This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog under the title: In Our New High Tech Dystopia, The Elite Are “Breeding Smarter Babies” As They Pursue New Technologies That Will Allow Them To “Live Forever”
The high-tech elite who have accumulated so much wealth and so much power over the past couple of decades really are trying to create an entirely new class of people. While the majority of the population continues to decline physically and mentally, they intend to use technology to transform themselves and their children into superhumans. I know that this sounds really bizarre, but they truly believe that they will ultimately be far smarter, far stronger, and live much longer than the rest of us. In fact, there are some wealthy individuals who are now “breeding smarter babies” by using genetic testing services to select embryos with the highest potential intelligence…
This isn’t science fiction. It is Silicon Valley, where interest in breeding smarter babies is peaking.
Parents here are paying up to $50,000 for new genetic-testing services that include promises to screen embryos for IQ. Tech futurists such as Elon Musk are urging the intellectually gifted to multiply, while professional matchmakers are setting up tech execs with brilliant partners partly to get brilliant offspring.
The goal of the matchmaking services is to pair highly intelligent individuals together in order to create “genetically optimized” embryos.
Subsequently, those embryos are then screened to select only those with the highest potential.
Yes, I realize that this sounds like the plot to a really bad science fiction movie.
But this is actually happening. Wealthy individuals in Silicon Valley really are paying enormous amounts of money to be paired with others that have “good genes”…
“Right now I have one, two, three tech CEOs and all of them prefer Ivy League,” said Jennifer Donnelly, a high-end matchmaker who charges up to $500,000.
The fascination with what some call “genetic optimization” reflects deeper Silicon Valley beliefs about merit and success. “I think they have a perception that they are smart and they are accomplished, and they deserve to be where they are because they have ‘good genes,’” said Sasha Gusev, a statistical geneticist at Harvard Medical School. “Now they have a tool where they think that they can do the same thing in their kids as well, right?”
One couple has actually admitted that they selected their latest embryo because it was in “the 99th percentile per his polygenic score in likelihood of having really exceptionally high intelligence”.
We were always warned that the era of “designer babies” would be coming.
Now it is here.
Meanwhile, our high tech overlords are also obsessed with how they can extend their own lifespans…
The “future” of ageing research often looks surprisingly like its past. By now, you’ve probably seen countless media stories about ultra-rich and powerful men like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Bryan Johnson investing hundreds of millions of dollars in longevity startups, scientific laboratories or treatments, all in the hopes of outwitting their (and our) internal biological clocks. Wealthy people are spending a lot of time, effort and money on the latest so-called anti-ageing treatments, like using an immunosuppressant to “biohack” the process of cellular ageing. And those of us without billion-dollar bank accounts want to know the secrets, too: one current estimate of the global market for anti-ageing products is $54bn and growing.
Longevity enthusiasts’ oft-stated goals are not only to help themselves and others live to the ripe old age of 120 in perfect health, but also to strip away what has, until very recently, been considered the natural biological limit on the human lifespan. Why not, people in longevity circles ask, live until the biblical age of 1,000 or longer?
Biohacking has become a really big business.
Many among the high-tech elite are convinced that technology can eventually solve all of our problems, and that even includes death.
In a recent piece for Popular Mechanics, Ray Kurzweil revealed that he believes that nanotechnology that will allow humans to “overcome the limitations of our biological organs altogether” will be available by the year 2030…
A recent article from Popular Mechanics reported that the key to living forever comes from merging biotechnology and artificial intelligence to make nanotechnology.
In the article, futurist Raymond Kurzweil said that this nanotechnology will help “overcome the limitations of our biological organs altogether.”
The required nanotechnology is predicted to become a reality by the year 2030, according to Wired.
Kurzweil envisions a time in the not-too-distant future when dying will be optional. He claims that vast numbers of nanobots flowing through our bloodstreams will be able to fix cellular damage and keep our bodies from breaking down.
As nanotechnology grows at an exponential rate, pretty soon human life expectancy will increase “more than a year every year, thus allowing humans to become essentially immortal”…
Kurzweil compares it to the rusting of a car in that “metabolism creates waste in and around cells and damages structures through oxidation. When we’re young, our bodies are able to remove this waste and repair the damage efficiently. But as we get older, most of our cells reproduce over and over, and errors accumulate. Eventually, the damage starts piling up faster than the body can fix it.”
This is where the nanobots come in. According to an article from Columbia One, in the near future, humans might have nanobots flowing through our bloodstreams. These nanobots will repair cellular damage and link us to the cloud.
The article reports that this will allow humans to increase their life expectancy for “more than a year every year, thus allowing humans to become essentially immortal.”
Of course, most of us will not be able to afford such technology.
But they will, and this is exactly what they want.
They literally want to live forever.
Another way that some among the tech elite are attempting to prolong their lifespans is by using the blood of younger people.
You may have heard of one tech billionaire who is actually infusing himself with blood plasma from his own son in a desperate attempt to stay young.
Needless to say, he is far from alone, and well-funded scientists are doing a tremendous amount of research in this field.
In fact, one team of researchers recently conducted experiments on mice that showed that young blood could reverse signs of aging under certain conditions…
The researchers wanted to follow up on animal experiments where old mice were rejuvenated by sharing blood circulation with young mice, something New Atlas has previously reported on, using human models. So, they created an advanced “organ-on-a-chip” system containing two 3D human organoids – a full-thickness skin model, and a bone marrow model, which included stem cells that give rise to blood cells. They introduced young (under 30) and old (over 60) human blood serum into this system to see if young serum improved the signs of aging in skin.
The researchers found that when the skin model was exposed to young serum without bone marrow cells, there was no improvement in aging markers. It was only when the skin model was co-cultured with bone marrow and then exposed to young serum that the researchers observed increased cell proliferation, reduced biological age, and improved mitochondrial (energy-producing) function in bone marrow cells. The young serum triggered changes in bone marrow cells, leading them to secrete rejuvenating factors. These altered cells secreted proteins that were shown to reverse signs of aging in skin models.
What they are doing is morally wrong.
But they are going to keep doing it anyway because nobody is going to stop them.
We live in a society that loves wealth and power.
And the high-tech elite are becoming wealthier and more powerful with each passing day.
At this stage, it really is becoming very difficult to escape their reach. Let me give you a perfect example of what I am talking about. It is being projected that a brand new AI data center that is going to be constructed in Wyoming could use five times more electricity than all of the households in the entire state…
Plans for a new AI data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming, have raised serious questions about energy use and infrastructure demands.
The proposed facility, a collaboration between energy company Tallgrass and data center developer Crusoe, is expected to start at 1.8 gigawatts and could scale to an immense 10 gigawatts.
For context, this is over five times more electricity than what all households in Wyoming currently use.
That is insane.
Given enough time, AI would eventually take over virtually every aspect of our society.
Unfortunately for the tech elite, I don’t think that we are ever going to get to that point.
The tech elite may want to create a utopia in which they become superhuman “gods” that can live forever, but they will never achieve that goal.
No matter how hard we may try, we will always be imperfect humans, and for each one of us, the clock is ticking.
Michael’s new book, entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next,” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book, entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next,” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com, including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books, you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.
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