We're all scared of death but I'm somewhat of an extreme case.
Death terrifies me.
It's on my mind an unhealthy amount.
So after years of anxiety, it's time for a new approach.
Over the next few weeks, I'm getting up close to death
to find out how we can come to terms with what's waiting for us all.
When you finally have the knowledge, this is how you'll die.
Probably I'm going to make sure I've got a stash of pills somewhere.
What I could see was a tunnel of white light.
Stop one, Las Vegas.
And a convention for people who are trying to find a cure for death.
The most powerful thing that we can do is end ageing and death
because it's our worst enemy.
Raad Fest is an annual gathering of scientists, activists and thinkers with
one common goal, to radically extend the human lifespan.
I don't know what I should expect.
What should I expect from the weekend?
It's a little bit extreme.
Yeah?
It's radical.
It's not just like, getting a little bit healthier …
No, we're not.
We're just not going to age.
We're just not going to do it.
To an outsider,
just not ageing sounds a bit far-fetched, but to Raad Fest founders,
that's just a defeatist mindset which holds us back.
Bernie and I are about being unstoppable and we're blessed, I'm very grateful to be here
with all of you tonight.
I'm going for ... that I don't have an end.
That's the way I feel.
I'm going all the way.
We have this dream of actually curing ageing and death
and not have to face this terrible enemy anymore.
I'm already there. I'm already there!
I'm already physically immortal.
We're going to turn this world upside down.
Exactly.
We're going to turn this world upside down.
To come in, first night, first talk and both of them just be like:
'We're not going to die, and neither are any of you.'
It's definitely set the tone for what should be an interesting weekend.
Key takeaways so far: it's quite an old crowd
that's very keen on eternal life.
But is any of this realistic or just an exercise in self delusion?
And what is it that's driving their wish to live forever?
It's really nice to meet you both.
Should we sit?
This might be an inappropriate question,
are you two together or … ?
– No. No.
No, I don't think it's inappropriate.
No, we're business partners.
I do think she's very sexy, though.
Can't disagree with that.
I hope so, I mean …
In your presentation last night, you spoke about
your philosophy of going the whole way.
What does that mean?
I'm just not closing the door on my staying around …
alive.
I think it's so right on for the human body not to die.
As people are so programmed to death
and that death is inevitable and therefore we don't really value human life
that we live and shit, we don't value our own bodies.
We create all kinds of, I call them, coping mechanisms
to justify death, you know, to make death more palatable.
We think the most powerful thing that we can do is end ageing and death
because it's our worst enemy.
I thought you were going to say it was kind of a state of mind thing,
but it is actually about not dying.
No, it's not a state of mind.
You can't think this, you can't, you know, we're not going to
bring about the ending of ageing and death just thinking about it.
It's actually a moral issue, I think people who support death
... say it's right. I think it's immoral.
I think it's immoral to support a world that the soul suffers from disease and ageing.
We have to do something about it.
The moral thing to do is to help change that.
Safe to say that Bernie and James are on the extreme end of the anti-death spectrum.
But what about Raad Fest's guests, do they share this belief that we can live forever?
Hi. What's your name?
Michelle. - I'm Leah.
And what is it about the life extension movement that you like?
I love it because I feel that we can rejuvenate,
we can reverse age.
I want to live forever but feeling good.
Robert Brick. – Robert, nice to meet you.
Hi Leah, I'm Sumbai.
Sumbai? Nice to meet you.
Although this doesn't say so.
It says Steven.
Yes. – Right.
Some people would say, isn't ageing just a natural part of life?
Isn't it just what happens?
Yes but, you know, the Earth was flat at one time
and back in the Middle Ages, I guess, you know we were geocentric,
we thought the Earth was in centre of the world.
Ageing is not normal or not natural.
Now let's do something about it.
So, that's why we are here.
I can see how the older you get,
the more you might want to believe that death is avoidable.
And at Raad Fest, there's no shortage of sales people
claiming that their project will help.
So, can a day of wellness therapy turn back my biological clock?
OK, so everybody that I've taken your name, I'm going to ask you to wait around the corner
so we can open up this walkway.
So this is the exam or the testing portion of the longitudinal study.
Dr Watson's ready for you right now.
We're testing for lifestyle factors, blood biomarkers, cognitive factors …
OK, so I'm tapping as soon as I hear the sound?
We are testing for body composition, your visceral fat, your muscle mass …
So, that's pretty good.
You want to be farther on the right end of the scale.
Guess I'm too fat.
I'm Rudy Hoffman,
I'm doing life insurance to fund the cost of cryogenic or cryonic suspension or preservation.
So cryonics basically is people being frozen immediately upon pronouncement
of legal death with the idea that a future technology can fix us.
A mistake most people make is, you're going after the muscle.
No, it's the fascia that controls the muscle, not the muscle controlling the fascia.
This is about sound healing, so it's working with precise frequencies.
I feel so weird.
I've had so many treatments.
I feel like I've been poked and prodded …
I actually feel different.
I do feel different but I don't know if it's good different or if I just feel a bit nuts.
How old do I feel?
I feel about 30.
To actually reverse ageing, we'll need some serious science.
And for that, there's anti-ageing guru Aubrey de Grey,
who thinks his work will soon see humans living for hundreds of years.
There it is!
I try to make sure that people understand that this is both the most important crusade of humanity
and also that it's a plausible crusade
that has a respectable chance of success in the foreseeable future.
What can, if anything, a normal person like me do to live longer and healthier?
You're doing something quite important for that right at this moment
by interviewing me.
Because the fact is that the thing that will matter the most for you,
is not what you can do today to your own body
but rather how soon the work that I do comes along,
whether or not it comes along in time for you in other words.
So the longer you live, the longer we all live?
Well, that's right, yeah.
Obviously the planet is not in a great nick at the moment
and people are worried that, you know,
in the next hundred years a lot of it is going to become uninhabitable …
But it sounds like you think that we're going fix that.
These questions are really, really easy to answer.
It takes zero time to think about the answers.
We are inventing all these technologies like, you know, renewable energy and artificial meat
and desalination and so on …
These things are reducing and are going to reduce dramatically
the amount of pollution that any given individual generates
which means that we will raise the carrying capacity of the planet.
How long do you think it's going to be until we all are living longer and healthier?
People … of course I say this all the time,
but my current guess is that we have a 50/50 chance
of getting to a really decisive level with these therapies
within about 17 years from now.
By my predictions, you've got more than a 50/50 chance of making the cut.
– Sound good to me.
There you go.
Fantastic, thank you very much.
My pleasure.
Not everyone at Raad Fest is waiting for a scientific breakthrough to save them
and the daily grind of life extension can be quite hard work.
Do I have food in my teeth?
No, you're good.
What do you do day-to-day to keep yourself healthy?
I don't drink, I don't smoke, I eat organic, mostly vegetarian,
I take about 50 life extension supplements a day …
You know, you should have omega-3 but not necessarily omega-6, right?
I didn't know that, no.
Yeah, so most nuts have more omega-6 than omega-3.
I eat nuts.
OK, but what kind of nuts do you eat?
Almonds, cashews …
OK, so would you like me to show you this chart? It's going to blow your mind.
Sure.
My purse here, look at this.
This is what caused me to learn about it, right here.
I think it's like the ratio that can predict dementia.
Right here, look at this.
Almonds: 2,000 of omega-6 to one of omega-3.
Oh …
Oh!
Even though you and I thought they were really good.
Yeah …
Not.
You know, all of this information, like, you're obviously learning so much
and changing the way you behave …
But it's a lot to think about.
Can you kind of understand when people can't be bothered with this stuff?
But what are they doing that's more important?
I guess …
I know! I know what you're doing.
They're watching television.
Right?
Is that more important than this?
No.
I'm just like, man, I was trying to be healthy by eating almonds,
now I can't eat almonds …
You're healthy because you're young
and you're at a longevity concert.
You notice that most people that are here are not young.
I have noticed that.
We're older and we're a little bit concerned if not scared.
What is it that you think people are scared of?
Well, I think when you see someone who can't walk or who's wheelchair ridden
or who can't think, who is obviously demented or has terrible chronic disease
or is a cardiac cripple and they have the same chronologic age as you do …
Then you say, whoa baby, I don't want to look like that.
I don't want to go down that road, I don't want to give up what I've got.
Right?
Because you ... the old saying about youth is wasted on the young
because you don't appreciate it
because you've never had anything else, right?
Yeah.
I'm starting to get that this isn't about omega-6,
or biological markers or cryogenic freezing.
What's brought these people here is a lot simpler than that.
It's not fun to look at death, it's sad when you have loved ones or friends
or whoever died.
It's not nice.
I think there needs to be an end to death,
it brings a lot of pain to people.
Why should I give up? There's nothing pretty about death.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Just keep on living and feeling and loving and caring.
I don't want to die, I don't ever want to die.
So, the weekend is done and it has been a very weird weekend but as someone who
has always been really, really scared of death I actually think that what's
weirder is not just acknowledging that death is really sad and quite scary,
it's definitely not a movement for everyone but I think what is at its core
is just a wish to get the most you can out of life and to me there's nothing crazy about that.
I really hope you enjoyed episode one of Death Land,
let me know in the comments if you have any questions
or thoughts and I'll try to get back to you.
Episode two is very different.
I'm spending the day with a doctor whose
whole life revolves around death
and finding out how her patients contend with the end of their lives.
If you don't want to miss it, then click subscribe now.