The CEO of Bioviva USA Inc, Elizabeth Parrish, claims to be the first human in world history to have successfully reversed the effects of natural ageing - thanks to experimental gene therapy provided by her company.
Parrish first underwent gene therapy in 2015 - one designed to protect against muscle mass depletion that is inherent to ageing and another to fight stem cell depletion due to age-related diseases.
Originally meant to prove that her company’s gene therapy was safe, the results - should they prove to be effective in the long-term and withstand due scientific scrutiny - would be the very first successful demonstration of telomere lengthening in any human.
Another first world problem: ageing…
I think you’ll find this is a human world problem!
Low median age just means society has a lot of young people, it doesn’t mean that those young people won’t get old.
You will notice that average life expectancies are all below 80 years, I wonder why that is. Perhaps because people, all people, universally, get old and die?
Reducing malaria and HIV deaths in Africa will increase ageing related deaths, and those people already in their 70s would no doubt be interested in solutions to this problem that the first world might happen to develop.
In this decade, this will probably cost six digits.
In the next, five.
In the next, four.
By that time millions of people will have been murdered by their governments through their refusal to provide anti-aging therapies through public healthcare even though treatment for aging-related diseases, nursery homes etc. end up ultimately costing far more. Others will die because states will seek to regulate and ban this technology because people are owned by the collective mob and bodily autonomy is subject to popular approval. Many will perish because the tragedy of poverty assigns their lives literally insignificant value. Some will be denied life through the pressure of
After that, after the systems have taken their collective heads out of their asses, when people no longer need to sneak off to Shitholistan to receive treatments, when the bloodlust of the moralists has been sated and when technology has brought the horrendous expenses down, just like it has done with genetic sequencing, death might finally feel the first blows of its own aging.
We will rejoice in this retaliation. The greatest murderer of them all is the only one deserving execution, and one day it will stop escaping justice.
Global warming is probably a problem (and possibly a severe* one?) but its not anything remotely near an existential risk.
As far as I can tell, there are basically three human caused scenarios that could maybe lead to human extinction (not counting technical extinction via transhumanism)- UFAI, world war with WMDs (I’m not sure if today’s nuclear arsenals can accomplish this?), or some kind of synthetic super-pathogen. UFAI would kill “Mother Nature” dead too.
That caring about people over “nature” is labelled “self centered” with negative connotations really highlights why I despise environmentalism though. (IDK if that’s the intentions of the artist, this might just be cosmic horror, but I’ve encountered that attitude a lot)
*the scale/scope is a bit wonky when labeling worldwide problems by severity
[”But the real version. Where the ant let the grasshopper die.”]
THESEUS ARMED FOR WAR AGAINST THE GODDESS OF CANCER AND THE GODDESS OF EVERYTHING ELSE.
If you meet Gaia, mock the “selfishness” of her apparent desire that so many ecosystems and species thrive. It is an appropriate response to the assertion that a desire for 7 billion happy and prosperous humans is selfish.
To be fair, the Gaia in this comic didn’t explicitly voice pro-biodiversity viewpoints, as she seems equally apathetic about the species we cause the extinction of with her ”eh, life goes on” attitude. That is, she is a much better representation of Mother Nature’s impersonal indifference to our individual living and suffering, especially being better than most depictions of her as a “kind and caring” deity. The only thing missing is that her garment should perhaps be red, for she is Nature, red in tooth and claw.
Truly, our signs of reverence to such a deity should be growing sharper claws and tougher skin to face the coming days.
I would take a thousand Frankensteins, Herbert Wests, and Moreaus over Mother Nature.
Diversity is useful and beautiful. BUT, Mother Nature doesn’t care about keeping any of us around, or the richness of life that’s already here. You like those fancy black-and-white bears? Nature doesn’t. They’ll go extinct without us someday. You like those jungles? Tomorrow, they will be gone whether we stop cutting down the trees or not, because Nature is a dumb Black Goat with a Thousand Young. Death, sickness, and pain producing endless struggle, that’s the secret behind everything we judge to be beautiful that Nature contains. Kinda makes Ol’ Shubby not something to pray to, but something to tame and care for. We can be the benevolent gardeners and nature-loving hermits our ancestors imagined their nature deities to be. Certainly, we have enough power today to begin taking some responsibility.
PS: We COULD kill off all of Nature, if we put our minds to it, by the way. That’s the funny thing.The damage we do today, to various species? It’s just us not paying attention to how we use our power. We create horrific destruction by accident. We can do worse on purpose. I’d like to think that means we can do better, as well, if we concentrate.
Reblogging again because this keeps getting better and better.
It seems like the first rule of magic, or at least the first limitation mentioned, is usually ‘you can’t bring back the dead.’
And I know it makes sense from a writing standpoint, but I also wonder if it comes from somewhere else. If that’s just the first, most common human response to hearing that magic is possible.
Maybe the first question was, ‘Are the dead still going to stay dead?’ for so long that people stopped needing to say it, that it just got answered right away. Yes, the world will still hurt. Chin up, you can make fire from your fingertips. Maybe you can hurt it back.
Make life take the lemons back. Burn life’s house down with the lemons.
Wipe away all the bloodsuckers with my Gene Driver.
