Humanity 2.0: the rise of the superhuman

人类2.0:超人的崛起

Babbage from The Economist

2025-03-27

44 分钟

单集简介 ...

From drugs to gene editing and brain implants, modern biotechnology has the potential to make humans stronger, more intelligent and perhaps even live longer. These ideas have largely existed at the fringes of scientific research, however, championed by eccentric billionaires whose aims include evading death. But investment and interest in human enhancement is growing—and some of those billionaires have now reached the heart of political power in America. How can human enhancement research be brought into the mainstream, so that it could one day benefit everyone? Host: Alok Jha, The Economist's science and technology editor, with health editor Natasha Loder. Contributors: Aron D'Souza of the Enhanced Games; Charles Brenner of City of Hope National Medical Center; Arthur Caplan of New York University Grossman School of Medicine; and Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur and self-declared “rejuvenation athlete”. If you enjoyed this, listen to The Weekend Intelligence's episode on human growth hormone. How far would you go in the pursuit of perfection?  Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.
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  • I am the fastest man in the world.

  • But you've never heard of me.

  • There's a brand new international sporting competition on the cards.

  • And it's like no other competition that's come before.

  • I am a proud, enhanced athlete.

  • The athletes who take part won't be bound by the usual restrictions on performance enhancing drugs.

  • I need your help for the world to embrace science.

  • There are people who feel that humanity's physical abilities are reaching a plateau.

  • Think about world records.

  • The fastest time for the women's 800 metre race, for example, was set... in 1983.

  • The stated goal of the enhanced games is to build superhumanity.

  • And we define that as where our biology as human beings is no longer our limit.

  • That's Aaron D'Souza, the man behind that new competition, which is known as the enhanced games.

  • I want to see at enhanced games, certainly within the next decade, a 40-year-old,

  • maybe even a 50-year-old, who can run faster than Usain Bolt or swim faster than Michael Phelps.

  • And that's really going to be a seismic shift in our understanding of what it means to be human.

  • This might sound odd, dangerous even, but the organisers of the Games want to make a deeper point.

  • Exploring the frontiers of medical research and human physiology could one day help all of us.

  • Today we have much more older people and fewer workers and the dependency ratio is almost going to get to one to one.

  • pretty soon.