Mr. Diamandis, of course, is not the only one who wants to live forever, but he's rich, and it pretty much appears that living forever is his personal "purpose in life" (full stop), at least at this point. No other current life objective is really being pursued, including making a lot of money, though it seems he has alaready done that.
The image above comes from an article in the The New Yorker. I assume there is a "paywall," but clicking the following link will take subscribers to the article I am referencing. It is titled, "How to Live Forever and Get Rich Doing It." The surprising thing to me, when I read the article, is Mr. Diamandis' confidence that "living forever" is an achieveable human objective. Science and technology will soon reach this goal, as Mr. Diamandis sees it:
Peter Diamandis is five feet four and has pipestem legs, but his torso widens into broad shoulders, powerful biceps, and a craggy, Homeric head. The composite effect is of a genie emerging from a lamp. Our wish is his command, and our wish, surely, must be for more time to make wishes: for limitless life. In December, Diamandis stood before two hundred doctors and scientists and vowed that in the coming decade our wish would begin to come true: “It’s either a hardware problem or a software problem—and we’re going to be able to fix that!” ...
He observed that his clients at Fountain Life, a longevity clinic he established, were already on their way to freedom from disease. They’d have early access to emergent tech, such as a blood filter that can “filter out metastatic cancer” and a transmitter that uses high-frequency waves to diagnose strokes and zap depression: “Remission in a week with ten-minutes-per-day therapy!”
Diamandis, who is sixty-four, has a bachelor’s in molecular genetics and a master’s in aerospace engineering from M.I.T., as well as a medical degree from Harvard. But he’s not a practicing doctor, engineer, or scientist. He’s an emissary from the realms of possibility. After growing up on Long Island in a family of Greek immigrants, he began making his dent in the universe by founding some two dozen businesses, many of which involved voyaging to space. As a young entrepreneur, he formulated Peter’s Laws, which included “If you can’t win, change the rules” and “When forced to compromise, ask for more.”
He promotes the inevitability of longevity through a multitude of channels. There’s the clinic, which he started with two doctors and the motivational speaker Tony Robbins. There’s a newsletter, two podcasts, and books on the future and how to stick around for it. There are partnerships in venture funds devoted to A.I. and biotech; an annual conference, Abundance360, which showcases advances in nanotechnology and brain-computer interfaces; and a semi-annual Platinum Trip, where, for seventy thousand dollars apiece, people get to meet eminent longevity scientists, invest in their experimental therapies, and secure those therapies for personal use.
Diamandis’s network, known to its constituents as the Peterverse, is largely peopled by slim, graying, well-off men who finger their Oura rings like horcruxes. America’s richest now live a dozen years longer than its poorest, and they intend to widen their lead; Jeff Bezos, Yuri Milner, and Sam Altman have all funded anti-aging research. Joel Huizenga, the C.E.O. of Egaceutical, a startup whose “water-based drink” aims to reverse cellular age, told me, “We don’t work in mice. We work in billionaires” (emphasis added).
Yesterday, I posted a commentary on how some of the "tech bros" of the Silicon Valley have become preoccupied with what they see as an important goal (to make sure that their babies are prescreened, as embryos, for maximum intelligence). Minutes after posting that comment to this blog, I came upon The New Yorker piece on Diamandis, and his pursuit of a life that goes on forever (made possible by human efforts, and nothing but).
Today is Monday, not Sunday, but my theological perspective has not changed. Making "living forever" our human project - making it the central aim, ambition, and purpose of one's life - seems wholly mistaken to me, and I am offended by that idea in exactly the same way that I am offended by the idea that we should be trying to "engineer" our offsprings' intellectual brilliance and greatness, before they are even conceived.
Far better, I think, to understand that our lives are a gift, not a human-designed project, in which we claim to be our own creator.
At Quaker Meeting, those in attendance sometimes sing the following song, before the Meeeting begins. The song ('Tis A Gift To Be Simple) assumes that our lives are limited, a gift and not a construction project. That approach to life, I do think, will end up taking us to the "Valley of Love and Delight." I don't think the Diamandis approach will get us there!
(2) - https://youtu.be/4RPUjuraS5U?si=mpkDO9MxgLZQ8QRu
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