Actress Jane Fonda, 88, delivered a rambling attack on efforts by wealthy tech figures to extend human lifespans while being honored at the DVF Awards on Thursday.
Asked about the growing interest in longevity among what the interviewer called the “global elites,” Fonda responded: “They want to live forever, while they’re killing the rest of us.”
She continued by describing what she called two motives behind the trend. “Most of these guys, these tech bros and these oligarchs and billionaires, they feel that the laws that the rest of us live by don’t matter to them, including the laws of physics. Natural laws. They’re going to live forever. That’s one,” she said.
Fonda then claimed that because these men will supposedly live forever and “can’t have babies,” they will turn to artificial substitutes for reproduction. “The other is that because these guys can’t have babies, they’ll create robots. That’ll be their babies. And they’ll just turn the rest of us into tradwives, who have a lot of babies, too,” she said.
She did not explain why a man who does not age would be unable to father children.
Fonda went on to allege a political consequence of this supposed plan. “Then they’ll take away the vote. Can you believe it?” she said. “And we’re not going to stand for it. They’re not going to win, because we’re not going to stand for it.”
She then tied the issue to climate change, suggesting there is limited time to stop what she described. “The big problem is — and this has never happened in the history of humankind — if this was happening at any other time, you could say: ‘We’re going to win in the end.’ But because of the climate crisis, we don’t have that much time. You know, there’s a point where if it gets too hot, then there’s no going back,” Fonda said.
Fonda has long been an outspoken figure on the left, and her remarks at the DVF Awards quickly drew attention for their disjointed structure, jumping between claims about billionaires defying physics, robotic offspring, forced “tradwife” roles, voter disenfranchisement and climate collapse without connecting them into a coherent argument.
