The Immortals - Ep 8. The Prophet

Intrigue

BBC

True Crime, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.6 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2023

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A new philosphical movement is gathering steam in Silicon Valley, one that promises immortality by using technology to solve the problem of death. This movement is led by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom.

Professor Bostrom is the author of Fable of the Dragon Tyrant, the original manuscript of the modern immortality movement. It was published in 2005 in the Journal of Medical Ethics as a response to what Bostrom described as the absurdity of the inevitability of accepting ageing and death. Far from being a one-off, the Fable is one of the core texts that form part of a moral philosophy of the future of humanity called transhumanism. Adherents believe that we will achieve immortality by merging with artificial intelligence and becoming “post-human", and that the next step in our human evolution is nigh.

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	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Fladiated.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:25.0	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:35.8	In this series, we are tracking down who is behind the modern pursuit of everlasting life.
0:42.0	In the last two episodes, we've heard how the fable of the
0:45.0	dragon tyrant has inspired Silicon Valley billionaires to believe aging may not
0:50.2	be inevitable. People like Brian Johnson who gave their lives over to algorithms or
0:56.4	large-scale doers like Vitalic Bhuterin who is using technology to try to usher
1:01.8	in the world that it envisages.
1:05.2	To understand why the Dragon Tyrant has had such an impact, I want to speak with the mind
1:11.2	that imagined it.
1:12.2	I'm a professor at Oxford University.
1:15.0	I've been running this thing called the Future of Humanity Institute
1:20.0	since back in 2005.
1:22.0	Professor Nick Bostrom is the author of the fable of the dragon tyrant.
1:27.0	It's a kind of fictional story about people fighting a dragon and at the same time a philosophical argument for the moral imperative of pursuing anti-aging
1:36.3	therapies with greater urgency.
	...

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