Epstein discussed seeding a “super-race of humans with his DNA”

 

It’s well known that Jeffrey Epstein was a super-wealthy pedophile with an extraordinary network of powerful friends: tech billionaires, politicians and academics. But few people know that he was also a transhumanist — someone who believes that we should use advanced technologies to reengineer the human organism, thus creating a new “posthuman” species to rule the world.

Transhumanism, despite the idealistic ring that “humanism” brings to its name, is a radical version of eugenics. In the 20th century, eugenicists argued that if selective breeding can create new subspecies of domesticated animals, like the many varieties of dogs that roam our houses, then it can also create new varieties of optimized human beings. Transhumanism goes a step further, by aiming to create an entirely new species — posthumans, whom transhumanists imagine as being superior to humanity as we know it.

The contemporary transhumanist movement is deeply problematic for a variety of reasons. In addition to promoting a form of eugenics — which would be bad enough — one finds toxic attitudes like sexism, racism, ableism, classism, elitism, misogyny and xenophobia everywhere one looks within the community.

As I previously reported in Truthdig, one of the most influential transhumanists, Nick Bostrom, once wrote an email to fellow transhumanists in which he declared that “Blacks are more stupid than whites” and then wrote the N-word.

It turns out that, in addition to the transhumanist project being mostly pseudoscientific, this movement also has far more extensive connections to Epstein than previously known. Some prominent transhumanists appeared to be close friends with Epstein, even defending him in private emails against the media reporting on his pedophilia.

Epstein funded transhumanist organizations like Humanity+ and the Singularity Institute and discussed “designer babies” with other transhumanists like bitcoin investor Bryan Bishop. He claims to have known Ray Kurzweil, and was buddies with Kurzweil’s close associate, Peter Diamandis, his fellow co-founder of the Singularity University.

Emails also show correspondences between Epstein and leading transhumanists like Aubrey de Grey and Ben Goertzel, as well as meetings with Bryan Johnson and Eliezer Yudkowsky. Some of these men, such as de Grey and Johnson, have themselves been accused of sexual misconduct.

One area where Epstein’s transhumanist predilections were apparent is in cryonics, an unproven technique that aims to resurrect dead people who’ve been cryogenically frozen after death. It is very popular among transhumanists, many of whom have signed up with the cryonics company Alcor to have their corpses frozen, including Peter Thiel and Goertzel.

Epstein reportedly spoke with fellow transhumanists about cryogenically freezing his body — specifically his head and penis. 

When the technology becomes available in the future, as cryonics enthusiasts expect it will, companies like Alcor will unfreeze the cryogenized corpses in their warehouse to either be joined with new physical bodies or to be scanned and “uploaded” to a computer, where one could then live forever as a disembodied digital mind. 

Even better than being resurrected, though, is never dying in the first place. This is what Johnson, a millionaire transhumanist, is trying to do through an elaborate regime of health interventions, including taking more than 100 supplements each day and measuring his nocturnal erections. “If you’re not having robust boners at night,” Johnson claims, “you’re 70% more likely to die prematurely.” In 2017, a mutual acquaintance introduced Epstein to Johnson, noting that both have shared interests in transhumanism. This resulted in a Zoom meeting between the two.

The following year, Epstein made contact with another prominent transhumanist: the longevity researcher de Grey, who wrote to Epstein: “Jeff, great to e-meet you — have we met before? Anyway, let’s see if there are ways we can work together. I bet there are” (slightly edited for clarity). The two appear to have met over Skype in late 2018. 

However, if personal immortality is not attainable, there’s another option: achieving a kind of vicarious immortality by passing one’s genes on to the next generation. In fact, Epstein discussed seeding a “super-race of humans with his DNA.” Despite the pervasive typos and grammatical errors in his emails, Epstein clearly saw himself as a genius. By spreading his genes throughout the population, he imagined spawning a new demographic of descendants who shared his supposed brilliance.

The alleged plan was to use his ranch in New Mexico, dubbed the Zorro Ranch, to impregnate up to 20 women at a time. According to Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist who met Epstein once and refused an offer for funding, Epstein hosted dinner parties with influential academics, including “attractive women,” “to screen candidates to bear Mr. Epstein’s children.” 

So far as we know, this plan was never implemented, though The Guardian reports that New Mexico “Attorney General Raúl Torrez has ordered that the criminal investigation into allegations of illegal activity at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch be reopened.”

Like Epstein, Elon Musk seems to be trying to seed a superior race of humans through his sperm. As the bioethicist Xavier Symons writes, “We do not know exactly how many children Elon Musk has fathered, but there are at least fourteen. Those close to Musk say the number is much higher than what is publicly known.” Symons continues: “He would appear to see himself as a founding figure in an imperial dynasty.” He imagined spawning a new demographic of descendants who shared his supposed brilliance.

Epstein also expressed interest in biohacking, which involves genetically modifying one’s DNA using biotechnology for the purposes of “human enhancement.” Transhumanism and biohacking are closely related…  

Emile P. Torres, Truthdig, for the complete article:

Jeffrey Epstein: The Transhumanist Pedophile Who Hoped to Live Forever