Death Is Optional

{'type': u'plain'}

in your book you have you have a chapter
on science which is one of my favorites

in the chapter the title of the channel
is is one of my favorites i think it's

called the discovery and the idea that
science began when people discover that

that there was ignorance and that they
could do something about it now

and this was really the beginning of
science I don't want that phrase and in

fact they love that place so much

they went to my talk it up because I
thought where to get it and you know and

you get you know the identified

I said friday that phrase when I googled
it and it all the references were to use

and there are many other things like
that

how did you transition from that what
you're doing now

it came naturally what I'm doing now

maybe questions at present is what is
the UN agenda was 21st century and I

think this is a direct continuation from
covering the history of humankind from

the appearance for safety and something
today

so when you finish that immediately you
think okay what next

and then the question is it's not i'm
not trying to predict the future

I think it's impossible to predict the
future now more than ever we

nobody has a clue how the world would
look like in say 40 50 years we may know

some of the basic variables but to give
an actual production if you really

understand what's going on in the world
you know that it's impossible to have

any good prediction for say the coming
decade that this is for the first time

in history between this situation

so I'm not trying to predict the future
I'm trying to do maybe something which

is the opposite

I'm trying to identify what are the
possibilities

what what is the horizon of
possibilities that we are facing and

what will happen from these
possibilities

I think we still have a lot of choice

we got to that could you elaborate on
these possibilities

I mean what is within the range what's
the distinction between predicting and

setting up a range of possible
predicting and in this is general in

science you can get him in all
disciplines that I I think about in

visual terms whether you try to narrow
your field of vision or to order to

broaden it sometimes like you try to
predict the weather for tomorrow

so it could be there is a lot of
possibilities to begin with

it might rain is my store it might be
sunshine and a good meet you

meteorologist

according to one view of science is a
meteorologist that takes the horizon of

possibilities and narrow is done to a
single possibility or just to

possibility it will start from the rain
may be hard

maybe less so that's it and after you
finish reading the book or taking the

course or whatever your view of the
world in this sense is narrower because

you have fewer possibilities to consider
you know it's going to rain and the

opposite and even sitting in economics
in medicine and also in history when

people try to say okay what you have the
next

you have all these possibilities and I
am Telling You China's like to be the

Super of end of story

you you narrow down the range and I like
I think there is room of course for that

when i go to the doctor to get the
medicine I want him to narrow down the

possibilities not just to enumerate all
all the options but i personally like

the kind of science that broaden the
horizons

I often tell my students at University
that my aim is that after three years

you basically no less

then when you first got here and when
you first got to you you thought you

knew what the world is like and what is
war and what is their stained and so

forth

after three years my hope is that we
will understand that you actually know

far far far less and you come out with a
much broader view over the present and

the future but you

you need for a broader view by becoming
more differentiated that is by having

more detail views or is it just that you
get people to consider the possibility

that occurred mainly the second the
second way that the main thing and in my

main task that thing as a historian is
to get people to consider the

possibilities which are usually outside
the field of vision because i think that

are present field of vision has been
shamed by history and has been narrowed

down by history and if you understand
how history has never done of field of

vision

this is what enables you i think to
start broadening and growing it to give

just an example which I'm thinking about
a lot today concerning the future of

humankind in the field of medicine and
at least is the best of my understanding

we're in the middle of a revolution in
medicine that after medicine in the 20th

century focus on healing the think now
it is morning awful most on upgrading

the health which is a completely
different project and it's a

fundamentally different project in in
social political terms because whereas

feelings think is a collector million
project you'll see you there isn't

normal health

anybody that falls below the norm you
try to give him a pusher to give her a

push to come back to the north

upgrading is by definition an elitist
project and the reason or that can be up

with applicable to everybody and this
opens the possibility of creating huge

gaps between the rich and the poor
bigger than ever existed before in

history and many people say no it will
not happen because we have the

experience for 20th century that we had
many medical advances beginning

with the wrench or with the most
advanced countries and gradually that

trickled down to everybody and now
everybody enjoys antibiotics or

vaccinations or whatever

so this will happen again and as a story
and i think my main task is to say no

there were particular the peculiar
reasons why medicine in the 20th century

was a gala Therrien why the discoveries
trickled down to everybody

these unique conditions may not repeat
themselves into 21st century

so we should roll in your thinking and
you should take into consideration the

possibility that medicine in the 21st
century will be elitist and that you

will see growing gaps because of that
biological gaps between rich and poor

and between different countries and you
cannot just trust the process of quickly

gone to solve this problem and I think
there are fundamental reasons why and

why we should take this very seriously
because generally speaking when you look

at the 20th century

it's the era of the masses and mass
politics mass economics every human

being has value has political economic
and military value simply because he or

she is a human being and this goes back
i think to the structures of the

military and of of the economy that
every human being is valuable as a

soldier in the trenches and is a worker
and sorry is a work with the factory but

in the 21st century and there is a good
chance that most humans we lose they are

losing their military and economic value
in the military

it's done it's over the age of the
masses is over there

we are no longer in the First World War
we take millions of soldiers each one

and a rifle in and run forward and it's
the same thing

perhaps is happening in the economy may
be the biggest question I think of the

21st century economics is what will you
need people for most people

for in 2050 in the economy and once
people are no longer with the necessary

most people from the military for the
economy

the idea that you will continue to have
mass medicine is not so certain

could be i'm not saying it's not a
prophecy but you should take very

seriously the option that people will
lose their military and economic value

and many simple follow you that you seem
to be describing this is something that

is already happening it

are you referring to the development of
trails the google you know that the

plants do away their it that that
certainly would not be a mass project

but with your library

yes i think that the attitude now
towards disease at OA old age and death

is that they are basically technical
problems which sounds acceptable

except that this is a huge revolution in
human thinking throughout history the

old age and death were always treated as
a metaphysical problems is something

that the guards decreed as something
fundamental to do what defines you mix

what defines the human condition reality
and even a few years ago

very few doctors or scientists would say
seriously that they are trying to

overcome old age and death they would
say no I'm trying to overcome this

particular disease whether it's
tuberculosis or cancer or our tire

defeating all agent there

this is nonsense this is science fiction
but is the new idea who they think is to

treat all ages there and technical
problems

no different in essence than any other
disease it's like cancer it's like

outside and selectable Colossus

maybe we still don't know all the
mechanisms and all the remedies but in

principle

people always die for one reason

one reason only and that these are
technical reasons not metaphysical

reasons in the Middle Ages you had this
image that how does a person died

suddenly the angel of death appears and
touches you on the shoulder and says ,

it's your time has come

and you say no no give me some more time
and there's no you have to comment

that's it

this is how you die and today we don't
think like that people never die because

the Angel of Death Comes they died
because the heart stops club pumping or

because an outer is Claude or because
cancer cells of spreading in the liver

or somewhere

these are all technical problems and in
essence they should have some technical

solution and this way of thinking

I think it is now becoming very dominant
in scientific circles and also among the

ultra-rich they are understanding wait a
minute

something is happening here for the
first time in history

if I'm rich enough maybe I don't have to
die

this is optional that is optional again
and if you think about for the viewpoint

of the poor

it looks terrible because throughout
history there was the great equalizer

the big constellation of the fourth
world history

was that okay these rich people they
have it good but they're going to die

just like me but think about the world
than 50 years a hundred years for the

poor people continue to die but the rich
people in addition to all the other

things they get they also get a
exemption from there

that's going to bring a lot of anger

yeah I really like that phrase of people
not being necessary

can you elaborate on this dystopian it's
a it's a new phrase for me you know Abby

the things by the way to develop very
very slowly

bye I was worrying about about what
would happen with computers with juli

September people I was
worried about this when I was a graduate

student and that was all the 50 years
ago and I thought that's a very serious

and immediate problem

it wasn't a serious immediate problem
bit but it it may be a serious

nothing but it may be a serious problem
now you have thought about it deeply

can you tell us about people become
unnecessary economically in unnecessary

militarily what we do

well I think the basic process is the
accompanying of intelligence from

consciousness

throughout history you always had the
two going together

if you wanted something intelligent

it's this something had to have
consciousness at its basis and people

did not were not familiar with anything
that could be intelligent that could

solve problems like playing chess or
driving a car or diagnosing disease that

didn't have consciousness which wasn't
human

now what we are talking about today is
not that computers will be like humans

I think that many of these science
fiction scenarios that computers will be

like humans they are wrong

computers are very very very far from
being like humans especially when it

comes to consciousness

the problem is different that the system
the military and economic and political

system doesn't really need consciousness
it in general intelligence and

intelligence is it is a far easier thing
than consciousness and the problem is

computers may not become conscious I
don't know ever

rotate 500 years but they could be as
intelligent of more intelligent than

humans in particular tasks very quickly
and if you think for example about the

self-driving car of google and you
compare the self-driving car to a taxi

driver a taxi driver is immensely more
complex than the self-driving car

there are a zillion things that the taxi
driver can do and the self-driving car

cannot but the problem is that from a
purely economic perspective we don't

need all the million things

the taxi driver can do i only need him
to take me from point A to point B as

quickly and as cheaply as possible and
this is something the self-driving car

can do better

or will be able to do better very
quickly and when you look at more and

more

most of the tasks that humans are needed
for what

what is required is just intelligence in
a very particular type of intelligence

because we are undergoing for thousands
of years

a process of specialization which makes
it easier to replace us to build a robot

which would function effectively as a
hunter-gatherer is extremely complex

you need to know so many different
things but to build a self-driving car

or to build a Watson but that can
diagnose disease better than my doctor

this is relatively easy and this is well
where I think we have to be to take it

seriously

the possibilities of even though
computers and will still be far behind

humans in many different things as far
as the tasks that the system needs for

us are concerned

most of them computers will be able to
do better than us

and again I don't want to give a
prediction 20 years 50 years hundred

years but what you do seem is it it's a
bit like the boy who cried wolf that

yes u prime wolf once twice three times
and maybe people say yes fifty years ago

was the only predicted that computers
will replace humans didn't happen but

the thing is that

with every generation it is becoming
closer and these predictions themselves

feel the process

I think it will happen the same thing
with this promises to overcome their my

guess which is only a guest is that the
people who live today and who count on

the ability to live forever or to
overcome death in 50 years 16

it's going to be a huge disappointment
it's one thing to accept that i'm going

to die

it's another thing to think that you can
cheat there and invent die eventually

it's much harder and I think that are in
for a very big disappointment but in

their efforts to defeat there they will
achieve great things

they will make it easier for the next
generation

- - to do it and somewhere along the
line it will turn from a science fiction

to science and the wolf will come

what you're doing here in the prediction
which is in a way that those are

predictions you can make the trends that
the trend is clear when progress means

is clear but what you're describing when
you described in plus was you are

presenting the background for a huge
problem

now who decides what to do with this

these schools people especially they
have what are the social implications

that you see of the technological
development of course there are

obviously nobody something about living
to be 300 with the body of 300 you know

when the Bible a different table can be
happening otherwise nobody signing up to

this

but have you thought about the
Possible's made the social at the call

from sapphic erotica

yes you can as a story and I'm not a
biologist I'm not a computer scientist

I'm not in a position to say whether all
these ideas are realizable of not i can

just look for the size of a story and
and anything that is they want it looks

for from there

and so the social and philosophical and
political implications of the things

that interested me most and basically if
any of these trends is going to actually

be there for filling itself then the
best i can do is quote for marks and say

that everything everything is solid
melts into air once you really solve a

problem like direct brain computer
interface when rains and computers can

interact directly for example to just
one example

that's it that's the end of history
that's the end of biology as we know it

nobody has a clue once what will happen
once you want to solve this

if life can basically break out of the
organic realm into the vastness of the

inorganic real and you cannot even begin
to imagine what the consequences will be

because you're our imagination at
present is organic

so it's am if there is a point of
singularity as it's often referred to by

definition we have no way of even match
starting to imagine what's happening

beyond it looking before the part of
singularity just as a trend is gathering

pace

one thing I think that we can say is
there may be a repeat of what happened

in the 19th century with the industrial
revolution of the opening of huge gaps

between different classes

different countries if in the 20th
century

generally speaking the 20th century was
a century of closing gaps and fewer gaps

between classes between genders between
ethnic groups between countries so we

will see and maybe we are starting to
see the reopening of these gaps with a

vengeance

some gaps with people should be far
greater than were between the

industrialized and the non-industrial as
part of the world

a hundred and fifty or a hundred years
ago in the industrial revolution of the

19th century

what humanity basically learned to
produce was all kinds of stuff like

textiles and shoes and weapons and
vehicles and this was enough for very

few countries that underwent the
revolution fast enough to subjugate

everybody else

what we're talking about now is like a
second industrial revolution but the

product this time will not be textiles
or machines or vehicles or even weapons

the product

this time will be humans themselves
we're basically learning to produce

bodies and minds bodies and minds are
going to visit

I think the two main products of the
next way of all these changes and if

there is again between those that know
to produce bodies and minds and those

that do not then this is far greater
than anything we saw before in history

and this time if you're not part of the
revolution fast enough then you public

be coming to become extinct

with the Industrial Revolution countries
like China they missed the train but a

hundred and fifty years later they
somehow managed to catch up largely

thanks to the power of cheap labor

- speaking in economic terms no those
we'll miss the train

I think they'll never get a second
chance if a country people today

are left behind they will never get a
second chance especially because they

will

cheap labor would come for nothing once
you know how to produce bodies and

brains and minds so cheap laboring
Africa South Asia or everything simply

count for nothing

so in in political terms of geopolitical
terms

I think we might see ever eat of the
19th century but in a much larger scale

what what i find difficult to imagine is
in on the way there s people are

becoming unnecessary the translation
about the 20th century terms as last

unemployment maximum employment and
social unrest it mean there are things

going to happen process is going to
happen in society that as a result of

people becoming super fools and that is
a gradual process of people become

superfluous

we may be seeing that in the growing
inequality now we may be seeing the

beginning of what you're talking about
but have you thought of in the same

we're thinking interesting and novel
ways about the ecology

have you thought about the social side
yes i think that the social sciences is

the more important and more difficult
one

I don't have a solution i again i think
that the biggest questioning

maybe in economics and politics of the
coming decades will be what to do with

all these useless people

I don't think we have an economic model
to for that

my best guess which is just a guest is
that food will not be a problem with

that kind of technology you will be able
to produce food to feed everybody

the problem is more boredom and how what
to do with them and how will they find

some sense of meaning in life when they
are basically meaningless worthless

my best guess at present is a
combination of drugs and computer games

as the

the solution for more it's already
happening in India under different types

of different headings you see more and
more people spending more and more time

or solving their problems with the
advances in computer games both legal

clubs and immigrants and this is just a
wild guess and what i can say is that

maybe we are again in an analogous
position to the world in 1800 when the

industrial revolution begins

you see the emergence of your classes of
people used to the emergence of a new

class of the oven proletariat which is a
new social and political phenomenon

nobody knows what to do with it there
are immense problems and it took a

century and more of revolutions and Wars
and so forth for people to even start

coming up with ideas what to do with
with the new class of with the new

classes of people

what is certain is that the old answers
were irrelevant

you had people just as life today
everybody talking about now Isis and the

Islamic fundamentalism and Christian
revival and things like that people try

to look for there is a new new problems
people go back to the ancient texts and

think that there isn't answering they
shall be on the Quranic the Bible we

have the same thing in the 19th century
also you have the Industrial Revolution

you had huge social political problems
all over the world as a result of

industrialization of organization

you got lots of people thinking that the
answer is in the Bible in the Quran you

hand religious movements all over the
world in the Sudan for example you have

the bar being establishing the Muslim
theocracy according to the Sharia a and

rejection army comes to suppress the
rebellion they defeated the cutoff they

behead the head of General Charles
Gordon basically the same things with

your your nice thing with Isis

nobody remembers the man happy today
because the answers that he found in the

Quran in the Sharia to the problem of
industrialization didn't work in China

the the biggest war of the 19th century
he's got a Napoleonic war it's not the

American Civil War in the Taiping
rebellion in china which started in 1850

when you have this fence collar called
songs - 10 i remember correctly you had

a vision from God that He home is the
younger brother of Jesus Christ and he

had a divine mission to establish the
kingdom of heavenly peace on earth and

to solve all the problems of China with
the coming of the British and all that

and he started a rebellion and millions
follow him

according to the most moderate estimates
20 million people were killed in the

Taiping rebellion 14 years and after
that they suppress it

and he didn't establish a kingdom of any
peace and he didn't solve the problems

of industrialization eventually you got
people like bars and angles

who came up with new ideas not from the
Sharia not from the Bible not for some

vision they started industry they
studied coal mines they started

electricity they studied steam engines
railroads

how will be transformed the economy and
society and they came up with some new

ideas

not necessarily everybody likes the new
ideas but it was something at least to

argue against and I think that looking
from the perspective of 2015

I don't think we now have the knowledge
to solve their social problems of 2050

this is a problem for marriage as a
result of all these new development but

we should and we should focus to start
seeing these processes and the problems

emerging and we should be looking for
new knowledge and

new solutions and starting with your
realization that in all probability

nothing that exists at present offers a
solution to these problems in the butt

is very interesting and frightening
about the scenario is it is true and you

point out that that people have lived to
work work to live and with what you're

describing in the scenario which work is
unnecessary for most there is a class of

people who work because they enjoy and
that are able to do it and then there is

also be my energy for which were no
longer exists but that mask people

cannot work they can still kill people

how do you see how do you see the
possibility of strife and conflict with

the supposed to speak with those with
all I think once you are superfluous you

don't have power again we are used to
the age of the Masters of the nineteenth

and twentieth century but you all will
you

you so all these successful and massive
uprisings revolutions results

so we got what we are used to thinking
about the masses as powerful but this is

basically a 19th century and 20th
century phenomenon

if you go back to most people it needs
to resettle Middle Ages you do see

peasant uprisings they all fail because
the masses were not powerful and wants

to become superfluous militarily and
economically you can still cause

problems for a trouble of course but i
don't think you have the power to really

change things and

it's not like what also once you have
this revolution in the military which we

are undergoing in which the number of
soldiers simply becomes irrelevant in

comparison with factors like technology
and with with you two still need people

but you don't need the millions of
soldiers each with a rifle

you need much more numbers of experts
who know how to produce and how to use

the new technologies and against such a
military powers

I don't think that the Masters even if
they somehow organize themselves stand

much of a chance

we are not in in Russia of 1917 or in
the area and central europe and so again

it's it's not a prophecy

maybe it will turn out differently but
as historian and i think the most

important thing to realize is that the
power of the Masters that we are so used

to is rooted in particular historical
conditions economic military political

which characterized the nineteenth and
twentieth century

these conditions are now changing and
there is no reason to be certain that

the Masters will retain the power it
would you describe it

the the scenario that you are pointing
to is one of fairly rapidly logical

problems said and it really doesn't
matter whether we're talking about 50

years or a hundred years then there is a
social arrangement that have been around

for a long time for centuries of decades
and they change rather be slowly

so what you bring to my mind as I hear
you is a major disconnect between rapid

technological change and and quit rigid
cultural and social arrangements that

will not keep up

yes the did this is one of the big
danger

one of the big problems with technology
is it if it develops much faster than

human society and human morality and
this creates a lot of attention but

again I think we can try to learn
something from our previous experience

in with the industrial revolution of the
19th century that actually you so very

rapid changes in society

not as fast as the changes in technology
but still amazingly fast

the most obvious example is the collapse
of the family of the intimate community

and the replacement by the state of the
market basically for the whole history

humans lived as part of these small and
very important units the family and the

intimate community say 200 people who
are your village your tribe your

neighborhood you know basically
everybody

they know you you may not like them but
your life depends on them they are they

provide you with almost everything you

eating order to survive they are you're
a health care they are your pension fund

there is no pension fund you have
children they are your pension fund

they are your bank your school your
police everything

if you lose your family and intimate
community you're dead

all you have to find a replacement
family and this was situation for

hundreds of thousands of years of
evolution even once used to restart it

they 70,000 years ago and you see all
the changes and agriculture and cities

and empires and religions

you don't see any any significant change
on that level

even in the USA 1700 people of most
people in the world still live as part

of families and intimate communities
which provide them with was most of what

they need in order to survive and you
could even easily imagine when the

industrial revolution begins that this
will continue to be the situation you

could easily if you are saying
evolutionary psychologists back in 1800

and you so the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution

you could have very confidently said you
can all these changes in technology are

selling well and good but i want to
change the basic structure of human

society if it is built from these small
building blocks the family into the

community because this is kind of an
evolutionary given humans must have this

they cannot live in any other way and
you look at the last one with years and

you see the collapse after millions of
years of evolution suddenly within two

hundred years the family and the
intimate community bank that they

collapse

most of the roles were killed by the
family and by the intimate community for

thousands and tens of thousands of years
are transferred directly

only two new networks provided by the
state of the market

you don't need children you can have a
pension fund

you don't need somebody to take care of
you you don't need neighbors and and

seven sisters or brothers to take care
of you when your sink distinct takes

care of you

the states provide you with police with
education was help with everything and

people

you can say that maybe life today is in
in some ways worse than 1,700 because we

have lost much of the connection to the
community around us

it's a big argument but it happened
people today actually managed to live in

many people is isolated alienated
individuals in the most advanced

societies many people leave as early
Nathan individuals with no community to

speak about with a very small family
it's no longer the big a extended family

it's now a very small family maybe just
maybe just a spouse any one or two

children and even they they might leave
in a different seat in a different

country and your system

maybe once in every few months and
that's it and the amazing thing is that

people live with that

so and that's just 200 years

so what might happen in the next hundred
years on that level of daily life of

intimate relationships

I think anything is possible you look at
Japan today and Japan is maybe 20 years

ahead of the world winning everything
and you see all these new social

phenomenon of of people having
relationships with mutual mutual spouses

and you have people who never leave the
house and and just live through

computers and i don't mean maybe

future maybe it isn't but for me the
amazing thing

is that you would've thought given the
biological background of of humankind

that this is impossible

yet we see that it is possible
apparently homo sapiens is even more

malleable then then then we tend to
think some school of some experts think

that agriculture was the biggest mistake
in human history in terms of what it to

the individual

it's obvious that on the collective
level agriculture enhance the power of

humankind an amazing way it without
agriculture you cannot have cities and

kingdoms and empires and so forth but if
you look at it from the viewpoint of the

individual then for many individuals
life was probably much worse as presents

in ancient Egypt then is how to
gatherers twenty thirty thousand years

earlier you had to work much harder

the body and mind of Homo sapiens
evolved for millions of years in

adaptation to climbing trees and picking
fruits or two running after gazelles and

looking for mushrooms and 1 suddenly you
start all day digging canals and

carrying water packets from the river
and harvesting the corn and grinding the

corn

this is much more difficult for the body
and also much more boring to the mind in

exchange for all this hard work

most presidents go to followers diet
then hunter-gatherers because hunter

gatherers relied on dozens of species of
animals and plants and mushrooms and

whatever that provided that with all the
nutrients and vitamins they needed

whereas presents relied on usually just
a single prop like wheat or rice or

potatoes and on top of that you had all
the new social hierarchies and the

beginning of mass exploitation where you
have small elite exploiting everybody

else

so putting all this together I think
there is a good case to be said for the

idea that for the individual agriculture
was perhaps the biggest mistake in

history

this may provide us with less than or at
least something to think about with

regard to the a new technological
revolutions

nobody would doubt that all the the new
technologies will enhance again the

collective power of humankind

but the question we should be asking
ourselves is what's happening with the

individual level we have enough evidence
from history that you can have a very

big step forward in terms of collective
power coupled with the step backwards in

terms of individual happiness individual
suffering so we need to ask ourselves

above the new technologies emerging at
present not only how are they going to

impact the collective power of humankind

but also how are they want to impact the
daily life of individuals in terms of

you know even the Middle East and Isis
and all that

I think this is just the speed bump on
history's highway

I mean that the Middle East is not very
important Silicon Valley's is much more

important that the world of the 21st
century

even I was going on about technology in
terms of ideas in terms of religions the

most interesting place today in the
world in religious terms is silicon

power

it's not the Middle East and this is
where the new religions of being created

now by people like records 1 and this

these are the religions that will take
over the world not the things coming out

of Syria and Iraq and Nigeria