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Problems Posed by Antibiotic-Resistant Tuberculosis Bacteria (2004) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Problems Posed by Antibiotic-Resistant Tuberculosis Bacteria (2004) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 26, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2004 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay earned over 1,200 page views on Associated Content/Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
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~ G. Stolyarov II, July 26, 2014

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How Evolution Complicates the Fight Against Infectious Disease

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Tuberculosis (TB) has been successfully fought with antibiotics for decades, but the emergence of antibiotic-resistance TB bacteria has resulted in numerous complications in the battle against this disease.

Misuse of antibiotics via their frequent introduction into an individual’s body may destroy certain weaker strains of the TB bacteria, but will leave in place the few bacteria that have by chance been born with the ability to resist the antibiotics used. These bacteria will then have no obstacle toward proliferating and thus contributing to the evolution of a strain almost fully resistant to that particular antibiotic. The resistant bacteria are naturally selected to survive and multiply as the fittest under such conditions.

When an environment rich in bacteria for a particular disease exists, it may be possible for several afflicted persons to be treated with a different antibiotic each and for those persons to develop strains of bacteria immune to that particular antibiotic. Due to frequent contact between these individuals, the various specifically immune strains can transfer from one individual to another. Within a given individual’s body a strain immune to antibiotic A is free to undergo genetic recombination with a strain immune to antibiotic B, thus sometimes transferring immunity to two or more antibiotics to a given set of bacterial organisms, whose multiplication can bring about a populous multi-resistant strain.

An example of environments where antibiotic-resistant bacteria mutate readily is the Russian prison system, which remains alarmingly overcrowded. Inmates live in constant close contact with one another, facilitating a rapid rate of infectious disease proliferation. The TB bacteria, often latent in healthy individuals, more frequently manifests itself in the malnourished prisoners, many of whom additionally undermine their health via alcoholism. Whenever they cough or speak, the bacteria can infect those nearby. Moreover, antibiotics, especially second-line drugs for treating resistant strains, are in short supply. Thus there exists no real barrier to the spread of tuberculosis within the prison network and beyond.

Transportation, a key factor in the global economy, can also be an agent for the spread of a particular infectious disease on a worldwide scale, as travelers from an epidemic-stricken part of the world can transmit the bacteria a continent away. In cities near the Siberian prisons, many college students have already become afflicted with lung consumption, while trains carry the disease to Moscow, where some Russian travelers to the United States can reach any destination in the world, including the United States, by airplane. In New York, strains of the Tomsk TB bacteria have already been discovered.

An understanding of evolution in bacteria may cause doctors to be more prudent in prescribing antibiotics to patients and compel them to realize that such drugs have their limitations and must not be over-indulged in. Antibiotics may be used for treating severe cases of a disease, whereas milder manifestations should be suppressed by other means. Also, second-line drugs, which are currently expensive and dangerous, can be researched in greater depth, seeing as they provide a resort when resistant strains have already developed. If a mass-manufacturing industry for those drugs develops, their abundance will increase, and thus their prices will drop, rendering them available to quell epidemics within populations, such as the Siberian inmates, which do not possess optimal purchasing power.

Scientists can also keep a step ahead of the bacteria by artificially breeding strains resistant to known antibiotics in lab cultures and developing new antibiotics that would eliminate those strains based on studies of the organisms’ physiological systems and weaknesses. In this manner, future mutations can be anticipated and cures made available to preempt the spread of the mutant strain in the early stages of its development. If most future mutations are likewise suppressed, it may be possible to stagnate the general trend toward emergence of more resistant bacteria.

Healthy, Peaceful Death Does Not Exist – Article by Advocate of Negligible Senescence

Healthy, Peaceful Death Does Not Exist – Article by Advocate of Negligible Senescence

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The New Renaissance Hat
Advocate of Negligible Senescence
May 26, 2014
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ANS_Saved_Near_Death

Most people want to die of in their sleep, in peace, of old age, without pain and surrounded by their family and loved ones after achieving success and after having done something worthwhile.But the facts suggest, that such a peaceful end is granted to very few people, while most people have to endure different disabilities and diseases associated with aging and terrible pain and decreased function, performance, and the lack of joy coming with it.The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project originated in 1990 in a collaboration between the World Health Organization, Harvard School of Public Health, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), and the World Bank.

The focus of the Global Burden of Disease Study is to provide a detailed statistical analysis of the impact of diseases leading to death and disability across various regions around the world. The purpose of the study is to reveal gaps between current and ideal health circumstances and develop strategies to reduce this gap.

The 2010 Global Burden of Disease study reveals a significant shift in the nature of disease worldwide. There has been a significant increase in chronic disease worldwide. This is due to demographics of aging, and the subsequent increase of age-related disease.

Worldwide, the contribution of different risk factors to disease burden has changed substantially, with a shift away from risks for communicable diseases in children towards those for non-communicable diseases in adults.

As life expectancy has increased, the number of healthy years lost to disability has also increased in most countries, consistent with the expansion of morbidity hypothesis, which has implications for health planning and health-care expenditure.One of the key findings reveals that we are living longer, but under an increased burden of chronic disease that impairs our quality of life.These results are distressing: men can expect to spend an average of 9.2 years and women 11.5 years with some form of a chronic disability. In other words, during the last decade of lives, on average, our quality of life might become significantly impaired by the presence of a chronic disease.

The paradox, then – the fact that people want to be actively saved if they are near or at the moment of death, but also want to die peacefully – seems to be rooted in a pretty profound medical illiteracy.

Healthy people don’t die in their sleep, “peacefully” or otherwise. You don’t hear about too many 25-year-olds dying suddenly of heart attacks or strokes during their nightly slumber.

When people in their twenties die, it’s usually considered tragic. When babies are found dead in their cribs, it’s referred to by a name (“Sudden Infant Death Syndrome”). But when elderly people die, in bed or otherwise, there tends to be a curious tone of, “Well, at least they went peacefully.”

The increase in life expectancy and the resulting growth of the elderly population are also thought to be driving up the number of elderly people with disabilities.

Typically in the case of dying in your sleep due to old age, an autopsy can determine exactly what went wrong, or what stopped working. For example, your heart could simply get tired and stop beating, because it’s been working hard for the past eighty or ninety years.

The phrase “natural causes” or dying “of old age” is a very strange one really. Ultimately what it means is that someone who dies of natural causes, dies of aging in a way that has not been given an additional name; so really it’s just a matter of terminology. The difference is between dying of “natural causes” and dying of some other specifically named thing that doesn’t really often affect young adults.

Searching for a cure for age-related ill health, a problem that kills more people than all other causes combined, is a moral imperative. The Advocate for Negligible Senescence publishes articles that discuss and educate the public about research to combat senescence. See the Advocate’s Facebook page.  
Motivated Time Prospectors – Article by Eric Schulke

Motivated Time Prospectors – Article by Eric Schulke

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The New Renaissance Hat
Eric Schulke
May 16, 2014
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Think of all the people’s lots in life that you don’t have. You will regret not having more chances to stand here as you are now. It is said that if everybody put their worries into a pile and then took an equal share from the pile, then most people would be content to take back their own share of them. I was reading an article that said,

“To be sick and dying in Vegas has its own existential horror. Not only do you realize that you are going to die and that you don’t matter to the world, but you also realize that much of the world is awful and yet you still would do anything to live.”

Struggling to survive on this planet can be miserable, and yet we continue to stick with it. Why? Because we know that with life there is a chance to engage in more experience. It seems that a person can live, in part, on the desire for continued experience. That chance drives us to keep reaching for achievement and progress.

What does one want to experience in life? What does that honest-to-life list look like? If you had to draw up a complete list, could you do it, or describe the nature of it? The active wanting of experience, it seems, is a major cure to indifference toward death. It seems that it might be a life-or-death question.

We have become really good at being indifferent to the most widespread forms of death, in order to spare ourselves from stressing out on futilely trying to do something about it. Now that we have the tools and techniques, and the times have changed, we have to change that way of thinking from indifference back toward letting that horror affect us. Horror benefits us in that it is our cue to be driven to action to make sure that the horror can’t happen again. If a poltergeist starts ravaging your house, that’s your signal to get out of there, in the same way that the horror that general death, aging, and other diseases are your signal to get death, aging, and other diseases away from you and out of your cells.

Carl Sagan’s daughter once related his words that “there was nothing he would like more in the world than to see his mother and father again.” I was thinking about what an insult added to injury he must have felt in his final days, to have the paralyzing misery of impending death heaped on top of crushing pain. Let that kind of pain course through your mind, face it, bring it to a steaming rage, and let the energy power you to help execute any of the various assaults on aging and disease that are underway in laboratories in various places around the world.

In another article, I was reading about a guy whose daughter went missing in 1971, and was never found. He lived to be 102 and died in the fall of 2013. He had stated that one of the hardest burdens for him was never knowing what happened to his daughter. What misery, for all those years… Think of that… Then five days after he died, his daughter’s car was found upside down in a river; she was the apparent victim of a decades-old car crash.

I can’t fathom that life could inflict such a bitter spite upon somebody. That story stirs up the kind of despair and anguish that each death seems to deserve. It’s the kind of anguish you need to figure out how to allow in, in order to have the right kinds of drive to help pull the Movement for Indefinite Life Extension forward with us.

So once we get there, back to that place where we stand amidst realization of the horror of death, how do we face it? One good basic and natural way to do so, it seems, is to purposefully enjoy the good parts of life, and strategize and take action in helping to fix the worst of the broken things. It’s fun and fulfilling. Life isn’t bad, it’s an adventure. A tough challenge is like a choppy sea, like two armies clashing, or mountain climbers fighting the elements. The implementation of the solution of each challenge is like a Renaissance of scale, some miniature, some very large, like Caesar vs. Vercingetorix, or Charlemagne vs. the Vikings. It’s like the writings of Caesar, the writing-resurgence work of the Carolingians, Vercingetorix and the fate of an entire Celtic confederation, or the first times the Vikings set sail out beyond Greenland.

A few days ago I was thinking about a typical farm hand of Medieval times, walking outside to smell the heavy wet grass and earth of a cold wet spring day. How did they remember the great Lombard migrations, or Scandinavian raiders docking at Pisa? Who was Charlemagne to people before negationists took hold? What did they think might become of the future? Many of them must have felt lost at that kind of thought.

Focus on your heartbeat, feel it pulsing. Theirs pulsed like that. They thought of their hearts stopping and of how it couldn’t possibly be lost to the dust of history anytime soon. You think that, too. Their hearts are lost to the dust of history. Yours is next.

What does every year, and every moment mean to the history of everything? I read recently that if you throw a pebble, it could be offsetting the center of gravity of the universe. Every moment means everything, every moment is everything. Every moment is a world in itself, a great painting, a great work of art, a great burning torch, a water well built in inhospitable lands. Think of how many heartbeats have come to a stop, how many paintings have been burned… So many tangled groves in forests have had the wind blowing through them for all of these years, without one person, without one spoken word, in a place near a stream, where there was once a mighty, crackling stone fireplace that warmed multiple generations of families across the 6th through 8th centuries. It was a place that hosted countless memories which later tormented the souls of dying, now long-dead grandfathers.

They don’t deserve to be dead. They deserve what they earned: the world that is paying exponentially exciting, satiating, and fullfillingly valuable dividends today. This is an incredibly motivating and driving factor in what pushes me to pursue indefinite life extension. People take on a variety of diverse augmentations over time, becoming unique collections of intriguing insight – dynamic power tools for slicing and dicing the elements. We can’t afford for these wealths of rare and powerful abilities and resources to be pillaged and killed off. Sometimes it seems as if life-extensionists like me have to explain to people why it’s bad to let people be killed before we can get down to business in a worldwide effort to reach the goals that can get this done.

We are like the union for the people that make a profession out of being human. We are creating better and better pay, and we demand longer hours. I want every feasible remedy that can restore and maintain life to be a permanent fixture in this reality, for it to be harvested like air. There is no reason a heart has to give out. There is no reason we cannot prevent tangles from forming in the brain. Our organs and cells don’t have to degrade. We have tools, techniques, and brains. We will make it through these obstacles.

How long will it be before our times are old, before 2015 cars look like old classics, and thoughts of our times are most often associated with the smell of the pages of books that have been moved from their years of service on shelves, to boxes of outdated material in back rooms? Many experiences and voyages that could have happened, and could have been chronicled in those boxes, can never exist.

That’s the problem, it seems: There are experiences that could have existed, but that now never can. Thoughtful experience – there is no reason to forgo it or allow it to be lost – hence the basic, inherent reasoning for supporting indefinite life extension, it seems.

Every moment is the gold, the thing to be mined, the thing to be in awe of, to seek, pursue, and strategize toward, to work for, to feel victorious for possessing. Let’s mine more time: support the Movement for Indefinite Life Extension. Don’t be distracted by fool’s gold while the most valuable gold, time, slips through your fingers.

One of these days, we will put funeral homes across the world out of business, and it will be a great victory. We will celebrate, and the festivities will be grand. But we must get a move on now, because our chances are turning into sand.

Eric Schulke was a director at LongeCity during 2009-2013. He has also been an activist with the Movement for Indefinite Life Extension and other causes for over 13 years.

More Attention for “Death is Wrong” – Article by Reason

More Attention for “Death is Wrong” – Article by Reason

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The New Renaissance Hat
Reason
April 12, 2014
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I like to see advocates setting forth to create small scale initiatives like the children’s book Death is Wrong and the associated fundraiser to distribute copies. At the large scale a broad advocacy movement for a cause in medical research isn’t a monolithic thing; it is made up thousands of such efforts, a tapestry of individual who each thought enough of the cause to stand up and do something about it. More of this is always a good thing, and working towards a cure for degenerative aging is the most worthy of causes that I know of.

Donating to the right sort of cutting edge research is one approach, and the one I favor, but equally we have to get out there and persuade more people to do the same. Money has to come from somewhere. There is always a balance between raising research funding to get the job done versus funding the cost of gathering more supporters and thus making it more likely that greater amounts of research funding can be obtained. Research results help to convince more people to fund more research, but there is never enough support in the early crucial stages – the really large amounts of research funding arrive after the most important work is done, as is the case for every trend.

The starting point for large amounts of future funding and rapid progress towards actual, real, working rejuvenation treatments is some mix of research funding and advocacy initiatives today, however. All such efforts should be encouraged, as it is through them that the longevity science community finds its way to a louder voice in the public sphere, a taller soapbox from which to persuade and educate. Aging is a horror, the greatest cause of pain and suffering in this world of ours, and we stand at the verge of being able to do something about it – but only if many more people come to think that this cause has merit and make their own contributions to help out.

Praise for Death is Wrong, a delicious transhumanist book for children – Review by Guilio Prisco

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Death is a disease, and hopefully future scientists, perhaps including the young readers of the book, will find a cure. Previous generations thought that death is inevitable, and invented delusional fake philosophies to make death easier to accept. This reaction is understandable – if you can’t avoid something, you look for ways to accept it – and explains all usual rhetorical babbling in praise of death: “overpopulation, make room for the young, death is a tool of evolution, boredom after a long life,” and the utterly idiotic “death gives meaning to life.” The book deconstructs all these fake “arguments” and calls them what they are: understandable but pathetic attempts to rationalize the inevitable.

Provocative strong messages get heard, and teaching children that death will be cured is very provocative in today’s dull, defeatist, politically correct cultural climate. I think writing for children forces to keep things clean end simple, without big words and endless caveats, cutting through the noise and getting to the point. Clear, clean, and simple communication focused on the core message, with qualifications and caveats (if they are really needed) in footnotes, is something that transhumanists should practice more, and writing for children is a good way to learn.

Spreading the Word That Death is Wrong

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Who could have thought a month ago that an illustrated children’s book on indefinite life extension would become a fiercely, passionately discussed phenomenon not just in transhumanist and futurist circles, but on mainstream publications and forums? And yet that is exactly what has happened to Death is Wrong – certainly the most influential and provocative of all of my endeavors to date. I am thrilled that it is precisely my pursuit of this most fundamental and precious goal – preservation of the life of every innocent individual – that has achieved greater public exposure, controversy included, than anything else I have ever done.

Review of “Death is Wrong” by Adam Alonzi

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Death can be cured. Let this sink into your brain, not because it is comforting, but because it is true. Even obvious truths will not gain acceptance unless we vigorously campaign against the falsehoods. Death is not something to embrace, and it is not something to ignore. To turn it into a matter of metaphysics or “bioethics” is insulting to those who, by no fault of their own, are burdened by the ailments of old age. There are many extraordinary men and women who could go on working for hundreds of years if their stars were not designed to dim so soon.

Reason is the founder of The Longevity Meme (now Fight Aging!). He saw the need for The Longevity Meme in late 2000, after spending a number of years searching for the most useful contribution he could make to the future of healthy life extension. When not advancing the Longevity Meme or Fight Aging!, Reason works as a technologist in a variety of industries. 

This work is reproduced here in accord with a Creative Commons Attribution license. It was originally published on FightAging.org.

Bob Lane Reviews “Death is Wrong” on LifeVsDeath.com

Bob Lane Reviews “Death is Wrong” on LifeVsDeath.com

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
April 12, 2014
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Bob Lane has written an excellent post about Death is Wrong on his site LifeVsDeath.com. Read it here. Mr. Lane writes that “This is an important step in a long-term effort to win minds and change attitudes. I applaud the author’s efforts and plan to share a copy with my 15-year-old. […] Even if you don’t have children, please consider supporting the author in what he is trying to accomplish.”

Review of “Death is Wrong” by Adam Alonzi

Review of “Death is Wrong” by Adam Alonzi

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The New Renaissance Hat
Adam Alonzi
April 7, 2014
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Death is wrong, and it can be defeated. Gennady Stolyarov’s new book, Death is Wrong, makes this powerful  idea accessible to everyone. Now that you have seen the phrase in print, it should not seem odd to you; the vincible visage of the Grim Reaper should seem less frightening. It is a primitive spectre, a monster to be unmasked in the venerable tradition of Scooby Doo. There is no more reason to believe in its inevitability than there is to believe in the Easter Bunny. This strange, wonderful and intoxicating idea should begin to sink into our brains, not because it is pleasant, but because it is true. Please support his Indiegogo campaign here.

Death can be cured. Let this sink into your brain, not because it is comforting, but because it is true. Even obvious truths will not gain acceptance unless we vigorously campaign against the falsehoods Death is not something to embrace, and it is not something to ignore. To turn it into a matter of metaphysics or “bioethics” is insulting to those who, by no fault of their own, are burdened by the ailments of old age. There are many extraordinary men and women who could go on working for hundreds of years if their stars were not designed to dim so soon.

What do you want to do with your life? This is the question Mr. Stolyarov poses to his readers. Whatever you wish to do is restricted by the time you have on this earth. This is restricted largely by your genes, even if you do all you can to mitigate the hand chance and meiosis have dealt you. The fountain of youth now is not far off. We no longer need to deceive ourselves with lofty philosophical discourses of dreams of a world after this one. Conventional “wear and tear” theories claim the body has a finite amount of repair resources, yet if this was true, exercise should greatly decrease one’s lifespan. As far as we can tell, moderate exercise fights aging as well as or better than anything in our still inadequate arsenal.

If the process is the result of unavoidable changes we should not expect to find animals which undergo negligible senescence. We should also expect animals of the same basic shape, type and size to age at approximately the same rates. American crows normally die before their eigth birthday; Kakapo parrots can live well into their nineties. Post-reproductive suicide may be viewed as a peculiarity of some species, but it also graphically illustrates the control genes have over the aging process. The goal of the Transhumanist movement now should be to convince as many people as possible of the viability of this research. Arcane mathematical tidbits from evolutionary biology, although more cogent, are less convincing than masses of salmon carcasses floating downstream or lowly tortoises who, for no obvious reason, live for centuries.

Knowing our quality of life is doomed to decay with each passing year, we do not always take full advantage of the opportunities available to us. Why play the guitar? Some people have been playing it since they were 12. It would be impossible to schedule it in between shifts at the lab and carting the kids around. An ambition is forsaken for lack of time. It is often irrational, as late is better than never, but humans are not always rational animals. The creeping fear of time is partially justified. Anger is more than justified. There is no reason we should not have more quality time to fulfill our aspirations. Paradoxically, coming to terms with the shortness of life can be more paralyzing than invigorating. Like so many falsehoods, carpe diem stems from deep but forgivable denial.

People, including history’s greatest minds, have tried to find ways in which they or their creations were eternal. These efforts amount mostly to confabulations. As much as this statement will be contested, I must make it: death makes life meaningless. If you cannot agree with this, at least concede that aging can make life intolerable. Before you dismiss this, keep in mind it is easy to pontificate about the value of old age when one is young. Creaking joints and failing organs may change your views. Our finest moments are when we feel eternal, yet feeling eternal is quite different from being eternal. Freud called it the oceanic sensation; the expansion of the self into the wider world. When someone knows with certainly they may live hundreds or thousands of years, these otherwise momentary delusions find firm ground on which to stand.

Death is Wrong - by Gennady Stolyarov II, Illustrated by Wendy Stolyarov

In the end our efforts are all for naught. From a cosmic perspective this may be so, and a pugnacious devil’s advocate may ask if there is such a thing as a “good” age to die, but one can forcefully and effectively argue that 75 is too young. 35 is far too young to begin losing one’s faculties, as many professions today require years of training. A man in the prime of his career should also be in the prime of his life. 20 is universally considered too young to die. So are 30, 40, and 50. Before we can even begin to enjoy the fruits of our labors, we are already declining. Before we can begin to understand a portion of the world’s treasures, we are growing old and tired. What a sad state of affairs! We desire lasting rewards, yet we cannot have them. The productions of an entire lifetime do not last, because the enjoyer of those productions and the accolades they have won eventually perishes. With his body, presumably, his consciousness also disappears into nothingness. Deadlines tend to force a person to work in a state of fear. Death is the ultimate deadline.

What of knowledge and talents? Why acquire knowledge when it can only be imperfectly transmitted to the next generation? Preserved in books, but there are already so many books. Immortality may not be necessary for society’s continued progress now, but with the constant expansion of information and the sprawling interconnectedness of different disciplines, it is reasonable to wonder if hyperspecialization is our salvation. Immortality and intelligence amplification will allow us all, to some extent, to become generalists capable of making sane and sound decisions for ourselves and society. Why invest in higher pleasures when the lower ones deliver immediate gratification?

Living for each day devolves into hedonistic stupidity. Why should we care about the consequences of our actions when, regardless of what happens to us, our stories all end in the same way? What was once a psychological necessity is now a hindrance to the greater good. What was once a rational position is now an effrontery to a sane approach to medicine. This is not say that research efforts dedicated to the cell cycle or the precipitating factors involved in autoimmune disorders are worthless – far from it! Rather it means that life extension in its own right ought to be a major area of inquiry. The totem must be smashed and the taboo crushed.

Yet whose decree are we following and why? Disease is our oldest foe. We are not complacent about hereditary illnesses that will only be cured after the perfection of in vivo gene therapy. Yet a lifespan of less than a century is blindly accepted as a physical limit by, according to polls taken by Theodore Goldsmith, a shocking number of scientists and laymen alike. Death is literally our mortal foe, but the amount of energy we have spent fighting it directly would not lead one to this conclusion. The biochemical changes associated with aging are the primary risk factors for diabetes, atherosclerosis, arthritis, and cancer. Yet, in spite of the undeniable correlation between aging and these diseases, research effort is directed mostly at treating them individually instead of addressing their underlying cause.

This is rooted not in a scientific sentiment, but in the unfounded assumption that death is inevitable. This stems less from skepticism towards modern medicine and more from historical superstitions that allowed our ancestors to cope with the mysterious and inhospitable universe in which they found themselves. Worse, there are throngs of secular and religious nihilists alike who actively spread the gospel of death. They erect altars to petty Molochs to distract themselves from their own worst enemy. It will be difficult to battle the most entrenched notion of all, but nothing worth having is easy to obtain. The end of suffering is the highest ideal. Why should we worship false idols any longer?

Should Transhumanism take precedence over the fight against Creationism? The answer seems painfully obvious. I do not care if a pig farmer in Alabama believes the Neolithic era was populated by dinosaurs. His ignorance has no dreadful ramifications for humankind. As an academic and popular movement, anti-aging should be the first and foremost topic of scientific discussion. The secular and sane world accepts Darwinism. There is no reason to suppose converting the remaining holdouts will benefit society in the least. The sane and secular world, however, is still largely unaware of the strides science is making toward biological immortality. Moreover, a small bit about intelligent design in a science textbook, while objectionable on moral grounds, will not do much more damage to an already broken school system.

Mentioning intelligent design in passing will do nothing to dumb down an already doltish student body. Advocates of evolution would be more helpful if they turned their energies to spreading numeracy and basic literacy. Both are in short supply. To spend a lifetime fighting against hopeless ignoramuses makes one an imbecile of the highest order. Let the ignorant tend to their own business while we welcome the age of wonders. Let this be a call to arms. Let this be a call to awaken and accept the foolishness of how humanity uses its resources. Rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle into that good night.

Adam Alonzi is the author of Praying for Death and A Plank in Reason. He is also a futurist, inventor, DIY enthusiast, biotechnologist, programmer, molecular gastronomist, consummate dilletante and columnist at The Indian Economist. Read his blog Cool Flickers.

Calico and the Paradigm Shift in the War on Death – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Calico and the Paradigm Shift in the War on Death – Video by G. Stolyarov II

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Finally, the war on human senescence and involuntary death has become mainstream. With Google’s announcement of the formation of Calico, a company specifically focused on combating senescence and the diseases it brings about, a large and influential organization has finally taken a stand on the side of longer life.

References
– “Calico and the Paradigm Shift in the War on Death” – Article by G. Stolyarov II
– “Google announces Calico, a new company focused on health and well-being” – Google Press Release – September 18, 2013
– “TIME Feature: CSO Aubrey de Grey on Google’s Newly Launched Anti-Aging Initiative” – SENS Research Foundation – September 18, 2013
– “Google’s Calico: the War on Aging Has Truly Begun” – Aubrey de Grey – TIME Magazine – September 18, 2013
– SENS Research Foundation

Calico and the Paradigm Shift in the War on Death – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Calico and the Paradigm Shift in the War on Death – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
September 19, 2013
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Finally, the war on human senescence and involuntary death has become mainstream. With Google’s announcement of the formation of Calico, a company specifically focused on combating senescence and the diseases it brings about, a large and influential organization has finally taken a stand on the side of longer life. Unlike the cautious, short-term orientation of many more conventional manufacturers of drugs and medical devices, Google’s philosophy of making investments with possible immense payoffs in the distant future offers tremendous hope that this company will be around through the many years it will take to engage in the search for promising treatments and their subsequent testing.

 Aubrey de Grey, one of the chief strategists and key intellectual innovators in the escalating war on senescence, has written that Calico signals that the war on aging has truly begun. De Grey emphasizes that it is no longer necessary to persuade most of academia that this war is a worthwhile endeavor: “With Google’s decision to direct its astronomical resources to a concerted assault on aging, that battle may have been transcended: once financial limitations are removed, curmudgeons no longer matter.” As with its remarkable advances in autonomous vehicles, mobile operating systems, and wearable computing, Google does not need to ask the permission of the entire world to explore the possibilities. Rather, it can simply achieve the breakthroughs, whose momentum and adoption naysayers would be powerless to halt.

Funding has always been a major bottleneck for true life-extending research, but now the resources of Google, as well as the highly skilled researchers who will surely be recruited by Calico, will enable this bottleneck to be overcome. Few details about the company are yet available, and it is likely that several years will elapse before major discoveries are announced. However, the barrier to mainstream acceptability of the war on senescence has been breached. Once significant successes are announced, other companies will hopefully shed some of their current caution and will seek to profit from the burgeoning field of longevity research. A few other companies still may even try to emulate Calico before any results are announced – just so as to remain competitive with Google and stay ahead of the pack, in their view.

The key to the success of any sustainable enterprise focused on life-extension research is to recognize that the sole pursuit of profits next quarter or next year is not a viable strategy for altering the status quo in radical ways. Great innovations require great leaps outside the norm. Such leaps are not often immediately rewarded financially by the broader market, which is why much of the longevity research to date has been sponsored by non-profit institutions such as the SENS Research Foundation and various universities. However, a prudent, forward-looking pursuit of profit can take the radical alteration of the status quo to the next level, by harnessing the immensely powerful motive of self-interest for the purpose of improving human lives. In this case, the improvement from gains to human longevity – and hopefully the ultimate defeat of senescence altogether – would be so immense as to be humankind’s crowning achievement. Google develops technologies with the eventual intent of marketing them to millions of consumers, and the success of Calico would be a triumph not just for longevity research but for the dissemination of cures to age-related diseases, and perhaps to senescence itself.

While anyone of sufficient intellectual courage can have a long-term vision and projects aimed at advancing that vision, Google has the distinct advantage of an extremely viable business in the present, which continues to bring in short-term revenues so that Calico does not need to be concerned with profits next quarter or next year. Instead, Calico will be able to survive on the profits of Google’s many ongoing operations, while devoting the time and effort of world-class researchers to pursuing all of the explorations, experiments, and tests that are needed to ultimately develop marketable cures. Once the cures are out there, though, the profits could be unprecedented, because life is the most precious, the most fundamental value we humans have. Any entity that discovers a way to transcend the current frailties of old age and push back or remove the current limits on human lifespans will become fabulously wealthy beyond comparison.

May Calico usher in Adam Smith’s invisible hand in the realm of longevity medicine – a hand that pushes back senescence and death and creates a world where health and wealth are ours to enjoy indefinitely.

Enemy of Ruin – Quiz and Badge – Fifth in TRA’s Series on Indefinite Life Extension

Enemy of Ruin – Quiz and Badge – Fifth in TRA’s Series on Indefinite Life Extension

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enemy_of_ruin

G. Stolyarov II
March 30, 2013
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The Rational Argumentator is proud to announce the fifth in its planned series of quizzes on indefinite life extension, a companion activity to the Resources on Indefinite Life Extension (RILE) page.

Enemy of Ruin Quiz

Read “The Real War – and Why Inter-Human Wars are a Distraction” by G. Stolyarov II and answer the questions in the quiz below, in accordance with the essay. If you get 100% of the questions correct, you will earn the Enemy of Ruin badge, the fifth badge in The Rational Argumentator’s interactive educational series on indefinite life extension.  You will need a free account with Mozilla Backpack to receive the badge.

This badge was designed by Wendy Stolyarov, whose art you can see here, here, and here.


Leaderboard: Enemy of Ruin Quiz

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Computer Games, Distributed Computing, and Life Extension – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Computer Games, Distributed Computing, and Life Extension – Video by G. Stolyarov II

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Imagine if it were possible to help cure disease and lengthen human lifespans simply by playing one’s computer games of choice. Here, Mr. Stolyarov describes a concept for doing just that, and he welcomes efforts from any of you to help bring it about.

Remember to LIKE, FAVORITE, and SHARE this video in order to spread rational discourse on this issue.

Support these video-creation efforts by donating here and here.

References
– “Computer Games, Distributed Computing, and Life Extension” – Article by G. Stolyarov II – The Rational Argumentator
– Article and discussion on Transhumanity.net
– Mr. Stolyarov’s Page of Distributed Computing Statistics
– Rosetta@home
– Folding@home
– World Community Grid
– Human Proteome Folding
– Help Conquer Cancer
– FoldIt
– “Public Solves Protein Structure” – Jef Akst – The Scientist – September 18, 2011
– “ALS Cause and Protein-Folding Prediction – Thoughts on Two Impressive Scientific Discoveries ” – Video by G. Stolyarov II – September 20, 2011