Scientists are
closing in on the Holy Grail of aging research: the capacity to arrest aging
and extend the lifespan to hundreds of years. Recent genetic studies have
identified mutations in a pair of genes that humans share with roundworms, each
of which modestly extends the lifespan of the roundworm, but which work
synergistically to magnify the effect. Drugs are in the early stages of
development to alter the cellular pathways governed by these genes. If
successful, people could remain youthful and healthy for centuries, with
reduction or elimination of a host of age-related diseases, including heart
disease, cancer, and dementia. Among the benefits would be the capacity for
long distance space travel and the ability to accumulate vast knowledge with
extended lifelong learning.
But with noble
pursuits often come unintended consequences with dark implications. An early
effect could be a striking increase in the divide between the rich and the
poor. Such treatments are likely to be costly and, at least at the beginning,
available only to the wealthy. So added to differences in quality of life would
be a priceless difference in longevity. This raises both moral issues and the
likelihood of intensifying class warfare and social disorder.
Extending the
lifespan of even a fraction of the population would eventually lead to
unsustainable demands upon resources and the environment. Even with advances in
food technology, feeding everyone would eventually become impossible. The poor
would be the first to suffer, but eventually everyone would be at risk of
starvation. And as we continue to consume all manner of goods, the mountains of
waste we create will grow huge, even if we master the arts of recycling and
creating biodegradable products. We will increasingly risk polluting our waters
and food sources, impacting health in unforeseen ways that could introduce
terrible new chronic diseases and disabilities that could last as long as we
do.
Assuming that we
don’t all agree to stop reproducing, an outcome with its own dreadful
implications, the population will inevitably find ways to curb itself. One
obvious outcome would be a drastic increase in violent conflict, including
international warfare, civil wars, class wars, and genocide, perhaps inflicted
by the privileged upon the poor in order to retain the resources to sustain
their vastly extended lives. And if we fail to keep our numbers in control, the
earth will inevitably develop an immune response to fight our infestation,
perhaps in the form of more robust infectious diseases to which even the
superhuman among us would succumb.
Even if we succeed,
against all probability, in navigating the solutions to these problems, how
would we adapt to life without end? Would there be some point for most of us,
once we’ve run through our “bucket lists” to our satisfaction, that we would
decide that enough is enough? Endless life might not be all that we would
envision and could eventually become a burden that we would yearn to end. In
the prescient 1973 science fiction film “Soylent Green,” teeming humanity has
outgrown the limits of its resources, euthanasia has become the universal
prescription for ending lives, and recycling human bodies as food has become a
key strategy for preventing starvation.
Our capacity for
innovation is increasing exponentially. Are we about to outsmart ourselves into
oblivion or will we learn to predict the consequences of our discoveries and
choose wisely what we pursue?
