When I was in high school, a teacher with whom I shared a less than cordial relationship would try to rile up the class by claiming that, as teenagers, we all thought we were immortal. Thinking back on past activities such as jumping over raging bonfires, trying to beat a train in an SUV, and other hobbies that you’d better not tell my mother about, I’d have to say that he was correct. Recently, I’ve found myself not thinking, but hoping really, that I’m immortal. I’ve also had thoughts about those thoughts. Here are some thoughts on the initial thoughts and then some more thoughts about the thoughts on those thoughts.

Current research into life-prolonging has been pushing the merits of dietary restriction (DR). DR proponents maintain that if you don’t eat as much, and especially cutback your sugar intake, you may live significantly longer. This has been shown to be true in all organisms tested, from yeast to monkeys. An ongoing human study shows roughly the same thing, but uses “biological age” measurements rather than actual mortality data. Biological age measurements are based on a range of vital signs, cholesterol levels, and other factors that change in relatively predictable ways with age.

A while back, I saw a man on TV who practices DR. He was on a diving block next to a normal-amount eating guy. Now, I’m not much for dudes, but I have to admit that in comparison to the bony waif, I would much rather have had sex with the guy that eats. That’s just me.
The idea of cutting my calorie intake by 30% is unappealing. “No, I’m sorry, I won’t be able to eat the delectable-looking desert that you, my host, spent the better part of the afternoon creating; it’s glucose content will create too many free radicals.” There is a certain joy in eating and a similar joy in not being able to count your ribs, and there’s a quality of life issue tied to that joy. Maybe I’d cut 10%. Maybe.

There are also genetic fixes that could extend lifespan without the need to starve yourself. Aging is an incredibly complex process, but a few tweaks in model organisms have shown promise in extending life without extreme dieting. Futurists such as Ray Kurzweil and news media types get excited whenever a new finding holds even the slightest possibility of providing longer or indefinite life to the general populace. My first thought is, where the hell are these people going to live? I’m willing to take on a couple of tenants when I get my own place, but there’s going to be a strict upper age limit of 130, and I’m not changing anyone’s diapers. I then think about all the new, crazy diseases people would get if they lived for hundreds of years. One of the reasons cancer is now more prevalent, in addition to increases in environmental toxins, higher UV radiation, delayed child-bearing, etc, is that folks are commonly living into their 70s and 80s. Just think of what nature can dream up for somebody three times older. Probably some crazy form of spleen fungus that gives you nightmares.

Aside from the logistical issues, I’m all about life and its continuance. Sick babies, cancer, and heart attacks are all things I’d like to see a lot less of. But I feel there’s a difference between promoting good health and promoting indefinite life spans. Watching people go to extreme lengths to delay their own natural-cause deaths sometimes feels like watching a heroine addict killing their own dog after it accidentally swallowed a balloon. It seems the assumption is that life is not something to be maintained, but rather that death is something to be avoided. Death is the most feared prospect for the living, and any promise that the inevitable might be delayed or skirted altogether inspires an almost hysterical latching onto that hope. It’s OK, I’ve felt it too. Honest.

Wouldn’t it be easier, and more rewarding, to lose the fear of death without resorting to brute force tactics? Even if these technologies pan out, and 500 years from now you’re sitting in your mind-controlled flying moon-car next to your genetically enhanced monkey-wife, it’s all got to come to an end one way or another. Even if it’s just you feeling bored and purposely crashing into a roaming lunar elephant. Prolonging life is just a type of procrastination. It comes back to my time theory I mentioned a while back. If you know you’re going to die in the future, it’s basically the same as if you’re dying now, since nothing in the meantime is going to change death’s inevitability.

So yeah.