{"id":33954,"date":"2017-01-30T03:02:23","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T11:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/ageing-is-natural-rejuvenation-is-not"},"modified":"2017-06-04T07:52:47","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T14:52:47","slug":"ageing-is-natural-rejuvenation-is-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/ageing-is-natural-rejuvenation-is-not","title":{"rendered":"Ageing is natural. Rejuvenation is not"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Some people object we shouldn\u2019t cure ageing because it is natural. Well, so is malaria, for example\u2026<\/p>\n

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You know, I may even agree ageing is \u2018natural\u2019. If we define natural as something that happens spontaneously, without external intervention, as a consequence of chemical and physical interactions, then yes, ageing is natural. This is not a great argument in favour of ageing, though, because there are very many perfectly natural things that are really<\/em> bad for you, ranging on the badness spectrum pretty much anywhere from \u2018mildly upsetting\u2019 to \u2018catastrophically apocalyptic\u2019: mosquito bites, genetic diseases, viral diseses, earthquakes, tsunamis, stars going nova, being eaten by lions, cancer, a pidgeon pooing on the fancy suit you rented for your wedding precisely when you say \u2018I do\u2019, bacterial infections, and so on. So, okay, maybe ageing is natural. So what? It is also the number one cause of suffering and diseases in the western world. Frankly, I don\u2019t give a damn if it is natural or not. It\u2019s still pretty bad.<\/p>\n

Speaking of rejuvenation being not natural, I could nitpick a lot. I could ask, what is \u2018not natural\u2019? Is it anything human made? Then what about things made by animals? For example, if a building is \u2018not natural\u2019, what about a beehive then? Natural or not? Given we humans have a natural<\/em> tendency to tweak things around to make them work the way we want, wouldn\u2019t rejuvenation be our natural response to the problem of ageing, just like medicines are our natural response to the problem of diseases?<\/p>\n

I really could nitpick a lot, but it won\u2019t be necessary. Whatever definition of \u2018not natural\u2019 one may want to give, the real issue here is that there\u2019s a hidden meaning to \u2018not natural\u2019 which is always subtly implied, even though not stated explicitly: Things that are \u2018not natural\u2019 must be somehow bad, not good for you, dangerous for the environment, immoral, evil. Maybe they bring bad luck as well. Needless to say, this is just as wrong as claiming everything natural is good for you. Medicines are good for you. Vaccines are good for you. In a broader sense, electrical installations are good for you (if you don\u2019t stick your fingers into the power outlet); technology, transportation, anti-seismic buildings, toothbrushes, and so on, are good for you. All \u2018not natural\u2019 stuff that is still good and you\u2019d hardly give it up. So, okay, let\u2019s say rejuvenation is \u2018not natural\u2019. Who cares? It\u2019d prevent you from getting crippled by a number of nasty diseases.<\/p>\n

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Some people object we shouldn\u2019t cure ageing because it is natural. Well, so is malaria, for example\u2026 You know, I may even agree ageing is \u2018natural\u2019. If we define natural as something that happens spontaneously, without external intervention, as a consequence of chemical and physical interactions, then yes, ageing is natural. This is not a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33954"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58949,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33954\/revisions\/58949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}