Nanomedicine. When mature molecular nanotechnology is developed, maybe 20 years from now, it will be possible to manufacture and program small molecular machines that can enter individual cells and repair damage to DNA and other structures. Nanomedicine will eventually give us much greater control over the biochemical processes in our bodies.
Many people, including especially the group of futurists and technologists known as "transhumanists", are now asking how extended life spans will affect society. For the individual, the traditional "linear life" paradigm, in which people migrate through education, then work, then leisure/retirement, may be replaced by a "cyclic life" paradigm, in which education, work and leisure are interspersed repeatedly through the life span. It will be normal for 50-year olds to go back to school and for 70-year-olds to start new careers. Consider the positive effects on society of a host of people with the wisdom of 150 years of life, and the vitality to bring that wisdom into action.
Having lots of 150-year olds around will no doubt change society quite a lot. But consider that even if we could stop aging today, it would still take seventy years before there were a considerable number of 150-year olds. In seventy years many other things will have changed. The whole technology basis will be totally different and unimaginably more advanced than today. One can’t look at life-extension in isolation from these other developments that will take place.
It is true that overpopulation must be avoided. However, in technologically advanced societies, couples tend to have fewer children – below the replacement rate. By spreading the benefits of technology, education, and women’s rights to countries that are currently poor, fertility rates will decline there too. It seems clear already that prosperous and well-educated people choose to have smaller families and to have children later in life.
If it really became necessary to control population growth, it is more feasible and ethical to do this by limiting the rate of new births than by forcing people who are already alive to die. It would not be selfish of us to hang on to life and reduce the number of new births. No one accuses a couple of being immoral if they decide to only have one child.
Finally – and perhaps before too long – our successors will learn to use the infinite resources in the universe outside our planet. In the meantime, a whole host of new technologies are already providing means to let us "walk more lightly upon the earth": More efficient and less ecologically damaging manufacturing, energy and transportation technologies make it possible for humanity to live in greater harmony with nature.
Life-extension will not place a burden on health care, because it will increase people’s health span, not just add some extra years in a care home in a state of dementia. When 80-year olds have the same physique and mental agility as people in their forties, they will be among the most economically productive members of society.
With a longer life expectancy, people will also have a personal stake in the future. This will lead to more responsible and sustainable policies.
I sometimes hear people say, "Wouldn’t it be boring to live forever?" But would it be more exciting to be dead? Indefinite life spans – just like the lives we have now – will be as boring or as exciting as we make them.
Transhumanists hold that at least some key parts of human nature are mutable. Much of what we now accept as inescapable is not an eternally given. On an evolutionary time scale, we haven’t been around for that long. Over the next few decades, we will develop technological tools that will enable those who so wish to change at least some of the fundamental attributes of their human nature. We transhumanists want to live longer and healthier lives and increase our intellectual, emotional and physical capacities. Humanity looks to me like a magnificent beginning but not the final word.
It’s irrelevant whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist. The only way to find what the world will be like fifty years hence is to be there and see for oneself. If we manage to avoid wiping ourselves out through accident or abuse of some military technology, then people may look back at the present and pity us for being so limited and subjected to so much suffering and ill health.
To stay alive is a basic human drive. It is a precondition for all other activities. Life-extension is the natural progression of medicine from curing diseases and the effects of aging to preventing them altogether. It follows the dictum laid down by many religions: that human life is sacred and should be cherished and preserved.
Let’s not be in the last generation to die of old age! We can improve our odds by demanding adequate funding for anti-aging research (which is currently pitifully underfunded). On an individual level, we may adopt a healthier life style and keep our fingers crossed. Some foresightful persons may consider a cryonics contract as a last resort. The concept of cryonics is optimistic, but it is not irrational. If your body is frozen in liquid nitrogen after you are declared legally dead, it can be preserved indefinitely without further tissue degradation. At some point in the future, medical science may progress to the point where it becomes possible to reverse the freezing damage and the original cause of death. Too many times in the past have people declared something technologically absolutely impossible – only to see it done a few years later. Indeed, many leading experts on nanotechnology anticipate that it will make it possible reanimate cryonics patients. Of course there is no guarantee. But being cryogenically suspended is the second worst thing that can happen to you!
