It is exceedingly difficult for most people to understand how quickly change is happening and how quickly profound changes are coming. The pace of technological change is increasing as more and more areas of human interest become incorporated under the broad umbrella of information technology. For example, biology and its derivative Medicine is becoming an information science. The tools we use to probe human physiology are increasing in complexity and decreasing in cost in an exponential manner. The first full read-out of the generic code for an individual, the Human Genome Project, was funded at $3 billion and started in 1990. In 1998 Craig Ventner announced a plan to beat the government effort at a cost one tenth the government estimate, and succeeded (though Ventner's firm was scooped by a competing group in 2000.) There are currently commercial companies offering to provide a genetic sequence for individuals in the $5000 range. Within a few years the cost will be down to the $1000 and not long after, a full sequencing of our genome will be part of a routine medical baseline. The cost and speed increases have come about from automation. In 1990 the genetic bases in our DNA could only be decoded one base at a time. Now we look at thousands, perhaps millions at a time. (I am not up to date on the latest gene sequencing techniques and do not know exactly where they stand, however, sequencing has been following a biological "Moore's Law" for quite some time and there is every reason to expect this to continue.)
[Along with the increases in our ability to gather data in ways such as sequencing the genome, there has been an attendant explosion of data. New data mining techniques are already allowing our understanding to deepen and new insights are emerging by the day. For example, as noted by Sergey, our understanding of genetics and genetic changes has become much more complex. The genome, which at one time was thought to consist of genes and a great deal of "nonsense" DNA is now understood to contain a multitude of feedback loops, control segments, and sections that control for degrees of expression of various genes and the proteins they encode. What we once thought of as "genes" are only part of an exceedingly complex system. Prior to computers capable of manipulating large amounts of data, such an understanding would have been, and was, impossible.]
Just as our understanding of genetics is exploding, so too our understanding of physiology and biochemistry is exploding. Understanding the human proteome, how the thousands of proteins interact to create functioning cells, will come along, very slowly at first as only a few proteins are understood well enough to plug into our programs, but with exponentially increasing speed as the details are filled in.
The implications of this are profound and likely to be paradigm shattering in our lifetimes. The World Future Society, not known for flights of fancy (they try to extrapolate broad trends in reasonable ways) has come out with their latest 20 forecasts. Note Phil Bowermaster's comments in his post on one of the forecasts:
Via Michael Anissimov, the World Future Society -- traditionally not a hotbed of Speculist type scenarios -- has published a list of very interesting predictions for the years 2010-2025. This one in particular got my attention:
Forecast #4:
By 2025, the Worldwide Average Life-Span Will Be Extended by One year Per Year--Only 15% of deaths worldwide will be due to naturally occurring infectious diseases.
Well now that is some prediction. If you extend the average life by one year per year you achieve what we used to call Actuarial Escape Velocity but we now know to call the Methuselarity.
Either way, we're talking about indefinite lifespan. If your life expectancy gets a year longer every year, and you can keep that up, well -- that takes care of the "immortal" part of the equation.
Just sixteen years away! And, again, this is coming from a futurist group that has tended towards a conservative outlook on these kinds of issues.
We are not at all prepared psychologically for what this means. As an aside, even if medical care were to stagnate (and I am on record stating that most iterations of Healthcare reform, especially those which rely on a government plan and/or commissions to establish "best practices" will stifle innovation) every American alive today in reasonable health, can expect to live into his 80s or 90s. The illnesses of aging which have traditionally shortened our lives are becoming treatable, chronic conditions. Where once heart disease or high blood pressure would have been expected to cause irreversible damage well before one's 80s, now even people with fairly significant damage to their circulatory systems can live many, many years with modern medicines and procedures. Beyond that, should we continue innovating and medicine continue following its Moore's Law pathway, problems now considered intractable (Alzheimer's Disease, Congestive Heart Failure, Strokes) will become treatable, reversible conditions.
When I mention to friends of a certain age the miracles with which we live everyday and the expectation that Medical science will greatly extend all of our lives they laugh and bring up the image of a nation of 90 year olds in wheelchairs and nursing homes. This is the Tithonus Fallacy. Imagine instead a nation filled with healthy, energetic 90 year olds whose wealth of knowledge has not been interred and lost to society.
[Of note, almost all of my friends take a Statin, an anti-aging class of drugs which retards the aging of the circularity system. Several take medicine to manage their blood pressure; high blood pressure ages the circulatory system. In other words, most of my friends are already, unwittingly, engaged in anti-aging treatment.]
The first beneficiaries of the newest medical advances will be the wealthy. New technologies almost always start out expensive but rapidly come down in price when smart entrepreneurs recognize the size of the market and compete with each other to enlarge the number of consumers they can reach. Within short order the Middle class will have new options for extending healthy, productive life. The effects on our retirement system will be extreme, staring out threatening to bankrupt us and as more and more people remain productive, leading to an economic revival. (As always, in getting from point A to point B we must hope that our politicians do not solve the problem by freezing us into Point A for fear of the journey.)
Sixteen years is a moment; it is impossible to over-estimate the impact of the Methuselarity and there remains nothing in physics, chemistry, or biology that precludes its arrival.
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