|
|
Why we should do all we can to hasten the defeat of
human aging
为什么我们应当尽力加速打败人类老化
This is
one of my five FAQ ("Frequently-Asked Questions") pages: it covers
concerns that defeating aging is a bad idea or a low priority. The other FAQ
pages respond to: 这是我的FAQ （“常被问”）网页的5个问题之一：它涵盖了如下的关切 — 打败老化是一个坏主意，或是一个低度优先。其他的FAQ网页是： - general challenges to the "credibility" of SENS, -
SENS“可信度”的总挑战， - questions about how long people of what current age may live, -
现龄人能活多久的问题， - criticisms of how I'm going about making SENS a reality, and - 我将如何着手使SENS成为现实的批评意见，和 - queries about how one can help the SENS effort. -
询问人们如何能帮助SENS的努力。
I work to cure aging, and I think you should too, because I feel that saving lives is the most valuable thing anyone can spend their time doing, and since over 100,000 people die every single day of causes that young people essentially never die of, you'll save more lives by helping to cure aging than in any other way. (Some people can make more difference than others, sure, but don't underestimate how much difference you can make: look here first, and also think hard about what you might be able to do that I don't mention there.) 我工作来治愈老化，我想你也应该这么做，因为我感到，挽救生命是任何人可以花时间去做的最有价值的事情；每天都有超过10万人死于年轻人不会死的原因，所以，帮助治愈老化，比通过其他途径，可以挽救更多的生命。（确实，有些人比另一些人可以做更多的工作，但不要低估你的能力，请先看在这里 here，再努力想一想在这里没有谈到的你可出力的途经。） If you aren't convinced that aging should be cured by the time you leave this page, I encourage you to email me with your reasons. If you are convinced, email me too -- that way we can work together to make the best use of your talents (including, perhaps, improving or adding to the arguments presented on this page). Which means that if you don't email me, you think it's OK not to work to cure aging and it's also OK not to be able and willing to say why it's OK. Don't forget that. 如果到了你离开本网页时还不相信老化应该被治愈，我鼓励你给我发电子邮件 （email me），说出你的理由。如果你相信，也给我发电子邮件，--这样，我们可以合作，充分发挥你的聪明才智（也许包括改善这个网页或给它添加论据）。就是说，如果你不发电子邮件给我，那你就是不想做工作来治愈老化，也不能够或不愿意说出为什么。 1) Societal arguments why curing aging would be bad 1）社会争论：为什么治愈老化不好
治愈老化将引起可怕的人口过剩 返老还童疗法将只为富人而备 我们将永远不能退休 暴君将永生－这会像《勇敢的新世界》 2)
个人的或哲学的争论：为什么治愈老化不好 The young are the most creative, so multi-centenarians would be ossified 年轻人最有创造性，所以几百岁的人会思想僵化 那么长时间，我们不能超越 With so much life at stake, we'd have to give up everything that's fun but risky 生命危危如累卵，我们不得不放弃风险的娱乐 我们现有的生命进程是人类所以为人类的关键部分 逃避老化非自然，那是玩弄上帝 这不是挽救生命，而是扩展生命
3）争论：为什么治愈老化并不重要 I'm too old to have any chance of benefiting 我太老了，没有受益的任何机会 我们应当集中精力治愈疾病，并首先填饱肚子 我们应当集中精力延缓虚弱，而不是延缓死亡 生命已经足够长来做生命要我们做的全部事情 1) Societal arguments why curing aging would be bad 1）社会争论：为什么治愈老化不好 There are two types of answer to reservations about curing aging based on possible social consequences. One is to examine each such reservation in depth and construct a detailed argument for how we might avoid the scenario in question. 基于可能的社会后果，对于治愈老化的保留意见，有两个类型的答案。一是深入地检查每一条这样的保留意见，并详细地辩论：如何我们可以避免这样的场景。 I think that's a valuable approach; I adopted it myself here and below, and many others have done the same, often better than me. But I also have a more general response, which among other things avoids objections of the form: "Well, yes, that's a strategy, but what if it fails?". Namely: pay attention, people -- we're talking about lives here, 100,000 lives a day. 我认为那是一条有价值的途经；我自己在这里（here）和以下采用它，其他人也做同样的事，常常比我做得好。但是，我还有更通用的答案，它在其它事情中可避免形式上的异议：“好吧，是的，这是策略，但是，如果它失败了，又会怎样？”就是说，请注意，人们 — 我们在这里谈论的是生命，一天10万条性命。 What do you do at the moment if you're bored? -- kill yourself? I didn't think so. Society has always had problems and doubtless always will, and it works to minimise and solve them, just like technological problems. 此刻，如果你感到无聊，你怎么办？-- 杀死你自己？我不认为这样。社会已经有问题，无疑将来总会有问题，社会的作用就是去减少和解决问题，如同解决技术问题一样。 Pretending
that we will be so unable to cope with future problems that it's better to
condemn indefinite billions to the puny lifespan of their ancestors is a sick
joke anyway, but even sicker when we consider how implausible it is that such
problems would be any worse or harder to tackle than those that we've tackled
in the past. 假设我们会无法应付未来的问题，以至于最好宣判无数亿万人只能活到他们祖先的微不足道的寿命，这个假设无论如何是一个无聊的玩笑，而当我们认为它说不通，这个玩笑就越是无聊，越是有害，或越是比过去我们已经解决了的问题还难以解决。 It's not as if the problems we have successfully tackled in the past seemed less daunting, either. For example, who would have thought in 1850 that society would be willing to submit to the indignity of wearing absurd rubber contraptions every time they had sex, just to arrest the population explosion that followed the near-elimination of infant mortality? Yet, that's just what happened throughout the industrialised world, with no coercion other than the simple fact that children who are still alive are very expensive. 它不像过去我们已经成功地解决了的问题，它似乎也不那么使人畏惧。例如，谁会想起在1850年，那时社会愿意遭受屈辱：每当他们有房事时，就套上可笑的橡皮套，为的只是阻止人口爆炸（随后几乎排除了婴儿死亡率）？还有就是在整个工业化世界中发生的事，没有强迫，而是简单的事实：孩子们仍然活着是非常昂贵的事。 Curing
aging would cause terrible overpopulation 治愈老化将引起可怕的人口过剩 Perhaps you're expecting me to propose a solution that society should and thus "obviously will" adopt. Actually I'm not. I have two answers that say nothing about what specific steps society will take, one concerning past precedent and one concerning human rights. 也许你正在期待我提供一个社会应当、并因此"显然将"接受的答案。实际上，我没有。我有两个社会可采纳的不是答案的答案，一是关于以往的例子，一是关于人权。 Then I'll survey some of the issues concerning what solutions we might choose, and possibly allay some concerns, but don't forget that I'm not saying what I think society will actually do. 然后，我将概述有关我们可选择什么答案的某些问题，这可能减轻一些担心，但不要忘记，我不是在说：我认为社会实际上会那么做。 First let's look at past precedent. Put yourself in the position of someone powerful -- the prime minister of France, for example -- in, say, 1870 or so, when Pasteur was going around saying that hygiene could almost entirely prevent infant deaths from infections and death in childbirth. 首先让我们看看过去的先例。将你自己放在领导地位—例如，法国总理— 假定在1870年左右，那时巴士德（Pasteur）到处说：卫生几乎可完全防止婴儿因感染而死亡和完全防止分娩的死亡。 In your position, you have some influence over how quickly this knowledge gets out -- and, thus, how quickly lives start being saved. But you realise that the sooner people start adhering to these principles and washing their hands and so on, the sooner the population will start exploding on account of all those children not dying. 在你的位置，你对这一知识传播速度有一定影响 – 因此对挽救生命的速度有一定影响。但是，你明白，人们越快开始知道这些原理并且洗手，那么，由于那些儿童没死，人口就会越快开始爆炸。 What would you have done? -- got the information out as soon as possible, or held it back as best you could in order to delay the population crisis? I have yet to meet anyone who says they would have done the latter. With curing aging, there is no difference. 你怎么办？-- 尽快获得这些信息，还是为延缓人口危机而尽量挡回这些信息？我还真想要会见说要尽量挡回的任何人。在治愈衰老方面，道理是一样的。 None. So, specifically: sure, there may well be some sort of population explosion, just as there was following the elimination of all those deaths -- and we may respond by reducing birth rate as quickly as we did then, or we may take longer -- but the first priority is to end the slaughter. Everything else is detail. 没有。那么，说实话，确实可能有某种类型的人口爆炸，如同伴随着完全消除上述两种死亡而来的一样 — 我们可以这样反应：像我们所做的那样地尽快减少出生率，或者可以慢点来 — 但最优先的事情是终止屠杀。其他的都是小事。 Now for the "human rights" aspect. The Earth's population will probably grow quite rapidly in the period immediately after these treatments become available, and we'll be faced with a simple choice: either we use the treatments and live a long time and have very few children, or we carry on having children at the current rate and we avoid using the treatments, so that we carry on dying of old age just like now. 现在谈"人权"方面。就在这些治疗成为可利用之后的时期，地球人口有可能很快增长，我们将面对一个简单选择：要么我们利用该疗法、活得长久、儿童极少，要么我们以现在的速度养育儿童、不利用该疗法、像现在一样老死。 I don't
say that I know which choice society will make at that time. What I do say is
that that era's population has the right to make that choice itself, and not
to have it made for it by today's society. If we delay the development of
rejuvenation therapies, we are condemning future society to die at the ages
that we are dying at today, whether they like it or not. We have no right to
do that; we have a duty to develop these therapies as fast as possible in
order to give future society the choice. 我不能说我知道那时社会将选择哪一项。我只能说，那个时代的人群有权自己选择，不是被今天的社会为它选择。如果我们耽误返老还童疗法的开发，我们就是在决定未来社会按我们今天的年龄死亡，不管他们愿意与否。我们无权这样做；我们有义务尽快开发这些疗法供未来社会选择。 Just as parliament has no right (in the UK) to constrain the choices of subsequent parliaments, so society today has no right to constrain the choices of society in the future. 如同（英国）国会没有权利强制以后国会的选择，今天的社会没有权利强制未来社会的选择。 OK, now for some discussion of the concrete possibilities. There are four things to consider: -
worst-case rate of arrival of an overpopulation problem; 好的，现在讨论一些具体的可能性。有4件事要考虑： -人口过剩问题到来的最坏情况； -问题将永远不到来的情况； -如果问题发生或当问题发生时的选择； -这些选择之间，谁的选择算数。 （是的，最后一个问题是我在上述反复说过的。我想会一再重复） 1) Worst-case rate of arrival -- three main points. First, the maximal rate of growth (i.e. presuming we have fully effective rejuvenation therapies, universally available) is a big city per year. That's actually pretty good news -- it's not all that much more than what we have at present, because the global birth rate already exceeds the death rate by an enormous margin. 1)到来的最坏情况—- 3个要点。 第一，高速增长（即，假定我们有完全有效的返老还童疗法，普遍可供利用），每年就是一个大城市。那实际上是非常好的新闻—-这并不比比现在已经存在的问题严重多少，因为全球出生率已经超过死亡率到了严重的边缘。 So, we'll have really a rather long time to work out what to do about this issue before we have to do much at all. Other logistical problems, such as training enough medical personnel to provide the therapies, will hit us far sooner. 所以，在我们不得不处理这个问题之前，我们实际上有相当长的时间来研究这个课题。其他逻辑问题，例如，训练足够的医学工作人员来提供这种疗法，将会更快冲击我们。 The second good thing is that even as and when overpopulation does get serious (if it ever does -- see below), it'll do so very gradually. We'll be able to experiment with a variety of solutions, see how well they work, try something else, etc. 第二件好事是，即使人口过剩确实变得严重（如果真的如此，见下），那也是逐渐的过程。我们能够尝试各种解决方案，看看他们是否管用，然后尝试另一种方案，等等。 The third point to bear in mind is that a remarkably high proportion of people seem to like living in cities. With the staggering amounts of wealth that will be freed up by not having any frail people around any more, it will become practical to build very high-quality urban accommodation for everyone, and the density of that accommodation is such that a population of at least 20 billion will hardly encroach at all on the amount of rural space that currently exists. 要记住的第3点是，多数人似乎喜欢生活在城市里。没有虚弱的人，他们释放出大量财富，为每个人建造高质量的住宿，其住宿密度至少达200亿以上的人口，那也不会占用现有农村的大量空间。 2) Will it happen at all? 2) 它真的会发生吗？ We will
only have a population crisis at all if birth rate actually exceeds death
rate by a large amount for a sustained period. There are good statistics
(such as here)
showing that a sharply increasing number of women are choosing not to have
any children at all -- the proportion of women who are voluntarily childless
in the USA rose 2.75-fold in just 13 years between 1982 and 1995, for example
-- and it seems likely that the reason is simply female emancipation: firstly
women are finding it more and more possible to occupy themselves in ways that
they find more fulfilling than having kids, and secondly they are breaking
out of their upbringing that having kids is the one true way to live. 我们只有在以下情况才会真的发生人口危机：出生率实际上大规模持续不断超过死亡率。统计学显示（例如，见在这里here），妇女选择完全不要孩子的急剧增加，例如，在美国自愿不要子女的妇女比例，只13年（1982－1996）上升了2.75倍—理由似乎可能单纯是妇女解放：第一，妇女们发现越来越能支配她们自己（没有小孩更充实），第二，她们正在打破她们所受教育：有小孩是一种真正的生活方式。 (I personally find the bombardment of young girls with dolls and other assorted paraphernalia of motherhood to be every bit as outrageous as the bombardment of young boys with toy guns and of both with ideology of other sorts.) There are also psychological arguments suggesting that even if we want kids we will tend to want them at ever-increasing intervals, because the continued mental growth that can occur with a longer period of youthful mental capacity will progressively redefine childhood and maturity as being complete at greater and greater ages. （我个人发现，小女孩喜欢娃娃偶等母性之类的东西，与小男孩喜欢残暴的玩具枪之类的东西无异。）也有心理上的争论：即使我们要生孩子，我们要孩子的时间间隔也会拉长，因为不断增加的智力（加长年轻期，智能必然增加）在越来越长的年龄被完成时，将不断重新定义儿童与成年。 3）What are our options if it does? 3）如果它发生，我们的选择是什么？ Basically our options are extremely simple: either restrict the birth rate or raise the death rate. The death rate can be raised by many means -- restrict access to rejuvenation therapy (thus killing old people), restrict access to antibiotics (thus killing people in more infection-laden regions) or restrict access to medical care overall (thus killing poor people, presumably). The birth rate can be kept low by, er, people acting in their own enlightened self-interest and choosing not to have kids, in the same way that today we choose not to fill up the environment with greenhouse gases, ozone-depleting chemicals and other environmental pollutants. 基本上，我们的意见极其简单：要么限制出生率，要么提高死亡率。提高死亡率的手段甚多--限制使用返老还童疗法（这样可杀死老人）、限制使用抗菌素（这样可杀死传染病区的人们）、完全限制医药照料（假定这样可杀死穷人）。可以保持低出生率：人们为自身利益选择不要孩子，如同今天我们选择不用温室气体、消耗臭氧的化合物和其他环境污染物来充斥环境。 (I realise the US is not exactly spearheading those efforts, but you'll catch up soon, I think.) Hm... kill people or don't have kids ... not a terribly hard choice, is it? Put yourself in their shoes: which would you do? Have a child and kill someone? Yourself? One can even imagine vigilantes going around and shooting people who have had kids and thereby made everyone's lives more crowded. The enlightened self-interest would be rather starker then.... （我知道美国正在这方面带了个坏头，但我想很快就会好起来。）杀人与不要孩子两者之间不难选择，是不是？设身处地地想一想：你要怎么做？要一个孩子或者杀一个人？你自己？人们甚至可以想象义务警员到处巡逻、射杀有孩子的、从而使每个人的生活更加拥挤人们。那么，文明的私利将会更加赤裸裸…… Alternatives that (because of the above- mentioned gradual onset of the problem) are altogether more likely include biasing these choices by taxation. It's probably not an accident that the European nation with the highest birth rate is the one (France) with the most generous child benefit arrangements. 因为上述问题的逐渐出现，综合考虑的二择一，更可能偏向于选择抽税法。欧洲国家出生率最高的是法国，该国儿童福利最为慷慨大方。 It's worth briefly examining the option of mass emigration into space. This seems to have limited persuasive value in reassuring people (since most people's reaction is that living in a space station would not be much fun), but maybe that's shortsighted. 值得简要评估大规模移民太空的选择。这似乎对居安的人没有什么价值（因为大部分人的反应是，生活在太空站并不很好玩），但是，这可能是眼光短浅。 However, it's important to note that even if we did emigrate in sufficient numbers to allow us to maintain today's birth rate (and hence proportion of people who are children) on Earth, we would not be able to maintain that proportion indefinitely throughout the whole of humanity (including space), because space would fill up. 然而，重要的要要注意，即使我们确实以足够的数量移民，使得我们能维持今天在地球上的出生率（因此也是儿童的比率），但是，我们不能无限维持全人类（包括太空）的那个比率，因为太空也将充满。 Seriously. Space as a whole wouldn't fill up, of course, but the only space that matters is the space that we can get to by the time we want to occupy it, and that's limited by the speed of light, so for practical purposes space is much smaller (though it grows with time). 认真说吧。太空作为整体当然是不会被充满的，但是，有关的太空只是我们要占领的太空，那就受光速的限制，实际能占领的太空就小得多（虽然它会随时间而逐步增大）。 You might think that would be only an academic difference, but it turns out you'd be wrong. In order for the proportion of humanity that are under 18 (say) to remain constant, despite a death rate that is independent of age (and very low), the total size of humanity has to grow exponentially. 你可能会想，那只是一个学术差别，但你错了。为了使人类构成的比率（假定在18岁以下）保持恒定，不管死亡率如何（死亡率独立于年龄，并且很低），人类总数也不得不指数地增长。 But the size of the space we can get to only grows cubically -- the volume of a sphere of linearly increasing radius. So eventually, we'd end up hitting a speed-of-light barrier. Would you like to guess how soon? Incredibly, it turns out that this would happen after only a few thousand years (and that's with quite generous assumptions about population density). 但是，我们所能达到的太空体积，是以立方增长的—线性增加的半径的一个球体的体积。这样，最终我们将碰到光速屏障。你要猜测有多快吗？当真难以置信，这种情况只要几千年就会发生（那是有关人口密度的大胆假设）。 There's also the rather more prosaic problem that we'd run out of matter to build our space stations (or ourselves, for that matter) from, and that would hit sooner, probably around the time we finished populating the Solar system. 还有更有诗意的问题：我们搬出我们的物质去建筑太空站（那物质或者就是我们自己），那是很快的事，可能就在我们完成移民太阳系的时候。 This is
not quite the end of the matter, however. A scenario that some people have
suggested as quite likely is that our desire to have kids will progressively
decline in urgency, even if it doesn't decline in intensity. If so, it may
turn out that we'll mostly be happy having kids on an exponentially
stretching schedule -- for example, we have a child only when we get to be
twice as old as when we had our last one. 然而，事情并非就此结束。某些人建议的很可能会发生的情景是，我们生孩子的愿望会逐渐降低，即使不会一下子降低。如果这样，可能产生这种情况：我们在大多数情况下希望以指数延伸计划的方式生孩子 – 例如，在我们比先前有一个孩子的年龄增加一倍时再要一个孩子。 It turns out that that formula isn't enough to slow growth down to the cubic rate we would need so that the speed-of-light problem would never occur -- what is actually needed is something a bit more stringent, like a progressively increasing age at which people have their first child -- but you get the idea. 这就产生这样的问题：那公式不足于使生长减缓到我们需要的立方速度，以至于光速的问题不发生 – 实际上需要的是稍微迫切一点的东西，例如人们要第一个孩子的年龄逐渐增大 – 但你得到了这种想法。 4）Whose choice should this be? 4）谁的选择算数？ Most people's reaction, of course, is that such a world (no kids to speak of, and danger to one's own life, or at least one's wealth, if one dares to procreate) would not be one worth living in. But who are we to make that decision for future generations? 当然，大多数人的反应是，这样的世界（不能谈论小孩，如果有人敢于生育就会危及我自己的生命至少危及我的福利）不是一个值得生活的世界。但是，我们是谁？我们能为未来的世代做出决定？ How do we even know what decision we ourselves would make? I like to remind people how brief was the population explosion that resulted from the virtual elimination of infant mortality a century ago when we all discovered hygiene. 我们自己怎样知道应该做出什么决定？我想提醒人们，一个世纪前当我们发现了卫生学、实际上消除了婴儿的死亡率，有一个非常短暂的人口爆炸。 What happened? Answer: we found that it was prohibitively expensive to have ten kids each, and we cheerfully submitted to the barbaric indignity of wearing absurd rubber contraptions every time we have sex in order to avoid this. What do you think people would have said in 1850 if you'd proposed this as a strategy to avoid the impending population explosion? Obviously they would have ridiculed you. We have no clue what we will choose when a requirement emerges to lower birth rate further. 什么事情发生了？答案：我们发现每对夫妻生10个孩子是非常昂贵的，于是，我们喜欢忍受粗野的侮辱：每次有房事时就套荒谬可笑的橡皮套来避免这种情况发生。在1850年如果你把这建议作为一个策略来避免即将迫近的人口爆炸，你想人们会说什么？显然，他们会嘲笑你。当要求进一步降低出生率时，我们不知道我们该选择什么。 The fact that we can't predict what those faced with this choice will choose is the ultimate reason why we have a duty to those people to work now to cure aging as soon as possible. The sooner we do that, the more people in the future will have the opportunity to make the choice of how to live their lives (including to refuse rejuvenation therapy and die as a result, if they really find a world with fewer and fewer kids not worth living in). 我们不可能预言，面对这个选择的这些人将选择什么；这一事实是最根本的理由 – 为什么我们对这些人现在就有尽可能快地治愈老化的义务。我们越快做这项工作，未来就有越多的人有机会选择怎样过他们的生活（包括那些人：如果他们真的发现一个越来越少的儿童的世界是不值得生活的世界，因此拒绝返老还童疗法而死亡）。 The longer we prevaricate, the more people we will be denying that choice and condemning to death. It's as simple as that. Those people are people too, and they have the right to be given (by others -- us) that most basic choice of all, the choice of life. 越是久拖不决，就会有越多的人━━我们正在否决那种选择的、并且注定要死亡那些人。事情就这么简单。那些人也是人，他们有权被（其他人 – 我们）给予最基本的选择机会 – 选择生。 Rejuvenation therapies would be available only to the rich 返老还童疗法只为富人而备 There's not the faintest chance of these therapies being restricted by ability to pay for more than a few years after they arrive. There are two main reasons why I'm so sure of this. 这些疗法不会在它们到来之后多年因偿付能力所限而没有一点机会。我有两条理由确信这一点。 The first reason is a slightly dark one. When a cure for aging is developed, people will want it really quite badly -- more than they want cures for other things that can only extend their lives by a few years. The problem with democracy is that it only works well for issues that a lot of people really really care about, enough to determine whom they vote for. 第一个理由有点暗淡。当开发出一个治愈老化的方法时，人们会争先恐后要它 – 比治愈其它的（只能延寿若干年）更要它。民主的问题是，它只对很多人所关心的事情发挥作用（这决定他们要投谁的票）。 Contemporary medicine just doesn't quite achieve that -- the economy always beats it. But that won't be true of a cure for aging. As soon as a real cure becomes widely anticipated -- let alone actually developed -- it will become impossible to get elected other than on a platform incorporating a Manhattan project to expedite a cure, both in terms of its development and in terms of its dissemination. 当代医学还没有完成这件事 – 经济问题总是击败它。但这并不适用于治愈老化。一旦一种真正的治愈老化技术被广泛期许时 – 实际上听任开发 – 依据它的开发，也依据它的传播，它不能靠选举，只有组成一个曼哈顿计划式公司作为平台来加速治疗。 Patents that seem in danger of slowing down the push towards universal access will simply be subject to compulsory purchase by governments (at a very hefty price, of course, but compulsory nonetheless). All the laws that we currently see impeding such progress will be torn up as quickly as turns out to be necessary. This will happen not only because of the democratic process (which works only at a national level) but also of the global political process. 似乎有延缓推向一涌而入危险的专利，将受到来自政府的强制购买（当然，价格昂贵，不过是强制的）。我们现在看到阻止这种进展的所有法律，一旦需要就会很快被撕毁。这必然发生，不仅因为民主进程（只发生于一个国家内），而且因为全球的政治进程。 Since 9/11 there is a good understanding that making a lot of people very angry is a bad idea for everyone, and it will therefore be seen to be in the enlightened self-interest of the industrialised world to make rejuvenation therapies available to all (at a price they can pay, even if that means free) as fast as possible, After all, the point of buying rejuvenation therapies is to live a long time, not to get blown up by someone from the other side of the world who resents you and your compatriots because they can't afford those therapies. 从9／11起，人们就很理解，使很多人忍饥挨饿对于每个人都是坏主意，因此，很显然，为工业化世界的开明私利计，是尽快使得返老还童疗法为所有人所利用（以他们付得起的价格，即使这意味着免费）。毕竟购买返老还童疗法是要长时间活着，不是某人从世界另一边搞爆炸，他憎恨你和你的同胞，因为付不起那些疗法。 The second reason is less threatening. There will be a lead-time of at least a decade, which I call the War On Aging, starting with the achievement of results in mice impressive enough to shake society out of its current fatalism and make people really want to cure aging as soon as possible. At that point, mayhem will ensue -- society will be turned upside-down in a million ways, by (e.g.) no one wanting to do risky jobs like the fire service any more -- but the big thing of here is that (as noted above) it will become politically mandatory to throw serious money, taxpayers' money, at hastening the end of age-related death. 第二个理由没有那么有趣。会有一个前导时间（至少10年），我称这个时间为“对老战争”，开始于在小鼠中取得成果，它给人足够深刻印象，以动摇社会现行的宿命论，使得人们真的想要尽快治愈老化。这时将会混乱 – 社会将以千万种方式乱七八糟，例如，将不再有人愿意干冒险的活（例如消防）– 但是，在这里相关大事是（上已谈及）：在政治上将强制性地花大钱（纳税人的钱），以加速与年龄相关死亡的结束。 The phrase "War On Aging" is appropriate, unlike "War On Cancer", because people will want to make sacrifices on the scale normally only seen in wartime in order to end the slaughter as soon as possible. The main such sacrifice will be in simple taxation, to pay for training of a staggering number of medical personnel, to deliver these therapies ASAP when they arrive, and also to provide much more thorough traditional medical care so as to give people as much chance as possible of still being in a reasonably healthy state at that time. “对老战争”一词很合适（与“对癌战争”不同），因为人们要付出牺牲，牺牲的规模在正常情况下只战时才可看到（为了尽快结束杀戮）。这种牺牲主要只是税收，钱用在训练大量医护人员、尽快传播这种疗法（当抗老疗法来到时），这其间也提供更彻底得多的传统医药照料，为的是给在那时仍然处在相当健康状态的人们以尽可能多的机会。 That means that by the time rejuvenation therapies actually arrive, society will already have done what was necessary to ensure that they will be free at the point of delivery to all who are aged enough to need them. 这意味着在返老还童疗法实际上到来时，社会将做了必要做的事情，来保证在传播到所有年老而需要这种疗法的人们的事情上将是免费的。 We'd never be able to retire -- the retirement
benefits would be unaffordable 我们将不能退休 – 退休福利得不到 No -- they would be unaffordable only if we retired at a particular age and stayed retired forever thereafter. What will actually happen is that retirement will become periodic. There will be a huge demand for adult education and retraining so that after a decade of playing golf you can go into a new career for the next 40 years. Golf all day forever won't be so attractive when we have the vigour of young adults. 不 – 他们只有在特别的年龄退休和此后永远退休，才会得不到退休福利。实际上会发生的是，退休将变成周期性的。会有很大的需求来进行成人教育和再培训，以至于在玩10年高尔夫球之后，你可以进入下一个40年的新生涯。当我们有年轻成人的活力时，老是玩高尔夫球不是那么引人入胜。 This applies to benefits too, including healthcare as well as living expenses: these are onerous today not because there are a lot of old people around but because there are lot of frail people, and there won't be any frail people. This is one of the most tangible and unambiguous benefits of curing aging: far from being increasingly consumed by the elderly (as is happening with the welfare situation today), wealth will be actually contributed to society by all people, of whatever age. 这也适用于福利，包括健康照料以及生活费用：这些在现今是严重的事情，那不是因为周围有很多老人，而是因为有很多身体虚弱的人；不会有身体虚弱的人了。这是治愈老化的最切实、最明确的好处了：非但不会有为老年人逐渐增加的消耗（如同现今正在发生的福利情形），而且财富将实际上被所有人捐赠于社会，不管他们是什么年龄。 Tyrants would live forever - it would be like Brave New World 暴君将永生 － 这会像《勇敢的新世界》 Tyrants who aren't aging can be assassinated just as easily as tyrants who are aging, and most tyrants these days don't die of old age, so this one doesn't bother me much. Also, just spreading democracy seems to work pretty well pre-emptively: I can't think of a single example in post-Roman history (can you?) of a state that was a democracy for more than ten years and then ceased to be one by any method other than being conquered by another nation. 不老的暴君与老暴君一样被刺杀，这些日子 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||