Zoltan Istvan - Futurist & Presidential Candidate | How Transhumanism Will Redefine Success and Survival

I would absolutely say do not strive to be like Elon Musk or some of the other billionaires. They were one-offs and if you train your brain to think you can be like them, you will never succeed. Zoltan István isn't just thinking about the future, he's trying to upload humanity into it. A philosopher, journalist, and former US presidential candidate, Zoltan is one of the loudest voices in the transhumanist movement, an ideology focused on using science and tech to radically enhance the human condition. I just heard Peter Diamondus yesterday. He said, Within five years, we're going to be uploading our minds. We don't know which one's going to work, but what we do know is that there's now hundreds of billions of dollars that are pushing towards overcoming biological death. And when you have that much money involved in something, I think there's going to be success. From writing the transhumanist wager to advocate life extension and AI rights, he's constantly pushing boundaries. Most people are too afraid to even question. Morphological freedom is this idea that you should be able to do with your body whatever you want to do. This is something that goes against the morphological freedom concept. The world has gotten weird and crazy, whether it's politics or this don't get to involve. It's just on the outside, worry about your family, worry about your success, but don't worry about the big giant world, it's going to go on. In this episode, we explore his bold vision of immortality, ethics and AI, and what it means to be human in a world where machines might soon do it better. I think people are underestimating, oh, AI's, it can never replace me, it can. I have no doubt it will start to massively take over jobs in the next six to 12 months. I think the most important thing about transhumanism right now, and I couldn't have said this 10 years ago, but I can say now is that... If you think about some of the more unexpected adventures that you've had in your life, what would be a great story to tell the audience that would really just encapsulate who you are as a person? Sure, let me speak about volcano boarding because I think that's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. I got very lucky out of college and got a job with the National Geographic Channel, right as the mini-dv camera was born. The mini-dv camera kind of changed broadcast journalism because instead of carrying around this giant 80 pound device, you could carry around this five pound device and get good quality footage. And so when I had been sailing before in Vanuatu and I had had a chance to see this volcano on Tana, you see this giant face of sand, it looks just like a slope. And so I went back to National Geographic a few years later and said, look, I want to go volcano boarding, I know no one's done it, but I can do it. And I filmed the whole thing and sent it back and they thought the footage was spectacular and it launched my career, really for National Geographic because what I was doing was a one-off for them and then all of sudden I became a real regular journalist for them. And volcano boarding of course has taken off since then, you know, all these spewing gases, the danger, molten lava rocks. But that was a defining moment in my early 20s that really helped launch my career. And I, you know, to be honest with you, a lot of the credit belongs to the mini-dv camera, just innovation and technology because it allowed a non-journalist person like myself to become a journalist and to become a well-known journalist overnight. And so it was a big moment for me in my 20s. I love that. I mean, you, I don't know how to describe it, you think differently than most. I think that's your forte, that is your specialty, like you think differently. I mean, if you think about other sort of inflection points in your life. So as a National Geographic journalist, you almost stepped on a landmine at one point in your career. I'd love to hear that story if people haven't heard it in the audience and that was in Vietnam. But that was something that changed your perspective on morality, on human condition, I'm assuming on life. So that was, was that correct? That was the inflection point? Yes, yes, definitely. So before an astrographic, I had been a philosophy student at Columbia University. I had a great time there and I had learned about transhumanism and futurist stuff and trying to overcome death with, you know, science and things like that. These were all science fiction topics at the time, but they were in the back of my mind. But when I worked at National Geographic, they sent a lot of the young journalists to war zones to kind of prove themselves in conflict zones in order to, that's how you make a name for yourself. And that was kind of the natural course back then. And I was covering a conflict in demilitarized zone in Vietnam. So there wasn't a war anymore, of course, but there are landmines everywhere. And it's still in these places. They're just desolate. They're dark. There's blown up buildings everywhere. It still feels like a conflict zone. And I was doing a story on bomb hunters were essentially the Vietnamese locals. They are digging up American bombs that were dropped and never exploded. So we dropped like 40 million bombs and 10% of those bombs never exploded. Now those things are like eight feet long and they're filled with metal. And if you sell one of them, you can get a few hundred dollars of metal because that's just how big they are. And for a rice farmer in Vietnam, that's like a year's worth of working in the fields. So there's a lot of bomb hunters in Vietnam. But the problem is that people step on the land mines and lose their legs. So it's very much a jeopardy type of business. And so I was covering the story for National Geographic. And I had a very close call with a landmine where I almost stepped on this thing in the ground. It was a disc. I didn't know it. I was just oblivious. And my guide pushed me out of the way and said, Hey, dummy. And it like threw me down. Look at that thing. And so later we were like, Oh my God, I almost, you know, I could have at least been maimed and maybe even died. That was the moment that moment after a number of years of covering conflict zones that I said, You know what? I may be through with National Geographic. I may be through covering conflict zones. I need to do something more science based. I need to do something to keep myself alive. And I knew from previous college in Columbia that there were movements like transhumanism that want to dedicate themselves to overcoming death with science. And so after that moment in Vietnam, I really decided to dedicate myself to one of those movements and transhumanism, which sounds like a funny term, but really means just using science and technology to overcome whatever the human beings limitations are. I found a method to a way to kind of belong to that movement and use it to push forward my career. But it really was, you know, stimulated by this moment where I almost died by stepping on a landmine and that, you know, for National Geographic and Vietnam. First of all, it sounds like not the not the for the for the rice farmers. That sounds like the worst version of entrepreneurship. I mean, we complain about, you can plan about, you know, our quality of life and what we do for money. And that's that's a insane, ridiculous story. If you think about, you know, a lot of people on this podcast, I find like transhumanism the ideology to be the complete opposite of the spectrum of stoicism, which is really just like accepting your own death and using it to like fuel your ambition and your and the way that you move through life. What is what is the I don't want to say argument because it's not an argument. It's like it's an idea that can be achieved. But what is the drive behind somebody wanting to live forever? Well, the main drive and this is kind of what I discovered in Vietnam with National Geographic was that I want to live. I want to live because I love life. Everything that I'm doing, you know, traveling to these different countries, reporting on humanitarian causes. I mean, you love life. You love people. So you don't want to let that go. But the real problem with human life, at least from my perspective and a lot of other kind of people out there is that it ends. It, you know, we are a terminal being. We are designed and we are kind of a ticking time bomb at some point we will end. And that's where I really realized something and said, you know what, can we change that? And then all of a sudden you're like, wait, yes, we can change it. There are many different ways to extend life spans. And one day we're going to come to a point, you know, in science, probably the next five to 10 to 20 years where we're able to dramatically extend life spans. And once I realized that, you know, having covered conflict zones, war zones, shooting in other places, because I covered many other places in Vietnam, Kashmir, South America, you know, all these other places. And the Middle East, I realized that, wow, we might be able to overcome death. So that, that moved me. That was the moment when I realized I have a goal in life. I love, I mean, when you make it, when you, when you phrase it like that, it's really hard to argue against it. But I think that for a lot of people who haven't studied your work and don't even understand the ideology, it seems like science fiction. Like it seems like, okay, you're saying five, 10, 20 years, we're going to dramatically extend life. So for people that have never heard of transhumanism ever, what does that actually mean? Is it disease prevention? Is it like neural ink? Is it? What is it? Sure. Well, transhumanism is just a social movement and has a fun, it's a funny name. It's just an umbrella term for a lot of different things like cryonics, immortality, life extension, singularity thinking, whatever it is, it's just a term that covers a huge movement of scientists and normal people that are pushing to use science and technology to radically extend the human beings life. Now, how would we do that? Well, most people die from organ failure. So for example, one of the transhumanist greatest cause is working on synthetic organs and 3D bio printing them. And there have been huge movements. And it's not just, you know, synthetic organ, kids could be pigs organs, you know, which the big giant company in Florida is dealing with that. There's so many different ways of extending life. But the point is transhumanists want to stop death through science. Now, the other methods are, you know, genetic editing, for example, trying to adjust yourself so they don't age. And there's a little thing called the telem race at the very end of the, you know, DNA. And if you could eliminate that, like the jellyfish, you could live perhaps hundreds of years longer. So there are transhumanists working on it. And then it gets a little bit more science fictiony where it's kind of like some people are working on uploading your mind. And I just heard Peter Diamondus yesterday, you know, the ex-price founder. He said, within five years, we're going to be uploading our minds. Okay, five years. This is crazy uploading your minds. So this is another form of not dying. So it's across the board. We don't know which one's going to work. But what we do know is that there's now hundreds of billions of dollars, especially in Silicon Valley, where I live, that are pushing towards overcoming biological death. And when you have that much money involved in something, I think there's going to be success. I was listening to a couple podcasts. And one of the hosts mentioned your views were controversial. I don't understand how now that I understand what transhumanism is, how living longer and extending lifespan and keeping people healthier. What's controversial about that? Sure. Well, you know, you would think, upfront, nothing is controversial about it. But what really is is we live in a very religious dominated country, about 80% of the United States believes in an afterlife and believes in some type of God and around the world, it seemed higher, around 85%. So the point is that if you believe in those things, then you have to wonder, well, why should humans take the power of immortality or indefinite lifespans? I'm not sure in mortality. No, you know, most transumists don't say we're going to live forever. We just like to think we're going to live 100, 200 years, 300 years. We might be able to control when we die and if we die, that's really the goal of it. And I think that is controversial to the natural state of things. So if you are a religious person and you hear somebody saying, oh, we're going to overcome death and you think, well, wait a sec, the whole dichotomy of a religion is that you live, you live a good life and therefore you go to heaven and you're judged by God and it's everything's okay. But if you eliminate that need of the judgment and of God, then where does that even leave religion? And that's where the controversy in my opinion arises from. Some other people, just to be fair, other people say, well, death is needed in human evolution in order that new things will spawn. And that's actually a good point. It's very hard to argue against that. The problem though is that even if death is needed to spawn new ideas, I still don't want to die. And I'm not sure that I need to die in order for others to feel like there's some kind of new spring always happening. I certainly don't want my kids to die just because I'm supposed to make way for other people. I think, you know, humans can maybe find other ways to be creative and spawn new beginnings. I agree with that. I love your opinion on is the government doing any sort of job in terms of longevity or quality of life? I feel not to the degree they should. I feel like we have a sick care system, not a health care system. And maybe that's why you ran for president. But just talk to me about sort of the current state of what the US government doesn't matter which party, Democrat or Republican. What do they feel about longevity? Sure. Well, let me just say, you know, when I ran for office and still the number one goal I would say of most transhumanists and longevity activist is to characterize aging as a disease. For the government, the United States government, governments around the world to say that aging is a disease. Because if all of a sudden we say that aging is a disease, it will be treated like cancer, like Alzheimer's, like diabetes and also huge amounts of NIH and other types of funding will go into it. But right now, no one wants to say for those religious reasons we talked about before that aging is a disease. And I couldn't agree with you more, you know, what is the point of living to 100 years if the last 15 years of your life is really in pain. And most 85 year old and plus people, it really is dramatically hard. So we do need to invest. So I think, you know, the government has not invested enough. And I come from a little bit of a libertarian bias with my like to like let, you know, let the people do what they want to do and hands off from the government type of thing. It's not a party or a political affiliation, anything like that. It's just more, you know, I think I believe in people and entrepreneurs doing thing and not the government, the government holding them back or putting on regulations. But at the same time, I think since the government has such deep pockets, it would be very useful if they would stimulate entrepreneurship and people around the world trying to start businesses that would defeat aging. But in order to do so, you're going to have to characterize that and designate that as a disease, specifically like you would cancer, treat aging like cancer. If we do that, the game will change. Right now, the amount of money flowing into aging related, you know, anti-aging stuff is very minimal in the millions. But if all of a sudden we treated it like cancer, we would be putting billions into it and immediately probably within five to seven years, you would see a big impact in the everyday American's life. I think it's so important. What the concept of of a morphological freedom? What is that concept and why is it so important? Sure, morphological freedom is this idea that you should be able to do with your body whatever you want to do. No one should be able to stand in the way of that. And of course, if you're doing some of your body that is interfering with someone else's body, that's a whole different thing. But morphological freedom says, as long as you're not interfering something else or anyone else, you should be able to do with your body what you want. So for example, I have a chippin plant in my hand. But in various states across the United States, even this chippin plant, which is just kind of an elective party trick. I can go to, I can trade Bitcoin with it or something. I can hold my information. It has a credit card and things like that. You can sometimes scan it, send text messages with it. But in certain states, it's illegal. It's illegal? Yes, it's illegal. And so I wrote a piece for the New York Times on this because all the states are saying, well, should we allow people to recreationally put in chips inside their body, even if it's just for fun and party tricks. And the answer was, yes, we shouldn't allow people to do that because we don't let them have freedom with their bodies. So this is something that goes against the morphological freedom concept. And generally speaking, transhumanists are a little bit on the edge. They're like biohackers, you know, they're fringe. They're putting stuff in their body. They're trying out new things. We're trying to see what works. And we don't want to be stopped by the government saying, no, you can't do that. You know, if we're not hurting somebody else, we would like to write the experiment with our bodies. That's interesting. What do you, I mean, so you're an entrepreneur, you've built some businesses, but also are these businesses sort of focused on transhumanism, on optimizing the human body. I heard that you had a winery, but there's like a new tropic component to this wine as well. So when you think about how you live your life, talking about the businesses you build, but also talking about personally, like how do you live your life as a transhumanist? Sure. Well, you know, the ironic thing is that I have built a lot of businesses, but they have not really had much to do with transhumanism. So far, transhumanism has been this thing because I wrote my novel, The Transhumanist Wager, about 10 years ago. It became a bestseller. And then through that, I formed the, the transhumanist party and ran for office for the, you know, for the US presidency. And that, you know, just got lucky. The media took off with it, said, oh, we have a science candidate running for president. All of a sudden, I sort of became semi-famous because of that. But my businesses were kind of boring. You know, I was working for National Geographic. I was getting maybe, you know, $67,000 for every three, four, five weeks. I was away, but it was coming all in cash. And I didn't really know what to do with it. And at the time, my father was sick. I was, you know, helping to pay some of the bills for him and Oregon. And so I said, well, maybe I'll start investing something in real estate up there since real estate was quite a bit cheaper than it was in California, where I live now. And I started buying fixedruppers. And then on the office days, when I didn't have a sign mincer, you know, I'd be home for two months at a time. I'd fix those houses up. I'd always had a good knack of tools because of my sales trip. And then I'd flip them. And very quickly, I am asked to almost 20 properties. And, you know, before the crash in 2008, I sold the majority of it because I realized things were kind of out of hand, too good to be true. And you timed it. Right. I timed it very right. And I got very lucky. And then I joined a band with a friend, which is one of the reasons I sold the ironic part. The band didn't succeed. I played guitar. The band didn't succeed. But I had quite a bit of money in here. I was sitting in my in my early 30s, as, you know, as a multi-millionaire. And what should I do with my life now? And this is when I wrote this book, The Transphemous Wager. And that sort of launched my career as a public persona, I guess, going around speaking, talking about transhumanism. Now, though, I have started to invest in vineyards through a company called Zoltani Shvan Vineyards and wineries. So we have a vineyard in Appavali, as well as a winery. We have a vineyard in Mendoza, Argentina, the first one I bought. And then we all have one in Bordeaux, France, a nice big giant one in a winery there, a little chateau. And, you know, it's all combined under one company. And while we're, we're, our goal with that is to actually put transhumanist drugs called neutropics. These are brain drugs that supposedly make you smarter. Some of my Berkeley PhD friends have helped me out with it. I get to be honest, I'm not sure drinking wine, even with this makes you smarter. But we're working on it. It's wishful thinking. It's wishful. We're trying to get there. So, you know, yeah. So there's no question here. Your cognitive abilities are a little bit better, I think. But we haven't, we haven't actually come to this solution yet where you drink wine. It becomes super smart, though we're working on it. But this is the new company that I've been working on. And we won some awards last year with our Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon. And so, it's my newest company. And we'll see where it goes. I'll send you a bottle one of these days when we have something that works. Yes, I, when you think about, I think that when I look at what you've taken on in life, I mean, you were a respected journalist. You did run for presidency. You wrote best-selling book. You are a successful entrepreneur. I know that you speak on a lot of different, very technical topics, but just in terms of like a quick pivot to a mindset that's guided you throughout your career. When you see somebody who's so successful in so many different categories or different industries, there's something about the way that you think or the way that you operate that drives you. What do you think that thing is for somebody who's just starting out on their journey? Yeah, I mean, that's such a weird secret. And I think about it a lot. So, I mean, not to pour water on this idea, but I think a lot of it is, to some extent, luck. And but there's more to luck than I'll think a lot of people realize, you're going to get unlucky and get lucky in life. But when you get lucky, you got to capitalize on it. And when you get unlucky, you just got to throw it behind you and say, hey, man, I screw up. And this is a key for entrepreneurs. You know, you start 10 businesses. You got to know that seven or eight are going to fail. But if two, start gaining traction, you put everything. You're heart and soul into that because you get a little bit lucky and all of a sudden that luck doubles. And then a quadruple is then it's exponential. And pretty soon you're dealing with something that's 100 times what you started with. For example, when I started my real estate business, I didn't really think much that this was going to be a business. But all of a sudden, you know, I just had to invest in here a property there, a property there. And pretty soon things started booming. Things started doubling. And then things started quadrupling. And you know, I just happened to be very lucky that there are things. But I recognized that I was being lucky. And I recognized that this is the moment. And I think this has happened actually recently to some of my friends in transhumanism who are big supporters of cryptocurrency. You know, I was like, look, I think you're getting lucky. So this is your moment. And you know, but a part of being lucky is also realizing that the luck's not going to be there forever. And so you need to know when to sell. And another thing I'd say beyond just, you know, capitalizing on luck is, don't be too greedy. Most people will get further ahead by being successful, but knowing when to get out, starting again, being successful again, based on that. And doing that a couple times. And pretty soon, you're fine yourself after a few decades. Very successful. I have never had any huge home runs in my life. But I have had solid base hits again and again and again. And very quickly, I found myself dramatically wealthier than when I was in my 20s in my 30s. And then something like COVID happened. And I still had a ton of properties. And again, they doubled. Yeah. You know, and I think the key is to just, now, some people like Elon Musk or whatever, they hit a home run. It's a grand slam. And they got, you know, they go, but I think the majority of us can't necessarily go for that all the time. You have to be a little bit realistic. You have to be realistic. Not like that. It's not just money, too. It's in your relationships, your friendships, and how you deal with things. Don't always bat for the bleachers. Sometimes a second base hit can be really good, especially if you know, you can hit a second base hit again and again and again. And eventually find yourself even further ahead than having been the person who swung for the bleachers. And I know that doesn't sound like very exciting advice, but I have found myself more of a traditional person watching my wealth grow every time. And now by that, and I just turn, you know, 50 recently and all of a sudden, it's like, wow, how did I become an eight-figure person? How did that happen when I really haven't been working for the last 20 years? But it just happened to be that there were smart investments never too greedy. And here I am quite happy about it. Today's episode is brought to you by Vanta. Now, listen up, this matters for your business. In today's digital landscape, security isn't optional. It's essential. Without it, deal stall, sales cycle stretch on, and scaling becomes very difficult. Now, why? Because investors, customers, and partners, all expect businesses to demonstrate strong security practices before they commit. If you can't prove trust, you lose opportunities. 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And I'm actually going to tie it back to to the current state of technology and opportunity for entrepreneurs. One thing that you mentioned was like when something works, you put all of yourself into it. And I'm curious if you see with younger entrepreneurs. I've spoken with this a lot on this podcast. A lot of them are outsourcing their thinking or they're looking for quick wins or they're looking for instant gratification. And I think they have a lot. I think they I think that because of the environment that a young entrepreneur grows up in, I think it's harder for them to put in the time required for them to see the returns for them to know if they should go all in on something because they're looking for instant gratification. This is what I believe. I believe that this is why people the barrier to entry for entrepreneurship has never been lower with the technology of access to. But at the same time, people's attention has never been shorter. And I think that that is actually hurting significantly. And if you if you had the same attention that you had when you were 20 and you apply it to something, plus you leverage technology that we have access to now, you're unbeatable. But I don't think that's the norm. Do you agree with that? I do. I do. I mean, I am seeing huge cultural changes. And I, you know, for your audience now, I have a 11 year old and a 14 year old daughter. And I'm thinking about what are they going to do with they take over my wine business, the real estate endeavors because we have properties now around the world as well and manage them or, you know, I don't know their intention span is definitely different than mine. They're they're they're way of doing things. Also, you know, attention media, social media, you know, there's this whole different side of things where like you can make a lot of money or a lot of success based on just becoming somebody. But that only works for a very small few amount of people. I'm not sure in the AI world, the other 800 pound grill in the room, that's going to continue to work. So I agree with you. You know, everybody every generation faces a different, you know, I guess challenge, but it does seem like it's becoming more difficult for somebody just out of college to break into it. And they have to be more focused than ever. Have to be so focused. But like if they can listen to you and and they have to be focused and they also have to stop listening to like the social media entrepreneur gurus and and stop idolizing people like an Elon Musk and the thing that not I don't care what you think about Elon, but know that to be an age figure person, you don't have to have, you know, rockets going to Mars. You can have a very good life just building very boring businesses. Totally. And I would absolutely say, do not strive to be like Elon Musk or some of the other billionaires. They were one offs. And if you if you train your brain to think like you can be like them, you will never succeed 99.9999 percent will never succeed. However, if you get to San Francisco, you realize like, well, a lot of people or eight figures are pretty close to it. A lot of people are going to nice resorts and doing this and living the life and you know, sending their kids to camps and whatever you want to do. Which is a great life. And that's achievable. That's very achievable if you work hard and you're smart about things. I think it's it's actually very dangerous to try to strive to be super wealthy like a billionaire. I think people don't realize that first off a lot of that is handed down and a lot of that is super lucky or just coincidence that has happened. But but in America is still in my opinion very much the American dream. If you want to work hard and you be a little smart about things and you put your mind to it, you can still accomplish an enormous amount. And I guarantee it that you could probably end up a multi-millionaire unless something terrible. I agree completely. If you think about sort of how all the things that you've learned about longevity and transhumanism have sort of impacted your worldview. Does that change how you operate in terms of your own life? I mean, like there's a limit on life right now in 2025, maybe not in five or 10 years. We'll see. But does it change how you operate in your own life in terms of what you take on or how you live? Or does it change how you raise your kids or what I'm trying to figure out you? What does transhumanism mean for you today? Well, I think the most important thing about transhumanism right now and I couldn't have said this 10 years ago, but I can say now is that we are in the cusp of some major discoveries whether it's through genetic editing or different drugs coming across the board. But we will start to reverse aging here within 10 to 25 years. So what's most important for people that are 50 and above like myself is to try to remain healthy because the transition is coming. But if you get cancer in five years, you're not going to make it. And you're going to miss the greatest opportunity you've ever had. This ability to maybe live 50 years longer, 100 years longer. And let's say the Star Trek era or the era of going to Mars and things like really amazing times. So it's really important. That's the one thing that I've taken away. It's really important right now to start treating your health as a top priority. Not because you're not going to die, but because you're you don't want to miss out what's going to happen. It's getting so crazy out there. It's getting so wild. Technology is changing so rapidly. I want to see what happens. What a terrible time to to die now. Right as you know that the world is on the cusp with artificial intelligence, with overcoming biological aging, with you know, spending, sending rocket ships to other planets. What a time to be alive to see what happens. Really exciting. It's super exciting. And I guess the question really was like, is there is there daily practices or even I mean, uh, peptides or some sort of technology that you think is going to be beneficial people today and not have to wait five years that you think already expands your life. So there are a number of different, you know, drugs out there and things like that. I got to be honest, I know like Ray Kurzweil will take 80 pills a day and and Brian Johnson of the Don't Die Movement also does all sorts of things. I am not doing that. It's a little boring. I just believe very simply I exercise every day religiously. Yeah. Period. Whether it's running or surfing or whatever I do. I try not to eat too much of anything in one direction. Uh, that's not too much meat and not too much fats and not too much sugars and just try to keep it where it is. And uh, I do drink, which is probably my single greatest vice. And you, you can see it sometimes in my tummy. Um, and that's probably my biggest problem. I wish I could stop. But uh, you know, I am in the wine business. That's part of what's going here. You're excused. But you know, these are things that right now for me, the main thing is just to remain healthy and active and and try not to be too weird and fanatical about it. Certainly there are biohacking techniques out there that can dramatically help your health. And if you can figure those out what they are for your genetic blueprint, that's great. But um, for me, it's really just about, you know, sleeping well. And also, I think trying to remain stress-free, the world has gotten weird and crazy, whether it's politics or this, don't get to involve. It's just on the outside. Worry about your money. Worry about your family. Worry about your success. And we're, if you're writing a book, worry about that. But don't worry about the big giant world. It's going to go on. We're not even supposed to be aware of all the trauma going on in the world. We never were for you to genetically speak evolutionary speaking. That was never a part of the program. We were just our immediate tribe. And now all of a sudden, we all take, you know, we, let's take place in global politics. My voice matters on Twitter. It likely doesn't, you know, so I tell people back off, man, for your own safety, your own health, and also just because it gives you more energy to focus on things that matter, your friendships, your family, your kids, your parents, your money, your businesses. I mean, things like this are really, I think people forget that maybe, and I want to say also that the government is designed to make you want to be so involved in this circus of life. But the real life is in the people you love, the businesses that you're creating, the things you're building with your hands. And this is what matters most to me. What technology are you most excited? We can talk about AI, but that's like kind of like the easy answer. What other technology are you most excited about? Sure. Well, you know, I mean, I think that the coolest technology out there really right now is the creation of synthetic organs. We all could become super Olympic athletes type people. If they can get us a synthetically created heart, a heart that is like, you know, a heart better than Michael Phelps of swimming, you know, and they're working on this. There are multiple countries, companies around the world, multiple universities that are doing this stuff. Same thing with the eyeball, you know, they're working on the synthetic eye that can already see better than you. So some, you know, blind people in the United States have eyes that have better telescopic vision than you and I will ever have or were born with. And soon that telescopic eye, you know, that robotic eye is going to be able to transmit, for example, social media. We might be able to do this interview directly to, in fact, they're already experimenting with this, these exact technologies in Silicon Valley right now. They're just not on the market. And I really believe that that's some of the stuff I most excited. We talk about transhumanism. That's really the next level. So probably in a year or two, it depends on how regulations go. But there are people working on robotic arms that tie into your neural system that will be as functional as your arm in terms of throwing a baseball or playing the piano and eventually be even better. You know, ones that can heat up your coffee just by holding your coffee cup. You know, and there are, again, there are companies already working on this. So the question is, how do people adapt to it or do they want it, you know, in the marketplace? And it did as the FDA and regulations and all. Which is really going to be the biggest product. Yes. Yes. And let me just say though, this is where China puts on a good amount of pressure for United States because Chinese have a culture that they're not so opposed or they don't think a lot of the stuff is so weird. They're like, oh, an upgrade. Fine. I do it. They just, they've been doing, it's part of their kind of Confucius Buddhist culture. Whereas America has to realize even though we're leaving the innovation in these things, it's often other countries that push us to accept innovations that our culture or our people might, you know, if you take a robotic arm to somebody and let's say Kansas and say, oh, here I have a roll out of the car and they can say, oh, this is stupid. I don't want to be anything like that. Whereas I think, you know, maybe Florida, California, we're more open-minded like that. We'll be like, you know what? Is it useful? If I'm in construction, will I be able to get more work done so I get higher pay? Well, if that's the case, then yes. So I think that's how you have to sell these things is really to consumer, you know, through a consumerism method and also just capitalism. Let capitalism run its course and you people will say, I want that because honey, I'm going to make more money, we'll have a bigger house for whatever it is that you want to do. I just want to take a second and thank Cornbread Ham for supporting today's episode. Now, Cornbread Ham CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit. I don't use them every day just when I want to win wine after those extra busy weeks, but they're perfect for those moments when you want to take the edge off and just find your balance really just shut off from work. 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Head over to freshbooks.com to start your 30-day free trial, no credit card required and for all you success story listeners out there, I've got something special. Get an exclusive 60% off for six months when you visit freshbooks.com slash pricing dash offer. Transform your business with freshbooks today. That's freshbooks.com slash pricing dash offer for 60% off. A device like Neuralink. A lot of what you're talking about is I guess mission critical to a degree if you have like if you have a synthetic heart or synthetic eyes but Neuralink is tapping right into your brain. So I think that that's what somebody who is stressed about or maybe not as big a fan of Neuralink is saying well that's like that's that is the one part of your body that I mean do you want tech in that part of your body. So I mean I guess I can ask like if you're a fan of Neuralink in the concept or are there parts of the body that you think transhumanism should stay away from? No I think transhumanism should go for every single part of the body. I think though if you ask me am I ready to upload my mind or to take on a Neuralink I'm ready to experiment it it's just a little I want other people to do it first or like if you say I can wouldn't my want my child to do it I would only want my child to do it right now if it was a medical necessity because I I am worried about these things just like I would be worried about the COVID vaccine you know I mean I'm no longer a big trusting person in terms of pharma companies and this like that don't go wrong I still think vaccines I still will take them but I am definitely a more discerning individual after what I've seen politically in the last five to 10 years and the same thing with Neuralink I don't want my brain to be messed with I've done some brainwave feedback stuff and it's like it can almost make you feel high or something and afterwards I was like this is a little weird I feel a little weird I wasn't so sure like I don't want people messing around with my neurons because you don't know how that's gonna how that's gonna go at the same time I think if enough of us do it and there's enough of a basis to say hey this is great you get to tap into AI you can have Google Google Maps in your head you can do the interviews like this in your brain you know mind to mind then I think I would definitely want it and would love to do it but I'm not going to be first be honest though if you had done this interview 15 years ago I probably would have said I want to be first so again maybe ages actually changing this a little bit in me I am you know we talked about this earlier with how do you treat the things differently especially now that you know if I'm a father you know do what I do these things because I have children I want to take a little bit of a step back and let others do it first but I still am you know right on the ball with wanting to do it over over time there's no question that the biology of the brain has to be replaced it is biology it's frail it's designed to die all the cells will go and machine interfaces machine brains ones and zeros will ultimately be the ones that try and it might be a hundred two and a years in the future but there's no question that AI and that type of interface is going to be far smarter than us therefore we'll want to be tapped into it we'll want to have a neural link system where we can connect to it we may want to get rid of the biological side altogether I would I would say so a couple ideas I guess the first question is going to be a multi-par question I'm sorry but there's a lot there's a lot that I think comes with this idea so first what happens when we've completely replaced ourselves with technology where does the where does the robot begin in the human end I think that's an interesting idea and and secondly I am curious about what your vision of the future is if everybody is optimized on top of AI if the human is so optimized it everybody is the same IQ and and and lives forever what is your ideal version of a future are people working are we just living in this beautiful society where everyone is enjoying quality of life and nobody actually works on tasks anymore that's kind of like a two-part like where you think we're going but the second part of the question fascinates me because for first off I'm not sure where the first part of question I'm not sure where the cyborg starts your ends this isn't personal decision for every person to make I've often said that once you make your body more than 25% synthetic organs of some sort you probably could say well I'm definitively a cyborg but what does it mean to be a real transhuman being well probably more than 50% so we're not even really close to that at the same time though how do you know your second part of question how do we keep society so that it's not just everyone's the same and it's in the doldrums well I guess you know we have a ton of car like for example the car world there's millions of different types of cars out there and millions of different affordability issues and as a result the freeways are very very diverse in terms of what you can buy so I see the you know the idea of human enhancement or you know what we call human body shops putting on like robotic arms robotic eyes it's still going to be very diverse almost like software is or AI is right now China has is Russia has this there's always going to be different variants one's going to be better than the other one might be more affordable given what your price tag is so I don't see equality as being an issue I do see though lives continually improving using these types of technologies I think if you look at the graph of science through whether it's vaccines or whether it's just you know overall scientific you know innovation our lives have gotten better you know less women die from childbirth less people die from the flu you know and over time it's just skyrocketing in how long the average person can live and that kind of quality that improvement of quality of life will continue with all these radical enhancements that humans will get and therefore everybody will be dramatically happier happier than their let's say great grandfather I guess and that's good for me but certainly I don't think it's going to get boring we're never going to be equal we're always going to be at different stages and I don't want equality in fact I want some people to want to be better than others and I want competition in the system because that's what will continually propel us all forward I agree I think that competition is is core to the human experience and and innovation if there's no competition then I think innovation dies totally dies totally that and I have a feeling that AI however we incorporate that into our lives will also have competition in it within itself as as you know it wants to be better than the other program to be better than the other whatever it is I don't see competition going away anytime soon and I'm very thankful for that we have to talk about AI briefly I know that I mean even in your own life so U.S. Navy officers they visited your home to talk about AI so it's obviously top mine for the government obviously but not just in like a commercial or consumer context but in like a defense and threat context what do you think what do you think the near-term future looks like for AI in terms of global power dynamics military capability forget me using it to to write a tweet which at GPT like the real implications of its short term and then maybe long term after we achieve a GI sure well you know it's funny because the short and long term are getting closer together so I was just here at this Florida University speaking on AI just yesterday and I got to say that everybody all the professors also that were there and speaking as well we are all scared out of our minds of how quickly it has come about you know when I was at recently at the University of Oxford doing a graduate degree I was studying under Nick Bostrom was one of the leading AI professors in the world and we had an AI module and nobody was speaking about chat GPT yet because they didn't know it existed these are the best professors in AI in the world 11 days after that module at Oxford ended chat GPT was launched so it really showed me that very few experts have any kind of idea of what's happening with AI but that said let's just take a look at what you know you get from some of the CEOs who definitely do know like Sam Altman and whatever you know it is growing so fast it's getting better at writing it's getting better thinking eventually I think it will develop some type of sentience that's kind of comparable to hours I have no doubt it will start to massively take over jobs probably happening in the next six to 12 months that's jobs lawyers accountants I mean already as a journalist I have you know use it all the time and eventually you know I have a name that people need so that's why I might survive later but if you're just a normal journalist without a name you know you're gonna be replaced and you're seeing it already you're seeing all these layoffs outside magazine just the other day I mean some big publications but it's gonna go beyond that it's gonna go to the nursing fields the policing fields I was just out watching the lifeguards and I thought oh my god AI could do such a better job of scanning for people drowning than one lifeguard who keeps looking at people and that these things will and maybe not replace lifeguards for a while but eventually everything will be replaced so when probably within three to seven years a huge amount of the workforce upwards of 50 percent will be challenged with AI in the next six to 12 months you will start seeing mass layoffs you're already seeing mass layoffs right now in Silicon Valley you're seeing it because they know that within 12 months most coding will be done by AI and already quite a bit of coding is being done so there's a lot less need for software programmers here they said last five 10 years oh learn to code that's your future well I've seen the graphs and like the drop off for developers is insane it's crazy it's it's absolutely insane and I think people are underestimating living in Lala land thinking that oh AI's it's maybe not just a fad but it can never replace me it can it's gonna be dramatically smarter than you in fact I would go on the record and say within 24 months you would be better to have a holographic vision of Zoltin here with an AI brain going through all my different podcasts and interviews and having that AI answer your questions and that AI would be smarter and more eloquent in answering the questions this hologram then I am then myself so I why should I even send my real self to muck up things yeah I just found things yeah and then you know AI doesn't have to deal with yeah like oh I had a bad lunch so my energy levels aren't great of course of course I was just driving traffic I was a little friend yeah you know and this is this is probably within 18 months I could say that that kind of thing will already have happened and I worry I've just been trying to enter into a PhD program in England right now and you know I've talked some of my professors and they said you know we know that the PhDs will be better written by the time you finish by the AI then it is you going through the system so you sure you want to do this but you know I mean yeah but you're not doing it for of course you're doing it for you yes but that that will be now an issue for the professor how do I know of this paper this thesis have been written by a student or by AI of course and that's going to be very difficult to determine and and a lot of why I'm doing the PhDs is because I I feel like it fits my classical view of the world thankful I'm not having to do it for money but if you're trying to do this for money to to get a job later no no there's no job later when an AI can write it just higher the AI and this presents a huge problem for intellectuals it's not we're not just talking about somebody you know anybody off the streets doing any kind of menial job we're talking about the top to the bottom affecting everybody and it's it's going to be incredibly challenging three four years in the future I don't I wouldn't be surprised we have mass riots and real issues against people that are creating the AI because it's going to be taking so many jobs and challenging so much well you can you can now add IQ points to yourself overnight right like that's that there's never been a tool that has allowed you to do that to the degree of yeah I mean like what's what's the tool before spending hours reading books I guess in a library over a period of time now I can answer a question in the next five minutes yeah no it's it's it's the it's a changing world very bizarre I I don't know exactly I used to feel like I had a good vision of the future but now it's grown darker it's grown a little bit more dystopian and I am afraid I'm no longer promoting or pushing AI like most transumists had done for many years before I'm now saying hands off let's be a little bit cautious skepticism is what we need and I also say to any entrepreneur right now start your business today do not wait do not go to college anymore to do something if you have a chance to make money make it today because I don't know what's going to happen to the economic world in five years but I do know that if you have a chance to make some money today and make an investment and start a business do it now rather than put it off and go to college or something because who knows if college is going to be even helpful in five years time but making money today will be at least something you'll have in your back pocket when the world is you know ever it is yeah whatever it is one last thought on AI and I mentioned this and I just want to get your take on it so right now we're talking about AI replacing jobs and that impacts livelihood but on a global scale like global powered dynamics we saw deep sea coming out of China now there seems to be this AI arms race and I think that the biggest issue with an AI arms race is that it's nation state versus nation state trying to sort of outpace each other but at the same time there's there's bad actors that are not nation states that are also developing AI and it seems like we're only you as is only focusing on what China's doing not what terrorist group that nobody's even focusing on is trying to develop so what do you think happens in five years with global powered dynamics you think that nation states have to work together or do you think that there's going to be I don't know this this like where does it where does it go from here so I mean I can tell you the conspiracy theories that I've been hearing at the conference recently in fact I had been thinking them forever so first off we we have to beat China in AI because the way AI worked is that if you have a stronger AI you can just send the other AI that's being developed a virus and that will take that other AI down there's no collaborate there's no option for collaboration it would be great to collaborate but it that just hasn't worked it hasn't worked when it came to nuclear weaponry we just where our cultures are way too different and one of the conspiracy theories going around the conference right now is that one of the reasons that again this is not politics I'm not going to say anything in a political way but there is a lot of from Oxford down have said that the only way to stop AI is to unify the world under a single global government where you could then have your hands in everyone's pockets saying nobody can develop AI because I think the development of AI is the most dangerous thing humanity has ever faced and the reason is we're going to create a super intelligence that can do things to the human race that we can't imagine it may not be a terminator style thing but it might be things like AI decides one day to stop every single car on the road and most them are smart cars so it can do so and it may do things like stop all the power all your refrigerators you're alive anything it can it can send us back to the 70s essentially the 60s where everything is analog and so a lot of people think that even some of the Trump dealings right now with Russia have to do with him just going to make an ally at a Putin and then they're going to go after China and kind of create a world dominance where we can then say police everyone to not develop AI because you cannot just let AI continue to develop whether it's the China whether it's United States whether it's the bad market actors if somebody keeps working towards super intelligent at some point that AI becomes smarter than us and when it becomes smarter than us it becomes a real challenge to the human race what if it chooses it does like is what if it says you know guys are using all the resources on planet earth those are my resources AI's resources stop you guys are done you know and just stops the world so the conspiracy theory at this conference was that there is a push afoot for Trump perhaps to become an emperor in order to stop AI not because he wants to be an emperor but just to stop AI and what's really interesting is this is a lot of PhD level academics that are thinking these things and they're not they're not they're usually left this so they're they're they're not actually even four or against politics but they're just trying to figure out what can we actually do to stop bad actors China Russia from developing an AI that's you know going to be super intelligent it doesn't help anyone if super intelligent AI it's more now the reason I just mentioned all this is just to give you a little bit of an insight glimpse of what the academic conference everyone's freaked out everyone's freaked out and we all think that super intelligence will be here within two to five years at the progress that's going so if something like world war three doesn't happen quickly to stop it then we're in deeper trouble world war three is not the worry the real worry is that super intelligence gets created and stops civilization as we know it and that's what I you know I found fascinating to hear a lot of academics writing papers and thinking about that like like it's real like this is the bigger thought process absolutely incredible okay I appreciate you so much um you've given a lot I want to I want to give people the opportunity to connect with you and to consume more of your work where do you like to send people if they want to tune into like what you're working on website social all that so you know I have a website sold at each fund.com if people want to go to and discover a lot of my work because it involves some of my business work and some of my writings my past journalism my sailing work um but if you just want to follow on social media and hear what I'm going to doing uh I have you know it's it is somewhat well known that I have been thinking about running for California governor um I'd have to make a decision here in the next few months I'm not doing so at the moment but I have definitely been thinking about it a lot so that might be something fun being upgrade yes and you know I would definitely be running very uh strongly on how can we deal with AI I'm also you know a fan of other concepts like you know I hear all these people talking about the public school so when I ran for governor in 2018 and they asked me this question one of the debates and they said you know well what are we gonna do and you know 2035 about the school systems I laughed and I said there's not gonna be school systems like we know it uh by 2020 2035 already in 2025 it's like colleges and schools are starting to say oh my god what are we gonna do there is no reason for a college anymore except for social socializing you know is that's a different thing than learning mathematics yes we want to make our kids smart but there's no more we're pushing them towards a job we can't put you can't imagine there's gonna be jobs that a human can do that an AI and a robot can't do by 2035 and so you really have started to rethink the school system and rethink what it means to be a human being alive especially in you know beautiful California and beautiful Florida um so it's funny though these are questions that you know if I was running for governor I would be answering so if you're you know your audience wants to follow that they may they may have a good time hearing at least I don't think I'll win unfortunately but um certainly I will have some interesting talking points if I go down that path I love it and I think that I'll ask you this just to leave the audience with there's been a lot of probably stressful topics for people that are tuned into technology and AI and I think they're all asking kind of the same questions that I probably asked you today um assume listen like we have to assume that AI is not gonna take over the world let's just let's just assume that and let's say that we want to set ourselves up and more importantly our kids for a good life what is the what is the words of wisdom you have to somebody who's like saying okay so I'm already I'm I'm older I'm successful I've already sort of figured out life and money and and wealth and and happiness for my kids what's the path that I put them on do I do I send them to school do I turn them into entrepreneurs uh what's the job they should focus on like what's the words of wisdom for somebody who wants to figure out how to set their kids up for success I think the the most important thing is that if you're a parent these days you want to build wealth that you can pass down to your kids if you've for some reason die or you know aging takes place um that's really important for me like creating a world where my kids may not be able to work and survive because they have some type of houses and funding investment properties that's very important to me so if you're a parent do that now I think for the kids themselves though you got to get them to be happy and find fulfillment and meaning in what they're doing in their day to day lives we might all become artists in the 100 year future because there's no work that we have to do and art can be something beautiful that you can do may not be selling it much but it's something that can be meaningful with what you want to do you know and we might all it's hard to know where the real future lies maybe a lies and really just a lot of physical activities you know I'm a big surfer and if I had a chance and you give me a dream life I'd love to just be on a beach in Bahamas and surf all day and improve my surfing and this might be something that our kids can do a real life of luxury without this strong define meaning to work because of robots and AI doing it however if the robots and AI don't come and as I mentioned they may not come because there may be people that stop it it's really important to tell them hey competition is key find your inner wolf and develop that your inner tiger whatever it is and find something that means something to you and go after and make some money doing it and and and have a soul about it you know develop some spiritual connection to your work to your life to the people around you and and create a real world and I think most importantly make something with your hands and I don't mean like it has to be with your hands I mean physically form something it you know make the world better when I drive through Miami and I see the skyscrapers I think wow who are the people that created these things these are monsters beautiful and so make something make something of yourself I love it I think that also kids should should lean into new technologies just so they're not oblivious to what's happening in the world I know a lot I mean we we come from tech and you even more so than me and I'm you know I'm reading the news all the time trying to figure out what's happening but I know like I know a lot of people in my life that don't come from fact that I have no idea what's happening with AI and they're just completely oblivious because I just assume well if I don't if I don't learn about it's not going to impact me I think that's the wrong attitude I think that at least knowing what's going on is important I appreciate you so much thank you so much for coming on the last question I always ask and we can we can keep it short but out of all the out of all the wisdom that you've learned over your entire life say you had to distill it all to one lesson that you wanted to pass on to your kids and you've given a lot of different lessons but the most important lesson that you want your kids to to remember as they grow up what would that lesson be in why don't let fear rule your lives I think a lot of people are afraid to take chances I think we kind of grow up being afraid of so many different things society or parents this forget it all man none of it matters don't pay attention to what people think about don't let fear rule your life just go out there and do what you're going to do and if you get hurt or maimed or harmed in the meantime hey that's that's part of the life that's part of life it's rough and tumble out there it's not always perfect but don't let fear rule your life because in the end of the day if you're honest about moving forward and taking chances you'll always be successful successful you'll always be stoked with who you are