All language subtitles for Year.Million.S01E02.Never.Say.Die.1080p.WEB-DL.DD5.1.H.264-NTb_track3_eng

NARRATOR: Imagine a world

where your 300th birthday
looks more like your 30th.

Sounds good, right?

EVA: Oscar, I'm done.
Do you need the VR?

GROUP: Surprise!

NARRATOR: Well in the future

radical life extension
technology

will make our current life span

seem like a mere
blink of an eye.

OSCAR: Happy birthday.

NARRATOR: We'll stay healthy
and active for centuries,

putting plastic surgeons
out of a job.

[clinks glass]

OSCAR: So, it's not every day
your wife turns 300.

So, to Eva, who is as beautiful
as the day I met her.

NARRATOR: Adding centuries
to your life

will radically redefine
how we view relationships,

work, childbirth, and
the fabric of society itself.

And those who choose immortality
will have to rethink

the very idea of what it means
to be alive at all.

♪ ♪

It's the deep future.

Your body? Gone.

You're all computer,
all the time.

Your brain is way more powerful

than even a billion
supercomputers.

Jobs, food, language, water,
even traditional thought,

all of humanity's
building blocks?

All that's done.

And you are immortal.

Squirming in your chair yet?

You should be.

This isn't science fiction.

Today's visionary thinkers say
it's a strong probability

that this is what your world
is going to look like.

Tonight, they'll guide you
toward that spectacular future,

and we'll see how
one family navigates it,

one invention at a time.

This is the story
of your future.

This is the road
to Year Million.

Just so we're clear,

the Year Million is not
literally the year one million.

It's another way of saying
the far, far future.

CHUCK NICE: The Year Million,

it's really not
one million years.

It is a concept of an age.

So think about this:
the Earth is about, what?

4.5 billion years old.

So the Year Million
is a literal...

NARRATOR: That's right.
A blink of an eye.

And human life has been around
for less than that.

But it hasn't stopped us
from obsessing

about how we can extend it,

since, well,
since the beginning of time.

BRIAN GREENE: The nature
of human mortality

is one of the most poignant
parts of existence.

We're born, and we know
we're going to die.

Great thinkers,
from Einstein to Freud,

have long since
come to the conclusion

that the fact that we are born
with the knowledge

that we are going to die
is what shapes how we live.

If that changes, then I think
we'd fundamentally change

what it means to be human.

NARRATOR: Thank you, Brian.

Folks, let's be clear,

it's no longer a question of if,
but rather when,

we as a species will have
the choice to become immortal.

So for those of you
who've played your part

in the billion-dollar spend
on anti-aging creams,

diets and gym memberships,

hoping you can turn back
the clock and extend your lives,

get excited,
because the real revolution

in radical life extension
has already begun.

And it's way beyond just
skin-deep solutions.

Let me show you what
I'm talking about.

♪ ♪

The first stage
towards immortality

lies in the advancement
of nanotechnology.

In the near future,

we'll send tiny
microscopic robots

coursing through
our bloodstreams,

fixing mutations in our cells,

so that they never get old
or fall apart.

Next, we'll not only
re-engineer our DNA

to resist all life-threatening
diseases and viruses,

we'll be able to create
super-intelligent children,

designed to our exact
specifications.

Now it's time to get weird.

If creating the ultimate
sustainable biological body

isn't enough,

there may be a time when
our descendants will choose

to discard
their physical bodies,

and upload themselves
into a digital world.

And for those of you who might
not live long enough

to see the beginnings
of these breakthroughs,

you can make a long-shot bet
on the future

in the form of
cryonic preservation.

Freezing yourselves until
the day we wake up to a world

where technology has caught up
with our dream for eternal life.

Our journey to immortality will
transform the way we live,

the relationships we have, and
the very meaning of life itself.

But let's rewind
to a more recent future.

Remember that birthday party?

It's just getting started.

But what's the perfect gift
for the person you love,

when she turns 300?

Something more precious
than diamonds or gold.

EVA: You know what I want
for my birthday, don't you?

OSCAR: What's that?

EVA: The only thing that I want

is more time with you.

NARRATOR: Time,
it's what everyone wants

but never has enough of.

So how do these two lovebirds
get a marriage

that lasts 200 years,
let alone survive it?

The answer might be found in
the most unsuspecting of places.

Yes, whales.

MICHIO KAKU:
The bowhead whale lives,

we think, on the order
of 200 years.

NARRATOR: In 2007,
a giant bowhead whale

was caught off
the coast of Alaska

with a harpoon point
embedded in its neck.

That harpoon was dated back
to approximately 1880,

making that whale
around 130 years old.

The Greenland shark can live
up to 400 years.

What are they doing
that we're not?

KAKU: Organisms age
at different rates.

Some so long that we don't even
know what their life span is.

Like crocodiles and alligators.

I've visited
many crocodile farms,

and I've talked to
the trainers there,

and they all say the same thing,

that, yeah, crocodiles
that are older than them,

they're just as vigorous and
as energetic as youngsters.

Aging is not necessarily a given

for all organisms
on the planet Earth.

NARRATOR: We don't know
exactly why some animals

live longer than humans,

but one theory is that our
biological clock is determined

by parts of our cells
called telomeres.

As we get older,
our telomeres fray,

they stop dividing and decay,
and that's what causes aging.

So what if we could somehow
stop the fraying,

or reverse the cycle?

PETER DIAMANDIS:
In medical school,

I became enamored with the idea
that there are species on Earth

that live for hundreds of years.

If they can, why can't we?

NARRATOR: Enter nanotechnology.

Scientists are already
hard at work

developing microscopic medical
devices known as nanobots.

In the deep future, these
tiny robots will be injected

directly into our bloodstreams.

And they'll be able to repair
our cells from the inside.

They'll be able to reverse
the telomere cycle from fraying.

Nanobots will eventually be
so effective at curing disease,

and even genetic mutations,

that we'll never get sick,
and we'll never get old.

EVA: Wow.

DIAMANDIS: Imagine little robots

that are able to go
into your cells,

look for problems,
and actually correct them.

THOMAS WEBSTER: We really
believe that nanotechnology

might be the future for treating
a lot of our ailments

that we've been unable to treat
using conventional therapies.

DIAMANDIS: Those tools is
something that is in our future.

It's just a matter of when,
not if.

FARSAD: As it is right now,

you can get your Botox
and your butt lift

and just look like Gisele

even though you started out,

you know, looking like
a some sort of a frog.

NARRATOR: Forget facelifts
and knee replacements.

In the far future, nanobots will
be able to heal a gunshot wound,

or treat the very first cell
of a lethal infection.

And even as we speak, scientists
are using nanotechnology

to help treat disease more
effectively than ever before.

Now, I know what you're
thinking, but let's be clear--

when we say nanobots, we're not
talking about little C-3POs.

They'll be made
of something organic,

so the body won't reject them.

And a precursor
to these future bots

is already being developed.

It's a kind of messenger cell
that delivers life-saving drugs

directly to the cells
that need it.

The first step is just getting

particles of medicine
that small.

♪ ♪

WEBSTER: What we can see here
is a reaction

that we've created in the lab

that can make
nanoparticles of selenium.

NARRATOR: In larger amounts,
the mineral selenium is toxic.

But at the nano scale,
selenium can treat cancer.

Scientists inject these
tiny amounts of selenium

into special synthetic
immune cells,

that are capable
of delivering it

to the precise place in the body
that needs it.

WEBSTER: So if there's
a mutation in a cell

that might be cancerous,

we deliver selenium
to that cell to kill it.

You can use this as a mechanism

to selectively kill
unwanted cells in your body.

GEORGE CHURCH: There's no
fundamental law of physics

that says that our bodies
have to decay

if we're constantly
repairing them.

DIAMANDIS:
When you have nanobots

coursing through your blood,

continuously repairing
everything

back to its original condition,

ultimately, that's the end point
of medicine.

NARRATOR:
The end point of medicine.

That is huge.

It'll be a transformative day
in the history of humanity.

BARATUNDE THURSTON:
I see advertisements

promising a glorious,
extended future,

10-year vacations
being marketed,

and new properties, and what
to do with this extra time.

NARRATOR: But nanotech
is just a Band-Aid.

It's step one.

If we're going to crack the code
to immortality,

we're going to have to go deeper
into our own code,

our genetic code,

and alter the very
building blocks of human life.

FARSAD: In the future,

we're going to be able to get
rid of a lot of pesky genes,

like the genes that give you
horrible diseases

like Alzheimer's,

but also the gene
that makes you,

like, be one of those people

that give weak handshakes,
you know?

That's a terrible gene.

NARRATOR:
That is a terrible gene!

And if you had the option,
you definitely wouldn't

want to pass it on
to your children, right?

And that will one day
be an option.

The first stage will be
treating unwanted genes,

once they've expressed
themselves.

Ultimately, we'll go into the
DNA of embryos and select genes

before a child is even born.

DIAMANDIS: I have two boys,

and as my wife and I think
about their upbringing,

we want them to have the best
education, the best clothing,

the best healthcare,
the best of everything.

But why wouldn't you
want to start

with the best genetic material?

We're going to go from having
a family by random chance,

like, you have sex and
randomly rearrange the genes,

to a point where it's like,
I would never, ever do that.

I wouldn't leave that
to randomness.

That's, that's immoral
to leave it to randomness.

I'm going to select the best
genes I can for my child,

give him the best start
from day one.

NARRATOR: Say goodbye
to evolution

and say hello
to genetic engineering.

But is humanity able to cope

with this kind
of responsibility?

We'll be making
stronger, faster,

more intelligent
versions of ourselves.

It may sound awesome,

but playing God has rarely
gone well in the past.

If we're not careful,

in the process of making
the ideal human being,

we may just destroy
our own humanity forever.

NARRATOR:
Welcome back to the future,

where nanotechnology has
brought us one step further

in the quest for immortality.

But nanotechnology is
just the beginning.

KAKU: The next era will be when
we tinker with our genes.

FARSAD: We're going to start
building these perfect humans

that don't have any problems.

You know, kids aren't
going to have acne,

like, that's not going
to be a thing.

There won't be an awkward phase.

Like the genes that, like,
make your mom call you

too many times in a week,

they're going to
get rid of that,

so I think in some ways
that's very exciting.

NARRATOR: Scientists are already
beginning to take

their first steps towards
changing our genetic code,

with gene editing.

Using restriction enzymes, also
known as molecular scissors,

it's possible to actually
snip apart DNA,

and then either splice in

or remove small parts
of the strand.

BRYAN JOHNSON:
Where we can actually

take snippets of this code,

and change it out,
either in embryos or in adults.

So the first one
just happened in China.

JON SPAIHTS: Things that were
thought to be impediments

are falling left and right.

Like the fact that
you never grow new teeth,

or the fact that we thought,
until relatively recently,

that you never grow
new brain cells.

We have now grown new teeth
in people's jaws,

starting from germ cells.

We've discovered that
neurogenesis in the brain

is normal into adulthood,
and can be stimulated.

Those are things
we're going to crack.

JOHNSON: We're born with
an expiration date.

Our genetic code is set
to expire in a certain range.

The question I have is, why?

Can we program that so
it extends the expiration date?

Can we program that so it
eliminates the expiration date?

NARRATOR: Manipulating the very
building blocks of life

may be the key to unlocking
the fountain of youth.

KAKU: We will use science to
begin the process of slowing,

and perhaps even stopping,
the aging process.

Perhaps our children,
our grandchildren,

will hit the age of 30,
and simply [snaps] stop.

NICE: I'm vain.
I am very vain, okay?

So if I can look like I'm 30
for 100 years, guess what.

I'm going for that.

NARRATOR: Who wouldn't?

In the future,
genetic engineering

will let us notch
many more years on our belt.

But even now, some humans
have been lucky enough

to be born with genetic code

that allows them to live
extremely long lives.

If your health is
your most valuable possession,

it's like winning
the genetic Powerball jackpot.

VALTER LONGO: Emma is the oldest
person in the history of Italy.

NARRATOR: Emma is a rare case.

She was born with longevity
encoded in her DNA.

But even so, she would never
have gotten this far

without a really good
and attentive doctor.

NARRATOR: Sadly,
Emma passed away

just as we finished production.

But imagine a future
where genetic engineering

will treat the causes
of aging itself.

A 117-year-old like Emma

would be able to hear perfectly,
walk, even dance the tango.

DIAMANDIS: We're going to
completely transform medicine.

It's going to become
personalized.

This is perfect for you,
for your genomics,

for your exact situation.

It's predictive.

Your genes tell us
you're likely to come down

with this cardiac syndrome
or this cancer,

and we're going to stop it from
happening in the first place.

NARRATOR: Remember those
designer babies

we'll all be making
in the future?

Well, at present,

genetic engineering hasn't
gone down that path.

But scientists have already made
great strides in gene therapy

to help cure disease.

EVAN DAUGHARTHY:
All human disease

is a product
of molecular defects.

What we've invented is a way
to look inside the cells,

and we actually see
what mutations are present.

Once we understand the problem,

then we can say,
oh, here's a drug

that will turn that gene back on
or fix that DNA mutation.

NARRATOR: Once we are able
to pinpoint

and change issues
at a genetic level,

humanity will be able
to avoid terminal illness.

And that will revolutionize our
entire approach to how we live.

MATT MIRA:
Yeah, I'd like the metabolism

and desire to eat
of a long distance runner.

That's what I'd like.

That's sad? That's what I want.

THURSTON: I can see people
having the time to avoid regret,

try to make good on mistakes
that they've made.

Think about the people
you've lost.

What would be different if
they had lived an extra year,

or five years, or a decade?

What would you have told them?

So there is a very emotional
and sentimental component

beyond the science.

NARRATOR: But with
genetic engineering,

we may just be opening
a Pandora's box

that we're not
prepared to handle.

In the process of making
a better version of ourselves,

we also might be taking away
some of the very characteristics

that we value the most.

SOULE: It would take away
a lot of the things

that I think are important

about myself and
my place in the world.

NICE: The big moral question
will be designer babies.

The only people who are worried
about designer babies

are the people
who don't have babies,

'cause I have three,
and I wish to God

I could have designed
each and every one of them.

AMY WEBB: Genetic engineering is
such a loaded, politicized term.

CHURCH: I think
the biggest risk is

there is a great tendency
for uniformity,

and I think that's
very dangerous.

DVORSKY:
There is definite concern

that if you start to eliminate
conditions like autism,

or even depression,

what kind of diversity would
we be losing as a whole?

Some of the world's
most famous artists

and some of the world's
greatest scientists

have had some
of these conditions.

I think, as time passes,

and as we harness
our genetic technologies,

we will and we should
come to appreciate

what's regarded
as neuro-diversity,

that there's more than
one way of thinking,

there's more than one way
of looking at the world.

NARRATOR: That will be
our greatest challenge,

not to throw out the baby
with the bathwater.

As we eliminate traits
we deem unhealthy or bad,

we're going to have to make sure
we don't eliminate

the very things that
make us individuals.

It's going to be
a real balancing act.

DIAMANDIS: Our genomics is a way
to really extend

the healthy human life span
at least a couple of decades.

And then it starts
getting interesting.

NARRATOR: In the future,

nanotechnology is going to fix
our cells and our bodies.

Genetic engineering will
pick up the slack

and enable us
to eradicate disease

and to pick out the very traits

that will keep us
fit and healthy.

All of this is amazing.

But when we start talking
about immortality,

that's a whole other
can of worms.

If we really are serious about
getting to forever-land,

we'll have to replace
our carbon-based human bodies

and upload ourselves
to a supercomputer.

Now that's going to raise
some serious issues.

OSCAR: No, that's insane.

EVA: I spend all my time
there anyway. We both do.

OSCAR: There are boundaries,
Eva.

There are lines you can't cross,
even for us.

We don't even know
all the risks.

What's to stop you from
being copied or hacked?

EVA: And if the only place
I live is here,

I could fall off a balcony
when I'm not paying attention.

I want to live in the digital
world permanently, Oscar.

Why worry about pain and death,
if we can live forever there?

OSCAR: Does it even count
as living

if your physical body is dead?

EVA: I know what I've got to do,

but I would rather do it
with your support.

NARRATOR: It may look like
sci-fi, but this is your future.

These are your new,
unimaginable choices.

So, given the chance,
would you upload your brain?

NARRATOR: Okay,
in the deep future

we're going to have tiny robots
in our veins

carrying medicine to our cells
and fixing them,

which sounds pretty cool.

And on top of that, we'll be
able to alter our genetic code

to make most diseases
simply disappear,

and deliver drastically
longer lives.

How long? Who knows?

Centuries, maybe more.

ROSE EVELETH:
Over the past 150 years,

we've basically doubled
life expectancy.

And that's happened
through vaccines,

through, you know, hygiene,

through understanding
how disease works.

I mean, that is incredible.

WEBB: But we are still
biologically hindered

by the squishy computer
in our heads.

There are facets of our human
brains that hold us back.

NARRATOR: But no matter
how advanced

our medical technologies get,

there will always be
new viruses,

cells will always decay,

and you can always
just simply fall,

hit your head,
and lights out forever.

In the deep future,

failing organs will be
replaceable or fixable.

Even now, we can live
without arms and legs,

kidneys and lungs,

but there's only one body part
we can't live without.

GRAZIANO: You run into this
limit where it becomes necessary

to do something about
the brain and the mind.

And that's where you get
into all this business

of mind uploading.

NARRATOR: If we want
to live forever,

humanity may have to become
at least partly,

if not completely, digital.

If we want to bridge the chasm

separating longevity
and immortality,

we may have to make
the giant leap

of uploading the information
from our brains

into a digital network.

KAKU: We've had these
multibillion-dollar projects

to break open
the boundaries of science.

The next big program is
the Connectome Project--

to map the entire brain.

DVORSKY: So mind uploading will
initially be a technology

that's used for life extension,

for someone who is near death,

or for someone who
has recently died.

And the idea is that,

you take all their memories
and their personality,

and you can somehow copy that

and then transfer that
into a digital medium,

for life in a supercomputer.

SOULE: I understand
the attractiveness of it.

Like, it's fun to think about.
Because it's immortality.

NARRATOR: That means
by the Year Million epoch,

there will be humans
who are all computer.

It's a far-out idea,
and it's also far off.

Scientists are just starting
to tackle the problem

of how to make
this technology a reality.

PHILIP ROSEDALE: Getting the
information out of your brain

is a problem that nobody knows
how to solve yet.

The technologies that you might
use to go inside a living brain

would destroy it.

MICHAEL GRAZIANO:
A lot has to get done

before we can figure out

whether we can take a pattern
of connectivity from a brain

and upload it or copy it.

It's going to happen,
I'm positive of that.

Everything is moving
that direction.

KAKU: Believe it or not,

we can actually upload memories
and record memories in mice.

Eventually we'll do it
with primates,

and after that, perhaps
Alzheimer's patients.

You'll have a brain chip,
you'll push it,

and memories come floating
into your hippocampus.

ANDERS SANDBERG:
The most likely early method

of creating a brain emulation
would start with taking a brain

and then slicing it up
and scanning it.

From this data, you would
reconstruct the neural network,

which would then be run
on a suitable supercomputer,

connected to a virtual body.

NICE: Boom! You now live
in the computer.

You, your essence now lives
in the computer.

NARRATOR: Once we shed
our physical bodies,

we will exist only as
a computer copy of our brains.

It's hard to imagine exactly,

but basically you'd be digital
information stored on a server.

But will we still be human if we
aren't made of flesh and blood?

SANDBERG: I think mind uploading

is one of the most easily
understandable steps

where we could go
from human to post-human.

NARRATOR:
Okay, hold on a minute.

Post-human?

How's that going to work?

What does that even look like?

DVORSKY: A post-human is
a completely digitized human

that might still retain
many human attributes,

but has shirked
their biological lineage,

living in a digital existence.

SANDBERG: Those post-humans
would still laugh at jokes,

they would still love,

they would still remember their
childhood as biological humans.

It's just that
an uploaded post-human

will also be
potentially immortal,

able to copy himself,
and edit their brain.

NICE: I mean, listen,
I know that right now

everything that I touch,
feel, taste, see,

is nothing more than a chemical
and electrical exchange

happening synaptically
inside this brain.

So why not allow that to happen
inside of a computer?

NARRATOR: Okay, that sounds
all well and good.

But wouldn't you miss your body?

I certainly would.

What does it mean to feel when
there's nothing to feel with?

THURSTON: The pursuit of
what it is to be human

is to achieve a higher level
of consciousness,

and like, is a human
without a body,

is a mind only being,
in some ways more conscious?

Or is the body, is that of what
it means to be human?

I, I don't know, man,
this is weird.

NARRATOR:
In this Year Million scenario,

we could achieve
everlasting life

by unshackling our consciousness
from our bodies.

It's either the end point for
humanity, or it's the beginning.

And some believe that humanity
will have entered

what religion has called heaven.

DVORSKY: This has been the goal
of our species

since we first started to wonder
is there life after death?

Imagining that the end state,

whether it be ascending
into heaven

or achieving a state of nirvana,

would be this perpetual
state of bliss.

I mean, this living
forever in paradise,

that could very well be
the end state of civilization.

PAUL BETTNER: Like the
technology that we're working on

will enable something that's
almost indistinguishable

from what we've been describing
as heaven and the afterlife

for millennia.

NICE: That's funny that
some people feel like

that may be what heaven will be,

is that we've found a way
to upload our consciousness

to a computer,
and then we create constructs,

ones that we know we would love,

where we're around family
and loving friends

and having experiences
into perpetuity.

My only caveat: I want to be
able to pull my own plug

to self-terminate when I want.

Otherwise you're trapped
in that computer.

NARRATOR: Heaven on Earth?

More like heaven in the cloud,
but a very different cloud

than the one with cherubs
shooting arrows at each other.

We're talking about everlasting
life in a digital paradise.

Humanity may be heading
in that direction.

But should we let it?

EVELETH:
There are some ethicists

who think that if
we totally curb aging,

that we're actually messing
with evolution in a way

that we've never done before,

and that we should
not mess with.

You've sort of sold your soul
to the devil, in a lot of ways.

You've given up some
essential humanity.

SOULE: It starts to
drastically change

what it means to be a person
and a human being,

and have, you know,
even metaphysical stuff,

what it means to have a soul.

THURSTON: So much of what
it means to be a person

is connected to the end
of personhood,

that we try to live
as hard as we can,

and do as much as we can,
before we can't anymore.

SPAIHTS: It's going to require

a complete internal redesign
of the self,

because every way
we think about ourselves

is calibrated against
the milestones

of a life of a certain span.

GREENE: I'd like to think that
what makes us who we are

transcends our physical form.

It transcends whether we're
made up of molecules and atoms

and cells and neurons,

and if we evolve
to a digital form,

the essence of who we are
will stay with us.

DIAMANDIS:
Human desire to contribute,

for love and for connection,
to learn.

Will those things come with us?

Is it genetic, is it in
the structure of our brain?

All of this stuff is insane,
until it happens.

ROSEDALE: I think without death,

our life still does
have purpose,

because we always seem
to seek to do great things.

And I bet that we do that even,

you know,
with infinite life spans.

NARRATOR: In the far future,
when we find eternity,

we may lose our bodies,
but hopefully,

we will not lose our humanity.

And until that day arrives,

for those desperate for
a shot at immortality today,

their only chance may just be
to go into a deep freeze,

until the deep future arrives.

NARRATOR: Once scientists
perfect nanotechnology,

gene therapy,
and mind uploading,

we'll live a whole lot longer.

But what do we do now if we want
to live to see that future?

There's really just one thing

that might give us that chance
at immortality.

It's a long shot,
and it's expensive,

and no one really knows
if it will even work.

It's something called
cryonic preservation.

SANDBERG: Cryonics is the idea
that you can take somebody

who's dying and freeze them,

in the hope that future medicine
will be advanced enough

to both treat whatever
they were dying of,

and the damage we got
from the cryonic suspension.

I'm signed up for cryonics
because I like being alive,

I want to have that
small extra chance.

Maybe it's between 1% and 50%,

but that's still much better
than 100% chance of dying.

NARRATOR: It sounds crazy,
and many people think it is,

but it's kind of like
playing the lottery--

the upside would be huge.

FARSAD: It's a way
of time traveling.

Put me to sleep
when I'm at my cutest,

and then I'll wake up like,
you know, 100 years from now,

maybe 1,000 years from now

and then I'll see what
it's like out there.

Like is my favorite brunch place
still open?

NARRATOR: Of course
that doesn't mean

there might not be some
major issues facing you

even if you hit that jackpot.

EVELETH: One of the huge
problems

of waking up in 150 years,

regardless of how intact
or un-intact your body is,

is that things will be
so different,

it's going to be very difficult
to acclimate.

MARTIN REES: You'd be revived
into a completely alien world.

The question is,
what would they do with you?

Would they put you in a zoo?
Would they look after you?

And how would you feel?

NARRATOR: Yes. No, thank you.
Not for me.

I'm not planning on being a
spectacle in someone else's zoo,

that's for sure.

But the truth is, we don't know
what life will be like,

and for some people, cryonics
offer the only glimmer of hope,

no matter how slight, for
continued life in the future.

NEWSCASTER: The letter
to a British judge

from a teenage girl suffering
from cancer was heartbreaking.

'I'm only 14 years old
and I don't want to die,

but I know I am going to die.

I think being cryo-preserved
gives me a chance

to be cured and woken up, even
in hundreds of years' time.'

After consulting with
her family, the judge agreed.

SANDBERG: In this
particular case,

a young girl wanted to have
a cryonic suspension,

because she was 14 years old
and dying of cancer.

Unfortunately,
her father disagreed,

so it ended up a court case,
which caused a bit of attention.

When the judge found that yes,

of course she is allowed
to be suspended.

WOMAN: She was very pleased
with the decision

to allow her to be
cryo-preserved,

which gave her great comfort
in the last days of her life.

NARRATOR: Who can blame
the poor girl

for wanting
one more shot at life?

Of course, cryonics has
many skeptics,

but that hasn't stopped people

from planning for
the best-case scenario.

Take these guys
in Sheffield, England.

They're part of a non-profit
organization called Cryonics UK,

dedicated to preparing
the recently deceased,

who desire it,
for cryonic preservation.

ALAN SINCLAIR: Millions
of things come from dead people.

Hearts, livers,
kidneys, corneas.

I mean, the fact is,
they're not dead.

DEREK WATKINSON: I've never been
happy with the fact

that we have to die.

I heard that there were people
who were interested in cryonics,

and so I, I went with my family,
just to find out more.

And suddenly it was
a eureka moment for me.

It was sort of,
ah, it's a possibility.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: These guys
aren't speculating,

what you're seeing here is just
a test run for the real thing.

MAN: Once you get past
the cooling-down stage,

you then go into surgery,
where you wash the blood out,

replace it with the antifreeze.

After that,
it goes into the body bag,

and into the dry ice cooler.

DVORSKY: Some people opt to have
their whole bodies preserved,

and some people just simply opt
to have their heads preserved.

That's where your memories are,

and that's where
you are as a person.

MIRA: You know, of all the short
television movies,

there's one I am constantly
thinking about.

It's Welcome Back, Mr. Fox.

DOCTOR: Your Cryonics Society
filed for bankruptcy yesterday,

and they were all set to move
you out into the street.

MIRA: It's about a man
who's cryogenically frozen.

He comes back,
and he's a head in a jar.

REES: Even if the body
could be revived...

MR. FOX: What's going on here?

REES:
...it's the separate question

whether the brain's memories
would be revived.

MR. FOX: Don't do this to me.

DOCTOR: It's alright.
MR. FOX: Don't put me in here!

REES: Whether you'll be
the same person, or not at all.

MR. FOX: No!

MIRA: That's a very
cautionary tale.

You don't know
what you're in for

if you're going to
cryogenically freeze yourself.

Like Ted Williams' head is
frozen in Arizona somewhere.

I don't know what,

if their plan is to put him
onto a robot baseball body

at some point,

or to thaw him out,
reattach his head to something,

and then have him teach
hitting clinics.

GRAZIANO: Maybe at some
future date,

the technology will be there
to read the brain,

or put your head
on another body,

or upload you to a computer,
or something like that.

So that's the hope there.

TIM GIBSON:
It's a little bit exciting,

and a little bit terrifying.

You can either give in,

or you can fight the fear
and move through it.

It's just like doing anything.

You learn to control it,
you learn to understand it.

Identifying things that
you could improve on.

WATKINSON:
I was 14 when my dad died,

so I think that might have had
something to do with it.

It's not, doesn't seem
right somehow.

All those years of knowledge
and experience, just gone.

I suppose we are playing God,
but so what?

I just want to be alive.

MIRA: I think that eventually
you run into an issue

where if you keep prolonging
life, is it worth prolonging?

Is there a point where
we're just a head in a jar

like in Futurama,

where, you know, you can just
pull up the Richard Nixon head

and have a conversation with it?

Is that worth living?
Do I want to be a head in a jar?

NARRATOR: Sounds like Matt's
not sold on cryonics,

and in the future, it's possible
not everyone will be sold

on all the technologies
available

to prolong their lives.

That means time will begin
to catch up with them.

♪ ♪

[heart beating]

JESS: Dad.

NARRATOR: Like a heart attack
while you're gardening.

[beeping]

OSCAR: You said I was stabilized
three hours ago.

JESS: Arterial plaque stabilizer
dosage, Oscar.

OSCAR: Why do I need more shots?

JESS: Stable doesn't
mean better, Dad.

And a minor heart attack
is still a heart attack.

OSCAR: Feels a bit better.

JESS: This is why you need
your treatments.

Look, Mom's been taking them
for years.

I don't see why
you couldn't take them.

OSCAR: You know I'm not like
your mother, honey.

I'm not sure I want
to live forever.

JESS: Well, you won't.

According to my scan, if you
don't start getting treatments,

you're looking at
another seven years.

NARRATOR: I mean, for me,
the choice is simple--

get those treatments,
and maybe live long enough

to see the Cubs
win another World Series.

Radical life extension might
come too late for you and me,

but it's on its way,
and once it arrives,

we're going to have
a lot of time on our hands.

It could mean total freedom,
or endless stagnation.

In Year Million,
we're going to find out.

NARRATOR:
Okay, in the deep future

your life span will be
exponentially longer

than it is now.

But what does that really mean
in your day-to-day existence?

Let's take
the best-case scenario.

Everything you've always
wanted to do--

learn a new language,
play the piano, learn to paint.

In the future you'll have
all the time in the world

to do those things and more.

That will change everything
about how we approach our lives.

KAKU: It's unconscious,

but you think about the day
you're going to die

when you do anything.

Going to college, getting a job,
retirement,

all these things are predicated
on one fact, the day you die.

GREENE: We could have
a really long lifespan.

1,000 years, 100,000 years.

NARRATOR: 100,000 years?

That's hard to even imagine.

DVORSKY: Once we achieve
this radical life extension,

what some futurists refer to
as negligible senescence,

where we've ceased to age,

society as we know it
will change quite dramatically.

We will continue to evolve
as individuals, you know,

find new ways of interacting
with the world,

develop new skills,
new relationships.

SANDBERG: Currently,
our relationships are based on

the idea that we are
supposed to stay together

till death do us part.

But if that is indefinitely,
they might not last that long.

SOULE: I mean, I'd like to think
that, that there are marriages

that could last five centuries
and everyone would be happy.

But, you know, a marriage
that lasts five decades

seems to strain
the emotional resources

of most people these days.

ANNALEE NEWITZ: People will have

a much more do-it-yourself
approach to relationships,

so kind of building the kinds of
relationships they want to have,

building families that
they want to have.

NARRATOR: Unlimited
relationships of every kind.

Yes, I bet a lot of you
can get on board with that.

But now let's look at
the not-awesome possibility

of radical life extension.

KAKU: The danger facing
a society that lives forever

is stagnation.

NARRATOR: Without death we may
just stop wanting or needing

to do, well, anything.

FARSAD: I feel like the idea
that you could die, you know,

gives you some kind of urgency

about what you do
with your life.

Like are you going
to achieve your goals?

Are you going to finally
take that trip to Barbados?

NARRATOR: On the other hand many
futurists disregard the idea

that death is what gets us
out of bed in the morning.

DVORSKY:
There's this common argument

against radical life extension
that I hear constantly,

and that is, oh, why would
anyone want to live forever?

We'd be so bored.

And I'm like, are you serious?

If anything, we're going to be
paralyzed by choice.

Like what are we going to do
with ourselves,

given that we have
all these ways

of, you know,
engaging in the world

and playing
and relating to each other.

NARRATOR: Whether we learn
to kite surf and play the guitar

or lay in bed all day,

there are some
practical consequences

to our radically longer lives.

Without death, the world could
face a whole new array

of population control issues.

NEWITZ: That's where longevity
gets really sticky,

because if we're not going
to overrun the planet

with a bunch
of 100-year-old people,

we really have to rethink

how we manage populations
on the planet.

N.K. JEMISIN: If we've suddenly
got 6 billion people

that aren't going anywhere,

why do we need to have
more children?

Can this planet support
increasing numbers of people,

as more and more
babies are born?

What does it do to us if
we are nothing but adults,

we don't have kids around?

I think that's harmful.

DVORSKY: Yes, there are many
challenges that will arise

as a result of radical
life extension,

such as
the overpopulation problem.

But I suspect that
in the future,

we will increasingly come
to possess tools

that will allow us
to fix those problems.

NARRATOR: But some of those
Year Million solutions could be

as frightening as the original
problem of death once was.

NEWITZ: In 500 years,
you could imagine a culture

where we have
a regulatory agency

that's in charge of who
gets to have a kid,

because we got to keep
the population low enough

to allow people to live
for a really long time.

NARRATOR: I don't like
the sound of that.

But that might not even be
the half of it.

It could get worse.

DIAMANDIS: People are worried

about the inequality
of this technology.

That it's going to come to
the wealthiest people first.

MIRA: If you're looking
at prolonging your life,

and it's a technology that only
the super rich can afford,

what are you going
to end up with?

You're going to end up with...

pretty much what happens now.

THURSTON: We already have
life extension right now,

it's called being white.

[laughs]

Because of the health outcomes
and the level of care.

Like regular doctor visits is a,
is a form of life extension.

Healthcare is life extension.

NARRATOR: These are the same
issues we're dealing with today.

Seems like if we don't find
solutions for them now,

it's only going to get worse
in the future.

NICE: So what we need now
is to find equity

so that all human beings
can live well.

DIAMANDIS: But here's the fact.

We're heading towards a world
of extraordinary abundance.

You have access to the world's
information on Google,

you have access
to megabit connections.

So the poorest people
on the planet,

8 billion people within
the next 10 years,

will have access to
all of this capability.

We are dematerializing,
demonetizing,

and democratizing.

NARRATOR: That certainly
would be the hope.

That as we extend our life spans
further and further

into the future,
perhaps even into eternity,

we also ensure that society
advances at the same rate.

Otherwise we're going to be
in for some serious problems.

We've seen that
the quest of immortality

raises all sorts
of sticky questions.

It forces us to confront
the very fundamental question

about what our purpose is
here on Earth, or beyond.

Our desire for eternal life
could liberate us or destroy us.

SPAIHTS: So the question
does become,

when immortality arrives, what
are you going to do with it?

NARRATOR: The final step
toward eternity

will be a complete
paradigm change.

It's when you step into
the screen you are watching,

and it becomes your everything.

All of society will
live digitally,

in a virtual world
called the metaverse

that is 1,000 times more intense
than the one around you now.

It sounds like The Matrix,

but it's the Year Million.