Tech Reckoner

Would you like to live indefinitely or die as all do?

Emerging Technology Conference is going on in San Diego. The conference focuses on future technology, breakthroughs in it and has all the leading scientists, engineers to discuss technology.

One of the main future technology research is going on is research on longevity of human life span. And Scott Wainner has written about it. Through his post he has tried to convince people to live longer.

First what is longevity? It doesn’t mean just surviving or living no matter if you body can’t do anything and is diseased. It means living a healthy life.

Human beings are supposed to age. Our bodies are made so. But what if we could freeze your aging body cells at the age of 20 years?? One would be still able 2 live like a 20 indefinitely until you meet a mishap or an incurable disease. Most diseases caused due to aging would not affect you.

But Alas very few people support this. There as 6 main reasons for this as stated in this article.

1) They are highly religious, and believe that living is standing in the way of reaching their creator. This doesn’t make sense because any creator would have given us life and wants us to live, not to die. Christianity says that Jesus’ death was a sacrifice, something undesirable, not something to be welcomed and revered.

2) They use history (the death of all living things before us) as an excuse for why preventing aging, disease, and death, are ultimately impossible despite the vast number of “first time” accomplishments and breakthroughs that our species has had in the past 100 years alone.

3) They don’t like their lives and would therefore choose not to prolong them. Ultimately this is a solvable problem, given resources and time.

4) They are old and are decrepit, aging has already deteriorated their mind and body, and life isn’t worth living.

5) They are morally opposed to a longer life, citing social problems or population issues. Again, this is a problem that can be addressed – requiring the deaths of billions after some agreed upon period of time in order to make room for a fresh batch should not be a requirement to living.

6) They believe that aging is a given – that it is caused by time, not by cellular processes. In reality, it is known that aging is programmed into our cells as an evolutionary process.

These all exist everywhere in every community. Take for example India where I belong.

• Death is considered a gateway to swarg (heaven in English)
• People what to get rid of the circle of life and gain Moksha or complete freedom. Its believed we take birth again on earth in form of any creature depending on deeds done in current life.
• People want to die before getting too old. Even my grandmother who is 67 says she wants do die within next 2-3 years as she doesn’t want to become a burden and she wants 2 meet god.

I ask why you wanna die? Why leave this beautiful world where we all can live and cherish life? How can you say you’ll get rid of the circle of life? And how are you sure about the circle of life and death?

What if we freeze your age so that you can live as you are for years?

I would personally love that. Why should i die? Why should i leave all my possessions of life. My family, friends, my laptop, my college life, food, shopping, amusement parks, traveling. There are lot many things than just dying in life for sure!!

Today’s technology is helping us to reach the distant planets, make life comfortable and do so many things. So what not try to make yourself immortal??
Even ancient Egyptians believed to live very long, that’s the reason they made Mummies of their rulers. If they want to live more why shouldn’t we in the 21st century?

I request everyone to think about the cause and also read the great article here