Life Extension Party
How humanity is fighting for longevity
The article is published on the website "Oil of Russia"Life expectancy in two to three decades, according to some forecasts, will grow to 100 and even 120 years.
Some optimists want to live even longer. And superoptimists based on the theory of transhumanism generally think about immortality in a virtual body. Pessimists, in the case of an excessive increase in life expectancy, portend an economic catastrophe.
Prolong and conquerFormer deputy of the Kostroma Regional Duma Mikhail Batin, forming the Life Extension Party in 2012, hardly pursued political goals.
Behind him is the creation of the Organization for Life Extension (2006), the foundation "Science for Life Extension" (2008) and much more for life extension. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Buck Institute for Aging Research (California, USA). Today his party exists as a Facebook group, which is very modern. No matter how exotic it may sound, back in April 2007, 36 thousand residents of the Yaroslavl region signed a letter from his organization to the President of Russia, so that the state would support research in the field of life extension, and also make life expectancy the main criterion for the work of government agencies.
Actually, in the old days there were many other exotic parties. Many people remember the Party of beer lovers. So in June of the same year, Yaroslavl supporters of the Organization for Life Extension collected 10 thousand signatures under a letter addressed to the governor of the region to cancel the traditional beer festival. For the sake of persuasiveness, a bike ride "Let's take a beer holiday" was held, and youth activists picketed the mayor's office for a month. As a result, lovers of longevity crushed beer lovers.
All this seems a curiosity. But scientists assume that after some 20-30 years, the average life expectancy in developed countries will reach 120-140 years - it is believed that this is quite an achievable biological age of a person. Suffice it to say that over the past 100 years, life expectancy on Earth has doubled. So, in 1913, the average life expectancy in Russia was 34.2 years (for men – 33.6 years, women – 36.2 years). And in 2011, according to the Ministry of Health and Social Development, the indicator for the entire population of Russia was 70.3 years (for men - 64.3, for women – 76.1).
Of course, this is all the whims of a windy lady statistician: 150 years ago it was the norm to give birth to eight or ten children in a family, half of them to lose at an early age – and then the curve of statistics collapsed. People died from typhus, scurvy, tuberculosis, which are being treated today. The same applies to injuries. It is worth mentioning that during the Crimean War, thanks to the Sisters of Mercy led by Florence Nightingale, the mortality rate among the wounded in hospitals in Turkey decreased from 42% to 2.2% – only due to more thorough medical care.
One way or another, already in this century we will live in a society with a predominant representation of the elderly. And the Party for Life Extension may stop looking so anecdotal, starting to serve the interests of the most powerful social group.
Only fruit flies go into battleAccording to a study by the Center for Educational Development of the Moscow School of Management "Skolkovo", about 10 million men and almost 26 million women of retirement age live in Russia.
In general, this is almost a quarter of the country's population. Over the next four years (2014-2017), the number of this group will increase by about 500-600 thousand people per year. Life expectancy in Russia was 68.67 years in 2009, the researchers remind. According to modern science, the species limit of human life is 110-120 years. If so, the biological reserve for the Russian population is about 40-50 years old.
According to the demographic forecast of the UN "World Population 2300", the share of elderly people in the world's population increases by 2.4% every year. In six to seven years, the number of elderly and old will reach 1 billion. The average age of the Earth's population in 2000 was 26.6 years, by 2050 it will be 37.3, and by 2100 - if humanity does not move to mass immortality - 45.67.
However, all these forecasts are based on projecting past trends into the future. Supporters of longevity, meanwhile, point to the latest achievements of science, promising to increase the time of human life at times in the shortest possible time. The search for the elixir of youth is as old as the world. Even in ancient Babylon, a recipe was known: take a red-haired boy, seal it in a vessel with water and take the infusion in doses according to the doctor's prescription. However, unlike other hits of world science like the Philosopher's stone and the perpetual motion machine, a cure for old age is still considered an achievable subject, and life extension work is not regarded as quackery.
Two-time Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling devoted a lot of energy to the search for a recipe for longevity at the end of his life. At the age of 92, shortly before his death, he told his daughter Linda: "You need to take large, very, very, very large doses of vitamins"! Subsequently, Pauling's family transferred his archive to the American company Irwin Naturals, a manufacturer of dietary supplements.
There are many other areas of research – for example, the theory of free radicals, according to which antioxidants play a key role in the rejuvenation of the body. In 2006, American Roger Kornberg received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for studying the mechanism of copying genetic information by cells," which was also supposed to help unravel the secret of longevity. And in 2009, the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Australian Elizabeth Blackburn, American Carol Greider and her compatriot Jack Shostak - for research in the field of chromosome copying, which allowed us to understand the mechanism of cell aging. By the way, back in 1984, Grader discovered the enzyme telomerase, which protects sections of chromosomes from incomplete copying during cell division. In turn, the existence of this protective enzyme was predicted by Soviet biologist Alexey Olovnikov back in 1973. However, he subsequently abandoned the telomeric theory, offering a number of others instead.
Anyway, serious investors have invested and are investing huge sums in research on life extension – in particular, Google founder Sergey Brin, Vimpelcom founder Dmitry Zimin, Euroset founder Timur Artemyev. The laboratories they fund periodically report breakthroughs. There are more and more centenarians among yeast fungi, fruit flies, worms, mice and other our neighbors on the planet. People are waiting patiently for now.
Food is not for everyone200 years ago, the English economist and priest Thomas Malthus predicted that soon the planet would not be able to feed humanity.
Malthus was wrong: his law of decreasing soil fertility was suitable for pre-industrial societies, but did not take into account the consequences of the industrial revolution, as well as the revolution in agriculture.
The prospects for overpopulation, however, are impressive even now. The world's population in the twentieth century has more than quadrupled – from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.125 billion in 2000. It is expected that by 2050 it will reach 9-12 billion people. Three-quarters of them will live in Asia and the Americas, the share of the white population will be about 10%. It's hard to imagine what kind of demographic explosion will happen if people refuse to die at their usual age and stay in this mortal world for those very reserve 40 years.
Critics of longevity predict an economic catastrophe – they mention the shortage of land and food, unemployment, growing consumption and the associated increase in waste, the burden on transport and other communications. At the same time, there will be a redistribution of resources in the global economy – for example, the demand for entertainment, tourism, and medicine will increase. The aging of the population will bring down pension programs in developed countries. But the main thing is that the growth of consumption will require an increase in production, and hence energy resources. Meanwhile, the reserves of the main energy carriers are melting, and even with current consumption they will be exhausted in fifty years.
One of the longevity researchers, Alexander Chikunov, was a member of the management of RAO UES of Russia for many years, was a member of the management board, and after the reorganization of the energy holding, he sold his shares and engaged in the search and implementation of breakthrough innovative projects. In 2009 he founded the Rostock group, in 2011 - the Institute of World Ideas. He lives in a quiet town with a talking name Princeton (New Jersey, USA), periodically visits home to Moscow. Alexander and I are talking in a Moscow cafe, he shows me tables and diagrams on a tablet that prove that even with the current scale of production and consumption, we are capable of destroying the planet by the middle of the century without any nuclear wars.
– Overpopulation is a myth, – says Alexander. – Humanity faces more serious problems. We are on the verge of self-destruction, and the count has been going on for years.
Greenhouse effect, CO2 emissions bring with them climate changes that lead to catastrophic natural disasters. The best minds of the planet, such as Bill Gates, Albert Gore, members of the Club of Rome, scientists, billionaires, politicians, already understand that if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced to zero by 2050 (that is, we are talking about the elimination of hydrocarbon energy), the planet will be degraded and destroyed.
– What is the way out? – I'm asking.
It turns out that it is necessary to reduce rampant consumption based on cheap energy and electricity. Make energy expensive. Switch completely to renewable sources – nuclear, hydrogen, solar energy, wind and tidal energy, heating surfaces, etc. Much has already been done in the world to reduce the cost and spread of such sources. But in general, we fatten by robbing future generations, parasitize our children.
With pensions and the food crisis, everything also rests on scientific and technological progress.
– We live in the post–industrial era, - continues Chikunov.– The concept of labor is changing. In Japan, they are already talking about the complete robotization of the main industries, geneticists are working on creating a super food, bypassing agriculture. People will only be engaged in the production of ideas. This is a different model of society, where there will be no question "How to feed the elderly?". And in this society, there is no need to chase GDP growth. And pensions... After all, they appeared a hundred years ago, before that there were no pensions, and somehow they lived. So you can just cancel them.
Alexander Chikunov spent $10 million searching for the "elixir of youth". Together with the Russian scientist Alexey Ryazantsev, he undertook a very expensive experiment: he took 20 thousand mice and fed them for four years with all the known 1100 medications that have one or another relation to the topic. By the method of "poke" or "vacuum cleaner" – at random. We found about 30 types of drugs that allowed to increase the life expectancy of mice by 20-25%. At first, they did not understand how these drugs work, but then they found a common denominator and called it "system X". They are preparing a publication in a prestigious scientific publication. There are no funds to continue the experiment. Mice are expensive now: they ate $10 million.
Ideals of transhumanismNot everyone believes that the secret of a long life is to keep the body given to us in working condition for as long as possible.
There are a lot of adherents of the theory of transhumanism in the world, among them entrepreneur and media mogul Dmitry Itskov. The theory says that if your body is decrepit and only the brain works adequately, just replace the worn-out organs with other, high-strength ones. There are already ways to replace a lost limb and make a new one work. Many serious scientists are sure that soon it will come to the internal organs. So, Alexander Chulok, deputy director of the Foresight Center of the Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge at the HSE, is convinced that in a couple of decades it will be easy to make a liver, kidney, spleen at home on a 3D printer.
No one knows yet how long the brain will be able to maintain its functions after the death of other organs. The most radical approach here is the posthuman theory. The same Alexander Chulok believes that by 2030 it will be possible to copy a human brain to a computer, and therefore to external media like a USB flash drive. His opinion is based on the views of such advocates of transhumanism as Google's technical director and the famous futurist Ray Kurzweil. These enthusiasts are sure that by 2040-2045, the human brain will be able to exist in virtual space – its "framework" will not matter at all. One can also recall the novel by the Frenchman Michel Houellebecq "The Possibility of an Island", where, along with our contemporary, there are two clones of him in the future, who cannot agree in assessing their original. On the website singularity.com articles like "Virtual We are We?" are being seriously discussed. That is, will our avatar be our personality, or will it be a slightly different citizen?
There are, of course, many questions. First of all, a computer copy at the first stage will become just our "photo", at the second – "video". Cybercopy is not capable of being us "in the process", that is, generating thoughts, receiving emotions. But if the successes of neurocomputing and brain simulation allow the "remote brain" to work, duplicating our consciousness, even more questions arise. Will, for example, the personality be able to function if it is pulled out of the socket? Or – will your consciousness remain yours, being deprived of the fear of bodily death?
Old age is a joyLet's still try to look into the near future.
With an increase in life time, the life cycle of a person should change. The world will be filled with 40-year-old teenagers looking for themselves in life, and 50-year-old "Turgenev girls". And the 110-year-old boss, who has been moving his business for more than half a century, will recruit specialists fit for his great-grandchildren and tell legends about ancient robots. The most important changes should occur in the industries that are most tied to the human life cycle – in all these credit and insurance organizations, educational institutions and medical institutions, construction, repair and automobile companies. And it is clear how their activities will be adjusted – towards the growth of consumption and, accordingly, production.
You can often hear that an increase in the number of centenarians will simply increase the number of pensioners (freeloaders) and only prolong their senile illnesses and sufferings. The benefit from this is only for pharmaceutical companies and doctors. This opinion is refuted by a study, the report of which was published in the scientific journal Health Affairs (N10, 2013) by a group of American and Canadian scientists. With the help of computer modeling of the health status and financial costs of future elderly Americans, they compared two scenarios: what kind of return will the continuation of the practice of treating individual diseases bring and what kind of struggle for a healthy old age (old age is not considered a disease, so investors avoid investing money in the fight against it). The results showed that the fight against specific diseases will bring less and less effect in the next 50 years. The work on slowing down old age will add to the life expectancy of 2.2 years, which will be spent in good health, the economic effect will be an additional $7.1 trillion until 2060. The burden on the pension program and Medicare will be offset by an increase in the retirement age.
And here's what Oxford Economics reports according to the results of its voluminous study The Longevity Economy: the US population over 50 years old makes the most significant contribution to the country's economy – 106 million Americans provide an annual turnover of over $ 7 trillion, and by 2032 the amount will grow to $13.5 trillion. Their economic activity provides jobs for about 100 million US citizens – this is two-thirds of all employment, as well as the total amount of earnings. They direct $100 billion annually to charitable purposes – about 70% of the proceeds from private individuals. Half of federal and local taxes are also paid by people over the age of 50.
In addition, researchers from Oxford refute the opinion that the elderly spend less. In the USA, the latter dominate 119 out of 123 consumer segments. So, this group accounts for 75% of medical prescriptions, they spend $90 billion a year on cars (28% more than younger Americans), more than $50 billion on gifts to grandchildren, $17 billion on their education. Older Americans spend more than $10 billion a year on clothes, $4 billion on travel and recreation, and $6 billion on toys. They have become a target audience for thousands of startups – over the past ten years, investment funds have bought 138 companies focused on this social group. The market for anti-aging products and services in this area has grown from $80 billion in 2009 to $114 billion in 2014. And on a global scale – up to $290 billion. The turnover of the regenerative medicine market in the USA is now $ 1.6 billion, and by 2025 it will increase to $20 billion. The remote medicine market (telemedicine, remote health monitoring, thematic mobile applications) is also developing rapidly, where the older generation is also particularly active – it is expected that by 2020 its volume will reach $ 20 billion.
One can object – they say, why compare rich elderly people in the United States and poor Russian pensioners. But this is a stereotypical idea. In fact, many Russians remain active until old age. According to a survey within the framework of the Skolkovo study mentioned above, 39.2% of the older generation would like to continue working, from 1.6% to 8% hope to establish their own business, 36.8% of men and 28.5% of women want to do various jobs on a voluntary basis in the interests of the immediate environment. At the age of 60-64, 40% of respondents work, by the age of 69 – 23.6%, from the age of 70 – 2.9%.
In addition, a third (34%) of people of retirement and pre–retirement age are ready to "sit down at the desk" again, get new work skills - every tenth (11%) aged 72 years, every fourth (25%) "legitimate pensioner" (63 to 71 years), 37% of men and women of near-retirement or "junior retirement" age (58-62 years). 27% do not agree that working senior citizens only "live out" professionally, considering their career exhausted. By the way, retraining of the elderly is another promising market, because in five to ten years there will not be many of the existing professions. According to another Skolkovo study, in particular, postmen, translators, librarians, business analysts in investment companies, foremen, foremen on drilling rigs, operators in banks, pharmacists, pharmacists - all of them will be replaced by robots and computer programs.
Some opponents of an excessively strong increase in the length of human life point out that nature and history, if necessary, will still find ways to limit both the growth of the planet's population and life expectancy. There are many tools for this – wars, terrorist attacks, epidemics, natural disasters, constantly changing viruses, etc. Especially since the promised increase in life expectancy "threatens" only residents of developed countries, which can cause envy and discontent among representatives of socially and technologically backward societies – this is another reason for the conflict of civilizations. And in general, as the famous physicist Stephen Hawking believes, the only way to preserve humanity as a species is to develop space technologies and explore other worlds.
Vladimir Gendlin
Source: Kommersant-MONEY
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru02.03.2015