Bestselling book enters new markets and predicts Longevity Escape Velocity by 2029/30.
Back in the 1980s, pop sensation Wham! encouraged us all to “Choose Life”; now a book that argues we will soon hit Longevity Escape Velocity has released its French language edition.
Longevity.Technology: Authors José Luis Cordeiro and David Wood are Longevity floor-fillers who have turned their considerable talents to bookshelf-filling. Both experienced speakers and writers, their combined knowledge of the Longevity field is considerable. Cordeiro is an engineer, economist, futurist and transhumanist, who has worked in different fields including economic development, international relations and is an international member of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wood is the creator of the world’s first operating system for smartphones is on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
La Muerte de la Muerte – The Death of Death – was published in 2018 in Spanish. A second edition soon followed, with the book becoming a bestseller in Spain and Latin America.
Following the publication of the Portuguese edition – A Morte de Morte which was a bestseller in Portugal and Brazil – a French edition was launched yesterday. The book is also available in Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. Cordeiro and Wood will also be releasing their book in Russian, with an epilogue by Longevity Vision Fund’s Sergey Young, and in Chinese, with other international versions in the works.
The book’s mission is to cover the scientific advances towards immortality. Aging is a disease, the authors tell us, that can be cured and that must be cured. Progress in Longevity research means the death of death is achievable, says Cordeiro.
“In the last few years,” he says “scientists have been able to extend the average lifespan of mice almost twice, the lifespan of mosquitoes four times more, and the lifespan of some worms almost 10 times. This is just the beginning, and we will see much more in life extension and also rejuvenation in the coming years.”
Corderio goes as far as to indicate a timetable. “By 2029/30, so by the end of this decade,” Corderio says “we will have reached Longevity Escape Velocity … This means that for every year we survive, we gain an extra year, but we will still age. Living longer, but still aging.
“We believe that death will be optional by 2045, or even earlier, if more public and private funds are invested in rejuvenation technologies,” he says. “Thanks to exponential advances in artificial intelligence, tissue regeneration, stem cell treatments, organ printing, cryopreservation, genetic or immunological therapies will solve – and are already solving – the problem of aging of the human body. By 2045, technology for rejuvenation will be very, very cheap.”
“Longevity research is breaking [that dogma] by repairing aging damage and slowing aging and even reversing it.”
For the authors, the proof that biological immortality is possible is that it already exists. “Some multicellular organisms like Hydras and some species of Jellyfish do not seem to undergo any senescence and, as such, can potentially be considered to be biologically immortal, as long as they are not eaten or killed.
Planarian flatworms appear to regenerate indefinitely and seem to have an apparently limitless telomere regenerative capacity fuelled by highly proliferative adult stem cells. Therefore, not just unicellular bacteria and gametes but also some multicellular organisms have a lot to teach about indefinite longevity. They are the living proof that senescence is not a compulsory by-product of being alive.
It comes down to a mental block, explains Cordeiro. “No-one likes to think about death, let alone their own death; we have a death mindset, but Longevity research is breaking that dogma by repairing aging damage and slowing aging and even reversing it.
“Our book seeks to change the public perception of aging, to disrupt the paradigm of accepting aging and death as inevitable consequences of life, to bring about the death of death itself.”
The Death of Death is available from Amazon in Spanish, Portuguese and French.
