I don't know whether it's tougher to close an open mind or open a closed mind, but I want to re-examine a premise I tend to take for granted, and which I expressed this way:

....if there's one thing I can confidently predict, it's that -- nukes or no nukes -- eventually we'll all die.

So, may the countdown begin.

And "life extension" is one of those things which touches my cynical button. I "came of age" in (lived through is more like it) the 1970s, and I considered it to be a rather tedious period, full of a lot of people who were quite full of themselves living quite full (to the point of self-indulgent) lives. My intellectual libertarian friends of that period were gaga over "life extension," yet all they had to show for it were a bunch of hypotheses about the future (which they quite shrilly insisted were absolutely inevitable), and (in the early 80s) a silly-looking book loaded with inflated claims (the book's rear cover totalled the combined ages of the two authors and claimed they were that old).

I had no argument with life extension then, nor do I have now. What I have an aversion to is denial. Most of these same friends contracted AIDS, and I watched them die. The borderline-obsessive interest in life extension "life extension" seemed to collide -- and actually reached a crescendo -- with the ugly, malevolent birth (in 1983) of AIDS. I remember it well -- and what a cruel mockery it was seeing fanatic advocates of life extension suddenly sentenced to die while only in their late twenties and early thirties.

(None of this was their fault, I hasten to add; those infected with AIDS before the disease was known to exist cannot in fairness be accused of "asking for it." Not that the people who accused them of "asking for it" had fairness in mind -- but that's a whole different rant....)

Little comfort were the "life extension" books, insistence on organic or vegan diets, or crackpot ideas like taking Niacin till you feel like you're on fire -- or beta-carotene till you turn orange. Short of watching my friends die, the most horrible aspect of the process was to throw myself into denial along with them, while we all grasped for one miracle cure after another. I worked at an "underground" AIDS drugstore ("buyers clubs" they were called), and made countless trips to other countries bringing back drugs which the FDA wouldn't allow AIDS patients to buy here. We defied the blasted FDA, and We All Believed.

Believers or not, those with AIDS all died. Nothing worked. Not even the denial.

The founder of the particular AIDS buyers club with which I was associated was a charming, high-energy man with AIDS but with a desire and zest to fight for life (his own and others) which I'd have to characterize as infectiously maniacal. He used to go on television and debate FDA officials and local physicians, and fought like a tiger for patients' right to have access to medically unapproved treatments. Finally, the disease caught up with him, in the form of repeated KS lesions in his lungs, which finally proved unresponsive to treatment. I'll never forget the last time I saw him. (It was to say goodbye, and we both knew it.) I told him how much I admired him, how we'd work to carry on what he'd started, how we'd redouble our efforts -- and he cut me short with a firm, gentle, smile. That kind of serenity which comes from knowing you are truly letting go....

"It was all denial!" he said.

Denial. All his work. All our work. DENIAL! (It was pretty tough to take at the time.)

He was right. Yet I'd have done the same thing again. In situations like that, you have no choice.

And believe me, nothing motivates like the fear of death. I'll never forget my horror at hearing a leading national AIDS specialist tell a largely gay audience, "A diagnosis of AIDS is a death sentence." I was furious, as were most of the people I knew. I hated the guy, and considered him to be some kind of sinister pig agent working for the anti-sexual Forces of Control. (He was just a gay physician, saying what he thought needed to be said. And you know what? He was right. It was a death sentence. All of the people I knew with AIDS in that period died. When you're facing death, denial kicks in big time, in much the same way that when you hit 40, suddenly "health" is a big deal. I am acutely sensitive to the type of denial activated by the fear of death, and I can almost smell it.

Sorry to voice these darker, innermost thoughts, but I can't help them. (Might even be a form of Post Traumatic Stress for all I know, much as I hate to sound like a whiner.)

Anyway, my denial detecter tends to go off when people carry on about life extension. It has the same ring as did the belief in experimental drugs which weren't there, and I wonder how many True Believers will die anyway, waiting for the Big Cure.

This was all much on my mind when (thanks to a video link from Glenn Reynolds and Fight Aging) I watched Charlie Rose's interview with Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil was so persuasive (and his enthusiasm so sincere) that I decided to buy his book. Yet I had this same creepy feeling that I was just being dragged into more of that same old 1980s denial.

I just can't shake the feeling. It's there, and I have to acknowledge it.

However, now we come to my steadfast refusal to close my open mind. It occurs to me that logically speaking, the following things are all possible:

Denial is a powerful motivating factor, and even assuming that someone is in denial, that person might still be able to accomplish a great deal. AIDS, after all, is now a treatable disorder. It's still fatal in many cases, but the lifespan has been greatly prolonged to the point that it's like having treatable cancer. (In my childhood, "cancer" was "the 'c' word" -- a topic which caused people to lower their voices and look around before discussing in public.)

It's frustrating to see that there's really no available life extension technique which actually works now, though.

Patience is challenging when you feel like you're watching a replay.

I'm struggling to keep my mind open (because after all it would be nice to live forever).

Hell, I'd even settle for fifty more years.

Ray Kurzweil speaks of a 15 year wait, and says that if we can stay alive for fifteen years, there's a real chance of workable, real, life extension.

Might it just be true?

This time?

The fact is, despite my talk of replaying 1980s denial, at the time of all the useless remedies and experimental drugs, genuine workable AIDS treatments were only fifteen years away. The tragedy was that in those days, none of my friends had the fifteen years to stay healthy and wait. Their denial had at most only a couple of years before it (and they) died. They were young and did not "go gently into the good night" the way older people are supposed to. (Many a young man with AIDS died an angry, raging death.)

But despite my cynicism, and my hypersensitivity to denial of death, considering the stakes, fifteen years of denial doesn't strike me as unreasonable, or even illogical.

It might even work!

(Besides, there are plenty of enemies who want us to die....)