Aging is the common factor in lots of these diseases. Why don't we make an upstream intervention and stop the root cause, or one root cause, which is aging? At the moment, though, most people seem to be sceptical of radical life extension. Angena quotes the survey that only four % of americans recently said they'd want to live past a hundred and 20.
FT Weekend is a weekly Saturday show that brings the best of our weekend journalism into audio form, with everything from culture and food and the arts, to nuanced questions and big ideas. In this episode, we ask the question: what does it mean to defy death? Rock climber Leo Houlding tells us about his terrifying family holidays, scaling vertical cliff-faces with his two young kids. We also explore radical life extension with science writer Anjana Ahuja. How close are we scientifically to extending the human lifespan to 150 or 200? What are the implications when we get there? And do we really want to live forever? PLUS: inside the luxury life extension market, with How to Spend it writer Tiffanie Darke.
Links from the episode:
— Leo Houlding’s extreme family holiday in Wyoming’s wild west: https://www.ft.com/content/0bcba30a-bb46-4bc1-8a7d-9166dc43a5e8
— Anjana Ahuja on whether we can live forever: https://www.ft.com/content/60d9271c-ae0a-4d44-8b11-956cd2e484a9
— Inside the life extension market, with Tiffanie Darke: https://www.ft.com/content/867e647b-c0e8-4aeb-9777-fedff7ec3476
Want to say hi? Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.
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Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner, with original music by Metaphor music.
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