WEBVTT - The Creepy Obsession Techies Have With Living Forever 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:07.160 A lot of people in the tech industry have a 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:11.160 morbid fascination with not just living healthier or living longer, 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:18.720 but actually defying death. The quest for immortality, of course, 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.520 is one of the driving causes of humanity, underlying many religions, 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.880 which often pose an afterlife or consciousness survives. Ashley Vance, 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.080 you track down someone in Russia who says you don't 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:35.080 need faith to believe in immortality, but science. Back in October, 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.319 I traveled to Russia, just outside of Moscow to meet 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.800 this guy named Danilla Medvedev. He's the CEO of a 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:46.959 company called Cryo Russ, which specializes in cryonics, or freezing 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.040 your body as you await a cure to an illness 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.320 or a better future. So he's serious about this. He 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:54.240 is freezing people in the hopes that they can be 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.160 revived at a later day to live forever. He's dead 0:00:57.200 --> 0:00:59.760 serious about it. Very good. Tell us a little bit 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.800 about Danila. What is he like. He's this dude who 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.840 had sort of a traditional background. He had studied economics, 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:08.959 he was a bit of an academic, and then, like 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.399 a lot of these people do, he had a revelation 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:13.680 that he wanted to do something else with his life, 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.039 he got super into technology and then I always taken 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.840 it to this very extreme conclusion where he's got the 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:26.320 cryonics operation. And he's also the leader of Russia's transhumanist movement. 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.199 So those are people that want to augment their body 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.040 to take in as much technology as possible and really 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.240 become what I would think of as kind of a 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:38.640 cyborg or a half human half machine. And he is, 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.600 for all intents and purposes, the spiritual leader of this 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.319 movement in Russia. Now, over the last year, you've traveled 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.320 around the world for your video series Hello World, and 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.920 you've met a lot of eccentric technologists. Where does Daniella rank. Yeah, 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.760 so I've got the centric engineer and then the guys 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.560 like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, who are these charismatic 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.720 figures of technology g movements. But I would say he 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.400 is the only one I've run across that is a 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:10.160 true religious figure. He's the pied piper of trans humanism 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.280 in Russia, and he's got this combination of the technology 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.120 that he's selling, some technology that he's developing, and then 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.000 he gives all these speeches around town all the time, 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.400 and and all these people show up and and really 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:26.600 buy into his movement and into that. And he's an 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:31.000 original character. He's very eccentric, he's very smart, he is charismatic, 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:33.200 and he's a one of a kind. Let's listen to 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:40.720 Danilla here on the Russian transhumanist movement. In the Russian 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.400 consumers movement, we have free goals. So first is immortality, 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:49.000 then omnimportance like complete upgrade of for all the intellectual, 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.440 physical capability and the safe singularity. Real trans humanism is 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:57.600 not built on hope. Trus humanism is build on suffering, 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:10.239 breaking yourself in the process and new to yourself. Time 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.320 has come for people to accept that death is no 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.359 longer about just dying and being doors in the ground, 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:32.320 but it's really about choice. Hi, I'm Bradstone and I'm 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.120 Ashley Vance, and this week i'm decrypted. As we sit 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.320 on the precipice of two thousand and seventeen, still locked 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.200 in our mortal coils, We're taking you to Russia to 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.800 meet the futuristic scientists and entrepreneurs looking for a way 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:48.760 to cheat death. We'll take you through the technology they're developing, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.000 what eternal life might feel like, and how far they've 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.040 got with turning their sci fi ideas into reality by 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.320 the end of this episode. As long as you're comfortable 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.640 with the idea of a company storing your deep capitated 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.600 head and liquid nitrogen, maybe even YouTube can live forever. 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:13.440 So back in October, I traveled to Russia, just outside 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:17.840 of Moscow, to a suburb called Sergey Pacade. You drive 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.760 down this little neighborhood, there's little houses there. It looks 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.960 kind of picturesque idyllic, and you turn down this one 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.560 driveway and there's this big white warehouse and inside of 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.680 that there's these two giant vats. Now are it's curious 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.839 about this? Is it advertise outside of the warehouse? What 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.599 the horrors that are inside? No, you would have no 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.680 idea that your neighbor is freezing bodies and heads of 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.880 humans and animals next door. And the neighbors were quite 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.040 curious when we showed up to film all this stuff. Now, 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.560 are these people who have died or who are on 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.279 the brink of death, who are opting for this route? 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.400 The ones in the vats are already dead. He's this 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.919 company Cryer Risk that DANIELO runs has attracted wealthy people 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.200 from all over the world. Basically, if you want to 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.159 freeze yourself. You can only do it in two places today. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.599 In the United States there's two companies that do this, 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.080 and Russia is the second option. And so you do 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:12.760 get people from all over the world, but a lot 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.520 from Europe in Asia, and so far they have about 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.320 sixty people who have chosen to freeze themselves. It's a 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.880 mix of half of that is heads and half of 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.320 that is the full body. You get a discount if 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.279 you just do the head. It's about sixteen thousand dollars 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:30.680 for the head, thirty six thousand dollars for the body. 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.360 This is probably the wrong time to advise parental guidance 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.279 for this episode of Decryptid. So you know, it's it's 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.080 optimistic sort of thing, and this is a one time 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.240 fee by the way to uh, it's it's a one 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.520 time feed. You You've got to hope that the Cryo 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.160 Rise keeps its funding going for eternity. And the funny 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.320 thing I thought as well in these vats that I 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.120 saw where that there are a mix of animals, so 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.520 people also freeze their beloved pets and there were dogs, there, 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.279 there was a chinchilla, There was a what is the 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.800 story behind the chinchilla did you find that out? Same 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:04.360 thing as with everybody. It's some pet that they just 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:09.080 couldn't beloved chinchilla, beloved parakeet being frozen for one day 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.279 when they can be revived exactly. And the setup is 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:16.400 you've got these two big tanks and to keep the 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.280 head extra cold, the heads are placed near the bottom 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.000 of the tank, and so if you've got your body 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.760 in there, you're hanging upside down with your your feet 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.800 up top and your head down near the bottom. All 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.159 it sounds like this movement is getting a little bit 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:32.920 of traction on Russia. It is so Russia has this 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:37.360 long history, it's about two hundred years long of searching 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.640 for immortality. There were these philosophers that wrote about it. 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:45.120 During the nineteen seventeen Revolution. A lot of the rhetoric 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.240 behind the revolution was was the merging of science and 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:50.919 people and that that science would keep Russia strong, and 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.039 that carried on all through the Soviet era. And then 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.919 today cry O Rouse has about sixty paying customers, and 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.719 I think it is the only cry next company that 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:05.360 it's business is expanding rapidly. Well, here's Danilla again talking 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:07.839 a little bit about the underpinnings of the movement in Russia. 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:14.320 You can start trans humans projects by yourself. You have 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:16.480 to get a lot of people, and the best way 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.880 to do is just to show them this grant vision, 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:25.080 this idea of cosmic development, and then this all fits together. 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:31.120 Of course, we want to make chronics totally accessible and 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.160 available to everybody, because it just makes a lot of sense, 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:38.200 and it shouldn't be expensive. It should be cheap and 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.560 available to everybody by default. So that's what we want 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.320 to see in in twenty or thirty years. Uh. In 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:49.480 addition to that, we want to have clinical applications of 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.960 chronics the hypothermit technologies, so that you can just stop 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:57.920 a human and then restarted and do that as you 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.400 can do with computer programs. Actually, let me ask you, 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.520 the people that opt for this treatment, have they already 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.200 passed away or they near death. It's a mix of 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:10.240 people that sign up for this kind of thing. There 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:14.280 are older people who are closer to dying who sign up, 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.720 and for the most part, those are the ones that 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.640 are in the VAT. But as part of this trans 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.840 humanist movement you see tons of young and middle aged people. 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.640 They come to hear DANIELI speak at these these lectures 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.440 and for the most part, what I tended to notice 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.680 is that their technofiles, they're people who are just super 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:39.200 into technology. They tend to be quite free thinking. Um. 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.680 It was like a real mix though, of women and men, 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.000 which I was impressed by. It wasn't just a bunch 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.920 of dudes in this conference room listening to this guy. 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.280 And I think it's the kind of people that that 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.520 believe and stuff that you hear about, like the singularity 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.320 and and that we're heading to this more glorious future 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:02.480 where man and machine merge, and your brain is augmented 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.120 by computers and we can do all these fantastic things 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.120 that we can't do today. So half the people want 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.840 to cure some kind of illness and they want to 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:12.679 just come back when we've got a cure to that, 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:14.920 and then half the people really want to see what 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.800 the world is like in the future. I'm curious, did 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.320 you get the sense that trans humanism is more mainstream 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.120 in Russia than it is in the United States. Sorry 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.080 for me to say for sure, because I've oddly covered 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.320 the trans humanist movement in the United States that I 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.520 said to follow. A lot of these people, especially, there's 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.800 a lot of overlap with singultarians, people who believe in 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:41.960 the singularity and the trans humanist. The Russian version of this, 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:46.320 it was very passionate. They have a there's like a 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.000 romance in Russia that I think is missing in the 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.120 United States. In the US, it tends to be very 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:55.839 pragmatic and scientific in this Silicon Valley logical thing. Of course, 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:57.920 we would want to live forever if we can, and 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.760 if we have these tools to do it, let's do it. Russia, 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.040 it really did have this romanticism to it, and it 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.920 sounds vague, but of poetry. I mean it comes from 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.760 this background, this philosophical background of things they believe in, 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.560 and I think the culture there, they've been steeped in 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.200 this link between science and society in a different way 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:19.280 than we have been in the States. And and to 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.200 me it was I'd say it's almost refreshing. I liked 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.120 it more there. Did you ask Dan l if he 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:29.040 plans to freeze himself. He definitely plans to freeze himself. 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:34.240 And he lives this very rigid lifestyle today to try 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.280 and he's saving up obviously for the expense he is 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.800 and he's he lives a very frugal lifestyle, and then 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.800 he does things like he he dyes his hair because 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.000 he doesn't want any gray hairs to pop up. He 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.840 thinks that this is just all part of the transhumanist commitment. 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.240 You have to fight aging anyway you can, so moving 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:57.800 from cryogenics to augmenting the body with technology. Uh. In 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.000 the episode of Hello World, you you talked about an 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.320 experimental operation where a surgeon inserted a chip from a 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.840 credit card under the skin of someone's hand. It was 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.559 actually sort of hard to watch. Made me a little queasy. 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.160 Why who was that and why were they doing it? Well, 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.040 this is all part of Danilla's empire, i would say, 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.200 in Russia. So he has cry a ruse and the 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.719 cry onics, but then he's also sort of a technology 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:27.040 mogul in Russia. He's got this virtual reality software that 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.840 he's working on. He told me that he's creating the 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.160 most amazing database in the world that's gonna put Oracle 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:34.920 and all these other things that we have to shame, 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.640 although he was a little shaky on the details of 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:39.800 exactly how that would work. And then he's got these 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:43.400 followers who where things like brain wave monitors and this 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.760 guy that you mentioned who put a chip into his 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:47.920 hand instead to say that looks like an affection in 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.560 the making. To me, I've seen other people do this 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.080 kind of thing. This was the grossest one I've ever seen. 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.120 The chip is bigger than a postage stamp, and it's 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.079 this big hunk of metal, And it's not really a 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.760 doctor who's to get in. It was some guy with 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.359 huge plug earrings that they found in all these tattoos. 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.400 And he's sitting there and he slices the guys did 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.120 not look like a hygienic environment that said at all. 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.280 And they slice this guy's hand open and they shove 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.440 this huge metal chunk in there. And the entire purpose 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.679 of this was just so that the guy could use 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:20.600 it like a credit card when he goes to the store, 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:22.880 and just like you would tap your phone to pay 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.200 for something, he just taps his hand. But it's all 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.520 as symbol. Was there technology there or was it just 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.520 a sort of audacious experiment. I think it was actually 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.600 like an NFC chip. But the stuff all looks silly, 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.080 but as part of a statement they're trying to make, 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.600 which is we're willing to already go through these things 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.600 to adapt our body with whatever we have available to us. 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.520 Do you know if the hand work with Apple Pay, 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:56.960 it's only Google? I think Google Wallet. So transhumanists also 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.360 have some interesting ideas about how human nature needs to change, 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.240 how humans will need to learn utmost self control if 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.640 they're ever going to be able to harmonize with machines. 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.320 And I want to play another clip of Danilla here. 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:15.160 It was probably my favorite scene from the interview. Transcuminism 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.160 is about self control. We should strive to be perfect 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:22.840 in every way. Food is uh is horrible, and we 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.320 have some projects in the Russian Pursumous movement to actually 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.120 get rid of food. Sex is really overrated, and once 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:34.800 we move from this biological existence to a more mentioned 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:40.760 like existence, we'll forget about sex very quickly. In humans today, 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:45.160 love is essentially addiction. Do you love your wife? Yes? 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.960 I do love my wife, but I realize it's really 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:54.320 extremely dangerous because love is unpredictable, and just one step 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.880 from love is hatred. If we can fix that, it 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.520 doesn't really matter that we've become a different fishes. What 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.400 matters is we can find and be happy, productive, creative. 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:08.280 We can control what we want to do with So, Ashley, 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.280 how do you think Danilla's wife reacted to this interview. 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.560 She actually runs cry or rouse with him and when 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:16.800 she present and he said that she wasn't, but I 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.600 think she is also a believer in all these things 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:21.720 that he says. I'm curious what was going through your 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.360 head as Danilla was telling you all this. I've done 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.240 some research on him beforehand, so I actually knew a 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.120 little bit of what was gonna come. And I knew 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.120 that if I asked him about sex, love, and food, 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.240 he was going to give me these very utilitarian answers back. 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.840 It is funny having those guys that are cross from 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.840 you and be married, have this wife, and even have 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:44.480 this business with her, and tell you that loving her 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.640 is some sort of horrible thing that he's trying to 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:49.960 get over. I have to say, as a marketing line, 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.760 love is essentially an addiction. Is probably not the most successful. 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:55.160 He might need to work on that a little bit. 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:57.160 I mean, how much is tongue in cheek? Does he 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.280 really think he can get rid of these fundamental tolls 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.000 of human relationships? He does think that any think it's 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.840 necessary for trans humanism. I could never quite figure out why. 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.720 I mean, when he would describe getting rid of love 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.440 and sex and food. To me, you're just left wondering 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.600 what's left if you're gonna live forever, or even if 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:20.080 you're gonna enjoy technology. It's like, what's the point of 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:21.720 doing all this stuff if if you're not going to 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:25.800 have these most basic pleasures that that humans really gravitated. 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.880 Talks about being freed up to be happy, creative, productive, 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.120 but right, what does what does that mean without the 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.000 context of relationships. That was the part I could never 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.040 figure out. And to me, he never even gave me 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.360 a really good answer as to what exactly we're striving for. 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.200 He was funny. He would talk about trans humanism as 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.520 not being for the masses. It is for this select 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.160 group of people who are willing to make these sorts 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.000 of sacrifices, who are willing to put chips in their body, 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.560 willing to give up food and love, and he sees 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.720 them as the people will really carry the human species forward. 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.560 And so if you're not willing to do all this stuff, 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:07.600 he doesn't really care. He's not trying to build some 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:12.440 lickser for everybody. It's you commit to this lifestyle and 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.360 you become part of the chosen few who will carry 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:18.280 on forever. Yeah, that's a good point. There is a 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.720 little bit of a tension between the company's need to 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.840 propagate these ideas as widely as possible, and yet here 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.080 he is talking about how really he's viewing it to 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.760 something for his friends. So actually make the connection here 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.120 between the Russian transhumanist movement and the stuff closer to 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.040 home and Silicon Valley from folks like Peter Teal that 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:38.240 we've been talking about over the last few years. Do 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.720 you think there's a connection. There are some of these 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.400 ideas similar. Yeah. I think for anybody who lives in 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.040 Silicon Valley and follows this kind of stuff, it's all 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.960 very familiar. You have companies, very serious companies ranging from 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.320 Google to Illumina that makes all these gene sequencing machines 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:57.080 and Craig Venor who decoded the genome, pursuing projects to 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.320 basically end death. They're trying to do all kinds of 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.840 new mapping of DNA and new scientific techniques to figure 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:07.840 this out. But there is this fascination with immortality. I 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.440 guess so many of these guys come from the sci 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.439 fi world and that's what they grew up reading. And 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:15.840 you see it, right, they get into flying cars and 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:17.919 spaceships and things like that. And I think this is 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.720 is the next stage all that humans on the whole 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.919 have been fascinated with immortality obviously, you know, for good reason, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.240 for a very very long time. And I think now 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.760 there's this feeling in the valley that we may actually 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.000 be close to doing this well. And part of that 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:36.920 is that they think that we're close to something called 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.359 the singularity. Right, if you can just extend life a 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:42.119 little bit more, you can get to this magical moment 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.439 where immortality becomes possible. But for the uninitiated, tell us 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.960 what the singularity is and why we should be hoping 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.080 to reach it. The singularity is supposed to be that 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.320 moment where you can say, computers get as smart as 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:57.320 human beings, and once they reach that point, they begin 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.720 to improve themselves and go at this astronaut comical rate 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:02.920 where computers are getting better and better all the time 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.639 and and far exceed the intelligence of humans. And the 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.359 hope is that somehow humans get taken along on this 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.639 ride and you could say, download your brain into a 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.840 machine and live forever that way in this glorious computer 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.560 run future. So that's one vein of all of this. 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:22.919 Then there's the science vein along the way, which is 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.879 to keep us living long enough to reach that point. 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.560 I'm curious if Danilla was in the United States and 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.439 in his h his frozen Vat operation was outside of 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.199 a Washington, d C. Would he be as accepted as 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.440 he is in Russia. Now. I don't think so. I 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.320 think if the average American went to see his operation 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.320 for Sander would strike you as kind of crude. And 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.400 I don't think a lot of people would put their 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.600 money into something like that. On the other hand, he 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.960 is an impressive guy. For all the joking you do, 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:58.560 and and some of the stuff that he does, this 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:04.200 seems very strange. He is extraordinarily bright, he's extraordinarily persuasive. 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.320 He has an answer for almost everything you do. We 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.080 posted this video on YouTube, and I see him in 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.960 the comments section going to battle with all the people, 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.000 and and he handles them. He don't, you know, he 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.240 doesn't attack them when they say he's a freak or 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:20.159 anything like that. He just says, why do you think that? 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.800 And here's the reasons why I think this, And and 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.639 he tries to persuade people to his vision. And I 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.680 met a handful of people there who had changed their 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:33.639 lives because this guy had come around. I don't really 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.439 want to replace humanity with post humanity. I may like 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:40.919 other people, I want everybody to be happy, but I 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.840 don't want everybody to be post human I want myself 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:46.560 to do that, my friends to do that. Maybe thousands 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.240 of people, maybe tens of thousands. I don't want everybody 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:51.480 to believe that there will be a topic which I 0:19:51.640 --> 0:20:12.880 view it for you maybe maybe not, don't hope for that. Well, 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.880 now the moment of truth for this episode of Decrypted, Ashley, 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:21.359 would you yourself consider freezing your body and becoming a 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.840 cryonics customer? I didn't think about this more. After going 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.800 to Moscow and seeing this thing firsthand. I think what 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.120 I've decided is I really wish I could freeze myself 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:37.000 at five, or at least if I'm gonna live forever, friend, 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.280 and if I'm gonna live forever, I want to be 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.560 year old me living forever. I definitely don't want to 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.160 be eighty year old me with all these issues that 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:50.360 just linger forever. On the other hand, I will tell 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:53.320 you this. You know it's thirty six thousand bucks to 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.520 freeze your body or about half that to freeze your head. 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.000 If I was at the end after seeing these operations, 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:02.359 do I think it will work? Probably not, but I 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.199 would pay that to to try. What would you do? 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.160 I think as much as I'm sort of unsettled by 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.359 the whole idea and um kind of freaked out by it, 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.240 I think that if I was facing the choice, I'm 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.480 so curious about what the future holds. If there's even 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:21.600 a small percentage that it would work, I might consider it. 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:29.080 It's the logical thing to do it. And that's it 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.280 for this week's decrypt It. Thanks for listening and tell 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.800 us what you think of this strange world of cryonics. 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.480 Would you want to live forever? I'm on Twitter at 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:41.320 at Bradstone and I'm at Valley Hack. And be sure 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.080 to subscribe to our show on iTunes or wherever you 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.760 get your podcasts and leave us a rating or a review. 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.760 That's what helps listeners find our show. You can check 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:54.040 out Ashley's Hello World video series at Bloomberg dot com 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.399 slash Hello World. Think of This podcast is just a 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.119 little taste for what Ashley discovers in the episode. Believe me, 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.560 it gets a whole lot creepier in the video and 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.439 our last episode of the season is in Chile. It 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.960 drops later this month, near the end of December. Today's 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:13.439 podcast was produced by Pied gud Cary, Magnus Hendrickson and 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:17.160 Liz Smith. Alec McCabe as head of Bloomberg Podcast. We'll 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:18.040 see you next week.