Who Gets to Live Forever? A Conversation about Biotechno-solutionism with Tamara Kneese and Santiago Sanchez

The idea that someone’s personal proclivities attached to a particular stage in life can shape an entire ecology of investments, philanthropy, and research funding is alarming.

There seems to be less discussion or interest in funding technologies that are supposed to make life easier if you are experiencing disability. Say, new ways or spaces to build community if you’re isolated or elderly, or somehow make the world and your life more accessible than it otherwise would be if you’re disabled.

Tamara : It gets back to that ... See more

What’s so annoying about these cultures is that they blatantly position the individual at the center of everything without being able to understand the need for care and various networks that would have to go into maintaining something over thousands of years. What infrastructures do you need in place, what kinds of labor, what kinds of storytellin... See more

There has been a shift in science towards thinking about healthspan–– instead of lifespan—extension. Healthspan extension is the idea of prolonging the number of years in which you’re not disabled, dependent, or seriously ill. I’d argue that’s an admirable goal to pursue, but there’s also something deeply unsettling about the transhumanists’ elimin... See more

“We’re going to perfect your body. We’re going to ensure that the moments of breakdown, the signs of aging and decay, are no longer part of your bodymind.”

A greater healthspan is another form of extending one’s productivity as well. Many people are unable to retire at an age that they would like to. Extending your life even further and having to so... See more

Despite the fact that climate change is a pressing concern with material and immediate negative health effects, to put it mildly, it is not of interest to many of the people who are in control of where money and research attention are flowing. There is this idea that climate change can be easily solved, and we already know how to do it. So once tec... See more

At the same time, like all forms of techno-optimism, the pursuit of perfection through technology at all costs betrays a certain nihilism about doing anything through politics. We collectively know a great deal about what interventions and public health measures really do substantially impact our health and lifespans, but transhumanists are not at ... See more

There is a problem with conceiving of death as something you can protect against through behavioral changes. There are certain things that do correlate, but if you’re living in a place where you’re exposed to various toxic chemicals, if you’re a worker at a plant where you’re exposed to carcinogens, you lack control. Transhumanists’vision of life e... See more

Unless there are massive changes in terms of who is controlling the technology, deciding where resources should be funneled, and what kinds of products should be built and for whom, I don’t think there is really any way to get out of the cycle that we’re currently in.

Let’s imagine that a radical life-extension startup succeeds at developing a product for our deeply flawed, often inaccessible healthcare market, and presumably protects the intellectual property for that product from diffusing into the wider world. What would that breakthrough mean for the rest of us?