New Staph Strain Demonstrates Futility of Immortality Movement
There is an alarming story in today's San Francisco Chronicle, byline Sabin Russell, that illustrates how life evolves to ensure that no matter how far we advance scientifically, death will always remain part of the experience of living. A terrible antibiotic-resistant strain of staph bacteria is spreading that could threaten us all. From the story:
Dr. Jeff Brooks has been director of the UCSF lab for 29 years, and has watched with a mixture of fascination and dread how bacteria once tamed by antibiotics evolve rapidly into forms that practically no drug can treat."These organisms are very small," he said, "but they are still smarter than we are."Of course, I am not saying that we shouldn't try to help people live longer and healthier lives. And we certainly need to pounce on this problem by developing more stringent cleanliness protocols, for example, and by working hard to develop new antibiotics. But what we don't need, in my view, is to chase a Utopian dream of immortality and put precious resources into that hopeless crusade.
Among the most alarming of these is MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bug that used to be confined to vulnerable hospital patients, but now is infecting otherwise healthy people in schools, gymnasiums and the home. As MRSA continues its natural evolution, even more drug-resistant strains are emerging. The most aggressive of these is one called USA300.
Last week, doctors at San Francisco General Hospital reported that a variant of that strain, resistant to six important antibiotics normally used to treat staph, may be transmitted by sexual contact and is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Yet the problem goes far beyond one bug and a handful of drugs. Entire classes of mainstay antibiotics are being threatened with obsolescence, and bugs far more dangerous than staph are evolving in ominous ways. "We are on the verge of losing control of the situation, particularly in the hospitals," said Dr. Chip Chambers, chief of infectious disease at San Francisco General Hospital.
Life is precious, but even more so because it is short. The transhumanist singularity is not going to save us. We need to live with the sobering understanding that we won't last much longer even if we live to be 100. Accepting that reality, I think, can help us get the most out of the time we are here and to focus on the matters of life, philosophy, and faith that are really important.
Labels: Immortality
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:09 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Wesley, that which is analogous to death will always be part of existence. With that I agree. However, you really don't know whether it is futile or hopeless to pursue radical life extension. Although it may not interest you, there are many of us who would like to spend more time experiencing this world, our family and friends, and our future.
It surprises me that intelligent persons like you persist in claiming that life becomes more precious as it becomes shorter. If that is true, why not plan to kill yourself in a few minutes, so that you may relish in a far greater magnitude of precious shortness than that which contemporary biology and technology would provide otherwise? Obviously it is not the shortness of life that gives it meaning or value, but rather we give value to life, short or long.
I fully agree that matters of life, philosophy and faith are really important. Radical life extension is an important aspect of my philosophy and faith, whereas accepting death is not an aspect of my philosophy or faith. I am interested in getting the most out of the time I have, and I'm also interested in more time. I don't believe we have to choose between the two.
For some truths, faith is essential to their realization. There is as much truth to create as there is to discover. I anticipate that immortality is that sort of truth, and all the skeptics in the world cannot demonstrate otherwise.
Okay I am inclined to agree with the first paragraph that death will always be inescapable unless somebody can figure out this brain-uploading thing. Brain uploading is so way out west and there are to many hypothetical steps to take before it we have to operate under the assumption that death is inevitable. Even if we cure aging and can keep bodies healthy and young there will still be accidents and possibly horribly aggressive and virulent super-bugs.
What we don't need are people who accept particular standards of living to say that their standard is the only standard and thus any endeavor to attain youth extension or perhaps even clinical immortality should be aborted. If a bio-tech firm believes there is a market for youth extension and pursues the development of age-prevention drugs with that goal in mind that is their self-determined right to do it. If a young researcher desperately wants to spend his/her time prying open the foundations that destroy the health of the human body in the process known as senescence that is his/her right.
The war against age related decline, and opportunistic infection are two different fronts in our struggle against the blindly sadistic forces of nature.
The lack of development of antibiotics today is possibly a result of market driven forces given a significant enough epidemic we would presumably see a stimulation in development. Also attempts at developing new strategies that take advantage of the evolutionary strategies of bacteria are being developed that subvert the pathogen's ability to infect the target cell if it mutates to much based on the specific epitope sequence. New strategies may be developed soon. The counter argument is they may have no efficacy. Maybe they won't , maybe humanity will slip back into a pre Penicillin state where infection is practically unmanageable. Maybe we will hit this technological ceiling tomorrow. Until we do hit it we have to keep trying to make life better.
If life's value is gauged by duration then some lives are more precious then others. SIDS babies get all the props. That doesn't make sense to me. All human life is precious. No one person should be more precious because of some arbitrary distinction in the temporal flow. If we can somehow achieve greater lenghts of healthy life then matters of life, philosophy, and faith(for the faithfull) can be focused on with with a higher magnitude of scrutiny and mental sharpness.
Faith... Faith is anathema to some people and your suggestion that it is what matters and the all inclusive "us" suggests that all should have faith? I don't think your proposing a fascist theocracy that neccessarilly forces us to focus on matters like faith that are, according to you , really important. However the statement is to general and seems to make assumptions and somewhat disturbingly fascistic. What do you prose we "us" have faith in ? Christianity which promises immortality , not though science but a presumed contract with god where we will be ushered into heaven to praise the creator for an eternity, sometimes with the aid musical instruments. That notion may induce euphoria in some but to people like me it's unpleasant.
I don't think any of us are really that different. We all want immortality. Some call it their celestial reward others call it brain uploading. Why not, instead of brainstorming ways to influence other people to focus on things that we personally value,faith, we concentrate on ourselves and what is important to us individually, let others pursue their own form of happiness.
FMJ:
'Why not, instead of brainstorming ways to influence other people to focus on things that we personally value,faith, we concentrate on ourselves and what is important to us individually, let others pursue their own form of happiness.'
There was a movie I saw a long time back called KnightRider 2000 or something akin to that - it didn't have the same guy playing Kit's cohort so I wasn't interested after the first fifteen or twenty minutes so I don't recall exactly. But in the beginning of the movie, people who had basically achieved clinical immortality were harvesting lower-class citizens for body parts. One lady who was pregnant was looking for a chance to run away from her country because she and her baby were going to be used as spare parts.
Unfortunately, there are people out there who think that some humans have more value than others. They think that only white people, or only straight people, or only rich people, are worthwhile. Peter Singer told his kids that before they had full cognition, they weren't people. He also said that if you have a baby that has hemophilia, it should be okay to euthanize the baby 'cause the 'future happiness' of his potential siblings outweighed his limited happiness.
So if someone like that gets people thinking to his tune, and we hit the ability to get clinical immortality, some of us aren't going to be allowed to become immortal. I don't know about you, but I'm middle class. I don't really ken to the idea of being voted off the planet because someone else with more money than me wants a new heart and, oh lookie there, mine's just right! And I don't ken to the idea of someone telling me, "Hey, you're sick, but if we kill this lady down in Galveston, we can give you her lungs and you'll be fine."
While I admit I have an irrational fear of death (thantophobia, not the normal, healthy kind, but psychological disorder), I also know that I prefer natural death (where the body gives out due to enthropy) over prolonged existance, especially if it means harm to someone else.
Oh, and there are people who don't really care for immortality of any stripe - Anthony Flew would prefer that there be no afterlife, for example, and he hasn't been pushing for a study of clinical immortality. Also - www.killtheafterlife.com - there are any number of atheists who don't have a problem with death itself but who don't want any kind of immortality. One guy's claim was that any fear we feel about death is due to the reptillian brain kicking into overdrive.
So eh.
By the way, your preception of Christian heaven is wrong. At the end of days the earth will be reborn, we get our physical bodies back, go on about our lives, but we will have eternal contact with God, and we will have meaningful work, all without the effects of enthropy. It's not sitting around on clouds all day playing harps. LOL That's a misconception. I'm not asking you to buy into my belief, just pointing out the fact.
FMJ: I listed faith as one important endeavor, among others, such as philosophy, and I could have added family, art, etc. My point wasn't to say that faith has to be part of a life well lived. My point was to suggest that we all focus on and pursue those things that make for a well lived life.
I didn't say it becomes more precious as it becomes shorter, I said that we can appreciate its preciousness because it is short, even for those who live to be 100.
This is a point made far more elequently by Leon Kass.
Everyone will pursue their own form of happiness, but I think it is a mistake to focus so inently on ourselves. We are part of a bigger whole.
I rag on transhuminism, in part, because I worry that it diverts people into yearning for that which cannot be achieved. Utopian dreams only disappoint.
"Last week, doctors at San Francisco General Hospital reported that a variant of that strain, resistant to six important antibiotics normally used to treat staph, may be transmitted by sexual contact and is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles."
You know, we COULD refrain from helping these critters. Just a thought.
I mean the bacteria, obviously, not the gay men.
: )
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