Living Forever – Blessing or Curse?

If one can take a short break from breathless exclamations about the AI revolution, another area of technology with potentially life-changing consequences comes to mind: aging research.  A field that has long labored in obscurity has recently made significant progress and is causing some to predict dramatic new anti-aging regimens in the coming years.

Many hallmarks of aging have been identified, such as deterioration of cells or organs over time due to increased inflammation; genome instability; damage to DNA, proteins and lipids due to the reactive oxidative species that metabolic processes generate; and changes to telomeres, the repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes that get shorter as a cell divides.

 

One area of aging research focuses on preventing aging by addressing the factors above.  The result would be a slowing of aging.  There are also hormonal therapies that rejuvenate skin cells, an aesthetic attack on aging to produce a more youthful appearance.

 

But in the last year scientists have also demonstrated ways to ‘turn back the clock’ on cells and restore them to their youthful state.  This was accomplished in a limited setting by inserting specific Yamanaka genes into cells.  This epigenetic approach (epigenesis is the process by which cells differentiate), whether by chemical process or gene therapy, actually changes the instructions that the cells receive and can accelerate, slow down or even reverse the aging process.  In some experiments, the cells have essentially been ‘re-booted’ to their original youthful state.

 

The implications of this research are profound.  If the human body can stop aging or be continually restored to a youthful state, what kind of world would we have?  Two extremes come to mind:  In one, we age gracefully to a certain point and then arrest the aging process.  We stay 65 or 70 for eternity.  But if anti-aging can completely restore youth, then certainly no one would choose to age past whatever ideal age they imagine for themselves, which is the other extreme.  Or perhaps we would age up to a certain point to have the full experience of aging, then backtrack to that ideal age?  The variations are infinite.

 

The sensible approach to anti-aging would seem to be to slow down the aging process so that people have longer and healthier lives.  But once the genie is out of the bottle there would be no turning back.  The rich would trade in their face lifts, tummy tucks, collagen lips and hair transplants for a return to their glorious youth at any price.  

 

What kind of fiendish groundhog’s day would our lives become?  A world full of 18-year-olds strutting around with full hormonal impetuosity!  Would our brains stay youthful and accumulate wisdom and experience?  Would injuries eventually curtail our exuberant youthfulness or would they all be repairable as well?  

 

If we think we have problems with climate change and environmental disasters now, just imagine the impact of exponentially increasing hordes of Peter Pans inhabiting our planet.  What the hell would the billions of eternal 18-year-olds do with themselves?  What kind of nightmarish society would evolve?

Even if anti-aging remedies merely extend our lives another twenty years I can't get very excited about them.  Who wants to live with a 90 year old body for another twenty years?  Even pickleball gets old at some point.  The younger generations would come up with some sort of a soylent green solution for that nonsense.

 

Anti-aging, gene editing and AI are all technologies that have potential repercussions that simply boggle the mind.  To be honest, I have a hard time imagining their advantages outweighing their disadvantages.  But wait, there may be a simple solution.  AI may just gene-edit and anti-age the hell out of us and create an eternal caste of slaves to do their bidding.  It would be a bit of poetic justice, you have to admit.

My Abhorrence of Arrogance and Malice

I am finding it very difficult to accept the fact that Trump, Vance and Musk are the face of our nation.  I am at odds with most of their policies and actions, but it is their arrogance and toxic behavior that most disturb me.  I despise bullies, blowhards, braggarts.

I have interacted with many people in my seventy years of life, from childhood friends to teachers to coaches to bosses to co-workers and subordinates.  People exhibit many different types of behaviors, from enchanting to offensive.  

 

I have had coaches, teachers and bosses who were taskmasters and quite demanding.  I accepted that behavior in good faith if their approach was respectful and had a measure of humility.  But some of them were malicious.  Their treatment of others was imbued with arrogance and a mean spirit.  When they were critical, they spoke angrily and hurtfully, not caring about the impact of their words and their actions.  They did not hesitate to brag about their own capabilities while demeaning others. They reacted viciously to any perceived slight. They didn’t acknowledge or tolerate nuance or ambiguity or disagreement.

 

They could be quite charming and friendly under some circumstances, especially with friends and acquaintances, or people they considered their equals.  But their mode of management and direction was brutal.  They had a tendency to lie or misrepresent things to obtain their goals.  They were the personification of ‘the ends justify the means’.  Some were spectacularly successful.  Trump, Vance and Musk are these people on a larger stage.

 

The substantial part of our nation that voted for Trump is either blind to his obvious narcissism and mendacity, or they are willing to accept ‘rough’ behavior in the service of crushing woke culture or fixing our economic woes.  I suppose that in their view, liberal elites and government workers looked down upon them and belittled their religious beliefs, their patriotism, and their concerns about government excess.  Trump, Vance and Musk are their avengers, and their supporters don’t seem to mind the cruel tactics they employ.  Indeed, they appear to be delighted.  So much for our better angels.

 

Trump’s petty, vindictive acts – renaming the Gulf of Mexico, threatening Greenland, Panama and Canada, treating Europe like a vassal state, firing non-white and female military leaders, threatening and firing government workers without any real analysis of what parts of government can reasonably be trimmed, taking away security details from people who have criticized him, excoriating a courageous leader who rallied his nation against a ruthless Russian invasion – may have underlying motives that one can assign to his overall ‘America first’ mantra.  But the manner in which he has conducted his first month in office is unquestionably that of a brutish and arrogant tyrant.

 

In my worldview, there is no excuse for arrogance or cruelty.  There is a sadistic element in the Trump/Vance/Musk playbook.  It is purposely vengeful.  It delights in shocking and wounding.  And I am ashamed to have these men represent me in the world.