Hannes Sapiens – Biohacker – In Conversation With Futurist Ian Khan

How are you? hennis? I'm very well, thank you. And it's it's great to be on here with you. Thank you so much for making time. I know you're in Stockholm. So give us a COVID-19 impact assessment as to what's happening in Stockholm. Right? Well, frankly, I think life here is relatively close to normal compared to many other places. We haven't really had a proper lockdown. The kids still go to school. Obviously, a lot of people work from home. I do that myself. But I'm happy to tell you that life is carrying on relatively normal over here. So Sweden right now, obviously, is one of those countries that is defined conventional norms. It's defined what everybody's talking about lockdown, shut down everything, Don't move, don't do anything. But I think the world is failing to understand what Sweden is doing and why it's doing it. And many people are afraid that isn't the right thing to do. What's the strategy behind keeping everything open? What are Swedes doing to stay safe? Generally speaking, right. So this, this could potentially be a long conversation. But my main takeaways for an international audience would be that the Swedish strategy is that the cure shouldn't be worse than the initial disease. So yes, COVID-19 is a terrible disease. But if we run the country into a complete economic crash, then that's going to have even worse consequences. And fool currently in works for a short time, but it has also has many negative effects for society. I think the explanation why this is happening in Sweden is partly the way this country works. And partly, it's the culture of Swedes. So the first dimension is that in Sweden, the politicians have stepped back from from making decisions and left it to the experts. Whereas in many other places, we've seen politicians who want to be brave, and they want to make decisions that they want to show that to take it seriously. And they lock everything down and close the borders. And that's not very sustainable. If this is going to last for for many, many months. Yes. second dimension is that we Swedes have a general overall we obey authority to a decent extent. So if the government tells us stay at home, don't meet your grandparents, people actually comply to a very large extent without you know, the threat of putting police and military in the street to enforce these things. Excellent. Well, hoping everybody comes out of this without a scratch. Let's talk about Toffler Toffler has changed the way many of us think. aftershock got 50 plus futurists together and we all wrote our piece in the book talking about what does Future Shock mean? What are we doing today, you've written that you constantly are trying to explain Future Shock to people, or you're trying to put them into Future Shock, so that they could start understanding the changes the world is going through and so on. Tell me about your process of knowing Future Shock, and then helping others understand it, right. Yes, I read the book many years ago, and I found it very inspirational. So it's been a concept of carried with me for many years. And one thing that I have been doing a lot over the last few years is that I have been very active in the world of biohacking, where we experiment with new technologies, and what we can do to modify biological systems everywhere, from sales to plants, to animals, even to homosapiens. And in this role, I have been traveling the world really speaking to audiences and doing workshops with companies and organizations and I, as a practical biohacker, I really enjoyed taking people through an experience before I do the theory part. And one of the many hacks that we apply is to chip implant people on stage and chip implants is an awesome way to experience how technology is not just modifying society and business but also ourselves. And I find the reactions to instead of showing people some beautiful slides and curves when you actually take them through a live demo when there is blood and there is needles and there is drama that touches very deeply and it conveys a very strong message and when I think Think of this in terms of giving people a proper Future Shock. And so you're putting Future Shock into actual perspective by by getting people to interact with technology in the way they always listen. But then you're getting them to experience that I think that's a great way of getting people to, to understand something is by going through the process, the pain, the pleasure, whatever we can call it. In the book, you also talk about the ideas of Big Brother, Big Sister, they're always talking about surveillance states, how the world is changing how we're being watched, and how some people always want to know what you're doing and how they use our information to do whatever they need to do. And there's so many different ideas, thoughts, people who have different ways of thinking about it. How do you separate these Tell us about your philosophy on this? Right? Well, in a nutshell, we live in a world, which is already a world of distributed sensors and big data and enormous data flows. This is the new normal, it's not going to go away. And you can take different perspectives on this, the obvious one, let's say the 20th century perspective would be, oh, no, this is a big brother society, we are being under surveillance, we are being you know, abuse and data is being taken of our behavior. And then it's being used against us in different ways. And it's overall a frightening, you know, idea of the future. What I'm trying to convey and with the metaphor of the big sister society is that if we take this world of big data, and consciously design, how we want these things to work with respect for the individual user, and also giving the user control and power over their own data, then we can enable a very different society. And with the metaphor of the big sister society, what I want to convey is a world where it is not a big brother bully that sort of observes you and addresses you in ways that frighten you. But a caring system watched over by machines of loving Grace is a classic line from a good old poem. And what I'm trying to say with the big sister society is that we can create a society in which the systems take care of us to a very great extent. Then there's of course, the the ironic twist that I myself grew up with two big brothers and I never had a big sister. So maybe I see them in a in a somewhat rose tinted light. Yeah, and you write about this in the book and I'm going to read from from actually from the book use a big sister does not spy on us, She protects us from prying eavesdroppers Big Sister does not monitor our online habits in order to push more products on us. Instead, she negotiates with the other superbly powerful systems on the other side on our behalf. And I want to add a thought here that I really believe we are going to this very initial evolution of our relationship with technology, right? Our relationship with surveillance, artificial intelligence, robotics, name it, whatever it is, I don't think we've lived with all these things for many, many years. And I think first off this primary relation that we have many things we are too keen on many things we don't observe. I'm wondering, and it's an open question. I wonder what the world will be like 20 years from now, or 30 years from now. Right. And I'm thinking about Toffler 50 years ago, he wrote the book, what will the world be 25 years from now? Will we really be so attached to our data and our information that we are as we are right now? Or would we have evolved to a different state, and we wouldn't care about something? What do you think about that, I think there are data that we still don't have access to that are tremendously important. For example, data relating to our own health. Today, if I feel ill, for some reason, I need to go to a doctor, I need to draw a blood sample, we need to analyze it in a lab, and then I'll get my data A week later. And this for me, the body has a system, if something that we urgently need to have a completely different data access to. And in 20 years from today, I think that will absolutely be the norm. I think that what we need is a technology that gives us a real time understanding of what is happening in our systems. We can do this for companies, we can create awesome companies with dashboards of web traffic or cash or inventory flows. But we can't do it for the most important system of all the ones that keeps us alive. And my vision is that we must create this technology that allows us this access to our bodies. And I would like to make the analog with vaccinations because 100 years ago, most people were not vaccinated and many people died from diseases like tuberculosis. And today, it's of course the norm. Everyone has numerous vaccinations during the years when we grow up, and we don't question it. My view is that in 20 years from now People will be asking how did people survive back then when you didn't have this real time understanding of what was going on in your bodies? And you know, what will tell them? We can say, Yeah, can you imagine people died back then? Yeah, I completely agree with you, and that we are going through this natural process of rejecting something new and fighting and opposing it, but then we are getting very comfortable with it. One of the dilemmas with technology generally doing so much for us is, is privacy is the integrity of information. I think at the end, I could be wrong. But if you simmer down everything, people are either afraid of their body that they will be caused bodily harm if their information is exposed to let's say, my information is exposed. And I might say, well, a stalker will come to my home and attack me or rob me correct. Like, literally the bottom line. Or people might say, well, somebody's going to steal all my money from my bank. Remember, the early days, when online banking started, people wouldn't even log into online bank saying no, I don't trust this thing. Because why? Well, somebody may access my funds and take my money. So these are literally big, big things that people are afraid of. And my question to everybody all the time is, what if these they have our information and they cannot do anything, right? You see a lot happening with the democratization of technology and how data is everywhere. Maybe tomorrow, it would be fine to give our data away. And we wouldn't be afraid that any harm will come to us financial, economic, bodily harm. One of the things now that I want to get into regarding biohacking is that sure, we're going to have implants, we're going to maybe and that's where we're going with by hacking, correct? What if the corporation that controls these implants starts controlling me and does something to me makes me into a slave or robot? I don't know people have great imagination, they can see see to make the worst. So how do we start creating that understanding what the possibilities are what what are your thoughts on this, as you as you do this work in biohacking? I think we've overcome bigger challenges. I think that this is in many ways, it's the perspective of human rights. It's not the data in itself, that is bad in any way. We need to understand if we specifically take body data, for example, it's always an agent with a certain agenda that has the potential to abuse it. And in open societies and in well, working societies, we have protections against these things. And this is what we must extend to all human beings on this planet, the principles of privacy of human rights in a broad sense. There are also initiatives, of course, regarding understanding the rights for upgraded persons, such as, for example, the right to have ownership to technology, third party technology in your body, right to imagine that I would have at some point an implant from Apple, for example, at any point in time, I will have the right to if they want to take it away, I will have the right to keep it if it's part of me, I will be able to say yes or no to any kind of software systems that are installed there. We can set up rules and procedures that actually protect the individual to a significant extent with technology, and also the legal systems that we have in place today. So I am an optimist that we will muddle through with creating this more benevolent surveillance system, which I call the big sister, do you see some regions, some countries are doing some really good work regarding this? I know a lot of places and regions are doing work about it. But good work? What are some of the good examples that you can share with us? Well, let me be honest with you, I am proud. And I'm also happy to be living in Europe. In this day and age, because of the way data is treated here. If you somewhat simplify the different wealth systems and how we work with data, you can you have the American model, which is that individuals users data or the property of the corporations, it can be collected, it can be sold, it can be traded, it can be exploited in many ways. And then you have the Chinese version, which is data, not for profit, but data for control. When it's the state that collects the data on the people companies are relatively restricted, but the government can apply the insights on people's behavior and sanction different behaviors. Whereas in the European model, we do our best far from perfect to protect individual rights and human freedoms under the law. And I think for example, with the GDPR, we have a decent degree of protection. It's interesting to see though how other parts of the world how this is playing out, because we can see that countries with more authoritarian tendencies such as Russia and Turkey, they are looking very closely at the Chinese model. So we'll really see I see this is a battle of really some different systems in the 21st century, how we how we manage these big data models on a national and international level. I also think that I completely agree. I also think we've got to do a lot of work when it comes to regulations when it comes to international relationships when it comes to Africa. work that we can apply to this or subset of technologies globally, right? Because if I have data implants, or if I have implants of some kind in me, you know, I've got different things happening. And I go from us to I go to Japan, or I go to India or I go to China, and I should have the same rights or, you know, the governance around having those implants. And so that's very important. I think that a framework be created. Is there somebody who's leading this? Or is there somebody who's creating this framework? Is there a body an organization that's working on this right now or no, not to my knowledge, there is no international initiative on a significant level, there are brilliant technologists and philosophers who are exploring these points, I think that they may not be as influential as we want them to be. But COVID-19 is, of course, a roadblock now in terms of the ongoing globalization, but I think that globalization and international harmonization of laws of travel of industry of business is just it's going to pick up again, sooner or later. It's an inevitable development. And of course, we need to harmonize these things. Otherwise people will vote with their feet and go to places where they feel that they are treated fairly. Absolutely hoping that the next five to 10 years we'll see more development in the world of biohacking. Help us maybe take, you know, the first few steps into biohacking. What should our listeners do about it? Where can they go and read more about it? Or what can they do? I'm not saying they should start experimenting on their bodies with something but what is it? They should? What is the safe way, which is my right, so there are many good things in which you can explore just getting to understand your so let me explain briefly the concept of biohacking specifically for us humans, what we can do is you can measure thanks to new technologies, a lot of things about your body, through wearables and other systems, you can log and understand your system in many good ways, then the hacking comes in first you need to understand the system, then you need to see how you can modify it. If you want to change your vital parameters in various ways your cholesterol are different vitamin levels, etc. You can address that through diet and exercise and supplements, etc. So but I would encourage everyone to, for example, do a DNA test, get an understanding of your own genome don't do this silly ones, like oh, what's my heritage, that's not what this is all about. It's about understanding how your system works, what kind of diseases you're susceptible to what kind of diet and exercise that are actually optimal for you based on your genetics. And in this perspective, I think that everyone should really do a genetic test, because you will learn a lot of interesting things. A rapidly expanding field in genetics is pharmacogenomics. pharmacogenomics, is the fact that your genes, in fact, have a great effect on different medicines that you take. And a lot of people take medicines that don't really have the expected effect, because they have certain gene variants, a lot of doctors subscribe to certain medicines without being aware of whether the patient has that particular gene or not. And if you go to the FDA website, they are have an ever growing list of gene markers that now relate to different medications. So this is a completely new field in research that has just exploded over the last few years simply because we now have access to huge human genome datasets. And I encourage everyone to learn about this technology, what you can do with it, and how it really impacts your life in very important ways. You mentioned the DNA test, is there a specific test stance that people should take like there's, there's probably many of them, there are hundreds online, you can just browse around. Now, if you're concerned about how they use your data, I wouldn't go for a US based one, forgive me. But I'd rather go for a European based one, where you actually own the data, even if it's in the company system. And there are dozens of them online. And so the reasons for doing a genetic test is learn about disease, learn about how you should eat and exercise and most importantly, perhaps learn about what kind of medications you may or may not be suited to taking. And then it's the more cute and little bit silly dimension, which is Oh, what kind of ancestry Do I have and find the distant relatives? That's not for the biohackers? Absolutely. Well, I think that that's an interesting thought for us to go and figure out who we are, first of all, and then get into the second stage of optimizing our body, look into biohacking, see what can enhance our lives our health? You never know what's what's around the corner. A hand is where can people find out more about you? Where can they follow you check out your work, tell us right so I'm on most of the social platforms if they want to find me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, it's harness Sapiens. And I'm very happy to engage with people who are human augmentation and human body modification will give us radically different better future. Amazing. Well, thank you so much Hannah's for being here having this conversation with us. Thank you for being part of Aftershock. It's been incredible sharing the platform with thinkers like yourself, very humbling for me to be part of that special group of people keep doing what you're doing, continue making changes in the world. And hopefully we'll see around the bend after COVID-19. And I completely agree the world is going to bounce back things are going to change and hopefully we'll be stronger, better. And yeah, we'll look forward to catching up with you very shortly. My pleasure. I thank you very much for time you take care. Hey, friends, this is Ian Khan. 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