Optional Death :- Will you choose to live or die in the future?

The Youth's Lens
Jun 15, 2018
3 min read

Get ready to challenge your chain of thoughts, as our visionary Yami Malhotra takes you through a journey of optional life or death. Beware, for you never know, if you may chose to live or die by the time you end reading this.

LOL, you must be kidding......

Two genetic engineers-José Luis Coredeiro and David Wood, in Barcelona discovered that death could be optional in the next 27 years, by the year 2045. According to them, humans will only die in accidents, never of natural causes or illnesses. The principle behind this invention is Nanotechnology, among many new genetic manipulation techniques. The process will involve turning ‘bad’ genes into healthy ones and eliminating dead cells from the body, repairing damaged cells, treatments with stem cells and printing vital organs in 3D. Cordeiro himself has chosen not to die and according to him, in that 30 years’ time, he’ll be younger than is today. The main causes of ageing and death is due to damages or shortened ‘telomeres' (also known as DNA tails). Reversing ageing involves the lengthening of telomeres. Telomeres become damaged and shortened with the passage of time, thereby speeding up the event of toxins entering the body- smoking, alcohol and air pollution contribute to the shortening of telomeres, thus accelerating ageing. Cordeiro and Wood believe that major international corporations such as Google would enter the the field of medicine because they may realise that curing ageing is possible.

ACCORDING TO THE INVENTORS

Immortality will not necessarily mean the planet becomes overcrowded. Wood and Cordeiro said that there is still plenty of room for more people on Earth and these days people do not have near as many children as they did in past decades and centuries; plus it would be possible to live in space by then. The cost of anti-ageing treatment was compared to that of latest smartphones. To be honest, one would’ve thought this might’ve been as expensive as a one way ticket to Mars but clearly it’s more reasonable than you might think. According to Wood and Cordeiro, at first it will be expensive, but with a competitive market the price will gradually decrease because it will be something that benefits everyone.

Okay, so has this been tested on a human?

Elisabeth Parrish, their first human patient started to see symptoms of ageing and asked what could be done to prevent it. So far, her treatment has been perilous and illicit, but it has not had any adverse side-effects and the level of telomeres in her blood is 20 years younger than before.

Elisabeth Parish - The First Human Patient

Living forever ..... seems quite harmless? Not really.

The Earth is already running short on resources like fossil fuels and water. The fact that Cape Town is going to reach Day Zero in July, 2018 shows that resources are inadequate at the moment. Not only are we running short on resources, but as the population increases, so do their ever growing needs. Aside from that, resources are distributed disproportionately and are not used optimally. If we can’t manage our resources well, with the present-day population on Earth, it would be a whole lot harder with a higher population and immortals.
If we are already talking about buying a one-way ticket to Mars, and leaving Earth as there might be a day when the Earth would be uninhabitable, why even talk about exploiting and ruining another planet the way we ruined ours? There still won’t be enough space for immortals to fit into the picture as even on another planet, they may not be able to reproduce and sustain the human population, which brings us to the next point.
The inventors only mentioned the process of becoming younger and immortal but never said anything about the ability to reproduce again. Reproduction is necessary for evolution of human beings. This leaves one with the uncertainty of failing to evolve as a species.
Since the current population is proving to be a difficulty to handle, the governments in the future may create devices which generate natural disasters, because, as previously stated, even after getting the treatment which prevents death, accidents can kill the people who’ve gotten the treatment. This would not only lead to their deaths, but would also lead to the death of many others just because of the added stress on the population.
Lastly, this treatment would not leave much space for future generations. And at the end of the day, it would feel as though the immortals are like rocks, just lying on the side of the road, not moving, or creating space for a rat or rabbit to dig a burrow and make a home.