来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年11月7日
Welcome to the era of immortalists: scientists, dreamers and – crucially – billionaires, who want us to think of age as a curable disease, and our final end as something that could be indefinitely postponed. According to one estimate, the revenues of the global anti-ageing industry will increase from about $200bn today to $420bn by 2030. One sure sign of its rosy prospects is the involvement of high-profile people in the US who have made vast fortunes from the internet. If many of them can avoid taxes, why not death?
欢迎来到永生论者的时代：科学家、梦想家，最重要的是——亿万富翁，他们希望我们把年龄看作是一种可治愈的疾病，而我们的人生尽头可能会无限期推迟。据估计，到2030年，全球抗衰老行业的收入将从目前的约2000亿美元增至4200亿美元。它的美好前景的一个明确迹象是，通过互联网获得巨额财富的美国知名人士的参与。如果他们中的许多人都能避税，为什么不能逃避死亡呢？
In tech circles, the distaste for mortality often blurs into the culture of “biohacking”: to quote the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary, “a belief that the human race can evolve beyond its current limitations, especially by the use of science and technology”.
在科技界，对死亡的厌恶常常模糊为“生物黑客”文化：引用《牛津英语词典》中的定义，“相信人类可以超越目前的局限进化，特别是通过使用科技”。
The sums invested in anti-ageing research by such tech players as the Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, show what happens when such ideas meet big money. The same goes, somewhat predictably, for the activities of the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who has previously funded an anti-ageing setup called Unity Biotechnology, is now reportedly a donor to a newly founded California venture called Altos Labs. The latter company is apparently going to set up “institutes” in the US, the UK and Japan, and is recruiting scientists with the offer of big salaries. One insider says its initial aim is to “understand rejuvenation”; its focus is the kind of “biological reprogramming technology” focused on the manipulation of cells.
谷歌创始人拉里•佩奇和谢尔盖•布林等科技玩家在抗衰老研究上的投资表明，当这些想法获得大笔资金时，会发生什么。亚马逊创始人杰夫·贝佐斯的活动也是如此，这在一定程度上是可以预见的。贝佐斯此前曾资助过一家名为“团结生物技术”的抗衰老机构，据报道，他现在正在为一家新成立的加州企业阿尔托斯实验室出资。后者似乎将在美国、英国和日本设立“研究所”，并以高薪聘用科学家。一位内部人士表示，它的最初目标是“理解返老还童”；它聚焦“生物重编程技术”，重点是操纵细胞。
Plenty of other companies – they have such names as BioViva and the Longevity Fund – are also trying to somehow arrest ageing. Piercing through the research and journalism that surrounds what they are doing, you occasionally get the vague feeling that some of the people involved may eventually come across some or other revelation about age-related diseases, but there is usually a sense of money that would be better spent elsewhere. Anti-ageing research now has a long history, but no company working in the field has yet managed to push any therapy to the stage of conclusive clinical trials. In 2012, the Japanese scientist, Shinya Yamanaka, won a Nobel prize for his discovery that bathing single cells in four proteins could rejuvenate them, but using the technique on mice resulted in some developing cancerous tumours.
许多其他公司——它们有Biovia和长寿基金这样的名字——也在试图以某种方式阻止衰老。透过他们所做的研究和新闻报道，你偶尔会有一种模糊的感觉，即一些参与其中的人最终可能会发现一些或其他与年龄有关的疾病的信息，但通常也会感觉，这些钱最好花在其他地方。抗衰老研究已经有很长的历史了，但目前还没有一家从事该领域工作的公司能够将任何疗法推向最终临床试验阶段。2012年，日本科学家山中伸弥因发现将单个细胞浸泡在四种蛋白质中可以使其恢复活力而获得诺贝尔奖，但在小鼠身上使用该技术会导致一些癌症肿瘤的发生。
Besides, even if anti-ageing techniques eventually proved successful, what would be the social and cultural consequences of literally pathologising old age? If we lived much longer, would we also be expected to work indefinitely? How would the planet cope with a hugely increased population? Keeping the average rise in global temperatures to 1.5C demands that each of us is responsible for no more than two tonnes of CO2 a year, whereas the richest 1% of the world’s population are on track to produce an average of more than 70 tonnes a head. Imagine such people jetting around until they were 140, or 200, or even existing forever.
此外，即使抗衰老技术最终被证明是成功的，但将老年病态化会带来什么样的社会和文化后果？如果我们活得更长，我们要无限期地工作吗？地球将如何应对急剧增加的人口？将全球平均气温上升保持在1.5摄氏度，要求我们每个人每年排放的二氧化碳不超过2吨，而世界上最富有的1%人口的人均排放量有望超过70吨。想象一下，这样的人在飞机上四处奔波，直到140岁、200岁，甚至永远。