When I hear that the conversation is about an ethical problem I anticipate that right now the people are going to put everything upside down and end with common sense. Appealing to ethics has always been the weapon of conservatism, the last resort of imbecility.

How does it work? At the beginning you have some ideas, but in the end it’s always a “no”. The person speaking on the behalf of ethics or bioethics is always against the progress, because he or she is being based on their own conjectures. What if the GMO foods will crawl out of the garden beds and eat us all? What if there will be inequality when some will use genetic engineering for their kids and some won’t? Let’s then close down the schools and universities – the main source of inequality. What if some will get the education and other won’t?

That’s exactly the position that ‪Elon Musk took by fearing the advances in genetic engineering. Well, first of all, there already is plenty of inequality. It is mediated by social system, limited resources and genetic diversity. First of all, why should we strive for total equality? More precisely, why does the plank of equality has to be based on a low intellectual level? How bad is a world where the majority of people are scientists? How bad is a world where people live thousands of years and explore deep space? It’s actually genetic engineering that gives us these chances. From the ‪#‎ethics‬ point of view things are visa versa. It’s refusing the very possibility of helping people is a terrible deed. Let’s not improve a person, because if we do what if this person becomes better than everybody else? Let’s not treat this person, because if we do he might live longer than everybody else? Isn’t this complete nonsense?

Continue reading “It is Unethical Not to Use Genetic Engineering” »

A balanced article on transhumanism and the future in a trendy Hong Kong & Chinese men’s lifestyle magazine. Article in English:

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The idea is simple. First, they take an arm from a dead rat and put it through a process of decellularization using detergents. This leaves behind a white scaffold. The scaffold is key because no artificial reconstructions come close to replicating the intricacies of a natural one.

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On a snowy evening in Brooklyn, New York, sweat is streaming from my pores, rolling down my face, back, and palms. I don’t know what the temperature is here inside the MRI machine, but “summer in the Sahara” seems about right. I keep thinking about how I should have shed my winter-weight pants and button-down shirt.

The lab technician chimes in over a microphone. He reminds me not to move or I’ll need to start the MRI over. Considering I’ve been here for 45 minutes, that doesn’t sound appealing. My eyes sting, and sweat has pooled in weird places. I imagine this is what Chinese water torture feels like. Add to that, I have a gadolinium contrast agent coursing through my body. The substance is supposed to highlight areas of inflammation, but it can also make you feel like you’re itching from within. Read more

From time to time, I come across news covering collaborations between companies which are either promising or surprising. Sometimes both. A future full of science fiction technologies in medicine &…

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“With this trend toward long hours and higher pay, what will be the impact on people? Research has identified reduced sleep, increased stress, less happiness, lower productivity, poorer health, and higher chances for injuring yourself and others when the workday expands—implications that can be dangerous in any job, be it specialized or not.” Read more

ARTICLE: “My own contribution has been to take the avant-garde ideas of architecture into a laboratory space.”

Bütschli Dynamic Droplet System in Summer/Fall 2013 issue of Artificial Life

Which Ego? And, ergo, P.Q.

There is no “…Ego…”, but SELF-INTEREST WITH SELF ESTEEM, fueled only by SELF OWN WILL POWER and hence directed by OWN ETHOS and OWN COGNITION and OWN SENSING.

BY THE WAY:

P.Q. equates to Prudential Quotient or, better yet, to PRUDENTIAL INTELLIGENCE (P.Q.).

Continue reading “Which Ego? And, ergo, P.Q. By Lifeboat Foundation's Own Andres Agostini — Amazon, LinkedIn” »

This archive file was compiled from an interview conducted at the SENS Research Foundation in Mountain View, California, February 2013.

“The first person to live to 150 is alive today.” That was the promise featured on a billboard from the insurance giant Prudential in the year 2013. The advertisement was perhaps representative of a growing awareness that the possibility of substantially extended human longevity was, if not around the corner, no longer a science fiction daydream. Later the same year, search leader Google established a company, Calico, specifically dedicated to rethinking aging. It seemed as though the existing paradigm, in which thinking about longevity was all well and good — but actually investing in it crossed over into madness — was starting to crumble.

Despite these outward signs of change however, polls indicated that most people were not interested in investing — financially or emotionally — in longevity. Many saw in longevity research the problems implicit in the message of the Insurance billboard: “If I live to 150, won’t I run out of money? Will I ever be able to retire? Wouldn’t dying at 80 or 90 be just fine, really?”

Continue reading “Dr. Aubrey de Grey: When Do You Want to Die?” »