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There is a disease which causes the human body and mind to gradually deteriorate, causing its sufferers to experience discomfort, memory loss, failed health, disfigurement, and severe physical and mental handicaps. It is always fatal, and there is no known cure. The scientific term for this disease is Senescence, though it is more commonly known as aging or growing old. Every single person is born with this condition, and it kills over a million people a year in the U.S. alone.
Thinking of old age as a curable disease seems strange to some people, but great leaps in medical progress over the past few decades are indicating a future where no one will need to suffer the deteriorating physical condition and the dulling of the mind which occur during aging. Scientists may be able to repair this flaw in evolution’s design, and perhaps perpetual youth will become a reality soon enough that you and I might live to enjoy it.
We here at DamnInteresting.com recently had an opportunity to converse with two of the men leading the effort towards the elimination of aging: Mr. Kevin Perrott and Dr. Aubrey de Grey. But we tried not to take up too much of their time, because they have a lot of work to do, and none of us are getting any younger.
Both men are advocates of the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) initiative, which is a to-do list that outlines the obstacles we’ll need to overcome in order to cure aging. SENS is not in the realm of age-defying cosmetics, but rather it is an effort towards the permanent preservation of youthful health in all of humanity.
SENS is subject to a lot of criticism, sometimes regarding the credibility of its founders or the feasibility of the technology… but perhaps the most active area of discussion is in regards to the philosophical implications of a world where eternal youth is a reality. For example, many have expressed concerns that if SENS technology comes to fruition, only the super-rich will have access to this medicine. Dr. de Grey addresses such concerns on his SENS website:
When a cure for aging is developed, people will want it really quite badly — more than they want cures for other things that can only extend their lives by a few years. The problem with democracy is that it only works well for issues that a lot of people really really care about, enough to determine whom they vote for. Contemporary medicine just doesn’t quite achieve that — the economy always beats it. But that won’t be true of a cure for aging. As soon as a real cure becomes widely anticipated — let alone actually developed — it will become impossible to get elected other than on a platform incorporating a Manhattan project to expedite a cure, both in terms of its development and in terms of its dissemination.
He also responds to worries that the world will encounter massive over-population:
Put yourself in the position of someone powerful — the prime minister of France, for example — in, say, 1870 or so, when Pasteur was going around saying that hygiene could almost entirely prevent infant deaths from infections and death in childbirth. In your position, you have some influence over how quickly this knowledge gets out — and, thus, how quickly lives start being saved. But you realise that the sooner people start adhering to these principles and washing their hands and so on, the sooner the population will start exploding on account of all those children not dying. What would you have done? — got the information out as soon as possible, or held it back as best you could in order to delay the population crisis?
He doesn’t always offer a solution to these issues, but he makes a very good point: If humanity finds a cure for senescence, it will cause a bumpy transition… it will turn society upside-down and create a host of new problems which the people of the world will need to sort out. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing, because the benefits certainly outweigh the drawbacks. In short, to avoid this area of research for fear of society’s reaction would be gravely irresponsible.
It’s important to note that SENS will not offer immortality, only the prevention of aging-related effects. So the estimated lifespan of a human will increase dramatically, but it won’t be infinite. People will still die from accidents, murder, war, suicide, disease, and all of the other non-age-related causes of death we all deal with today. The difference is that everyone will have the opportunity to keep a healthy body and a sharp mind until the day they die, regardless of their age.
The Interview
Aubrey de Grey is a researcher in the employ of Cambridge who is infamous as the architect of the SENS initiative. Kevin Perrott is the Executive Director of The Methuselah Mouse Prize competition (MPrize), which is a multi-million dollar bounty on the head of senescence.
DamnInteresting.com: With this research underway, do you anticipate seeing your 150th birthday?
Kevin: I’m fairly hopeful, but we are only at the very beginning of what might be a very long process and “there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip” as my grandfather used to say. Such developments that will enable me to live to 150 may only arrive after I’m dead which would be a pity, but then at least I’d have had a shot at it which is a darn sight more than any other generation has ever had. I’m very much more certain that the next generation will certainly see lifespans of at least 150 years and am dedicating myself to ensuring that day arrives as soon as possible.
Aubrey: I think I’d put the chance of my reaching 150 at around 30-40%. I’m very healthy in the ways that seem to matter for aging (insulin sensitivity, levels of oxidised molecules in my blood, that sort of thing), so I think I have at least a 50% chance of reaching 90 without any medical treatment over and above what’s available today. If the rate of progress against age-related diseases and frailty continues at current rates, I probably have an 80% chance of making 90. I think there’s also a 50% chance that there will be treatments available in 25 or 30 years that will be able to double the remaining lifespan of people who naturally have 30 years left in them, and that will include me it I’m right about the above, since I am only 42 at present. So that would get me to 125 or so. And I think there’s probably a 90% chance that people who benefit from those therapies will achieve “escape velocity” — the therapies will be improved faster then the remaining flaws in them catch up with us, and more or less every person who reaches 125 will reach 150. So multiplying all that together, I get to around 30-40%.
DamnInteresting.com: How are your organization’s ideas generally received by scientists working in more traditional areas of study?
Aubrey: It’s necessary to distinguish between the Mprize and SENS here. SENS is still in the early stages of being understood well enough by my colleagues to allow them to comment expertly on it (though a few of them have been inclined to comment anyway!). The Mprize, on the other hand, is seen as a legitimate and imaginative way to raise the profile of aging research without trivialising it. That’s why I was able to get such top experts onto the scientific advisory board and why several equally eminent people have signed up as competitors or potential competitors.
Kevin: I’m actually surprised given the subject matter at how well the idea is received in traditional scientific circles. Aging is after all, very traditional, and to say that we shouldn’t tolerate the dysfunction that occurs through time is akin to saying pigs can fly to some. It should be noted that the idea of curing aging is better understood by traditional sciences more involved with physics and engineering than biogerontology. To an engineer, aging is a problem to be solved, while to most biogerontologists, (not all), it is an intellectual puzzle to be deciphered. However, no matter what the motivation for the study of aging, the application of research to decreasing the suffering of the elderly will be welcomed by all.
DamnInteresting.com: Does death provide any known useful benefit to the biosphere which would need to be satisfied through artificial means if SENS is realized (For example, does a limited lifespan prevent diseases from adapting indefinitely to the point that they become an insurmountable threat)?
Aubrey: It’s as good as certain that no such benefit exists. For one thing, every other species is going to carry on with its current lifespan — so really the only way we could have this problem is as a health problem for humans. But that makes the argument circular, because if indefinite lifespans did make us unable to prevent the appearance of really bad diseases then those diseases would start killing lots of us and the problem would solve itself.
Kevin: Death serves no purpose except to provide fertilizer, something which can be obtained almost ad infinitum from other sources. As Aubrey said, if death provides some benefit, the problem will solve itself. The only way to really see if this non-intuitive proposition has any merit is to deal with the rather large burden of death and suffering due to age-related disease and see what happens, something I think most would be happy to be around to determine.
DamnInteresting.com: Do your theories encounter any friction from religious groups?
Kevin: Very little actually. Most religions value human compassion and have pretty strict prescriptions commanding them to lessen suffering where they can. There doesn’t seem to be a religious imperative to die that anyone has pointed out to me although I have seen many which tell them to live. If you know of any that seem to indicate death is an obligation, please send it to me. Extending the healthy human lifespan seems to be quite compatible with religious thought. Even if some people take their dogma and try to make a nihilist argument with them, most will not. Extended lifespans are really no threat to religions which have shown themselves to be quite adaptable and will evolve as they have managed to evolve over the centuries to accommodate all sorts of social change.
Aubrey: Remarkably little. As the world’s most high-profile researcher into extreme life extension I would have expected more opposition from such groups, notwithstanding Kevin’s absolutely correct point that religions if anything instruct their followers to pursue the elimination of age-related decline because it causes suffering. Maybe as the research starts to show real results and the general public start to believe that it’ll really happen, this sort of opposition will increase. I hope it won’t, of course, but we’re ready to meet it if it does.
DamnInteresting.com: Are you a religious person?
Aubrey: I’m agnostic — I don’t think that religion is contradictory to science. But I also know I’m living my life in just the same way as I would if I were sure that God did or didn’t exist, so I don’t think about it much.
Kevin: I believe there is a God, but beyond that I really don’t speculate as I find that I am most effective in helping others when I focus on practical rather than metaphysical considerations. The suffering of aging is universal and cuts those of all faiths (and those of no faith) with the same knife and the hope of lessening that suffering reaches past any barrier.
DamnInteresting.com: Can the SENS treatments theoretically reverse aging? That is, can a person who is elderly when SENS comes to fruition have their youthful appearance and vigor restored?
Kevin: Certainly, but the farther along they are in the aging process, the more work will need to be done and the more difficult and dangerous (and lengthy) the process will be. It should also be noted that the first generation SENS oriented therapies will be crude and risky in comparison to refined versions that will come later. Only the most desperate will want to try them, but with demonstrated efficacy, they will rapidly improve.
Aubrey: Kevin has it absolutely right. One other corollary of this is that if you’re only 50 or so when the first SENS therapies arrive, and you’re in pretty good shape, it may be safest to delay treatment for five or ten years while the therapies are refined, because you’re not very likely to die in that time from aging and these first therapies might do more harm than good. Twenty years down the road, the therapies will be safe enough that 50 will be an ideal age to start treatment — maybe even 40 if you have a predisposition to one or another major age-related disease.
DamnInteresting.com: What about reactions from men and women in the medical profession? Perpetual youth is the ultimate realization of medicine, but it will put a lot of doctors out of business.
Kevin: Quite the opposite, the development and application of real anti-aging medicine will require a huge increase in number and training of doctors. I think it would be fair to say that their role will evolve, but not at all be obviated. Staying alive takes a lot more work and consumes more resources then being dead and doctors help us when the unknown happens, and the unknown will always happen. There will always be a need for doctors, freedom from age-related death doesn’t mean freedom from disease or make anyone invulnerable.
DamnInteresting.com: Has your group researched the possibility that the human brain has a maximum capacity for information? Dr. de Grey touches on this in his FAQ, stating that we “forget” less important memories, but does medical evidence support the notion that forgetting a memory releases that storage space in the brain?
Aubrey: The way we store memories (including things that aren’t exactly facts, like our personality) is still something we know incredibly little about. But psychologists have done research on what the elderly remember about their lives, and there turns out to be a “reminiscence bump” (that’s what they call it!) — people tend to remember things that happened in adolescence and early adulthood better than earlier or later events, except that events in the most recent few years are also better recalled. One explanation for this is that the age of the bump is when the most interesting/memorable things are happening to people; and the second bump (the memory of recent events) shows that people are laying down new memories in favour of less recent, unused ones. How this works at the cellular and molecular level is a big research area, but it does work.
DamnInteresting.com: How much consideration (if any) does the MPrize organization give to the possibility of abandoning the “human machine” altogether? If progress in computing and prosthetics outpaces medicine, it may be possible to store one’s consciousness within a completely artificial, maintainable vehicle before SENS is fully realized.
Kevin: But would you be ‘you’ inside such a vehicle, or just a ‘copy’?.. and would ‘you’ even care about such a detail at that point? Certainly, the questions of the nature of consciousness and the possibility of duplicating our own within a computer are not new, but they are not much closer to being answered than when they were first asked. The Mprize is involved completely in using the tools we have at hand today to address the biological problem of aging and have really focused on this as a possibility. I do however look forward to a day when my computer asks, “Who am I?” and “Google your own News.”
Aubrey: Most thinkers in this area tend to talk these days in terms of a step-by-step progression to ceasing to be made out of meat. The big unknown is of course whether the brain can “run” at all on hardware other than its natural one. Personally I’m a first-things-first sort of guy, so I’m more focused on the more mundane approach of cleaning up the damage of aging fast enough to maintain youth.
DamnInteresting.com: Although it seems counterintuitive, some argue that perpetual youth might increase society’s respect for life since death would no longer be an absolute. Consequently, some people predict that murder, suicide, and wars would all see dramatic declines if a cure for aging is ever found. Would you agree with this notion?
Aubrey: Yes, I think we will indeed respect life much more and the world will be far less violent. It’s also possible that we’ll become very averse to risk of accidental death as well as premeditated death, which could have drawbacks, but I think we’ll find ways to handle that — for sure it’s not an important enough problem to justify our not trying to develop these therapies as fast as possible.
Kevin: I think the value of life will definitely go up as people gain longer lifespans. What people value with regards to aging, is the potential for being productive which is afforded by time. The closer you get to the ‘end’ the less potential you have and subsequently less perceived ‘value’. I’ve always found it interesting that the symptoms of accelerated aging in children with Progeria is seen as something horrific while those same symptoms in an elderly individual barely draw comment. As lives lengthen and the potential contribution of the elderly increases, seeing that growing potential diminished by suffering will be viewed as a loss that society can ill afford.
DamnInteresting.com: Does your organization worry that the technology to cure aging may also halt any natural evolution in humankind?
Aubrey: Not at all. Human evolution is happening a lot faster now than it used to, because of the changes to our vulnerability that have resulted from the discovery of hygiene, antibiotics and so on. Lots of aspects of SENS will use genetic manipulation, so we’ll be evolving as a result of our own medicine, without needing to rely on chance and selection the way evolution has always done so far. Whether that’s “natural” depends on your definition, I think — I would say that all human activity is natural, because humans themselves are natural.
Kevin: Our quite naturally evolved intelligence has enabled us to develop technologies to overcome our biological limitations and thrive in environments which we could never otherwise survive in. Far from limiting natural human evolution, technology enables and accelerates it.
DamnInteresting.com: Can the average individual do anything to help further SENS research and/or the MPrize?
Kevin: Absolutely. Donate to the Mprize or to SENS research directly. Any amount, and I’m serious… ANY amount. Get your name on the donors list and put an optional testimonial and photo up to show others you believe aging is a legitimate target for medical intervention. Just as importantly, read a lot and tell others what you know. Don’t be put off or surprised at the responses you receive if they are negative. Hopeless people tend to not like having their hopelessness pointed out. Most of all, if you have elderly loved ones, a mother, a father or favorite ‘uncle’ or ‘aunt’, hug them and hold onto them tight, even if they wonder why, and if you can, don’t let go. The world needs them now, more than ever.
Aubrey: What he said. Also, look out for new initiatives in 2006 regarding the involvement of the Methuselah Foundation in funding targeted research in SENS areas.
The Prize
Currently at over $3 million, portions of the MPrize are offered to researchers who can produce mice which outlive the current longevity record-holders, and to those researchers who develop treatments which rejuvenate mice that are already late in development. Such laboratory techniques could eventually be translated into treatments for humans, or so the theory goes. The MPrize is a clever way of increasing awareness of the SENS initiative, and giving researchers some motivation to work in this area of study.
The ultimate realization of SENS would offer enormous benefits to humanity… No rest homes, no Alzheimer’s disease, no cataracts, no degradation in memory or brain power, no need for social security, and no more spending one’s adult years on a long, steady decline. Sign me up.
If the MPrize is successful in increasing research in SENS and the elimination of aging, we could begin to see the initial technologies appearing within the next few decades. When lifespans become indefinite, we’ll have to revise the old axiom which states that nothing is certain but death and taxes. Perhaps in a perfect world, nothing is certain.
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All of this brings one word to my mind: Overpopulation
If overpopulation is a concern, for those timid folks, let them do their part “suicide”.
The idea seems fascinating but one point is to be considered. When the human body ages, the mind ages with it as well. Thus, what you found intresting at 20 may not be as intresting 30 and not necessarily due to physical limitations imposed by the body but because of the mind not being intrested in it anymore. Perpetual youth may not be as desirable in this case after all.
If it becomes possible to reverse the aging process, does that mean I can perpetually abuse my liver and keep having it rejuvinated?
What does this mean for retirement? When do I get my 401k?
How soon can someone come up with never ending funding so we can just kick back and enjoy our never ending youth?
Chanticrow said: “If it becomes possible to reverse the aging process, does that mean I can perpetually abuse my liver and keep having it rejuvinated?
Yes, if you’re willing and able to pay for it.
What does this mean for retirement? When do I get my 401k?
Retirement and employment could be done in shifts… work for ten years, then take five years off. Lather, rinse, repeat.
How soon can someone come up with never ending funding so we can just kick back and enjoy our never ending youth?”
As soon as we have a perpetual motion machine to print all that money.
Now this is damn interesting. Free radicals working on the elimination of free radicals. It would be great to remain young and vibrant. I think these fellows have their work cut out for them. Good luck and may it occur in my time.
I’m still debating. Do I really want to live that long?
I agree with indra. I’ve seen history channel shows about World War 1 that have actual WW1 vets being interveiwed. Those guys look miserable. I don’t think that I would want to live to be that old. Every story has an end.
yes overpopulation. but often people think in isolation. timothy leary arrived at a rather interesting direction for humanity and that is S.M.I2.L.E. or Space Migration. Intelligence Increase. Life Extension.
If we start migrating into space or at least putting some of out industry up there there’ll be a lot more room. Space is pretty damn big and has a fair few raw materials to support an expanding humanity.
Intelligence Increase because if we’re gonna live longer and go farther we need to be a lot less stupid. Instead of being the guy who stands at the back saying “it can never be done. think of all the problems.” Be the guy blazing the trail, dealing with the problems when he gets to them. Nobody remembers the naysayers. They remember guys like Aubrey and Kevin. So get smarter and do it it quick.
Life Extension. Because yeah those old guys are miserable because they’re old and in pain. Trust me I’ve worked in a care home with the elderly and it’s horrible to see what advanced aging does. I guarentee that almost every one of those people in that home would have given everything to have their pain, memory loss and generall decline reveresed..
Also another point you don’t have to live for 200 years you can live to 95 but in excellent health. Still i suspect that if you reached 95 and had the body and mind of a 30 year old you wouldn’t be so quick to end it all.
and remember SMILE.
Chanticrow said: “If it becomes possible to reverse the aging process, does that mean I can perpetually abuse my liver and keep having it rejuvinated?
What does this mean for retirement? When do I get my 401k?
How soon can someone come up with never ending funding so we can just kick back and enjoy our never ending youth?”
You might enjoy reading Peter F Hamilton´s Misspent Youth, and Pandora´s Star … that is the kind of art that this life is trying to emulate.
My question would be with regards to crime. Today, a person will live a relatively short (and certainly finite) amount of time, averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 years, a portion of which is likely going to be spent at a lower quality. However, when life extends further, twice or three times as long or more, and with a higher quality throughout, the crime of murder, disfigurement, etc. seems to be significantly more heinous. If I get shot and killed tonight, someone has taken probably 40 good years from me and my family. As life spans near 150, 200, you are talking about stealing over 100 years of good quality life from someone.
Just a rambling. As the article says, any significant change in the length of quality life will cause quite a fundamental shift in the way alot of things are done and thought of on this planet.
I wonder if this all pans out, will selective breeding be enforced? Would people with “inferior genes” be left out, in the name of furthering mankind?
Although this all sounds great, I think I’ll just live the life I have now, and not really worry about living to be 150. A couple fun years would beat out 150 boring ones, but I’m just a thrillseeking teenager.
Alan Bellows said:
Retirement and employment could be done in shifts… work for ten years, then take five years off. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Hooray! I’m almost due. :)
I want to like this idea, but it brings up the “only the rich stay young” problem again. The ten on, five off thing is something that, with proper planning, anyone could do today. I’m imagining an America filled with workers living paycheck to paycheck, trying to get ahead of the bills, hating their jobs but unable to quit because they’re perpetually young and able to work, and do work so they can pay off the mortgage, the car note, and their revujenation treatments.
Depending on the cost, how much more will the rich fight to stay rich so they can stay young. With the ability to stay young do we start fearing death more and more as it becomes more of an unknown, thus go to farther extremes to maintain that youth?
Then again, I’m all about supporting those that produce a good product. When they figure this perpetual youth thing out someone will have to pay for it, and guys like Kevin and Aubrey will deserve every penny.
I could go on and on about it as it’s a fascinating concept to me.
Thanks for the response and the book referrals. Your site is by far my favorite to read.
Chanticrow said: “The ten on, five off thing is something that, with proper planning, anyone could do today. I’m imagining an America filled with workers living paycheck to paycheck, trying to get ahead of the bills, hating their jobs but unable to quit because they’re perpetually young and able to work, and do work so they can pay off the mortgage, the car note, and their revujenation treatments.”
You COULD do ten-on-five-off today, but then you’d have no money to live on once you’re too broken down by age to earn a living. If you were always young, you wouldn’t have to worry about that eventuality.
As for mortgages and stuff, you’d be better off with perpetual youth than you are now… you’d still be young and healthy by the time you finished paying your house off. Today, if a thirty-year-old buys a house on a thirty-year loan, he/she is sixty years old when it’s paid for, which doesn’t leave a lot of years to enjoy being free of the debt.
I find it curious how many people are against the idea of perpetual youth (not that I’m suggesting you’re against it, Chanticrow). Will there be social problems? Absolutely. But they’ll be everybody’s problems, so we’ll be motivated to work together to resolve them. Is it worth the effort? I think so. But I suppose that people who aren’t interested won’t be around very long anyway… Natural Selection will see its finest hour.
Living Forever ON EARTH is actually a Bible Teaching and it is a central teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Natural Selection will not be the manner as to who will and will not have this opportunity; God Through Jesus Christ will make that choice. Zephaniah 2:3; Revelation 20:12, 21:3,4; John 5:28,29; Acts 24:15; John 10:27,28; John 11:25,26; Matthew 25:32
However, these scientists do recognize that our lives are being cut short by aging and illness and really, should not be.
Well I think you guys at Damn Interesting have made a name for yourselfs. I was watching 60 minutes last night and saw this exact topic as one of the segments with Dr. Aubrey de Grey being interviewed. So is 60 minutes now going to get their story ideas from you guys? Congratulations Damn Interesting!!!
Vishal said: “The idea seems fascinating but one point is to be considered. When the human body ages, the mind ages with it as well. Thus, what you found intresting at 20 may not be as intresting 30 and not necessarily due to physical limitations imposed by the body but because of the mind not being intrested in it anymore. Perpetual youth may not be as desirable in this case after all.”
Vishal – I think this would be a self-limiting problem. Since I highly doubt we will take to strapping people down and forcing them to take rejeuvanation treatments, if someone has simply ceased to find life interesting, they will not take the treatments. Plus humans have a tendancy to die of their own accord under those circumstances. Show me an elderly person who has truly lost all interest in life, and I’ll give you high odds that they’ll be dead inside of a few years, and not necessarily due to direct effects of aging.
JustAnotherName said: “Living Forever ON EARTH is actually a Bible Teaching and it is a central teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Natural Selection will not be the manner as to who will and will not have this opportunity; God Through Jesus Christ will make that choice. Zephaniah 2:3; Revelation 20:12, 21:3,4; John 5:28,29; Acts 24:15; John 10:27,28; John 11:25,26; Matthew 25:32
However, these scientists do recognize that our lives are being cut short by aging and illness and really, should not be.”
Wow, JAM, I’m glad you said something about this earth being here. Still, it will not be the earth anyone sees now, nor the kinds of “humanity” we know either.
Please please PLEASE answer this, does it mean you get to look 25, not for 1 year but for say 10?
This is great. Im 16 right now, so if what theyre saying is correct this might be available “to buy” when Im around 35-40 ,so that means if I was in good health I could get it when Im 50, does that mean I will look 50 for 50 more years? Not become 25 again? I think Im confusing my self now.
440Fronte|htid| said: “Please please PLEASE answer this, does it mean you get to look 25, not for 1 year but for say 10?”
Eventually, the technology should be available to “reset” your physical age to about 20 years old at any time. So you could undergo the procedure every 10 years and have the body of a man in his twenties for your entire life. That’s the idea, anyway.
Alan Bellows said: “Eventually, the technology should be available to “reset” your physical age to about 20 years old at any time. So you could undergo the procedure every 10 years and have the body of a man in his twenties for your entire life. That’s the idea, anyway.”
Woah. That is just so..Ive never in my life thought I will experience and see something like this. Better stack up on money now .
The entire population of planet Earth could fit into the state of Texas. I would worry more about the diseases something like this could spawn, or viruses that would mutate. If it is extending my life it could also strengthen the things inside me which are harmful.
As far as space exploration extending humanity, it would work but there needs to be more reasearch, and more importantly IMPLEMENTATION of such research in alternative energy.
It’s really interesting how fast things are moving and how people’s attitudes towards the acceptance of aging as a necessary fixture of life are changing. There are a lot more individuals willing to entertain the idea that getting old and frail might be optional and that this would be a good thing. That this more optimistic viewpoint is not the default is a testament to just how fatalistic the average is person is, inventing reasons why aging is ‘good’ for society, or at least how having less suffering and more happiness in the world could be bad. That there will be necessarily a lot of changes going from a culture and society which tolerates 100,000 deaths per day, to one which treats wisdom and experience as the hard won resources they are, is an obvious conclusion. That this is the natural progression of the compassionate application of medical science in the reduction of human suffering is again an obvious direction or technological innovation. The really nonsensical premise that suffering should be tolerated and people treated as disposable is certain to be a waning one as we increasingly demonstrate that we are able to prevent them.
For those who like numbers, think about what other things a healthy elderly population might do with the 250 billion dollars a year, (and dramatically increasing all the time), spent in the U.S. on giving the elderly some dignity and quality of life. Most of the this money is spent in the last year of life, about 80%. With this amount of capital freed and elderly people who are productively engaged in society instead of waiting for some disease to hit them, healthy life-extension makes practical as well as moral sense. As Aubrey says, there are really no ‘problems’ associated with having people live extended healthy life-spans that could not be dealt with which justify allowing the carnage of disease to continue if we can avoid it.
Many thanks for the wonderful article and the great responses from your readers. It’s always a pleasure meeting someone who understands and grasps our goals. Happily an increasingly common circumstance.
Kevin Perrott
Executive Director
The Mprize
http://www.mprize.org
How much would these therapies cost?
Superwoman said:
One of the more relevant concerns.
It’s difficult to say how much such therapies would cost as they do not exist yet. Initially however, as with pretty much any new experimental technologies, they will be expensive, and likely not all that effective. Only the most desperate individuals who can afford them will attempt them. Adult stem cell treatments in countries like Thailand which are showing some benefits to congestive heart failure patients is an example.
As the treatments prove themselves to be even marginally effective and people realize their potential, the universality of aging will be reflected in the huge demand for the development of more effective and cheaper technologies. They will rapidly come down in price and be made much more widely available than any other technology prior simply because people won’t stand to be left out.
Time is the most valuable commodity. NO amount of money can yet purchase more of it for someone who has run out. If I were to lie dying and might gain the opportunity to live to see the wedding or birthday of a loved one by spending every dime I had, my decision would be an easy one. Once the door is cracked and the proof of prinicple demonstrated (and indeed it already has to a large degree) that aging is not ‘inevitable’, we will see rapid advances to a world which will look back on our time and wonder how awful it was to have no option but to fall apart.
Kevin Perrott
Executive Director
The Mprize
http://www.mprize.org
Is it not obvious that everything in the world would get better if everyone lived for so much linger? Think of the basics:
Environment – not just about our children’s future, but our own.
Technology – we begin to care about things that will be available in 50 years – we’ll be there.
Scientific endeavour – scientists will be less limited in their own frailty in completing research.
General lifestyle – why would anyone spend their life doing one job, when you could easily try different ones until you find one you love.
At the very least, life would be better if we had the same lifespan, but could be fully functional throught it.
kevinperrott said: “It’s really interesting how fast things are moving and how people’s attitudes towards the acceptance of aging as a necessary fixture of life are changing. There are a lot more individuals willing to entertain the idea that getting old and frail might be optional and that this would be a good thing. That this more optimistic viewpoint is not the default is a testament to just how fatalistic the average is person is, inventing reasons why aging is ‘good’ for society, or at least how having less suffering and more happiness in the world could be bad. That there will be necessarily a lot of changes going from a culture and society which tolerates 100,000 deaths per day, to one which treats wisdom and experience as the hard won resources they are, is an obvious conclusion. That this is the natural progression of the compassionate application of medical science in the reduction of human suffering is again an obvious direction or technological innovation. The really nonsensical premise that suffering should be tolerated and people treated as disposable is certain to be a waning one as we increasingly demonstrate that we are able to prevent them.
I wholeheartedly agree.. I find it amazing that we could be so close to mankinds ultimate dream, and still worry about the negative aspects. Overpopulation? So? I’ll share a room with 150 people if i have to(I’ve done it before), but I’ll be alive to enjoy it. Diseases? Quite probably. But if i am alive an extra 50 years than i would have been, so be it. It was a net gain.
Of course i can see bad things occuring. Bad things happen when knew achievements arise. But to see the extension of healthy human life regarded as anything but a good thing is ridiculous in the extreme.
The only scenario in which it would be bad is if, regardless of the refinements made, it was still out of reach of the majority of the population.
I for one, am absolutely ecstatic at the possibilities, especially from a religious nature. I am an athiest.. Regardless of my studies I simply cannot bring myself to believe in an afterlife. All that waits for me beyond death is oblivion. Admittedly, this wouldn’t be bad, as I couldn’t care if i didn’t exist, but I would much prefer to last as long as I possibly could.
WOW! This is DAMN INTERESTING! What is with humankind’s inherent fear of death? Not even our OWN deaths, but of the death of others. Braindead/comatose vegetables are kept on life-support devices for YEARS because THAT is better than DEATH!? Now we have the capability on the horizon to stop the march of time itself… This may sound like an inhumane rant, but someone has got to point out the obvious.
Could not some immune super-virii also spawn a pandemic? For surely if they can kill those rich enough to afford biogerontological therapy, then what of the rest of the population? Now we’ve gone from the idea of possible overpopulation, to instigating our own genocide. What of other UNFORSEEN detriments to genetically altering ourselves to reverse aging… if we can change that, what else could we change…. the non-health-related possibilities of this technology are as vast as the intended ones……
As far as I see it, there will be a lot of sociological issues to overcome, but such has been the case with any advancement mankind has made. For instance, the Industrial Revolution brought about a lot of issues with work safety, child labor, etc. that weren’t there before, but we learned how to deal with the problems that came with our new found technologies and now couldn’t imagine having abandoned those technologies in fear of the problems that came with them.
Many problems will come with any new age, foreseeable and unforeseeable, no matter what, but we’ll work through them. Frankly, I’m more concerned with other, more immediate problems with society–such as the ubiquitous expectation of instant gratification for minimal effort that has pervaded American society, which could possibly be improved through longer lifespans, but would not be entirely an automatic byproduct of such–or even the less threatening but nevertheless present issues of our current Information Age, such as net neutrallity, intellectual property laws, data piracy, identity theft, etc.–than with the possible negative side-effects of what would be one of the greatest steps mankind has ever taken.
Alan Bellows said: “Yes, if you’re willing and able to pay for it.
great. let the rich people live. FOREVER!
this has to be one of the most stupid ideas i have ever heard and i was educated in a public school in somerset!
if this plan happened, the earth would be in serious trouble, overpopulation is bad enough as it is without you people preventing deaths bar all accidents.
this is not an idea from a group of poeple who truly want to better the world, it is merely a scheme to get money from people who think you’re here to help.
we should not think of old age as a disease, beacuse it isn’t, it’s inevitable no matter how much you would like to change that. preventing all natural deaths any longer than doctors already have would be upsetting the natural balance of the universe and a few silly school boy ideas do not give you the right to distort the way things are meant to be!
So, the “natural balance of the universe” is for all of humanity to suffer for years, then slowly waste away and die terribly? If preventing one of the largest causes of suffering on the entire planet is “a few silly school boys ideas”, then those schoolboys you’re talking about must be unimaginably intelligent. If this treatment works, and you don’t want to take it for fear of upsetting the natural balance, thats your right, but don’t try to impose your absurd beliefs on the rest of us who would prefer not to die. And how is it a scheme to get money when these scientists are investing so much of their own lives into research they may not live to see the results of?
It’s true that the mind evolves as well but this doesn’t mean that you would completely lose interest in anything were you to live longer. You would just have new interests and the vitality to persue those interests. I wonder what the world would be like if all of our elderly still had life in them to acheive new goals. They provide experience and wisdom that a younger person just does not have.
Promotions within a company would be much harder to come by though since no one would NEED to retire. You couldn’t just wait for your boss to get too old to do their job so you can have it, which brings about another problem besides just overpopulation: unemployment.
Whatever the problems though I don’t think that we should stop a great idea just because of the possibility of problems. The good far outweighs the bad in this case.
Major problems:
– overpopulation
– carbon footprint
– adequate retirement planning
– “quality of life” aka many years of enfeeblement.
Personally I think we’re further on the path to get ourselves killed via war than we are to getting a cure to aging. I consider myself a person of Faith an unfortunately that means much of my perspective is colored through that lense. I happen to find the lense enlightening. I look forward to the day when the bearer of Truth returns and babylon falls into a pile of rubble.
Unlike the JW view of “anotherveiwpoint” I think that someone with the truth isn’t ever afraid of new discoveries. See, truth is truth. And when we find it, we should embrace it. If you want to argue age from a religious point of view, then take for example the stated ages of the original generations on earth. These people are said to have lived 1000 years (almost).
This, however, isn’t a religious discussion. This is a scientific discussion which in now way actually threatens any religion (unless its a religion based on science which states that currently known facts must remain the same and no new discoveries can be made). That being said, I hope we do discover great things to lessen suffering and lengthen our lives.
The reverse in aging will be a process which changes as time marches on. Once some issues are resolved and people start to hit 150 and 200 there will be a trend of a new thing killing people…a failure of some kind that would never occur in someone merely 100. They will then be faced with fixing those as well. It will be the unforseen obsticles that will prevent true perpetual life for a long time. I have no problem hoping that things change.
Here are a few things we could do right now.
1)quit allowing MONEY to govern us. (awe crap, thats a doozy)
Why?
I think its obvious. Money drives people to do things that they KNOW aren’t good for the public but they put a shiny face on it and grease a few palms and its done.
Can we name examples of this that affects negative health concerns in any of these markets?
-energy (why is oil still the major energy source? money)
-food/agriculture (why is sugar from CORN the cheapest form of sugar and used in everything? MONEY)
-medicine (why is research and implementation limited?MONEY)
-housing (old poisonous homes full of asbestos, lead, etc are still EVERYWHERE and why? MONEY) Some people don’t have housing at all and live in rude shelters… think about how that effects health.
we could immediately:
remove high fructose cornsyrup from the world
remove MSG (a “natural flavor” additive in most foods that drives cravings/obesity/over eating)
stop frying stuff in oil (but its so yummy)
to get to this eutopian society we will need to learn to:
-Share freely – this is necessary to get away from a money (selfishness) driven society which rapes the environment, generates insurmountable amounts of trash (and is very short sighted) and move toward an environment friendly, wasteless, long term oriented society. When resources are at a premium and preservation is looked upon as noble, we’ll see people preserve things rather than destroy (unless its part of a recycling process).
This won’t happen.
People are too short sighted
People are too greedy and want stuff NOW
People cannot put down the twinkies and fast food.
Oh, and I might add. People are too pessimistic ;)
Im not interested in extending life expectancy, but the idea of being in my prime for 40 years instead of about 10 is very intriguing.
Altruism isn’t the answer to life’s problems. This was the basic idea behind most communist regimes, which created low standards of living, no prosperity. If one cannot gain wealth through the use of innovation, innovation will wither and die.
Getting rid of money isn’t the answer. Money doesn’t govern us, people do. Money is a tool, and a necessary one. The creation and use of money as a way of representing goods was one of the greatest inventions of all time. It allowed civilization to grow in ways not previously possible.
What is that I hear?
The latests “Malthus vs. Böserup FIGHT NIGHT”?
I’m excited…
p.s. followup on the progress in this article?