The Case for Transhumanism

A Review of Alvaro de Menard’s Essay: Two Paths to the Future

In Two Paths to the Future, Alvaro de Menard explores how humanity’s evolutionary next step may hinge on two intertwined technological races: advanced artificial intelligence and radical human enhancement. While much of his argument centers on how transhumanist breakthroughs might compete with super-intelligent AI, one especially pivotal but under-explored point concerns gene editing in adults—a prospect made feasible by recent developments in multiplex genomic engineering and the miniaturization of essential lab processes. The essay’s substance—and its echoes in wider transhumanist discourse—is best understood by tracing his arguments for AI’s swift arrival on the one hand and the promise of genetically enhanced (or cloned) humans on the other. Below is an overview and assessment of how these emerging gene-editing technologies might become an unstoppable force, changing both our physical and mental characteristics in ways that reduce our species-wide existential risks.

Disclaimer:

This essay presents speculative ideas about future technologies for informational and discussion purposes only. It does not endorse any non-consensual, unethical, or illegal applications of genetic engineering or artificial intelligence. Real-world implementation should proceed responsibly and with full consideration of ethical, social, and legal implications.

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1. The Next S-Curve

Alvaro frames historical progress as a series of stacked s-curves. Throughout history, once a major technology reaches a plateau of efficiency, a revolutionary breakthrough propels us to a higher s-curve—like the transition from stone tools to bronze, or muscle power to steam, or from steam to electricity. He argues that the present era feels suspiciously like the upper half of our industrial-informational s-curve: fertility is falling, economic growth is stalling, and current institutions appear unprepared to handle future shocks and existential risks. In other words, we’re living through the tail end of something, on the verge of a dramatic upswing.

This sense of imminent disruption underscores his urgency. The next major paradigm will fundamentally differ from the existing order in the way the industrial era diverged from medieval society. Though no one can precisely foresee its shape, Alvaro suggests that superintelligent AI or large-scale human enhancement will usher it in.

Should superintelligent AI appear (and the goal posts keep shifting on this), it might displace humans in domains we believe are exclusively “ours,” including leadership, or decision-making. There is a geopolitical dimension as well: the creation of superintelligent AI has already become an arms race, with nations funneling enormous resources into building and controlling it. Alvaro warned back in 2021 (when OpenAI was only well known in developer and marketing communities for its GPT-3 API) that if a government takes AI development seriously, training costs may be no obstacle compared to its perceived strategic necessity. This was an accurate prediction in retrospect.

While the intelligence of AI systems continues to scale with the log of compute, genetic enhancement is racing to expand humanity’s natural capacity. These are the Two Paths to the Future. Each path addresses the limitations of the current paradigm but in fundamentally different ways.

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2. The Human Path: Augmenting Our Genetic Endowment

Alvaro makes a detailed case for the second path: improving humanity by improving humans themselves. He discusses several methods:

• Iterated Embryo Selection (IES): Using multiple rounds of in vitro fertilization to select embryos with superior genetic variants, thus compounding the gains across generations.

• Gene Editing: Altering specific sequences in embryos (or potentially adults in the future) to enhance traits like intelligence and physical health.

• Cloning Exceptional Individuals: Alvaro’s own thought-experiment suggests replicating a figure like John von Neumann (a Nobel Laureate known for being much more sharp-minded than Einstein) en masse as a shortcut to propagating genius.

He anticipates many decades might be needed for these approaches to bear fruit—children need years to mature and the technology must be perfected. Nonetheless, the potential yields are staggering: not just an increase in collective IQ, but also quantum leaps in innovation, economic growth, and perhaps even a more promising defense against AI risks, should truly novel minds enter the fray.

3. The Inevitability of Genomic Engineering

A recurring theme in both Alvaro’s essay and broader transhumanist discussions is the inevitability of new technologies, regardless of public sentiment or government regulation. In much the same way that nuclear weapons became a race among world powers once the underlying physics was discovered, genetic enhancement has reached a tipping point:

1. Access to Tools

   • CRISPR-based methods: CRISPR-Cas9 and next-generation platforms allow relatively straightforward edits to the genome, guiding researchers (and, increasingly, hobbyists) to target or remove specific genetic sequences.

   • Diminishing Complexity: The “IQ required to clone humans” or engineer one’s own genome appears to fall quickly as knowledge spreads online and the cost of essential lab equipment drops. This is also in line with the more worrying Moore's Law of Mad Science: “Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point.”

   • Unregulated Spaces: Some are already performing cutting-edge gene editing in unconventional locations: small private laboratories, overseas institutes operating under relaxed regulations, and even “biohackers” in garages.

2. Race vs. Collaboration

   As with previous technological races, countries and private entities will try to outrun one another, fearing strategic disadvantage. Whether it takes the form of an orchestrated government project or widespread private initiatives, there is minimal chance of halting progress at this stage.

3. Geopolitical Considerations

   One of the most fascinating lines of the essay: “From a geopolitical perspective, He Jiankui's 3 year jail sentence [for the famous Chinese CRISPR babies] might be thought of as similar to Khrushchev removing the missiles from Cuba: Xi sending a message of de-escalation to make sure things don't get out of hand. Why does he want to de-escalate? Because China would get crushed if it came to a race between them and the US today. But in a decade or two?”

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4. Lifespan Extension and Human Flourishing

While Alvaro’s essay focuses heavily on intelligence enhancement, the same gene-delivery and multiplex engineering techniques hold promise for entirely new dimensions of human flourishing:

• Targeting Adult Somatic Cells

  Instead of focusing only on embryonic edits (which remain socially fraught), advanced adult genomic engineering aims to modify cells within a living organism. This approach could upgrade cognitive capacity, add new human capabilities like enhanced metabolism or cancer resistance, improve genomic integrity, and reduce age-related decline, without any need to conceive new embryos. Targeting somatic cells in already-grown people answers a key ethical critique: rather than reshaping life before it starts, it allows consenting adults to weigh the risks and benefits for themselves only, without impacting their germline.

• Lifespan Extension

  Many researchers and futurists now view indefinite lifespan extension as a genuinely solvable engineering problem rather than an outlandish fantasy. Advances in genomic engineering, cellular biology, and regenerative medicine have already shown that improving or resetting core maintenance processes—such as DNA repair, protein turnover, and epigenetic markers—is likely to greatly enhance longevity. When these breakthroughs reach clinical application, they have the potential to do far more than extend the number of years people live; they may also lessen existential risks for humanity in multiple ways:

  1. Increased Resourcefulness: Lengthening an individual’s healthy lifespan not only preserves their cognitive agility but also accumulates more specialized expertise within society. A workforce that has decades of experience and continues to think with clarity can generate far more creative solutions to emergent crises. This sustained accumulation of knowledge has the potential to accelerate scientific progress, foster more resilient institutions, and reduce the odds of civilization being blindsided by sudden threats.

  2. Higher Collective Intelligence: Extending the prime working and research years of a population can create a compounding effect on innovation. Instead of losing experts to mandatory retirement or age-related decline, societies retain a reservoir of skilled thinkers for longer. The benefits extend beyond just prolonging the careers of brilliant scientists or visionary leaders. Teams and research institutes can maintain continuity in their long-term projects, ensuring less disruption when experienced members decide to shift focus or pass away. The result is a more cohesive, strategically oriented approach to tackling major global challenges.

  3. Avoiding Demographic Collapse: In many developed nations, aging populations and declining birth rates have triggered significant worries about labor shortages, pension burdens, and overall economic stagnation. By prolonging healthy lifespans, individuals remain active and productive longer, granting societies more time to adapt to new economic realities, retrain workforces, and restructure social support systems. Rather than spurring unsustainable resource usage, healthier and longer-living citizens can contribute their productivity and wisdom to mitigate the strains of demographic change. Indeed, without such measures, demographic collapse could pose an existential threat for many nations over the coming decades, particularly in the West and allied democratic countries. South Korea, for example, is heading toward a demographic collapse unlike anything the world has seen before (see South Korea is Over by Kurzgesagt).

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5. Dispelling the Fears: “Genomic Vandalism” and Purist Ideologies

Apprehension around genetic engineering—particularly human genetic engineering—often emerges from two key areas:

1. Technical Concerns:

   • George Church’s reference to “genomic vandalism” highlights the risk of off-target edits, where CRISPR or related technologies accidentally modify unintended regions of DNA. These errors can lead to harmful mutations or mosaic effects. Research into better targeting systems, prime editing, and advanced delivery vectors is addressing these uncertainties.

   • Even so, partial failures do not imply indefinite stagnation. Just as early computing and 19th century medicine had high error rates, gene editing will become more reliable over time, especially with improved molecular tools.

2. Social or Ideological Fears:

   • 20th-century racial purists and eugenics movements cast a long shadow over discussions of genetic enhancement. However, modern applications need not revolve around superficial traits like height or facial symmetry. Instead, efforts can focus squarely on traits like intelligence that have wide-reaching social benefits, or on clinical health factors such as immune resilience or longevity.

3. Enhancing Intelligence Without Erasing Diversity

   • There is growing recognition that diversity in personality and cognitive style benefits creative problem-solving. Enhancing average IQ does not necessitate a monoculture of mindsets, especially if different genetic lines and varied polygenic editing strategies are pursued. Intelligence is not like hair color; it can be cultivated alongside a vast range of other attributes and quirks. Alvaro’s broader argument is that higher intelligence combined with varied personal dispositions fosters the sorts of collisions and collaborations that drive scientific revolutions. More importantly, he notes that we need not replicate a single genetic template (though he uses von Neumann as an illustrative example); we can seek an ecosystem of enhanced individuals—each brilliant in different ways.

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6. Why Higher Intelligence Is Good for Society

Numerous studies correlate higher intelligence with lower infant mortality, increased economic growth, and improvements in overall societal wellbeing. Alvaro and other authors have pointed out that as collective or national IQ rises, communities gain:

1. Technological Innovation: More individuals can solve complex challenges in engineering, medicine, and software, leading to higher productivity.

2. Better Governance: A cognitively sophisticated electorate—and a more capable set of policymakers—are likely to craft legislation and policy grounded in rigorous analysis. In such an environment, nuance becomes more common, as leaders and voters alike are better equipped to understand multifaceted problems and strike informed compromises.

3. Reduced Threat of Exclusionary Tactics: Since a more informed society might better reject regressive ideals and promote multiplicity, the risk of returning to eugenics-style purity programs diminishes.

Additionally, emphasizing that increased intelligence does not require uniformity in other traits sidesteps the pitfalls of using genetic engineering purely to impose aesthetic or racial purity standards. Speaking as a Middle Eastern guy of below-average height, being short should not be seen as a trait in need of eradication, and advanced gene editing ought to remain open-ended. By focusing on cognitive enhancements without mandatory aesthetic or physical traits, we can harness the best of transhumanist advances—resilience, psychological balance, cooperation, and creativity—while preserving the heterogeneity that makes life dynamic and culturally rich.

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7. Genome Engineering, Human Enhancement, and the Future

Alvaro posits a near future where humanity faces a fork in the road: rapidly accelerating AI or a growing movement in human enhancement. Yet it is plausible these two paths will converge. Adult gene editing might enable some individuals to integrate AI more seamlessly (for example through hyper-plastic brains adept at the man–machine interface).

The overarching effect is to reduce existential risks by fostering a society more capable of innovation, self-governance, and scientific literacy. Genetic engineering, wielded responsibly, might deliver its benefits at precisely the historical moment when humanity must adapt—or perish—in the face of exponential change.

Alvaro reminds readers that the world is poised to evolve beyond its current paradigm, and that this invites a choice. Some of that choice revolves around accepting or resisting artificial superintelligence; some revolves around whether to climb rapidly up the ladder of human modification.

But to me, these decisions are best reframed as inevitabilities. As long as the tools to accelerate human potential proliferate, somebody will use them. The nuclear age’s lessons on unstoppable technological arms races offer a powerful parallel. Neither government regulation nor public opinion can forestall the widespread adoption of adult somatic genomic engineering of genetic editing when the required knowledge and tools become sufficiently accessible.

If the race is inevitable, perhaps the safest option is to engage responsibly and with eyes wide open. Public opinion will matter less and less as these technologies inevitably mature. Reflect on how few people would have endorsed the development of human-level AI even a decade ago. It doesn’t matter anymore. Pandora’s box has been opened. Once such paradigm-shifting breakthroughs hover within reach, their adoption is nearly assured.

Far from increasing existential risk, a more scientifically literate, longer-lived, and cognitively enhanced population will likely be better equipped to solve the defining problems of our age.

Taken together, these developments suggest humanity stands on the cusp of a self-directed evolution—a threshold where our biology could soon be as malleable as our software. When multiplex genomic engineering converges with accelerating AI, the consequences could reshape governance, economics, and personal identity itself. Public opinion may attempt to moderate or redirect these forces, but as Alvaro notes, the dynamism of technological progress is relentless.

What remains is to ensure these capabilities serve the common good. If we use them to increase intelligence, lifespan, and individual freedom rather than constrain them, we may foster a more resilient civilization—one capable of confronting grand challenges and existential risks with insight, empathy, and creativity.

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References and Further Reading

• De Menard, A. (2021). Two Paths to the Future.

• George Church, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves.

• Robertson, et al., Beyond the 100th Percentile: General Cognitive Ability & Life Outcomes, Journal of Intelligence.