For an introduction to this biogerontological mythology, I recommend last year’s documentary The Immortalists, which profiles two of the most vocal advocates of scientific immortality: the computer scientist Aubrey de Grey and the biotech entrepreneur Bill Andrews. Yet the film shows that these men aren’t lone mavericks with unconventional ideas about ageing and its abolition, but participants in a complex and self-supporting network of techno-myth. And as is the case with, for example, human cloning, nutrition and the surprising properties of water, there is no convenient partitioning here into respectable and cranky science. In consequence, the immortality market can’t simply be eliminated by the appliance of science; it needs to be understood as a cultural phenomenon.
Ageing is partly genetic but there are no “ageing genes” – merely ordinary genes that may cause problems in later life.
.. It is partly because cancer cells are good at regenerating their telomeres that they can divide and proliferate out of control.
.. Extreme ideas always fare best in areas where less is known. Which brings us to the star of The Immortalists and the self-styled poster-boy of the scientific-immortality movement: Aubrey de Grey
.. To explain to a layman why de Grey’s programme falls into the realm of fantasy rather than science requires time, attention and the presentation of detailed background information ..
.. De Grey calls his quest a “crusade to defeat ageing”, which he regards as “the single most urgent imperative for humanity”. Death, he says, “is quite simply repugnant”, and he equates our acceptance of it in elderly people with our past casual acceptance of the slaughter of other races.
.. Don’t we die off to make room for our children and aren’t there already too many of us? De Grey’s response reveals a lot about the man. Imagining procreation as simply our best current shot at immortality (for isn’t this, in the end, all that our genes are after?), he argues that the desire to have children will wane once we can live for ever.
.. With inherited wealth and venture capital backing from the likes of PayPal’s co-founder Peter Thiel, de Grey maintains an institution in Mountain View, California, called the Sens Research Foundation
Software’s Power is underestimated
But only since about 2000 has software acquired the sort of unbridled power, independent of hardware specifics, that it possesses today. For the first half century of modern computing after World War II, hardware was the driving force.
.. a 14-year-old teenager today (too young to show up in labor statistics) can learn programming, contribute significantly to open-source projects, and become a talented professional-grade programmer before age 18. This is breaking smart: an economic actor using early mastery of emerging technological leverage — in this case a young individual using software leverage — to wield disproportionate influence on the emerging future.
Only a tiny fraction of this enormously valuable activity — the cost of a laptop and an Internet connection — would show up in standard economic metrics.
.. As the ridesharing sector took root and grew in city after city, second-order effects began to kick in. The increased convenience enables many more urban dwellers to adopt carless lifestyles. Increasing supply lowers costs, and increases accessibility for people previously limited to inconvenient public transportation. And as the idea of the carless lifestyle began to spread, urban planners began to realize that century-old trends like suburbanization, driven in part by car ownership, could no longer be taken for granted.
.. To generations of Americans, owning a car represented freedom. To the next generation, not owning a car will represent freedom.
The Rise of Phone Reading
Ever since the first hand-held e-readers were introduced in the 1990s, the digital-reading revolution has turned the publishing world upside down. But contrary to early predictions, it’s not the e-reader that will be driving future book sales, but the phone.
.. Meanwhile, those reading mainly on e-readers, such as Kindles and Nooks, dropped over the same period to 32% from 50%. Even tablet reading has declined recently to 41% in the first quarter this year from 44% in 2014.
.. Through the Foli mobile app, Simon & Schuster in May offered David McCullough’s “The Wright Brothers” free at more than 50 U.S. airports. In June, it served up “Yoga for Life” by Colleen Saidman Yee at the Solstice in Times Square yoga festival in New York. Now the publisher offers free e-books at hotels and airport lounges in New York, California, Missouri, Florida, Texas and Hawaii. Users can read as much of each book as they like free, as long as they stay within the prescribed geographical area.
.. in June introduced a new display option called Lumin that reduces the amount of blue light emitted from smartphone and tablet screens to make reading easier on the eyes at night (its users’ peak reading time).
.. Many report feeling caught off guard when they reach the end of a book. They miss the physical sense of how deep they are into a book—and the feelings of accomplishment and anticipation that come with that.
.. Traveling around the city with his son and daughter, ages 7 and 10, the children often clamor for his phone.
He hands it to them, saying, “No games, but you can read a book.”
The Internet With A Human Face
There’s another reason, besides fear, that’s driving us to save everything. That reason is hubris.
You’ve all seen those TV shows where the cops are viewing a scene from space, and someone keeps hitting “ENHANCE”, until pretty soon you can count the bacteria on the criminal’s license plate.
We all dream of building that ‘enhance’ button. In the past, we were going to build it with artificial intelligence. Now we believe in “Big Data”. Collect enough information, think of a clever enough algorithm, and you can find anything.
..It’s not just possible, but fairly common for someone to visit a Google website from a Google device, using Google DNS servers and a Google browser on the way.
.. The relationship between the intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley has historically been very cozy. The former head of Facebook security now works at NSA. Dropbox just added Condoleeza Rice, an architect of the Iraq war, to its board of directors. Obama has private fundraisers with the same people who are supposed to champion our privacy. There is not a lot of daylight between the American political Establishment and the Internet establishment. Whatever their politics, these people are on the same team.
.. A few weeks ago, the sociologist Janet Vertesi gave a talk about her efforts to keep Facebook from learning she was pregnant. Pregnant women have to buy all kinds of things for the baby, so they are ten times more valuable to Facebook’s advertisers.
At one point, Vertesi’s husband bought a number of Amazon gift cards with cash, and the large purchase triggered a police warning. This fits a pattern where privacy-seeking behavior has become grounds for suspicion. Try to avoid the corporate tracking system, and you catch the attention of the police instead.
.. Investor storytime is when someone pays you to tell them how rich they’ll get when you finally put ads on your site.
Pinterest is a site that runs on investor storytime. Most startups run on investor storytime.
.. But investor storytime is a cancer on our industry.
Because to make it work, to keep the edifice of promises from tumbling down, companies have to constantly find ways to make advertising more invasive and ubiquitous.