2: Zoltan Istvan: How we'll live forever and cure death.

Do you want to live forever? I know I do. Here, Zoltan Istvan - a leading light in the Transhumanist movement - believes we can move beyond our physical human limitations (hence the trans-human name) and into an age of immortality. Welcome to my second ever podcast, which is double the number of my first one last week. If you missed that, do go back and listen, it was an absolute belter with Nate Phelps, defector from the Westboro Baptist Church. But now, I hope I don’t sound too much like a sycophant when I tell you how I excited I am to introduce my chat with Zoltan Istvan. Zoltan is frankly one of the most interesting people in the world. He believes very strongly that we can and will achieve immortality – far sooner than many of us may think. While some people – who Zoltan calls Deathists – find the idea of living forever abhorrent, many of us see it as our saving grace. The very idea has sparked thousands of years of religious practices, traditions…and war. Essentially, we don’t want to die. And former National Geographic correspondent Zoltan is at the forefront of that movement. Like a futuristic evangelist, he tours the US in the so-called Immortality Bus – shaped like a coffin - promoting the concept that death is a merely a disease waiting to be cured. He opens doors with a chip in his hand, has written sci-fi novels and is currently making a documentary about the immortality industry. In our chat, he tells me about how he just ran for president, how he believes we can bring people back from the dead through something called quantum archaeology and tells me what inspired him to want to live forever. He’s great company and full of enthusiasm, so I hope by the end of this episode, you’ll also want him to stick around. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices