This Week on Thinking Is Cool

On immortality, ethics, and living a full life

Author

Kinsey Grant
October 11, 2021

By luck or fate or some other reason, you’ve found yourself reading an email from Thinking Is Cool, *the* podcast to listen to if you want to have better conversations. If this email was forwarded to you, sign up for regular correspondence from me, Kinsey, right here:

Good morning! This email is about the episode I’m releasing today. Like most of my Monday morning check-ins, it’s a preview of some Very Good Content™ that I’ll spend the next 7 days thinking and talking and posting about. The opening salvo of the new week.

But I want to start today by talking about something that happened last week.

On Friday, I wrote to you about my exhaustion—about feeling so tired and worn down from the last 18 months despite all the unbelievably good things that have happened to me during that time. I can’t thank you enough for sharing how you felt, too. I got more responses to that email (both in my inbox and in person) than any I’ve written. I’m so grateful for your support.

No big lesson or takeaway or call to action here. Just a reminder: If you’re feeling something, other people probably are too. And talking about it always helps.

Now, to the content that lies ahead (and yeah whatever I know it’s really ironic to write about living forever given that I just wrote about really needing a nap at 26 years old). Let’s take it anywhere.

This Week on Thinking Is Cool

TW: Twilight reference in the next paragraph and also in the episode it’s describing

A wise teenage girl in the Pacific Northwest who made the world fall in love with a family of vampires once said, “I’ve never given much thought to how I would die.”

She’s either 1) lying or 2) the only one.

In truth, we humans are deeply preoccupied with how we might die...and even more preoccupied with the efforts we can take to put it off. Following sanitation protocols, understanding germ theory, getting vaccines, exercising—for centuries, we’ve taken small steps each day to prolong our healthy, functional lives.

But what if we stopped taking small steps and started taking giant ones? What if we could solve ourselves out of aging, stop the clock, stretch past our interpretations of feasible reality? What might the world look like if we lived to 100 years, 200 years, or forever?

That’s what we’re thinking about this week on the show.

It’s complicated business—this “determining whether we should live forever” stuff. We can start small—what’s the prevailing logic in terms of extending human lifespans? How do we do it? What’s the science behind these efforts?

But in my experience reporting this episode, deconstructing our ideas of mortality almost immediately thrusts us into big brain territory. Why do we want to live forever? Who should get to live forever? How do we determine the difference between sound medical intervention and inhuman life extension? What happens to society if we don’t die, or even if we just die much later than anticipated?

This week, I’ll get us started thinking about all of the above. My hope is that you, as the saying goes, take it anywhere.

Listen to the episode here: Apple // Spotify // everywhere else

And now for a word from Fundrise, because my retirement is looking longer and longer...

You can exercise regularly, eat your leafy greens, floss weekly, limit your screen time, and apply sunscreen twice a day, but life will sometimes find a way to throw a curveball and toss your best-laid plans out the door.

Even though we can’t control the future, we can be prepared for whatever it may hold. Maintaining healthy habits can lessen the unsteadiness that life’s unpredictable changes can bring.

Take Fundrise for example: This first-of-its-kind platform lets anyone invest in private real estate without the high upfront cost that it used to require. Fundrise has not only reduced the cost of entry for real estate investing (with account levels ranging from $10 to $100,000), but it implements a combination of strategies to build well-rounded, resilient portfolios targeted to deliver consistently strong results based on your goals and appetite for risk.

With Fundrise, you can be prepared for life’s ups and downs with a stronger portfolio. Visit fundrise.com/think to get started and sign up for free today.

Thanks for reading. I’m really proud of this episode and I hope you’ll give it a listen. It took me down so many rabbit holes, many of which were inspired by some truly outstanding journalism. With that in mind, here are some really interesting pieces to read if you want to keep thinking about living forever once the episode is over (and trust me you will).

Another reading/death (that was weird) thing I’ve really been digging: Thingtesting. Thingtesting is an unsponsored corner of the internet where you can discover, learn more, and share your honest reviews of 2,000+ modern brands, and by modern I mean modern. We talked to the Thingtesting team about this episode (living forevs) and they pointed us in the direction of some truly interesting death tech companies: Parting Stone, Eterneva, and Leaves With You. Highly recommend checking out what the Thingtesting team is building.

Finally, this week’s programming notes:

  1. If you listen to the episode (sorry, when you listen to the episode), send me any ideas, half-, fully-, or un-baked, about the implications of living forever. I’ve got an Instagram Live itch that needs scratching and I think this is the week to do it. Let’s talk.

  2. This Thursday (October 14) from 5:30pm to 7pm ET, we’re doing a virtual Meet Your Neighbors panel with Knock Knock Give a Sock founder Adina Lichtman (yes! Adina from episode 6 about solving homelessness). We’re going to virtually think (it’s cool) with our neighbors living in shelters to hear their stories and experiences with homelessness. We hope you’ll join us to hear some inspiring stories. If you’re interested, keep an eye on your inbox—I’m sending a link to the event later this week.

Have a fantastic day. See you soon!

-Kinsey