If you have been following the future of space travel, SpaceX has just achieved one of its primary goals: to reuse a rocket that has been launched into space.
The beautiful landing gives me a hope that we will go further than the Moon in the near future. For Elon Musk, Mars is the goal. He predicts that we’ll be able to get there by sometime in the 2020s. Even if this is optimistic (for a visionary like Musk) it’s a great sign. Traveling to other solar systems and distant galaxies is what many science fiction fans dream of.
In popular sci-fi works such as Alistair Reynold’s Revelation Space, space exploration isn’t just about traversing the vast distances of the universe at nearly the speed of light. Genetic engineering and longevity treatments allow for a variety of human-like races that could live for hundreds of years. We won’t just need better technology . We will need better humans; humans that can live for the long journeys ahead of them. I believe longevity and the treatment of aging will go hand in hand with the next leaps forward. One of the biggest proponents of longevity is Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer and co-founder of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence ) Research Foundation. He is also the author of “Ending Aging“, written in 2007. There are other companies, Human Longevity Inc., and includes Google’s Calico Labs which are joining his endeavor. Essentially, he wants us to live forever with our bodies more or less as they are when we are 25.
He held a symposium with Stephen Sakur from the BBC who normally conducts ‘Hard Talk’ in 2014. Take a look:
Interestingly, de Grey sees aging as a disease, not a natural process. It’s a culmination of the processes that lead to the diseases we most often see in the elderly such as cancer, dementia, and cardiovascular issues, among others. Molecular damage is one of the central points that cause these ‘side effects’ of aging. Preventative maintenance, or rather getting rid of the garbage of the cell, is key to longevity according to de Grey. The crowd at the symposium was anti-longevity, but when de Grey brought up the topic of who would like to have these age-related diseases of course no one did! His point is that you can’t be against the treatment of aging yet in favor of the conditions that come with it.
It looks as if he had a tough time composing himself for a lot of the questions – and I felt his pain. Some of the concerns raised were:
• Why research aging when you can research cancer
• How society will function if people are allowed to hold onto power forever
• We need people to die – there’s too many of us !
• Only the wealthy will get treatment
The first point is ridiculous. It’s similar to asking why fund animal rescues when there is still human suffering in the world. To make the world a better place I think that people should vary their scientific research if it would be overall beneficial. And, as de Grey states, studying aging is indirectly researching cancer as cellular damage is a factor leading up to it.
The second argument is silly as it assumes we just wouldn’t figure out a simple solution. (New laws can be put into place and limits can be set on terms.) We struggle with that today, even with death. Rich and powerful families often hand over their power and influence to the next generation. Take the past royal families or the Soviet Union or even with North Korea. Rarely do many dictators die of old age, so worrying about an immortal dictator is unlikely. Compare this to the suffering we endure as a society from all the age-related diseases. Should we restrict research and insight into something that could help us relieve this suffering especially given these problems that already exist in different forms?
As to the third concern, Sakur says it would be irresponsible to have longevity without a concrete solution. (Again, why limit something that could reduce our collective suffering?) If we could broaden our knowledge about something so vital, should we ignore it until other solutions arise? This could be part of a solution as well, including future colonization of other planets. Setting off into space could solve many problems including the survival of the human race. In 2008, Stephen Hawking said that we should colonize space in 1000 years or else we risk extinction from “wars, accidents, or cosmic catastrophes like an asteroid strike”. Elon Musk agrees with his plans for a colony on Mars in the near future.
As to the last point, the wealthy will no doubt have access regardless of where they are in the world. Indeed, inequality will exist as it does now. However, providing people with the ability to lose their debilitating minds and bodies, de Grey rightly points out that this will pay for itself. Presently, the money we spend on medical care is extraordinary. With an aging population that has less people to care for them, I think it’s important to keep that in mind.
I think it’s fine to be against longevity treatments. Many changes to society would occur but we would inevitably find solutions. Of course, there would be other problems but they would be good problems to have if we could end so much suffering. It may be your belief, based on religious or personal reasons, but to fundamentally oppose researching something that could benefit millions of people is wrong in my opinion. Don’t take the treatments yourself but give others the chance. Don’t hold us back. Let us colonize space; let humanity live on forever.