3. (D) If gentechnology is not so dangerous as one reads over and over again - though I do not actually think much of what the newspapers write (with the exception of the acknowledged professional journals) -, I consider it actually very good. Particularly in fight with worldwide hunger (plants). But particularly because after all the gentechnology is the most effective weapon against epidemic diseases and viruses.
    I have heard once (Modern Times, ORF) that it is possible to isolate with the help of the gentechnology a substance that constitutes a vaccination against HIV, cancer and many other illnesses and epidemics diseases as well. Then the genes which activate defense system in the human body will be taken out of the different viruses. If you get them injected the body believes there is a virus in you and antibodies will be constantly produced this way and as soon as a "real" virus comes into the body it will be combated immediately.
Admiral Benjamin Zach, Austria U.F.P. Starfleet - Command URL (D)

4. (P) Do you think man can can bring better changes about in the short history of his civilisation then the nature during millions years of experiments? We do not know all correlations in our body. What helps in one case is detrimental somewhere else. What have we done to the environment? We are so proud of the progress. The Earth is perishing as a result of it.
Anna D., Poland

5. (D) I don´t think much of it. I am of the opinion man should first try to make the life of many millions of poor people bearabler (there are hunger, illness, poverty and so on in Africa, Asia, Latin America). One can think about the life extension only when this problem has been solved. What is the point of the life extension if a great part of the mankind suffers from these above mentioned problems and a man born in these by problems afflicted continents will not even guaranteed be able to reach the 50th year of his/her life?
Sergout, G. E., Erlangen-Nürnberg University, Ethiopia Email (Ethiopian, D, E)

6. (D) In my opinion everyone can do sth for the extension of his life: healthy feeding or to listen to his body. With listening to his body I mean paying attention to little symptoms and combating diseases with natural means in their early stage. Furthermore I am reasonably sure a lot will take place on the part of science - as talked over on this website.
Oliver G., Erlangen-Nürnberg University, FRG Email (E,D)

7. "A short review of history shows that the rate of change in human culture is accelerating. These truly are the days of miracles and wonder. We expect to live long enough, even without significant advances in life-saving technology, to see wave after wave of technological, economic, social, and political revolution. Strange days are upon us; we live in interesting times.
    Particularly if we expect extreme longevity, or we expect the ´cryonics experiment´ to be a success, we should seek to develop the inner qualities that promote quick adaptation and counteract future shock. We must learn to be shockwave riders." - from "Self-Transformation And Extreme Longevity", by Romana Machado. Presented at the May 8, 1994 meeting of Alcor Life Extension Foundation Northern California.
Romana Machado, USA p.s. Death and taxes are unsolved engineering problems. Email

8. It seems that the life duration depends on a lot of factors. So it has more statistical quality. For my opinion, the extension of life in a global scale would be possible if some conditions will be ripe:
    1) Transformation into a welfare society for a major part (90%) of the population of the planet.
    2) Deep insight into a religion as the major source of spiritual life.
    3) In an individual aspect, more is also dependent from the progress of medicine.
It may be predicted by the linear model that a slow but steady growth of life expectancy of 0.1 % in a year (or 6 years in 100 year span) may be possible. We may assume that the average life expectancy is now about 60 years ( however in my native region, around St-Petersburg, an average man will live as much as 54 years ... ). Under the assumption of Gaussian distribution with normalized variance 10/65=17% , it gives a possibility that 2 persons from 10,000 will live over 100. From this model we see that in 123, 400 years, for the same 2 persons from 10,000 the life expectancy will exceed 300 years.
    Maybe the exponential model will be more suitable, but I have not enough statistical data. Still...
Dr. Victor Krachkovsky, Data Storage Institute. National University of Singapore., Russia Email (Russian, E)

9. (D) I am convinced Trekkie myself! And that is exactly why I consider the way you are reasoning wrong. Do you really believe the mankind is mature enough now or even in the Star Trek - Age (therefore in ca. 300 years) to master the problems of such overpopulation that would be then even severely increased? Star Trek is good and beautiful - but to my mind still widely away from reality - unfortunately. For example I wouldn´t like to be so old at all. Frankly: I think I have enough after ca. 100 years. Besides: do you remember the first episode of the Star Trek: The Next Generation? A certain Admiral McCoy, 137 years old, has appeared there - and he wasn´t all that fit. In my opinion the dangers of gentechnology are still much too unknown so that one should keep one´s fingers off it in any case for the time being (perhaps apart from quite little laboratory experiments!). As for the rest I agree with a participant of the discussion: I would like to have children sometime and I think the mankind lives best normal this way...
    Finally I wanted to say I consider it not good that you connect something real as gentechnology with a fiction of Star Trek. Since Star Trek isn´t real I consider this action beside the point!
Ursula P., Erlangen-Nürnberg University, FRG

10. I am Trekker. First I would like to ask the question, which I found in the last "Star Trek: Communicator" issue: "Why cpt.Picard has no hair?". That's it. In vision of mankind from Star Trek people are afraid of genetics which can change our species. There is a big difference between spine replication and creation of superman (like Khan). This is why people will learn to accept disabilities of their species. 24 century technology could change many in human being, but the most beautiful thing is, that humans are still humans there.
    Assume I will live 300 years, maybe 500. So what? One day I will die at last and I am sure I would have nothing against it after 70 ( in fact I have nothing against it now). Reality scares me - life is a waiting for another kick. Genetics - O.K., but not to make suffering longer - we should fight with pain. Maybe there should be another target ...
    If I lived in Star Trek Universe I would dream about attachment to Q Continuum.
Grzegorz Mierkiewicz, Gdansk University, Poland, Picard to Soran: "Death is the truth of our existence". e-mail (P, E) URL

11. (D) I happened to stumble over this discussion on the "unnatural" life extension via gentechnology. That is really super you all reflect on it now already but haven´t you forgotten something? - A moral to the story?! - There is no generally acknowledged ethics to the subject gentechnology yet. It will be the case in 300 years perhaps if we possibly have 300 years life expectancy, it makes no difference. But today, 1997 and even some years later, we must struggle with the subject of the way for this goal. Concretely: is it allowed to carry out experiments on hopeless medical cases without the consent of the patient (like USA)? To what extent is it allowed to "incubate" embryos in order to putter with them around? When do life beginn, what rights does it have, at what stage, and when does it come to an end? There are many (!) undecided (!) opinions even about the subject of abortion itself. I guess we are not ready not only for the extended life but also for the way there yet!
By the way: on argument Longevity: everything is related. I wonder what will our descendants think if they have to die at the age of 300 years "already"?
Sabine M., FRG

12. (D) Do we really want to play God? I miss the metaphysics in this discussion. For could we determine ourselves, when and if we could appear as the humankind in the creation? It has happened without effort on our part so that we could produce then offspring rather gaily and loosely till now - meanwhile we want to occupy however with "more serious things" on this field.
    We can manipulate a lot on nature and achieve respectable and epochal successes in finding of it - history of mankind is from such a point of view a successful story: we are approaching slowly but surely, and in the last time with the speed that, I suppose, cannot be grasp any more, so to speak the last black wholes of knowledge. (We could lose our bearing however and plunge deeply...). We do understand nothing at all though in the last consequence. Or can anybody give verified answer why and what for at all does the whole exist? Well then, we play further gaily, we come to blows with one another, God Father will still put things in order for us at the end. He alone surely will however determine the next evolution step in the process of creation or it will be just the result of an automatism control element of which we will thank God never be able to know.
    For we can perceive much more in comparison to other - known to us - creatures and above all reflect on what we have recognised, too; but yet it remains in fragments that then does not fit together. There, where we want to solve i.e. the energy problem, we create the climate or nuclear waste problem. It should not mean we do not ought to use the creation and even less that we do not ought to take care of it. We should do it however in the great modesty against it.
    We will surely come to clonning of humans, too and experience this or another surprise by the way and be able to learn something from it at the end: it could namely turn in this concrete case out at the end and crystallize as the further firm finding that man is not only by his genes programed machine, but he becomes an individual also and just through the interaction with his environment. And he will not let lead himself as a battle-man will-lessly to the human organs utilization... The bad outlook then for people without scruples and fascists who would like to create themselves dependent slaves.
Darius Vismantas, Erlangen-Nürnberg University, Lithuania-Kolumbia, e-mail (D, E, Lithuanian, Esp), URL.

13. I understand you are willing to make humanity to live longer. Well, that's indeed very possible. Since we're born, our bodies are set to live indefinitely, yet today we only live until the eighties. Nevertheless, new genetic researchs are coming and many discoveries are been made. But I believe it will still take some time before mankind can make it possible. Anyway, I think your page is excellent, a very good work.
David, Paraguay, e-mail (E, Esp)

14. Currently, despite the restless effort of the medicine and enormous financial expenditures (AIDS, DNA), extending the life of humans over approx. 110 years did not succeed. It is interesting that those humans live for such a long time who rather did not use the achievements of the modern medicine. Which does not mean that it will remain in such a way in the future. A lot of change takes place in the world and no one knows what humans will still invent. In particular in the light of the last reports about cloning... However the following thought came to me. After it is difficult at present to extend the life of humans directly it is worthwhile to reorganize the conditions of our existence so that it could be extended indirectly somehow in the manner which one can observe in nature. I am thinking about the hibernation, winter sleep, e.g. as the bears do. Imagine, how would the world look like if humans went simply sleeping in the autumn instead of carrying the expenditures for heating, clothes and nutrition and would awake in spring only. I think that if one slept one half-year and lead a similar life as now another half-year so it could be perhaps possible to extend the life to the age of e.g. 200 years. Service institutions could develop, like building or health service etc. today, - so there could be an institution which would execute the hibernation of humans (who would like it) in the future. During the hibernation it would be possible to make an appropriate surgical interventions, so "exchange of the spare parts" on the basis of the cloned tissue, e.g. teeth, hair, skin etc. One would pay an amount of money and awake in spring renewed and "repaired", like an auto after the technical check. Perhaps it would be not only possible to make a defatting cure and to heal e.g. pancreas but to educate or to stimulate the brain, too. It is interesting how would the dreams then look like? If the hibernation sleep took e.g. 9 months then a pregnancy without the typical troubles would be possible and two persons would wake up in spring: a mother and her child...
Ks. Wieslaw Mroz, Poland e-mail (P, E) URL

15. Really, an excellent discussion page. May I take this occasion to invite you to look at my essay that focuses on the issues raised by Dr. Fossel´s recent book "Reversing Human Aging" that makes these claims regarding telomeres and aging:
    a) telomere shortening is the basis of human aging - the "clock" that drives the process;
    b) we already know, in principle, how to prevent or reverse telomere shortening;
    c) in the near future, we will be able to use telomere therapy to actually restore human cells,
       and human beings, to youthful vigor.
Fossel says that telomere therapy has already been applied to cells in culture, that in the next few years we can expect animal trials, that in about ten years human trials are likely to begin, and that, in about twenty years, we may very well have general availability of the means of reversing aging.
    He also says that he thinks it will, on balance, be a very good thing, but he discusses several possible concerns, and says that one of the objectives of his book is to stimulate discussion of the questions regarding this development.
Ronald W. Garrison, USA e-mail URL

16. (D) So long as people cannot agree in their own country so long is the whole humanity lightyears away from 300 years life expectation.
Falter Reinhold, FRG e-mail (D, E) URL

17. Such a wide subject that only contemplating about population explosion and density of population.
Social problems?
Employment.
Food production, this is only tip of an iceberg. Maybe selection, or implementing of "healthy forrest" ?! I don´t mean the natural selection, survival of the fitest where the nature was doing very well without human intervention. Man is destroying himself and the environment and in my opinion not the dilemma of prolonging live is the most important one but the conditions in which this long-lived homosapiens is supposed to exist.
    At the present moment the ecological balance has been knocked out to the point of no return and it is not the question of fact but question of time and not the mankind but the nature will decide if there will be any live possible.
Wiktor Musial, Edinburgh, Scotland e-mail

18. (D) I consider it a very great error to connect the genetic engineering with Star Trek on such level. The two do not have to do anything with each other in this manner. Genetic engineering is used in the Star Trek only to aid the handicapped humans to have a normal life. One feels in Star Trek the romantic and somewhat naive desire for the original way of life. I would like to live for a long time, too and I consider these 60-80 years as too few but I cannot imagine such a solution. In my opinion we would have to pay too much for it ...
Horvath Gabor, Hungary e-mail URL

19. (P) I am of the opinion that the life extension is an excellent idea. In place of the death penalty. If life has been extended four times, then the period of aging is thereby being extended four times, too. And nobody has probably a desire for it. Additionally in the case of the extension of life it would be done without asking for the opinion of the man who should then see how he becomes ever older while his father would still be young. And something else - it will not succeed to suppress the sex drive therefore the nature will have to execute the natural selection (e.g. wars, epidemic disease and other pleasant things) much more frequently than now in order to retain the normal number of humans. Thus I think that the life extension is not only an exceptionally stupid idea, but also a terribly irresponsible one.
NN, Poland

20. (D) Do we really want to play God? (12) And do we believe to be so much better engineers then nature (4)? Naturally! There is nothing more beautiful than creativity after all. An extremely delightful and creative function. And it would be ridiculous if the human spirit were not superior to the selection procedure of nature.
    What I do not understand, are these constant expressions that first peace must prevail, first hunger must be eliminated... It cannot be true that one does not think so future oriented and puts all money into the restoration of existing damage, so that nothing remains for future oriented projects. That appears to me really very short sighted. It is anyway so far a mystery to me why the medicine is always occupied with restoring a broken body to an acceptable level instead of trying to take the optimum out of healthy humans, too. Here must be still a gigantic potential available. And who can say, what possibilities are hiding behind it?
    How, however, is the approach to the life extension to look like? It is clear that it is only meaningful to extend the life of humans who also require this. I consider a regulation before the birth as very doubtful. Not because it would exceed the authority of parents (it would be a further important component additonally to naming, selection of the education, of the surrounding field....), but because this would not permit any "fair" selection. Surely, a long life would be probably reserved only for a minority firstly. The target group, which enjoys highest priority for a life extension, is those of the scientist. The vision is a thought-plaything: imagine yourself one would get a life extension instead of the conventional Nobelpreis.
    Naturally, that would lead to even larger tensions and grant the social discrepancy much more greater gap. But I do not believe that it can be an argument, that there are so many poors which cannot afford such thing, to forbid the privileged to exhaust their possibilities.
    I find the idea of the winter sleep very beautiful. It is new for me, very interesting. However, the real point lies probably in stopping the progress of the ageing process of already living humans or making it to advance again when desired. (I see here an frightening possibility for the execution of sentences.)
    The connection to Star Trek make a very, very strange impression upon me. I have no idea of Star Trek but I connect it with people who beam around, funny masks and a chips bag. If, however, the program inspires to such nice thought-plays: hats off !
Gunther Tutein, Erlangen-Nürnberg University, FRG e-mail (D)

21. Maybe we are playing the fire with the God. However I think it's inevitable that in the future duration of human life will be widely used no matter in a good or bad way! It shall be dangerous but I don't think there is any way that we can prevent it. It's just like atomic bomb. We all know it's destructive but who can terminate it?
Eva Lin. Taiwan, Republic of China e-mail (Chinese, E), URL.

22. (D) Imagine yourself you have just your 300th birthday and you are looking at your past life back. The experiences, which you could gain, make a new dimension of wisdom possible. Usually it is so that you regard many situations more calmly and objectively with increasing age.
    I think the time has come to use the God's gifts in his sense. He knew what he had been doing, when he had given us the ability for understanding and if he did not want it, then we would have not existed since a long time already. I have exactly as many doubts and fears as many others. Nevertheless I do not want to live this world so easily. We will have to arrange our thinking after new yardsticks. The one, who states that he does not want to live eternally, does not really know what he says. Nobody can say if there is "thereafter" no one will become full from the faith alone.
    What a hopeful thought not to have to lose your loved ones any more, to experience the future always anew, to extend your experience limitlessly and to feel no "stress of the life" because you have enough time. We will need also a lot of space. Let's set out into the infinite depths of the universe! It would be the purest waste of space, if only the earth was blessed with intelligent life. Let's learn from others and give our acquired knowledge further to new worlds. Nobody has said it will be easy but I do long for being allowed to touch the God.
Christian Ensbacher, Austria, e-mail (D).