Proponents of transhumanism, including Yuval Harari and Klaus Schwab, believe in ideas such as these:

that we can improve the human body to create cyborgs, which are fictive organisms in which human organs and technology are seamlessly combined;

that properties such as human intelligence can be genetically enhanced by germline genome manipulation;

that mRNA technology will soon allow us to "write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers" (as worded in President Biden's Executive Order on biotechnology);

that we will soon cure cancer using genetic or even nano-mechanic (tiny machine) therapies;

that machines will shortly be able to read thoughts;

that there is no free will because the mind is a collection of biochemical processes;

that soon we will obtain digital immortality by "uploading our minds to the cloud";

that "artificial intelligence" (AI) will soon lead to machines more intelligent than humans;
and either

that AI will make most humans useless to society because all their work will be taken over by machines,
or

that we will be able to genetically reprogram the sex of adult humans in the near future—

to name just a few of the ideas they espouse.

Why is all of this unscientific balderdash? And why do so many—including clever people like the billionaire Elon Musk—believe in it? What are the roots and goals of this movement? Let's answer these questions in reverse order.