The Immortals - Ep 6: Longevity Escape Velocity

Intrigue

BBC

True Crime, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.6 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2023

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many of the longevity innovators in the Valley want to extend human life. But there are others who are trying to eliminate death. A lot of them. The tech billionaires who have never been told ‘no’ are driven to tackle the most insurmountable problems. They believe they can solve death by re-engineering the human in code. Problem is, it’s unlikely to happen in their natural lifetime. But technology is on their side. Every year, computing power doubles. Once a decade, the amount of change produces a whole new paradigm. And that is what they’re banking on. Science, combined with the rapid acceleration of technological change will keep them alive decade on decade until such time as they can achieve ‘longevity escape velocity’ - eternal life. 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.
0:06.1	Let me tell you a story.
0:10.7	Once upon a time, the planet was tyrannized by a giant dragon.
0:16.3	The dragons stood taller than the largest cathedral, and it was covered with thick black scales.
0:23.0	Its red eyes, glued with hate, and from its terrible jaws, flew an incessant stream of
0:28.9	evil-smelling yellowish green slime.
0:32.7	It demanded from humankind a blood-curdling tribute.
0:37.2	I hate to give a spoiler alert so early on, but he's definitely a bad guy.
0:43.8	Ten thousand men and women had to be delivered every evening at the onset of dark, to the
0:49.0	foot of the mountain where the dragon-tarent lived.
0:53.2	Sometimes the dragon would devour these unfortunate souls upon arrival.
0:57.7	Sometimes again, it would lock them up in the mountain, where they would wither away
1:01.7	for months or years before eventually being consumed.
1:07.1	This is the opening of the Fable of the Dragon-tarent, written in 2005 by Oxford philosopher Professor
1:14.0	Nick Bostrom, and published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
1:17.8	This modern parable has captured the imaginations of some of technology's biggest thinkers,
1:23.5	the people who are behind some of the technological ideas that we once thought were crazy, but
1:29.1	are now shaking the foundations of our modern society, electric cars, cryptocurrency, artificial
1:36.1	intelligence.
1:37.6	And here's another spoiler, the dragon in the Fable represents aging.
1:43.6	The misery inflicted by the dragon-tarent was incalculable.
1:48.2	In addition to the ten thousand who were gruesomely slaughtered each day, there were the mothers
	...

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