Science Twitter has been touting Dr David Sinclair's Lifespan for a few weeks now. Here's today's take.
As with everything, What's The Worst That Could Happen. Some wags said, "you die horribly - if you DON'T do anti-aging". Well, that depends on what we mean. It also doesn't consider the wider society.
SF authors on occasion consider uploading consciousness to some database, to be transferred to some clone or other. Altered Carbon's first season is big on this (it was good!). Mike Cernovich last week pointed out that this means that eternal hell is possible, managed by a sadistic mortal. He might have been influenced by I Have No Mouth or maybe that Deep Space Nine episode. Altered Carbon posits that the Catholics (rather: "neo-Catholics", suggesting an interruption in the Curia, which wouldn't surprise me) would ban consciousness-upload.
Ethically, I assume that no true Church will allow consciousness to be transferred. Far too many ethical problems. Longevity-treatment, on the other hand, seems a no-brainer. If a Christian can avoid death without harming others, the Christian should avoid death. Eventually the Reaper does arrive, even if after 150 years, no matter what we do; but by then, although we should not "embrace" Charon, at least we can give the ferryman a proper accounting for our lives on this side of his river.
So: this longevity concerns our physical frame only. For that, first: the good news.
As we talk longterm space travel, I notice that once you get to the Belt, transport takes awhile. Ceres to the Jovian system is a four year trip by Hohmann. And we've all seen or read 2001 - which tech is delayed, but maybe not by all that much. If we are stuck with the bear model for hibernation: how about an induced dreamless coma with occasional awakenings, all with the aging-process cut out. The traveler ages "normally" but doesn't feel it, and is physicially unaffected over the time taken. Now those Ganymede-bound transports, full of precious metals, can house human mechanics and antipiracy measures.
I assume, of course, that we still keep the gravity on. And I'd test all this on guinea-pigs first. As for interstellar travel - well, let's see how it works in the 5.2 AU range.
Now the bad news.
Maureen McHugh wrote "Interview: On Any Given Day": about "boomers" still surviving on the fringes of this "democratised" anti-aging process. If you are aimless at 40 you are likely to be aimless at 90, even if you look the same, give-or-take longer ears and nose(s). Who cares, right?
The next generation cares, is who. Look at the boomersite PJMedia today. Less concerned right now with Matt Walsh, I barely know who he even is. More concerned with Glenn Reynolds, who as a university professor in law has much in common with the lawyers mostly making up our lawmaking Constitutional Branch. Prof. R. is fine with putting the next generation in hock for such Poor Life Choices as getting a law degree as he'd done. Spring 2005, I recall the Instapundit singing a different tune about the credit-card bill which George Bush will sign 20 April (to no mention on 20 April Instapundit). Tho' muted, we still see some pro-debtor instas in 2010.
McHugh imagined what (very) young people, especially heterosexual and male, would think about the "boomers". And those males weren't even in debt (yet). Gardner Dozois picked McHugh's story as one of the Year's Best for 2002; it anyway was among the best in that book. I suspect Vox Day read this story like I did, hence his constant fluffing of pillows.
Ah, Michael Hudson! we should have listen'd. 'Tis all moot; we'll be erasing debt via hyperinflation instead. It's quieter. Muffled, Vox might say.
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