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13 Jul 08
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Aubrey de Grey of the Methuselah Foundation and Tanya Jones of Alcor Life Extension
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The free public event preceding the Understanding Aging conference organized by the Methuselah Foundation was entitled “Aging: the disease, the cure, the implications.” Held in Royce Hall at UCLA on the evening of June 27th, 2008, the event aimed at putting the postponement of aging more firmly on the political and social map than ever before. There, biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey offered his own underlying arguments for why aging can and should be the target of current-day regenerative medicine.
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The following transcript of Aubrey de Grey’s presentation from Aging: The Disease, The Cure, The Implications has been corrected and approved by the speaker. Video is also available.
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Why Fight Aging?
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Ultimately for me it’s a very straightforward thing: aging causes suffering and death. What part of this can anyone not understand?
It is very straightforward that aging is not enjoyable. The thing is, why do people not complain about it at all? I call it the “pro-aging trance,” a sort of collective hypnosis. People say things like, “You know, wouldn’t it be so boring… not getting Alzheimer’s?” “Wouldn’t dictators live forever?”
“Dictator” comes really low on the lead table of risky jobs, doesn’t it? It seems to me these are problems which, while I’m not ridiculing them utterly, what I am ridiculing is the idea that they add up to an argument to engage in any sort of hesitation on the crusade to defeat aging.
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Ultimately, aging kills a hundred thousand people every single day worldwide–that’s two thirds of deaths, that are from causes that young adults basically never die of. In the developed world it is something in the region of 90% of all deaths. And, of course, most of those deaths are preceded by a great deal of suffering, dependence and debilitation. This is something that we have to actually ask ourselves: if you have an argument that says it would cause problems if we did not have aging, then fine. But if you are trying to use that argument to say, therefore, let’s not go there… then you had better be able to argue the problems are so serious as to outweigh the deaths of all these people, or else don’t waste my time.
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Some people say, “I don’t want to live to a thousand.” I don’t want to live to a thousand, necessarily. I don’t even know if I want to live to a hundred. But I do know I want to make that choice when I am 99, rather than having it gradually removed from me by declining health. This is what it comes down to. The extension of lifespan by the defeat of aging is not the point–at least it is not the main point for me, and I do not think it is the main point for most people who are engaged in this crusade. The purpose is to alleviate the suffering that goes with getting decrepit, frail and dependent. Of course, this includes not just those who are suffering that, but the suffering of their loved ones.
The extension of average lifespan is essentially a side benefit. It is something that will happen because the way that we are going to do this, using regenerative medicine, will also mean that you have only the same probability you did when you were a young adult of dying peacefully in your sleep without any of these diseases. In other words, a very low probability indeed. You will indeed on average live a great deal longer, and I don’t think you’ll complain if you do. However, that is not the purpose. The purpose is to alleviate suffering.
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