Steven Johnson

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Audacy | Puck

News, Politics

4.8 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2021

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In which John Heilemann talks with Steven Johnson, New York Times best-selling writer on science, technology, and their intersection with human behavior. Heilemann and Johnson discuss his latest book, Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer, and the new four-part PBS documentary series of the same title based on the book, which explore what Johnson calls "one of our greatest achievements: the doubling of global life expectancy over the past century;" the historical roots of the anti-vax movement; the importance of networks of collaboration in discovery and what he regards as the myth of the "lone genius;" the cholera epidemic in London in the mid-1800s and what we can learn from it today; and the rarely examined environmental consequences of our great strides in public health. Johnson also shares his qualms about the possibility that medical advances might—just might—allow us to live forever. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, John Hyalman here and welcome to Hell in High Water, my podcast from the
0:18.8	ReCamp and I Heart Radio, with big ups to the one and only Rizza for our dope theme music.
0:23.8	If you caught our episode with CNN's Don Lemon a couple weeks ago, you will likely
0:27.4	recall a digression where Don and I talked a bit about a topic of enormous narcissistic
0:32.2	interest to guys like us in our mid-50s.
0:35.4	Life extension.
0:36.4	Specifically the promise of a pill that would let us live if not forever than well into
0:41.0	our hundreds.
0:42.3	The digression was brief and jovial and we certainly didn't dive into the science behind
0:46.2	it or the broader developments that moved this kind of thing out of the realm of pure fantasy.
0:50.7	But then, low and behold, an email appeared in my inbox about an ambitious new book and
0:55.4	TV series delving deeply into quote, one of our greatest achievements, the doubling of
1:00.5	global life expectancy over the past century or so.
1:03.9	Both the book and the series have the same title, Extra Life, a short history of living
1:08.6	longer and that alone would have been enough to peak my curiosity.
1:12.3	But the fact that the book's author and the series's co-host is an old friend who happens
1:17.2	to be one of the most interesting writers and thinkers out there on science technology
1:20.5	and how they intersect with the human experience took my interest to a whole new level.
1:25.3	The Helen High Water team reaching out, set up today's episode, a conversation with Steven
1:31.4	John.
1:32.4	The state of our living is getting longer despite the COVID pandemic around us right now.
1:38.9	Long term, we are living longer and longer lives globally in part because of medicine and
	...

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