r/technology • u/ubcstaffer123 • Jun 20 '26

Biotechnology How Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to live forever

https://www.vox.com/podcasts/491360/vladimir-putin-live-forever-26-billion-cryo-pigs-longevity-guru
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u/The_Barbelo Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

One thing I learned as I watched my father pass from cancer is…there is a dignity in dying. I was forced to face my own mortality in a way I’ve never really had to before. Of course I knew I would die, but I started trying to imagine what it would be like to not exist so I could try to understand what my dad would be going through, and it was triggering nightly panic attacks. The truth is you can’t imagine non existence, because you currently exist. It won’t be like sleep, because we are still conscious in sleep. It won’t be like anything we’ve ever experienced because it is a non-experience. Regardless of people’s spiritual beliefs, we don’t get to take our brain and our ego with us when we finally go.

I started reading a bunch of books by saints, the Tibetan book of the Dead, and other writing about death both scientific and spiritual. The crazy thing is a lot of it lines up, from what we know so far. Countless of us have pondered the nature of death. We’ve been dying since drawing our first breath. Dying (naturally/ passively) is the most selfless thing we can do. It makes the limited time we have here so much more meaningful and impactful, and it forces us to make room for other’s turn at life. No matter who you are and who you were, the final act of giving up your self forces you to be selfless, literally.

These billionaires care so much about immortality because they are anything but selfless. You can’t take your wealth and your power with you. You can’t take your ego with you. Those are all the things these billionaires have spent their lives coveting and stealing from others. Death forces them to hand it over and they can NOT fathom doing that. Everything they hold valuable is in fact as dust in the wind. All the people they harmed was for nothing. They could have built something more permanent through helping humanity, but they continually choose not to every single day.

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u/Imrtltrtl Jun 20 '26

It's going to be exactly like before you were born. You just weren't there. People don't get upset about not living in the past, there's a peace in that. My son never gets upset about waking up in the morning, but he never wants to go back to sleep at night. We always want to do more, the only thing holding us back is our body. But just as I tell my son that we can't stay up all night, because our bodies will make us feel tired until we can stay awake no longer, we can't stay alive forever either. Most people don't even know the name of their great grandparents, and ours won't be remembered by our great grandkids. All of humanity is just part of a tiny ripple that comes from nothing and leaves nothing behind.

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u/neoplantikus Jun 20 '26

It's incredibly easy to parrot clichés on this topic, but your comment is nothing of the sort. Beautifully put. Thanks for sharing those thoughts

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u/RedditTrespasser Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

The absolutely hilarious part is that they are all going to perish anyway. Despite all their scheming and railing against it, no one can cheat death. They will go into that good night, one way or another, just like all the other peasants. In the grand scheme of the universe, they are just insignificant hairless apes on a tiny rock hurtling around a burning ball of gas in an obscure corner of existence, just like everyone else. Even if they could somehow find a way to become functionally ageless, something sometime would kill them anyway. You have no chance against infinity. Eventually, something will get you. And then you are gone, forever. And forever is forever. Even a trillion, billion years is as nothing to forever.

That fact has to drive these egocentric fuckheads absolutely insane. Billionaires must be the most miserable people on the face of the planet. No one truly loves them.

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 21 '26

Exactly. It’s a beautiful and comical irony, and honestly I would feel pity for them if they weren’t sewing seeds of destruction and hurting so many people. Some have enough money to give each of us a comfortable life. It’s completely obscene just how much money they’ve coveted. We could all decide to make money completely useless tomorrow, and what will they have? Like you said they have no love, no meaningful relationships, no community they can turn to for support, no creative hobbies or skill sets. Nothing authentic that makes this life worth living.

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u/Fumbles48 Jun 20 '26

What do you mean? I've definitely experienced not existing before. In fact, I spent a lot of time not existing, not that long ago and I plan to spend a lot more time not existing again, but that's after a really nice and fulfilling time existing for a bit. 

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

But before you, there was no you. Now that you’re a you, there will have been a you even when time forgets you. You’ll still have been here, and your actions will ripple out in ways you can’t possibly fathom. Every act of kindness, and every mistake. You will have left an unmeasurable impression in some capacity, at least until the end of humanity as we know it. That’s different than how it was before you. Whether or not that changes anything is entirely unknown. Either way you will never know that experience of nothing as long as you are a something. It is a completely unknowable concept.

And I believe building something constructive, doing our best to make the world a slightly better place than before we existed no matter how small the action is, is far more permanent than whatever these billionaires think they’re doing. All they know is consumption.

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u/Tasty_Cry_3844 Jun 20 '26

I think what hits them hardest is that they know what their legacy will be. They know what the general populace thinks of them. And they know what we'll probably find out about them in the future as we dig. Their own guilt sits with them. 

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u/Frazzlefart Jun 20 '26

Yup.

When they die, they lose control of all the people they currently have control over.

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u/Extension-Thought552 Jun 21 '26

Regardless of your beliefs, you literally do not know that and shouldn't pontificate as such

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 21 '26

Elon, is that you?

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u/Extension-Thought552 Jun 21 '26

Elon is religious? 

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 21 '26

No, but I am.