The Immortals - Ep 10: After the Dragon

Intrigue

BBC

True Crime, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.6 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2023

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The idea of living forever has captivated us for millennia, but rarely do people imagine what would happen the day after the fountain of youth is discovered. Today’s technology entrepreneurs pushing an immortality agenda - through their investments and their influence - seem only focussed on the pursuit. Whether or not immortality is a distant possibility, how do we cope with living longer en route to forever? Where’s the planning for that? It’s a great opportunity for innovative thinkers but, from what we’ve seen over the last two decades of technological disruption, these real but smaller goals aren’t nearly as enticing as the big ones. In this series, technology reporter and psychologist Aleks Krotoski explores the frontiers of the extreme longevity pioneers. They've made their money in Silicon Valley. And with their technology solutions - PayPal, Facebook, cryptocurrencies - they've ushered in the world that we live in today, with all its unintended consequences. Some of them now want to solve the "problem" of aging, or even death, and they are making bigger strides than we may think. Can they? Should they? A Pillowfort production for BBC Radio 4 New episodes released Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the full series of Intrigue: The Immortals first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3WEQS5W

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:06.0	I set out at the start of this series to understand the people behind the modern pursuit of longevity.
0:12.8	But quickly, it turned into a story of radical life extension and the Silicon Valley technologists
0:19.3	who want to add hundreds, maybe thousands of years to our lives, and possibly never die.
0:26.6	It is a startlingly ambitious goal to solve the problem of death.
0:31.4	It takes a person who thinks differently to even consider such an undertaking.
0:36.8	They're not searching for a magical chalice or the fountain of use.
0:41.0	They're inventing the thing that will elevate us to immortality.
0:45.6	To me, it's been the most liberating experience in my entire life that my health just runs
0:49.8	on autopilot, and I'm able to use my mental capacities in these other ways.
0:56.5	But as I've spoken with people like Brian Johnson, the entrepreneur, who search for eternal
1:01.2	life is run by an algorithm, I'm beginning to believe that the pursuit of immortality has become the game.
1:08.8	No one is really planning for what comes next.
1:12.8	And you know what, that is where Professor Nick Bostrom's fable of the Dragon Tyrant ends, too.
1:18.2	When the Dragon is killed.
1:21.9	The ball of fire enveloped the launch pad, thousands of voices of joy rose from the masses,
1:28.5	joined seconds later by a death drawn out thud in the collapsing monster.
1:34.6	After all this time, humanity was at last free of the Dragon.
1:39.8	My dear friends, said the King.
1:42.4	The future lies open before us.
1:45.2	Tonight, let all the bells in the kingdom ring until midnight in remembrance of our dead forebears.
1:51.8	And then after midnight, let us celebrate till the sun comes up.
	...

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