What would the world look like if we lived forever? Or even just lived a little bit longer? As scientists, technologists, and anyone who’s experienced chronic lower back pain at the ripe old age of 25 will tell you…the world would look significantly different.
It’s a conversation we started having back in October, when I released an episode of Thinking Is Cool all about the basics of extending human life well beyond what we’d consider long & healthy today. I juuuuust started toeing the line of the ethical, social, scientific, and psychological side effects of living forever.
Today, I’m sprinting over that line.
Because no other episode that I’ve released has caused as much uproar in my circle, not even the episode about porn. Family members and friends and many of you reached out to me with stunning ideas structured by the concept of dramatically extending human life, ideas like what changes about marriage and lifelong commitment, ideas about the expectations of the role work plays in your life if you don’t retire ‘til you’re 160, ideas about who might profit from the very human exercise of avoiding death at all costs for as long as possible.
I fielded so many “wait what” text messages that week that I knew pretty immediately that this episode would need a follow-up. And that’s what we’re doing today. We’re continuing the conversation with someone whom I have long admired for her thoughtfulness, consideration, curiosity, and honesty…journalist, producer, and incredible thinker, Cleo Abram.
This conversation is a little about the science behind our efforts to live forever and a lot about the motivations behind our efforts to live forever. Technology is a seismic force driven by humans and our emotions, wants, needs, and fears.
So today, we’re doing our best to consider all of the above in the pursuit of the answer to one very big question: What does it mean to live…and to live forever?
Listen to my conversation with Cleo now to get thinking.
And if you haven’t listened to the original episode of Thinking Is Cool about extending human life, do that here.
Thinking is cool and so are you! See you soon.
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