FM-2030
| FM-2030 | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Fereidoun M. Esfandiary October 15, 1930 Brussels, Belgium |
| Died | July 8, 2000 (aged 69) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer, philosopher, teacher, consultant |
| Nationality | Iranian-American |
| Genre | Science fiction, futurology |
| Literary movement | Transhumanism |
| Notable works | Are You a Transhuman? |
FM-2030 (October 15, 1930 – July 8, 2000) was an author, teacher, transhumanist philosopher, futurist, consultant and athlete. FM-2030 was born Fereidoun M. Esfandiary (Persian: فریدون اسفندیاری).
He became notable as a transhumanist with the book Are You a Transhuman?: Monitoring and Stimulating Your Personal Rate of Growth in a Rapidly Changing World, published in 1989. In addition, he wrote a number of works of fiction under his original name F.M. Esfandiary.
The son of an Iranian diplomat, he travelled widely as a child, living in 17 countries by age 11; then, as a young man, he represented Iran as a basketball player at the 1948 Olympic Games in London and served on the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine from 1952 to 1954.
In the mid-1970s F.M. Esfandiary legally changed his name to FM-2030 for two main reasons. Firstly, to reflect the hope and belief that he would live to celebrate his 100th birthday in 2030; secondly, and more importantly, to break free of the widespread practice of naming conventions that he saw as rooted in a collectivist mentality, and existing only as a relic of humankind's tribalistic past. He viewed traditional names as almost always stamping a label of collective identity—varying from gender to nationality—on the individual, thereby existing as prima facie elements of thought processes in the human cultural fabric, that tended to degenerate into stereotyping, factionalism, and discrimination. 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."
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