FM-2030

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FM-2030 was a name adopted by the transhumanist philosopher and futurist Fereidoun M. Esfandiary (October 15, 1930–July 8, 2000), who professed "a deep nostalgia for the future." He wrote one of the seminal works in the transhumanist canon, Are You a Transhuman?. He also wrote a number of works of fiction under his original name F.M. Esfandiary. The son of an Iranian diplomat, he had lived in 17 countries by the time he turned eleven, and later served on the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine from 1952 to 1954. On July 8, 2000, FM-2030 succumbed to pancreatic cancer and entered cryonic suspension at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he remains today.

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Adopted name

F.M. Esfandiary changed his name to FM-2030 to reflect the hope and belief he would live to celebrate his 100th year in 2030. In his own words, "Conventional names define a person's past: ancestry, ethnicity, nationality, religion. I am not who I was ten years ago and certainly not who I will be in twenty years. [...] The name 2030 reflects my conviction that the years around 2030 will be a magical time. In 2030 we will be ageless and everyone will have an excellent chance to live forever. 2030 is a dream and a goal." He missed his goal by 30 years.

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Predictions of social change

Many of FM-2030's predictions about social trends from the 1970's through the early 21st Century proved remarkably prescient. FM-2030 argued that the inherent dynamic of the modern globalizing civilization would bring such changes about despite the best efforts of conservative elites to enforce traditional beliefs.

FM-2030's more envelope-pushing conjectures about future social and psychological changes opened him up to criticism, because they came across as a compilation of science fiction clichés, as if he viewed the scientific "utopia" in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World as a sound plan for organizing the world in the 21st century. (Curiously, although FM-2030 wrote realistic novels critical of the conditions in Islamic societies, he apparently never tried to show his futuristic ideas in action through a science fiction novel.) FM-2030's optimism about the potential for human development has not remained as defensible, either. Influenced by progressive opinion during the mid-20th Century, FM-2030 may have misread the social disruptions he witnessed in developed societies in the late 1960's as evidence of a "permanent" transformation in the human condition, rather than short-term social trends with lasting, but subdued, effects.


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Quote

"I am a 21st century person who was accidentally launched in the 20th. I have a deep nostalgia for the future."
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Fiction books

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Non-fiction books

  • UpWingers: A Futurist Manifesto 1973 (ISBN 0381982432) (pbk.) Available as an eBook ISBN FW00007527 , Publisher: e-reads, Pub. Date: Jan 1973, File Size: 153K
  • Telespheres 1977
  • Optimism one; the emerging radicalism 1970 (ISBN 0393086119)
  • Are You a Transhuman?: Monitoring and Stimulating Your Personal Rate of Growth in a Rapidly Changing World 1989 (ISBN 0446388068).
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External links

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