People Who Advocate Suffering and Death
Recent press on healthy life extension has in turn generated the normal run of poorly thought through pro-death op-eds, repleat with all the normal errors and knee-jerk reactions. Human nature, when geared up in accept-the-inevitable mode, is a powerful force - observe the way it can turn so many to defend the painful, slow death of tens of millions every year. How is this in any way rational now, however?
We've moved beyond the era in which aging and death were absolute and inevitable. We can see a fairly clear path towards medical technology capable of repairing age-related damage and extending our healthy life spans. Organizations already exist to encourage and advocate healthy life extension research, and biotechnology is advancing at a scorching rate.
I can't imagine we're going to be seeing pro-death articles like this one for too much longer:
Life is like a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Take away the end and it would seem completely purposeless.
There you go - a fully fledged justification in the mind of a columnist for the torture by age-related disease and incapacity of hundreds of millions daily, decades of it leading to death. This article really outdoes itself in packing in the errors, but you can only be so ignorant for so long. For all who enjoy life and health, it is blindingly obvious that more of both is the most valuable gift you could receive. Healthy life extension is the foremost of all 21st century technologies we should strive for.
Technorati tags: aging, life extension
I think the most important thing about the article was the ending...you could almost feel reality gradually sinking in...
"Still, a couple of extra decades might be nice, just to see how the grandchildren turn out. And perhaps, out of curiosity, a weeny bit more, just to see if liberal democracy survives. Come to think of it, it would be rather interesting to see how people live in the 30th century. Just a tiny peek, you understand . .
Oh my god, this is what i write about in my journal all the time. I always ponder why the human race doesn't see death as a disease that will one day be cured. I just think that a lot of people don't like to think about it, especially not at my age, until it's too late to question it.