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Aging Is a Disease; Treat It Like One
theodp writes "In a letter to Sergey Brin, Maria Konovalenko urges the Google founder to pursue his interest in the topics of aging and longevity. 'Defeating or simply slowing down aging,' writes Konovalenko, 'is the most useful thing that can be done for all the people on the planet.' Calling for research into longevity gene therapy, extending lifespan pharmacologically, and studying close species that differ significantly in lifespan, Konovalenko says 'it is crucial to make numerous medical organizations recognize aging as a disease. If medical organizations were to recognize aging as a disease, it could significantly accelerate progress in studying its underlying mechanisms and the development of interventions to slow its progress and to reduce age-related pathologies. The prevailing regard for aging as a "natural process" rather than a disease or disease-predisposing condition is a major obstacle to development and testing of legitimate anti-aging treatments. This is the largest market in the world, since 100% of the population in every country suffers from aging.'"
How fabulous! If we cure aging, then we'll get to have WAR all of the fucking time because of the population pressure.
Or we can reserve anti-aging treatments for the rich and privileged.
That's actually exactly what the world needs the more our society becomes knowledge-oriented. If you could double the active lifespan of a (sane, healthy) individual, you'd get twice the amount of wotk for the same amount of high-school and college man-years. It's simple economy of scale.
Ezekiel 23:20
As much as I like the idea of a longer life, there is simply no way our planet will support it. Which means it would be a perk for the wealthy and influential, rather than the unwashed masses. Nothing good could come from that.
Why is this comment modded up? Suffering from disease, disability and decrepitude on both physical and mental levels is a gift?? Then even being in disease and disability at any age is a gift. Why bother treating them at any age?
Parent comment is so bad it's not even wrong (to word it like Wolfgang Pauli)
That sounds like a good reason to limit reproduction, not a good reason to make me die. I don't recall ever having made you die. What's your beef?
Fortunately, the people who believe death is a gift will rapidly die out, and only us aspiring immortals will be left.
Aging isn't a disease; it's a gift.
I pity the people who can't see this.
While I'm sure there's a lot to mental maturity, what is happening to the body I can't call anything but decay. Loss of sight, loss of hearing, loss of smell, loss of motor function, all sorts of aches and pains, wrinkles, sagging and hair loss there's absolutely nothing there I'd consider physically or aesthetically positive. Some age gracefully but that's just saying they look less shitty than the rest, if I could keep/regain the body of a 20yo I'd take that in a heartbeat. And judging by all the people who desperately try to cling to their youth, I'd wager 99%+ of the population would gladly avoid this "gift".
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
According to some commentators here. If you consider aging a gift and not a disease, then you must consider a gift the suffering imposed on the elderly and the trillions of dollars that are spent in treating all these "natural" diseases. People who want to grow senile and dependent on help of strangers to eat their soup, can go f*ck themselves! I rather be strong and productive when I'm in my nineties.