"Surprise!"
"Happy Birthday!"
Do you remember when you
used to look forward to your birthday?
"Happy Birthday!"
For a while, getting older was exciting.
Every year made you smarter,
faster,
bigger,
and stronger.
You could do more in a day.
And as bedtimes became more lax,
you could do more in a night too.
Ugh, is it 4 pm already?
What the **** happened?
Aging,
that's what happened.
"Happy Birthday, Grandma!"
"It's better to be over the hill, than buried under it!"
Don't like your birthday anymore?
"Happy birthday?"
"No such thing."
Tired of feeling tired all the time?
And weaker?
And smaller?
And slower?
Cheer up.
We can fix that for you.
In the past 200 years,
the average life expectancy on Earth
has more than doubled.
"Today is my 111th birthday!"
But despite being able to live longer,
we still haven't figured out a way to stop aging.
The very idea of conquering age
sounds impossible,
not to mention unnatural.
But don't act like you wouldn't want that
sweet, sweet victory.
At 25, you're at your physical best.
At 40, your body starts getting weaker.
Does that sound fair to you?
Don't you wish we could
look and feel our best forever?
Some scientists believe that it
might one day be possible.
But is it really what you want?
Based on what aging is,
it seems that it's only a matter of time
before we're able to slow its effects,
if not stop it completely.
After all, aging is simply a biological process.
It's what happens when your body
can no longer keep up with repairing
your weakened and damaged cells.
You'll also have free radicals to deal with.
And no, we are not referring to
counter-culture leftist youths
who aggravate older people!
and they've been proven to damage cells.
The resulting cell damage can lead to
a range of diseases that are
typically linked to old age.
If we get to an age we really like,
and then stop our body
from making free radicals,
our cellular and molecular structure
wouldn't age as much.
And that might just be our
ticket to eternal youth.
But while that might
sound like good news to you,
ask yourself,
is anti-aging good for the Earth
and all the people on it?
You can imagine how the world would be
a much happier place if we never aged.
Generally speaking,
we would have a healthier population.
Fewer people would experience
the chronic pain that comes with old age,
and we'd see an end to age-related diseases
like Alzheimers, dementia and Parkinson's.
Families could expect to pay
fewer medical costs,
providing the healthcare system
with some much-needed relief.
More people might live on
to meet their great-great-grandchildren,
and even their
great-great-great-grandchildren.
An ageless world would be a utopia!
You could get so much more out of life,
crossing off all the items on your bucket list
without feeling weak,
or tired,
or worrying about how much time you had left.
Barring other causes of death
like accidents or illnesses,
you might even be able to live forever!
But in what kind of world?
We might stop aging,
but we wouldn't stop reproducing.
The world would quickly become
a claustrophobic place.
Earth's population would boom,
and we'd find ourselves increasingly strained
to find enough space for everybody.
And safe and comfortable housing
wouldn't be the only problem.
How would we feed everybody?
Our quality of life would become
increasingly unaffordable,
as a world without aging would mean
a world with fewer retirees.
Newcomers to the workforce
would struggle to earn a living,
and this would be made worse by job cuts
in medicine and funeral services,
as well as the cosmetics industry.
To give you an idea of
how devastating that would be,
As individuals,
food,
shelter,
and how to pay for them
would be some of our top concerns.
But how about the planet as a whole?
Earth has a threshold for
how many lives it can support.
So if we stopped aging,
we'd quickly use up our world's resources,
making the climate crisis so much worse
that we might soon find ourselves
wishing we could grow old,
just to speed ourselves out of this nightmare.
The thing to remember is that
aging and death,
while unpleasant,
are natural processes.
Even if we don't like
growing old and phasing out,
humanity, as a species, needs it.
While we grow old,
Earth is constantly rejuvenating itself
through evolution.
Every organism on the planet
must one day leave to make room
for new and healthier organisms.
This is how the world has stayed
young and fit for billions of years!
So while you may not like growing old,
be proud of the fact that
growing old and phasing out
is part of a bigger process
to keep the Earth young and healthy,
so that it can continue to support
generations of humans
who will get to enjoy life as much as you have!
Of course, it would be nice
to stay young for a little longer,
and there are plenty of scientists who are
researching ways to make it possible.
The SENS Research Foundation,
for example,
is working on an anti-aging project
called rejuvenation biotechnology,
which would reverse the effects of aging
without halting the process altogether.
Not good enough?
Still feel like living forever?
Well, we can show you what
immortality really looks like,
but that's a story for another WHAT IF.