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A thought for the day, from a recent FuturePundit post:
Brain aging is gradual brain damage. Some people think aging is wonderful and natural. That's tantamount to saying that brain damage is wonderful and natural.
While progressive brain degeneration with age is not wonderful, it most certainly is natural - just like anthrax, parasites, suffering, living in caves and having a life expectancy of somewhere south of 30. Our present human condition is, thankfully, far removed from those past natural states. The reason it is far removed from that is, of course, because many, many people have labored to make it so through the advancement of medical science and other enabling technologies. The present human condition deserves its label by virtue of having been manufactured by humans, not because it is something that happens to humans.
We're not done with that manufacturing process, however, not by a long chalk. Anything and everything we don't like about the human condition is up for engineering in the years ahead. The purpose of that engineering is to provide choice: the choice not to live in caves, not to host parasites, not to suffer and die.
People who think aging is wonderful have their heads stuck in the sand; given the choice, almost all would opt to avoid suffering, degeneration and mandatory death by aging on a schedule other than their own. It's a damn shame we don't have that choice today, and so we see people strive to convince themselves that the ugly state of affairs they're stuck with is the best of things. In doing so, however, they shut off discussion about engineering a better future, cutting off their lives to save a little existential angst in the present.
Now that we're entering the era of rapidly advancing biotechnology, and there is a clear path ahead to producing medical technologies capable of rejuvenation of the old, the biggest obstacle to progress is a world of people convinced that aging and dying is the only option - indeed, that it is wonderful and noble. The more people we can win away from that cliff, the faster progress in the science of rejuvenation will advance. At the largest scales and over decades, widespread public support and understanding is what drives research onward.
Posted by Reason at January 15, 2008 9:47 PM
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