Can Science Cure Aging? And If So, What Then?

In his podcast Crazy/Genius, Derek Thompson, staff writer at The Atlantic, talks with guests about eternal life and the science and technology around it.

The drive to find the secret to eternal living is spread across history and literature, from the ancient Greeks to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. And while modern science has come up with ways to prolong lives – through pacemakers and cardiovascular pills that keep the heart pumping, for example – a problem that arises is the quality of said prolonged life. Solutions to how to keep the brain from aging are still to come up. One scientist "is looking to solve this question with direct neural interface technology. His lab has used microscopic sensors embedded in the brain to allow a person to control robotic limbs with their thoughts. Sanchez has found that similar technology can stimulate memory recall in patients with short-term memory loss. In other words, as biologists tinker on a god pill for eternal life, Sanchez is at work on a kind of external search engine for our memories."

Aside from the scientific and technical developments, it’s really interesting to discuss the implications of successfully extending human life. Families would change, as would the concept of marriage and retirement policies, dictators could remain in power longer, class inequality would deepen even more.

We may be at the precipice of a revolution in biotech that rivals this generation’s revolution in infotech.