If you’ve been following the news, you already know that billionaire Jeffrey Epstein is currently in jail on sex assault related charges.
But what you may not have known is that he was obsessed with transhumanism. So says a new story in The New York Times that claims he held group meetings with science luminaries including Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann (the discoverer of the quark), famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, neurologist Oliver Sacks, molecular engineer George M. Church, M.I.T. theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, and many others.
The story offers so many shocking allegations about Epstein’s obsession with transhumanism, and his desire to use his wealth to craft a new reality, that the passages read like something out of a science fiction novel. But, according to the Times, it’s all true. Here are some of the wildest passages…
“Mr. Epstein was willing to finance research that others viewed as bizarre. He told one scientist that he was bankrolling efforts to identify a mysterious particle that might trigger the feeling that someone is watching you.”
“At one session at Harvard, Mr. Epstein criticized efforts to reduce starvation and provide health care to the poor because doing so increased the risk of overpopulation.”
“On multiple occasions starting in the early 2000s, Mr. Epstein told scientists and businessmen about his ambitions to use his New Mexico ranch as a base where women would be inseminated with his sperm and would give birth to his babies… Mr. Epstein’s goal was to have 20 women at a time impregnated at his 33,000-square-foot Zorro Ranch in a tiny town outside Santa Fe.”
“One adherent of transhumanism said that he and Mr. Epstein discussed the financier’s interest in cryonics… Mr. Epstein told this person that he wanted his head and penis to be frozen.”
“At a lunch Mr. Epstein hosted in Cambridge, Mass., he steered the conversation toward the question of how humans could be improved genetically… Mr. Epstein said he was fascinated with how certain traits were passed on, and how that could result in superior humans.”
And those are just the highlights. Reading them in context, and with additional detail, makes the story even more amazing. You can read the full NY Times story here.
