January 18, 2005

Aubrey de Grey Responds

Continued from page 1

By Aubrey de Grey

Nuland is amply qualified, however, to comment on the desirability of defeating aging -- but, curiously, he doesn't do so. He notes that he raised most of the usual concerns with me, but rather than provide or comment on my responses (which the reader can find here) he merely describes the style in which I deliver them.

The only aspect of my views on this that appears in the article is the ethical one (we have a duty to save lives). He makes only two errors in this part of the article (I, in fact, regard the choice of future global society, not the individual, as paramount and I view the role of philanthropy in advancing this work as relevant mainly to research on mice); thus, his only major failure is to recognize the contradictions inherent in his own position. 

Here is a telling quote:

"I am committed to the notion that both individual fulfillment and the ecological balance of life on this planet are best served by dying when our inherent biology decrees that we do. I am equally committed to making that age as close to our biologically probable maximum of approximately 120 years as modern biomedicine can achieve, and also to efforts at decreasing and compressing the years of morbidity and disabilities now attendant on extreme old age.

"But I cannot imagine that the consequences of doing a single thing beyond these efforts will be anything but baleful, not only for each of us as an individual, but for every other living creature in our world."

I trust that if Nuland's goals are achieved soon enough for him, such that he reaches the age of 119 in the same fine shape that he is in today, he will not mysteriously forget to buy that cyanide pill to place at his bedside for the fateful moment when he wakes to find himself transformed, Cinderella-like, into a 120-year old and thus a burden on society and on himself -- but I'm not holding my breath.

Comment on February's editorial is superfluous. Pontin is as desperate as Nuland and the Technology Review staff are to put the real issues out of his mind, but unlike them he does not take the trouble to cloak this in careful words; the editorial speaks for itself all too well.

What can we conclude, observing three such egregious departures from normal logical standards by educated adults?

I can identify only one explanation: most of society is in a pro-aging trance. This is no surprise: after all, aging is extremely horrible and until a few years ago could indeed be regarded as probably immutable for a very long time indeed. Hence, a reasonable tactic was to put its horror out of one's mind, however absurd the logical contortions required.

Just as stage hypnotists' subjects provide sincere and lucid justifications for any false statement that they have been instructed is true, so most of us (not having dared to consider in detail whether aging might recently have come within our technological range) energetically defend the indefinite perpetuation of what it is in fact humanity's primary duty to eliminate as soon as possible. 

Some people find stage hypnotists highly entertaining. I don't -- not any more, at least.