De Gray Given $3.5M Lease on Life

BAY AREA / Entrepreneur backs research on anti-aging / Scientist says humans could live indefinitely

I am one of those who believes that people born today or tomorrow could easily live to be several hundred years old, due mainly to the accelerating effects of living longer — every day you’re around is another day closer to a cure for whatever ails you.

I’ve discussed the ethical implications of immortality (see "related stories" below). But the main sticking point is that there seems to be a lack of a whole-systems approach to aging. People are working on basic science, to the extent they can (budget cuts from BushCo mean only a fraction of the research that should be funded is). But de Gray’s contribution is useful, IMO, in thinking about things from the high-level perspective. It’ll be interesting to see what he does with the money. More prizes? Or more direct research?

He lists seven causes of aging that, if solved, would mean immortality. But that’s probably gross simplification. For every problem we fix, we may create others and thereby buy ourselves years at a time, not centuries. And there are likely to be causes of death that we rarely see, mainly because we don’t make it that far. Such was the case with cancer in the middle ages. We were more likely to die from disease. So the progression may be one of pushing back the limit in a more linear (as opposed to exponential) fashion, a few years at a time. However, even linear life extension means statistical immortality when we add one year of life for every calendar year.

As I’ve also said before, we have more important problems to solve before we’re ready for immortality. With the current world structure, immortality would simply give the ruling class more ability to dominate those of us who can’t afford immortality. The rich would not only get richer, but older as well. Natural death, right now, is one of the few factors that keeps the power somewhat in check.