Читать книгу The Shape of Shit to Come - Steve Lowe - Страница 9

Of course, your genes do not determine everything. Anyone who thinks individual genes mechanistically decide our fates is onto a loser. Have they not even seen Trading Places? ‘It’s a miracle – I’ve got legs! I can walk!’ Great days.

But neither do your genes determine nothing. It’s tricky. What more greatly determines our characters: our intrinsic, genetically inherited natures, or the conditions in which we are nurtured? We could perhaps call this debate one of ‘nature versus nurture’. It’s a snappy phrase that really should catch on.

Even so, genetic enhancement (boosting ourselves at the genetic level) is one of the ways some starry-eyed Silicon Valley zealots, the world’s newest elite, believe humanity will push past its current incarnation – transgressing our limits to become transhuman, or even eventually post-human. Genetically enriched – or GenRich, to sound more techy – humans could have better intellectual and physical capabilities. Oh yes, and they will not have to die.

As well as genetic engineering, the transhumanists look to emergent techniques like stem cell research and growing replacement organs in the lab. Stem cell research offers the possibility of potentially banishing many diseases (Parkinson’s, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis) by getting diseased parts of the body to repair themselves from stem cells, the cells from which other cells develop. (It also freaks out the religious right, so it’s the gift that keeps on giving.) The transhumanists bundle this all in with medical nanotechnology (of which more later … it means ‘small technology’) to create a vision of the future where the human body’s ageing processes can be halted, or bits of us renewed (or even robotised). Basically, they reckon they can live for ever.

There is even a World Transhumanist Association which holds conferences called things like ‘Living For Ever’. One leading transhumanist is Natasha Vita-More, the glamorous chair of Humanity+, a libertarian group dedicated to utilising everything it possibly can to stay trim. She is so committed to living longer that she changed her name to Vita-More. Probably born in the early 1950s, she is utilising all technologies available to stay young-looking – yes, currently that does mean a hell of a lot of plastic surgery. And changing your name.

‘I have never stopped dancing, it simply has taken on different rhythms and steps. And we need to dance with our ideas, words and pen — which transhumanists do take seriously,’ she says. And why not? This is the sort of talk that transhumanists talk.

Aubrey de Grey sounds like an Oscar Wilde character and is, by coincidence, also obsessed with not ageing. This 49-year-old London-born/California-based ‘biogerontologist’ has the massive beard of the self-conscious eccentric – a massive beard that ironically makes him appear far older than he is, which seems a bit counterproductive to say the least. His foundation is called Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) and suggests that if we get rid of the things that people generally die of in old age, then we will not die.

‘There is a tendency to think there is some sort of inevitability about ageing,’ he says, correctly.

But humans could become one of those creatures who hardly age at all, like lobsters – only better. De Grey envisages a world of humans living for thousands of years, whose only cause of death is suicide or murder. And no-one shaves (not sure if that’s integral).

De Grey’s efforts have been partly funded by PayPal co-founder and billionaire Peter Thiel, a strongly right-wing libertarian and leading light among the so-called Paypal Mafia, a Silicon Valley clique of billionaires who got in early on creaming off a small amount of money from a great many Internet purchases and now love themselves and future-science possibly overmuch.

But why does de Grey want to live so long? Isn’t a standard life long enough anyway? In an interview with the Washington Post, de Grey proffered his reasons. ‘So many women. So much time.’

Hey ladies. Come and get it. Come and get some of beardy Aubrey! Don’t rush. He has all the time you need. Oh yeah. I’m a love train, baby. A beardy love train.

Let’s assume, though, that the transhumanists are right to some degree and technologies arrive that actually work in boosting human capacities. If some get boosted and not others, is that fair? Not really.

Many transhumanists might say they are not bothered about being fair. Life’s not fair, so what’s the point in even starting with that shit? But others are properly fearful of a divided future of the enhanced versus the non-enhanced leading to a rather regrettable enslavement/genocide scenario (or competing tribal subspecies perpetually battling for supremacy).

It goes without saying that the already moneyed will be first in the queue for any enhancements. So perhaps we should picture this future world as an insanely exclusive, insanely tribal club scene, with door staff checking out the size of your genetic wad: ‘Your legs are crap and your IQ’s piss and you’re not going to live for 120 years. You’re not coming in.’ And then they kill you.

Should we really be worried about this? Well, when asked what his greatest fear was for the future of humanity, Stephen Hawking replied: ‘It is over genetic engineering. It should soon be possible dramatically to increase the intelligence and life span of a few individuals. They and their offspring could become a master race. Evolution pays no regard to social justice. It was not fair on the Neanderthals they were replaced by modern humans.’

Remember, this guy was right about time.