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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 Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 20 2016, @02:22AM
I didn't figure you for such a passive-aggressive type. Shortsighted and evil, yes, and your comment reflects this as they all do, but this is oddly...subtle...for you. Usually you're much more up front about your "fuck you and die, I got mine and I'm right" worldview.
Got anything of substance to say, or did you just come here to drop your drawers and shit on the rug?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 20 2016, @09:45AM
Got anything of substance to say, or did you just come here to drop your drawers and shit on the rug?
Sure, I'll contribute. All the people whining about people living too long have clearly diseased viewpoints. EdIII rants about their "kill the 1%" fantasy. While you're not doing that here, you're ranting about humanity being boggled by living forever (even though we have plenty of options for making sure we aren't living forever) and the world being "insane" even though we are saner than we've ever been. Meanwhile, it's not hard to find evidence that people want to live longer than they do, for example, those goofy internet ads about removing bags under eyes and people spending vast amounts of money merely to look younger than they are and the heroic medicine common to many peoples' last years of life.
Second, you ignore a powerful improvement that longevity brings, namely, it makes people care more about the future. For example, let's consider the hypothetical example of someone who doesn't care about dangerous climate change because they won't live long enough to see it. If something bad happens to the Earth's climate in 400 years, what is it to them? They'll only live say 50 years. Nobody they know or care about will be affected (assuming their lifespans don't change significantly too). But if they could live to 100,000 years, then it just became a huge problem for them since they will personally live through these events. Also, I think increased longevity would greatly reduce the effects of the "business cycle". With people living through hundreds of such cycles, they'll be more apt to react sanely to recessions and bubbles than the constantly renewed supply of gullible people created today.
So living longer has the potential to create saner societies with greater foresight than the present or past societies have had. You seem to indicate that you care about such things.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 20 2016, @08:04PM
Living LONGER. Not immortality. You're basically making my point for me, though I don't share your optimism about the absolute sanity level of the planet.
Actual immortality, as in "your unique, continuous consciousness never ever dies, no matter what, fuck the laws of thermodynamics, a [sky] wizard did it" would be endless torture.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 21 2016, @04:57AM
Living LONGER. Not immortality.
I don't take the idea of living forever seriously either. It's impossible from the thermodynamics aspect. Instead, I consider it along the same vein as supposing exponential population growth forever.
So when such things come up, I immediately go to the far more practical idea of living longer. That's something that can be achieved.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday March 21 2016, @05:47AM
Aren't you one of the Abrahamic death cultists? Or am I confusing you with JMorris?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 21 2016, @01:50PM
Aren't you one of the Abrahamic death cultists?
Fraid not. I don't believe there is a point to having an opinion about things which we can't ever know about.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday March 21 2016, @04:10PM
I owe you an apology on that score then. It seems I did confuse you with JMorris, which is probably a deadly insult to an agnostic :(
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 22 2016, @12:53AM
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday March 22 2016, @01:59AM
It kind of should be. The guy's a glassy-eyed Christian Taliban.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...