Life extension, human rights, and the rational refinement of repugnance

Day: Friday, April 22   Hour: 5:15 - 6:00 pm

By: Aubrey de Grey

Humanity has long demonstrated a paradoxical ambivalence concerning the extension of healthy human lifespan. Modest health extension has been universally sought, whereas extreme (even indefinite) health extension has been regarded as a snare and delusion. The prevailing pace of biotechnological progress is bringing ever closer the day when humanity will be able to act on the latter view by rejecting much longer healthy lives. Indeed, some biogerontologists (including myself) contend that that day has already arrived. Here I consider whether our present caution concerning the wisdom of truly curing aging is likely to survive the increased scrutiny that it will thus receive in coming years. I conclude that it will not, because of its irreconcilability with values that are more deeply held by the large majority of humanity than any values that argue against the quest for a cure. I further conclude that all the major current reasons given for not curing aging are mere crutches to help us cope with the immutability of aging that we have been brought up to accept. Our failure to set aside such irrationality is already shortening potential longevity -- quite probably of those already alive today -- to a staggering degree. Once we realize this, our determination to consign human aging to history will be second only to our shame that we took so long to break out of our collective trance. <