This Oct/Nov, I was in Berlin for Zelar City, one of a growing number of experiments in distributed sovereignty as a way to accelerate scientific progress. This is especially relevant to biotech, a sector that is hampered by the heavy hand of government regulators such as the FDA. Consequently, even if our main focus is reform of existing regimes, we think it is a good idea to spend some resources on “exit” into novel jurisdictions as a backup plan in case the moderate and conventional approaches fail and we approach 2050 no closer to LEV.
These exits range the gamut from charter cities such as Próspera to individual group houses, with Zelar City being somewhere intermediate between them in scale and ambitions. Its medium to long-term plan is to acquire property in Berlin, and then in other major global cities in Europe and globally. These (perhaps NFT-gated) properties will host community centers and co-working spaces for those who share our mission, as well as serve as “embassies” of radical life extension to the world at large.
Towards the end of Zelar City, I took the opportunity to interview three of its main organizers - Laurence Ion, Victoria Forest, and Alexey Strygin. The camera work was very kindly provisioned by Elias Schlie, an up-and-coming podcaster who also participated in the discussion and co-posted this interview to YouTube (as well as doing a separate interview with yours truly).
Here are some timestamps:
0:00 - Introductions
6:02 - How to Get People into Anti-Aging?
16:28 - Where to Build Longevity Communities?
20:34 - Is it Neo-Colonialism?
21:41 - We Need Multiple Experiments
26:03 - Where to Expand Next?
27:04 - Why So Many Romanians in This Space?
29:35 - Europe: Degrowth vs. eu/acc
32:47 - People Need Need Inspirational Stories
36:47 - Bureaucrats Need Longevity Economics Institute
43:30 - Bottlenecks in Anti-Aging Research
53:05 - Role of Vita DAO in Zelar?
55:16 - Reflections and Future Projects
Links to some of the things mentioned in the podcast:
VitaDAO, the decentralized community that wants to solve aging.
Aging.FYI: Short summary of why aging is malleable and what you can do to help that. (See also my Immortality page).
Strygin’s new Longevity Economics Institute think-tank.
I will also take the opportunity to shill Vitalist Bay, slated to become the biggest life extension conference to date. It’s going to take place in Berkeley in April-May 2025. Check it out if you live in the SF Bay Area!
On an administrative note, this interview also marks the formal beginning of the The Karlin Show. I envisage this podcast as a space where I will interview influential and interesting people in the worlds of transhumanism, intelligence research, libertarianism, and other topics that are as catnip to “Elite Human Capital”. The next podcast is going to be with Roko Mijic on icesteading and will be published next week. Don’t forget to subscribe!
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