What is the saddest thing in life? Such a philosophical question would certainly produce countless of different responses. In fact, many religions have tried for centuries to explain the nature of sadness and suffering, to which I think Buddhism comes the closest. It proposes the concept of ordinary suffering (dukkha-dukkha), which includes the vicious cycle of birth, growing old, sickness, and finally death. As if watching ourselves and our loved ones deteriorating beyond recognition weren't disheartening enough, it adds to the sadness the inevitability of such torture. Most buddhists will tell you there's really no way of escaping that fate unless you follow Buddhism and practice Noble Eightfold Path to reach the state of Nirvana.
But we all know that's just religious bullshit which somehow miraculously made its way to the 21st century. For the record, no religion has been able to extend human lifespan let alone relieve mankind of the burden of death. Their specialty lies in making empty promises about heaven and the afterlife, mind you. Thankfully, we still have science on our side, and for that we have made tremendous progress. Just for the last 150 years, we have more than doubled the life expectancy at birth of our species, from 38 to 75. At this point, one couldn't help but wonder whether this trend in life extension will continue and what is the limit of science in helping us escape aging, disease and eventually death. 100 Plus by Sonia Arrison, the book I'm going to review, attempts to shed light on such profound questions.
For what it's worth, this book is the second gerontology book I've read, the first being Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey, a classic when it comes to the subject. I came across 100 Plus when I was watching a video on FORA, where Sonia gave a speech on life extension and mentioned her recently published book. Having read Ending Aging, I didn't have high expectation for 100 Plus since I believed it would just repeat all the scientific information written in Ending Aging but I was proven wrong. This book is pretty light on technical jargons and instead focuses on more engaging stuff like how ancient people dreamt about living longer, how religion responds to human messing with nature etc...
The book is divided into 8 chapters. The first chapter tells us about the history and mythology of mankind trying to make sense of death and find the fountain of youth. If you love ancient myths, you will find this part particularly enchanting as Sonia reviews dozens of captivating stories from Adam & Eve, Noah, Pandora's Box, Gilgamesh to Dorian Gray, Vampires, Frankenstein, Gulliver's Travels...My favorite is the story of Eos and Tithonus, where Eos asked Zeus to bestow Tithonus with immortality but forgot to ask for eternal youth. The end result was Tithonus becoming older and older and finally turning into an insect but still unable to die; his suffering perpetuates to the end of time. In Chapter 2, the backbone chapter of the book, Sonia demonstrates how extending average human lifespan to beyond 100 is not only feasible but also foreseeable. Behind her confidence are a plethora of scientific studies and achievements, encompassing every fields from nanomedicine, genomics to nutrition and stem cell therapy...Did you know that we already can extend lifespan of a worm by 6 times just by manipulating a simple gene?
Sonia then dedicates the next 2 chapters (Chapter 3 to 4) to persuading readers that not only radically extending human lifespan can be done, it SHOULD and MUST be done. You may think it's a no-brainer that every one wants to live longer and therefore will support life extension and immortality. In reality, there still exist a sizeable number of traditional-thinking people who, for various reasons, furiously object to the ideas of human living beyond 100, let alone indefinitely. Most of their arguments are addressed with great details in these chapters. For instance, Sonia shows that overpopulation and resource deprivation are not as serious as we are led to believe. She also elucidates on human rights, social injustice, economic divide and many other exaggerated problems. Finally, she destroyed the ''playing God" and Eugenics argument.
Remaining chapters revolves around the socio-economic impact of life extension as well as the religious community's reaction to the ''afterlife vs longer life'' dilemma. The socio-economic part may seem boring to some people, especially if you are not interested in the matter, but the religion section is very insightful. Sonia again proves herself impartial and objective on such a delicate and controversial issue. She ends the book with Chapter 8 by introducing notable scientists, celebrities and organizations who are currently working day and night for the sake of providing human with better life.
I will conclude this long essay by sharing with you how a 23-year-old boy like me took interest in a field and a book clearly not suited for my age. It's because unlike religion who always deceives us with unsubstantiated promises about vague concepts, science and books like this provide me with a sense of realistic hope, a form of evidence-based optimism, and most importantly, true consolation. All of these are necessary tools in our never-ending fight against nature, against the inevitable. Human is great, science is wonderful and full of possibilities. When I typed these very last words, Aubrey de Grey quotation come to mind: "Accept the difficulty of what you cannot yet change. But do not accept the impossibility of ever changing it."
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