SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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 boltronics on Thursday March 17 2016, @05:52AM
Thanks for sharing. In many ways, I can understand that view point.
The "never satisfied with the now" bit can be a positive and a negative though. If the goal is to look inwards and improve ourselves, or to improve the world in selfless ways, it would be a very positive thing. Unfortunately I think it's more common to see people unsatisfied with social status and personal assets, which simply isn't sustainable and needs to change if there is to be any hope for humanity.
In some cases, life is Hell. Usually, it is caused as a result of someone with power and influence over you. If we have such people live forever with the same power and influence, things would probably only get worse than they are today. You would also have problems such as never-ending copyright - if the author desired that.
I guess ultimately I'd rather Death be on my terms, if and when I decide there isn't any point to living any more, and nothing more to be done. I can't imagine ever wanting to die today, but I reserve the right to change my view at some point. Uploading my mind to a computer would presumably facilitate such a goal.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!