Posted on 12/03/2004 6:38:26 AM PST by Momaw Nadon
Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.
Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.
I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing.
It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.
And each method to do this is either already working in a preliminary form (in clinical trials) or is based on technologies that already exist and just need to be combined.
This means that all parts of the project should be fully working in mice within just 10 years and we might take only another 10 years to get them all working in humans.
When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age.
We will still die, of course - from crossing the road carelessly, being bitten by snakes, catching a new flu variant etcetera - but not in the drawn-out way in which most of us die at present.
So, will this happen in time for some people alive today? Probably. Since these therapies repair accumulated damage, they are applicable to people in middle age or older who have a fair amount of that damage.
I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.
It is very complicated, because ageing is. There are seven major types of molecular and cellular damage that eventually become bad for us - including cells being lost without replacement and mutations in our chromosomes.
Each of these things is potentially fixable by technology that either already exists or is in active development.
'Youthful not frail'
The length of life will be much more variable than now, when most people die at a narrow range of ages (65 to 90 or so), because people won't be getting frailer as time passes.
The average age will be in the region of a few thousand years. These numbers are guesses, of course, but they're guided by the rate at which the young die these days.
If you are a reasonably risk-aware teenager today in an affluent, non-violent neighbourhood, you have a risk of dying in the next year of well under one in 1,000, which means that if you stayed that way forever you would have a 50/50 chance of living to over 1,000.
And remember, none of that time would be lived in frailty and debility and dependence - you would be youthful, both physically and mentally, right up to the day you mis-time the speed of that oncoming lorry.
Should we cure ageing?
Curing ageing will change society in innumerable ways. Some people are so scared of this that they think we should accept ageing as it is.
I think that is diabolical - it says we should deny people the right to life.
The right to choose to live or to die is the most fundamental right there is; conversely, the duty to give others that opportunity to the best of our ability is the most fundamental duty there is.
There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life. To say that we shouldn't cure ageing is ageism, saying that old people are unworthy of medical care.
Playing God?
People also say we will get terribly bored but I say we will have the resources to improve everyone's ability to get the most out of life.
People with a good education and the time to use it never get bored today and can't imagine ever running out of new things they'd like to do.
And finally some people are worried that it would mean playing God and going against nature. But it's unnatural for us to accept the world as we find it.
Ever since we invented fire and the wheel, we've been demonstrating both our ability and our inherent desire to fix things that we don't like about ourselves and our environment.
We would be going against that most fundamental aspect of what it is to be human if we decided that something so horrible as everyone getting frail and decrepit and dependent was something we should live with forever.
If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image.
Aubrey de Grey leads the SENS project at Cambridge University and also runs the Methuselah Mouse prize for extending age in mice.
Speaking of sleepless nights, consider this scenario:
As you know, products to promote women's sex drive have been in the news, including a patch from Proctor & Gamble called Intrinsa.
However, Katie Couric mentioned on The Today Show this morning that negative side effects from the patch have been reported in women, including increased body hair, acne and a deepened voice.
So, for some real nightmares, imagine a Helen Thomas with an even thicker mustache and deeper voice, now with acne, who is hot to trot with you . . . for 1,000 years!
It was nonsense before this line, but at that line, I just stopped reading.
Thats a great point! Hope its me! Woohoo!
Thanks for the memories. [smirk]
Exactly what I was thinking. Sing me up for regenerative therapy. I'm sure I can stay busy for a 1000 years. After about 150 I'd be ridiculously rich. I imagine in about another 100 years or so private space exploration will be common.
I wonder if even Mama T has enough money to keep Kerry in Botox for the long.
The folks who take Genesis word-for-word will tell you that the OT people lived for many hundreds of years.
In case of boredom break glass.
Not interested. There's going to come a time, many years from now, where I'll want to go on to 'greater adventures' so to speak.
I'm reminded of newspaper accounts from the 60s that predicted flying cars and no more highways by 1980. This kind of stuff is just brain candy and not to be taken seriously.
The same applies to health. The pharmaceutical industry depends on sick people, as does the medical industry and hospitals. It's all a business and making money is the rule of thumb. Who wants healthy people who live too long? There is no money in that.
"I don't know if I want to live in a 40 year old body for the next thousand years."
No kidding! I'm (only) 50 and already cranky!
Oddly enough, you couldn't pay me to be 18 again. Between 25 and 30 would be OK I guess.
"Otherland" is a much better story than "The Matrix" ever tried to be. "The Matrix" is a lot less likely, too - I expect "Otherland"-style VR within the next thirty years or so. Maybe I'll even have a chance to help build it.
Well, some of our cities are powered by nuclear power (we still don't have the fusion thing down yet, but it's getting there) and we do have tv phones. They're not popular on account of how ugly most of us are in the morning, but they do exist and their not too pricey.
No flying cars though. I'm actually grateful for that. I can hardly drive in two dimensions, let alone three! What would the rules be at a 6 way stop?
We should give up on the whole flying car concept and just pave the planet. Then we can all live in floating cities. /8-)
Not if God has anything to say about it!
Accidental death will be the big one, and no amount of bio-engineering will overcome that.
bump
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