He saw himself as a futant - a future human, who has unlocked the higher circuits of the mind and is therefore an out-caste from the less evolved majority. He puts himself and all his friends in the 'genetic hall of fame'. He writes: 'Such evolutionary agents are best described asOUT-CASTES. They are cast out, thrown forward, pushed up, above and beyond, contemporary hive realities.'
Hows this for elitist: 'There are a few hundred post-social human beings
whose brains have been activated to the
Neurogenetic Level and who can think like DNA.' - now, he suggests that elite should act for the good of DNA as a whole, rather than self-interestedly, but he undeniably thought there WAS a genetic elite which he was part of
Here are some more quotes from The Intelligence Agents to show how much emphasis he put on genetic quality and genetic modification - which i think he imagined could occur both through breeding but also through other methods (he may have thought things like psychedelics could enhance people's DNA).
'It is interesting that uneducated, lower-class people readily accept the reality of racial and caste-differences. Country bumpkins and illiterate farmers are aware of the effects of breeding and are, thus, far more ethologically sophisticated than liberal Cambridge Nobel Prize
laureates'
'in the Genetic Breeding Book, Mobility is Nobility'
'The first step is discovering that genetic
causes exist for human problems. This is a big breakthrough resisted, ofcourse, by Stage 12 Socialist Demo-poll cultures. Genetic determination focuses on gene-pool statistics and caste-differentiation, thus minimizing the importance of hive managers...
Once humans begin to face the fact that genes determine the varied destiny of their different children, then they are ready to see that genes determine their own caste. Next comes the catastrophic discovery that each gene-pool is a
time-hive, a genetic molecule, made up of many elements called castes. The whole game is genetic robotry. Within ten years after Genetic Counseling Courses start studying Genetic Problems we can expect courses in Genetic Potentials and Self-Selected Breeding'
What does the above quotation mean apart from making sure you choose a mate from the Genetic Hall of Fame?
This from The Game of Life:
EACH OLD HIVE ASSIGNS TO THE FUTURE PROBE-MIGRATION-WAVE ITS
MOST ATTRACTIVE, ENERGETIC, INTELLIGENT, RESOURCEFUL WHO CARRY IN THEIR BODIES THE ENTIRE SPERM-EGG POPULATION OF THAT HIVE.
He talks often of his admiration for Heinlein and Frank Herbert and their visions of cosmic eugenics, as in this quote from Game of Life:
As always, the new scientific respectabilities have been initiated, pre-fabricated, by the preceding generation of Science Fiction visionaries. Robert Heinlein in the classic book Methuselah's Children introduces us to Lazarus Long, patriarch of an elite kinship of humans who have been bred for longevity. Since they live longer the elites become increasingly more intelligent. Because their superiority infuriates "mortal" humans they face persecution and genecide. Until they figure out the obvious solution. They high-jack an enormous Star Ship and escape from the womb planet. In this profound novel Heinlein accurately (if naively) writes the scenario for the inevitable next stages of evolution off this planet.The Science Fictionists make the blue-prints. Card-carrying scientists work out the hard-ware engineering'
He clearly believes that human evolution is unfinished, that an elite caste of 'future humans' are evolving in California and into space, and that these future humans can steer their evolution - whether through self selected breeding, cloning, genetic editing, psychedelics or other technologies. This isn't cherry picking, it's exactly what he repeatedly says.