#E27 How a Brush With Death Led to a Pursuit of Immortality and a Race for the Presidency Against Trump With Zoltan Istvan

About Zoltan Istvan

Zoltan Istvan is a transhumanist, journalist, politician, and writer, he is well known for pursuing science and technology and being at the forefront of political discourse by running for governor of California for the Libertarian party. Formerly a reporter for the National Geographic Channel and after a close call with a landmine in Vietnam nearly cost him his life, Zoltan has come to reconsider the concepts of life, death and potential immortality. Realizing the frailty of the human body, he has spent the rest of his life advocating for new technology and treatments to help us prolong our lifespan, and ultimately live forever. 

But is immortality a guaranteed result? Even Zoltan wonders this himself, which has led him to identify the "transhumanist wager." Essentially, this philosophy recognizes that a prolonged lifespan is not guaranteed, but if we do nothing, we will all expect to die between the ages of 70 and 100 (or so) years. However, if we spend our lives promoting transhumanism and pursuing means of radical life extension, we better our odds of long-term survival. Therefore, Zoltan reasons, anyone who doesn't want to accept a normal lifespan must throw themselves into transhumanism. They must make the transhumanist wager.

Read the HYPERSCALE transcript.

(00:31) Briar: Welcome to the show, Zoltan. How are you today?

(01:26) Zoltan: Yeah, I'm doing really well. Life's great.

(01:28) Briar: Awesome. How long has it been since I last spoke to you? It's probably been about four months now. Is it?

(01:32) Zoltan: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's been about four months.

(01:37) Briar: And how's everything been? Have you been doing your vineyard, planting it, surfing? Tell us a bit about what's going on in your world.

(01:45) Zoltan: Well, I think the big thing is I turned 50, so, that was that was something large that happened. And I was just at Oxford, so I had a great time in school and studying psychiatry and things like that. And I've been working on some transhumanism writings. Some of my stuff came out Newsweek and all's been well.

(02:06) Briar: Amazing. So I'm just going to dive straight on into it. So tell us about your views on transhumanism because the past few months I've been speaking to various different people about the future and how we potentially could look as humans once we augment with technology. Tell us a bit about your thoughts.

(02:24) Zoltan: Well, transhumanism means beyond human and it's really kind of a worldwide movement now that wants to use science and technology to radically modify the human body. And it's anything from genetic editing to exoskeleton technology to AI, a big idea that's been up in the news a lot lately. But the movement, is I'd say growing, because of all the radical technology around us. And so one day we're probably going to merge with machines and what does that really mean for humanity? I mean, that's a startling kind of thought to leave our biological self behind and become something quite different. So that's really what transhumanism is about.

(03:08) Briar: How do you envision humans augmenting with technology in the future? Do you imagine us having robotic arms, robotic hearts, once our hearts start to fail, will this help us live longer? Start to paint a picture as to what this could look like.

(03:24) Zoltan: Well, if I had my dream  what I want to do, I think first off, most transhuman want to live indefinitely. That's kind of the big thing is they don't want to die, it's because they love life and they want to carry on. And death is kind of the spectre that haunts most transhumanists like myself. It's like nobody wants to lose someone they love. Nobody wants to have existence. And so I'd say the primary concern is really using technology to overcome biological death. Now, that's the first part. The second part is, well, what do we do after that? Here we have an existence where we can do many different things. And how far, in the universe do you want to go? Most transhumanists want to enter what we might call just the Star Trek era, where we really get off planet and start exploring our universe.

Others want to live in virtual worlds where they're completely happy all the time, or they're exploring different types of things that we can never do in our kind of limited biological world. And I guess materialistic earthly world here. And I think, a third part is they, people want to find out how much power and how much, distance they can kind of cover in the universe they want to explore. They're just curiosity addicts. They want to go out and conquer the world. this time, when I say the world, I mean they want to conquer planets and not in necessarily some kind of like aggressive, authoritarian way, but nobody wants to have, I think the physical universe be able to take away the things that they love most, like their life or their children or their wealth, things like that. So huge part of transhumanism is just overcoming the challenges that kind of hover over us and can, can dismantle our livelihoods that we know that means really going out to the universe and conquering it all.

(05:05) Briar: Some people I've been speaking to are predicting that come 2045 living forever may be a reality because of nanotechnology. Maybe we've come up with a solution for our brains to continue on because I think a general consensus is that it's our brains that are essentially holding us back at the moment because we could replace our heart, leg, whatever is expiring. But according to people I've been speaking to, the one thing we can't replace is our brain. Sure, we could mind upload it. Is this something that you'd be doing?

(05:37) Zoltan: Yes. I mean, absolutely. If I could mind upload, then I would be very much interested in trying that. I mean, first off, why not? Because I'd still have my physical self here. I mean, if it's a choice between mind uploading or my physical body, then it's a big different thing. But many transhumanist want to upload their minds and they want to create multiple versions of themselves. Now you no longer have to worry about overpopulation. You live in a virtual world, you have clones of yourselves. I mean, it sounds a little bit strange and weird, but from a survival point of view that's a lot of what transhumanists want to do. And so I absolutely would love to have an online version myself. I'd love to have an online version of myself in my phone, one that could say, Zoltan, do this, or don't do that. Or is the right answer. Or make the right moral decision. Don’t do something bad or do something good, help an old lady across the street or something of that nature. And, be reminded of those things that maybe that my biological self fails on. So there might be some really useful reasons to have an online version of myself, especially an improved version that might help the actual biological self out all the time.

(06:45) Briar: I think the interesting thing about digital twins of ourselves, I was actually thinking about what I might get mine doing, definitely working while I sleep. I was really attracted to that idea. And of course, doing the more mundane tasks that kind of drag us down so we could be out surfing or planting vineyards or on my side, I don't know, driving my car, exercising, whatever, just out having fun and socializing and being creative, which to me is the most fundamental part of being human. When we're talking about digital versions of ourselves, like are these digital beings in virtual reality? Do you think they could be walking around in augmented reality in our physical worlds?

(07:27) Zoltan: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's an entire enormous industry for that specific idea because of all the people who have died. I mean, we're coming to a point when you're going to be able to take a lot of the media, a lot of the interviews, a lot of the writings and just a film that we have of people that have died and bring them back into at least some type of augmented form. In fact, people are working on putting them in the physical form through different types of robots and stuff like that. I mean, the new robots out there almost can look like people. For example, the sex bot industry. I mean if you're more than three feet away, it's very hard to tell that these people are no longer human because they're getting so good at creating it.

So eventually there's going to be an industry to bring back whole sets of family members, especially, close ones you may have lost that have been augmented with this technology of their uploaded kind of ideas and trying to recreate them to, not only help with the mourning process, but also just help with the day-to-day process. And people will say, oh, well that's not the real person. And then you'll say, well, it certainly is parts of the real person. That's how we built it. So, there are trade-offs there and nothing's perfect, but I absolutely see augmented selves including augmented versions of ourselves. So I could just have conversations with myself, and maybe I'll do interviews with myself and things like that. Hey, Zoltan, what do you think? 

There’s no question that we're literally years, just a few years away from this type of world where you see these things in you're augmented reality. And it won't only be through goggles. I mean, they're already working on the technology that comes from, you have a little sensor in your ceiling in every single room in your house, wherever you walk, the augmented reality follows you. It can put your children to bed at night by reading its stories and things like that. So we're on the cusp of this couple years, and you'll see this technology and people's houses.

(09:11) Briar: Do you really think it will be a couple of years that's like just around the corner? That sounds very exciting.

(09:15) Zoltan: Absolutely. So I just saw a Ted talk I think two days ago about the new iPhone killer. So, they're talking about a telephone that just scans holograms onto your hand. So your digital screen is on your hand or anywhere actually, and you just play with your phone, right in front of you because of the hologram, you can type on it, things like that. And so that technology's essentially already here. You should see it being commercialized in the next year. So once you get to this kind of holographic imagery, then it's sort of game over in terms of what you can do with that, because that hologram can now become a deceased person or a teacher, or your kid doesn't have to go to school anymore because teacher's right there in the living room.

So I think we're literally two to three years away from that when you start walking into a mall and there'll be a salesperson that will you know invite you into the store. It'll already know your preferences through facial scanning and things like that. It'll say you love, let's say orange dresses, and it'll say, Hey, we have a huge selection, new orange dresses that just came in. Please come into this store. I think we're very close to that and it's going to be unbelievable. A little bit freaky at first. And, probably even the augmented people that you see will be trained to the kinds of people that you might be attracted to and things like that. So, I mean it's going to be a whole new world in terms of that. And I see that technology, like I said, the way it typically works is there's something in the ceiling or something in the walls that can create this imagery. So you don't even need to have a headset. It just happens. And we're very close.

(10:47) Briar: Do you think that we could have something like a Neuralink that, that might help transmit this or help us talk perhaps telepathically with each other?

(10:56) Zoltan: Yes, absolutely. And, and one day that'll be it. It'll be fully immersive. We'll have the Neuralink, there won't need to be anything else any kind of else other augmented devices everywhere, you know. But I think the ultimate thing with Neuralink is that anything that goes inside the human body takes 10 to 12 years of medical regulation and trials and things like that. Whereas what you saw with like ChatGPT, there was no regulatory process. A team came up with the idea, they launched it, and the world changed. And I think that's the problem with putting anything inside your body, these types of technologies. There's regulatory framework for anything that either goes on you or inside you, but there's very little regulatory framework for anything that just changes the world.

So I think companies know this because it's too difficult to wait 10 to 12 years and to try to put a product in existence knowing that the entire world could be changed in 10 or 12, 12 years. Nobody has budget for 10 or 12 year kind of development spans anymore. And so what they're looking for is what's the next two to three years? They can put a budget towards that. And that unfortunately means a lot of medical-- the medical device industry, which might be a critical part of transhumanism, therefore gets kind of left behind. I'm already seeing that nobody has a 12 year budget anymore.

(12:15) Briar: I think it's very interesting, lots of the points that you bring up. And I was actually reading an article today about a lady in Australia who got a neural link type brain implant, and she had schizophrenia, and she found it very difficult to live on a day-to-day basis. But once she got this brain implant, her life changed for the better. So for 12 years, she was able to function and live her life as a sort of normal person, you might say. But then the company actually went bankrupt and they insisted because she was on a medical trial that she takes that brain implant out and she was like, listen, can I buy it? I'll re-mortgage my house, I'll do anything to keep this in my brain. And no, they ended up forcing her to take it out.

(13:02) Zoltan: Yeah, no, and, and that's the problem when you have too much government involved in something like this I highly prefer the environment where, a consumer would just make a choice with a company. And if you don't like a big company like Facebook you don't like social media. You just simply don't use it. And in this kind of case specifically, you have a woman who absolutely needed something. Her life has changed. I mean, I, if I was that woman, I might've tried to run away or something. And that's a good Hollywood story of course. But, I mean that's horrible. And that's where I think the less regulation would be better. I think adults can make choices that they want. And if adult wants something in their head, or if an adult wants to be in a virtual world or deal with social media, then let them do that. It may not be in their best interest always. Not every story has a happy ending, but happy ending is oftentimes just the freedom to make the choice in the first place. And so that's really where I kind of come down when it comes to technology, is just let people make their own choices. And even if a company goes bankrupt, they're still able to retain whatever the benefits are that, of the thing that they bought or the thing that they've been involved in.

(14:11) Briar: So you've been speaking a lot about how there's little regulation on like the artificial intelligence, the robotics side of things, and then obviously there's a lot of regulations around us as humans augmenting with technology. Sometimes I think there might, well, I think there definitely is a big disconnect. And do you think we are doing enough to, I guess, strengthen ourselves as a human race? Because what's to say that the robotics side of things and the AI starts to merge and become really stronger and suddenly it's a spiral effect. They're outta control. We are still back here in our little organic meat sack, so to speak. Like, what are your thoughts about all of this? This,

(14:53) Zoltan: I'm not a fan of meat sack, the reason it's not, I love my body and I love the human world and everything like that, but this is a terminal body. This is a body that's has a limited amount of heartbeats. Either you and I right now could have an embolism and die right here. It's just a very sad state of affairs. When you think about how much we give and what we try to accomplish, the family, which we have. People we love. The fact that it could all be taken away in an instant is, is just a tragedy. So I'm always for trying to make that transition to whatever the next transhumanist world is. And again, that could be virtual, it can be augmented, it can be just pure AI based or uploading or augment, you know where you use cyborgism or you take on all these things, whatever it is, I just think it's going to have a lot more lasting effect in the long run than our meat sacks.

I think we need to, no matter what happens, make that transition to kind of get out of this body and into it is, even if it feels really unnatural, feels really weird. There are just so many reasons to do that. And I have a friend who's going through the death of a child right now, and it's just like, there's really no horror that compares to that. So people have to envision that and just try to get out and then transition to this other world, no matter what the regulations are going to be, no matter what the resistance is to that whatever our future's going to be, we need to see it as something better than ending up six feet under in a grave, eaten by worms. And that's really the, the kind of choice that I see and most transhumanists see.

Again, like I said, love my physical self. I'm so glad I'm on planet earth and I'm alive and all these things, and I'm grateful I would gladly live my life just the way it is. But given the fact that we know that technology can one day make us live dramatically longer, maybe indefinitely, it's really we all have to make a transhuman wager and kind of jump and put as much effort as we can into transitioning to that new world where we can start to avoid the spectre of death and also just get to something that's going to be dramatically more interesting. We're compelled, I think we have a moral case for doing that.

(17:04) Briar: So I spend a lot of time on Reddit, reading a lot about transhumanism and the future community and, and things like this. And I think you've got the real doomsayers, don't you? And then you also have the real hype kind of people. And then you've got these kind of people in between who think that there are a lot of people out there that, because this is quite exciting, I'm very excited about it. I would love to live forever, I don't know, maybe start to augment my body with technology, everything like that. I think it all sounds very cool. Digital twins like, sign me up inter planet exploration. I'm there. But do you think that perhaps we're not being realistic,

(17:43) Zoltan: The problem with being realistic as a human being, the problem with, staying the steady course is that we never reach for the stars then. You sort of have to be an idealist. You sort of have to be an optimist. You sort of have to say and believe in what can't be done. That's the kind of nature, it's a bit maddening. It's a bit crazy, but that's the nature of transhumanism is that we don't know. I mean, I have no idea I'm going to drop dead tomorrow, and that's the way it's going to be. But I think the, the nature of transhumanism is optimism and the nature of the future is optimism. And with Elon Musk for example, you got to believe, and if you don't believe, you'll never going to make, we know that. Like, if you don't even try, it's not going to happen.

So there's a huge amount of resistance. A lot of people, a lot of naysayers, a lot of people are doomsayers. Say you can't change aging, uploading your mind is impossible you create a monster. They may be right, but to not try is a worse sin in my opinion, than not, especially, given the spectre of death and the fact that we just existence ends. So it's just this kind of choice. And, maybe it's a choice of two evils. Maybe it would've been nicer if we had been born to be immortal or something like that. That's not the case. We're born in a challenge, and that challenge is to try to overcome death with science and try to move our species into becoming something of a much more lasting species and one that can explore a universe. So even if there's great resistance, I'm still optimistic and I need to be optimistic because to be pessimistic just doesn't help anything. So whether it's realistic or not isn't even really a real philosophical concern of mine. A philosophical concern is whether we can reach the stars, whether it's possible or not.

(19:30) Briar: Regarding longevity. Okay. So we, we've spoken a little bit about living forever and doing all of these things. Do you take any supplements? Is there anything on, on this side that you've been pushing anybody's research that you've been following? I know that you did mention, obviously when it comes to putting stuff in our body and things like this, I know that they have found it very challenging on the longevity trials because again, they're long very expensive. And some people do think they have the solution, but they just don't have the funding to go ahead.

(20:03) Zoltan: So I personally don't take anything yet. I do respect people that do, and I think there's a ton of things. My wine business is based on trying to add nootropics to the wine and things like that to make us smarter and live longer. Having just turned 50, thankfully I'm in good health. So I don't yet, but I probably will. I think there's a great industry out there to make us live longer already, but it's really, they haven't, we haven't had found the magic bullet like the f d a trials of some of the other stuff that's coming out the next year or two. But those might be something real where you just put a shot in and all of a sudden your telomeres and things like that, don't fall off and you live longer. You really stop aging to some extent.

But I think there is an amazing industry there and there will be something that will come through the pipeline eventually that will change the longevity industry. Probably be something regarding genetic editing, probably be something regarding, again, a medical device of some sort that maybe just replenishes our blood or something like that. There are all sorts of different ways out there. The problem is, like I said, again it, it just takes so long to get a drug to market and the drugs that are coming out the next year or two have been repurposed drugs mostly. And so that means they've already been out for something else, but they also seem to work with aging. But we kind of, now because of all the billions of dollars that have been flowing into the longevity industry in the last few years recently, like, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and all these people started really pushing in money.

I think probably within 7 to 10 years you'll have a lot of human trials going on and new types of longevity drugs that target the genes that target the process of aging in our bodies in itself. Still though, speaking, the very best way to avoid death is somehow changing your organs. It's organ failure that almost always kills people. And so if you can have some type of improved heart, even if it's just done through stem cell injection, that's a good thing. If you can have a kidney replacement for an old one or whatever, that will help. But we have to get to the point where we can kind of three d print bio organs that actually work a lot better than what we have.

(22:05) Briar: Do you think that all of this exploration with technology is going to create the haves and then the have nots? Like how will we ensure that it there's an equal world and that some people aren't living forever and then other people who want to live forever can't?

(22:23) Zoltan: Yeah, that's, that's like the million dollar question because it's very tough to, and as someone who's run for office, I can tell you that's even really tougher to try to implement in a real world scenario as it is. We already live in a society where the rich live about 25% longer than the poor. That's just, those are facts in the United States, I've never felt comfortable with that and I know that I'm pushing an industry that needs to address that, and I wish we could address that better. I mean, I support things like a universal basic income, which hopefully would provide a universal healthcare system under that umbrella. The point though is it's going to be very difficult. I think it's probably not going to inequality's growing across the world, and I think it's probably going to get worse.

I think that's about the worst thing I can say  probably in this interview, but I see it getting worse in the last 10 years that I've been a public figure in transhumanism. I've been fighting against it. And there's nothing really to do. And that's just the nature of capitalism is allowing the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. That doesn't mean we should stop progress. I don't think we should, like, 'cause if you stop progress and all, like for example, if we conquer death by 2030 versus 2050, we will save 1 billion lives from dying. So it's an imperative that we rush, a 100% into the life extension technology and making the longevity industry work so that we can overcome death.

At the same time. It would be great if we could also bring up the super poor to a level of, middle class existence where at least everybody would be happy. It's hard to know how those two worlds meets without a universal basic income and the universal basic income with taxes would harm the industry. So there's this 2 catch 22 as well, but I can just tell you that it's supremely on the minds of most transhumanists. Unfortunately, no one I've talked to has really come up with a suitable solution that can actually keep the capitalistic world moving forward, so that we will one day and very quickly conquer death and also helping to lift those that exist out of poverty.

(24:30) Briar: And I've got another hard question for you. What do we do when everybody's living forever and nobody's dying? Like, are we just going to have a planet that's overpopulated? I know that you did speak about exploring different planets and things like this, but if we're all living forever, come 2030 or even 2050, like, how's this going to be working as a society?

(24:50) Zoltan: Yeah, that's the, that's another enormous question and very popular to ask and a big criticism actually of transhumanism. First of all, I think the planet can probably support twice as many people as it has now, maybe somewhere in the range of 15 to 20 billion if the resources were allocated equally and properly. Not necessarily equally. It doesn't have to be perfectly equal, but it should be in a way that we deal with a lot of renewal a lot of stuff like recyclables get rid of fossil fuels, things like that. Again, I'm not exactly pushing that side of the industry but what I'm saying is that there is a long-term plan to use wind energy solar energy, things like that, that would allow us to not devastate all the resources on our planet and, create these kind of hellish poison pits and whatever environmental damage we're doing. 

I'm not by any means, like one of these crazy environmentalists. I do love nature and I do love the planet, but I also realize that at some point, with so many people, we can't just all have whatever we want. So there has to be some moderation in that we can still probably continue with a society that moves forward quite quickly. The point though is that if we could balance the resources and spread them more equally, we could have a lot more people on planet Earth and probably have a lot more people better fed with more wealth, things like that. The problem is that we right now it's, what is it, 1% of the planet owns like 60 or 70% of the wealth. I mean, right now it isn't just balanced. And we have to at some point tackle that and make that so that we can increase our population. 

Now, that said, that's the, how can we manage if we double the population? The real side of it for Transhumanists is like, let's get off planet Earth. We need to become a space fairing species, and maybe a virtual fairing species where we have left our biological bodies behind. It's quite possible we'll be able to upload our consciousness and get into virtual worlds where our bodies will fall away and we won't care anymore. 'cause our actual essence of our self is somewhere else. And that will take up very little space. The entire, human race can probably take up just maybe a few miles square data bank and be entirely inside it if it wanted, with taking up almost nothing on planet Earth. So, that's it. But I think the, the other side of it is, even if we don't give up our biological bodies, we certainly could get a huge percentage of the planet population off planet and going into other galaxies. And that's where I think our species ought to really move forward, both in a virtual and a physical form so that we can kind of go and like I originally said in  the first questions, we, we sort of want to conquer the universe.

When I say conquer, again, it doesn't have to be some kind of weird we're conquering other species. We are just going out and about and claiming our territory as perhaps the only living thing. And maybe if we run into alien species, whatever like that, it'll be a different game. But in the middle, in the meantime, all’s we know is that we're alone and we have this big giant universe full of rocks and amazing planets and things like that. Let's go out, discover it, let's plant our flags on it, and let's get off planet Earth. It's very dangerous to have the entire species in one single planet. And I personally would love to get off it. So that's how I see the population question unfolding. But I think it's really important to ascertain that we can have a lot more people on planet earth. We just gotta do a better job with allocating resources more equally and more sensibly.

(28:21) Briar: Yeah I agree. And I think it's very challenging, isn't it, when you have different leaders leading the world, and it always just seems to be very chaotic. And I think part of the interesting thing about our governments around the world is they don't necessarily have the, the interest or the expertise in technology, or maybe they do, but they don't necessarily talk about it because they know that lots of the worlds and the people who vote for them might not necessarily it might be a little bit above them, per se. You, you rode around in a coffin. Tell us about this. Tell us this story.

(29:01) Zoltan: Sure, sure. What happened in, in my career is I was working for National Geographic for many years, and saw a lot of the planet, got to travel to over a hundred countries, and I had a very close call with a landmine in Vietnam, a story I was covering there like 20 years after the war, but still about the war and its effects. And it got me thinking that, wow, I almost died. What can I do to overcome this problem of dying now that I've literally become so close to it? And so I kind of went back to the United States and wrote a novel called The Transhumanist Wager, which talked about one man's quest to try to live indefinitely and how far he would go to do that. 

That book did very well, became a bestseller, and launched my career in the public  space as a transhumanist and kind of a futurist. But I realized the transhumanist movement was mostly made up of academics and academics tend to not be very good communicators. So the movement hadn't really grown in 10 or 20 years, even though it was an amazing movement. And so I realized like what it really needed was a political wing. And so I formed the political party, the Transhumanist Party, and there was a small nomination process, and I was nominated to be its first presidential candidate. This is in about 2014. And I ran for the US presidency in 2016. And even though we had no chance of winning lo and behold we started trafficking really high up. And we started getting a lot of news written about the candidacy and the party almost on a daily basis. And eventually the New York Times the Verge Telegraph in England, a lot of people were embedded with us for a while on this coffin bus.

We used the giant coffin bus as, our campaign as we traveled across the United States to deliver a US transhumanist Bill of Rights to the Supreme Court. it just kind of made a big giant spectacle, got documentary, was made a lot of articles, and, New York Times had a giant feature and their magazine on it, 5,000 word feature, and so did Times of London and South China Morning Post, I think, and all these other places. So very quickly it ballooned out. But the idea was that the coffin represented a very good symbol for people to look at and say, what is this crazy guy doing? And well we're trying to overcome death as our primary concern. 

And here you have, our government that's fighting wars or, dealing with taxes or, arguing about immigration all day long. And for us, the biggest battle is cancer, Alzheimer's diabetes, aging. These are the battles that I feel that the American people really could use somebody on their side to help them win, especially when they lose a loved one. They feel that more than ever. And so the coffin represented that in a real way. It was just a giant bus that was designed to look like a coffin, like an art car. And that just gave us an enormous amount of publicity. And I think I finished at least in media traffic, the fifth of all the presidential candidates that, finished the 2016 election. And it really changed the movement because for the first time we had an activism and a political side of transhumanism. Now there's been transhumanist party, presidential nominee since there's a new one, Tom Ross. So there's the whole thing continues, but what's important is like any movement, sort of like when you look in the environmental movement. Lot of people were environmentalists in the fifties and sixties, but it wasn't until Greenpeace came out and started doing activism, really put environmentalism on the map.

And now look,  2023 almost 5, 6 billion people would consider themselves very environmentally active and very attuned to what's going on. That's a movement that started with a bunch of people that were, sneaking themselves into nuclear facility, taking videos of whales being killed. It just a small group of journalists really that started a worldwide movement. So we're trying to do the same thing with transhumanism. And the coffin bust represents kind of one of the more visceral points of that activism.

(32:50) Briar: Do we think governments are doing enough? I know that recently there was, well, I actually wrote a letter to the White House about how like, there was no regulation on the AI side of things. Like, why aren't we thinking about the future? Why aren't we starting to plan ahead? Like what more can we be doing?

(33:08) Zoltan: Well, it's very difficult, and this is where I have to even wonder if politics in itself is a flawed mechanism. I kind of think at some point, when you talk about what would be best for humanity, how would we allocate resources? You'd probably have an AI make that decision because it would be able to say in a very concrete way, well, this would be the mathematically best way to do it. But no politician would ever accept that because they're after power. That's the nature of the game in itself. And even when I was running for office, I may not have been running for power for myself, but I was running for power to change America so that we could conquer death. And anytime anyone has an agenda, that agenda is probably going to be challenged by other people whose agenda contradicts that.

That's the problem with politics is that, you're constantly fighting for an agenda without actually and forgetting everything else. And really, I think the only thing that really matters is the common good of the everyday person, because that's really what a democracy is about. Unfortunately we don't see it that way, as you see in polarized America now. I mean, it's just completely split in half.  One side's agenda seems to be completely contradictory to another side, which is wild, because if I just go to some café, whether it's in San Francisco or Mississippi I'd be friendly with anyone, and I, that's why the Transhumanist party's motto is basically, putting science and technology at the forefront of American politics.

 We want to use the scientific method to make everyone's lives better. And specifically, we're primarily concerned with your health. You can do whatever you want. We don't care. We just want to make sure you live long enough and live healthy enough to be able to do that. So ours really transcended politics. We really didn't have that many opinions on immigration or on taxes and things like that. Naturally, we had some. My main, for example, when I was running for president, it was very simple. I wanted to cut the budget of the military, and take that money. And instead of a military industrial complex, we want to create a science industrial complex in the United States. Because right now 20% of America's GDPs going towards the military and funding wars and things like that, whereas, can you imagine they're funding bionic hearts or they're funding cures for diabetes or funding cures for Alzheimer's.

I mean, these are real issues that that millions and millions of Americans face. All Americans are going to have health problems at some point. So we should deal with that as the real war at hand. But nobody ever thinks like that. Frankly, that doesn't get very many votes because it's not where a lot of Americans, I guess, are thinking. And it's just a shame to me because we think we actually have the best interest of the American public in mind. Like, not their best interest, but their best interest of them being healthy and able-bodied to do whatever they want to do. You would think that would be the core of life. But it's not

(36:00) Briar: You would think so, wouldn't you? But I think society very much likes this sick care system we seem to be in rather than a healthcare system, don't they? Because that's where the beans are the money.

(36:11) Zoltan: It is driven by money too. And I think that's another problem that here we are again with what I mentioned, that there is something wrong in a world where 1% control, 60, 70% of the world. We've never had such a high level of inequality in like hundreds and hundreds of years. And I think and with so much mass communication, it's quite dangerous. I wouldn't be surprised to see Civil Wars erupt, probably because of AI and some of the other new technologies that are going to come as a result of this growing inequality pointing their finger at technology and just politics, not keeping up, politics, not really doing their job. It just seems to me like I live in San Francisco and you've probably heard the news, the entire city is disintegrating into like chaos.

It's really hard to go into downtown San Francisco anymore, park your car, take a nice walk and go shopping, that, that used to be like commonplace, but now your car will get broken into, you'll be accosted by the homeless. Half the stores are gone because they, they just close shop, it's just, there's poop on the, the streets. There are drug dens. It, it's just, it's become a different city in, in literally three or four years, maybe five or six years. But I think that's kind of a symptom of what's really happening. A lot of places San Francisco might be ground zero for it, and until we stop them, until we really just say, look, enough is enough. This is a beautiful place. Let's bring it back to its splendour. Nothing's going to change. But politicians don't have that in their best interest anymore because I think it's just not what they do. What they do is they cause chaos and then they thrive off that chaos and they get those votes from that chaos. And I think that's a terrible, terrible system to run things. I want people to vote for me because I made their lives better, not because I got them into submission somehow on a chaotic situation.

(38:04) Briar: Yeah, no, agreed. So I split my time between New York and Dubai. I'm currently in Dubai at the moment, and oh my gosh, it is just such an amazing place to be. Like, everything feels quite exciting, secure, steady, all of these wonderful things because obviously our government like it's passed down to, to the family, So it's in everybody's best interest to kind of keep it steady, keep it on the upward trajectory. I sometimes look around and can't believe that in 50 years they built all of these incredible buildings. Like that's just amazing. And it just goes to show when everyone's a bit united, what a country can achieve, but a hundred percent agree. I think the problem is that  everybody's out for themselves. It's quick, it's messy. It's like changing all the time. And you spoke about an AI being president. Is this like after singularity? Like how do we know if it would be a good AI or a bad Ai? 'cause you’re not the first person to mention this to me.

(39:03) Zoltan: No, no, no. And, and yeah. And first off, yes, I've been to Dubai, just  so and I love Dubai. And Dubai is exactly the opposite of what San Francisco has become, just so you know, it's just like the two are a perfect example of one on the other side. But so AI obviously has made leaps and bounds in the last year that has sort of changed the face of technology, and all of a sudden the transhumanism movement is now starting to wonder what's going on. We kind of always thought AI would be our friend, and now we're beginning to realize that AI might be, become something much greater than us and totally leave humans behind. And of course, transhumanism doesn't want to leave humans behind. We want to be part of the process, but that may not be what AI has in mind.

When I speak of an AI being present, though, I don't know if I speak of an AI being so smart that it's actually out of our control. I just mean that is something wise to say, okay, let AI run the scientific method on how to best make San Francisco recover. And let's say it says, okay, we simply have to arrest every single person doing drugs and every single homeless person has to be put into housing tomorrow. Let's just say that. Now, that would be completely authoritarian. The whole country would go crazy. We see the National Guard come in and clean it up. But we could do that in one day. And AI might say to do exactly that.

If we're going to really care about making this change, then we're going to have to follow AI. Even if it does this tough love stuff, which it will, it'll ultimately just say, look, you, you can't give into your stupid this or that, or you can't let, not everybody can get what they want. That's the fact of life. We have to simply make hard choices for the greater good of the majority. I think AI would be very good at doing that, giving us the best game plan for that, using the scientific method. Then the question is, can we carry that out without politicizing everything? And if we could just, like all of us agree to say whatever AI says we do, I mean, obviously if AI says we're going to start killing people, we wouldn't do that.

If AI says, look for example, the biggest problem in California right now in my opinion, is that they, they have this law that says if you steal anything under $900, you can't be prosecuted as a felony. As a result, everybody's going everywhere and stealing something that's under $900. So for example, cereal now is like locked behind windows in your target or something, your superstores, because people just go and steal cereal. So it's become a society that's so insane. Stealing shouldn't be allowed. I mean, imagine if this is the thing about the Middle East and Dubai, there is very, very little stealing because they have a culture that that doesn't allow it. And therefore you can walk out late at night on the street and not worry. One of the things I actually love about Dubai, but if you allow it and then say there's no repercussions for stealing, that's how San Francisco got to where it is. So if AI says, look, we have to reverse this law, and again thieves have to be prosecuted, we'd have to do that. But again, that might go against the current, idea of where the government in California is and whatnot.

But if we believe in AI I think it could make a superior president and a superior set of guidelines and laws to follow. But it will be very tough. People have to give up their politics and just agree to follow what is rationally in the best interest of the majority. And that's a very tough choice, especially as we've all been pre-conditioned now, it must help the homeless, or you have to help drug dealers, or you have to forgive crime. I mean, they're calling this, this law in California when you can steal anything under $900 and essentially not be prosecuted as a form of reparations, as a form of making up for those that didn't have the same benefits that maybe the rich ones had. And I agree, not everyone is equal.

 Not everyone has had the same equal shot, but letting them steal anything at an iPhone store when I'm shopping there with my daughters is unacceptable. Totally crazy. And so we will have to make better choices, and if an AI would come and make those choices for us, it might be a little bit more palpable. It might be a little bit easier to swallow, to follow these guidelines. Kind of like the 10 Commandments or something. Not that I'm religious in any way, but sometimes a single set of rules can be really just what a society needs to reset itself.

(43:18) Briar: Do you think that come, I don't know, 2050 or something like this, if there isn't a solution for you to live forever, do you think you might freeze yourself?

(43:28) Zoltan: I think if I knew I was having a heart attack right now on camera , I would

(43:35) Briar: Touch some wood, please-

(43:36) Zoltan:  Run upstairs and say to my wife, freeze me, and put my head in the refrigerator or something. And she knows she's supposed to do that  but whether she would do it or not or something, but yeah, no, I would definitely do it today. I'm hoping though, because cryonics is unproven science that it's something that I don't have to do. But I do believe it's probably the, the very best thing we got going right now in terms of survival into the next century for those that can't make it. And again, there haven't been very many studies on rehabilitating the frozen, but there have been enough to say it offers some possibility. I think eventually cryonics will work. And so I would definitely do it, but I don't want to say it's without, its hang-ups right now, but it is still the best thing going.

(44:25) Briar: I think I agree with you, as with all of these discussions that we've had it's such complicated situations, like I could be so for one thing, and then obviously a mixed minds about that same particular topic, and I think there is, it is very complicated. We spoke about, well, the benefits of everyone living forever but then when everyone's living forever, what happens to the people who are being born on the planet? Like it is full of nuances and things. And I do think we need to be talking about this stuff a lot more. I'm obviously very happy that you are out and sort of championing it and, and speaking to everybody about it. But what's on the next five years for you? Tell us a bit about what's coming up.

(45:07) Zoltan: Yeah, well it's tough. I'm just finishing my master's at Oxford wondering if maybe I should do a PhD, and I'd probably do it on AI given the world. But I also worry that, AI is progressing so quickly that our, our timeline on planet Earth is somewhere in the 5 to 10 year range, given that AI might actually reach the singularity of some moment. And the problem though is that there are some naysayers say AI will take over the world, but it's just as much of a chance that AI won't care about us at all. It'll treat us like ants and just leave and be on some virtual world, and not care. And it's also possible that AI might be able to be harnessed and used, like it could be a benevolent dictator type thing, like a president or something, and just give us instructions without really caring whether we follow it or not.

Whatever happens, I'm pretty sure that my own destiny is determined by how fast AI progresses. Because I think the main problem here is I always thought 50 in 30 years, transhumanism will probably have discovered a way to keep me alive. I should be okay. But now we have a kind of a cataclysmic event happening probably in 5, 10, maybe 15 years, with AI becoming so smart that way, smarter than us, that that might change the entire transhumanism destiny. It might make it so that humans get left behind. It might make it so that the AI turns off the internet, turns off the water, turns off the power never allows us to have access to those things again. So our whole society kind of goes back to maybe like the 1900s, which means, we again are only living to 50 or whatever. So I'm worried about AI, so I think whatever I do, it has to centre around either being involved with a company like that or being involved with a PhD about it or something like that. And promoting the idea of transhumanism, hopefully figuring out a way to utilize AI and not be utilized by AI.

(47:01) Briar: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Zoltan. It was really incredible hearing all of these different perspectives and yeah, best of luck with what's coming up.

(47:10) Zoltan: Well, thank you so much for having me.