Getting old sucks. Extended morbidity -- long, grinding degradation of physical and cognitive power -- adds insult to injury. Sure, everybody's got to die (unless you're Ray Kurzweil, but that's another conversation) which makes the quality of the life you have left an even more urgent matter. We all hope for a dramatic "compression of morbidity": active, engaged, enjoying travel, family, friends until that moment when some health catastrophe overtakes you suddenly, in a matter of days or weeks -- or even a single moment of cardiac arrest or brain hemorrhage (okay, fine; morbid, but we are talking about aging. Me? I'd like to spontaneously, rapidly sublimate, like a chunk of dry ice.)
Biotechnology is hard&fast on the case. It's Craig Venter's Human Longevity Institute's whole business model, and 76.4 million baby-boomers are standing by to reap (and pay for) the results. Remember that scene from the classic, biotech-premonition film Blade Runner?
Tyrell: What seems to be the problem?
Roy Batty: Death.
Tyrell: Death. Well, I'm afraid that's a little out of my jurisdiction. You...
Roy Batty: I want more life, father.
Exactly. Prophesy.
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| "I want more life." |
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