control of their environments, and happiness.

2. The impossibility of a non-libertarian future

“

In a thousand years, our ideas will be either obvious and generally acknowledged without any debate, or mankind will have degenerated back to the Stone Age. In either case, no one will be debating politics.

Jan Krepelka2-1

”

2.1. Economic growth vs starvation

“

If the State had been abolished a century ago, we’d all have robots and summer homes in the Asteroid belt.

Samuel Edward Konkin III2-2

” “

Anarchy is all around us. Without it, our world would fall apart. All progress is due to it. All order extends from it. All blessed things that rise above the state of nature are owed to it. The human race thrives only because of the lack of control, not because of it. I’m saying that we need ever more absence of control to make the world a more beautiful place.

Jeffrey Tucker

”

States don’t create wealth: individuals create wealth, and whenever they do it they’re acting in a laissez-faire manner. The only reason we’re even having the transhumanism debate is that there has been enough laissez-faire to allow us to afford it.

North Korea, struggling against famine, does likely not have those concerns. You don’t think about living forever when you can barely find enough food to survive the day. The reason we got out of the bare survival stage is through entrepreneurship, innovation, technological progress and accumulation of capital.

All of these are free market principles. Their effect, although magnificent, has been sabotaged and impeded by governments. Through favoring vested, static2-3, particular interests. Trying to “save jobs”, that is, jobs in old, inefficient technologies. Taxing work and capital. Destroying money as a means of exchange2-4. If you think the effect of state interventions on the level of wealth, and thus technology, is mild, do the math again2-5.

The free market is the power to create. The State is the power to destroy. The economic means is the means of production. The political means is the means of destruction. On the market, people create wealth. The State merely redistributes it, destroying most of it in the process. Taxes do not produce anything.

The reason we can even consider transhumanism is that we live in mixed economies, half-capitalist, half-socialist. The reason we haven’t achieved transhumanism a century ago is exactly the same one.

2.2. Immortality vs the State’s interests

“

A situação é muito grave, a mais grave de quantas o país teve de viver até hoje.

[It’s an extremely grave situation, the gravest situation the country has ever had to live through.]

The government, after learning about the end of death2-6.

” “

She had thought that industrial production was a value not to be questioned by anyone; she had thought that these men’s urge to expropriate the factories of others was their acknowledgment of the factories value. [...] She saw what they wanted and to what goal their “instincts,” which they called unaccountable, were leading them. She saw that Eugene Lawson, the humanitarian, took pleasure at the prospect of human starvation—and Dr. Ferris, the scientist, was dreaming of the day when men would return to the hand-plow.

Ayn Rand2-7

”

If you think that despite that, the State might somehow channel its resources towards transhumanist goals, think again.

First of all, the State could invest 100 percent of its current budget in transhumanism, it would still be nothing compared to the wealth we would have spent on it by now if it had stopped impoverishing us a few hundred years ago2-8. Anything we think we have “thanks to the State”, is an accounting fallacy2-9.

But even more fundamentally, life extension goes completely against the interests of States and their world view. States are all about a static (duh) view of the world, of resources to “allocate”, of territories to control. Of life cycles, birth certificates, residency permissions, etc. The State is not made for the Globalization Age2-10, nor for the Space Age, and certainly not for the Immortality Age. Their Madoff-based social security systems were not designed for it. Their collectivist ideologies don’t care about it.

2.3. Civilization vs politics

“

Communism—you can see it from space2-11.

” “

All production restrictions directly hamper some production inasmuch as they prevent certain employment opportunities that are open to the goods of higher order (land, capital, labor). By its very nature, a government decree that “it be” cannot create anything that has not been created before. Only the naive inflationists could believe that government could enrich mankind through fiat money. Government cannot create anything; its orders cannot even evict anything from the world of reality, but they can evict from the world of the permissible. Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.

Ludwig von Mises2-12

” “

In the long run we are all dead.

John Maynard Keynes2-13

”

We’ve seen that states hamper growth and lead to starvation. We’ve seen that immortal beings do not fit their collectivist model of interchangeable, “equal”, mortal slave-subjects. But even more than that, the very idea of the long term, of civilization, is entirely antithetical to the statist ideology, especially in its “democratic” fashion2-14.

Civilization is a long term thing. It starts with planting grain for the next season instead of eating it right away (investment over Keynesian economics). It means saving wealth instead of spending it. It’s the positive sum game of creation. Politics, on the other hand, is a short term affair: grabbing power, redistributing wealth. It’s a zero sum game in principle, which always ends up being a negative sum game of mutual impoverishment and destruction2-15: TANSTAAFL, and there is also no such thing as a free lunch redistribution, no such thing as a neutral tax2-16, no such thing as a harmless and costless state intervention.

Therefore, there are no realistic science-fiction dystopias: there can be no technologically advanced socialist societies in the future, since socialism focuses only on consuming current resources. There is no long term under Keynesian, socialist policies. Statist policies are “max my credit card and drink myself to death” policies, nothing more2-17.

2.3.1. Private monies vs back to barter

Consider the question of money. Sound monies, whose value cannot be changed at will by any given individual, such as gold and bitcoin, are what encourages saving. Fiat monies, on the other hand, defeat the very purpose of money2-18: sometimes to the point that barter becomes more interesting again.

Given the current inflation rate, in 2349, US prices of 1913 will have been multiplied by one million. A one dollar haircut will cost one million dollars, whereas a 500 dollars car will cost 500 million dollars2-19. Where did all that purchasing power go? In the government’s agents’ pockets: wasted.

The theft implied in manipulating the money supply can be more or less direct: inflation2-20, devaluation2-21, demonetization2-22: all push away from the civilized use of money either as store of value for the future or in transactions. An even more direct example of the same issue is outright confiscation of money held in savings account2-23: all of those measures not only divert money from producers to looters (already both a moral and an economic outrage), but also discourage the producers from producing and saving in the first place.

A more sophisticated form of theft: impose negative interest rates, an utter absurdity in itself. As Mises wrote:

“

Time preference is not a “psychological assumption,” but the effect of the physical and chemical structure of the universe in which man lives and acts. It refers to the fact that in order to be alive in March a man must first survive the month of February.

Ludwig von Mises2-24

”

At which point, of course, having money in the bank would not be very interesting indeed—so the next step is to ban cash altogether2-25, which as a free bonus also has the “advantage” of permitting utter surveillance of the (slave) population.

2.3.2. Long-term investment vs short-term leeching

An interesting conclusion can be derived by taking into account Wagner’s Law2-26, the Laffer Curve2-27, and the effect of government on reducing growth2-28. Given that (1) economic growth is accompanied by an overproportional growth of the state and (2) the growth of the state reduces growth, something somewhere must give in at some point. This is what we see with the current crisis with countries having negative growth rates, that is, decline. Decline! In 2019, despite technological progress, despite globalization, imagine the degree of destruction that had to be committed to achieve such a feat!

Wagner’s Law is therefore only valid over a relatively short period of time, before the two curves (economic growth and state growth) converge. Statism is not an alternative to laissez-faire—it’s merely a parasitic disease that survives on a healthy host until it kills it2-29.

Likewise, the usual analysis of the Laffer curve forgets not only its inherent asymmetry2-30, but also the time factor. Obviously given a time horizon of zero, the state-revenue-maximizing tax would be 100%. Over the long run, however, since any degree of taxation hampers growth, if a state really wanted to maximize its long term revenue, then (1) tax levels would tend towards zero, in order to profit from exponential growth of the economy in the long run, (2) government spending would tend towards zero as well, since it would also make more sense to enjoy compound interest (depending on interest rates as compared to growth rates) over the long run on whatever the state collected.

However the Laffer Curve, and our proposed dynamic Laffer Curve which would take into account the time horizon to be considered, is merely theoretical. Real governments are made of real people whose main concern is to maximize their individual wealth and power—that is, not to maximize the state’s revenue through maximizing the economy’s growth, but merely either get (re)elected over a short time horizon or just grab whatever they can while holding office for themselves, their friends, or whoever pays them.

2.3.3. Voting is evil versus voting for the lesser evil

“

Parliament: anagram of partial men.

”

Libertarian philosophy is against politics, against elections, against voting2-31. Conversely, politics’ tribal mindset usually leads to a two-party system, conflict, a destructive war of all against all for handouts2-32, and “voting for the lesser evil”.

Now think about that last one for a minute: voting for the lesser evil. How’s that supposed to work out in the long run? What sort of civilization can be built by voting for more and more evil every year? Why complain about a particular outcome of a given system, without ever questioning the very system that made this outcome possible?

Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Kodos.

2.4. Anarchy vs extinction

“

Have the antihuman ideologies already at the fore in the early 20th century been replaced by an ideology of individual rights and economic freedom? Is the world moving away from collectivism and socialism and toward laissez-faire capitalism, or, to the contrary, is even the slightest trace of economic freedom described as laissez-faire and blamed for the existence of the present economic crisis, thereby impelling the world toward still more government control and still less economic freedom?

There is clearly a potential threat to human life and well-being looming on the horizon that is of unprecedented proportions.

George Reisman, “Gun Control—on the Government’s Guns”

” “

The full destruction of mankind: only possible through government.

Genocide: only possible through government.

Government. Bringing you the public good of human extinction threat, since 1945.

But without government, who would put mankind at risk?

Government. In case we need to blow up the planet.

Government. Because who else could afford nuclear pollution and destruction?

”

To be immortal, step one is: don’t get killed. Avoiding extinction is thus paramount—both at a global and at an individual level. This requires two things:

- disarming criminal groups, including governments, which are institutionally irresponsible;

- arming individuals, which are legally responsible for their actions.

2.4.1 Life vs mass murder

“

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

P. J. O’Rourke

” “

The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes

Donald Trump, politician, in control of 7,700 nuclear warheads

” “

Meet Satan 2: Russia’s New ICBM Nuke Capable of Leveling France or Texas in One Hit

Futurism.com, October 27th 2016

”

Let’s be clear: mankind’s future is not safe as long as there are states. Only governments (that is, individuals using the institutional power and structural irresponsibility that is by definition only possible through government) can commit murder on such a large scale and get away with, pollute entire regions and hide it2-33.

Governments cannot be trusted with civilian nuclear power plants, let alone nuclear arsenals. Governments are irresponsible, by definition. In the 20th century alone, the existence of governments has made possible the cold-blooded murder of 260 million people2-34. Some of those governments even started democratically—of course, a functional democracy is a very unstable thing. Wanna bet mankind’s survival on it2-35?

Governments cannot be trusted with money, with weapons, nor with anything else. And especially not given a system which allows the worst to get on top2-36, then grants them control over nuclear arsenals2-37.

The only guarantee against democides, genocides, psychopaths in control of vast armies and mankind’s utter destruction are decentralized, distributed power systems: abolition of all governments2-38 and individually armed populations and private defense agencies2-39.

2.4.2 Armed freemen vs disarmed slaves

“

The one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician—or political philosophy—is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.

L. Neil Smith, “Why Did it Have to be ... Guns?”

” “

You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

”

Indeed, no one went into the Gulag2-40 or concentration camps to be forced to dig their own graves, carrying their loaded gun.

An armed population, such as Switzerland or the USA, makes a country in effect impossible to invade, and a genocide impossible to be committed. It preserves peace, and keeps a country safe from dictators, civil wars, abusive government, radical groups’ takeovers, etc2-41.

2.5. Individuals vs the void

“

People are so desperate for an interruption to modernity—even if they wouldn’t put it that way—that they would consciously choose the void.

Cody R. Wilson

” “

Death solves all problems—no man, no problem.

Attributed to Joseph Stalin, socialist politician, responsible for the deaths of dozens of millions of human beings2-42

” “

Giacché, per il fascista, tutto è nello Stato, e nulla di umano o spirituale esiste, e tanto meno ha valore, fuori dello Stato. In tal senso il fascismo è totalitario, e lo Stato fascista, sintesi e unità di ogni valore, interpreta, sviluppa e potenzia tutta la vita del popolo.

[For the fascist, everything is in the state, and nothing human or spiritual exists, let alone has value, outside of the state. In this sense fascism is totalitarian, and the fascist state, synthesis and unity of every value, interprets, develops and strengthens the whole life of the people.]

Benito Mussolini, socialist politician2-43

”

Even deeper than all that we’ve seen so far, at its core, the libertarian philosophy is the only non-nihilism2-44. It’s the only philosophy which takes seriously the only thinking entity: the individual. Any other philosophy, at its core, can only lead towards one direction: the void2-45. Since individuals are the only entities which can have rights, being against individual rights does not mean choosing another option, it means rejecting the very notion of rights2-46. Socialism is not an alternative to the free market—it is, in the long run, an alternative to life itself:

“

A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings2-47.

”

Mass starvation and concentration camps were not accidents of statism, nor were totalitarianisms some historical anomalies. They are all consequences of not taking individual rights seriously. All their violations are then merely matters of degree, consequences of various degrees of evil of the same statist philosophy (or lack of libertarian philosophy): negation of private property, that is, negation of individual rights. It’s everything the state does, from mandatory census2-48 to the White Sea–Baltic Canal digging2-49: the same principle of using violence to enforce one’s whims.

Consider the way the rights of some humans were violated by both non-democratic and democratic regimes, on the mere arbitrary basis of their sexual orientation2-50:

“

Only about 40 percent of these pink triangle prisoners—whose numbers amounted to an estimated 10,000—survived the camps. Some of them, after their release by the Allied Forces, were placed back in prison, because they had not yet finished court-mandated terms of imprisonment for homosexual acts.

”

Or the particular case of a Mr. Alan Turing2-51:

“

Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic; it has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by as many as four years and saved over fourteen million lives.

Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, when such behaviour was still a criminal act in the UK. He accepted treatment with DES (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as suicide.

”

Consider various new forms of statism, e.g. the “environmentalism” movement, which calls for population restrictions, or putting nature before humans—various forms of Cultural Marxism: instruments for manipulating the masses to spread collectivism. But collectivism itself is nothing but an instrument of manipulation, whose actual aim is power, power of some individuals over other individuals. The “useful idiots” of collectivism are those who help to bring it about, at their own expense2-52. Since of course everyone is an individual, going against individualism is necessarily being an useful idiot, sooner or later. But an useful idiot of what, of whom?

During Stalin’s time, the collectivists were the useless idiots of a psychopath that would kill them sooner or later—indeed, among Stalin’s victims, there are some over which there’s no reason to cry: the ones who were mass murderers themselves, often his previously closest associates. And incidentally, they’re all dead. All those useful idiots, and their puppet-masters, they’re all dead—after having achieved nothing but death around them. From a transhumanist perspective, they failed at the only meaningful thing: achieving immortality. All useless idiots of nothingness.

Today’s propagandists following memes launched by the KGB are nothing but the useful idiots of dead psychopaths. On the last regression, this makes them the useful idiots of death—the useless idiots of death, the useless idiots of nothingness, of the void2-53...

3. Libertarian ethics as the moral and legal framework of the new era

“

En tout état de cause, on peut bien tempêter contre l’individualisation du pouvoir sur la vie, mais il faut se rappeler que le monopole de ce pouvoir par l’État s’est traduit par des avortements forcés, des stérilisations, des empêchements au mariage ou à la procréation, et que l’histoire de l’eugénisme d’État n’est pas la plus honorable qui soit. On peut bien sûr préférer à la liberté procréative ou au bien-être des individus à naître les valeurs qu’ils ont remplacées, mais il ne faut pas oublier que ces valeurs n’étaient autres que le « sang allemand », la « nation française » ou le « peuple américain ». Autrement dit, le propre du pouvoir sur la vie contemporain est de rompre une bonne fois avec le fantasme d’entités biologiques collectives, en faisant de l’ensemble de la vie, des processus biologiques, de la matière vitale, un moyen au service de la vie biologique et morale des individus.

[Sure, one can rant against the individualization of the power over life, but we must remember that the monopolization of this power by the State has resulted in forced abortions, sterilizations, impediments to marriage and procreation; indeed the history of state eugenics is not a very honorable one. One can of course prefer to the reproductive freedom and well-being of unborn individuals the values which they replaced, but let’s not forget that these values were none other than the “German blood”, the “French nation” or the “American people”. In other words, what defines the contemporary view of power over life is to break once and for all with the fantasy of collective biological entities, making the whole of life, biological processes and vital matter into means at the service of the biological and moral lives of individuals.]

Marcela Iacub3-1

”

3.1. Individual vs collective power over genetics

As Marcela Iacub summarized, someone must be making reproductive decisions. If it’s not the individuals concerned, then it’s the State, and the latter is far more dangerous.

And, as we have seen, it’s not a question of the collective welfare of “the species” or “the nation” versus that of selfish, egotistical individuals3-2.

It’s the choice of some individuals versus the choice of other individuals. The only relevant question, thus, is who has the right to decide over what? And what means can be used to enforce that decision?

The best frame to answer those questions is private property rights, individualism, and the non-aggression principle.

3.2. Individual rights vs genetical differences

Remember, rights are individual rights. And individual rights do not depend on genetic code, on “race” or “gender”. Therefore, the rights of clones, or any other genetically engineered individuals, would be no different than the rights of anyone else, for the same reason that we don’t have different rights for men and women, blacks and whites, twins, etc. And those rights would include the right to sue the persons responsible, if the genetical changes were damaging ones3-3.

“

Le droit, grâce à la catégorie de « personne », ne les [les clones] traiterait pas moins comme des réalités uniques ayant chacune d’entre elles une inscription dans l’état civil, un nom, un patrimoine, des droits et des obligations. Chacun des milliers de clones serait une personne à part entière et aucun amoindrissement de leur statut ne résulterait du fait qu’ils possèdent le même patrimoine génétique que des milliers d’autres individus. En d’autres termes, le droit ne connaît pas les clones mais des personnes ayant le même statut les unes que les autres.

[The Law, thanks to the “person” category, would nevertheless consider clones as unique realities, having each a birth registration of their own, a name, property, rights and obligations. Each one of the thousands of clones would be a full-fledged person and no diminishment of their status would result from the fact of their having the same genetic patrimony as thousands of other individuals. In other words, the Law doesn’t consider clones, but only persons, all having the same status as each other.]

Marcela Iacub3-4

”

Genetical differences are not relevant for rights, and thus, their descriptions have no place in Law.

The function of the Law is to determine when it is legitimate to use violence:

“

Il n’y a pas de classifications juridiques, de distinctions juridiques qui ne soient fondées sur des normes de contrainte ; toute distinction juridique entre les personnes implique que l’on distribue d’une manière différentielle des droits et des obligations, c’est-à-dire des pouvoirs sociaux à certains individus au détriment d’autres, à certains individus et pas aux autres.

[There are no legal classifications or legal distinctions not based on coercive norms; any legal distinction between people means that rights and obligations are differentially distributed, that is, social powers are given to some individuals at the expense of others, to some individuals and not to others.]

Marcela Iacub3-5

”

Nothing else concerns, or should concern, the Law. Not to construct a symbolic order of a society, not to “construct” what society should look like beyond preservation of peace, not to preserve any “anthropological values”:

“

De ce fait, l’idée selon laquelle, à travers la mise en place des distinctions anthropologiques, le droit dessine un ordre symbolique n’est adéquate ni pour décrire le fonctionnement du droit, ni pour retrouver des limites à ses transformations, voire pour établir des prédictions d’aucune sorte.

[Therefore, the idea that, through the implementation of anthropological distinctions, the law draws a symbolic order, is adequate neither to describe the functioning of law, nor to find limits to its transformations, and not even to establish predictions of any kind.]

Marcela Iacub3-6

”

The Law should not be concerned about genetical differences among individuals for the simple reason that they have no relevance for regulating aggression. There are substantial differences between men and women, blacks and whites, heterosexuals and homosexuals. But these differences have no relevance for Law, and none of these words should therefore appear in any text of legislation3-7. Exactly like the words “bald” and “hairy” do not appear in texts of law, because baldness or hairiness, although sources of differences relevant to the lives of those individuals, are not sources of different rights3-8. Likewise, biological capabilities are not sources of rights, and capabilities should not be confused with rights3-9.

Thus, any further genetical differences between humans would have no relevance for a libertarian legal order either. For a consistent, rational, libertarian legal system, which limits itself to prohibiting aggressions such as murder, rape and theft, any other social and genetic evolutions are not a concern. Universal rules will remain universal3-10.

3.3. Identical rights vs equality

Identical rights do not yield “equality”. Nor should they. “Equality” has never been properly defined: equality of income? Of wealth? Of success? Of happiness?

The egalitarians usually focus on some one measure, in a static world view, then proceed to use coercion to “fix” it.

In the real, dynamic world, different competences and different choices lead to different results. On a free market, you are as wealthy as other people are willing to make you by purchasing your products and services. If you think that outcome is “unfair”, then you consider “unfair” the voluntary choices of thousands of individuals interacting on the market. That is, you intend to use coercion to impose your personal choices against theirs.

“Equality” is thus a meaningless, irrelevant concept for a libertarian3-11. Far more important than relative “distribution” of wealth is the huge increase in the standard of living over the centuries, made possible only through economic freedom.

But it is worth pointing out that transhumanism is not likely to make particularly happy those who are already complaining about the wealth differences due to accumulations of capital, inheritances, and income differences. Transhumanism means that some people will be able to accumulate capital over even longer periods of time. Smart people will become even smarter through brain-enhancing drugs, and their kids will be even smarter through genetic improvement.

However, in the end, everyone profits from progress, whether it is accumulation of capital over the years or technological and medical progress. Even poor people have seen their lives vastly improved through the rise in absolute incomes. Technologies that at first only the rich can afford are now available to the wide masses. Transhumanist progress, likewise, will at first be available to the few, but the many will profit from the technology as well.

But for that to happen, a positive sum game, dynamic worldview is required, not the zero sum game, static worldview (which inevitably becomes a negative sum game). People’s concerns must go from envy of their neighbors towards their own possibilities3-12.

The laissez-faire approach towards the irrelevance of inequality, and a correct understanding of economics and the accumulation of capital and its morality, are thus essential for understanding and accepting the changes brought by transhumanism.

3.4. Rights and liberties vs forbidden-or-mandatory

“

But we are agorists: propertarian anarchists. Our prosperity to date has come by following agoric principles and we envision even further prosperity when agoric principles are generally adopted. Why would we abandon market principles we have found efficacious in favor of hegemonic ones that have led society after society into ruin?

J. Neil Schulman3-13

”

The collectivist paradigm is that everything must be either forbidden or mandatory. The individualist paradigm is that the only thing that is forbidden is aggression, and the only thing that is mandatory is not committing aggressions. Everything else is rights and freedoms, for each individual to make his own choices.

Thus, there ought not to be a grand collective debate “for or against” transhumanism, a collective, political decision to be taken. Everyone is free to do what they want to do as long as they don’t infringe on other people’s property rights. No one has the right to force anything upon anyone. There is no conflict between legitimate rights and values, only between real rights and fake rights.

Transhumanists have a right to enhance their bodies. The Amish have the right to live without technology. Neither has the right to force their views upon the others. Power cannot be used for good, not even to make transhumanism mandatory, or criticism of transhumanism forbidden. Trying to harness the power of the state for the “good” cause of transhumanism is an illusion, as we have seen in 2.2. anyway. More fundamentally, individual rights are absolute, no “good cause” can be used to trample them3-14.

3.5. The tough question: who has rights?

“

Libertarianism investigated the nature of man to explain his rights deriving from non-coercion. It immediately followed that man (woman, child, Martian, etc.) had an absolute right to his life and other property—and no other.

Samuel Edward Konkin III3-15

”

An expanding definition of “human being” will challenge our view of what defines “human” rights. It’s the frontier of the human rights theory. But that’s not an issue for transhumanism and laissez-faire, on the contrary.

This question was already being raised by debates such as abortion (where does life begin?), rights of handicapped people who lack certain capabilities, animal rights, handling interaction with exospecies, etc. In all those cases, the question is the same: who is, and what isn’t, an individual sentient being with rights3-16?

No philosophy that I know of has provided any consistent answer in this regard. Laissez-faires’s property rights theory, though, is the best place to start, the best framework to consider the issue. Although not providing an answer to everything, it provides, firstly, a consistent framework to handle all the subsequent issues of rights among rights-holders; and secondly, even this tough question has been handled better by libertarians than anyone else3-17.

Transhumanism, by challenging our conceptions in this regard, and expanding science to further explore the very definitions of “life”, “sentience”, “conscience”, and “person”, is the only way to give ourselves the means to pursue this quest: not to contradict laissez-faire, but to clarify it even further, make it stronger and even more universal. And thus, laissez-faire and transhumanism, together, can achieve an even stronger case for individual private property rights than we ever had for human rights.

Conclusion

Transhumanism is thus an essential part of the magnificent future that awaits our civilization. Laissez-faire is its ethical justification, laissez-faire is its material precondition, and laissez-faire is its legal framework. Indeed, laissez-faire has always been all of the above for any kind of civilization properly understood, but the more civilization evolves and becomes more advanced, the more utterly synonymous with it it becomes:

“

If government controls could achieve nothing but paralysis, starvation, and collapse in a pre-industrial age, what happens when one imposes controls on a highly industrialized economy? Which is easier for bureaucrats to regulate: the operation of hand looms and hand forges—or the operation of steel mills, aircraft plants, and electronics concerns? Who is more likely to work under coercion: a horde of brutalized men doing unskilled manual labor—or the incalculable number of individual men of creative genius required to build and to maintain an industrial civilization? And if government controls fail even with the first, what depth of evasion permits modern statists to hope that they can succeed with the second?

Ayn Rand3-18

”

Any other approach is a delusion. Expecting so-called committees on “bioethics” or religious or government commissions on “ethics” to reach the correct conclusions about right and wrong is a sick joke at best. Their members are usually composed either of people whose only qualification is to be members of religious organizations with no real competence on the relevant issues, or of scientists who reach conclusions strangely inspired by religious pseudo-ethics, not rational philosophy. Expecting governments, whose main achievement is impoverishment of mankind, to finance transhumanism, a grave contradiction. Expecting those who try to bring us down even for achieving wealth to let us achieve the far greater ambition of immortality—a dangerous mistake.

Transhumanists should not expect anything from government. Transhumanists should not ask government for funding. Transhumanists, above all, should not strive for government power in order to impose transhumanism through the same means which are being used to fight it. The high-level freedom to achieve immortality, the freedom from death, will not be accomplished by trespassing on more basics freedom—the freedom from aggression, whatever its justification. The question is not how to rule over men, nor even whether to rule over men, but how can anyone pretend to have the right to rule over men. The question is not which religion government should impose, nor whether it should impose one at all, but why would anyone have the right to impose any religion at all. The goal is not power over men, the goal is power over nature. Laissez-faire fights the former, transhumanism is the ultimate frontier of the latter.

Transhumanism is part of the magnificent future that awaits our civilization, but only through laissez-faire shall it be possible, affordable and moral. Transhumanism is one of the reasons why laissez-faire is essential for mankind, and laissez-faire is one of the reasons why transhumanism is mankind’s birthright. Both are essential components of our civilization that support each other: a transhumanist yearning highlights the dire necessity of laissez-faire, and a laissez-faire philosophy enables to go past the usual prejudice and see the grandeur of transhumanism.

It’s time we built the future: laissez-nous faire.

Footnotes

1-1 The great libertarian science fiction author L. Neil Smith thus summarizes in three words how every transhumanist libertarian sees the future. ↩

1-2 This view of rights being not granted by law, but merely recognized and protected by law, is acknowledged by the US Declaration of Independence:

“

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.↩

”

1-3 Equal rights in the libertarian sense means identical rights, the latter being less prone to conceptual confusion. On Law and rights, see Jan Krepelka, “The impossibility of a non-libertarian philosophy of Law”, January 18, 2015. ↩

1-4 And anyone who campaigns for a wider recognition of the non-aggression principle is a libertarian, and anyone who campaigns for the opposite, that is, more aggression to be committed against peaceful people and/or no consequences for committing aggressions against peaceful people, is a statist. ↩

1-5 Real rights are negative rights, liberty rights, rights from. Fake rights are positive rights, claim rights, rights to. Real obligations are obligations not to do, fake obligations are obligations to do. Real rights and obligations are the mirror of one another, fake rights and obligations are independent from one another. Real rights and obligations are universal, fake rights and obligations are contextual. Real rights and obligations are enforceable by anyone against anyone, their respect being required of all, fake rights and fake obligations are conditioned by other arbitrary rules.

“

[...] injustice or wrong always consists in working harm on another. Therefore the conception of wrong is positive, and antecedent to the conception of right, which is negative, and simply denotes the actions performable without injury to others; in other words, without wrong being done. [...] The theory that right is negative, in contradistinction to wrong as positive, we find supported by Hugo Grotius, the father of philosophical jurisprudence [...] [Justice here denotes nothing else than that which is just, and this, rather in a negative than in a positive sense; so that what is not unjust is to be regarded as justice.][...] The negative character of justice is also established, little as it may appear, even by the familiar formula: Give to each one his own. Now, there is no need to give a man his own, if he has it. The real meaning is therefore: Take from none his own. Since the requirements of justice are only negative, they may be effected by coercion; for the neminem læde can be practised by all alike.

Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality, “The Virtue of Justice”

”

The attacks against real rights and their mirror real obligations, have come from both fronts: fake rights, such as rights to food, job and housing, which resemble more a “letter to Santa Claus” than a list of rights, and fake obligations, such as “civic duties”, declarations of “Human Duties”, proposals to enact a “Bill of Duties”, etc. Both attacks conveniently ignore the other side of the coin, which is: whose real rights shall be trampled in order to coerce someone into providing those fake rights (can you “provide” a right? again, it’s down to grammar), and who’s going to get away with ignoring his real non-aggression obligation by forcing others into accomplishing those fake duties?

Ayn Rand thus rightly referred to “duty” as “one of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy” (Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, “Causality Versus Duty”).

See for instance, about a proposal for a “declaration of duties towards mankind”: Simone Weil, L’enracinement. Prélude à une déclaration des devoirs envers l’être humain, Paris, Gallimard, 1949 [The Need For Roots, Prelude To A Declaration Of Duties Towards Mankind, London, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1952]. And more recently the Co-Prince of Andorra, Flamby the 1st, on the “rights of mankind”: “Conférence climat 2015 : Hollande veut une « déclaration sur les droits de l'humanité pour préserver la planète »” [“Climate conference 2015: Hollande wants a ‘declaration on the rights of mankind to preserve the planet’”], Le Figaro, December 31, 2014.

Fake rights give the very notion of human rights a bad name, and substitute the nihilism of power, authority and democracy for rational law. Instead of laws protecting us against crimes, laws become mere expressions of capricious personal desires. (Jan Krepelka, “Qu’est-ce que le laissez-faire?”, January 1st, 2011.)

The French government, for instance, after proclaiming various positive rights, has taken the next step of making them “enforceable”. The very fact that some positive rights are “enforceable” while others are not should give us a hint already as to the nature of those “rights”. The French word is “droit opposable”, “oppposable right”, which implies that it can be “opposed” to someone: whom? Again, a right is by definition something that is opposable to everyone and enforceable by everyone. It cannot be “provided”, it cannot be “used once or twice”, and it cannot be “valid only every Tuesday, in downtown Paris, after 9pm”: it can only be recognized or not recognized, violated or respected. Any other use of the word is a grammatical absurdity and a deliberate perversion of a rational theory of ethics. ↩

1-6 This offers a nice illustration of the confusion between real and fake rights (see foonote 1-5).

The Manifesto of the Communist Party, as well as the Constitution of the Soviet Union, proclaim mandatory work for all, that is, legalize violence against people who would choose not to work.

Today’s socialists prefer the “basic income guarantee”, that is, a positive right upon wealth produced by other people, that is, legalize violence against people who choose to work.

It is only through a very superficial approach that the “right to” an income could be confused with the negative right not to work.

Indeed, faced with the question of who would guarantee this “right” if no one were to work, socialists answer by suggesting the introduction of forced labor — and there you have it.

See Liberpedia, « Revenu minimum universel », « Critique socialiste », and Jan Krepelka, « Le revenu universel, alias l’asservissement universel », Le Temps, September 23, 2015.

Hence, the right to work is also the right not to work; likewise the right to speak is also the right to remain silent. Why? Because all these “rights” are just language shortcuts, which ultimately mean nothing more than property rights and the non-aggression principle: the right not to be aggressed for choosing to work or not to work, the right not to be aggressed for choosing to speak or to remain silent, etc. In other words: the right to do what I want with what is mine. ↩

1-7 This conflict has been best summarized by Ayn Rand in her “Textbook of Americanism”, and analyzed further in all its ramifications in her novels:

“

The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.

Individualism holds that man has inalienable rights which cannot be taken away from him by any other man, nor by any number, group or collective of other men. Therefore, each man exists by his own right and for his own sake, not for the sake of the group.

Collectivism holds that man has no rights; that his work, his body and his personality belong to the group; that the group can do with him as it pleases, in any manner it pleases, for the sake of whatever it decides to be its own welfare. Therefore, each man exists only by the permission of the group and for the sake of the group.

These two principles are the roots of two opposite social systems. The basic issue of the world today is between these two systems. ↩

”

1-8 Unless it’s unanimous - but then there is no conflict between group and individual decisions. In all other cases, a “collective” decision is the decision of some individuals and not others, either a minority or a majority. In short, there can be no meaningful “social choice”. I’ve analyzed and rejected all the common objections to this fact of life in Jan Krepelka, “Public Goods and Private Preferences: Are They Reconcilable?”.

Thus, we must amend the quotation from the previous footnote: a group cannot decide or wish anything. It cannot be pleased, and it has no welfare and no sake. Therefore, the basic issue in the world is indeed between these two systems, but it’s not a contest between two valid worldviews: the former is conceptually valid whereas the latter is a deception. Collectivism is therefore not a valid alternative to individualism. See Jan Krepelka, “Pourquoi le parti socialiste ne devrait pas exister” [“Why there should be no Socialist Party”], April 2, 2016, and Jan Krepelka, “There is no collectivism”, March 30, 2018.

Ayn Rand’s former associate Harry Binswanger notes the same regarding “society”:

“

Since there is no such entity as “society,” the subordination of the individual to “society” means his subordination to certain other individuals—whichever mass of them succeeds for the moment in being declared the majority, the consensus, the public, or (per Rousseau) the spokesmen for the “real will” of “the people.”

Harry Binswanger, “Statistics Aren’t Enough to Discredit Piketty’s Failed, Blood-Soaked Ideas”, May 28, 2014.

”

It is no coincidence, therefore, that collectivist regimes, typically “egalitarian dictatorships”, are systematically based on hypocrisy: since they have no semantically valid philosophy, the arguments of those who rule them are nothing but ad hoc pretexts, rhetorical weapons in which they don’t believe themselves, and which only the useful idiots take seriously (see: Liberpedia, “Cultural marxism”, and Liberpedia, “Useful idiot”). ↩

1-9 As we’ve seen in footnote 1-8, there can be no “social choice”, which is why “society” is so often personified and described as an individual, in an attempt to hide the lack of valid concepts applicable to it. However, ascribing individual behavior to non-individual entities is an error as absurd as it is, alas, widespread. See Ludwig von Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, “The Pitfalls of Hypostatization”; Liberpedia, “Réification”; and footnote 1-14.

And at any rate, methodological individualism is not a choice but a grammatical necessity: “individual”, individuum in Latin, ἄτομος in Greek, that which cannot be divided. ↩

1-10 Likewise, the debate between a monarchy and a republic is not whether to have a king who derives his legitimacy from God, and a parliament who derives its legitimacy from the people. It’s between an individual who pretends to have God’s grace, and a group of individuals who pretend to have the consent of the governed. In either way, it’s an individual, or group of individuals, who decides against the will of other individuals or groups of individuals. ↩

1-11 See Liberpedia’s entry on “Humanism and Constructivism” and, of course, Friedrich Hayek’s grand work on the topic, e.g. his Nobel Prize lecture, “The Pretence of Knowledge”. ↩

1-12 For even more of equivalent or directly related dichotomies, see the comparative table in François-René Rideau, “Government is the Rule of Black Magic”. Considering all the fallacies involved in the opposition to the laissez-faire view of individual rights, we could add that, in the end, the dichotomy comes down to one between a rational theory of rights consistent with reality and valid concepts, and mere nihilism combined with denial of reality and conceptual befuddlement. ↩

1-13 See Jan Krepelka, “In Defense of Laissez-faire”. ↩

1-14 Thinking about a group in terms of its own welfare, interests and decisions, and thus making it into a person (see footnotes 1-8 and 1-9), has an interesting (and quite dramatical) consequence; the whole notion of justice, and thus of individual rights, becomes moot:

“

Once we personify the society so as to make the social choice an individual choice, there is no longer anything to be considered under the aspect of justice. An individual cares about the distribution of benefits or experiences over the days of his life. But he does not care under the aspect of justice.

Ronald M. Dworkin, “Is Wealth a Value?”, The Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2.

”

Likewise, concepts such as “nation”, “society” or “race” can have relevance under some other aspects, but none under that of justice and rights: justice and rights are relevant concepts only as applied among acting, individual agents.

There can therefore be no “balance” between an individual’s rights and interests and those of “the group”: it’s one, or the other. There can be only one level of acting agent with rights. And that level isn’t the “society” that we compose anymore than it is the cells that compose our bodies. It is that of the individual being, the living and acting conscience. Societies cannot have rights anymore than nail clippings or clay bricks can have them. ↩

1-15 As we have seen, a crime against anything but an individual is a grammatical absurdity. Yet, French law, for instance, in its current Penal code, has a whole title section regarding “crimes against the human species” (“Des crimes contre l’espèce humaine”). It includes articles such as Article 214-2, which declares cloning punishable by 30 years imprisonment, the same sentence as second degree murder (Article 221-1 of the same Penal code).

For a criticism, see Marcela Iacub, “Le clonage humain, un « crime » sans victime” [“Human cloning, a victimless ‘crime’”], Libération, November 4, 2003:

“

Faire de l’humanité non plus l’instance procédurale qui permet de juger des agents de l’État, mais une substance un peu mystérieuse, a le défaut de remplacer un remarquable outil international visant à contrôler les États, par un outil national qui, au nom de la protection des biens métaphysiques, redouble la puissance punitive de l’État à l’égard d’agissements où il n’y a pourtant pas de victimes. N’est-il pas inquiétant que l’État s’autorise à distribuer des peines aussi lourdes pour punir ce qui n’est après tout qu’une technique procréative, au détriment de toute prise en considération de l’intérêt des individus eux-mêmes ? Aucune puissance, en effet, n’est potentiellement aussi dangereuse que l’État.

[Making humanity into, not anymore the procedural authority that can judge the agents of the State, but a somewhat mysterious substance, has the flaw of replacing a remarkable international tool of controlling States by a national tool, which, on behalf of the protection of metaphysical goods, strengthens the State’s punitive power towards certain actions, even though they are victimless. Isn’t it worrying that the State authorizes itself to administer such heavy penalties in order to punish something which, after all, is nothing but a reproductive technique, blatantly ignoring the interests of the individuals themselves? No power, indeed, is potentially as dangerous as the State.]

”

Marcela Iacub is a specialist in bioethics and related legislations and has written over a dozen books and numerous articles on those issues, of paramount relevance for transhumanist questions. While not declaring herself a libertarian, she has consistently applied libertarian logic to heretofore unresearched and misunderstood ethical questions, even by professed libertarians. See Liberpedia’s entry on Marcela Iacub regarding her views. ↩

1-16 Aimee Mullins, “My 12 pairs of legs”.

On the lack of relevance of the frontier betweeen “correction of a disability” and “enhancement beyond human capabilities”, see for instance “Blade Runners: Do High-Tech Prostheses Give Runners an Unfair Advantage?”. ↩

1-17 See George Reisman, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, Ottawa, Ill., Jameson Books, 1990 [1998], pp. 80-83. ↩

1-18 Thus, there is no difference in kind, but only in degree, between “refugees” and “economic immigration”: in both cases, people are merely trying to move from a region dominated by a more oppressive State (and therefore poorer) to a region dominated by a less oppressive State (and therefore more prosperous). ↩

1-19 See “Public Goods and Private Preferences: Are They Reconcilable?”, op. cit., sec. “Debate on impossibility”. ↩

1-20 Likewise, the socialists who force us into collectivized healthcare ignore that arbitrariness as well, by claiming to have an official list of which healthcare “needs” have to be collectively paid for and which not. This of course is a chimera, leading to unsolvable debates about what should be paid for and what should not, completely ignoring the individuality of needs, desires, preferences and priorities. See for instance Jan Krepelka, “State-Run Health Care As Collectivization Of Everyday Life”—or search the news for the myriad of predictable and unsolvable moral issues that arose under Obamacare, or any of its European equivalents. ↩

1-21 In Switzerland, some are willing to send for three years in jail parents who would commit the heinous crime of trying to give birth to healthy children. See Jan Krepelka, “L’opposition à la légalisation du DPI, ou l’immoralité à son comble”, June 9, 2015.

The enemies of transhumanism, and thus of libertarianism and humanism, are those who want to stop us, by violence if needed, to live a long and healthy life, and to give birth to children who can in turn also live long and healthy.

The philosophers Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord suggest to make them face the immorality of their claims by introducing the reversal test, Cf. Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord, “The reversal test: eliminating status quo bias in applied ethics”, Ethics, University of Chicago Press, Vol. 116, No. 4, July 2006, pp. 656—679.

Regarding the pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) performed in order to avoid the birth of handicapped children, let’s suppose for instance 100 handicapped births per year, and let’s suppose that legalizing the diagnosis would, given a 90% detection rate, divide that number by 10. Now let’s imagine another legislative proposal, which would make for instance mandatory the consumption of alcohol by pregnant women, and would cause the number of children born with a handicap to be multiplied by 10.

If you are among those who would oppose the first proposal, but be appalled by proponents of the second one, how do you think those who favor the first proposal see you?

Besides, the adversaries of the PGD, not only express a critical opinion of it, but accept to send to prison for three years those who do not obey their opinion. Thus, if it is so scandalous to have less handicapped childbirths, up to the point that it is legitimate to use violence against parents or doctors who commit PGD, then, according to the same logic, wouldn’t it also be moral to use a similar type of violence, in the form of physical aggression for instance, in order to directly create more mentally or physically disabled people? (See footnote 1-22 on the moral equivalence of different disabilities.)

Of course not: both forms of violence are equally immoral, and illuminate once again the radical difference between the humanist philosophy of transhumanism and the philosophy of violence of its enemies. ↩

1-22 Marcela Iacub, Penser les droits de la naissance, Paris, PUF, 2002, pp. 134-136:

“

En tout état de cause, si l’on épouse les formes les plus radicales du relativisme culturel dans notre lecture du monde, il faudrait qu’un tel relativisme soit cohérent avec lui-même. Dès lors, si dans un tel monde le handicap n’était pas une diminution, comment pourrait-on justifier l’argent dépensé en campagnes contres les accidents de la route, le sida, etc. ? Comment pourrait-on justifier le fait que les mutilations que l’on produit à autrui (sauf dans les cas de chirurgie esthétique ou de transsexualisme) soient considérées comme des crimes, même avec le consentement de la victime ? De surcroît, à la différence des autres groupes avec lesquels les handicapés se comparent, la revendication de leur différence n’autorise pas les personnes à demander à un médecin d’amoindrir leurs facultés corporelles afin de devenir handicapées. Un tel médecin serait poursuivi pour coups et blessures. Tandis qu’on peut se convertir au judaïsme, devenir homosexuel, avaler une pilule pour devenir noir, si un jour une telle pilule existait, et même inciter les autres à commettre de telles actions, sans que ceci ne relève d’aucune sanction. Un gouvernement ou un État qui ne chercherait pas à prévenir les accidents (comme les accidents de la route) et les maladies (comme la polio, par exemple), ne pourrait-il à juste titre être qualifié de criminel ? Il en serait de même d’un gouvernement qui aurait les moyens de soigner des maladies graves et qui ne le ferait pas.

Puisqu’il n’y a aucun argument valable pour différencier les handicaps congénitaux des handicaps acquis, on ne voit pas pourquoi la prévention des uns serait de l’eugénisme, et la prévention des autres une obligation légale. En effet, si le handicap est une minorité, il l’est également pour le handicap congénital et pour le handicap acquis. Et, si l’on trouvait un médicament miracle pour guérir les handicaps, devrait-on éviter de le prendre au nom du respect du handicap comme tel ? Dans le même sens, on ne voit pas pourquoi le fait d’indemniser un accidenté de la route serait justice, alors que le faire à l’égard d’un handicapé congénital serait un crime contre l’humanité ? Car le raisonnement des juges n’est pas lié à autre chose qu’à la comparaison de cet enfant avec celui qui aurait pu être, comme si l’on comparait son amoindrissement corporel avec l’état physique d’un enfant sain. Il s’agit donc d’un message aussi discriminateur que celui qui consiste à indemniser les personnes des dommages corporels classiques. Pourquoi serait-il nécessaire de le faire dans ce dernier cas ? Pourquoi, au contraire, ne pas traiter ces personnes comme des « bienvenues » au monde du handicap, comme si elles s’étaient converties à un quelconque autre groupe minoritaire et discriminé comme les juifs ou les homosexuels ? La critique de l’arrêt Perruche paraît donc bien incohérente dans sa position à l’égard du handicap, et l’on ne peut qu’à nouveau penser qu’il s’agit de critiquer, à travers cette objection, la culture de la procréation qui est la nôtre depuis quelques décennies, autrement dit le diagnostic prénatal. ↩

”

1-23 See for instance Richard Swinburne, “Why God Allows Evil”, or Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio, March 26, 1967:

“

This road towards a greater humanity requires effort and sacrifice; but suffering itself, accepted for the love of our brethren, favors the progress of the entire human family. Christians know that union with the sacrifice of our Savior contributes to the building up of the Body of Christ in its plenitude: the assembled people of God.

”

Compare with the wisdom of the early Roman libertarian Cicero:

“

Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit, amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

[But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of reprobating pleasure and extolling pain arose. To do so, I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?]

Marcus Tullius Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum, 45 BC, Liber Primus 1.10.32 [On the ends of good and evil] ↩

”

1-24 On the philosophy of the Catholic Church as diametrically opposed to a rationalist and pro-human-achievement perspective, see Ayn Rand’s proto-transhumanist criticisms of two papal encyclicals:

- Ayn Rand, “Of Living Death”, December 8, 1968, reprinted in The Voice of Reason, ch. 8, pp. 46-63.

- Ayn Rand, “Requiem for Man”, The Objectivist, July, August and September 1967, reprinted in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, ch. 24, pp. 297-319. ↩

1-25 “Jehovah’s Witnesses and blood transfusions”. ↩

1-26 To their credit, they don’t oppose organ transplantation altogether. See the “Address of the Holy Father John Paul II to the 18th International Congress of the Transplantation Society”, August 29, 2000:

“

Accordingly, any procedure which tends to commercialize human organs or to consider them as items of exchange or trade must be considered morally unacceptable, because to use the body as an “object” is to violate the dignity of the human person.

”

The “dignity of the human person” being another anti-concept used as pretense to trample the actual rights of actual human persons (see footnote 3-2).

Conversely, the Muslim Iran has allowed the sale of organs, with the predictable and happy outcome of becoming “the only country in the world with no waiting list for kidney transplantation” (“Trafficking in organs, tissues and cells and trafficking in human beings for the purpose of the removal of organs”).

For a defense of the laissez-faire position and its morality, see Jan Krepelka, “Pour le libre commerce d’organes”, September 7, 2006. ↩

1-27 No surprise there, the official position of the Swiss Catholic Church:

- “Non au diagnostic préimplantatoire, oui à l’être humain, disent les évêques suisses”, May 11, 2015.

- “‘Au nom de la dignité humaine’, les évêques suisses réitèrent leur opposition au DPI”, April 25, 2016.

See also footnote 1-21 about pre-implantation diagnosis and footnote 3-2 about “human dignity”. ↩

1-28 See Jan Krepelka, “Are Libertarianism and the Catholic Church Incompatible? Damn straight!”, and Ayn Rand, “Requiem for Man”, op. cit. ↩

1-29 The presumption of freedom is both a moral and a logical imperative. See Anthony de Jasay, “Liberalism, Loose or Strict”, The Independent Review, Vol. IX, No. 3, Winter 2005. ↩

1-30 See for instance Gérard Bramoullé, “A Dangerous Precaution”, and Liberpedia’s entry on “Principe de précaution”. ↩

1-31 Lew Rockwell, “The Libertarian Paradox”. ↩

1-32 See Jan Krepelka, “Laissez-faire: The Political Philosophy of Civilization”, and Jan Krepelka, “What is it about? Beyond libertarianism”. ↩

1-33 According to the socialist John Rawls, for instance, the increase in someone’s wealth (Rawls uses the example of an entrepreneur) must not be “permitted” (by whom, by what right?) if it doesn’t improve the situation of the poorest of the society (which society?), even if it makes no one poorer  (pareto-optimality) nor violates anyone’s rights (libertarianism). Cf. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Revised edition, Cambridge, Belknap of Harvard UP, 1999, p. 68:

“

What, then, can possibly justify this kind of initial inequality in life prospects? According to the difference principle, it is justifiable only if the difference in expectation is to the advantage of the representative man who is worse off, in this case the representative unskilled worker. The inequality in expectation is permissible only if lowering it would make the working class even more worse off. ↩

”

2-1 Jan Krepelka, “Laissez-faire: the political philosophy of civilization”, op. cit. ↩

2-2 “Smashing the State for Fun and Profit Since 1969 - An Interview With the Libertarian Icon Samuel Edward Konkin III (a.k.a. SEK3)”. ↩

2-3 See Jan Krepelka, “Pourquoi le parti socialiste ne devrait pas exister”, op. cit. ↩

2-4 See for instance Jan Krepelka, “Les trois fonctions de la monnaie et leur sabotage”, November 15, 2014, and Josef Šíma, “La ‘déflation’ — une caractéristique essentielle d’une économie saine”, 2002. ↩

2-5 See Jan Krepelka, “Who says we need roads?”, Jan Krepelka, “Laissez-faire: The Political Philosophy of Civilization”, op. cit., section. 2.1, and Jan Krepelka, “6 mois de vacances pour tous !”, Le Temps, January 27, 2012. See also Daniel J. Mitchell, Ph.D., “The Impact of Government Spending on Economic Growth”. ↩

2-6 In José Saramago, As Intermitências da Morte [Death with Interruptions]. ↩

2-7 Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. ↩

2-8 See footnote 2-5. ↩

2-9 See François-René Rideau, “Economic Reasoning vs Accounting Fallacies: The Case of ’Public’ Research”, sec. 5. ↩

2-10 See Jan Krepelka, “Laissez-faire: The Political Philosophy of Civilization”, op.cit., sec. 1.2. ↩

2-11 Communism—you can see it from space.

“

If any image can tell the story of North and South Korea in one frame, it’s this shot taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station in January 2014. The nighttime view shows South Korea lit up with electric lights. Seoul is so bright as to be nearly washed out. With a 2017 gross domestic product estimated at $1.4 trillion by the International Monetary Fund, South Korea is among the dozen most prosperous countries in the world. North Korea’s GDP is estimated at around $25 billion. According to one 2016 estimate, the per-capita GDP of North Korea was $1,013 in 2015, lagging behind even undeveloped countries like Myanmar and Bangladesh.

North Korea: A Hermit Country from Above (Photos)

”

North Korea’s military spending is at 22% of GDP, 8 billion USD, whereas South Korea’s is 3% of her GDP, 26 billion USD... (South v North Korea: how do the two countries compare? Visualised) ↩

2-12 Ludwig von Mises, A Critique of Interventionism, ch. 3, p. 23. ↩

2-13 John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform, 1923, ch. 3, p. 80 (emphasis original). ↩

2-14 Hoppe makes the case that democracy is worse than monarchy in this regard (Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, 2001). Possibly, in the sense that the monarch at least cares about his (long term) dynasty. Yet it’s a gambit that the monarch would necessarily pursue his rational interests (and not, e.g., be an imbecile or a psychopath), and that those interests would coincide with yours. See Jan Krepelka, “There is no collectivism”, op. cit. ↩

2-15 Cf. Liberpedia, “Bitur-Camember’s Law”. ↩

2-16 See Murray N. Rothbard, “The Myth of Neutral Taxation”. ↩

2-17 More often than not, socialist policies are quite literally just that. See e.g. the Ryazan Miracle. The only exception of an advanced socialist economy, of course, is a temporary parasite of capitalism, that is, a developed capitalist country switching to socialism, and surviving (for a while) thanks to the existence of non-socialist countries. See Liberpedia, “Socialism in one country” and Jan Krepelka, “Why There Should Be No Socialist Party”, op. cit. ↩

2-18 Cf. Liberpedia, “Sound Money”; ibid., “Fiat Money”; Jan Krepelka, “The Three Functions of Money and their Sabotage”, op. cit. ↩

2-19 Yes, a one-dollar haircut or a 500 dollar car already seem unreal to us. And yet, see: “One hundred years of price change: the Consumer Price Index and the American inflation experience” and Wikipedia, “Ford Model T”. ↩

2-20 On the consequences of inflation, see Josef Šíma “‘Deflation’—an essential feature of a healthy economy”, op. cit.; Jan Krepelka, “A strong franc—a pride and not a shame”, op. cit.; Paolo Pamini, “When you pay the same to receive less”. ↩

2-21 See Liberpedia, “Monetary Reform”. ↩

2-22 Wikipedia, “2016 Indian banknote demonetisation”. ↩

2-23 Wikipedia, “2012-2013 Cypriot financial crisis”. ↩

2-24 Ludwig von Mises, quoted in Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism. ↩

2-25 See e.g. Tho Bishop, “Former IMF Economist Declares War on Cash”. ↩

2-26 See Wikipedia, “Wagner’s Law”. ↩

2-27 See Wikipedia, “Laffer curve”. ↩

2-28 See footnote 2-5. ↩

2-29 See footnote 2-17. ↩

2-30 See Jan Krepelka, “The Asymmetry of the Laffer Curve”. ↩

2-31 See for instance Lysander Spooner, A Letter to Thomas F. Bayard. ↩

2-32 See footnote 2-15. ↩

2-33 See Liberpedia, “Pollution”. ↩

2-34 See Liberpedia, “Democide” and R. J. Rummel, Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. Obviously this calculation is still only static and counting only direct murders. If we were to count deaths through wars, and all the deaths that could have been avoided had governments not existed (medical progress not blocked by governments, medical treatments afforded through money not racketeered in taxation, etc., etc.), the numbers would be beyond comprehension. ↩

2-35 On democracy from a libertarian perspective, see Ordre.net, “Le paradigme démocratique”, and footnote 2-14. ↩

2-36 See Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, ch. 10, “Why the Worst Get on Top”. ↩

2-37 Regarding how close the world has already been from nuclear annihilation in a “Dr Strangelove”-like scenario, see e.g. Le Temps, “La nuit la plus longue de Stanislav Petrov”. ↩

2-38 “National” defense is not a public good, in any sense of the word, in fact, when controlled by governments, it can even be a public evil; see Jan Krepelka, “Public Goods and Private Preferences: Are They Reconcilable?”:

“

The protection offered by national defense might extend only over a certain geographical area. Citizens staying abroad might or might not enjoy military protection in the case they need it (Goldin, 1977, p. 60). The vicinity of a military installation might be seen as a (rival) good, offering increased protection, or as a bad, increasing risk of close attack (Minasian, 1964, p. 79). In the case of a war, the army might have to decide between sending more troops to one city or the other. It might decide to abandon certain regions of the country it is supposed to protect, or even surrender altogether. Historically, this does happen, and the citizens then end up having financed weapons that are then in the hands of the very enemy the state was supposed to protect them from. Even the staunchest militarist and patriot can hardly deny that in such a case, in the end, he will have been forced to suffer a lot of costs (military expenditures financed through taxes, conscription, etc.) to finance not a public good, but a public bad.

”

A real example of this is constituted by the very well-equipped Czechoslovak army before WWII, which ended up as en explicit public bad after Benes’s surrender. That particular useful idiot of the void got even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for that feat (sic). ↩

2-39 Private, free market institutions ensure responsibility instead of irresponsibility, they ensure that private defense agencies have real, contractual obligations and incentives to actually do their job. The development of hugely expensive and non-defensive arsenals, on the other hand, would be much more unlikely. Free market solutions to the supposed “public good” problem of defensive infrastructure do exist and have been successfully used.

In L. Neil Smith’s novel The Probability Broach, military forces are financed through subscription. This is also attested in military history:

“

En quinze jours, Le Matin avait réuni de quoi acheter non pas un, mais deux sous-marins.

“En 1899, le Matin finance les premiers sous-marins grâce à la publicité” [In 1899, the first military submarines are financed by a private newspaper through publicity]

” “

Le 2 décembre 1912, lors de son Assemblée générale à Fribourg, la Société Suisse des Officiers décide de lancer un appel aux dons à toute la population suisse dans le but de créer une aviation militaire suisse. Cet appel aux dons est signé le 1er janvier 1913 non seulement par des hauts gradés de l’Armée suisse et par 39 conseillers aux Etats et conseillers nationaux, mais aussi par le chef du Département militaire fédéral, le conseiller fédéral A. Hoffmann. Des meetings aériens, des manifestations, des collectes et des ventes spéciales sont alors organisés, qui permettent de rassembler la coquette somme de 1’734’564 francs. En 1916, grâce à ce fonds, le Département militaire achète 17 avions pour un montant total de 866’000 francs, 14 moteurs de réserve, du matériel et fait en outre construire un hangar à Dübendorf.

Official history of the Swiss army

”

Kenneth Goldin famously quipped:

“

Lighthouses are a favorite textbook example of public goods, because most economists cannot imagine a method of exclusion. (All this proves is that economists are less imaginative than lighthouse keepers.)

Kenneth D. Goldin, “Equal access vs. Selective access: A critique of public goods theory”, Public Choice, Vol. 29, No. 1, March 1977, p. 62.

”

... and indeed, even less imaginative than pre-WWI Swiss Army Officers. ↩

2-40 For a quick introduction to the Gulag see Linguistica.rocks, “How do you say dash in Russian?”. For an extensive history, see e.g. Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps. ↩

2-41 On the importance of privately owned firearms for preventing mass murders, see Jan Krepelka, “Plus jamais ça” [Never Again]; Aaron S. Zelman and Richard W. Stevens Death by “Gun Control”: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament.

On the importance of RKBA (The Right to Keep and Bear Arms) in general see Laissez-faire.ch, “Droit des armes”, e.g. Jan Krepelka, “Les armes sont dangereuses là où elles sont interdites” [Weapons are dangerous wherever they are banned], Bilan, No. 208. ↩

2-42 See Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. On Stalin as not an accident but an integral part of socialism, see Kołakowski:

“

Chruszczow opowiadał szczegółowo o zbrodniach Stalina, o mordowaniu funkcjonariuszy partyjnych, o torturach i prześladowaniach, o chorobliwych maniach Stalina, przy czym jednak nie zrehabilitował nikogo z dawnych działaczy opozycji; wśród ofiar stalinowskiego pogromu wymieniał wyłącznie nieposzlakowanych stalinistów, jak Postyszew, Gamarnik czy Rudzutak - nie zaś opozycjonistów, jak Bucharin czy Kamieniew. Nie było tam także najmniejszej próby analizy historycznej czy socjologicznej stalinowskiego systemu. Po prostu Stalin okazał się obłąkanym zbrodniarzem i był osobiście winien wszystkim klęskom i nieszczęściom narodu; w jaki sposób i dzięki jakim społecznym warunkom oszalały i krwiożerczy maniak mógł przez ćwierć wieku sprawować despotyczną i nieograniczoną władzę nad dwustomilionowym krajem, który nieprzerwanie, przez cały ten czas, był szczęśliwym posiadaczem najbardziej postępowego i najbardziej demokratycznego ustroju w dziejach ludzkości - tego z wykładu Chruszczowa dowiedzieć się niepodobna.Wiadomo tyłko, że ustrój sowiecki i sama partia nie brały żadnego udziału w okrucieństwach tyrana i przechowały swoją nieskazitelną czystość.

[Stalin had simply been a criminal and a maniac, personally to blame for all the nation’s defeats and misfortunes. As to how, and in what social conditions, a bloodthirsty paranoiac could for twenty-five years exercise unlimited despotic power over a country of two hundred million inhabitants, which throughout that period had been blessed with the most progressive and democratic system of government in human history—to this enigma the speech offered no clue whatsoever. All that was certain was that the Soviet system and the party itself remained impeccably pure and bore no responsibility for the tyrant’s atrocities.]

Leszek Kołakowski, Główne nurty marksizmu, III, Rozkład, p. 450-451 [Main Currents of Marxism, p. 1149] ↩

”

2-43 Mussolini was a member of the Italian Socialist Party for 13 years, before founding the National Fascist Party.

Even then, the contemporaneous Swiss Socialist Party couldn’t praise him enough:

“

As late as 26 August 1943(!), the official Social Democratic Party organ published an article in honour of the Duce’s birthday. It spoke about “Mussolini’s great gift, which led him to proud heights over wide areas [...]. Whatever the final end may be, he has merited a place in world history and the final judgement will endorse his personal integrity, drive and eminent skills. A political genius with really dynamic power.”

Christoph Blocher, Freedom not Socialism, quoting the Berner Tagwacht, the official publication of the Swiss Socialist Party, No. 171, July 26, 1943, p. 2.

”

The Swiss Socialist Party also had Lenin as its member, another socialist politician, another criminal responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings (see e.g. “The first man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine 1921-1923”).

Although it never had a majority in Switzerland (which is no coincidence to Switzerland’s relative prosperity and freedom, and indeed our best cantons, the so-called “tax havens”, are those where socialists parties altogether are the weakest), it has been a minority member of the Swiss coalition government since that same year 1943 (sic).

On socialism and why there should be no Socialist parties, see Jan Krepelka, “Pourquoi le parti socialiste ne devrait pas exister”, op. cit. ↩

2-44 See Jan Krepelka, “The impossibility of a non-libertarian philosophy of Law”, op. cit. ↩

2-45 See Jan Krepelka, “There is no collectivism”, op. cit. ↩

2-46 See Jan Krepelka, “The impossibility of a non-libertarian philosophy of Law”, op. cit., especially footnote 1. ↩

2-47 Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. ↩

2-48 See Jan Krepelka, “Plus jamais ça”. ↩

2-49 See Wikipedia, “White Sea–Baltic Canal”. ↩

2-50 Wikipedia, “Paragraph 175”. See also the aptly named movie Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer:

“

— Sechs Monate für wechselseitige Onanie?

— Sie wirken persönlich angegriffen, Angermann

— Bin ich auch. Erst die Nazis haben wechselseitige Onanie zu einem Straftatbestand gemacht

— Der Bundesgerichtshof hat doch geurteilt, dass das Gesetz keine nationalsozialistische Ideologie verkörpert.

[ — Six months for mutual onanism?

— You seem to be personally offended by this, Angermann.

— Because I am. Only the Nazis made mutual onanism a criminal offence.

— But the Federal Court of Justice ruled that the law does not embody any National Socialist ideology. ]

”

Indeed, the national socialist law’s content would remain unchanged for the next 25 years, and the law itself would only be abolished in 1994. ↩

2-51 Wikipedia, “Alan Turing”. ↩

2-52 We’ve seen already (see footnote 2-38) Czechoslovak’s army pre-WWII as an example of national defense as a public bad when let in the hands of government individuals. Yet, another lesson can be drawn from this. You would think the Czechoslovaks, after having been betrayed both by “their own” government and those government’s “contractual” allies (again, governments are irresponsible by definition), would draw at least some lesson from it, and turn towards anarchy, or at least start questioning blind obedience to government’s orders. Well, not at all: they learned nothing from it, as history has shown.

The Czech communist party (the same that held totalitarian power for 40 years) still exists and gets non-zero results at elections even after the Velvet Revolution (sic), and the Czech Socialist party doesn’t do bad enough, either. But even right in the middle of WWII, with reality literally shooting them in the face, they were already not getting it, as illustrated e.g. by the movie Anthropoid and this review thereof:

“

Even more disturbing is any real depth to the characters’ motivations, nor concerns about the whole morality of their actions. Indeed, in the midst of the apex of 20th century’s concentration of senseless massacre and utter Evil, does any of the characters or indeed the movie itself offer any insight into what defines that Evil, and how to actually and effectively fight it?

Indeed, the whole rationale of the title’s namesake mission is unquestioned. When the two main characters arrive and explain it to the resistance, they do offer reasonable doubt regarding the obvious fact that it will only make matters worse and only cause more deaths (indeed that is what happened: retaliation deaths in the thousands, for what?). Their answer? “We are soldiers and we have our orders.” No one raises the obvious question: isn’t this precisely the kind of irresponsible and immoral attitude without which a grand total of zero of WWII’s 50 million deaths would have been possible? And whence are the orders coming from, mind you? British government (the one responsible for Munich) and the Czechoslovak government-in-exile (the one responsible for accepting Munich and surrendering). So the two governments responsible for turning over not only a whole country (with a large Jewish minority...) over for nazi massacre, but also a country with top-notch military equipment, and one of the most heavily industrialized of the world at that time: both essential for further nazi war effort. Shouldn’t maybe further orders, obviously also leading to massive deaths, coming from those same governments, be questioned maybe? Or indeed, start wondering about the very problem of entrusting whole nations’s destinies into the hands of a few (poorly selected) individuals, and then unquestioningly obeying their orders? ↩

”

2-53 Mankind’s enemies: the useless idiots of death. A perfect example were KGB agents manipulating useful idiots... then being falsely accused, tortured and shot during Stalin’s purges: useful idiots themselves. See Stephen Koch, Double Lives, Jan Krepelka, “There is no collectivism”, op. cit., Jan Krepelka, “Michu-Michéa, idiot utile de l’Empire du Mal”, Liberpedia, “Symétrie du Droit”.

In fiction, the opposite of the Good is usually represented as Evil, but the movie The Fifth Element correctly identifies that Evil as the Void, the negation of existence:

“

Imagine that this thing is not anything that can be identified because it prefers not to be. Wherever there is life, it brings death, because it is evil. Absolute evil. [...] The goal of this thing is not to fight over money or power, but to exterminate life. All forms of life.

”

That supreme evil’s helper is the perfect useful idiot: there is no indication whatsoever that he would be spared in any way from the utter destruction that Evil brings. Topping on the cake, he even justifies his actions though the broken window fallacy: Keynesian economics!

Yet another way to state this is the Liberpedia article on The evil kind of socialist:

“

Le seul véritable socialiste est un socialiste méchant, dans la mesure où il est le seul à véritablement vouloir la destruction des existences humaines, qui est le vrai effet du socialisme :

« Le monde entier couvert de merde... sans aucun profit pour personne. » (Jean Plumyène) ↩”

3-1 Marcela Iacub, Penser les droits de la naissance, Paris, PUF, 2002, pp. 140-141. ↩

3-2 See footnotes 1-8, 1-9, and 1-14. Likewise, any other anti-concepts such as that of “human dignity” (see footnote 1-27), are in fact attacks against actual human rights. See Liberpedia, “Dignité humaine”; Marcela Iacub, Le crime était presque sexuel et autres essais de casuistique juridique, Paris, Flammarion, 2002, p. 9; Olivier Cayla, “Dignité humaine : le plus flou des concepts”[Human dignity: the fuzziest of all concepts], Le Monde, January 31, 2003; and Jan Krepelka, “L’anti-concept dangereux de dignité”. ↩

3-3 The intricacies of this approach have been covered in Marcela Iacub, Penser les droits de la naissance, Paris, PUF, 2002. On the notion of parents’ responsibilities in regards to not damaging their unborn child (and born child for that matter), and a criticism of the usual trend of minding only some of those damages while conveniently ignoring others, see Jan Krepelka, “Ignorer ses origines est-il vraiment le pire qui puisse arriver à un enfant?”, Le Temps, October 18, 2012. ↩

3-4 Le crime était presque sexuel..., op. cit., p. 236. ↩

3-5 Le crime était presque sexuel..., op. cit., pp. 359-360. ↩

3-6 Le crime était presque sexuel..., op. cit., p. 360. ↩

3-7 Even “man” and “woman”, yes, might be relevant categories in other fields, but not for Law. See Le crime était presque sexuel..., op. cit., pp. 345-346.

French law, for instance and unlike Swiss Law, defines rape (Penal code Art. 222-23) without reference to gender since 1980, and marriage is not restricted to the specific combination of a man and a woman since 2013 (Loi n° 2013-404 du 17 mai 2013 ouvrant le mariage aux couples de personnes de même sexe). ↩

3-8 Le crime était presque sexuel..., op. cit., p. 366.

Thence, if a law stipulates a condition which is irrelevant in terms of Law, it means that the law doesn’t respect universal Law. Indeed, in Swiss legislation, whenever the words “man”, “woman”, “masculine” or “feminine” appear, it is inevitably to introduce a violation of Law:

- military slavery for men, Constitution Art. 59 ;

- non-punishment for genital mutilations on men, Penal Code, art. 124 ;

- marriage reserved for the particular combination of one man and one woman, Civil Code Art. 94. ↩

3-9 Jan Krepelka, “La capacité de faire des enfants est-elle source de droit ?”. ↩

3-10 There might be one legal innovation that we should mention: if we reach immortality, or at least a massive increase in possible lifespan, murder will become all the more shocking, since it will deprive an individual not only of the remaining decades of an existence doomed anyway, but instead, of possibly eons of development, of intellectual and spiritual growths we can't even fathom yet.

Especially since immortality would most likely be chosen by people who do not believe in an afterlife (or at least, do not see why they should be literally betting their life on it a day sooner than is unavoidable), it would mean ipso facto that for the people who do choose it, that is their chosen “immortality of the soul”. Thus, killing an immortal would be the equivalent not only of killing a man, but of annihilating a man’s soul, in a Christian-perspective equivalent. Except that the sacredness of the soul will actually be recognized and respected, here and now.

“

And there went another one who could have lived a thousand years.

”

Kim Stanley Robinson, The Mars Trilogy, quoted by Robert Vroman, “Help! The State Is Trying To Kill Me”, Anti-state.com, September 22, 2001.

The libertarian individualist philosophy, recognizing individual rights and the unique value of each rational being qua rational being, is already the philosophy which respects human life the most, unlike collectivist ideologies who see human beings as mere pixels to be rearranged at whim. But from an applied transhumanist libertarian philosophy, we can thus expect even more consideration for human life, as the avoidability of death will make its absurdity all the more glaring. See on this: Nick Bostrom, “The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant”, Journal of Medical Ethics, 2005, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 273-277. ↩

3-11 Regarding the recent renewal of misdirected interest on that, see Harry Binswanger, “Statistics Aren’t Enough to Discredit Piketty’s Failed, Blood-Soaked Ideas”, May 28, 2014:

“

Economically, Piketty’s thesis is that people’s wealth is becoming increasingly more unequal, with the growth of profits exceeding the rate of growth in wages. Let’s assume that’s true. So what? There’s no particular ratio of these aggregate numbers that is of moral concern. The problem (if it were real) would be the stagnation of wages, not the non-stagnation of other forms of income. The problem would not be the improvement of the capitalists’ standard of living, but the lack of improvement for others. ↩

”

3-12 Regarding the motivations behind the quest for wealth equality, see Jan Krepelka, “Les initatives Minder et 1:12, ou le rejet du capitalisme”. ↩

3-13 J. Neil Schulman, Alongside Night. ↩

3-14 On Rights in general and the “good purpose” question in particular, see Ayn Rand, “Textbook of Americanism”, sec. 12: “Does The Motive Change The Nature Of A Dictatorship?” :

“

When we say that we hold individual rights to be inalienable, we must mean just that. Inalienable means that which we may not take away, suspend, infringe, restrict or violate—not ever, not at any time, not for any purpose whatsoever.

You cannot say that “man has inalienable rights except in cold weather and on every second Tuesday,” just as you cannot say that “man has inalienable rights except in an emergency,” or “man’s rights cannot be violated except for a good purpose.” ↩

”

3-15 Samuel Edward Konkin III, New Libertarian Manifesto. ↩

3-16 It could make sense, for instance, to recognize as a person anyone passing the Turing Test. ↩

3-17 Both Rotbhard and Hoppe have provided defenses of individual private property rights based on logic and relevant for any individual sentience, not depending on any specific genetic characteristics:

- Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Auburn, Ala., Ludwig von Mises Institute, [1973] 2002, sec. “Property Rights”.

- Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, Auburn, Ala., Ludwig von Mises Institute, [1993] 2006, ch. 13, “On the Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property”. ↩

3-18 Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, ch. 13, “Let us alone!”. ↩

Table of Contents

1. Transhumanism as a libertarian right

1.1. The right to live vs the duty to die

1.2. Individualism vs collectivism

1.3. Universal rights vs subjective values

1.4. Freedom of association vs religious power

1.5. Presumption of freedom vs precautionary principle

1.6. Power over nature vs power over people

2. The impossibility of a non-libertarian future

2.1. Economic growth vs starvation

2.2. Immortality vs the State’s interests

2.3. Civilization vs politics

2.3.1. Private monies vs back to barter

2.3.2. Long-term investment vs short-term leeching

2.3.3. Voting is evil versus voting for the lesser evil

2.4. Anarchy vs extinction

2.4.1 Life vs mass murder

2.4.2 Armed freemen vs disarmed slaves

2.5. Individuals vs the void

3. Libertarian ethics as the moral and legal framework of the new era

3.1. Individual vs collective power over genetics

3.2. Individual rights vs genetical differences

3.3. Identical rights vs equality

3.4. Rights and liberties vs forbidden-or-mandatory

3.5. The tough question: who has rights?

Conclusion

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