Future is coming: bio-revolution. Triumph of humanism

PREDICTIONS

It is impossible to describe in such a small work all the scientific and technological prerequisites for the creation of a new Biomedicine that have appeared in recent years1. The evidentiary presentation of their details would take too much space.

Therefore, we will simply confirm our statements with a few facts and quotes from authoritative sources:

April 2010. Pope Benedict XVI: “Man’s resistance to death becomes evident”, modern science seeks to find means that save not only from all diseases, “but for our ultimate destiny – for death itself. Surely the medicine of immortality must exist.”

In 2013, at the opening of the established Google California company “Life” (Calico), it was announced that its goal – to extend human life for at least 500 years. Today all activities of the company are classified.

October 2017. President Vladimir Putin: “… in the near future [humanity will enter] in a very difficult and very critical period,” science is capable of “getting into the genetic code” and approaching possibility of creating people “with given characteristics.”

November 2017 Head of the Russian Center for Strategic Research, former Minister A. Kudrin: in 10—15 years “we will have almost immortal people.”

October 2018. Just the other day in the press there was an announcement of the posthumous book of physicist Stephen Hawking in which he suggests that in a near future it will be possible to make changes in human DNA that will improve such “characteristics as memory, resistance to diseases, life expectancy”.

Even these examples are enough to understand that biological science has come to some important milestone. And if even thirteen years ago, my first book about the prospects of human biology management was perceived as a utopia, today many representatives of the elite are already beginning to understand – this is a question of not so distant future. At the same time, it is clear that this future will be very different from any of our ideas about it.

Therefore, today it is not only and not so much the predictions of the development of biotechnology itself that are important, but the assessment of those changes in a person, in the manner of his existence, which will cause their application and which, as the analysis shows, will be, without exaggeration, stunning.

A LITTLE ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES

To understand further, a few words about what will be the new biotechnology, new biomedicine.

These technologies are based both on changes in the genome of the organism, and on interference in the work of organelles of a living cell through the introduction of special organelle-like active particles (biological nano-automata, nano-agents).

Since all vital processes are ultimately determined by the work of cells, this will effectively affect literally all the properties and parameters of the body – physical, neuro-psychological, mental.

There are four main directions of application of future nano-biomedicine:

– immortation (from lat. Immortalis) – “getting immortality”, i.e. termination of the biological aging program that limits today the maximum life expectancy of organisms, including humans, and leads to mandatory death;

– rejuvenation of the body, i.e. elimination of age-related destructive changes already made by the aging program;

– bio-therapy: a) methods of treatment of diseases of any type that have previously arisen in the body; b) creation of a permanent nano-biological system in the body that completely prevents the possibility of any types of diseases2;

– bio-plasty – changes in physical and psycho-cognitive qualities and properties of a person.

In other words:

immortation will make a person biologically immortal,

rejuvenation will make any person at any age, young again,

bio-therapy will not only cure any disease, but also get rid of the very concept of disease,

and bio-plasty will allow a wide range to change the body, organs, psyche, even traits and intellectual abilities.

Due to certain features, the development of these areas will go at different speeds. It is most likely that some bio-therapy technologies will appear first, and then the technologies of immortation and rejuvenation will be created. And only later will appear (in full) bio-plasty.

Future Biomedicine will have nothing to do with modern medicine chemicals and scalpels. Externally, it will look like “infection” of a person with synthetic “viruses” that will deliver the necessary nano-automata, nano-agents to the cells.

SPECIAL PROPERTY

Any new technologies, after they are introduced into any sphere of human activity, one way or another affect the way of life of people. Sometimes this effect is indirect and unobtrusive, sometimes very noticeable. Even the above description of the general features of the new biomedicine makes it possible to understand that the level of its influence will be unprecedented.

But for us, another unique feature of the “medicine of immortality” is important. It is able to influence people’s lives even BEFORE its creation, BEFORE its introduction, only as a result of people’s belief in the possibility, in the reality of “immortality” technologies. This BELIEF, which will gradually, as the penetration of information about the successes of biology, spread and strengthen in the mass consciousness, will play a huge role in future historical events, will cause significant changes in the Outlook and behavior of people, will affect the economy and social sphere.

This unique feature is determined by the exceptional value and importance for each person of the benefits that new Biomedicine opens up to him. Benefits that can not give any other most fantastic technology.

THE HIGHEST VALUE

It should be understood that immortation, juvenation, bio-therapy, bio-plasty mean not just prolongation of life, treatment of diseases or the ability to easily change the shape of the nose. Their value is much higher – they allow you to get rid of many of the eternal human problems that are not solved in any other way, provide a completely different level, a different quality of existence, an unattainable degree of personal freedom, incredible individual opportunities.

So, bio-therapy is not just an effective medicine. This is an exception to the very possibility of any bodily problems. This is life in conditions of absolute physical and psychic comfort.

The value of bio-plasty is not only in the ability to freely change (for example, for sexual and aesthetic purposes) your body and psychological qualities. It is also a solution to a huge social and psychological problem, a victory over a significant natural injustice. This injustice is the physical and intellectual inequality of human beings from birth. Having the opportunity to change themselves, people will cease to be a passive result of hereditary genetic lottery parent DNA fusion. The man himself, not the game of chance, will decide what he should be, how to look, what abilities to possess. This will prove to be, among other things, a huge step towards achieving the true equality of people that is impossible today.

The meaning of immortation can, perhaps, be likened to the abolition of the death sentence imposed on a person. However, the value of immortality is not only in this. It will give a person something more – an unlimited time for self-realization, a change of professions, the solution of any life problems, the opportunity to live “a thousand lives.”

It is also difficult to overestimate the human significance of rejuvenation giving an enduring youth, the secret of which people sought at all times and for which they were ready to “sell their soul to the devil”.

It is easy to understand that the most important, key in its role, technology here is immortation. Having gained the possibility of physiologically unlimited life, everyone sooner or later will be able to get all the other benefits of Biomedicine – unlimited life in a healthy, young, perfect body, something that could not dream of any pharaohs or kings, no one ever in the world.

Thus, “immortality” is the greatest possible benefit with which no values of today’s human being compare: no yachts, no palaces, no life under palm trees. And when people begin to realize this, the desire for bio-immortality will become the most powerful, most mass ideology in the history of humankind.

TO LIVE TO IMMORTALITY

Naturally, before every person who believes in the possibility of technological immortality, the question arises: what should be done to get the immortalization of themselves and their loved ones? The answer is obvious: the main condition under all circumstances is to live, survive, save your life until the real appearance of this technology. This, as practice shows, people understand in the first place, when they learn about Biomedicine.

What you need to do in order to increase your chances of “survival” is also clear to everyone: first, to maintain your health and, secondly, not to die as a result of an accident.

As faith in immortality intensifies, the desire for “survival” will become the main need of huge masses, a universal global goal. Such mass character will lead to serious, not always obvious today and not all positive consequences in the future.

NEW CAUTION

It is not difficult to understand how the two above-mentioned “survival” conditions will be solved.

Measures to maintain health are known: medical prevention, physical activity, rejection of bad habits. It is quite clear, and their positive effects.

However, it will not do without problems. Increased attention to health will create obvious problems in the field of health care: an increase in the number of calls to medical institutions, an increase in the requirements to improve health care, increase its availability, etc.

However, all these problems (we will not dwell on them) do not go to any comparison with the problems that will arise as a result of the mass desire to avoid accidents. The growing faith of people in immortation will give rise to the so-called “new caution” syndrome, which, rapidly spreading and intensifying, will quickly grow into a general excess of caution, in an effort to protect yourself and your loved ones as much as possible from any possible dangers.

The growing belief of people in immortation will give rise to a syndrome of so-called “new caution”, which, rapidly spreading and increasing, will quickly grow into a General “super-caution”. People will begin to seek to protect themselves and their loved ones from any even the most minor dangers.

The peculiarities of human psychology will naturally lead to the fact that the desire to avoid dangerous situations, real or imaginary, will become more than just increased circumspection. It will become a mass fad, a fashion, and in some cases will turn into psychosis.

On the one hand, super-caution will bring a lot of positive. There will be a real increase for people of the value of their lives.

It sounds paradoxical, if you do not remember a lot of examples of how often people put their lives at risk because of laziness, frivolity, for the sake of “adrenaline” entertainment. The Outlook of people and their attitude to risk will change. The deceased climber will be perceived not as an example of courage, but as a loser who missed his chance at immortality, etc.

One of the most important consequences of this will be a significant reduction in the likelihood of various kinds of armed conflicts, since over time, fewer people will be willing to expose their lives, and hence their future immortality, to the dangers of war. The number of suicides will drop – the prospect of immortation will become for many an additional stimulus to life.

These massive changes in people’s minds will allow developing unusual and very effective measures in the fight against violent crimes, including their most radical form, suicide terrorism. Such a measure would be the adoption of laws on the prohibition of immortation for murderers, accomplices and organizers of such crimes, including politicians and other public figures who intentionally incite strife and provoke bloody conflicts. “The ban on immortality” will become a serious deterrent here.

Examples of the positive impact of the “new caution” on people’s lives can be continued to list, but each side of the coin has a flip side. And here it is very visible.

SUPER-CAUTION IN ORDINARY LIFE

Since the threat to life, often very unlikely, exists everywhere: on the street, in transport, on vacation, in the elevator, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, etc., then super-caution in common will inevitably lead to certain difficulties in everyday people’s lives.

Existing phobias will grow stronger and new phobias will arise.

Especially in this connection it is worth noting transport phobia. Today, up to 15% of people experience an insurmountable fear of air travel, and 70% have discomfort. “New caution” can change these figures in places. In general terms, it is easy to imagine what damage this will cause, for example, the tourism industry, the air transport complex, aircraft manufacturers, manufacturers of aluminum, aviation fuel, etc.