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✅ Introduction to our episode 23 with José Cordeiro. ✅ Why technological optimism is rational. ✅ Detailed show notes.  ✅ Punch cards and caca. ✅ Why longevity escape velocity may be closer than we think.

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Hilarious, brilliant and deadly serious: José Cordeiro's quest to defeat death

This is our first - and probably our last - episode where the guest has brought with him an actual punch card and proceeds to explain why it is, in fact, caca (which is Spanish for 💩, by the way).

Welcome to the wild world of futurist José Cordeiro. Stick around and you might hear anecdotes about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Memphis, late-night karaoke sessions, and a man shouting “immortality!” to anyone and everyone.

But behind the eccentric props and the shameless self-promotion (José didn’t just bring punch cards - he also brought his books, his merch, and his signature Death of Death tie - to the point where we had to clarify we’re not actually sponsored), there’s a deadly serious mission: José wants to end aging and defeat death.

A futurist, MIT-trained engineer, and bestselling author, José Cordeiro argues that humanity is on the brink of longevity escape velocity - the moment when medical advances will start adding more years to our lives than time takes away.

In this episode, we explore his bold predictions, from reversing aging by 2045 to launching a global “war on aging”.

We cover the science, the politics, the money, and the wild optimism driving the longevity movement - with cryonics, Martians, and €10 immortality claims all making appearances.

This might be our strangest - and most fascinating - conversation yet. Buckle up.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

✅ Why longevity escape velocity may be closer than we think.

✅ How AI will aid longevity.

✅ Why technological optimism is rational.

✅ How the Covid pandemic was a relatively minor pandemic.

✅ How the concept of work will change.

✅ What the future of energy may be.

✅ A personal history of Marvin Minsky, Ray Kurzweil and José Cordeiro.

✅ Where to meet Cordeiro and demonstrate against aging.

✅ Why immortality is probable by 2045.

You can watch the episode below or listen to it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or other places, like PocketCasts. Please follow, like and subscribe! 🙏🏼 This will boost our chances of reaching a bigger audience.

A detailed overview of the episode

Opening banter

• Patrick jokes about needing a haircut; José tells him to comb his hair properly.

• José reveals he’s just returned from visiting three Middle Eastern countries (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE) and is planning upcoming trips to Mexico, El Salvador, and Venezuela - all to speak about the future and immortality.

• Peter and Patrick reflect on meeting José at the ARDD Conference in Copenhagen (August 2024), where they saw him shouting “Viva la Revolución!”

Introduction to José Cordeiro

• Patrick introduces José’s background: MIT mechanical engineering degree, affiliation with Singularity University, Millennium Project, and his bestselling book The Death of Death (co-authored with David Wood, Chair, London Futurists, Executive Director of LEV Foundation and Symbian co-founder.

• José proudly shows off his Death of Death merchandise, including his tie and balloons, and mentions editions of the book in Chinese and Arabic.

The central mission: Ending aging

• José claims that around 90% of deaths in OECD countries are ultimately due to age-related diseases - making aging the “number one killer.”

• He extends this argument to lower-income nations, stating that even in poorer African countries, 60% of deaths are now due to age-related diseases. [Note: Although this figure may not be universally applicable, data indicates a rising trend in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) across Africa. For instance, in 2019, NCDs accounted for 37% of all deaths in the WHO African Region, up from 24% in 2000.]

• Patrick and José discuss why aging is often overlooked as a disease factor compared to lifestyle risks like smoking.

Declaring war on aging

• José advocates for classifying aging as a disease to unlock more funding and research.

• He calls the current social attitude toward aging a kind of “Stockholm Syndrome” - making peace with your enemy instead of fighting it.

• Quote: “I want to kill death before death kills me.”

Global longevity efforts and the $101 million XPRIZE

• José describes the Global Healthspan Summit hosted by the Hevolution Foundation (Saudi Arabia, February 2025), backed by $20 billion from the Saudi royal family.

• Talks about the $101 million XPRIZE Healthspan competition (organized with the XPRIZE Foundation and Hevolution), aiming to achieve 10-20 years of rejuvenation across three biological systems by 2030, with ~600 teams competing globally. [For more on the XPRIZE Healthspan competition, see our episode with Jamie Justice, below.]

Longevity escape velocity & Ray Kurzweil’s predictions

• José cites Ray Kurzweil’s timeline:
  → 2029–2030: Longevity escape velocity (gaining more than one year of life per year) and passing the Turing test (AI indistinguishable from human intelligence).
  → 2045: Biological rejuvenation fully achieved; humans living indefinitely young.

• José mentions Kurzweil’s latest book, The Singularity Is Nearer (2024), as a key reference.

Props: Punch cards, floppy disks, USBs

• José holds up old IBM punch cards and mentions floppy disks, and a 1-terabyte USB stick to illustrate exponential technological progress.

• Jokes that he used “caca” (poop) technology when studying at MIT and that future storage capacities will make today’s terabytes look tiny.

• Explains that sequencing the human genome (3 gigabytes) now costs ~$200 and takes a few days, down from $3 billion over 13 years - a sign of accelerating bioengineering potential.

Influences & academic roots

• Discusses his connection to Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, and their shared background at MIT.

• Mentions Marvin Minsky (AI pioneer, deceased 2016, said to be cryonically preserved at Alcor) as a key figure.

• Describes his academic shift from energy systems (solar, nuclear fusion) to biology and medicine after the Nobel Prize awarded to Shinya Yamanaka (2012) for discovering epigenetic reprogramming.

Cancer, germ cells, and immortal organisms

• José explains why cancer cells and germline cells are biologically immortal, and why studying them can help us understand aging reversal.

• Mentions the immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii), hydras, long-lived species like Greenland sharks (500 years) and bowhead whales (200 years), and why comparative longevity biology matters.

AI, DeepMind, and bioengineering

• References Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind) and the AlphaFold breakthrough solving the protein folding problem.

• Predicts that AI will help simulate cells and accelerate biological understanding within 5 years.

• Highlights the small size of the human genome (3GB) compared to the massive capabilities of today’s big data systems.

Wealthy longevity backers

• Lists billionaires funding rejuvenation efforts:
  → Jeff Bezos & Yuri Milner (Altos Labs, ~$3 billion).
  → Sergey Brin & Larry Page (Google’s Calico, ~$3 billion). [Note: I have not been able to verify that number. Here’s one old article that mentions $1,5 billion.]
  → Sam Altman (Retro Biosciences, ~$180 million).
  → Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, focused on curing all diseases).
  → Larry Ellison (Oracle, funding longevity research).

Cryonics & plan B

• José explains why cryonics (biostasis) is “Plan B” for those unlikely to make it to longevity escape velocity, mentioning Alcor (Arizona) and Tomorrow Bio (Zurich). [Note: Tomorrow Bio, headquartered in Berlin, stores cryopreserved patients in Rafz, Switzerland, within the canton of Zurich. Also check out or episode with Emil Kendziorra, CEO of Tomorrow Bio, below.]

• Peter shows his Tomorrow Bio cryonics bracelet.

• Mentions that three Spanish patients were cryopreserved at Tomorrow Bio in 2024. [I have not been able to verify this.]

Politics & the European Anti-Aging Agency

• José shares his experience running for the European Parliament on a longevity platform, campaigning for the creation of a European Anti-Aging Agency.

• Describes his advocacy efforts to influence politicians across party lines and push aging up the European policy agenda.

Upcoming events & global campaigning

• José plugs his International Longevity Summit in Madrid (October 1–2, 2025).

• Mentions meetings with leaders like Nayib Bukele (President of El Salvador) and Javier Milei (President of Argentina), as well as attending major longevity events like RAADfest (Las Vegas), Longevity Summit Dublin, and ARDD (Copenhagen).

Book recommendations

• José’s recommended books:
  → Ageless by Andrew Steele.
  → The Singularity Is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil.
  → The Case Against Death by Patrick Linden (co-host).
  → Works by Michio Kaku.
  → Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari.
  → State of the Future by The Millennium Project (José is involved in this).

Final words

• José ends with his signature Star Trek line: “Live long and prosper.”

• Says he looks forward to meeting Peter and Patrick again in 2045, when they will all be younger thanks to biological rejuvenation.