Anti-Ageing 4 page pullout
by John Steele
Catching the second of the two part VIEWPOINT Special (on anti-ageing research) -- ITV -- I was left thinking of the Luddites -- those 19th Century industrial vandals who vented their anger about the rise in unemployment by smashing the newly introduced nechanical looms. Then I saw Dr Jonathan Miller on Wogan, saying how awful it would be to live forever and I thought 'Am I the only one to see the exciting possibilities -- the sheer necessity -- of extending the human lifespan?
But isn't all this rather academic, you ask. Even if we can defeat ageing and/or death, surely it's a long way off -- the 'it won't happen in my lifetime' argument. Wrong! Scientists have already discovered a gene that, if removed from a cell, results in instant ageing; and it put back, instant rejuvenation. If they could do this to skin cells it would mean the end of wrinkles and stretch marks. This would be of limited use, of course. What would be the point of having skin like a child if the ageing process was still going on inside, and you still ended up a mental vegetable?
This was one of the concerns expressed in the VIEWPOINT documentary, but if we're talking about halting the ageing process as a whole (as I understood they were) this misses the point entirely....but I overtake myself.
Let's examine the various objections in turn:-
Objection #1 The vegetable problem.
If we're talking about arresting the ageing process (so, say, if you were 35 whn you had the treatment, you'd stay 35 phsiologically speaking until you died), the mental vegetable problem simply would not exist. The argument goes that many of the problems experienced by the old today (e.g. senile dementia) are caused because many more people live into old age than did before, and if the anti-ageing research led to us living even longer who know what, even more awful, diseases may appear. This misses the point entirely. If these diseases are caused by the ageing process, and the ageing process is halted, then none of the diseases should appear at all. If, however, they are caused by longterm exposure to pollution, increased background radiation, or the hole in the ozone layer (etc.) then they would increase; then we would have a problem; but the above problems are things we are going to have to sort out anyway or we won't be around to live even our three-score-year-and-ten.
Objection #2 The economic problem.
We've already got a diminishing workforce having to support an ever increasing pensioner population (not helped by the government's failure to reduce unemployment) -- how on earth would we cope if pensioners started living till they were (say) 150 yrs old?
This is a serious objection.
One problem is just how long would people live if it weren't for the ageing process? Forever? 200yrs? 300? A 1000? What would kill them off? One ageing problem the anti-ageing research probably wouldn't cure immediately is the brain cell problem. Brain cells start dying off from about the age of 25 onwards and are not replaced. This means that, eventually, we'd all end up as mental vegetables. "Eventually", though, is the key word. As intelligence and memory seem to have more to do with the number of connections made between brain cells (rather than how many cells we have), and the fact that we have so many, it's been estimated that we'd have to live many centuries before the effects became noticeable. Unless, though, we discover a way to make the body replace dead brain cells there would come a time when we would be 'brain dead', probably preceded by many decades of mental vegetation.
Possible solutions include compulsory euthanasia at a certain age (e.g. 200) -- (certainly we'd have to grant people the 'Right to Death' as it would seem inhumanly cruel to insist on vegetated people hanging around for decades until their brains entirely gave way, and their hearts stopped); if it was know that ageless people would live, say, 300 years before irreversible wear and tear set in perhaps we could introduce work cycles whereby, for example, people would work for twenty five years, have ten years of leisure, then return to work for another cycle -- or maybe everyone would just have a very-part-time job.
Objection #3 The population problem.
But aren't there just too many people around already? How would we cope with so many people hanging around so long? This argument carries very little weight with me. It could be applied to so many areas of medical research. Daily premature babies are kept alive who, just twenty years ago, would have died. Should we let them die? Should we never have bothered to do the research that now allows them to live? Should we fund research for heart disease and cancer, the two biggest killers today, particularly as they're largely self-inflicted (whatever happened to survival of the fittest?). Indeed, if you accept that we should be funding research into heart disease and cancer, you should have no objection to the anti-ageing reserach. What is ageing, if not the all time biggest killer disease?
Population is of course a problem but, once again, it's a problem we're going to have to solve anyway, and, who knows, maybe a longer lifespan may help the problem. Sounds perverse? Well, if people knew they were going to live 300 years (and, presumeably, remain fertile) they may be in less of an hurry to have a family. And if the average age for becoming a first time parent became, say, 50 then, who knows, maybe the quality of parenting may rise, creating happier children, who in turn would become even better parents. A good environment is, also, a major factor in creating bright and well-adjusted children (and thereby well-adjusted adults) and so might even lead to a saner, safer world. (Perhaps, too, with a long, healthy lifespan to look forward to the world would slow down a bit and let us catch our breath.)
But would everyone be ageless?
Would (could?!) everyone be made ageless though? Being a bit of a liberal, my answer would be 'anybody who wanted it'. Being realistic though, it would probably only be for those who could afford it. Heart operations are very expensive but few need them -- everyone ages though, and dies of it if they stay around long enough. What would be the majority's attitude to the long-lifers? Would it create social unrest on a dangerous scale? What would be the attitude of the long-lifers to us? Would they get all superior and try to take over? We already have problems with some people being able to get more out of life than most of us can (i.e. cause they're Rich), would the exsitence of long-lifers presentt similar problems? This brings us to:-
Objection #4 The sociology.
The VIEWPOINT documentary has already highlighted one problem with the case of an Italian youth who, with the help of other youths, killed his parents because they were hanging about too long, depriving him of his inheritance. Would this increase? Would we have to entirely rethink our ideas about inheritance? Already we have death duties and other taxes to stop rich folk handing over all their wealth to their heirs. Would we have to invent new laws to demand the well-off distribute their wealth (or part thereof) throughout their heirs every so often (e.g. 50 years). Would we have to introduce something like the Old Testament idea of cancelling all debts and redistributing all acquired wealth every 70 years (the Jubilee Festival)?
With the economic problem, the change in everyday relationships (if everyone became ageless e.g. what would the attititude be to marrying someone a hundred years older than yourself?), or between the majority ageing population and the lucky few long-lifers, would be the biggest challenge to society. But what about the "exciting possibilities -- the sheer necessity" of which I spoke in the intro?
THE BENEFITS ??
I've already touched on some of the possible benefits under objection #3 above, and indeed touched on what could be its greatest benefit. When I first thought of writing this article I'd thought of it as a speculation on why UFO's don't just land in Trafalgar Square (if they exist) instead of messing around, talking to weirdos nobody's ever going to believe. Perhaps, I speculated, they are waiting until we've mastered our ageing process. Why? well consider:-
Let's say that we invented a spaceship capable of near-light speeds (i.e. 186,000 miles per second), it would still take us nearly five years to reach the nearest (unpromising, as far as discovering life forms go) star, Alpha Centauri. It would take nearer eight to reach the more interesting Barnard's Star -- and these are just oneway times. Unless the speed of light can be surpassed, any real exploration of our galaxy, and any kind of inter-star 'government' would be totally out of the question.
Of course, we might devise a system of suspended animation, so that space travellers could sleep their journeys away, but it would still leave one problem: the spaceman's family and friends left behind would have aged tremendously, or even have died, by the time they returned to Earth. Just how many volunteers are you going to find if they know all their family's going to be dead when they get back?
But more importantly: even if a really long space journey only took five years, what could have changed in that short time. The last five years have just seen the end of the communist empire of Russia (indeed there was a cosmonaut stuck in Earth orbit while this was going on), the ousting of Margaret Thatcher, the increasing rise of Fascism in Europe, and untold minor changes that those of us who've lived through them barely noticed and have already accepted as almost having been 'alway with us' (Can you remember what Hanley looked like five years ago?). In short, human society seems too unstable to support a cohesive inter-star 'government'.
If, however, people lived for much longer (retaining all their vigour and senses), society might slow dow. Anti anti-ageing people usually call this stagnation, and bemoan that without a constant supply of new people our science and culture would become stale and Progress will cease. But, if our next stage of Evolution lies in the 'Last Frontier' of space, maybe that's exactly what we need.
Space, afterall, is Big. It's very Big. If you thought it was a long way to the shops, that's peanuts compared with space....(That's enough plaigarising "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - Ed)... Think then of the benefit of being able to go on a space journey to find new worlds, new life forms, and boldly go where no human's gone before, and know that when you get back fifty years later the guy who sent you there will still be around to report to. You might object that all this would be possible without extending our lifespans by a single day -- of freezing isn't possible, you'd say, there's always the option of building 'space arks', miniature Earths where people would live, have children, grow old and die, and their offspring, or their offspring's offspring (etc.) would report back on their discoveries. I would object that there's no guaranteeing that suuch a multi-generation approach wouldn't result in the travellers forgetting why they were there (perhaps not even realising they are in a spaceship as its course would probably be pre-set), and the journey thereby prove a waste of time. If a long-life spacecrew sent though, they'd be unlikely to forget the purpose of the journey, and if they returned to report to the guy whose pet project it had been the journey would be more likely to reap maximum benefits. (Our history is full of good ideas that were abandoned because their originator died or left office, afterall.)
As to the religious objections, by the way, I have dismissed these. The bible say that women were meant to feel pain in childbirth, and gardeners struggle with weeds, but the church nowadays condemns neither anaesthetic nor weed killer. And, anyway, God let the sinful Adam live 930 years, says Genesis 5.5. Are we any worse?
Copyright The Bentilean 1999
Bentilean writer, Kevin Strider nee Griffin, wrote a reply to this article for issue 9 of the mini-mag.Back to: The Contents Page | The Archive | The Bentilean Main Page