We Create Technology to Remove Suffering and Death

Right from the outset, the spur for the creation of new technology was the desire to reduce the personal impact of suffering and death. In this I agree with author Stephen Cave that to a large degree the rise to civilization was driven by the day to day minutiae of the quest for immortality: don't starve, don't be cold, don't get injured, don't be conquered, cure sickness, heal wounds, preserve life and health in the moment so as to see another dawn. We're still building the medical aspects of that edifice one small brick at a time, most of the way through dealing with infectious disease, and now turning our view to aging. The agents of technological progress, the researchers and the developers, gnaw away at each of the myriad individual causes of pain and mortality, one at a time, sometimes getting rid of them entirely (smallpox, insufficient food production), sometimes merely reducing them a little (heart disease, cancer). The next group picks up the banner, and continues to try to further erode that cause of mortality and sickness. Progress is accelerating. We can envisage numerous paths ahead that might lead to a defeat of degenerative aging before the end of this century. We may well begin the replacement of our evolved biology with much more efficient and resilient designed machinery, such as artificial immune systems and oxygen transport nanomachines. We may augment ourselves with new tissues, perhaps genetically improved, such as additional thymus organoids or extens...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs