FM-2030: a transhumanist pioneer
by Michael Cook | 3 May 2020 |
FM-2030 is a recent biopic about a pioneering Iranian transhumanist named FM-2030, who has been cryonically suspended since his death in 2000.
He was one of the first to promote research in a technology-driven leap towards non-biological bodies and an end to aging and death.
Born as Fereidoun M. Esfandiary in 1930, he changed his name to FM-2030 because he believed that by 2030 “we will be ageless and everyone will have an excellent chance to live forever”.
FM-20320 studied at UCLA and Berkeley, served as a diplomat on the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine from 1952-1954, and wrote for the Nation, the New York Times, and the Saturday Review. He had a magnetic personality and a gift for snappy catchphrases.
His 1973 book UpWingers: A Futurist Manifesto, predicted a political future in which Left and Right would be irrelevant. The world would be divided into UpWingers and DownWingers, the former looking to the future and the latter to the past.
“I am a 21st century person who was accidentally launched in the 20th. I feel a deep nostalgia for the future,” he used to say.
Unfortunately FM-2030 died at the age of 69 of pancreatic cancer. His body was frozen by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in the hope of reviving him when technology advances enough.
Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge
Like rivets popping on a sinking ship, the stresses of the pandemic are revealing the weakness in our societies. Suddenly we realise how much we depend on humble workers who provide essential services, how much we depend on supply chains, how vulnerable the elderly are, and so on.
One statistic that caught my eye was the number of over-65s in care per thousand of population. This came up as part of Donald Trump's boast that the per capita death rate in the United States is far lower than the highest nation, which was Belgium. There's a reason for that -- Belgium is counting many deaths in nursing homes as deaths from coronavirus, even if the people had not been tested.
But a chart in the BBC story showed that Belgium also has the the third highest proportion of people in nursing homes in Europe, 71 per thousand. Even higher were the Netherlands (75) and Luxembourg (82). Is it a coincidence that these three countries have also legalised euthanasia? What does that figure say about their social structure? After the pandemic has passed, I hope someone follows this up.
One statistic that caught my eye was the number of over-65s in care per thousand of population. This came up as part of Donald Trump's boast that the per capita death rate in the United States is far lower than the highest nation, which was Belgium. There's a reason for that -- Belgium is counting many deaths in nursing homes as deaths from coronavirus, even if the people had not been tested.
But a chart in the BBC story showed that Belgium also has the the third highest proportion of people in nursing homes in Europe, 71 per thousand. Even higher were the Netherlands (75) and Luxembourg (82). Is it a coincidence that these three countries have also legalised euthanasia? What does that figure say about their social structure? After the pandemic has passed, I hope someone follows this up.
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