Restoring my sanity...

We came. We saw. We restored sanity. Our own, that is. We took a lot of pictures.

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a friend and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear came up. He immediately said, "I'm going! I need to let off some steam." Sounded like just the prescription I needed too -- a road trip to go hang out with 250,000 of my closest friends. So we all went.

What was it like? Crowded. Very. Very, very. As in, very. I don't have claustrophobia, but I may have caught it at the rally. We kept trying to get within sight of the stage and large screens, but didn't quite succeed. Jon and Stephen were overly modest. They planned for a crowd of around 60,000, but estimates peg the rally attendance around 250,000 or as Jon Stewart declared, "ten million." Too bad his attempt to have everyone "count off" didn't quite work or we'd have an exact count. The crowd spilled off the National Mall in every direction for blocks and blocks. If you look at my photos, you can get a sense for just how crowded it was or you can see whole thing on C-SPAN.

The most entertaining part was the signs. I took pictures, lots and lots of them. People were quite clever with their signs.

I think what the whole thing boiled down to is this: It's a mad, mad, mad world. It's not just the Tea-Party types to blame. It's not all Glenn Beck's fault. It's not all Obama's fault. It's not even all my fault. It's everyone's fault. Our government has just become a damn mess. It's always been fractured, and was even designed to be that way, but lately the rhetoric seems to "go to 11."

In this environment it seems that that rational middle is missing. Maybe it's not. Maybe there is some quality compromise that goes on in Congress, but you'd never know it based on the way things are reported on Fox News or MSNBC. The other side is evil and to blame.

I think this event was about stepping back, taking a breath, and saying, "Can't we all just laugh a little?" It was cathartic.

The Washington Post aptly described the event:

The event proved a mass demonstration of noncommittal cleverness, quirk and irony. Through signage, some rally-goers competed to be the most topical ("One man's socialism is another man's uninformed buzzword"), the most off-topical ("I love pineapples") and the most meta ("I am holding a sign").

Many Mall visitors toted signs with arch witticisms such as those identifying the carrier as a member of the "Decaf Party," or warning people "Don't Tread on Snakes," instead of "Don't Tread on Me." Plenty of gear from Obama's inauguration was exhumed from closets and worn again, and many posters borrowed Shepard Fairey's iconic "Hope" design from 2008 - but the visage staring out was of Stewart, not Obama.

It wasn't a singular, coherent movement on display as much as a rollicking expanse of nano-movements. Recycling enthusiasts mingled with D.C. voting rights advocates, who bumped shoulders with fusion-power activists who stepped on the heels of 9/11 truthers. One sign implored, "Vote Lawyers Out," and another insisted, "Vote Popped Collars Out." Some in the crowd wanted the troops to come home; others wanted the troops to be able to gay-marry.

And then there were the signs about signs, like one held by visiting New Yorker Beth Seltzer: "Americans for . . . oh look! A puppy!"

"There's so many people out there who are easily distracted," said the 39-year-old doctor. "And there are people who are yelling and screaming and protesting and they don't even know what they're talking about."

As a Gamecock I might get in trouble for quoting this next part of the story, but I guess I need to apply some sanity even to learning something my rivals:

"I do vote," says Teddi Fishman, 46, the director of the Center for Academic Integrity in Clemson, S.C. "But more than entertainment or politics, I just think this is a release for everyone. We've had so much tension."

Who knows what America needs. Maybe it is just more cowbell.

Aubrey de Grey Interview in Wired.com

Aubrey de Grey's life extension diet emphasizes the importance of beer.

One of my favourite people in the world, the British gerontologist Aubrey de Grey, recently did an interview with Wired Science (link). If you've read his interviews before, you pretty much know what to expect, but there were a couple of new things in there that I found interesting (he's swearing, for one thing).

The gist of Aubrey de Grey's work is keeping people healthy indefinitely. You can call this unlimited healthspans or radical life extension or rejuvenation therapies or whatever, but the idea remains the same: to cure the biological process of progressive deterioration known as aging. For most people, the word "immortality" still has something of a negative connotation. This has not gone unnoticed by de Grey:

I’ve been out there represented as an immortality merchant since forever. These days, I can afford to not just acquiesce and let journalists use phrases like “immortality,” or at least not in the title of the bloody ass thing.

The reason he doesn't like titles like "Aubrey de Grey is here to make you immortal" is because it makes biogerontology sound like science fiction; something that a handful of people are working on in their garage. The public is apparently not ready for immortality.

And yet there are a growing number of people in the world who are ready to live longer and healthier lives. To any reasonable person, the word "immortality" is a positive thing, as long as one understands what the concept of biological immortality means. What it doesn't mean is that you'll be hurling through space long after the earth has been destroyed in a nuclear war, unable to die. It also doesn't mean that you'll be able to survive getting hit by a truck (although if it did, that would be a positive thing too).

What biological immortality means is that the chronological progress of time no longer dictates when and how you die. Your health will no longer be a simple function of time. Your body will remain youthful and vigorous regardless of how old you are. You can still die – certainly so if you want to die for some reason – but it won't be because of your body deteriorating every year. How this is a bad thing to some people has been beyond me for quite some time now.

The first step in solving the problem of aging will be done in mice. From there on, says Aubrey de Grey, it'll be smooth sailing:

What’s going to happen is the curmudgeons — the card-carrying gerontologists who think it’s very dangerous to be over-optimistic — will eventually recognize the data available to us from mice is so solid we can go out publicly and say, “It’s only a matter of time.” That’s going to take a panel of interventions in mice that’s so comprehensive we actually add two whole years to the lifespan of mice that are already in middle age before we start.

That may be overcautious. We may be able to get gerontologists on board with a more modest result than that. However, at that point, game over. My job will be done. I can retire. Because that will be the point when Oprah will be all over it and the following day it will become impossible to get elected unless you have a manifesto commitment to have a war on aging.

I agree with de Grey. People like Oprah have such a big influence on public opinion that it's ridiculous. I can even imagine someone being very pro-aging before hearing someone like Oprah promoting it, and then changing their mind completely. Once you get the public behind the idea, you'll get the politicians as well. Not that I give a damn about influencing politicians – without all the bureacracy and regulations in the field of medicine, I bet we'd already made a much larger progress in rejuvenation therapies! I'd rather take care of my own health than put it in the hands of any government official.

Another crucial point about people like Oprah: they have a lot of money. And since people with lots of money tend to be interested in preserving their wealth, it makes sense that the same people are also interested in preserving their health. After all, what's the point of having billions of dollars if you're not going to be around to enjoy them?

One thing that de Grey has not really commented on before is how come he doesn't get massive donations from aging billionaires. Some of them have already made plans to cryopreserve themselves, but if you have the chance to stick around without spending five decades in an ice box, why not do that instead? The biggest reason seems to be that billionaires haven't taken the organizations seriously enough:

Wired.com: For most of the billionaire philanthropists that travel in the same circles you do, out of the three things, is it mainly that they just don’t like your organization?

de Grey: I think for a very large, a very sufficient proportion of such people, yes, it’s that third thing. Because I see these people a lot. I go to TED, and there’s no holding back when it comes to 1) the desirability of the goal, and 2) the demonstration of sufficient comprehension of what I’m talking about to understand they believe the plan is feasible. So yes, absolutely.

In other words, there's a lack of professionalism, not necessarily in what the organizations actually do but in how people view them. The Methuselah Foundation is a case in point:

In the beginning, the only thing the Methuselah Foundation did was the longevity prizes for mice. Then, we started funding research directly. We thought it was a really cool idea to have one organization with two very complementary approaches to the same mission. But in fact, it didn’t really work, especially not in terms of messaging.

The foundation has now been split into two, one for prizes and one for funding research. Hopefully this will attract more investors. Besides business and funding, Aubrey talks about some personal things as well. And his love of beer, of course:

I drink exactly the right amount of beer evidently. [laughs] It’s ridiculous, really. Yet, I have to show I’m enjoying my life. It’s public knowledge I am polyamorous as well. That’s something that goes down not so well with some of my more politically sensitive friends and colleagues. But it goes quite well with some other people. [laughs]

Polyamorous, huh? He even goes to say that the whole monogamy thing is "archaic" and will probably be a thing of the past some time in the future. I didn't know de Grey was against monogamy, but I happen to agree. I think the whole concept of jealousy is an unnecessary biological impulse that was useful in the past but will no longer be needed in the future. It certainly isn't a product of the rational side of the brain.

I guess contrarians tend to have a lot in common. When you start to question the official truth in one area, you begin to wonder about other obvious truths as well. I'm sure you've noticed the disproportionate amount of libertarians among the paleo crowd, for example. In many cases it boils down to questioning whether government really knows best.

For some reason, the paleo community is still mostly stuck in the "aging is good" dogma, however. They're determinately against diabetes, obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and every other modern plague, and yet they are unwilling to strike the problem at the root.

Basically, they want to live healthy for 80 years and drop dead. To me that's nonsensical. What's your opinion?

For more information on longevity and aging, see these posts:

Russian Scientist Claims to Have Found Cure for Aging
How Do People Feel about Life Extension?
Aubrey de Grey in Helsinki, Finland
Why Aging Is a Global Disaster That Needs to Be Solved

People are People

Today is National Coming Out Day. I don't know if putting one more blog post into cyberspace will make a difference or not, but it can't hurt. And if nothing else, I want to use today as a chance to make my position unequivocally clear: I support equal rights for all.

I don't think that I've acted (and I certainly hope that I haven't) in a way that would make someone question that position. What makes today seem all the more important is the recent spate of gay teens who have committed suicide, including Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University who was outed and harassed by his roommate. Each and every suicide is a tragedy, however, Tyler's case struck me because it happened on a college campus. I can't imagine the impact an event like this would have on me as a professor if this happened to one of my students.

Why does this kind of harassment happen? We fear that which we don't understand and we get an inflated sense of superiority when we feel we can dominate over another group. We find a group that is defenseless against weaponry and we dehumanize and enslave them; later, when they fight for equal rights, we beat them down. We don't understand those with mental disorders so we institutionalize them, putting them out of sight. Someone lacks certain abilities and we marginalize them. A person's love interest seems "unnatural" to us and we bully them.

The cruel mistreatment of people based on their complexion, mental state, or physical or mental abilities now seems foreign and totally inappropriate to most (hopefully all) of us. However, many still stand blithely by while those who are gay or lesbian are mistreated, marginalized, and even bullied.

No more. Many are speaking out. For example, more and more are "coming out" as allies. And because of the recent tragedies several celebrities have spoken out. I found Ellen's message particularly poignant.

So, is one blog post by one guy who calls himself an ally going to change the world? No, perhaps not. Do I need to do more to stand up for equal rights? Certainly. At the very least I wanted to use today as an opportunity to state where I stand.

As I thought about all this, I couldn't help but think of words from a certain song. Let's all sing along...