Peter Thiel has long worried about America stagnation of science and technology, as he sees it. The billionaire tech investor often complains about nuclear power falling out of favor and the fight against cancer taking too long, for example.
But he is also angry at our attitude to a more fundamental challenge: death.
Asked if humanity can overcome death and if we want to, Thiel told the Honest with Bari Weiss podcast this week, “We haven’t tried. We must overcome death or at least find out why it is impossible.
on interviewspublished on Wednesday, Thiel confirmed that he had signed up to be cryonically preserved after his death so that he could live again in the future.
But the early Facebook investor added, “I think of it as an ideological statement. I don’t necessarily expect it to work, but I think it’s the kind of thing we should try to do.
the Telegraph reported in 2014 that Thiel had signed by Alcor for cryogenic deep freeze after death. He explained his approach to the “problem of death” to the British publication: “You can accept it, you can deny it or you can resist it. I think our society is ruled by people who neither accept nor accept, and I prefer to fight it.
alcohol describes cryonics as “The practice of preserving life by stopping the dying process using subfreezing temperatures with the intention of restoring good health in the medical technology of the future.”
Of course, cryonics is far from a proven science and there are many doubts. Last October, Clive Coen, a neuroscientist and professor at King’s College London, it is described in MIT Technology Review As “a hopeless wish that reveals an appalling ignorance of biology.”
Thiel’s stance on mortality backfired in a way. In a 2009 piece for Cato Unbound titled “The Education of a Libertarian,” he WRITES: “I remain committed to the belief of my adolescence: of true human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitable death of every individual.
That was well before him supported by Donald Trump on stage at the 2016 GOP convention, where many Americans first got to know him. He later broke up with Trumpand on To be honest podcast he said he “strong support” a White House bid by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Thiel focuses on aging, as well as death. In 2014, he told Bloomberg TV that he took human growth hormone pills as part of his quest to live to the age of 120. Founders Fund, the venture-capital firm he started in 2005, made one of its first investments in Halcyon Molecular, which aims to defeat aging through the development of genomic-sequencing technology. (In silence failure in 2012.)
Thiel, who co-founded PayPalalmost never alone in getting old. luck recently interviewed Bryan Johnson, a CEO in his mid-40s who spends millions of dollars a year on a reverse aging regimen which, according to his team of doctors, gave him the skin, lung capacity, and heart health of a young man.
on To be honest podcast, host Bari Weiss also asked Thiel about cryogenic freezing, “Have you ever signed other people you love?”
He replied: “I’m not convinced it will work. I think we should try these things. It’s not there yet.”