Just like other schools of anarchist thought, anarcho-transhumanists would (or ought to) understand that a just society demands that everyday people control the means of production. I am definitely of the opinion that the means of production and the most advanced technologies are in the hands of a small minority. Technology won't set us free, we have to do that. In fact waiting or doing nothing is the most dangerous thing we could possibly do.
I consider myself a transhumanist first and an anarchist second. Frankly I am very selfishly motivated, yet what I understand as necessary to achieve my own goals demands a just society for all. Anarchy is a necessary condition for transcendence, hence anarcho-transhumanism. As far as I can tell, there are two primary causes for this.
1) It is impossible for any one person to discover their most ideal trans/post human existence. The best way for each of us to find the most fulfilling existence is to allow people to have an enormous variety of experiments in living. Watching and learning from others provides the best opportunity to find the life I want, thus maximum liberty for all is necessary. Hence, anarchy.
2) I find the implications of singularity combined with current power structures to be unbelievably terrifying, far more horrific than anything I have ever learned or thought of.
Consider the current power structures of today. I tend to divide them into three categories; physical control, informational control, and resource control. Physical control refers to policing and military forces. Information control refers to propaganda and restrictions on the availability of information. Resource control refers to restricting or specifying what resources are available, who can obtain them, and how they are obtained. These three work as a tripod to support each other; when one starts to fail the other two attempt to prop it up but this can only do so much. As of now, if one arm fails then they all fail so power structures are strongest when all three are maintained more or less equally. Modern advanced technology greatly improves two of these means of control yet is undermining a third. However, given enough advancement, any single arm could support and permanently enforce a power structure.
Physical control has been improved via modern military weapon systems (drones) and crowd control (LRAD and ADS). These are terrifying means of physically forcing compliance while far more effective and terrifying ones are being sought out and developed.
Resource control we see through our capitalist economy. With the means of production in the hands of a small minority, compliance can be demanded at the expense of going hungry. As economies of scale continue to shift in favor of greater and greater consolidation, the means of production will be further consolidated into the hands of a smaller minority. This could be counteracted by technologies like 3D printers but we're a long, long way, from being able to print food. Even then, there have even been calls by some to require federal registration of all 3D printers. Typically this is where many transhumanists like to claim that technology will set us free, they could not be more wrong. Mainstream usage of 3D printers and similar technologies is prohibitively expensive and will continue to be long before they can supplant our current economic systems. Thus through the near future, if not longer, resource control will continue to be a very effective means of controlling people.
Information control is beginning to fail, thanks to the advent of the internet. It is making huge waves and this form of control is the most likely arm to collapse. The power elites know this, that's why there have been so many attempts to control the net. Propaganda is no longer as effective as it once was and people are constantly being exposed to 'dangerous ideas,' such as anarchism. Corruption is more and more apparent and discontent is rapidly spreading. Attempts at censorship will continue until they succeed or one of the other arms of oppression attains a certain level of advancement.
This is where it starts to get terrifying. Imagine any one of these types of control taken to an extreme.
Physical control could be enforced via robots and drones. I've seen proposals where a fleet of microdrones would be dropped over an area to search out and eliminate a target(s). Big Dog and others (such as Petman) are getting very rapid improvements as well. Streets policed by platoons of terminators may be impossible to overrun. Unless people maintain the right to bear arms, which is one of many reasons I support 2nd amendment rights, this would be the end of civil disobedience, permanently.
Resource control could be total via extreme vertical integration. As efficiency ramps up via technological improvements to production, it becomes increasingly prohibitively expensive to enter a market. If a single organization, or oligopoly of organizations, control food production then they could demand obedience by not providing food. We're already seeing this start to happen. Include in this control of money, paper money could be deemed obsolete in favor of credit cards. These cards could be turned off at a whim by a totalitarian system, preventing anyone deemed undesirable from obtaining food through established means. Compliance would be guaranteed by the need to fulfill the basic necessities of life. The only possible counter to this would be farming cooperatives, which are far less efficient than factory farms and could easily be shut down with the excuse of having committed some minor crime.
Information control has the most horrific implications. Consider smartphones today, we are all carrying microphones and cameras which constantly transmit their location. At any time someone could be listening in. This serves primarily as an augment to physical control though can easily be used to discredit and outmaneuver any political dissident. Now imagine the trend of increasing integration taken to a greater extent, implants. Contact lens like interfaces (the natural extension of Google Glass) and cochlear implants (the natural extension of many bluetooth devices) could be hijacked for direct control over sensory input. At an extreme, they could be used to cause temporary blindness or deafness. More realistically they could serve as direct delivery of propaganda. Now take this just a little bit farther, brain implants. These could be imposed under the guise of security, or they could simply be sold to us as the new hot thing. They could directly interfere with signal processing or cognitive functioning. Say goodbye to free will, you are now a semi-autonomous cell of The Borg.
Granted each scenario is a very extreme case but it only takes one to pan out, or some combination to pass a threshold, for control to be total.
So, back to the connection with anarchism. The above scenario must not be allowed to happen. Yet it is inevitable if the current power structures persist for just a couple more decades. I don't need to convince you how hard the power elites will try to stay in control. They will use whatever means necessary and will never draw a humane line. More than I want to transcend, I want to avert this outcome. It terrifies me more than I can express.
A total dismantling of all power structures is the only way I can think of to make sure this does not happen. This clearly requires an egalitarian distribution of the means of production, among many other things. As far as I can tell, there is no anarcho-transhumanist theory on how to go about this but the 'technology will set us free' attitude is dangerously naive. There must be an anarchist revolution before transhumanist ideals can be truly achieved.
On a relevant side note, I think anarchism and transhumanism are intricately linked. If we manage to have an anarchist society then there will be people who seek transcendence. That would catalyze a transhumanist revolution and the continued liberty from anarchy would allow it to continue to the furthest extend I can imagine.
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