Imagine you’re the leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world. You have everything you could want at your disposal: power, influence, money. But, the problem is, your time at the top is fleeting. I’m not talking about the prospect of a coup or a revolution, or even a democratic election: I’m talking about the thing even more certain in life than taxes. I’m talking about death.
In early September, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin were caught on mic talking about strategies to stay young. “With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality,” Putin said via an interpreter to Xi. “There’s a chance,” he continued, “of also living to 150 [years old].” But is this even possible, and what would it mean for the world if the people with power were able to live for ever?
Over the centuries, we have used ever more sophisticated technology to heal ourselves into unprecedented longevity. In the 20th century, it was innovations in public health and medicine that effected this transformation, allowing today’s children to live longer, healthier lives than at any time in history. Yet that’s still not enough for some.
I’ve been a technology reporter for 25 years, chronicling the rise of the web from its early days. I have reported on how it has transformed our social world, and I’ve railed against overzealous developers pushing disruptive innovations that inevitably come into conflict with society at large. I got curious about the growing cadre of billionaire investors coming from Silicon Valley who wanted to live for ever. What world were they imagining and building, and how would the rest of us fit into it? I’ve met people who have tried radical life-extending experiments and biohackers who swear the numbers will keep them for ever young, and seen inside Silicon Valley labs where technologists are planning a longevity revolution. I uncovered the motivations, ethical conundrums and doctrines that drive the belief that we are on the brink of eternal life, and that these immortalists are the people who will give it to us.
There are several different types of immortality in this movement. There’s the literal live-for-ever kind, dominated by highly intelligent, mathematically minded computer scientists, philosophers and hopefuls who have an unwavering faith in the life-giving power of technology. They imagine that they will one day merge with artificial intelligence and become post-human, and will live for ever in a state of bliss and delight.
Then there are the immortalists who want to reconstruct the infrastructure of the world we live in so that they can live for ever. Already, and in plain sight, they are restructuring sovereign nation states,…
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