Howard Bloom for Humanity+ Board

GigantiCo endorses Howard Bloom for the board of Humanity+.

In the interim board elections of Humanity+, taking place this month, I have nominated Howard Bloom to one of the open board seats. Last week he accepted the nomination. Voting will ocur in a Humanity+ Yahoo! Group accessible by members, set up for this purpose.

At The Humanity+ Summit held at Harvard in June, Robert Tercek presented, “What Geeks Can Learn from Gurus,” that struck a chord and I would argue, became the central takeaway for most members from the Summit — Something quietly acknowledged but rarely addressed — Transhumanism has a Public Relations problem.

This is where Howard comes in.

For those who may not be familiar, let me give a brief account of Howard’s backstory.

Many may know Howard as a writer (Humanity+ board secretary, Joel Pitt, has informed me that Howard’s Global Brain was a “great inspiration” to him when he was studying at University.). His books include:

The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
“Readers will be mesmerized by the mirror Bloom holds to the human condition, and dumbfounded by the fusillade of eclectic data that arrives with the swiftness and intensity of a furious tennis volley. His style is effortless, engaging, witty and brisk… He draws on a dozen years of research into a jungle of scholarly fields… and meticulously supports every bit of information.” — Washington Post
“Howard Bloom’s book is an epoch-making and culture-defining treatise. It is destined to be the Future Shock of our time.” — Bob Guccione, Jr., SPIN

Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
“While cyber-thinkers claim the Internet is bringing us toward some sort of worldwide mind, Bloom believes we’ve had one all along. Drawing on information theory, debates within evolutionary biology, and research psychology (among other disciplines), Bloom understands the development of life on Earth as a series of achievements in collective information processing.” — Publishers Weekly

The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism
“Capitalism de- and reconstructed—capitalism with a heart—and brain: Howard Bloom’s new book marshals his vast knowledge of history, deep cultural experience and broad scientific understanding to argue for a new way. Ever since I sent away for a marketing book in the eighties whose major advice was how much money you could make marketing marketing books, I was skeptical. But marketing genius Howard Bloom may have written the greatest marketing book ever—one that puts capitalism in its cosmic context.” — Dorion Sagan (American science writer)

Howard has also been published in periodicals including WIRED Magazine, OMNI Magazine, New Ideas in Psychology, EnlightenNext Magazine, The Village Voice and many others.

Howard is the founder of the The Space Development Steering Committee, who’s members include Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 Astronaut; Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut; Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center, among others. He is a member of The New York Academy of Sciences, The National Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Psychological Society, The Academy of Political Science and The Human Behavior and Evolution Society.

His qualifications for a board seat are without question. What sets Howard apart are his years in the private sector — specifically his career in Public Relations.

Howard has lead a colorful and multifaceted career. After youthful success in the music business, in 1976 he founded The Howard Bloom Organization, Ltd. a public relations firm that represented such artists as Prince, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, Simon & Garfunkel, Queen, KISS, Aerosmith, AC/DC, John Mellencamp, Run DMC and on and on and on. At its peak, The Howard Bloom Organization was the largest public relations firm in the recording industry.

Howard did not solicit for this position. When I first approached him about being nominated, his response was sincerely humble. He expressed what an enormous honor it was to be considered for the Humanity+ board.

Howard’s background brings unique talents to the table of precisely the kind that the organization needs to shape its message.

I encourage other members to support his nomination. If you do decide to support his candidacy, please tell others — perhaps consider sharing this article on Twitter or Facebook.

H+ Summit @ Harvard

Due to a schedule conflict I was unable to attend the Humanity+ Summit in person. Thankfully it was live streamed. I’ve included Ray Kurzweil’s Keynote here:

Ray, often in the spotlight these days, was even more visible than usual this weekend, with a multi-page story in the New York Times on Friday, as well as a brief bio at #62 in Fast Company’s list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business.

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While Ray (and fellow Keynote Speakers, Stephen Wolfram & Aubrey de Grey) may have drawn the crowds, it was a talk by Robert Tercek — President, Digital Media, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network — that struck a nerve with me and, I think, many others as well. So I’ve included video of his talk below, as well as the slides from his presentation. While most of the speakers were intelligent and insightful, it was also well trodden ground for those active in this community. Ray is a great lecturer however, in this venue, he was inevitably preaching to the choir (with all the religious baggage that statement carries).

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My thoughts: To get traction, respect and most importantly goodwill beyond the inner-circle, the transhumanist/singulatarian community needs not only to put thought into these things, but action behind them. Renaming the organization Humanity+ (previously The World Transhumanist Association) was a big step in the right direction. But this is only superficial if it is not backed up with action. I have had some recent dialog with our Executive Director, Alex Lightman, regarding this matter. There is some intellectual discomfort by some in the movement with the fact that much of the research done in Transhumanist studies (nano-bio-info-cog) has been financed by the U.S. military. Patrick Lin’s lecture at the summit addressed some of these issues. But not all of this research has been focused on waging war. In recent years, a great deal of research financed by the U.S. Military has funded next-generation robotic prosthetics, artificial eyes, and other medical applications related to body/machine and brain/machine interfaces. This is due to the large number of disabled veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — While battlefield casualties have dropped astoundingly since the days of World War II and even Vietnam, this is largely due to medical advances that have allowed more soldiers to survive wounds that in prior conflicts would have been fatal. The number of returning disabled veterans has risen at a rate near proportional to that which war related deaths have declined. This has left us with a very large number of disabled veterans from the past decade’s military conflicts. Consequently, the military has been investing heavily in human/machine interface technologies to improve the mobility and overall quality of life of these veterans. I have been espousing the position that Humanity+ should be looking for opportunities to get involved in veterans affairs. Whatever one’s position on any given conflict may be, we are the benefactors of this research, and these veterans have paid a very heavy price in order to be the guinea pigs for this research. Today’s American veterans are indeed humanity’s first true cyborgs. What form this involvement should take has not yet taken shape, but I have been in some informal dialog with Doug Thompson of Remedy Communications, to see if there isn’t a place for Humanity+ to either be involved in their efforts, or at least to advise us on where our community’s strengths could best be leveraged in assisting veterans. If Humanity+ is to be an organization that lives up to its name, this would be a very noble start.

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There were many other excellent speakers including Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari; Andrew Hessel, Co-Chair of Singularity University; and noted futurists like Natasha Vita-More, Ben Goertzel and John Smart… and one of my personal favorites, Patrick Hopkins, the spoiler, on why mind “uploading” will not work as life extension.

An announcement worth noting: during Hank Hyena’s excellent talk, Alex interjected to inform everyone that H+ Magazine, which had previously been sold to Better Humans and was recently put back up for sale, has now been reacquired by Humanity+ where it will be put immediately back into publication. Many readers may have never known it was shut down, save for a recent letter posted to the editor’s blog. The website was kept live, but as a contributing writer (1|2), R.U. has kept myself and other contributors in the loop on things going on behind the scenes to try and secure a new buyer. I am very pleased to know that H+ Magazine has survived the ordeal.

Thanks to David Orban, Chairman; and Alex Lightman, Executive Director of Humanity+ for making this event happen. Also a special thanks to Kevin Jain whom I am told was instrumental at securing Harvard as the venue for the event.

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Ray Kurzweil, June 24, NYC
Ray Kurzweil will be speaking in New York City on June 24th, at the New York film premier of his movie, The Singularity is Near, based on his best selling book of the same name — The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.

Presented by the WTN Imagined Worlds Film Series, in association with TIME Magazine. Advanced ticket sales are available online for $35, or $55 at the door. Time & Life Building, 1271 Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue) between West 50th & West 51st Streets. See Map.

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Disclosure: I am both a dues-paying member of Humanity+
and a contributing writer to h+ Magazine.