A new survey has discovered a fear of frailty likely prevents widespread support of longevity, but if health is combined with years then it could well be a popular option.
Healthy longevity may convince people
According to the new survey, out of 1500 people 74.4% wished to live to 120 or longer if health was guaranteed, but only 57.4% wished to live that long if it wasn’t.
We may be fed a tale of ever expanding life expectancy, but while average lifespans may be rising maximum years are unchanged. If we want to keep extending the clock we need more than antibiotics and nutrition.
The easy work is done
While improving living standards and reducing infant mortality was not an easy job in itself, it extended years without fundamentally changing human biology. The incredible changes brought by the 20th century yielded longevity — but predominantly did so by lifting the majority closer to those luckier few. Even in the ancient world individuals seemingly lived over 80 years old; it was simply a rarer event to do so. You were significantly more likely to be felled by a disease beforehand, and many never reached such an advanced age as a result.
“You like your Tesla, but does your Tesla like you?” My new story for TechCrunch on robots understanding beauty and even whether they like your appearance or not:
Robots are starting to appear everywhere: driving cars, cooking dinners and even as robotic pets.
But people don’t usually give machine intelligence much credence when it comes to judging beauty. That may change with the launch of the world’s first international beauty contest judged exclusively by a robot jury.
The contest, which requires participants to take selfies via a special app and submit them to the contest website, is touting new sophisticated facial recognition algorithms that allow machines to judge beauty in new and improved ways.
Posted in economics, health, life extension, policy
Are you a current or aspiring researcher working in the #aging field? Then you may be interested in the 23rd annual RAND Summer Institute in Santa Monica. This July, institute participants will attend a series of master lectures that offer insights into the science of aging, and the relationships between the aging field and health, economic status, and public policy. Register by March 15.
Zoltan Istvan, you re in the Daily Mail.
California-based, Zoltan Istvan, is leader of the Transhumanst party, and believes that mind uploading, cyborg body augmentation, and genetic manipulation could help us live forever.
My new article for Vice Motherboard. It’s about one of the biggest ideas I believe in–the necessity to spend more money directly on science goals instead of bomb making and defense:
It just so happens that there is another way—a method that would satisfy liberals and conservatives alike. Instead of always spending more on our military, we could transition our nation and its economy into a scientific-industrial complex.
There’s compelling reason to do this beyond what meets the eye. Transhumanist technology is starting to radically change human life. Many experts expect to be able to stop aging and conquer death for human beings in the next 25 years. Others, like myself, see humans merging with machines and replacing our every organ with bionic ones.
Such a new transhuman society will require many trillions of dollars to satisfy humans ever-growing desire for physical perfection (machine or biological) in the transhumanist age. We could keep our economy humming along for decades because of it.
My latest piece for The Huffington Post. It’s a recap of 2015 for transhumanism and includes some select stories & videos:
Last year, I wrote that 2014 was a great year for the transhumanism movement. But 2015 was simply incredible — it might end up being called a breakout year. I’m not yet willing to declare transhumanism as “mainstream,” but it’s getting quite close now. Transhumanism has become a word that is used frequently by people around the world and in major media when discussing radical science and technology changing our species.
Below is a quick recap of some select stories in English that came out this year on transhumanism and some of my efforts to bring the future closer.
Let’s start with what might end up the most in-depth story on transhumanism ever written. The Verge sent journalist Elmo Keep to ride on the coffin-shaped Immortality Bus. Two months later a behemoth 10,000+ word piece appeared, leading the front page of the site for a few days. The article was also translated into numerous languages. Photographer Nancy Borowick astonished us with amazing photos of transhumanist activism. Then, Digg ran the story and had a chat session on the piece with the author.
Part 3 in this video series on transhumanism. I talk about the #1 concern I hear about when advocating for overcoming death:
Presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan from the Transhumanist Party speaks to Ellie Zolfagharifard from DailyMail.com.
Posted in life extension
An interesting solution to testing combinations of compounds for longevity effects. As we move into implementing multiple approach therapies eg, SENS, which need several interventions we will need ways to measure their efficacy. Good to see people are thinking about this problem already.
Combination testing can it work? One of the MMTP collaborators Josh Mitteldorf suggests a way we might make it work.
