6 Burst results for "Zoltan Istvan"
The Trip
"zoltan istvan" Discussed on The Trip
"The trip. From roads and kingdoms is hosted by me nathan thornburgh. Alexa van sickle is our producer theme music by dan the automated episode illustration by daisy d sound mastering and composing by ricardo gutierrez. Show artwork by adele. Rodriguez executive producers are me and matt goulding also of roads and kingdoms many things to josie holtman and is it kastenbaum of future projects media for help on the state house seen at the top of this episode and ben henry for grabbing sound from that unusual scene. Thank you of course to my comrade. My south dakota man crush. Shane carpenter his photos from new hampshire. Our incredible you can find them on roads and canaan dot com. They are also the basis for all of our illustrations from new hampshire for the show. He and his wife meghan carpenter. Now ron one of the great indian food businesses on the east coast a buddha and kimchi paradise in baltimore. Called heck's ferment thanking. Shane were ditching. Hoji for these days. Rico kick next week. We are getting. Out of america for the last of our pre covid episodes. We're going to barcelona european headquarters of roads and kingdoms and home to another old comrade matt goulding as well as other friends and family and more fantastic things to drink. We will meet you there..
The Trip
"zoltan istvan" Discussed on The Trip
"Society. Because there's less walls to bother us. Yeah i mean again. I i i absolutely hear what you're saying that you believe in it but i just i keep thinking of like you know what if ice gets a hold of this data they wanna just take you know they wanna find every lawbreaker you know no matter what you know whatever. The the hot crime is your is in an overactive. Just any kind of federal You know overreaction and giving them the to be able to get into a To be able to do completely no i agree. You know a my. My plan is so thorough that every little thing is covered like for example with ice. I cannot even though as a republican is crazy. But i have a basically an open immigration policy in fact my theories that in order to compete against china which has almost going to soon have five times population as four times our population right now. We have to dramatically grow america and because my policies don't really include many social services offered to people. I invite people to come in. And i think with a very defined facial recognition system around america. We would be able to make people much safer to stop mass shooting stop terrorism and stuff like that in his tracks but therefore i invite people into our country freely but because i offered no social services like you can't just come and be homeless. Nothing's going to happen. You're going to have to come and work and so my plan is to get rid of things like is invite people all around the world to come back and make america truly make america great build new cities in the west and things like this. It's a very transient. The city is a very kind of grandiose plan. But it doesn't it. Really establishes liberties for people doesn't put up borders however everybody gets to see what everybody else is doing. So if you a terrorist you're going to be recognized almost immediately by systems and police and things like that that's interesting i can just see the potential for you pissing. So many different kinds of people off is really fantastic. I really enjoying it. Hence why not that. Many people in hampshire will be voting for him. Yeah although i mean lord knows if you had bloomberg money to make an advertiser saying exactly what you're saying now you'd probably you'd probably find your constituency that needed to be out there. Well let me ask you this. How old are you now. I am forty six right now. Okay your forty six. You and i are about the same age i'm I'm great much more rapidly than you have. But i mean you have to have this this question now As as people our age should looking in the mirror you thinking is it gonna come in time like we'll trans humanism arrive in time to save me. what what. What's what do you say to yourself and your gut there. Well this is the most. I'd say pressing issue. And why. I wrote the novel called the transhumance. Wager the transhumance. Wagers this idea that we know that science and technology can overcome death. The question is by what date will do it. And will you still be alive. And if you think you're still going to be alive than it makes most logical sense to dedicate all your energy and resources toward trans humanism. So that you don't die and that's really what the transhumance wager is about. Of course it's compared to pascal's wager. Where you dedicate your resources to god to go to heaven to the transhumance wager. You dedicate your resources to science and research. Now we're in this most amazing age because if we can discover ways to overcome aging by. Let's say twenty thirty versus twenty fifty. We will save one billion lives and that twenty year life span. I mean no humanitarian effort like trans humanism has ever been undertaken before we're talking about saving like hundreds of millions of lives. But if you don't make it you just missed that edge of because once you start learning how to reverse aging through either genetic therapy's the other ways are through bionic organs. I mean most people die from organ failure and a cardiovascular failure so we buy cards transcend mr working on or even crazy stuff like uploading your conscious. That one's probably. We're not sure if that's viable. But we're definitely sure that genetic editing and stem cell therapy therapies and byron organs can make us live dramatically longer. Maybe like alzheimer's can even be fixed with stem cell therapy and stuff like that. The point though is the further we get down this path. Five ten fifteen years. We get better and better at the science. There's going to be a point when we win. But if you can't make it the next twenty years you'll never know but wouldn't it be terrible for someone like me ironic. Just i die of old age and then the five years later. Somebody says oh. Here's the magic pill for all of us living indefinitely. That's a great worry. that is great. I one thing. I guess we can say is it will not have come to pass without a great deal of effort on your part trying to avoid it right. You're probably putting more skin in the game than than anyone else out there to try to make sure that you beat the clock. We'll i am and it's interesting because one of the big projects we're working on right now. We've had documentary done and called immortal your boss as well as books being done. But the immortality busts has also become the world's most well known longevity project and so we're in talks with a couple of different major museums to try to dedicate the bus so that you'll have an exhibit exhibit to go on and be on the bus and see videos of what it was like to be on this crazy blackie tour because we had like biohacking lab on the bus. We had a four foot robot on the buzz. We had drones on the bus. We had all these virtual reality on the bus. It was a really fun tour and of course people are taking drugs. People were doing are our course lovers of drugs and lovers of substances that are always trying to alter themselves so now you got my it was. It was a very fun trip in terms of like kind of like the sixties. The bus further and ken. Casey going off. So we're hoping that the immortality bus takes its place in the art world like sort of like that. And from the hindsight of the future in which trans humanist goals have been met they can sort of see one of the one of the origin stories one of the original mementos of the we're gonna movement. We're going to look back. I think in fifty years. And say i can't believe that more people didn't dedicate time to living longer like when we take not dying for granted this great tragedy that most people are like you don't want to go through okay. Maybe most people accept death. But i think very few people actually are willing to go through the the the two or three day experience or even five minute experience of it and i can't believe that more people don't dedicate energy to overcoming it it just we even culture where we live in a death cultural been cultured to believe that. We're going to be met by jesus in a minute after we die and life skin it'd be great for returning. I mean this is to me insane. Did you say dentist is the where. That's the word we live in a culture. Yeah i definitely agree. All of this like You know next reward stuff does does have a moral hazard there. You get too excited about what's next and you get a little less attached to what we ought to be thinking about my goodness all right. Well we've reached nearly the end of our dot winnie. Here's to make it under the clock. Thanks for coming in talking with us. It's been great. Thank you for having me and good luck in this in this election. Thank you.
The Trip
"zoltan istvan" Discussed on The Trip
"I graduate of stanford university in full disclosure. I've had you know many evenings. I think where. I just took a bunch of bong rips with the smarter friends than i and ahead very similar conversations about the future of tech and this is even even back in the nineties of something that we all just kind of hang out and kind of think about all the different ramifications very different proposition to be a man getting on planes to be on a presidential ballot and run not even dimension the bus tour. And like you're putting so much energy and like specific kind of activism behind this. How do you get from these kind of really interesting ideas to deciding that like something needs to be done. I'm the guy who's gonna do it. Well so just disclosure i. I'm not gonna win. You probably guessed that already. You're listening to this. Episode is coming out after the primary so we will have already known what what will happen but Okay this will make you very prescient. I guess if it's true but the reality is i'm hoping maybe in eight or twelve years. I will do a lot better and maybe even office someday maybe not the white house but more importantly going back to two thousand sixteen and with hillary and trump. When you look listen to the main debate you don't hear anything about science and technology and yet you know this from being at stanford nothing is changing our world really more than science and technology so you would consider you would at least think that that should be a highlight of the discussion. That's out there and yet. Nobody discusses a nobody discusses genetic editing. Nobody discusses a lot of the ability to cure cancer. Let alone you know like just kind of keep mandating it like a lot of pharmaceutical companies are hoping to do for profits now. I don't wanna get into conspiracy theory. Transhumance wants to eliminate all disease and they want to eliminate suffering and they wanna use science and technology to do that but nobody on the political spectrum of saying that whatsoever. So i'm doing it. Because i'm a journalist by trade and i also voice sort of as a as a minor public figure so i felt like obligated. I hopefully do a pretty good job. We some press we get people thinking about it not sure. We're getting the attention of president trump yet but he president trump huge podcast had no. You'll have to go elsewhere to influence on on that higher level. I think but got it all right. Well let's talk about why you let's start from the beginning. What what is your background. How how take me way back. Well sure i would say my career really began after. I graduated from columbia university and i went into journalism at national geographic. Okay and so for five years. I traveled around the world and wrote something like fifty or sixty articles for their website and also was on their national geographic. Today new show doing a lot of documentary work and so we kind of multimedia approach and it was a great time my life. I was in my twenties covered a lot of conflict zones so saw some horrifying things and what happened is i had a It was in vietnam just covering the demilitarized zone naturally twenty thirty years after the war. And there's a bunch of rice farmers that now dig up bombs that were dropped in vietnam from americans but they're unexploded and they sell the metal but to get there you have to go through these landmine infested kinda jungles almost stepped on one. It freaked me out because my guide can throw me out of the way and said pointed to the ground after covering war zones for a while gets in your head and not worth zones but also just conflict zones and it was that moment in vietnam. When i said. I'm going to stop being. So i'm going to do something to try to overcome death and of course. Trans humanism has been an ongoing movement since the nineties and that's their primary job their primary purpose i would say to use science overcome so i came home join. The movement wrote a novel. The novel did really well. It was called the transhumance wager became a bestseller and it kind of launched my career as a public figure and because i was a journalist i began writing some of the very first transhumance call for vice called transhumance future. I wrote one for psychology today. Some the huffington post now. I do some articles for the new york times. So i've had an art in ability over six years right over two hundred thirty opinion as a essays for major media almost cheerleading trans humanism and up until that point no one had ever been you know optimistic about people have been kinda skeptical. Isn't that literally came from a from a near death. Experience that you had it did but the near death experience has yet to understand. It's kind of based on two or three years of covering other conflicts. I'd covered the sri lanka conflict covered the kashmir conflict between pakistan india. I've been. I've been doing some pretty harrowing stories and it made me. I think it kind of gotten my head. And i wanna say. Ptsd stuff but really it made me think. Wow what if we could overcome death. Would you know maybe we can. We can eliminate war not by stopping war just by stopping death and this was a way a new way of thinking. When it hit me that i could do this. I realized that this is why. I want to dedicate my life to. How did you go about Outside of the media i mean. Tell me tell me about some more of the. I guess the Theatrical things you've done to kind of get that trans humanism flag waved. We'll based. I wrote my novel the transhumance wager. Which did well in that launched my as a public figure in the movement but then it kinda plateau and i was wondering what can i do to really get some attention. I had one big idea that sort of launched. I guess my political career in in two thousand sixteen. I was the nominee for the party. And we're running for president and we had a nice little group of people but we needed a kind of an idea to put our define our campaign and so we needed a bus and we thought okay. What could the bus be and a lot of people want to do a microscope. The bridges you go under and stuff would break it off so we thought okay. let's do a coffin. Let's do a forty foot coffin. That we drive across america and tell america this good news that transhumance one overcome death and it's very possible through the science and technology we just need to give scientists a lot more money and so we outfitted a bus made it look like a cough called the mortality bus and drove it across country. We didn't expect was so much attention to be given and all of a sudden journalists just started embedding themselves. I mean i'm talking like the verge. And your times. I mean they. Everybody wants to be on board for a couple of days. It became a really fun road trip and it took us four months. We're delivering a transhumance. Bill of rights which we posted a upon the us capitol building and Of course the number one thing the transhumance bill of rights was. We should declare aging a disease. That way national institute of health funding could go to and things like that but it was really put on rallies all across the country and a lot of people and we went to. We did things we would go to the biggest mega church in alabama with the bus. Where like there'd be these confrontations. We were escorted out a gun point and all these other things not that it was like nobody was doing. Anybody was doing anything violent but you know it was almost like a protest candidacy. The thing though was one hundred million views and it was over a period of few months. It was just. The attention was great. What what they have a problem.
The Trip
"zoltan istvan" Discussed on The Trip
"Technologies were pass laws. I mean what practically would having people be fired up about trans humanism do well. That's the best question the great question. That's exactly what i'm trying to do. My main goal here with running for office and my main goal of spreading trans humanism is to get more money into the hands of the scientists who are making the movement happen. You have to understand right now. United states congress. All five hundred thirty five members are president or vice president all nine supreme court justices. They believe in an afterlife and they say they believe in god so they they have no real reason to pass laws to put money into the hands of the scientists who want to end aging and living deathly and upgrade ourselves to this kind of future. Now the problem with that is in the entire government doesn't want to give money to it. It doesn't happen really only private industry doesn't we need an american culture on board with trans humanism and so i run for office in hopes to say look. We're going to take instead of like a jain. Military fighting wars in afghanistan and iraq iran and other places. We're going to take that money or a lot of it and put it into creating a science industrial complex. In america that's dedicated to ending aging and upgrading. The human being. It's a very different kind of way. I'm interested in. Americans healthcare and not healthcare in terms of what system. It is but in terms of eliminating disease. And that's a very transhumance idea that our president right now doesn't share whatsoever president. Who's cut the budget of the national institute of health. I want to mention. Yeah the this is but you're running as a republican. This is your this. Is your opponent and you gotta you gotta hit them hard on that i do. It's my main message. Is that you know. Honestly trump's done pretty good economically. I know maybe the working classes and field so much but he does have the stock market highs and so it's kind of tough but one thing he has done that hasn't been great as he hasn't. He's not only cut the budget of the national institute of health but he hasn't made a culture where science really thrives in china it's thriving china's our main competitor at this point so probably within five years not only will. China lead the world in genetic editing. But they're going to be wealth through as a nation it's game over for american terms of leadership and who wants -tarian nation to be leading the world in science and technology so this is where i really felt trump and this is why i'm running. This is the singular reason. I'm running because ultimately i think that trump has failed the most important part of america which is science and innovation part. Well it's interesting. You mentioned china and the sort of i guess the potentially darker versions of Sort scientific achievement world leadership. I think if. I look at a lot of the things that you're talking about cryogenics. Ai it feels like particularly in the past few years has really soured around those things. So people are more in touch if anything with the failure of big tech to be transparent to actually improve lives and a lot of this sort of what feels like kind of an almost false bill of goods that we've been sold. How do you reckon at this particular moment with with the sort of bad. Pr attack is getting big tech including google about their intentions and motivations and their power to actually do good in society. Will i think you know one thing. We've noticed that all the biggest companies in the world now are basically tech companies. That something that's happened in probably going to be around for for a long time. Maybe ever and they have a bad rap. But i'd like to say that at least they've created an enormous amount of innovation that i find useful everyday certainly useful as oil companies or whatever other companies we're thriving before so i know a lot of people are upset and facebook makes everybody crazy so so does social media. I mean honestly. I'm not the biggest believer in these kind of social media things. I'm not sure if it actually is a mental disease using it too much of that's what it might create. I really don't know. But i don't like what how people behave on it and But that said i still think that the innovation that comes from it has been very worthwhile. And i think it's it's important not to come kind of completely bash big tech for doing capitalistic endeavors. I mean after all. They're not there for us. There to make money for their shareholders and that sort of the way capitalism works. If you don't like facebook just get off it so. I don't really look at this perception that i'd need to bash big tech because they haven't played totally fair. I mean thereafter there there after all make money. It's it's an interesting question though. Because i think the mood of the moment feels in this very trumpian. It's certainly connected to a lot of the democratic primary candidates but it feels like this populism in this this sense of trying to plug into disatisfaction about an unequal society. And when you talk about some of the things have trans humanism. Like i imagine peter field trying to freeze his brain forever on a or the tech elite who were trying to buy parts of new zealand so when the rest of the world burns they have a nice mountain home or something. I mean there's like this very like there's a potential for this technology that we've already seen to kind of exacerbate societal inequality and and things that i think we all would agree. That wouldn't be good. How how how do you push the trans humanism while saying like hey we can do this in a way. That's good for everybody and not. Just you know the eternal elite. I guess i'm not one of the leap at least not at this moment. So i'm also i can dream. I don't want to see the one percent become gods and leave me behind. That said i think. I historically speaking science and technology a good track record of really raising the standard of living for everybody. If you look around the statistical analysis at the moment says while the world's improving for thirty forty years mortality rates have been dropping. People are wealthier than ever and have better jobs and that kind of thing so in that a lot of that has come from science and technology and so historically speaking it has improved the standard of living. I understand are kinda zeitgeist at the moment. Everyone's like ooh facebook and google and blah blah blah. Yes it does seem kind of you know brash. On the outside but really on the inside i would never want to take away what we've gotten from technology because it has made our lives so much simpler and functional and better and so i think we just have to trust that big technology will take us down the proper path and just as a politician. I would want to be a lot more congressional hearings on ai on whether facebook is maybe a disease or something like this or encourages disease. I want to do other things like that and make sure that there is. Some oversight against goes against my libertarian biased. But even i realized that there needs to be more oversight. But again i just i question people say oh big tech is hurt the world and i'm like no way to say it's completely raise the standard again and again and again and i think we need to take a step back and try to appreciate that while also balancing our worries and having some mechanism for trying to identify things that could could be better here with another fringe candidate. Introduction mosey boyd. She's an arkansas lawyer. With a pretty mainstream and impressive resume. Who's passionate about women in politics and solving the opioid crisis and most impressively seem totally unfazed by the retail. Politicking of it even had a busy rahman shop in downtown manchester in the middle of the lunch rush running for president i would be very. Please consider voting tuesday. She did not do great in new hampshire just thirty three votes but she got over four hundred in her home state of arkansas and more than a thousand in california on super tuesday and has promised to stay in the race until the democratic convention back. Zoltan.
The Trip
"zoltan istvan" Discussed on The Trip
"The primaries tomorrow zoltan you of not allowed yourself a lotta time to campaign out here. Well this is my third time in new hampshire. So i've already been campaigning here. But i think the reality is somebody who's so interested in trans humanism and who is really kind of a science and technology public figure that it just doesn't work that well in new hampshire and i'm the first one to admit so you're coming to the ancestral home of old school retail politics. Know where some sort of maple syrup technology might be. You know. More close to the heart of the The soul of new hampshire right than Than some of the things. You're talking about on the west coast. You'd think that doesn't really translate this. This might not be your primary to contest in that way. No i definitely think that's the case. I had a couple of talks here. They were attended sparsely populated. Importantly the people just didn't resonate. They're just like what are you talking about. Brain implants and exo skeleton suits and things like that. If i did this in california all sudden we have rallies and people are excited. People want to know what the newest silicon valley technologies are and what companies are doing it. You know it's a very different feeling. I'll be on the ballot in california here in three weeks on super tuesday. So if you had seen me there you'd be like oh wow he can actually put on rallies. It's really tough in new hampshire new hampshire. Yeah it's small Small crowd. I mean we. This is not our first rodeo. either we've been following. People who are kind of outside of the media know off the debate stage so to speak for a long time. Yeah there's a certain way that it's done and it's not if you're not talking about things in the way that they're usually talked about that can be challenging but let's start right there. What is trans. Humanism will trans humanism as a social movement now of many millions of people around the world that want to use science and technology to radically transform. The human body and also transform the human experience. Anything from exoskeleton sues to brain implants to Even driverless cars. But whatever it is. It's kind of the top ten percent of the most radical technologies that are affecting the human race. You say there are many millions. Are these people who would actively knowingly define themselves as trans humanist or do you think it's just a lined with the way that they look at the world. I think there are now probably millions for sure that would say if you ask them. Are you a trans humanist. They would say yes. I am when you ask them. Is that what they consider themselves. Yeah that's a little bit more challenging of a question. But i think google for example is probably the most trans humanist of all the companies out there and they have the largest what we call life extension company a company of billions dollars net worth calico. That wants to overcome aging specifically designed to make people essentially live indefinitely so we are getting to a point when you can now say. Millions and tens of millions or supporters of the ideas probably hundreds of millions. I would say. I mean a place. China's probably leading the transhumance movement in terms of innovation. Now they've the first designer baby babies and stuff like that so many more.
The Trip
"zoltan istvan" Discussed on The Trip
"My name is darius. Mitchell d The hip pop up a nearby republican honestly. The plan was to do my military time retire and then grow into the woods. Grow a beard and get weird. Nobody goes out and says. Hey i want to go into the light after doing everything that we've done a lifetime. I am not looking to be president in some ways. I'm looking for something bear than president. I want to start a movement. I feel like crying because it's so beautiful that we can do this. It's totally amazing. He's not. I mean i come. I came here on the little community by paid. My fifty cents. You know like. I'm going to walnuts masses something. No i'm coming to this. Gorgeous gorgeous state outs with all the history. It just for the wondrous. I cry for the oneness of the constitution. You've been on this ballot before. Yes sir well. I would like to ask you today is i want you to put me on the libertarian party. Primary balancer we. We don't have a libertarian. Party in new hampshire legislature. Did that about twenty years ago. Hope and stuff like that. There they were in the new hampshire secretary of state's office just before kobe. Paying their thousand dollars to be on the official presidential primary they are the lesser known candidates the dramatic fringe of each presidential primary election up here and they are the stars of my quadrennial quixotic reporting project with photographer. Shane carpenter and listen. They aren't like buddha jag. Lesser-known they're like vermin supreme lesser-known mary maxwell lesser-known zoltan istvan lesser known. Almost nobody in politics for out knows these people but they are running anyway. This is the fifth primary. That chain. And i have spent ducking out of mainstream campaign press events to track down the people who are just obsessive idealistic or imbalanced enough to think they should run for president often no money no support and sometimes actually no platform. Of course the idea of a non-politician becoming president was a lot funnier before two thousand sixteen but these candidates are something different a wild bunch far more entertaining and thought provoking than the scripted candidates. And even though we are putting this episode out for free listening in june of two thousand and twenty one are after the fringe candidates have returned to their day jobs. I'm still very into this conversation. From this episode with handed writer and transhumance is all tiniest fun zoltan and i drank some fifteen year old albany. Scotch talked about exoskeleton being escorted at gunpoint from mega church and why he let someone demo fourth syringe into his hand to give him a permanent biochip. Implants this is nathan thornburgh and from roads and kingdoms. You're listening to the trip drinking with.