Express.co.uk: “The first person to live 1,000 years is likely already born,” says Dr Aubrey de Gray, a renowned British longevity scientist.
Dr. de Gray specializes in gerontology and is a leading expert at the SENS Research Foundation, which conducts research on anti-aging. He argues that the moment of "negligible aging", that is, when scientific advances can keep pace with the aging process, modern civilization should reach in no more than 20 years.
The term "negligible aging" was coined by Caleb Finch in 1990. It denotes zero correlation between age and probability of death, that is, the rate of aging, which is difficult to statistically distinguish from zero on the scale of a given sample.
There are different variations in the formulation, interpretation and application of this concept. In Dr. Gray's version (longevity escape velocity), negligible aging refers to the historical period when the development of medicine will be able to allow people to synchronously make minor retracements of cellular damage received by the body throughout life.
That is, we are not talking about a magic pill that bestows immortality, but rather a set of drugs that will slightly prolong life until the moment when the main magic pill appears. According to Dr. Gray, the first drugs of this kind will appear somewhere in 17-20 years, so the current generation, which will see all this, has every chance to hold out until the distribution of tickets for 1,000 or even many more years.
Nevertheless, despite such an optimistic statement, Dr. Gray is filled with pessimism and complains about ridiculous funding of research from financial elites and complete disregard for the topic of world politicians. And this is despite the huge progress in the field.
In an interview with Express.co.uk, Dr. Gray says:
Dr. Gray paid special attention to politicians who are more concerned with re-elections than impending ethical and social problems.
Thus, in a few decades, people will live for a very long time, possibly forever, which will inevitably lead to a host of problems, primarily overpopulation and a war for resources.
In the same way, society itself will radically change when parents, and then grandfathers and great-grandfathers, outwardly will not differ in any way from their grandchildren, great-grandchildren and children. All this will give rise to multiple problems, for which you need to prepare right now.
Editorial comment
The reasoning of Dr. Gray, of course, is very interesting, but like many botanists from medicine, he does not look at the root of the problem. And the root of the problem is as follows.
Imagine that you are, for example, Bill Gates or there Rothschild, that you have from 100 billion to several trillion dollars and 50 years are drawn on your biological calendar. That is, it is not yet the age to begin to survive from the mind, but aging is already obvious and the perspective is known.
And then some clown comes to you and offers to make an immortality pill or something like that over the next 20 years. Of course, you won't give him all the money, since there are a lot of clowns, but you will send enough money - and only then will you invest some pennies in the fight against some Mr., for example, global warming, Ebola or AIDS there.
This is an obvious logical decision that, in theory, any person should take, if he is not completely dumb. But, as Dr. Gray says, there were no investors and there are no investors. They did not exist 30-40 years ago, and they do not exist now. Everybody cares about the problem of longevity.
This begs the question: Are all billionaires that dumb? Is it possible that everyone, having galloped along a local attraction, is in such a hurry to the ticket office, where they issue a ticket to the next world?
In principle, this cannot be. And since this can not be either in principle or in nature, there are only two explanations for the current situation:
a) All these gentlemen billionaires are just puppets, keepers of other people's money and do not decide anything themselves.
b) Pills from death have been around for a long time and research on them is not needed.
As far as we can assume and how it all seems to us - both versions are correct. That is, either these pills have been around for a long time and were obtained in the days of antediluvian civilization, or the local “masters of life” are somewhat different genetically and do not need pills. And since it is quite simple to solve the problem of prolonging life, the owners forbid their dolls to fund any research on the topic.
Thus, no matter how Dr. Gray bangs his head against the wall, there will be no progress and people can only wait for the coming of the Messiah, because with his coming the rules of the game will change and, according to the prophecies, all people will live without dying or growing old. True, if you believe the prophets, then this seemingly eternal life will last for a very short time.