Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. For millennia, humanity has been well
captivated by the idea of living forever.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's a profound ancient longing.
Speaker 1: Think about it. You've got the ancient Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh,
you know, mourning his friend, searching fruitlessly for eternal life, a.
Speaker 2: Classic example right back at the dawn of literature.
Speaker 1: And then the Hindu Panishads contemplating cycles of rebirth, Plato
arguing for the soul's immortality. This quest for forever, it's not.
Speaker 2: New, is it not at all? It's woven into our
oldest stories, our deepest philosophies. It seems almost intrinsic to
being human grappling with our own mortality.
Speaker 1: Right, that knowledge that we won't be here forever. Heidegger
called it being toward death, didn't he He did.
Speaker 2: Our unique cognitive abilities burden us with that knowledge, but
they also perhaps inevitably lead us to speculate does death
have to be the end?
Speaker 1: And it's that ancient longing that today is colliding with
well cutting edge technology and frankly immense.
Speaker 2: Wealth, a potent common.
Speaker 1: So today we're taking a deep dive into what some
are calling the immortality underground. We're going to investigate this
shadowy world of the ultra rich and their reported quest
for eternal life.
Speaker 2: We'll be looking into the science, some of which is
quite strange, the talk of offshore labs and these fascinating,
sometimes unsettling theories suggesting the elite might be closer than
you think to unlocking well a form of functional immortality.
Speaker 1: And for this deep dive, we've looked at a whole
range of sources, haven't we.
Speaker 2: We have scientific research, philosophical reviews, a lot stemming from
the John Templeton Foundation's Immortality project actually, plus news articles
on billionaire investments, and even you know online discussions forums
where people are debating this stuff constantly, trying to give
you a comprehensive, impartial look.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start at the beginning. Why is this
quest so deep in us philosophically? How have we traditionally
dealt with death?
Speaker 2: Well, Gilgamesh, as you mentioned, nearly for millennia old, it's
literally about that search after his friend n Kidu dies.
Speaker 1: Right, pure grief and fear.
Speaker 2: Then you have concepts like Ssara and the Hindu aupunishads,
the cycle of life, death, rebirth, aiming for eventual liberation Moksha.
Speaker 1: And the Greeks Plato.
Speaker 2: Plato definitely, he systematically argued for the soul's immortality, the
idea that some essential part of us persists.
Speaker 1: But then you get the Epicureans. They had a pretty
different take, didn't They sort of don't worry about it exactly.
Speaker 2: Epicurus basically said, look, death is non existence. You won't
be there to experience it. So if you don't experience it,
how can it be bad for you?
Speaker 1: It makes a certain logical sense, but it doesn't really
stop people fearing.
Speaker 2: It, does it not really, And that's why many contemporary
philosophers lean towards the deprivation account. The idea isn't that
dad is a bad state to be in, but that
it's bad because it deprives you of the good things
you would have experienced if you lived longer.
Speaker 1: So if I could have had another happy year, death
robbed me of that year.
Speaker 2: Precisely, it's the loss of potential future good that makes
death bad according to this view.
Speaker 1: But then Lucretius and other Epicurean he brought up that
symmetry problem. If we don't worry about the eternity before
we were born. Why worry so much about the eternity
after we die?
Speaker 2: That's the Lucretian challenge, a tough one. Some philosophers try
to resolve it by pointing to an asymmetry in how
we view time. We generally prefer good things in the
future and bad things in the past.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we look forward to good stuff. We're glad
bad stuff is over.
Speaker 2: Makes sense, right, So the future non existence feels like
a potential loss of good things were oriented towards, whereas
the past non existence, Well, it's just gone. It doesn't
hold the same potential value for us now.
Speaker 1: Interesting. So beyond philosophy, how does believing in some kind
of immortality actually affect us psychologically? Does it change how
we face big threats?
Speaker 2: Research suggests it does Liftion and colleagues looked into this.
They separated literal immortality, like believing your soul survive death
often religious, from symbolic immortality, you know, leaving a legacy,
having kids, impacting the world, Okay, two different kinds, and
they found that belief in literal immortality seems to offer
significant psychological protection against existential threats like end of the world.
Speaker 1: Scenarios, because if your soul lives on the world, ending
isn't really your end. Yeah, a kind of mental shield exactly.
Speaker 2: It buffers that existential dread. But there's a potential downside,
which is it might reduce the motivation to act against
collective threats like climate change. If you believe you're personally
safe in the long run, why worry so much about
saving the planet for future generations? The urgency might decrease, ah.
Speaker 1: Right, potential for apathy, that's concerning. And what about that
symbolic immortality like leaders leaving legacy.
Speaker 2: That's sometimes called civic immortality. Think of figures like Mandela
or Washington. Their impact, their values live on in the
structure of society in collective memory. Wing Go in Demetria
argue societies benefit from having these civic immortals.
Speaker 1: Like role models who inspire beyond their lifespan.
Speaker 2: Yes, especially in context like post colonial Africa. Wingo suggests
figures like Sundrata Keida could inspire overcoming corruption. But Demetria
as a warning note, think of Robert E. Lee choosing
state loyalty over national unity. An over emphasis on personal
honor can sometimes jeopardize the very institutions that grant that
symbolic immortality. Leaders need to be conscious of that broader
civic duty.
Speaker 1: So, whether it's faith in a soul, a lasting legacy,
or just having children, we seem driven to find ways
to outlast death.
Speaker 2: It seems fundamental and it's this.
Speaker 1: Deep ancient desire that's now meeting well billions of dollars
in cutting edge tech, which brings us to the billionaire
bets who's actually putting money into this.
Speaker 2: Well, you see some really big names. Jeff Bezos, for example,
has funneled significant resources into a company called Altos Labs.
Speaker 1: Altos Labs, what's their focus.
Speaker 2: They're working on technologies aimed at rejuveni cells, basically trying
to reverse aging processes and related health conditions. Early mouse
studies showed some promise.
Speaker 1: Apparently mouse studies still a long way from humans presumably.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely a huge leap, but it shows the direction
of thinking. Then you have Peter Teel, another major Silicon
Valley figure. He's also heavily invested in longevity biotech startups,
attracting billions in funding to the sector.
Speaker 1: In Craigvnor, the guy famous for sequencing the human genome.
Speaker 2: Yes, Craig Venter's company, Human Longevity, Inc. Or HLI. Their
approach is very data heavy. They use genomics, AI machine
learning to predict and ideally prevent age related diseases.
Speaker 1: How does that work in practice?
Speaker 2: They offer these quite expensive personalized health assessments like twenty
five thousan pounds of pop using your genetic data to
map out risks and tailor treatments to slow down your
personal aging process.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's definitely not for everyone. What about others like
Gates or Zuckerberg Are they in this race too?
Speaker 2: They fund a lot of healthcare research through their foundations,
with which is definitely relevant, but it often seems focused
on let's say, adjacent field specific diseases global health initiatives,
rather than directly targeting the aging process itself as the
primary goal. Like altos or HLI seem to be still.
Speaker 1: It's part of that ecosystem. We also hear about people
like Brian Johnson, maybe not quite a billionaire, but famous
for his extreme anti aging regimen.
Speaker 2: Right, he's kind of a public experiment in himself.
Speaker 1: And those whispers about Bezos being on TRT tinsosteroone replacement therapy.
It suggests a personal interest among the elite beyond just investment.
Speaker 2: It's certainly fuel speculation and the science they're betting on.
It comes from some pretty fascinating, sometimes weird breakthroughs in
animal models like what well researchers have managed to extend
lifespans in various non human species. Simple things like caloric
restriction and mice limiting their food intake has shown effects.
Speaker 1: Okay, eating less, we've heard that before.
Speaker 2: But more specifically, there's this one mouse, the GHRKO eleven
C mouse. It lived nearly five years. That's almost double
the normal life span for a mouse.
Speaker 1: Five years for a mouse.
Speaker 2: They removed a specific gene, the one for its growth
hormone receptor. It seems this gene acts like a control
knob for aging speed and mice. Finding these specific genetic
levers is huge because it suggests aging isn't just random decay,
but potentially a programmed process.
Speaker 1: We could tweak, so specific genes control aging speed. Wow?
Any other examples?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mutations and certain genes have also extended lives in
insects and worms significantly. It keeps pointing back to underlying
biological pathways.
Speaker 1: You mentioned something really wild earlier, the immortal hydra sounds
like a myth.
Speaker 2: It does, but it's real. Here's where it gets really interesting.
There's a species hydro Vulgaris. It basically shows no signs
of aging, none.
Speaker 1: No signs. How's that possible?
Speaker 2: It has this incredible ability to constantly regenerate its stem cells.
There's a key gene involved called FOXO. Scientists observed these
hydras for ten years, a long time for a hydra,
and saw no decay.
Speaker 1: No aging ten years.
Speaker 2: Compare that to a closely related species, Hydrologactus, which does
age and die. The existence of hydro Vulgaris challenges the
whole idea that aging is biologically inevitable.
Speaker 1: So if a complex animal can not age, me aging
isn't a fundamental law of biology. Maybe it's more like
a feature that evolutions selected for or against.
Speaker 2: That's exactly the implication. It provides a living proof of
concept that biological immorpality or at least negligible senescence is possible.
There are theories about its heat shock responses contributing to
and simile longevity systems are seen in other simple organisms
like sponges, corals, some plants.
Speaker 1: Okay, my mind is slightly blown, so what do these
animal studies suggest for us? For humans?
Speaker 2: They fuel the idea of radical life extension, the possibility
of developing, say, pharmacological interventions drugs that could dramatically slow
or even halt human.
Speaker 1: Aging, allowing us to live Yeah how long.
Speaker 2: Potentially for centuries, maybe even millennia according to some projections.
But it likely wouldn't be a one shot cure. You'd
probably need to take these drugs continuously, stop taking them,
and the aging process might.
Speaker 1: Just kick back in continuous management, not a permanent fix.
And gene therapy that feels like a major frontier here.
The sources mentioned it's become really easy to do in lapse,
even a gene gun.
Speaker 2: Yeah. In a research context, manipulating genes has become remarkably streamlined.
The tools like Crisper are powerful. Think about it. One
company developed an omicron vaccine in just four months. That
speed is indicative of how fast biotech.
Speaker 1: Is moving four months. Yeah, incredible. That speed must apply
to other.
Speaker 2: Areas too, absolutely, and it's not just gene editing. Look
at new drug developments. Eli Lilly, for example, is working
on a pill called or for glippron or for glippron.
Speaker 1: What does it do.
Speaker 2: It's a daily pill that works similarly to drugs like
ozempic or Manjaro, the GLP one agonists famous for weight
loss in managing type two diabetes. This could be available
by twenty twenty six, offering perhaps a more convenient way
to manage metabolic health, which is closely linked to aging.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the science is moving fast. The investment is there,
which brings us back to the whiskers. This secret immortality underground.
What about those online rumors billionaire body growing labs, doctor
mendele labs doing unethical tests. Is there anything to it?
Speaker 2: Well, there's understandable skepticism. The first question is who's doing
the science. It's really hard to keep world class medical
researchers secret. If top scientists suddenly vanished from academia or industry,
people would notice. You'd need these extensive shadow networks.
Speaker 1: Sure, it's not like building a secret bunker. You need
highly specialized people.
Speaker 2: Some online discussions draw an analogy to World War II physics.
You know how just before the atomic bomb, publications on
nuclear fissions suddenly went dark.
Speaker 1: They stop publishing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the idea being, when serious progress happens in secret,
the public scientific discussion dries up. So the argument goes,
when that happens for aging research, then we can unfold
our tinfoil hats again. Until then, maybe it's still mostly
public R and D.
Speaker 1: But others online pushback right saying some of them are
doing this, it's just super early staged. The companies aren't public.
Speaker 2: Yet exactly, And there's the argument that billionaires wouldn't want
to tell the public anyway. Imagine their reaction. It could
cause riots, some say, fear of social unrest if immortality
was achieved, but only for the few.
Speaker 1: And the ethics, the idea that maybe unethical human testing
is necessary for rapid progress, and perhaps it's happening somewhere
with fewer regulations, places like Russia, China, or North Korea
get mentioned.
Speaker 2: Though realistically the level of biotech expertise needed might be
limited in places like Russia or North Korea compared to
say China or the West, but the idea persists.
Speaker 1: There was even that Reddit comment you flagged about Zuckerberg's
compound in Hawaii, All those NDAs implying secret projects like
gene editing, cloning, maybe immortality research.
Speaker 2: It feeds the narrative, But then you have the counter
argument solving aging, let alone achieving immortality is just an
astronomically hard problem, maybe harder than anyone even billionaires really
has the resources to crack right now.
Speaker 1: Their wealth isn't always liquid cash, right They have companies
to run, status to maintain.
Speaker 2: Exactly, Pouring everything into such a high risk, long term
bet might not be feasible even for them.
Speaker 1: But the counter to that is, billionaires invest where they
see potential return. And what's a bigger potential return than
conquering death?
Speaker 2: Precisely, if they believe there's even a small chance of
a massive ROI living indefinitely, the incentive is enormous. It
becomes the ultimate long term investment, potentially justifying huge secretive.
Speaker 1: Efforts, which leads us perfectly into the whole transhumanist dream,
doesn't it The idea of moving beyond biology altogether, merging
human and machine.
Speaker 2: That's often seen as the next or perhaps ultimate step
for radical life extension.
Speaker 1: So transhumanism. We hear this term a lot, especially around
tech billionaires. Can you break down what it actually means?
What's the core idea?
Speaker 2: At its heart? Transhumanism is about using technology to overcome
fundamental human limitations, including aging and death. It's about expanding
human life span, maybe even achieving immortality through tech.
Speaker 1: How do they approach that?
Speaker 2: It's very much an engineering mindset applied to life itself,
viewing biological limitations, even death, as tractable problems to be solved.
There's a deep underlying faith in the potency of human
reason and technology.
Speaker 1: In this idea of morphological freedom.
Speaker 2: That's key. It's the idea that individuals should have the
right to modify their own bodies and minds using technology
as they see fit. Choosing your own enhancements.
Speaker 1: An engineering mindset to life, treating it like a problem set. Okay,
and this vision often gets broken down using the NBIC
acronym right nano bio info cogno. Let's start with biotechnology.
We've touched on it, but how does it fit the transhumanist.
Speaker 2: View think Genetic engineering figures like Aubrey de Gray strongly
advocate for fixing the damage of aging at the genetic level.
Genome Project finishing in two thousand and three, and especially
Crisper gene editing tech emerging around twenty twelve made this
feel much more real, much more possible.
Speaker 1: But doesn't this brush up against some uncomfortable history eugenics.
Speaker 2: It does. Critics point to an evident legacy of eugenic
thought in some transhumanist discourse. While proponents emphasize individual choice
morphological freedom to distance themselves from state sponsored eugenics, critics
argue that focusing on human enhancement can easily become a
rebranding of eugenic aims, potentially leading to similar societal pressures
and inequalities, even if unintended.
Speaker 1: Hmm the fine line. Okay, Next is INFO, information technology
and AI. This is where it gets really sci fi right.
Digital immortality.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This involves concepts like uploading consciousness, transferring human identity
to alternative substrates computers basically, or merging our minds directly
with computers through brain computer interfaces.
Speaker 1: BCIs mind uploading. Wow, and AI's role.
Speaker 2: Some see artificial general intelligence AGI as crucial. There is
ij goods old idea of an altering intelligent machine an
AI so far beyond human intellect it could trigger an
intelligence explosion.
Speaker 1: Leaving human intelligence far behind.
Speaker 2: Exactly good thought. The first ultra intelligent machine might be
the last invention that man need ever make, because it
could solve everything else, including aging. Some today explicitly believe
AGI is the way to go to solve aging. Let
the super AI figure it out.
Speaker 1: Okay, then cognitive science, how does that fit? In?
Speaker 2: This pillar focuses on understanding the mind, often through a
mind as machine lens. It draws heavily on cybernetics, the
study of communication and control systems. Using this information frame
makes it easier to make those frankly fantastical claims about
the tractability of existence. If the mind is just information processing,
then maybe it can be copied, uploaded, enhanced like software.
Speaker 1: It reduces the mystery, I guess yes, makes it seem solvable.
And finally, nano nanotechnology right.
Speaker 2: Richard Feinman's vision of building things atom by Adam K.
Eric Drexler's concept of radical abundance through molecular manufacturing, and.
Speaker 1: The immortality angle nanobots fixing us from the inside.
Speaker 2: That's the fascinating dual potential here. Medically imagine nanobots patrolling
your bloodstream, identifying cancer cells, repairing damage. Incredible potential.
Speaker 1: There's always a butt.
Speaker 2: But the same technology that can heal could also be
used for unprecedented surveillance and coercion. Tiny invisible monitors everywhere
or vast arsenals of lethal or non lethal weapons operating
at a microscopic level. The power is immense and double edged.
Speaker 1: So this whole grand transhumanist vision it's not without serious criticism,
is it? What are the main pushbacks?
Speaker 2: One major critique is aimed at what some call its
epistemological certainty, this almost unquestioning faith that technology and reason
can solve everything. Critics argue this massively underestimates the depth
of complexity of reality, of biology of consciousness. It's seen
as overly simplistic, even arrogant, life.
Speaker 1: Like code to be debugged exactly.
Speaker 2: This leads to what N. Catherine Hales calls the information
materiality hierarchy, where abstract information code data is valued more
than messy physical reality the body of the environment. It
enables ideas like life as code.
Speaker 1: Hails called it a platonic backhand and forehand, didn't you
what did you mean?
Speaker 2: It's a two step process. First, you simplify a complex
reality into abstract data the backhand. Then you use that
simplified model to reconstruct or manipulate reality the forehand. The
danger is that in simplifying you might erase, meaning losing
the richness the context the embodied experience that makes life.
Speaker 1: Meaningful, and we risk confusing metaphors for reality, like the
brain isn't literally a computer, even if the metaphor is useful.
Speaker 2: Sometimes precisely, when you start treating metaphor's mind as machine, life,
as a book of code, as literal facts, it enables
these grand claims about digital immortality or radical abundance. But
it's a reductionist view that might miss crucial aspects of
what it means to be human, potentially leading us down
dangerous paths by ignoring complex ethical and existential.
Speaker 1: Questions, which brings us squarely to the dark side. If
these technologies could halt aging or radically enhance humans, what
does that mean for society. Let's ask that question. If
only a select few get access, living for maybe thousands
of years while most people live in normal lifespan, is
that a just world.
Speaker 2: It's hard to see how this immediately crashes into the
problem of distributive justice. Would it be remotely fair or ethical?
It seems like a recipe for unimaginable resentment and social turmoil,
creating a biological caste system far starker than anything we've
seen before.
Speaker 1: And this plays into wider critiques of techno capitalism. Right,
how tech and capitalism seem to reinforce each other, often
making inequality worse.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, the technosystem, as some call it, tends to intensify inequality.
You see the rise of data totalitarianism or surveillance capitalism.
Knowledge production comes focused on what's commercially valuable, what data
can be extracted and monetized, and people become individuals, in
Duluz's term, not unique individuals, but fragmented data points, samples,
data markets, or banks were broken down into functional units
for the system.
Speaker 1: It sounds like reification, treating people like things exactly.
Speaker 2: Both people and objects become thing like, defined by their
functional role, where quantitative elements data metrics are privileged over
qualitative experience.
Speaker 1: So, even if transhumanists talk about morphological freedom individual choice,
could the system itself force our hand.
Speaker 2: That's the concern behind transcendent conformity. The sheer pressure of
capitalist competition might compel people to enhance themselves just to
stay employable or socially relevant. Real choice, real plurality, could
diminish as everyone feels pressured to conform to an enhanced norm.
Speaker 1: What's fascinating here is how This connects to fears about automation.
That Oxford study suggesting almost half of jobs are red
automation unemployment.
Speaker 2: And we saw during the pandemic how billionaire's wealth soared
while many struggled. Put those trends together and you.
Speaker 1: Get You've all Knowahrari's chilling concept, The Gods and the Useless.
Speaker 2: A scenario with a tiny, ultra wealthy, technologically enhanced elite,
the gods controlling almost everything while the vast majority become
economically redundant, utterly dependent on the goodwill of that elite.
Speaker 1: And history suggests relying on the benevolence of a tiny,
super powerful elite is well naive.
Speaker 2: At best extremely naive. And if we connect this to
the bigger picture, the technologies enabling enhancement are often dual use.
AI is already used for spying, selling, killing, and.
Speaker 1: Gambling, which raises the specter of militarization. Autonomous weapons kill robots.
What are the risks there?
Speaker 2: The sources warn they could dramatically lower the barrier to war,
making conflict easier to initiate. They could destabilize the current
geopolitical order. Imagine a few individuals controlling a large military
force of robots. It could make the planet a much
more dangerous place.
Speaker 1: And an AI arms race seems almost baked in, doesn't it.
Driven by nations seeking.
Speaker 2: Advantage, seems virtually inevitable unfortunately, which brings us to another
controversial idea, long termism or bostermism.
Speaker 1: This philosophy prioritizes the distant future extremely distant.
Speaker 2: It focuses on maximizing value for potentially astronomical numbers of
artificial beings or enhanced post humans trillions of years from.
Speaker 1: Now over people alive today.
Speaker 2: That's the controversial part. Some interpretations suggest present suffering, even
the worst atrocities in human history, could fade into moral
nothingness compared to the potential value of this vast future.
It's even been used to argue for giving to the
rich instead of the poor, on the grounds that the
wealthy are more likely to drive the technological progress needed
for that future.
Speaker 1: That's quite a justification. And finally, we have to address
the eugenics connection again. It keeps coming up.
Speaker 2: It's hard to ignore the evidence legacy of eugenic thought.
As critics put it, While proponents stress individual freedom of choice,
the focus on enhancement and optimization echoes eugenic goals, even
if the mechanism isn't state coercion. Some see it as
a rebranding.
Speaker 1: Are there extreme examples of this thinking.
Speaker 2: Yes. Stephen Fuller talks about a republic of humanity where
being biologically Homo sapiens isn't enough to qualify as human.
Machines could gain rights, while humans who can't or won't
enhance could be well expelled.
Speaker 1: Expelled from humanity. That's terrifying.
Speaker 2: Fuller makes truly disturbing claims that ordinary people are zombies
if they aren't transhumanists, that murder could be justified for progress,
that mass extinctions are good for evolution. It's a deeply
chilling vision.
Speaker 1: What about trying to make people better ethically moral enhancement?
Speaker 2: Seveleski proposed this, but the obvious concern is who decides
what's moral and who implements it. Existing power structures might
use it for increased surveillance and control, forcing a relinquishing
of civil liberties like privacy.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a potential tool for oppression.
Speaker 2: And lastly, there's a critique of the hypercolonial pretensions in
some transhumanist visions. Ray Kurdswel talks about saturating the entire
universe with our intelligence.
Speaker 1: Like cosmic colonization exactly.
Speaker 2: Critics see it mirroring hand oracle colonialism's exploitative expansionism, but
on a universal scale, it risks overlooking the fragility of
a material world that cannot be replaced. In its relentless
drive to transcend limits and spread intelligence. It's a profound
shift in how we might see ourselves and our place
in the cosmos.
Speaker 1: Wow, we've covered a huge amount today. It's been well,
a fascinating and sometimes deeply unsettling deep dive.
Speaker 2: It really spans the ages, doesn't it, From that ancient
philosophical yearning for eternity right up to the cutting edge
labs funded by today's billionaires.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the quest isn't new, but the tools and the
stakes feel radically different. Now we've seen these transhumanist visions
promise incredible futures, radical life.
Speaker 2: Extension, but inextricably tangled up with really complex ethical notts,
huge questions about inequality and the fundamental nature of power
in a technologically advanced society.
Speaker 1: We've explored how these dreams could fracture society, creating maybe
biological casts the gods and the useless. We've touched on
the philosophy of why we fear death, the psychology of
needing immortality, and the cold, hard cash flowing into companies
like Altos Labs. It's both tantalizing and frankly terrifying.
Speaker 2: It forces us to confront some fundamental choices.
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for you listening right now?
As this tech accelerates, as the lines blur between human
and machine, between life and obsolescence, how do we navigate this?
How do we make sure this pursuit of longer, maybe
better life for some doesn't create unprecedented division and control.
Speaker 2: What kind of future do we actually want? And maybe
more importantly, who gets to decide what that future?
Speaker 1: It looks like it leaves us to the start question,
doesn't it Is this quest to cheat death ultimately a
collective human triumph waiting to happen? Or is it paving
the way for a terrifying new kind of existential inequality?
Something to really think about.