Machinery Will Make Us Long-Lived and Utterly Healthy
Those of us who live to see the world four decades hence will have access to a panoply of impressive medical nanomachinery and biotechnology, as Michael Anissimov points out: "Between 20 and 40 years into the future, we will become capable of building artificial antibodies that outperform their natural equivalents. ... Through their presence and continued operation, they will eliminate all susceptibility to disease in those who have them running through their veins. ... The ultimate upgrade would be [physical] immortality. Everything else pales by comparison. Today, there are already entire movements based around the idea. Realizing the possibility of immortality requires seeing a human being as a physical system - composed of working parts that cooperate to make up the whole, some of which have the tendency to get old and break down. ... Defeating aging, then, would simply require addressing these one by one." We're rubbing sticks together in biotechnology today in comparison to what is known to be possible - but today's work is absolutely necessary if we are to live long enough see the wonders yet to come.