Live long enough to live forever (the science behind radical life extension)
by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman M.D.
2004, Rodale Publishing, 378 pages

Editor’s Note: Still ‘cleaning out the closet,’ transferring older book reviews that were posted via the old nuts and bolts Dreamweaver formatted Website. I’m getting toward the bottom of the barrel, and most of the remaining books—such as the previous week’s book review of The Audacity of Hope that someone ghostwrote for criminal in chief Barry Soweto—I wonder what hallucinigenics I was ingesting for looking at them favorably back when I wrote the reviews. My reservations likewise exist with anything Ray Kurzweil has done… mainly because I have this perception that he has now  gone over to the Dark Side by hiring on as a head honcho at ‘always do what’s evil and creepy’ Google.

That may be. But reality is always more complex that what it appears at first, or even second, glance. Who knows what he’s doing over there in the bowels of global mind control, plotting the end of humankind as we know it? Well, most of the stuff he wrote about when he first took an interest in radical life extension was sans central government coordinated or approved. Legitimate ideas and discoveries by a man who seemed genuinely human—even though hopeful of an enhanced or transhumanist future. Politically, I can’t vouch for anything he’s doing today, but back when he wrote this book, I liked what he was advocating.

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A review of Fantastic Voyage appeared in my Oakland (Oakland County, Michigan) Press early in 2005. As a longtime enthusiastic advocate—though not necessarily the most ardent practitioner—of life extension technology, I was ecstatic! Continue reading →