a baby was born today..
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I just received an e-mail from a friend who had a baby boy yesterday. I thought, "How nice- a baby!.. Mmm.. been there, done that."
I was about to go on to my next project, when suddenly I had a thought- an epiphany- if you will.
My epiphany:
I think it's safe to say that- barring the whole world going to hell in a handbasket because of some nucular (as boy George would say) Holy War occurring- the following events are legitimately predictable. and it's a good news/bad news scenario:
Bad News: You now reading this blog belong to the last generation who have to die.
Good News: Children born in the year 2004 will be the first generation with the option to live forever.
The chances are pretty solid that your children or grandchildren will not die- or in a worst case scenario, they will live well into the last half of the 22nd century.
I noticed some of you are experiencing sweaty philtrums at this point... Let me expound..
Stem cell research (even if not practiced here in the U.S.A.) will become commonplace. It will become highly advanced in the next two decades. And whether you like the idea or not, Granny, there will be hundreds of factories mass-producing cloned, brain-free bodies: young adult, strong, virile, athletic, and highly evolved- No steroid controversy here. Everyone who can afford it will be able to move into one of these shells when their birth-body starts to shut down, and laws will be passed which will allow no one to die unless they choose to. Livers, hearts and kidneys will be mass-produced, and these easily-manufactured organs will be cheap and readily available to most of humanity.
This is not science fiction. The "key to immortality" that I speak of is almost too simplistic, and it is impossible NOT to occur in our highly technological and money-driven society. Here's how it will go down:
The door to immortality unlocks once we have two things:
1. The technology to perform brain transplants,
and then
2. The ability to create a fresh shell which will hold, nurture and accept that transplanted brain.
Does anyone deny this probability? Piece of cake I say- Easily within 50 years... probably a lot sooner.
(We will now take questions from the studio audience):
"I hate this! What are you saying this for? The whole concept is disgusting!"
"Who would want to live forever anyways??"
"Without the brain transplant, you'd just be cloning a look-alike. No awareness; no sense of self -no memories to savor....and since brain transplants could never hap-"
(I said questions. We are looking for questions here.)
FAQs
"Okay, how do we provide ample water and food supplies for the millions of people who will choose not to die?"
"Yeah, and where do we find the room, the space, for these millions of people?"
ALOHA! (Speed-readers and A.D.D. drifters: Now that I have your focus again :) please click below for answers:
Answers to FAQs
The last two problems would probably be addressed by mandatory Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth) world-wide laws- edicts which make it impractical to have big families.
(Cf. Instead of giving huge tax breaks to couples who insist it is their God-given right to have lots of kids, as we do now, people who have more than two or three children will be heavily taxed. Sounds cruel and kind of Chinesey, doesn't it? Get over it! It's that- or die from over-population, hunger and territorial warring).
Or.... if Roman Catholics, Africans and Muslims keep multiplying in staggering numbers- and if conservative religious-zealot world leaders opposed to any form of birth control remain in power, the only other answer is space travel and colonization outside of this planet, to ease the overpopulation problem. Support your local NASA!
Don't ask me who gets to go, and who gets to stay- Haven't had that epiphany yet...
Comments
Maybe if everyone took the "Declaration of Humanity" (Ari's post yesterday) and lived by it, we'd all have options. Otherwise, I'm gonna spring Kervorkian and get the hell outa here!
Posted by: elp | August 22, 2004 8:14 AM
Food wouldn't be an issue because there will be plenty of Soylent Green to go around
Posted by: stevieray | August 22, 2004 8:15 AM
It all sounds too plausible.I am happy that I will not be around to see it.
Posted by: jay | August 22, 2004 8:16 AM
It's unlikely to work that way. The baseline, crudest methodology for radical life extension is going to be a combination of:
a) growing organs and tissue in vats
b) transplanting organs
c) strategies for repairing common degenerative brain disorders
d) effective, reliable cancer therapies
All of those will be around within 30 years - barring a major effort to stamp out regenerative medicine - so most of us will likely benefit. In actual fact, a) and b) are not as likely as more sophisticated therapies involving implanted stem cells and regeneration in situ.
As to overpopulation and other Malthusian notions, they have been debunked for a long time. See:
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb020404.shtml
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0155.html?printable=1
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb072303.shtml
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb112002.shtml
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb082702.shtml
Posted by: Reason | August 22, 2004 9:06 AM
Ronald Baily, eat shit and die.
(You'll see... You'll all see.)
Posted by: Tom Malthus | August 22, 2004 11:52 AM
Forget the distinct possiblity that we will screw up this planet beyond the point of it sustaining any life, let alone and unlimited supply of humans,...who really DOES want to live another 150 years? So you get a new body? You'll never be totally happy with it anyway and we'll all be confused to the point where we all feel like we are in a Twilight Zone episode. Who wants to have a job for another hundred years? So you can get a gold watch now says; "To Bob Leonard for 125 years of loyal service". Imagine how much money you are going to need to make to tide you over for 60 years of retirement. To say nothing of the fact that since our kids will be moving in with us as the job market can't serve them all and then their kids will be moving in and so on...I'm going to need an office building instead of a condo to house them all. I really don't want to be living with hundreds of immediate relatives. It's not going to be pretty, I tell you, and there's your reality.
Posted by: zircon john | August 22, 2004 12:46 PM
Am I considered in your generation Charles? Will I have to Die? No! I will never die because I have children. That is immortality!
Posted by: LadyArtist444 | August 22, 2004 2:28 PM
Man, you know not with whom you fuck.
If a butterly can flap its wings in Tahiti and cause a tornado in Kansas, imagine the havoc to be wrought when lowly man decides he no longer wants to die.
Be careful what you wish for!
Posted by: Mother Nature | August 22, 2004 5:12 PM
I THOUGHT WE LEFT ALL THAT LIVE FOREVER TALK NEXT TO A BAGGIE AT 92 N MAIN ST IN DOVER,MA. ALL I KNOW NOW IS THAT SOMETIMES HERE IN VEGAS MY NUTS GET ITCHY IN THE SUMMER. WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO DAVE BIEBER? JACKSON BROWNE?
Posted by: ken needel | August 23, 2004 3:43 AM
I'm betting this guy (Reason) is probably right and all the other politically propagated stuff from 70's or so is actually like someone letting the wrong horse out of the stall that then started a stampede. My aunt who once was a scientist and studied in the late 60's told me around this time, that the Ozone depletion and pollution hysteria was bullshit; more pollution and Ozone tampering came from one volcano than anything man could do and that the atmosphere replenishes itself. I didn't believe her, of course; who would, with what was being published and regurgitated with time.
Posted by: h | August 23, 2004 12:03 PM
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my great works, I want it by simply not dying." Woody Allen.
Posted by: M fats | September 1, 2004 3:11 AM