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18 December 2021

My encounter with a four-armed robot

Filed under: aging, healthcare, robots — Tags: , , — David Wood @ 8:45 pm

I didn’t actually see the robot. My mind had already been switched off, by anaesthetists, ahead of my bed being wheeled into the operating theatre. It was probably just as well.

Image source: HCA Healthcare

Later, when my mind had restarted, and I was lying in recovery in my hospital ward, I checked. Yes, there were six small plasters on my abdomen, covering six small wounds (“ports”), that the urology surgeon had told me he would create in order for the da Vinci robot to work its magic.

Image source: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research

The point of the operation was to remove the central core of my prostate – an organ that sits toward the back of the body and which is difficult to access.

The prostate wraps around the urethra – the channel through which urine flows from the bladder into the penis. The typical size of a prostate for a man aged twenty is around 20 ml. By age sixty this may have doubled. The larger the prostate, the greater the chance of interference with normal urine flow. In my own case, I had experienced various episodes over the last ten years when urination was intermittently difficult, but matters always seemed to right themselves after a few days. Then at the beginning of September, I found I couldn’t pass any urine. What made matters more complicated was that I was away from home at the time, on a short golfing holiday in Wiltshire. The golf was unusually good, but my jammed up bladder felt awful.

Following an anxious call to the NHS 111 service, I was admitted to the Royal United Hospital in Bath where, after a couple of false starts, an indwelling catheter was inserted through my urethra. Urine gushed out. I felt relieved as never before.

In a way, that was the easy bit. The harder question was what long-term approach to take.

A six-week trial of a muscle-relaxant drug called Tamsulosin had no impact on my ability to pass urine unaided. Measuring the size of my prostate via a transrectal ultrasound procedure clarified options: it was a whopping 121 ml.

The radiologist said “This is not the largest prostate I have ever seen”, but it was clear my condition was well outside the usual range. Not only would changes in medication or diet be very unlikely to produce a long-term solution for me. But most of the more standard prostate operations (there are a large family of possibilities, as I discovered) would not be suitable for a prostate as large as mine. The risks of adverse side-effects would be too large, as well as recurrence of prostate pressure in the years to come.

That led my consultant to recommend what is called a robotic-assisted simple prostatectomy. The “simple” is in contrast to the “radical” option often recommended for men suffering from prostate cancer. In a simple prostatectomy, the outer part of the prostate remains in place, along with nerve and other connections.

Over several hours, whilst my mind was deanimated, the robotic arms responded to the commands issued by the human surgeon. Some of the ports were used to introduce gas (CO2) into my abdomen, to inflate it, creating room for the robotic arms to move. Some ports supported illumination and cameras. And the others channelled various cutting and reconstruction tools. By the end, some 85% of my prostate had been removed.

It might sound cool, for a technology advocate like myself to receive an operation from a high-precision robot. But in reality, it was still a miserable experience, despite the high-calibre professional support from medical staff. The CO2 left parts of my body unexpectedly swollen and painful. And as time passed, other swellings known as oedemas emerged – apparently due to fluid.

I learned the hard way that I needed to take things slow and gentle as I recovered. In retrospect, it was a mistake for me to walk too far too soon, and to take part in lengthy Zoom calls. My sleep suffered as a result, with shivering, sweating, coughing fits, and even one black-out when I went to the bathroom and felt myself about to pass out. I had the presence of mind to lower my head quickly before the lights went out altogether. I came to my senses a few moments later, with my upper torso sprawled in the bath, and my lower body hanging over the edge. Thank goodness no serious damage ensued from that mini collapse. The only good outcome that night was when I took a Covid test (because of the coughing) and it came out negative.

Ten days later, things are closer to normal again. It’s wonderful that my internal plumbing works smoothly again, under my control. But I’m still being cautious about how much I take on at any time.

(If you’re waiting for me to reply to various emails, I’ll get round to them eventually…)

More good news: tests on the material removed from my body have confirmed that the growth was “benign” rather than cancerous. My wounds are healing quickly, and I am almost weaned off painkillers.

I have no regrets about choosing this particular surgical option. It was a good decision. Hopefully I’ll be playing golf again some time in January. I am already strolling down some of the fairways at Burhill Golf Club, carrying a single club in my hand – a putter. I drop a golf ball when I reach the green. Sometimes I knock the ball in the hole in two putts, or even just one. And sometimes it’s three putts, or even more. But the fresh air and gentle exercise is wonderful, regardless of the number of putts.

The bigger lesson for me is a message I often include in my presentations: prevention is better than cure. A stitch in time saves nine.

Earlier attention to my enlarging prostate – either by a change of diet, or by taking medicines regularly – may well have avoided all the unpleasantness and cost of the last few months.

As for the prostate, so also for many other parts of the body.

This year, I’ve been thinking more and more about the good health of the mind and the brain. With my reduced mobility over the last few months, I’ve had time to catch up with some reading about brain rewiring, mental agility and reprogramming, the role and content of consciousness, and ways in which people have recovered from Alzheimer’s.

Once again, the message is that prevention is better than cure.

If you’re interested in any of these topics, here’s an image of some books I have particularly enjoyed.

3 September 2021

Aging, slowing down, becoming a cyborg

Filed under: aging, healthcare — Tags: , , , , , , — David Wood @ 8:02 pm

Here’s a personal note. I’ve had to change quite a few of my plans, due to an unexpected medical issue.

(It’s nothing to do with Covid. The details are below, for readers with a stomach for indelicate topics.)

That issue completely disrupted my activities yesterday and the day before, and it is likely to cause further disruptions in the weeks and months ahead – depending on how my body responds to various treatments.

In any case, I’m going to have to slow down a bit. I may need to cancel some of my provisional travel plans, and spend less time in front of screens and keyboards.

Please accept my apologies in advance if you’re waiting to hear from me about something, and I seem to be unduly slow in responding.

I said my medical issue was “unexpected”, but that’s not the whole story.

I’ve known for some time that potential danger was building up in my body.

It’s an aspect of aging. Our bodies perform remarkably well while we’re in our youth, but over time, various sorts of damage and dysfunction start to build up.

In early years, that damage doesn’t matter much. The body is healthy enough to carry out repairs, and to produce workarounds to compensate for the decline in performance.

Eventually, however, the dysfunction becomes too severe, and results in greater amounts of harm, disease, frailty, and (in due course) death.

That’s why, for example, human mortality (along with the mortality of many other species) accelerates exponentially over time.

If you analyse the data from the UK’s National Life Tables for how many people at any particular age, you’ll find the following:

  • A ten year old has only one chance in around 10,000 of dying before their next birthday
  • A 35 year old has one chance in around 1,000 of dying before their next birthday
  • A 60 year old has one chance in around 100 of dying before their next birthday
  • An 85 year old has one chance in around 10 of dying before their next birthday.

(I did that particular analysis a few years ago. An analysis of the most recent life tables data may show slight differences.)

You’ll spot the pattern.

The pattern isn’t exact. (Otherwise no 110 year old would ever reach the age of 111. Which is what an extrapolation of the previous figures would suggest.)

But it holds to a first approximation. It was first stated in 1825 by London-based actuary and mathematician Benjamin Gompertz, and is sometimes expressed as follows: After the age of around 35, human mortality doubles every eight years.

And it’s plausible that what underlies this observed trend is a gradual increase in damage throughout the biological structures of the body – including damage in those aspects of our biology responsible for repair and regeneration.

That’s the general pattern. One specific example involves the prostate organ. Over time, in some men, the prostate grows and grows, to the extent that it constricts the urethra which passes through it. That constriction slows the flow of urine from the bladder to the outside world.

(As I said, this is an indelicate subject. But it can in some cases become a matter of life and death.)

And that’s what has happened to me.

I’ve known for some time that my prostate had grown large, and was interfering with my “plumbing”.

I now regret that I didn’t pay more attention to that growing risk. I was too easily reassured by observing that the problem seemed to wax and wane. I remember hearing that, for many people, the issue remains tolerable throughout their life. Indeed, the NHS webpage on the topic starts as follows (my emphasis):

Benign prostate enlargement (BPE) is the medical term to describe an enlarged prostate, a condition that can affect how you pee (urinate).

BPE is common in men aged over 50. It’s not a cancer and it’s not usually a serious threat to health.

I knew there were medicines that might help, such as Tamsulosin (brand name “Flomax Relief”) – but that they had side-effects.

So I gave the matter little attention.

But two days ago, my problems passing urine suddenly became a lot worse. I had a constant desire to “go”, but an inability to produce more than the tiniest trickle (after a lot of, err, stressing and straining).

To complicate matters, I was away from home. With my wife and two other couples, I was meant to be enjoying a three day golfing holiday in the picturesque Wiltshire countryside.

Yesterday morning, having failed to reach my own GPs online or by phone, I called the NHS 111 service. To cut to the chase, I was advised to get to a hospital as soon as possible. They made an appointment for me at a hospital in Bath, around 30 minutes car journey distant. And soon after that, I was being examined by an excellent team of NHS staff.

When someone’s bladder is full, it’s normally around 400 to 600 ml in volume. Ultrasound scans showed there was around 900 ml of urine in my bladder. No wonder I was feeling so uncomfortable.

I hadn’t expected to be in hospital that day, but thank goodness I was there.

I’ll skip over all the phases of analysis and treatment, and just mention that I am now slightly more of a cyborg than before. I’ve had a cleverly engineered piece of plastic inserted into my body, allowing me to drain my bladder at will, using a tap at the end of a tube which protrudes. It’s called an indwelling catheter.

It’s most likely only a temporary solution, until my response to Tamsulosin (the drug mentioned earlier) is assessed.

For the time being, my mobility is restricted, until I get used to this new attachment.

And my mind is, how to put it, rather shaken at the turn of events.

But things could have been a great deal worse. I’m deeply grateful for the rapid, painstaking response of the dozen or so members of the Royal United Hospital Bath who took such good care of me.

In moments of lucidity during these hours, I reflected on how much we all depend on each other. Rugged individualism only goes so far.

In the meantime, I’ll move forward with at least some of my projects, including the online London Futurists events already scheduled. They include one on (guess what?) aging, in two weeks time, and one on “Cryptocurrencies for profound good?” taking place tomorrow.

Opening image credit: Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay.

29 December 2020

The best book on the science of aging in the last ten years

Filed under: aging, books, rejuveneering, science, The Abolition of Aging — Tags: , — David Wood @ 10:44 am

Science points to many possibilities for aging to be reversed. Within a few decades, medical therapies based on these possibilities could become widespread and affordable, allowing all of us, if we wish, to remain in a youthful state for much longer than is currently the norm – perhaps even indefinitely. Instead of healthcare systems continuing to consume huge financial resources in order to treat people with the extended chronic diseases that become increasingly common as patients’ bodies age, much smaller expenditure would keep all of us much healthier for the vast majority of the time.

Nevertheless, far too many people fail to take these possibilities seriously. They believe that aging is basically inevitable, and that people who say otherwise are deluded and/or irresponsible.

Public opinion matters. Investments made by governments and by businesses alike are heavily influenced by perceived public reaction. Without active public support for smart investments in support of the science and medicine that could systematically reverse aging, that outcome will be pushed backwards in time – perhaps even indefinitely.

What can change this public opinion? An important part of the answer is to take the time to explain the science of aging in an accessible, engaging way – including the many recent experimental breakthroughs that, collectively, show such promise.

That’s exactly what Dr Andrew Steele accomplishes in his excellent book Ageless: The new science of getting older without getting old.

The audio version of this book became available on Christmas Eve, narrated by Andrew himself. It has been a delight to listen to it over the intervening days.

Over the last few years, I’ve learned a great deal from a number of books that address the science of aging, and I’ve been happy to recommend these books to wider audiences. These include:

But I hope that these esteemed authors won’t mind if I nominate Andrew Steele’s book as a better starting point into the whole subject. Here’s what’s special about it:

  • It provides a systematic treatment of the science, showing clear relationships between the many different angles to what is undeniably a complex subject
  • The way it explains the science seems just right for the general reader with a good basic education – neither over-simplified or over-dense
  • There’s good material all the way through the book, to keep readers turning the pages
  • The author is clearly passionate about his research, seeing it as important, but he avoids any in-your-face evangelism
  • The book avoids excessive claims or hyperbole: the claims it makes are, in my view, always well based
  • Where research results have been disappointing, there’s no attempt to hide these or gloss over them
  • The book includes many interesting anecdotes, but the point of these stories is always the science, rather than the personalities or psychologies of the researchers involved, or clashing business interests, or whatever
  • The information it contains is right up to date, as of late 2020.

Compared to other research, Ageless provides a slightly different decomposition of what is known as the hallmarks of aging, offering ten in total:

  1. DNA damage and mutations
  2. Trimmed telomeres
  3. Protein problems: autophagy, amyloids and adducts
  4. Epigenetic alterations
  5. Accumulation of senescent cells
  6. Malfunctioning mitochondria
  7. Signal failure
  8. Changes in the microbiome
  9. Cellular exhaustion
  10. Malfunction of the immune system

As the book points out, there are three criteria for something to be a useful “hallmark of aging”:

  1. It needs to increase with age
  2. Accelerating a hallmark’s progress should accelerate aging
  3. Reducing the hallmark should decrease aging

The core of the book is a fascinating survey of interventions that could reduce each of these hallmarks and thereby decrease aging – that is, decrease the probability of dying in the next year. These interventions are grouped into four categories:

  1. Remove
  2. Replace
  3. Repair
  4. Reprogram

Each category of intervention is in turn split into several subgroups. Yes, the treatment of aging is likely to be complicated. However, there are plenty of examples in which single interventions turned out to have multiple positive effects on different hallmarks of aging.

There are a couple of points where some readers might quibble with the content, for example regarding dietary supplements, or whether the concept of group selection can ever be useful within evolutionary theory.

However, my own presentations on the subject of the abolition of aging will almost certainly evolve in the light of the framework and examples in Ageless. I’m much the wiser from reading it.

Here’s my advice to anyone who, like me, believes the subject of reversing aging is important, and who wishes to accelerate progress in this field:

  • Read Ageless with some care, all the way through
  • Digest its contents and explore the implications, for example via discussion in online groups
  • Recommend others to read it too.

Ideally, a sizeable proportion of the book’s readers will alter their own research or other activity, in order to assist the projects covered in Ageless.

Finally, a brief comparison between Ageless and the remarkable grandfather book of this whole field: Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime, authored by Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rae. Ending Aging was published in 2007 and remains highly relevant, even though numerous experimental findings and new ideas have emerged since its publication. There’s a deep overlap in the basic approach advocated in the two books. Both books are written by polymaths who are evidently very bright – people who, incidentally, did their first research in fields outside biology, and who brought valuable external perspectives to the field.

So I see Ageless as a worthy successor to Ending Aging. Indeed, it’s probably a better starting point for people less familiar with this field, in view of its coverage of important developments since 2007, and some readers may find Andrew’s writing style more accessible.

1 October 2019

“Lifespan” – a book to accelerate the emerging paradigm change in healthcare

Filed under: AGI, aging, books, healthcare — Tags: , , , , , , , , — David Wood @ 6:11 am

Harvard Medical School professor David Sinclair has written a remarkable book that will do for an emerging new paradigm in healthcare what a similarly remarkable book by Oxford University professor Nick Bostrom has been doing for an emerging new paradigm in artificial intelligence.

In both cases, the books act to significantly increase the tempo of the adoption of the new paradigm.

Bostrom’s book, Superintelligence – subtitled Paths, Dangers, Strategies – caught the attention of Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Barack Obama, and many more, who have collectively amplified its message. That message is the need to dramatically increase the priority of research into the safety of systems that contain AGI (artificial general intelligence). AGI will be a significant step up in capability from today’s “narrow” AI (which includes deep learning as well as “good old fashioned” expert systems), and therefore requires a significant step up in capability of safety engineering. In the wake of a wider appreciation of the scale of the threat (and, yes, the opportunity) ahead, funding has been provided for important initiatives such as the Future of Life Institute, OpenAI, and Partnership on AI. Thank goodness!

Sinclair’s book, Lifespan – subtitled Why We Age, and Why We Don’t Have To – is poised to be read, understood, and amplified by a similar group of key influencers of public thinking. In this case, the message is that a transformation is at hand in how we think about illness and health. Rather than a “disease first” approach, what is now possible – and much more desirable – is an “aging first” approach that views aging as the treatable root cause of numerous diseases. In the wake of a wider appreciation of the scale of the opportunity ahead (and, yes, the threat to society if healthcare continues along its current outdated disease-first trajectory), funding is likely to be provided to accelerate research into the aging-first paradigm. Thank goodness!

Bostom’s book drew upon the ideas of earlier writers, including Eliezer Yudkowsky and Ray Kurzweil. It also embodied decades of Bostrom’s own thinking and research into the field.

Sinclair’s book likewise builds upon ideas of earlier writers, including Aubrey de Grey and (again) Ray Kurzweil. Again, it also embodies decades of Sinclair’s own thinking and research into the field.

Both books are occasionally heavy going for the general reader – especially for a general reader who is in a hurry. But both take care to explain their thinking in a step-by-step process. Both contain many human elements in their narrative. Neither books contain the last word on their subject matter – and, indeed, parts will likely prove to be incorrect in the fullness of time. But both perform giant steps forwards for the paradigms they support.

The above remarks about the book Lifespan are part of what I’ll be talking about later today, in Brussels, at an open lunch event to mark the start of this year’s Longevity Month.

Longevity Month is an opportunity to celebrate recent progress, and to anticipate faster progress ahead, for the paradigm shift mentioned above:

  • Rather than studying each chronic disease separately, science should prioritise study of aging as the common underlying cause (and aggravator) of numerous chronic diseases
  • Rather than treating aging as an unalterable “fact of nature” (which, by the way, it isn’t), we should regard aging as an engineering problem which is awaiting an engineering solution.

In my remarks at this event, I’ll also be sharing my overall understanding of how paradigm shifts take place (and the opposition they face):

I’ll run through a simple explanation of the ideas behind the “aging-first” paradigm – a paradigm of regular medical interventions to repair or remove the damage caused at cellular and inter-cellular levels as a by-product of normal human metabolism:

Finally, I’ll be summarising the growing momentum of progress in a number of areas, and suggesting how that momentum has the potential to address the key remaining questions in the field:

In addition to me, four other speakers are scheduled to take part in today’s event:

It should be a great occasion!

20 January 2019

Rejuvenation. Now. Easier than we think?

Filed under: aging, books — Tags: , , , , — David Wood @ 11:25 pm

Chronic poor health is caused by the accumulation of biological damage in our body. Eventually the damage builds to such an extent that it kills us. Before reaching that nadir, the damage weakens us, slows us down, and makes us more vulnerable to all kinds of illness.

Accordingly, if we want more vitality, for longer, we need to find therapies that undo the biological damage in our bodies. And we need to apply these therapies on a regular basis.

These two paragraphs summarise a view about health that is becoming increasingly common these days. One of the champions of this “find therapies to fix the damage” school is the biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey – chief science officer of the SENS Research Foundation. I write about this approach in, for example, Chapter 8, “Towards an abundance of health” of my own most recent book, “Sustainable Superabundance”.

The kinds of damage-repair therapies that transhumanist tend to talk about involve breakthrough new technologies – such as stem cell therapies, manipulation of genetics and epigenetics, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and 3D bio-printing.

But what if there is already a very promising damage-repair treatment, whose power we frequently overlook?

Step forward Professor Matthew Walker of the Neuroscience department at UC Berkeley. Walker is also the founder and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. Walker recently summarised the state-of-art understanding about sleep (and dreams), in his book “Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams”. I started reading that book following a tip from London Futurists member Mark Goodman. That tip was one of the best I received in the whole of last year. Many thanks, Mark!

According to the wide research that Walker summarises in “Why We Sleep”, getting sufficient sound sleep on a regular basis is a great all-round boost to our health. Skimping on sleep – getting an average of only six hours a night, instead of the eight hours recommended – stores up lots of longer term damage. (For example: greater propensity to cancer, dementia, obesity, diabetes, heart condition…)

It’s not just a question of quantity of sleep. It’s a question of quality. Sometimes we have a sort of sleep – for example, when under the influence of alcohol – but that sleep doesn’t perform the rejuvenation miracles of good quality sleep.

It’s also a question of the different types of sleep – including the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep that accompanies dreams, and the four different levels of NREM (not-REM) sleep (sleep when we’re not dreaming). The different kinds of sleep are associated with different kinds of healing.

To be clear, sleep isn’t just for healing. Many kinds of memory are improved by the right kinds of sleep. And sleep can be a great boost to creativity too.

The number of diseases linked to poor quality sleep is both staggering and frightening. People who scorn getting a good night’s sleep – people who boast that they can get by on, say, five hours a night on average – are deluding themselves. If you don’t believe this, look into the research that Walker assembles and discusses.

Of course, there are limits to the kinds of repair that sleeping and dreaming can perform. These fine therapies, by themselves, won’t boost anyone’s life expectancy from 75, say, to 125, or beyond. For that kind of change, we’ll need the initiatives being researched by SENS (and developed by an increasing number of commercial companies). But if you want to increase the chance of you (and your loved ones) living long enough to benefit from the eventual availability of SENS-type treatments, changing your sleep habits could make all the difference.

As well as increasing your life expectancy, these improved habits have the potential to improve your focus, your memory, your creativity, and the way you interact positively and supportively with others.

Changing your diet is another way in which you might increase your life expectancy. As an aside, the best single book I have come across on that topic is “The Longevity Code: The New Science of Aging” by Kris Verburgh. (Verburgh’s book actually has a lot more in it than just analysis of the relation between diet and healthy aging. It should definitely be on your bookshelf.)

But what’s striking is that, although the connection between diet and healthy aging has been widely discussed, the connection between sleep and healthy aging has been relatively ignored. Walker’s book should start to amend that unfortunate state of ignorance.

There are another three big reasons why transhumanists (and people who share the same broad interests) should read “Why we sleep”. First, the book offers (directly and indirectly) lots of insights about the nature of consciousness, as explored through the discussion of consciousness in different sleep states, including dreaming. I’m sure that there are insights ready to be sparked by some of these sections, for AI researchers struggling with particular conceptual problems.

Second, Walker discusses broader social factors connected with sleep (and why so many people sleep badly these days). The sheer scale of lives lost by drivers drifting into “micro sleeps” is astonishing: accidents caused by drowsiness exceed those caused by drugs and alcohol. The damage caused by sleeping pills is another eye-opener. It also turns out there’s a lot of inertia in society – society often resists changes that would be in its own best interest! The adverse practice of the medical industry pushing junior doctors to the limit, sleepwise, is just one case. But the book also has some great examples, in the closing chapters, about positive social change. One involves the time at which schools start. It turns out that moving the start time later by 30 minutes, or one hour, can have a big impact on successful learning, as well as on the prevalence of teenage depression (not to mention the likelihood of students having car accidents en route to school).

Third, Walker identifies both risks and opportunities from new technologies, as regards changing sleep quality. Small doses of electricity applied to the scalp can significantly improve sleep. Other mechanisms look like they can improve our dreams. In the not-so-distant future, the ways in which we sleep and dream might be quite different from today. Technology, if used wisely, could lead us to patterns of sleeping and dreaming in which rejuvenation happens more profoundly.

To conclude: I really liked the first few chapters of “Why We Sleep”, and wondered how the book could continue at the same level of engagement over the remainder of its 340 pages of content. But it did – it was thoroughly interesting all the way through!

Image source: Claudio_Scott on Pixabay.

25 June 2017

12 months progress in radical life extension: RAADfest 2016 & 2017

Filed under: aging, rejuveneering — Tags: , , , , , , , — David Wood @ 12:23 am

The few days that I spent at RAADfest 2016, August 4-7 last year, were a wake-up call for me, in a very pleasant way.

RAAD stands for “Revolution Against Aging and Death”. It’s a bold name, for a set of big ideas that have to fight an uphill battle in a world that is, sadly, predisposed to find a kind of reconciliation with aging and death.

Critically, RAADfest is more than a set of ideas. It’s a community of people – the Coalition for Radical Life Extension – which exists both as a formal organisation and as a broader informal network. The “fest” part of the name is short for “festival”. RAADfest 2016 featured a combination of presentations, discussions, and art performances. The result was to highlight scientific progress, celebrate personal experiences, and to debate candidly about issues and opportunities.

RAADfest 2016 was also a chance for participants to reflect on the positive examples provided by the lifestyles and the projects of other attendees. What might we learn from each others’ experiences and achievements? That was where the wake-up call could be heard.

So what have we learned since last August? And what are the next steps?

With these questions in mind, I recently took part in a video conversation with Jim Strole, Director of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension and RAADfest.

The two of us looked forward to a bigger, longer RAADfest taking place this year, August 9-13. I’ll have the honour of chairing one of the key panels at that event. I’ll be asking a number of distinguished experts on healthy life extension questions about progress since the inaugural RAADfest twelve months previous:

  • What has happened faster than you expected?
  • What has happened slower than you expected?
  • What took you completely by surprise?
  • And in the light of these lessons, what do you recommend is done differently in the next twelve months?

It’s a long journey from the UK all the way to San Diego, southern California, where RAADfest will be taking place. But, judging from what happened at the event last year, that long journey could well be a gateway into a much better future.

To gain a fuller idea of the topics that will be included at RAADfest 2017, you can find a whole series of short videos of “RAADfest preview conversations” on YouTube.

Important: If you register by July 16th, using the discount code FUTURISTS, you can obtain tickets for just $497, rather than the current headline price of $692.

Postscript 1: If you can’t wait until August…

If you can’t wait until August before taking a deep dive into the question of how technology can abolish aging, let me draw your attention to a talk I’ll be giving on Monday evening (26th June) in a venue in Brick Lane, London E1.

I’ll be describing what I see as a credible roadmap to abolish aging by 2040. Click here to read more about this talk, and to register to attend. I’ll be building up to explaining the content of the near-balance of conflicting forces depicted as follows:

Postscript 2: More interested in AI and sustainability?

In case you’re more interested in AI and sustainability than in the radical extension of healthspans, note that the London Futurists event at Birkbeck College next Saturday (1st July) is “The future of AI and sustainability, with Alex Housley”:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is powering the fourth industrial revolution. Intelligent machines are tackling new cognitive tasks at scale, leading to enormous economic efficiency gains and disruption across the labour market. But what will be the net impact of AI on society and the ecological environment?

In this talk, Alex Housley, founder of open-source machine learning platform Seldon, will explain how the collaborative approach to AI development helps transform industries and provides the macro-scale opportunities for AI to make the world a better and more sustainable place.

Questions to be considered will include:

  • What role can AI play in the transition to a sustainable economy?
  • What successes can we already identify, with AI systems improving uses of energy, waste recycling, and the circular economy?
  • What extra results can reasonably be expected, with future enhancements in AI?

For more details, click here.

30 September 2016

A declaration for radical healthspan extension

Filed under: aging, healthcare, medicine, rejuveneering, Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — David Wood @ 5:26 pm

I’m writing during a short break in the proceedings of the 2016 Eurosymposium on Healthy Ageing, which is being held in central Brussels.

The organisers have in mind that attendees could issue a declaration at the end of the event, tomorrow, Saturday 1st October – a date which happens to be Longevity Day.

Please find some draft text for this declaration. Lots of other text has been proposed too, but this is a fairly minimal version.

Before the text of the declaration is finalised, I’m interested to hear comments:

  • What should be added – or omitted?
  • What’s unclear?
  • What do people particularly like about it?
  • What improvements might be made to the language?
  • What changes (if any) would convince you to add your signature to it?
  • What’s a good way to conclude the declaration?

Please let us know!

Note: Many thanks are due to various members and supporters of Heales for suggesting text – especially Didier Coeurnelle.

(Update 6pm Brussels time 1st October – the draft text has evolved. The latest version is below.)

declaration-v3

The Brussels Declaration for Radical Healthspan Extension

The defeat of aging lies within our collective grasp. It’s time to seize this remarkable opportunity.

This 1st of October 2016, during International Longevity Day, the Eurosymposium on Healthy Ageing (EHA) meeting in Brussels proclaims the possibility and the imperative of a moonshot project to overcome all age-related diseases within 25 years by tackling aging as their root cause.

The result will be a world:

  • Where healthcare is far less expensive
  • Where human well-being can be radically extended
  • Where people place greater value on the environment and on peace, in view of their expectation of much longer lives
  • Where the right to life is more precious than ever, because life is longer.

Key steps in this initiative will include:

  • A paradigm shift stressing the need for research on aging itself, rather than only on individual diseases of old age
  • The removal of regulatory and other barriers which prevent or disincentivize companies from developing treatments for aging itself
  • An accelerated program to test anti-aging interventions on a much larger scale than anything that exists at the moment, leading to multiple human clinical trials of genuine rejuvenation biotechnologies by 2021.

These programs will require a coordinated effort at national and international level, integrating diverse existing and novel research approaches. They need to be financed by both public and private organizations, and create inclusive, affordable solutions available on equal terms to everybody.

23 June 2016

Acceptance and change

Filed under: aging, The Abolition of Aging — Tags: , , , , , , — David Wood @ 9:46 am

Is it narcissist to seek a cure for aging? Is it egocentric or immature?

That’s an accusation that often comes my way.

The short answer is that it’s no more narcissist to seek a cure for aging than it is to seek a cure for cancer, or for dementia. (Moreover, as I argue in Chapter 2 of my book The Abolition of Aging, the most effective route to cure cancer may well be to cure aging first.)

Nor was it narcissist of previous medical pioneers to seek cures for TB, or for malaria.

Nor was it narcissist for slaves to dare to want to be free of their bondage. Nor was it narcissist for women to dare to want the right to vote. Thank goodness.

Suffragettes 1024x576

There’s a section in Chapter 1 of The Abolition of Aging where I review a variant of this argument. Here’s a copy of that section.

Acceptance and change

At first glance, rejuveneers seem to stand opposed to a profound piece of humanitarian wisdom – wisdom expressed by, among others, Gautama Buddha, 2nd century Stoic advocate Marcus Aurelius, and 20th century American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.

That wisdom urges serenity and acceptance in the face of life’s deep challenges. There’s no merit in becoming unnecessarily agitated about an issue – such as the onset of aging – if there’s nothing that can be done about that issue. Why discuss a painful problem if you can’t change the outcome? What’s the point of complaining if there’s no solution available?

It’s as stated in the opening lines of Niebuhr’s famous “serenity prayer” (a prayer that everyone can appreciate, without any need to believe in a supernatural deity):

God grant me
The serenity to accept the things I cannot change…

A similar thought lies at the heart of Buddhism. The “Four Noble Truths” state that suffering arises from attachment to desires, and that suffering ceases only when attachment to desire ceases. To transcend the omnipresence of suffering, we have to learn to accept life as it is, and to set aside desire – such as the desire for better material possessions, pleasure, security, or long life.

The Stoic philosophy of life, developed in ancient Greece and Rome, likewise emphasises an attitude of acceptance. As Epictetus (55-135 AD) stated,

Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men’s desires, but by the removal of desire.

Stoic advocate Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), who was emperor of Rome for the last 19 years of his life, posed the following questions in his “Meditations”:

Why do you hunger for length of days? The point of life is to follow reason and the divine spirit and to accept whatever nature sends you. To live in this way is not to fear death, but to hold it in contempt. Death is only a thing of terror for those unable to live in the present. Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face, under the smile of him who bids you go.

Admiration of “Stoic calm” persists to the present day. Former American president Bill Clinton has been quoted as saying that “Meditations of Marcus Aurelius” was his favourite book. Stoicism is highlighted by self-education advocate Paul Jun as providing “9 Principles to Help You Keep Calm in Chaos”:

Not only does philosophy teach us how to live well and become better humans, but it can also aid in overcoming life’s trials and tribulations. Some schools of thought are for more abstract thinking and debate, whereas others are tools that are immediately practical to our current endeavours.

The principles within Stoicism are, perhaps, the most relevant and practical sets of rules for entrepreneurs, writers, and artists of all kinds. The Stoics focus on two things:

  1. How can we lead a fulfilling, happy life?
  2. How can we become better human beings?

The goal of Stoicism is to attain inner peace by overcoming adversity, practicing self-control, being conscious of our impulses, realizing our ephemeral nature and the short time allotted—these were all meditative practices that helped them live with their nature and not against it.

It is in contrast to these philosophies of mature acceptance – philosophies that emphasise uncomplaining acknowledgement of our finitude and our limits – that rejuveneers can be portrayed as arrogant, grasping, and juvenile. Rejuveneers dare to complain about the perceived insult of deteriorative aging. Rejuveneers have the audacity to imagine that an outcome unavailable to the greats of the past – including giants such as Marcus Aurelius, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Gautama Buddha – namely, the option of indefinite youthfulness – might shortly be available to present-day folk. Rejuveneers, according to this line of thought, lack the self-awareness to realise how unreasonable their ambition is. Indeed, the hubris of the rejuveneers can seem absurd.

Three sages

But the quotes given above tell only a part of the story. For example, there’s more to Buddhism than acceptance. Buddhist mindfulness coach Sunada Takagi comments as follows:

Acceptance is the first step toward change

I recently had a couple people raise doubts to me about the Buddhist idea of “accepting what is.” Isn’t it too passive? What if we’re in a situation that’s really unacceptable?

I’ve come across a few things recently that speak to this. Each makes a slightly different point, but they all basically say the same thing. “Accepting what is” does not mean passive acquiescence. Far from it, it’s the first step in making real and lasting change…

So “accepting what is” is not about passivity at all. It’s about clear seeing… Paradoxically, it’s when we take responsibility for our own failings and difficulties, or those of the world around us, that the real process of change can begin to take place. I see it as an essential starting point for anything we take on in life.

Paul Jun, the writer I quoted above on the Stoic philosophy, also adopts a strong action-orientation. For him, being stoical is far from being passive. It can, as he says, be the prelude to urgency:

Remind yourself that time is our most precious resource

What I particularly love and find challenging about Stoicism is that death is at the forefront of their thoughts. They realized the ephemeral nature of humans and how this is repeated in many facets of life.

It provides a sense of urgency, to realize that you’ve lived a certain number of hours and the hours ahead of you are not guaranteed as the ones you have lived. When I think of this I realize that everyday truly is an opportunity to improve, not in a cliché kind of way, but to learn to honestly appreciate what we are capable of achieving and how we are very responsible for the quality of our lives.

This makes our self-respect, work ethic, generosity, self-awareness, attention, and growth ever more important. The last thing any of us wants to do is die with regret, hence why following principles of Stoicism puts your life into perspective. It humbles you and should also deeply motivate you.

That brings us back to the serenity prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr. Above, I quoted the first clause of that prayer – the so-called “acceptance clause”. But there are two more clauses: an action clause and a wisdom clause. Here’s the entirety:

God grant me
The serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things that I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Just as people can, rightly, be criticised for foolhardily attempting to change something that cannot be altered, so also can they, again rightly, be criticised for passively accepting some massive flaw or shortcoming which, it turns out, lay within their capacity to fix.

The most important clause in this prayer, arguably, is the “wisdom clause”: if we can find out, objectively, whether something lies within our collective ability, it makes all the difference as to whether the right thing to do is to seek accommodation or to seek transformation.

For rejuveneering, I have no doubt that the right thing to do is to seek transformation. Doing otherwise would be akin – to borrow another motif from Christian heritage – to walking past on the other side of the road, keeping well away from an unfortunate traveller who has been mugged, stripped of his clothing, and left half dead. When regarding the unfortunate state of everyone around the world that is already “half dead” due to the approach of diseases of old age, who amongst us will prove to be a “good Samaritan” that sees the plight and provides tangible support? And who, in contrast, will be like the priest and the Levite of the biblical parable, rushing past with eyes averted, preoccupied with whatever else fits the accepting-aging paradigm?

Footnote

I’ll be addressing some of the themes of The Abolition of Aging at a London Futurists event this Saturday. Click here for more details.

DW Scenarios for life extension Slide 18

10 June 2016

Lessons from Underground Airlines

Filed under: aging, books, deception, The Abolition of Aging — Tags: , , , , , , , — David Wood @ 11:30 pm

In the grand sweep of history, how much difference can one person make?

For example, consider the influence of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States. What alternative history might have arisen if that great statesman had been felled by an assassin’s bullet, not (as in actual history) in 1865, after the conclusion of the American Civil War, but much earlier in his presidency?

That alternative scenario provides the backdrop to the speculative novel “Underground Airlines” by Ben H. Winter. It’s a novel that speculates, masterfully, about the trajectory of an alternative history.

Underground Airlines

Imagine if early martyrdom of Lincoln, before any civil war could start, had precipitated a colossal long-standing compromise in the United States, with northern anti-slavery states warily coexisting with southern pro-slavery states, not just for a few more years, but for long decades – indeed, right up until the present day. Imagine if the “underground railroad” rescue mechanism of safe houses and secret routes to transport fugitive escaped slaves, that existed in actual history from the 17th to the 19th century, persisted in modified, modernised form right up until the twenty first century, now known as “underground airlines” (the words which form the title of Winter’s book). Imagine if the latest features of modern society – such as GPS tracking and ubiquitous mobile computers – coexisted with industrial scale slavery in the “Hard Four” recalcitrant states of the deep south. And, worst of all, imagine an extension, right up till today, of the massive double think (self-deception) in which good people persuade themselves that the whole system is acceptable. Imagine the double think with which these bystanders view fugitive slaves on the run, as fair game to be hunted by trackers from the south acting on behalf of massive slave-holding conglomerates.

Winter’s book features double think writ large. Characters that, to outward appearances, seek to help runaway slaves, are secretly assisting the trackers, and allow themselves to feel comfortable with that double think. They accept the brute facts of slavery, and make peace (of a sort) with their personal accommodation to that worldview.

Personalities from actual history intrude, under the skilful choreography of the writer, into the alternative Underground Airlines history. Shunned by much of the rest of the industrialised world, the alternative America occupies a relative backwater on the global stage. The FDR and LBJ mentioned in quiet moments in the narrative wielded an impact far more local, in Underground Airlines history, than in actual history. A reference to a recent “gulf war” turns out to have nothing to do with the Middle East.

More than clever plotting

Winter’s book deserves praise for its clever plotting. Revelations of character motivations come as surprises, but not as jolts: the reader is gradually made aware of a bigger picture with its own, horrible logic. It adds up to gripping reading.

But more than that: Underground Airlines deserves praise for its astuteness in recognising that there was nothing inevitable about the abolition of slavery. The circumstances that we nowadays find overwhelmingly objectionable – the “Inhuman Bondage” described at length by real-world historian David Brion Davis in his epic account of the rise and fall of new world slavery – could be seen by otherwise admirable men and women as necessary, inevitable parts of a way of life that has many redeeming positive aspects. These apologists were wrapped in a set of perceptions – their “accepting slavery” paradigm – which prevented them from acknowledging the full awfulness of bound servitude. Despite their intelligence, their thinking was constrained. Despite the kindness that lay in their hearts, there were marked limits to their compassion.

Inhuman Bondage

I came across the work of David Brion Davis in the course of researching my own recently published book, The Abolition of Aging. Here’s an extract from near the end of my book:

The analysis by Davis makes it clear that:

  • The abolition of slavery was by no means inevitable or predetermined
  • There were strong arguments against the abolition of slavery – arguments raised by clever, devout people in both the United States and the United Kingdom – arguments concerning economic well-being, among many other factors
  • The arguments of the abolitionists were rooted in a conception of a better way of being a human – a way that avoided the harsh bondage and subjugation of the slave trade, and which would in due course enable many millions of people to fulfil a much greater potential
  • The cause of the abolition of slavery was significantly advanced by public activism – including pamphlets, lectures, petitions, and municipal meetings.

With its roots in the eighteenth century, and growing in momentum as the nineteenth century proceeded, the abolition of slavery eventually became an idea whose time had come – thanks to brave, smart, persistent activism by men and women with profound conviction.

With a different set of roots in the late twentieth century, and growing in momentum as the twenty-first century proceeds, the abolition of aging can, likewise, become an idea whose time has come. It’s an idea about an overwhelmingly better future for humanity – a future that will allow billions of people to fulfil a much greater potential. But as well as excellent engineering – the creation of reliable, accessible rejuvenation therapies – this project will also require brave, smart, persistent activism, to change the public landscape from one hostile (or apathetic) to rejuveneering into one that deeply supports it.

My claim in The Abolition of Aging is that most of us accept a terrible double think. We avidly support research against diseases such as cancer, dementia, and heart failure. We are aware of the destructive nature of all these diseases. But we shy away from research into the main underlying escalator of these diseases – the factor that makes these diseases more likely and (when they occur) more serious. This factor is biological aging – namely, the gradual deterioration of our molecular, cellular, and organic systems. We’re too ready to accept biological aging as a given.

We say it would be good if people could avoid being afflicted by cancer, dementia, or heart failure. We advocate people taking steps to decrease the chances of these diseases – for example, not to spend too much time under the direct sun, unprotected. But we tell ourselves that it’s somehow natural (and therefore somehow admirable) that biological aging accelerates in our bodies. So we acquiesce. We accept a deadly compromise.

The Abolition of Aging seeks to overturn that double think. It argues that rejuvenation is a noble, highly desirable, eminently practical destiny for our species – a “Humanity+” destiny that could, with sufficient focus and organisation, be achieved within just one human generation from now. Rejuvenation – the periodic reversal of the accumulation of significant damage at our molecular, cellular, and organic levels – can lead to a rapid decline in deaths from diseases of old age, such as cancer, dementia, heart failure, and lots more. Despite the implications of this change for our economic and social systems, this is an overwhelming good, which we should welcome wholeheartedly.

I’m happy to report that The Abolition of Aging has already featured as the #1 bestseller (in the UK) of the Gerontology section of Amazon.

Gerontology bestsellers UK

Next steps

Let’s return to the question from the start of this blogpost: In the grand sweep of history, how much difference can one person make?

We can’t all be Abraham Lincoln. But as I review in the final sections of my book, there’s a lot that each one of us can do, to tilt upwards the probability that successful rejuvenation therapies will be widely available by 2040. This includes steps to:

  1. Strengthen communities that are working on at least parts of the rejuveneering project
  2. Improve our personal understanding of aspects of rejuveneering – the science, roadmaps, history, philosophy, theories, personalities, platforms, open questions, and so on – and help to document aspects of that better understanding, by creating or editing knowledgebases or wikis
  3. Become involved with marketing of one sort or another
  4. Undertake original research into any of the unknowns of rejuveneering; this could be part of formal educational courses, or it could be a commercial R&D undertaking; it could also be part of a decentralised activity, in the style of “citizen science”
  5. Provide funding to projects that we judge to be particularly worthwhile.

Our contributions are likely to be more significant when they connect into positive efforts that others are already making. For example, I’m impressed by the activities of the Major Mouse Testing Program (MMTP), which you can read about here. I’ve just made a contribution to their crowdfunding campaign, and I encourage you to consider doing the same.

25 May 2016

The Abolition of Aging – epublished

Filed under: aging, books, healthcare, rejuveneering, The Abolition of Aging — Tags: , , — David Wood @ 4:12 pm

TAoA Cover page v11

I’m happy to report that my new book was epublished today, for Amazon Kindle. It’s “The Abolition of Aging: The forthcoming radical extension of healthy human longevity”.

You can find it on Amazon US, Amazon UK, …

It’s not a book about reprogramming our (silicon-based) devices – the kind of thing that used to be on my mind in my smartphone industry days. Instead, it’s about reprogramming our biology.

My reasons for writing this book are contained in its foreword. For convenience, I append a copy of the foreword at the end of this blogpost.

Physical copies of the book should be available from some time next month, for readers who prefer atoms to bits. I am planning to create an audio version too.

You can find more details about the book on its own website:

  • Advance praise, from people who have read pre-publication copies
  • The book’s description and dedication
  • An expanded table of contents
  • A community page, for further information about topics covered in the book.

If anyone has comments or queries about anything they read in the book, they’re welcome to raise them as responses to this blogpost.

Foreword

(This content is part of the introductory material of the book “The Abolition of Aging”.)

Within our collective grasp dwells the remarkable possibility of the abolition of biological aging.

It’s a big “if”, but if we decide as a species to make this project a priority, there’s around a 50% chance that practical rejuvenation therapies resulting in the comprehensive reversal of aging will be widely available as early as 2040.

People everywhere, on the application of these treatments, will, if they wish, stop becoming biologically older. Instead, again if they wish, they’ll start to become biologically younger, in both body and mind, as rejuvenation therapies take hold. In short, everyone will have the option to become ageless.

Two objections

The viewpoint I’ve just described is a position I’ve reached following extensive research, carried out over more than ten years. My research has led me to become a strong supporter of what can be called “the rejuveneering project”: a multi-decade cross-disciplinary endeavour to engineer human rejuvenation and thereby enable the choice to abolish aging.

But when I mention this viewpoint to people that I meet – as part of my activity as a futurist, or when I catch up with my former colleagues from the smartphone industry – I frequently encounter one of two adverse reactions.

First, people tell me that it’s not possible that such treatments are going to exist in any meaningful timescale any time soon. In other words, they insist that human rejuvenation can’t be done. It’s wishful thinking to suppose otherwise, they say. It’s bad science. It’s naively over-optimistic. It’s ignorant of the long history of failures in this field. The technical challenges remain overwhelmingly difficult.

Second, people tell me that any such treatments would be socially destructive and morally indefensible. In other words, they insist that human rejuvenation shouldn’t be done. It’s essentially a selfish idea, they say – an idea with all kinds of undesirable consequences for societal harmony or planetary well-being. It’s an arrogant idea, from immature minds. It’s an idea that deserves to be strangled.

Can’t be done; shouldn’t be done – in this book, I will argue that both these objections are profoundly wrong. I’ll argue instead that rejuvenation is a noble, highly desirable, eminently practical destiny for our species – a “Humanity+” destiny that could be achieved within just one human generation from now. As I see it, the abolition of aging is set to take its place on the upward arc of human social progress, echoing developments such as the abolition of slavery, the abolition of racism, and the abolition of poverty.

It turns out that the can’t/shouldn’t objections are interlinked. They reinforce each other. It’s often because someone thinks an effort is technically impossible that they object to any time or finance being applied to it. It would be much better, they say, to apply these resources to other philanthropic causes where real progress is possible. That, allegedly, would be the moral, mature thing to do. Conversely, when someone’s moral stance predisposes them to accept personal bodily decline and death, they become eager to find technical reasons that back up their decision. After all, it’s human nature to tend to cherry pick evidence that supports what we want to believe.

Two paradigms

A set of mutually reinforcing interlinked beliefs is sometimes called a “paradigm”. Our paradigms guide us, both consciously and unconsciously, in how we see the world, and in the kinds of projects we deem to be worthwhile. Our paradigms filter our perceptions and constrain our imaginations.

Changing paradigms is hard work. Just ask anyone who has tried to alter the opinion of others on contentious matters such as climate change, gun control, regulating the free market, or progressive taxation. Mere reason alone cannot unseat opinions on such topics. What to some observers is clear and compelling evidence for one position is hardly even noticed by someone entrenched in a competing paradigm. The inconvenient evidence is swatted away with little conscious thought.

The paradigm that accepts human bodily decline and aging as somehow desirable has even deeper roots than the vexatious political topics mentioned in the previous paragraph. It’s not going to be easy to dislodge that accepting-agingparadigm. However, in the chapters ahead, I will marshal a wide range of considerations in favour of a different paradigm – the paradigm that heartily anticipates and endorses rejuvenation. I’ll try to encourage readers to see things from that anticipating-rejuvenation paradigm.

Two abolitions

Accepting aging can be compared to accepting slavery.

For millennia, people from all social classes took slavery for granted. Thoughtful participants may have seen drawbacks with the system, but they assumed that there was no alternative to the basic fact of slavery. They could not conceive how society would function properly without slaves. Even the Bible takes slavery as a given. There is no Mosaic commandment which says “Thou shalt not keep slaves”. Nor is there anything in the New Testament that tells slave owners to set their slaves free.

But in recent times, thank goodness, the public mind changed. The accepting-slavery paradigm wilted in the face of a crescendo of opposing arguments. As with slavery, so also with aging: the time will come for its abolition. The public will cease to take aging for granted. They’ll stop believing in spurious justifications for its inevitability. They’ll demand better. They’ll see how rejuvenation is ready to be embraced.

One reason why slavery is so objectionable is the extent of its curtailment of human opportunity – the denial of free choice to the people enslaved. Another reason is that life expectancy of slaves frequently fell far short of the life expectancy of people not enslaved. As such, slavery can be counted as a major killer: it accelerated death.

From the anticipating-rejuvenation perspective, aging should be seen as the biggest killer of all. Compared to “standard” killers of the present day, such as drunken driving, terrorism, lead fumes, or other carcinogens – killers which rouse us to action to constrain them – aging destroys many more people. Globally, aging is the cause of at least two thirds of human deaths. Aging is the awful elephant in the room, which we have collectively learned to ignore, but which we must learn to recognise and challenge anew.

Every single week the rejuveneering project is delayed, hundreds of thousands more people suffer and die worldwide due to aging-related diseases. Advocates of rejuveneering see this ongoing situation as a needless slaughter. It’s an intolerable offence against human potential. We ought, therefore, to be powerfully motivated to raise the probability of 50% which I offered at the start of this foreword. A 50% chance of success with the rejuveneering project means, equally, a 50% chance of that project failing. That’s a 50% chance of the human slaughter continuing.

Motivation

In the same way as we have become fervently motivated in recent decades to deal with the other killers mentioned above – vigorously campaigning against, for example, drunk drivers and emitters of noxious chemical pollutants – we ought to be even more motivated to deal with aging. The anger that society has directed against tobacco companies, for long obscuring the links between smoking and lung cancer, ought to find a resonance in a new social passion to uncover and address links between biological aging and numerous diseases. If it’s right to seek to change behaviours and metabolism to cut down bad cholesterol (a precursor of heart disease) and concentrated glucose (a precursor of diabetes), it should be equally right to change behaviours and metabolism to cut down something that’s a precursor of even more diseases, namely, biological aging.

This is a discussion with enormous consequences. Changes in the public mood regarding the desirability of rejuveneering could trigger large reallocations of both public and private research expenditure. In turn, these reallocations are likely to have major implications in many areas of public well-being. Clearly, these decisions need to be taken wisely – with decisions being guided by a better understanding of the rich landscape of rejuveneering possibilities.

An ongoing surge of motivation, wisely coordinated, is one of the factors which can assist the rejuveneering project to overcome the weighty challenges it faces – challenges in science, technology, engineering, and human collaboration. Stubborn “unknown unknowns” surely lie ahead too. Due to these complexities and unknowns, no one can be sure of the outcome of this project. Despite what some rejuvenation enthusiasts may suggest, there’s nothing inevitable about the pace of future medical progress. That’s why I give the probability of success as only around 50%.

Although the end outcome remains unclear, the sense of discovery is increasing. The underlying scientific context is changing rapidly. Every day brings its own fresh firehose of news of potential breakthrough medical approaches. In the midst of so much innovation, it behoves us to seek clarity on the bigger picture.

To the extent that my book can provide that bigger picture, it will have met at least some of its goals. Armed with that bigger picture, readers of this book will, hopefully, be better placed to find the aspect of the overall rejuveneering project where they can make their best contributions. Together, we can tilt that 50% success probability upwards. The sooner, the better.

(If you found this interesting, you may like to read “The discussion ahead” next.)

 

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