Home »
Birth, death, technology and the fountain of youth
“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner
Op-Ed Commentary
Ahh, the Fountain of Youth!
With a birthday coming up next week, I could certainly use one and I’d thank Spanish conquistador Ponce de Leon for showing me the way. But I’d be doomed to disappointment because Ponce de Leon never found the mythical fountain. However, this hasn’t stopped people from looking even today in a California valley famous for its futuristic ideas and tech billionaires.
That would be Silicon Valley, of course, where the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are worshipped almost like Gods and where the hottest objects of research these days are two-fold – finding God or creating one and looking for that magic elixir that would grant eternal youth.
Spoiler alert! They haven’t found it yet, but according to some interesting articles in last week’s National Post they’ve found the next best thing – artificial intelligence or “AI” as it’s commonly known. And AI is leading them “to boldly go where no man has gone before” to use the famous Star Trek meme.
For instance, if you’re old enough already you might remember those old Geritol TV commercials for “tired blood.” (Mine gets pretty tired at times.) Anyway, if you’ve got tired blood, old blood or something like that and if you have lots of money to spare you can go to special clinics in Silicon Valley where they will give you an infusion of rich, yellow plasma from youths much younger than crotchety old you. You lie back in a comfortable bed and drip, drip, drip. In it goes and after a couple of hours they disconnect the equipment and disconnect your wallet of $US8,000 and with new zip in your stride you walk out of the clinic a new woman a new man or some other form of non-binary gender person.
Anything is possible in Silicon Valley if you have enough dough!
Another thing they’re working on in that famous valley just a youthful hop, skip and a jump east of San Francisco is nano-technology, blood-borne robots so tiny they inject them into you and they destroy cancer cells roaming around in your body, which would give you a date with the Grim Reaper instead of the blissful eternal life you crave so much. Other researchers in the lost valley of eternal youth are attempting to hack the human genome and get rid of all those nasty little genes that cause us to grow old such as my aversion to a healthy diet for example. And there are more, but too many to list here.
One of the Post articles mentions Peter Thiel, the gazillionaire who founded PayPal and states he “stands against the ideology of death and the inevitability of the death of every individual.” Phew! Strong stuff, but will it work? Google seems to think so as it is spending $US1.5 billion on a special lab using 3D printers to reproduce any human organ that wears out and replace it with a plastic replica thereby prolonging life. But keep in mind the old saying; if it sounds too good to be true, it likely . . . . !
Call me strange or crazy if you want but personally, I don’t much fear death. That doesn’t mean I want to die, but even if I had the money, you’d never see me in Silicon Valley being pumped up with plasma or having my flesh and blood organs replaced with plastic. What I do fear however is old age and the frailty that goes with it that would prevent me from properly enjoying the Great Kootenay Outdoors that I love so much or my yet-to-be born grandchildren who I will love even more.
One thing I’ve learned in my three-score years and 10 is that it’s not life span that counts the most. It’s health span. Take your health away and you’re left with very little. And I doubt very much if Silicon Valley will ever be able to adequately replace that.
– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist who hopes to enjoy those grandchildren yet!
