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Transhumanism is a social and political movement for the information age and beyond, fusing activism and moral philosophy to cutting edge scientific and technological advances. The transhuman movement grew out of the humanist movements of past centuries, and is more lately influenced by the writings of thinkers such as Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Moravec, Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, and science fiction authors particularly of the Cyberpunk and Posthuman sub-genres. The broad goal of the transhuman (H+) movement is to harness the growing power of technology, particularly technology advances that could alter the human body or mind, to expand human capabilities and reach beyond human limitations. Transhumanism as a whole is neither left nor right wing; there is a broadly socialistic trend to its thinking, along with a more focused libertarian movement sometimes known as Extropianism.

It is coming ever more clear that our social policy decisions need to take the effects of technology into account. In just the few decades I have been alive, I have seen the unanticipated rise of the internet into a force of global change, and that's only the beginning of the technological breakthroughs that could occur in the century to come. Genetic engineering, cybernetics, nanotechnology, engineered intelligence, robotics, memetics, space travel - advances in any one of these fields could potentially change our way of life, let alone some unexpected discovery. Not only that, it seems apparent that the speed of technological change is rising. It is equally apparent that government policy makers have difficulty dealing with technology; important advances with difficult implications frequently slip under the radar. Once it is noticed in the corridors of state power, the usual response to technology is either to reflexively hamper research on subjects that their constituents find frightening, or a shrug and a 'let the corporations sort it out'. Both responses are unhelpful. The world-wide Transhumanist movement has grown up to fill the ideological gap, and argue for sane and humane technology policy from their respective governments.

The transhumanist movement is founded on the principle that responsible people have the right to augment their own bodies or minds using technology - or to decline such alterations as they choose. This principle stands against the broad and disorganized but powerful social complex which is sometimes called 'bio-conservatism' (or, less charitably,

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