Popular Science: Why are you running on the Transhumanist platform?

Zoltan Istvan: Because nobody is addressing the big questions. Hillary Clinton, what is your position on designer babies? Jeb Bush, are you planning on stopping stem cell technologies, like your brother George W. Bush? The Transhumanist party is willing to discuss this all day long. We’re willing to tackle exoskeleton technology and eliminating disability. We’re willing to talk about how whether we should promote artificial intelligence or whether we’re actually talking about ending our species through some sort of Terminator scenario. I don’t think the other politicians are even coming close to addressing any of those issues.

What would you do if you became president?

We would take large amounts of the defense money and put it into the scientific and medical fields, and especially the life-extension fields. I think the biggest thing I’m running on is, if you voted me in, I would do my best to guarantee you an indefinite lifespan. I know that sounds a little crazy–“Vote for me and I’ll give you eternal life!”–but it’s true. We believe that with one trillion dollars, within 10 years we would come up with all sorts of anti-aging drugs, age-reversing procedures, and organ printing–because it’s organ failure that usually causes death. It’s not that we’re going to eliminate death, but we can make it so that the average person would have a much better chance of living far longer.