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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, @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...