Ray Kurzweil and radical life extension
Max is in the house to talk radical life extension. We talk about Ray Kurzweil and the three bridges to eternal life, the social and economic effects of living longer, and a bunch of other stuff.
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Ray Kurzweil
Kurzweil is an inventor, futurist, author, and the current head of engineering at Google. Most notably, he popularized the term “the singularity“. This refers to the merger between human and machine intelligence. He believes at this point, humans will evolve into a new life form. Something he calls post human. He’s made many bold claims about our future. Many of them have come true. Today, we’re focusing on his claim that eventually, humans will live forever.
The Three Bridges
Kurzweil believes there are three “bridges” we need to cross in order to achieve eternal life. First, we need to take care of our bodies through diet and exercise. Since we don’t currently have the technology to live forever, we must preserve our health for as long as possible.
Secondly, Ray believes we will be able to target, remove, and alter specific genes. By changing genes that cause disease and refining our genetics, we will greatly increase our lifespans.
Lastly, nanotechnology will allow us to repair or replace organs on a molecular level. Tiny robots will exist inside our body. Therefore, they can travel through our bloodstream and repair any damage due to aging.
However, he rarely speaks to the social and economic effects of this. If we’re living longer, we’re going to need more resources. So far, Kurzweil’s response has been that universal income will solve the problem.
