The 3rd International Conference on Healthy Ageing & Longevity
The program is now available for the 3rd International Conference on Healthy Ageing & Longevity, which takes place next month in Melbourne, Australia.
This conference series is shaping up to be a much broader look at aging research and related healthcare communities in comparison to its earlier focus on longevity science, at least from my point of view. The organizers have done a good job of broadening the stage, and have broadened it all the way into a moderately representative reflection of aging research and healthcare spending proportions around the world. In other words, a great deal on present work to try and meaningfully manage the consequences of age-related degeneration and death, and damn little on how to change the present state of affairs and its accompanying toll of suffering and death.
We live in a world accustomed to a terrible, ongoing holocaust; tens of millions of deaths each year, and hundreds of millions of others live in increasing suffering, pain and disability. The key word here is "accustomed" - how else to explain the vast resources devoted to the doomed attempts to cope, and so little put towards change in the form of better medical science?
After a certain point, I feel that big tent affairs are perpetually in danger of collapsing into a big heap of talk and no progress. Whenever you broaden the tent, you're going to get more talkers than doers - and I see a great deal of hot air in between the science in that conference schedule. Everybody is willing to talk about the present, but far too few are willing to get out there and make the future.
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