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While many tech moguls dream of changing the way we live with new smart devices or social media apps, one Russian internet millionaire is trying to change nothing less than our destiny, by making it possible to upload a human brain to a computer, reports Tristan Quinn. "Within the next 30 years," promises Dmitry Itskov, "I am going to make sure that we can all live forever."
It sounds preposterous, but there is no doubting the seriousness of this softly spoken 35-year-old, who says he left the business world to devote himself to something more useful to humanity. "I'm 100% confident it will happen. Otherwise I wouldn't have started it," he says. It is a breathtaking ambition, but could it actually be done? Itskov doesn't have too much time to find out.
"If there is no immortality technology, I'll be dead in the next 35 years," he laments. Death is inevitable - currently at least - because as we get older the cells that make up our bodies lose their ability to repair themselves, making us vulnerable to cardiovascular disease and other age-related conditions that kill about two-thirds of us.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35786771
Horizon: The Immortalist, produced and directed by Tristan Quinn, will be shown on BBC 2 at 20:00 on Wednesday 16 March 2016 - viewers in the UK can catch up later on the BBC iPlayer
Dmitry Itskov, Founder of 2045 Initiative
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday March 17 2016, @12:12AM
So the trick to having freedom is to become one of the oppressors? I don't want to live in Elysium. I want Elysium to *not exist at all*, or more specifically, for Elysium to exist *for all equally*.
Improve the Dystopia? Unfortunately, that only occurs by killing the 1%, or erasing their death lock on political capture. My bet is that the two options will have to become one and the same. Meaning, the 1% will not give up their power and control without death first.
Stipulated. There are many forms of immortality, and they may influence how we feel about death and risk taking differently.
Uhh, what about the shut-in? The mentally ill? The people literally trapped in their own minds? There are some physical/mental use cases where you would need to address healing before you could address immortality. I'm one of them. Until I can live in a body that isn't racked with pain and disease, I'm not choosing immortality.
I'm not choosing immortality anyways, because there are *not* an infinite numbers of ways I can improve my lifestyle. You're forgetting about all the other people here that wish for me to *not* have that lifestyle. Again, you propose that I can "beat them by joining them". Which again, I will point out my refusal to accept membership into the oppressors. I cannot live out an infinite existence in high standards of living, when I know that in order to attain that standard of living, another immortal being lives in squalor for centuries. It is enough that I must suffer the knowledge of how horribly millions upon millions suffer in this world just so that I can enjoy being a slave in America. If I actually were a member of the 1%, I would most likely want immortality as well. Better than roasting in hell.
What, did he pay his dues or something? In order to live in Elysium, serve 1,000 years a slave?
Irrelevant minutiae. What needs to be done is get rid of the 1% which uses engineered inefficiency and political and regulatory capture to ensure that 99% of the wealth is in the hands of 60 people. Not 6,000. Not 60,000, but 60 out of over 300 million people have 99% of the wealth. I think I identified a resource problem ;)
Our immediate future is starting to look like the movie "Dredd". We're already under mass surveillance with much of our civil rights disappearing. Cops are *already* murdering us in the street as de facto "Street Judges". We *already* have the 1% living high above us separated from the filth at ground level.
Better technology only promises to improve this? Bullshit.
It will improve it like Cable TV was supposed to improve television by getting rid of commercials. Totally co-opted by marketers and slimy MBAs to just make more money instead.
It will improve like our health care right? The currently wholly unaffordable health care. The health care that most go without. In the country where hundreds of people died last year because they couldn't see a dentist.
Only one thing continues to "improve" on this planet. The wealth of the 1%. All you've basically argued is that I should give immortality a chance by giving the system a chance to work. If only I worked the system huh?
I don't think so. The system can go fuck itself. I'll take death, because you can't fool me that the other option is actually cake. It isn't cake, but indefinite indentured servitude to the 1%. No thank you, death instead, I need the check at my table please........
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 17 2016, @02:43PM
Oh, good grief, this is just plain stupid.
I don't want to live in Elysium. I want Elysium to *not exist at all*,
I'm using the term "Elysium" simply to refer to orbital habitats. That should have been plainly obvious.
Until I can live in a body that isn't racked with pain and disease, I'm not choosing immortality.
I'm sorry if this is terribly rude, but this is a really stupid comment. You really think that when we figure out how to reverse the aging process and return people to 25-year-old bodies, that we won't also figure out how to deal with simple diseases? Holy crap, talk about missing the forest for the trees.
You're forgetting about all the other people here that wish for me to *not* have that lifestyle.
What is this, some kind of conspiracy theory crap about how a bunch of people are out to get you?
It will improve like our health care right? The currently wholly unaffordable health care. The health care that most go without. In the country where hundreds of people died last year because they couldn't see a dentist.
Only one thing continues to "improve" on this planet.
Well if you leave the US borders sometime, you'd see that healthcare systems actually work pretty well in other nations, despite your rantings about "the 1%". They also don't have the level of income inequality the US does.
Maybe you should stop assuming that the US == the whole human race.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday March 17 2016, @09:51PM
Not in the context of our conversation it isn't. We're specifically speaking about income inequality, and you bring up fancy orbital homes I might aspire towards living in one day. Why should I assume Elysium just means "orbital habitat", and not "orbital habitat for the rich" given our context?
I disagree. That wasn't obvious at all, especially with you referencing something explicitly from a Dystopian movie that has all the elements that we're speaking about. It's in fact the very worst example of what we're speaking about.
Kind of strange you expected me to get just orbital habitat and none of the other quite pertinent references....
Ohhh, so it's free? We get that "single-payer" medical system that Bernie is talking about the same time? I don't give a fuck what we've figured out. It doesn't apply to me, since I can't afford it. Go try selling your idea of medical paradise to a 3rd world child living in garbage.
I could only obtain immortality by also obtaining massive debt, and therefore indentured servitude. Unless immortality also comes with a heaping helping of maturity, compassion, and togetherness, the chances of the average person obtaining immortality for any purposes beyond obtaining cattle for the now permanent economic meat grinder are about zero.
Conspiracy Theory? Theory? Really? Theory?
The 1% are not a theory, and economic injustice combined with massive income inequality isn't something that just happened. It took a long time, with a lot of corrupt politicians, and a lot of corrupt laws. Likewise, it wasn't just one incident of government malfeasance and betrayal, but lists of them.
Citizens United is not a conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy. Big difference. Yes, the people at the top of that conspiracy are wholly uninterested in any kind of equality with me whatsoever. They don't wish for to have any political equality, evidenced by their corrupt lobbyists and political capture. Likewise, they don't wish for any kind of economic equality, as that might free me from being a continually producing resource for them. Like the pregnant lady who can't get more than 29 hours because the CEO of Staples doesn't want to pay the 4.5 million for the neonatal(?) care program that would take effect at 30 hours. He meanwhile is making 55 million himself over 4 years. It's not a conspiracy theory that he was out get to the pregnant lady. He DID get the pregnant lady, since she had insufficient medical coverage, and basic material deprivation. Tell me, that wasn't by design, and your a fool. He admitted as much, and his actions against her were a political commentary/stunt so he could oppose Obamacare.
Greed and narcissism really aren't theories, but sad facts of our country, and indeed world. You can deny the massive income inequality, injustice, and complete lack of representation in government for the "average joe", but the boiling-over anger in my country would show you're full of it. I can spend all day, every day, this entire year, just posting articles to you speaking of the levels of government malfeasance and corruption. If it's a conspiracy theory, it's a really fucking popular one with articles about it every single day.
Theory my butt. The 1% are narcissistic uncaring assholes that are constantly trying to increase income inequality in whatever ways possible. Once is happenstance, Twice is coincidence, but Three times is enemy action.
You may have a point here. The medical is better nearly everywhere else on the planet than it is in my country. We're a superpower that is simultaneously near the bottom of the "third world countries" WRT to our levels of medical care, and pretty much levels of humanity as well. Other countries may care more about their citizens. That is possible.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday March 18 2016, @03:43PM
Look, I'm sorry if the Elysium comment was confusing. I only used it because it's about the only popular sci-fi example of orbital habitats I could think of, and I believe you had already mentioned it by name before so I reused it.
As for the immortality stuff, I really don't know what you're ranting about there. I was talking about things from a technical perspective. If we have the technology to stop the aging process and even reverse it (meaning a very high understanding of the mechanics of aging and all associated bodily processes and the ability to change and fine-tune these things), then we are automatically going to also have the ability to eliminate pretty much all diseases that are related: Parkinson's, cancer, etc. To say otherwise is like saying someone can figure out how to build a start-of-the-2016-art car and not figure out how to make run-flat tires.
For Bernie's single-payer system, they already have this system in a bunch of developed nations like Canada and UK. The US is not really a developed nation; it only pretends to be. And as long as people don't vote for Bernie, they're going to continue to not have the kind of healthcare systems that people in developed nations enjoy. None of the other political candidates will work to give you such a system. Hillary has specifically said she has no intentions of working towards single-payer; she's too interested in helping her buddies in the insurance companies.
As for the 1%, they're not "out to get you". Yes, they work in their own self-interest and are greedy, but that doesn't mean they are trying to hurt you personally. Generally, they're a bunch of twats who believe in trickle-down economics and think that'll actually make everyone better off even though it's been proven not to work.
And no, medical care is not better everywhere else in the world. In developed nations, yes, in places like sub-Saharan Africa, the middle east, Latin America, etc., definitely not.