Cosmos-politanism: Transhumanist Visions of World Order from the First World War to the Digital Age

Abstract

Inspired by developments in artificial intelligence, space engineering and genetics, discussion of posthuman visions of the future is now widespread, especially in the tech world. This reflective essay analyses various ideological configurations of ‘transhumanism,’ a body of thought centred on the pursuit of radical human improvement through technoscientific intervention. It focuses on the political values and world-making projects transhumanists have professed since the early twentieth century. We argue that transhumanism constitutes a significant strand of international political thought: transhumanists have articulated extraordinarily ambitious visions of world order. Through analysing the work of key transhumanists from the interwar era to the present, we show that assorted socialist and liberal iterations have aimed to overcome the irrationality of a state-centric international order, with projects ranging from Marxist accounts of a world state to anarcho-capitalist visions of market order through to dreams of space colonisation. Analysing transhumanist world-making visions helps to clarify the political ideas underlying current techno-utopian projects and debates about existential risks to humanity.