Priming political leaders for fateful choices

This paper presents nine proposition: (1) humanity is cascading through a rupture in its history into an epoch of “anthropo-transmutation”; (2) to prevent self-destruction and facilitate pluralistic thriving, many counter-conventional radical innovations in human values, institutions and policies are essential; (3) enlightened voluntarism cannot be relied upon; (4) human enhancement possibilities require strict control and regulation, based on clarified value judgments; (5) novel decisive global governance norms and structures are urgently needed; (6) the future-shaping stratum must be mobilized; (7) spiritual leaders advancing raison d’humanité are essential; (8) political leaders are critical, but to meet existential needs of humanity they need much improvement; and (9) priming political leaders to cope with the fateful issues posed by science and technology is a top priority. Recognizing the need to upgrade political leaders, adding it to public discourse and working out concrete improvement proposals should be among the main tasks of the World Academy of Art and Science, the Club of Rome, the Club of Madrid and similar knowledge-intense humanity-serving epistemic communities.