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Our Dystopian Future as Immortals

I thought this interesting enough to share:

Zoltan Istvan

Zoltan Istvan was my favorite presidential candidate in 2016. He toured the country in a bus modeled to look like a coffin, with the message that death is a curable disease.

And it’s not just people on the fringe who are involved in the anti-aging cause. There is a sister company of Google called Calico whose goal is “tackling aging.”

Ray Kurzweil, inventor, senior engineer at Google and holder of 21 honorary doctorates, has written a book called Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever. At age 69, he expects technology to improve enough in his lifetime that he will live forever. (In the meantime, he takes extremely good care of himself!)

But hold on a second. While we’re waiting for Istvan, Calico, and Kurzweil succeed, let’s take a moment to ponder the possible dystopian consequences.

Robots will create jobs for creative people, says company that tries to predict the future

Robots will not replace every worker and their use in the workplace will lead to more jobs for people who are creative, according to a company that aims to predict the future.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will operate alongside humans to “take away the grind” from work, enabling people to be more imaginative and productive, experts from The Future Laboratory told a Microsoft Surface event.

“Robots will actually create jobs because humans have unique thinking,” Steve Tooze, Special Projects Editor at The Future Laboratory, said. “They will take away the grind that we don’t want to do. This will free us up to the imaginative stuff, the creative stuff.”

Chemical Dye Doubles Roundworm Lifespan, Could Extend Human Longevity

—In a statement, co-author Monica Driscoll of Rutgers University said that “the real goal of aging research should not be longevity at all, but rather a person’s health span — how long they can maintain an active, disease free, high quality of life.”–

NO. The real goal is extending lifespan. The lifespan of the organism was doubled, that is why people will like this when I share it.

Most of us try to avoid artificial coloring, but a dye that is used to detect plaques in Alzheimer’s brains is being tested for its seeming ability to counteract the effects of aging.

Pain in the Neck: Using CRISPR to Prevent Tissue Damage and Neck Pain

Bowles says. “We’re not changing what is in your genetic code. We’re altering what is expressed. Normally, cells do this themselves, but we are taking engineering control over these cells to tell them what to turn on and turn off.”

Now that researchers know they can do this, doctors will be able to modify the genes via an injection directly to the affected area and delay the degeneration of tissue. In the case of back pain, a patient may get a discectomy to remove part of a herniated disc to relieve the pain, but tissue near the spinal cord may continue to breakdown, leading to future pain. This method could stave off additional surgeries by stopping the tissue damage.

So far, the team has developed a virus that can deliver the gene therapy and has filed a patent on the system. They hope to proceed to human trials after collecting initial data, but Bowles believes it could be about 10 years before this method is used in patients.

Summary: Researchers use CRISPR to modulate genes in order to reduce tissue damage and inflammation for people with neck and back pain.

Source: University of Utah.

For millions of sufferers, there is nothing more debilitating than chronic back or joint pain. It can feel like a lifetime of misery.

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