Do You Want to Live Forever?

Jamie McCarthy writes "In 1918, Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Daly inspired his weary men to attack by yelling, 'come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?' But how would the world change if we could? This month's Technology Review introduces us to the computer scientist, and self-taught biologist, Aubrey de Grey, who thinks immortality could be within our grasp by 2030. Thinking like an engineer, he's broken aging down into seven specific problems, like cell atrophy and mitochondrial mutation, which he believes can all, in principle, be solved. And he has good reason to think those seven are the only 'bugs' standing in the way of a thousand-year lifespan. De Grey is clearly both a genius and a little nuts, but I'm not sure in what proportion..."

Comments

Nuts, but also well suited for the task

[filmmaker]

As he reviewed the possible reasons why so little progress had been made in spite of the remarkable molecular and cellular discoveries of recent decades, he came to the conclusion that the problem might be far less difficult to solve than some thought; it seemed to him related to a factor too often brushed under the table when the motivations of scientists are discussed, namely the small likelihood of achieving promising results within the period required for academic advancement--careerism, in a word. As he puts it, "High-risk fields are not the most conducive to getting promoted quickly."

The world needs more thinkers like him, even if he's a little nuts. Anyone willing to start his own international symposium after teaching himself micro biology is. Too many professional scholars are pinned into doing research that has immediate market viability and too many researchers are more interested in their own career advancement than the science they're supposed to be advancing. So they play it safe.

Daly dreams of being on the cover of Time magazine I'm sure, ego is almost certainly a factor for him as well, and no doubt a huge payday would follow and major advancement on any of his 7 problems. But it's the all-or-nothing mentality, the fact that he's willing to go for it even if it never pans out, that separates him.

Re:Nuts, but also well suited for the task

[Phillip2]

"Too many professional scholars are pinned into doing research that has immediate market viability and too many researchers are more interested in their own career advancement than the science they're supposed to be advancing. So they play it safe. "

Research is expensive and sadly this is what the funding bodies want nowadays. If you are not interested in your own career advancement, then you will not remain in a job long.

The only other alternatives to this is to either have lots of your own cash to live off. This is, by and large, the way that most early scientists worked. Or you can become a rampant self-publicist . Having a strange physical appearance is a classic sign of this, usually in the facial hair department.

It's a pity. It would be nice if science were the fearless exploration of the unknown, rather than the fearful exporation of the nearly known. But to criticise us for playing safe is not fair. We have families to support. We have to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs, just the same as everyone else.

Phil

Not the right question

[NeoSkandranon]

I believe the proper question at this point isn't "can we" it's "Should we"

Re:Not the right question

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Okay, why shouldn't we?

The same overtone of moral disapproval you express has greeted every major medical advance. And it may take a while for people to hash out, but the overwhelming response in the end is always, "Hell yes, we should!"

Re:Not the right question

[Saige]

You phrased that slightly wrong.

When you ask that question, to make it honest, you should ask "Should YOU live forever?" After all, people who are against such things aren't against it for themselves, they're against it for OTHER PEOPLE.

After all, a person can choose not to get the treatment to live indefinitely, or even commit suicide if they've had enough. They don't need restrictions to keep themselves from the long lifespans. They want them to keep other people from getting them.

Re:Not the right question

[greg_barton]

The same overtone of moral disapproval you express has greeted every major medical advance.

And, especially when it comes to immortality, cause and effect dovetail nicely. The same people who can't see the possibilities in immortality are the same people who wouldn't be able to handle it well themselves.

For instance, one common objection I hear to a 1000+ year lifespan is, "I'd get really bored. What would you do with all that time?" My response is always, "What would you NOT do?" More time opens up more possibilities. So, the people who can't (or won't) see the experiential possibilities a longer lifespan creates also can't (or won't) see the ways out of the social problems it creates.

Re:Not the right question

[bigpat]

I believe the proper question at this point isn't "can we" it's "Should we"

What's with this "we" shit? Speak for yourself.

Re:Not the right question

[samantha]

What makes you think many would be interested in parenting in their 100+ years? Why is it better for resources to be used by new people with less experience and accumulated knowledge than people already alive? Why is it remotely moral to require existing people to die if it is avoidable? What matter of riches will we not be able to create (it is not static you know) with that many additional productive creative years?

And no, the advances will not be just for the rich.

Not really...

[hsmith]

By the time you are in your 70's so much stuff pisses you off that you can barely deal with it. Things change so much from what it was even when you were growning up.

Who wants to live forever, when love must die?

[doublem]

Who wants to live forever, when love must die?

Arch Obler addressed some of the realities of such a life span in one of the episodes of the old radio show "Lights Out".

There was a revolution. The younger generation was tired of being held down by the generation that was in power when immortality became possible. Bereft of political power for hundreds of years, there was a violent and bloody revolt, resulting in the massacre of the older generation.

Can you imagine the state of civil rights if the people running the country in the 1950s were still alive and well?

To an extent, society just doesn't change unless the older generation dies off.

Re:Who wants to live forever, when love must die?

[Neil Watson]

You make a good point. One could also argue that, if we lived a very long time people may stop looking at things so short term. Creating project X may take 80 years but we would all get to see it. Pollution and energy concerns would be taken seriously as they would indeed happen in our lifetime.

Re:Who wants to live forever, when love must die?

[doublem]

WOOT!

I'm glad SOMEONE picked up on this. Notice in my original post, I said:

To an extent, society just doesn't change unless the older generation dies off.

Notice that I dind't say "Advance" or "evolve".

That change isn't necessarily good. You're right about the civil rights example. The changes we're seeing now in America are bad, destructive and counter to the ideals upon which the nation was founded. If the current crop of leaders were granted immortality and ended up trading off on who was president for centuries, things would only get worse.

The point I was getting at, is not so much that one generation is better than the last, but that the BAD generations wouldn't ever die off. The newer generation isn't necessarily any better than those before it, but even with the worst leaders possible, the most destructive, oppressive regimes around, we have the consolation of knowing that sooner or later they'll die. What comes after them won't necessarily be better or worse, but at least there's the opportunity for the worst of us to die off. Of course this means the best of us die off as well, but at least the next generation has the opportunity to learn form the mistakes of the past, without necessarily having the ego of having committed them personally blinding them to the lessons.

Fixing aging

[amstrad]

If we "fix" this whole aging thing, won't we also need to put a stop to this giving birth thing?

I don't think the Catholics are gonna like this very much.

Yes.

[kryzx]

Duh! Of course!
Just think how well my meager investments will be doing after they've had the chance to grow for 100 years! I'll be loaded!

Seriously, I think the money and class issues are the interesting side of this. If it happened there would be a clear class division between those that could afford it and those that couldn't. And for those that could, their wealth could grow without bounds. Our (in the US and most other western countries) society depends on inheritance and the associated taxes, dividing of estates, etc, to redistribute wealth, and this would immediately negate that effect. Anyone with an estate worth much could afford the technology to extend their life, and therefore not pass on the estate.

While it raises all kinds of social issues, on a personal level it means each of us has to try to accumulate enough wealth to get into the category of people that can afford it before the end of our natural lifespan. It's a race against time.

Re:God didn't give us long lifespans for a reason

[east coast]

I want to see what the year 2505 will be like just as much as the next Slashdotter, but it is not meant to be.

And as much as I am seriously a religious person I don't let it stand in the way of the rights of others to choose. Man will play out his destiny and if God has a problem with it I'm sure he can take care of it on his own. I doubt that a group of scientists can stand in the way of God's plan.

Who knows... We of faith may be dead wrong too and that in itself should be reason enough for us to let others "do unto themselves". Instead of bashing people with Bibles (or Korans or Gitas or Necronomicons) we should be tolerant and guide those who desire our guidance.

I don't think this is possible...

[lawpoop]

I can't explain exactly why, but it boils down to something like this. We can keep a car running forever, or maintain a house indefinitely, but at some point someone decides the major overhauls aren't worth it.

Even if you replace every damaged cell, there are still supercellular structures (tissues, organs) that have to be maintained. You are probably going to need a lot of wholesale organ replacement. Living things have elvolved to grow their organs from small or large by multiplying cells in a certain pattern. I'm not sure that cell replacement can adequately maintain that pattern. If you have an old house and you replace each piece of wood as it rots out, small inacuracies will build up over time, and the whole structure will become misshapen, and you will have to replace the whole wall.

I guess the point is that living things were designed to grow, and by that I mean go from small to large, into adult form, and then die. Can maintenance really work? If you look at, say, the spiral pattern on a flower, I think it's fairly easy to get one cell to multiply into that pattern, but then to replace a single petal? A lot of our organs have that branching tree structure. I think it's easier to grow that than to maintain. I don't know if our DNA has a program to replace a section of artery, but it certainly has a program to grow it.

I remember from a radio interview a museum curator said "It's easier to destroy than to create, and it's easier to create than to maintain". I think it will be cheaper to make new people and let the old ones die than it will be to maintain everyone.

Re:Worse than that

[Rei]

Just like the much hyped social security collapse of the early 1980s?

The level of "fix" needed to make social security solvent past 2031 is tiny. Besides, the reason we had (past tense, unfortunately) a social security "surplus" was due to the fact that lifespans *weren't* increasing as expected (among other things). Should they start to change, social security will clearly change to adapt - most likely with a later retirement age. A mere 2 year age boost in the retirement age made most of the difference in the 1980s - if you're living 50, or even 500 years longer, a longer work period should be a given.

Much of the SS calculations, by the way, is rather pessimistic. They assume pretty poor economic growth and population figures.

Re:Actually, it is.

[The Snowman]

Welfare is for lazy trailer trash who can't get off their fat ass to find a job.

Trailer trash such as my mother, who after the divorce was a single mother of five. Trailer trash that worked her ass off, lived in a "house" in the "city." Eventually she got off Welfare, but thank God it was there for us when we needed it. It was not for lack of work ethic that we were on it, it was poor planning on my mother's part.

Social Security is for old people who worked hard and want to retire.

Socialist Security is not for people who want to retire, the benefits are so tiny that all it does is supplement the typically small income our elderly are able to procure. Think about it -- who wants to hire a 70 year old to a six figure job when that person is bordering on senility and has very few productive years left? Age discrimination may be illegal, but it happens. I see a lot of old people working at Wal-Mart and McDonald's. Social Insecurity will barely pay their rent or house insurance, whichever is applicable.

Lots of people are in favor of cutting welfare benefits in the name of forcing these people to get a job and quit being leeches, while very few people want to be seen as "cutting" SS in the eyes of the older voters.

Not everyone on Welfare, Food Stamps, or whatever other public assistance programs are out there are leeches. Some are just in a shitty part of life and need a boost. I have no problem cutting Social Security as long as everyone gets their dues if they want. I plan on denying my Social Security benefits even after paying into the system all my life. Hopefully I won't need them, because I will plan better than my parents did. It may be a drop in the bucket, and more symbolic than anything, but that is doing my part to keep the system from fucking some poor Joe who gets the short end of the stick in 40-60 years.

Re:Doom for Social Security

[overseerbrian]

Given how unhappy I am spending a huge chunk of my week either thinking about work, preparing for work, or working, I have little time to myself and feel that I should compensate myself; additionally, it seems silly to just save the money I've earned, since I wouldn't know what to do with it all. Hence, I buy stupid things that I don't really need and that bring me a small but very transient amount of happiness.

Even though you say it seems silly to save, how about instead of buying stupid things you save the money? Then when you have saved enough, stop working. Take a vaction if you want, or quit and spend a year in another country.