This is the story of America's zaniest presidential candidate - who wants to turn the whole population into cyborgs. It's a true story... stranger than fiction. “Don't stand there!” Zoltan almost stepped on a landmine. He was in Vietnam, reporting for National Geographic. If his guide hadn't warned him--he'd be dead. Zoltan didn't want to die. Who does? But Zoltan realized something else just then. He didn't want to die ever... In fact, he didn't want anyone to die ever again. It's an idea he's been pushing now for years. He's a leader in the “transhumanism” movement, which wants to merge humans with machines. Zoltan drove a bus shaped like a coffin across the US, to teach people about the new frontiers of science that mean death is not inevitable. His presidential campaigns have attracted global attention... Imagine there were no diseases, because science had cured them all. Imagine storing your mind in a computer... Living longer than you ever expected--for hundreds of years. This is the extraordinary story of Zoltan's war on death.

Philosopher, entrepreneur, and former National Geographic and New York Times correspondent Zoltan Istvan presents his visionary novel, The Transhumanist Wager, as a seminal statement of our times. Scorned by over 500 publishers and literary agents around the world, his philosophical thriller has been called "revolutionary" and "socially dangerous" by readers, scholars, and religious authorities. The novel debuts a challenging original philosophy, which rebuffs modern civilization by inviting the end of the human species-and declaring the onset of something greater. Set in the present day, the novel tells the story of transhumanist Jethro Knights and his unwavering quest for immortality via science and technology. Fighting against him are fanatical religious groups, economically depressed governments, and mystic Zoe Bach: a dazzling trauma surgeon and the love of his life, whose belief in spirituality and the afterlife is absolute. Exiled from America and reeling from personal tragedy, Knights forges a new nation of willing scientists on the world's largest seasteading project, Transhumania. When the world declares war against the floating city, demanding an end to its renegade and godless transhuman experiments and ambitions, Knights strikes back, leaving the planet forever changed.

After publishing his bestselling novel The Transhumanist Wager in 2013, Zoltan Istvan began frequently writing essays about the future. A former journalist with National Geographic, Istvan's essays spanned topics from the Singularity to cyborgism to radical longevity to futurist philosophy. He also wrote about politics as he made a surprisingly popular run for the US Presidency in 2016, touring the country aboard his coffin-shaped Immortality Bus, which The New York Times Magazine called "The great sarcophagus of the American highway...a metaphor of life itself." Zoltan's provocative campaign and radical tech-themed articles garnered him the title of the "Science Candidate" by his supporters. Many of his writings-published in Vice, Slate, Quartz, The Guardian, Gizmodo, TechCruch, Psychology Today, Salon, New Scientist, Business Insider, The Daily Dot, Maven, Cato Institute, The Daily Caller, Metro, International Business Times, Wired UK, The San Francisco Chronicle, Newsweek, and The New York Times-went viral on the internet, garnishing millions of reads and tens of thousands of comments. His articles-often seen as controversial, provocative, and secular-elevated him to worldwide recognition as one of the de facto leaders of the burgeoning transhumanism movement. Here are many of those watershed essays again, organized, edited, and occasionally readapted by the author in this comprehensive nonfiction work, Upgrading America: The Political Writings of Zoltan Istvan-part of a forthcoming box set book collection of his work focusing on futurism, secularism, life extension, politics, philosophy, transhumanism and his early writings. Also included are some of Zoltan's new essays, never published before. Enjoy reading about the future according to Zoltan Istvan.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1840.