MICHAEL SNYDER
The high tech elite that have accumulated so much wealth and so much power over the past couple of decades really are trying to create an entirely new class of people. While the majority of the population continues to decline physically and mentally, they intend to use technology to transform themselves and their children into superhumans.
I know that this sounds really bizarre, but they truly believe that they will ultimately be far smarter, far stronger and live much longer than the rest of us. In fact, there are some wealthy individuals that are now "breeding smarter babies" by using genetic testing services to select embryos with the highest potential intelligence...
This isn't science fiction. It is Silicon Valley, where interest in breeding smarter babies is peaking.
Parents here are paying up to $50,000 for new genetic-testing services that include promises to screen embryos for IQ. Tech futurists such as Elon Musk are urging the intellectually gifted to multiply, while professional matchmakers are setting up tech execs with brilliant partners partly to get brilliant offspring.
The goal of the matchmaking services is to pair highly intelligent individuals together in order to create "genetically optimized" embryos.
Subsequently, those embryos are then screened to select only those with the highest potential.
Yes, I realize that this sounds like the plot to a really bad science fiction movie.
But this is actually happening. Wealthy individuals in Silicon Valley really are paying enormous amounts of money to be paired with others that have "good genes"...
"Right now I have one, two, three tech CEOs and all of them prefer Ivy League," said Jennifer Donnelly, a high-end matchmaker who charges up to $500,000.
The fascination with what some call "genetic optimization" reflects deeper Silicon Valley beliefs about merit and success. "I think they have a perception that they are smart and they are accomplished, and they deserve to be where they are because they have 'good genes,'" said Sasha Gusev, a statistical geneticist at Harvard Medical School. "Now they have a tool where they think that they can do the same thing in their kids as well, right?"
One couple has actually admitted that they selected their latest embryo because it was in "the 99th percentile per his polygenic score in likelihood of having really exceptionally high intelligence".
We were always warned that the era of "designer babies" would be coming.
Now it is here.
Meanwhile, our high tech overlords are also obsessed with how they can extend their own lifespans...
The "future" of ageing research often looks surprisingly like its past. By now, you've probably seen countless media stories about ultra-rich and powerful men like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Bryan Johnson investing hundreds of millions of dollars in longevity startups, scientific laboratories or treatments, all in the hopes of outwitting their (and our) internal biological clocks.
Wealthy people are spending a lot of time, effort and money on the latest so-called anti-ageing treatments, like using an immunosuppressant to "biohack" the process of cellular ageing. And those of us without billion-dollar bank accounts want to know the secrets, too: one current estimate of the global market for anti-ageing products is $54bn and growing.
Longevity enthusiasts' oft-stated goals are not only to help themselves and others live to the ripe old age of 120 in perfect health, but also to strip away what has, until very recently, been considered the natural biological limit on the human lifespan. Why not, people in longevity circles ask, live until the biblical age of 1,000 or longer?
Biohacking has become really big business.
Many among the high tech elite are convinced that technology can eventually solve all of our problems, and that even includes death.
In a recent piece for Popular Mechanics, Ray Kurzweil revealed that he believes that nanotechnology that will allow humans to "overcome the limitations of our biological organs altogether" will be available by the year 2030...
A recent article from Popular Mechanics reported that the key to living forever comes from merging biotechnology and artificial intelligence to make nanotechnology.
In the article, futurist Raymond Kurzweil said that this nanotechnology will help "overcome the limitations of our biological organs altogether."
The required nanotechnology is predicted to become a reality by the year 2030, according to Wired.
Kurzweil envisions a time in the not too distant future when dying will be optional. He claims that vast numbers of nanobots flowing through our bloodstreams will be able to fix cellular damage and keep our bodies from breaking down.
As nanotechnology grows at an exponential rate, pretty soon human life expectancy will increase "more than a year every year, thus allowing humans to become essentially immortal"...
Kurzweil compares it to the rusting of a car in that "metabolism creates waste in and around cells and damages structures through oxidation. When we're young, our bodies are able to remove this waste and repair the damage efficiently. But as we get older, most of our cells reproduce over and over, and errors accumulate. Eventually, the damage starts piling up faster than the body can fix it."
This is where the nanobots come in. According to an article from Columbia One, in the near future, humans might have nanobots flowing through our bloodstreams. These nanobots will repair cellular damage and link us to the cloud.
The article reports that this will allow humans to increase their life expectancy for "more than a year every year, thus allowing humans to become essentially immortal."
They literally want to live forever.
Another way that some among the tech elite are attempting to prolong their lifespans is by using the blood of younger people.
You may have heard of one tech billionaire that is actually infusing himself with blood plasma from his own son in a desperate attempt to stay young.
Needless to say, he is far from alone, and well-funded scientists are doing a tremendous amount of research in this field.
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