Introducing Skyline Drive: How to Live Forever

Mangesh Hattikudur (Part-Time Genius, Mental_Floss) dives into the booming business of living forever—meeting the scientists, biopunks, and entrepreneurs trying to turn immortality into reality, and framing death as a choice. But the more he learns about an immortal future, the more he finds himself drawn to the people he loves…and wondering if an endless life can be a meaningful one. 

Skyline Drive: How to Live Forever is the follow up to the beloved Skyline Drive (season 1), named a “Series Essential” — an Apple Podcasts honor for top-tier narrative podcasts — and highlighted on several Best of Year lists including NYMag, Guardian, and others.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You were like, it's fine to die at sixty four? WHOA?
I mean, either it'll happen or it won't happen.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Right, I have a confession to make. I don't want
to live forever.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I'm not really.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Concerned with living a super long time, and I'm kind
of okay with whatever I get. My friends and family
think I'm nuts.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
What's wrong with him?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Oh? Why would he be? Why he'd be okay with that?

Speaker 1 (00:28):
And right now I seem to be alone.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Everywhere I look, people are talking about peptides and perfecting
their longevity stacks, trying to live longer or at least
age better than our grandparents.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
At one hundred, I look like I'm eighty. That's fine.
We could still be doing a triathlon at ninety one hundred.
I just want to keep going until I'm forced out.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
If you believe the futurist Rake Herswhill, by twenty twenty nine,
people will start aging backwards, and so to hit that
deadline just three years away, science is getting weird.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Wait wait, wait, wait, tell me more about the Black Boyce.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
It's either gonna be like it be the best of
times and the worst of times.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
A couple of years ago, I made a podcast called
Skyline Drive. It was supposed to be about astrology, and
it was, but my first visit to an astrologer showed
me it was also going to be about grief. The
situation doesn't look good for father. I had wanted to
explore astrology because it was everywhere in my family and

(01:36):
pop culture, but I didn't think it mattered until it
happened to me. So now I'm wondering, what if I'm
missing out on the race to live forever? After all,
time is passing, my kids are getting older. I say,
probably start bones smashy. That doesn't work, make it look
more defined. They say it works.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
And I'm older too, which I guess I should be
okay with. But the reality of aging can be a
bitter pill.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
This is how much that you have is like nine kilograms,
which is a lot. You know you're almost on the
ob side. So this season, I've set out to learn
what living forever is all about?

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Could all these longevity hacks actually help me?

Speaker 4 (02:23):
We'll see Indians aging faster, probably because of colonization, but
I did not expect it to be almost a four
to five year acceleration.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
I talk to people who know a thing about getting old.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Keep the moving.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
If you stop, it'll catch you, And those who are
doing everything they can to cheat death.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
While Plan B for me is a cry of preservation, what.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
I didn't realize is that this moonshot goal of living
forever has resulted in so many inspiring possibilities that are
on the brink of happening right now.

Speaker 5 (03:00):
You eventually get full replacement of your brain with healthier,
younger cells, but you're still.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
You, and that's something you think might be possible when, ah,
whenever I finish this.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
But that groundbreaking science also leads to so many big questions.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Scientific advancement are absolutely welcome, but the issue for me
is economic redistribution and access to death and quagmires.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
I don't want to give myself into trouble.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Let me just say a loud Also, did you know
there's a literal fountain of youth in Chicago?

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yah, it's be gentle, So you guys, that totally does work.
People were just filling up their bottles.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
In other words, is humanity as we know it about
to change forever?

Speaker 5 (03:53):
In the wild, we have good examples of one population
of animals that split and in one stays on. Say
the mainland is onto an island, so some of you
separate them into a hazardous environment and a safe one.
The one in a safe environment they become longer lived.
So will this happen to us? No idea.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
This is Skyline Drive how to Live Forever. I'm Monga's
Tatika there. Listen to How to Live Forever starting June
ninth on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you
get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 (04:23):
I gets a conspiracy.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
I don't think it actually worries