Dangerous & Wrong Dangerous & Wrong
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5MM SPINE DANGEROUS & WRONG DANGEROUS & WRONG FREERANGE VOL.5 5MM SPINE DANGEROUS & WRONG Freerange VOL.5 Freerange Volume 5: Dangerous & Wrong Published by Freerange Press Aotearoa, Atlantis, Australia & etc Edited by Nick Sargent, Phillip Heath and Nimita Arora Designed by Irina Belova Related material may appear on the FR website: www.projectfreerange.com Print ISBN: 978-0-473-22228-4 Digital ISBN: 978-0-473-22229-1 Print ISSN: 1179-8106 Digital ISSN: 1179-8114 CONTENTS 9 The end of death: a portrait of Aubrey de Grey Andrea Rassell 13 The Funeral Service Caleb Smith 18 I Am Many Byron Kinnaird 25 Fighting for the Monster Martin Lewin 29 Counting the Years Nimita Arora 33 Penis Envy Johnny Manzana 36 Death of the Architect Emre Ozyetis CONTENTS 39 Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity Ingo Kumic 45 Spatial Persepectives on the Dead Heart of Australia Mark Leong 51 Citizen Pain Redux Interview with Gerald Melling 54 wellington 1989: Citizen Pain 57 Leaders of the Blind Zana Wright 69 Cheap & Choice Award 70 Freeranger of the Issue 73 Bios Photo by Christopher Sykes [email protected] 9 DANGEROUS AND WRONG THE END OF DEATH: A PORTRAIT OF AUBREY DE GREY BY ANDREA RASSELL HE author of Ending Aging, Dr Aubrey de Grey, is a biogeronologist, communicator of science, and a formidable intellectual presence behind Tthe lectern. His beard (so large it boasts its own Facebook page) and ornamental hair ties complement a somewhat controversial stance on the world stage. De Grey is allied with the transhumanist SENS believe they have developed achievable movement, the central tenet of which is to solutions to each of these problems with overcome the current limitations of the human technologies that already exist and de Grey is body through technological means. This globetrotting to raise awareness, and funds, to includes radical life extension technologies ensure that these technologies are not neglected. such as those postulated by de Grey. Of utmost importance in de Grey’s claims to He claims that the first people to live to more the feasibility of radical life extension is the than 1000 years old have already been born. time span of the availability of rejuvenating Biogerontology approaches physical problems therapies. Throughout history, the pattern of of ageing before they become evident. technological advancement has been similar. De Grey has founded the philanthropic research Major breakthroughs are inevitably followed institution Strategies for Engineered Negligible by incremental advancement. In Australia Senescence (SENS), where researchers are these incremental advancements are sometimes tackling what de Grey has identified as the not only inevitable, but legally required. After “seven deadly things’’. These comprise: registering biomedical devices with the Therapeutic Goods Administration for example, - Cell loss, cell atrophy. continued improvements are mandatory. - Extracellular junk. Therefore, once issues surrounding rejuvenating - Death resistant cells. therapies are solved, for example the safety - Mitochondrial DNA mutations. of genetic replacement therapies, then life expectancy should increase ever quicker. This - Intracellular junk. is the crux of what de Grey terms the longevity - Tissue stiffening (extracellular crosslinks). escape velocity (LEV). Cancer-causing nuclear mutations. FREERANGE VOL.5 10 The Simple Logic of LEV t MAX RESERVE FRAIL 0 0 AGE Fixing half the damage, then 3/4, then 7/8... - outpaces the so-far-unfixable damage... - maintains healthspan indefinitely On the ethical implications of an aged population de Grey is unwavering. He stresses ...and if healthy ageing, as opposed to extension of the frail years, and his bottom line is that it is someone immoral to deny future generations the choice to utilise these technologies rather than not to with the develop them at all. One gets the sense that, intelligence, beneath all the science and controversy is a man who genuinely wants to save lives and tenacity and decrease suffering, and if someone with the intelligence, tenacity and energy of de Grey is energy of approaching these issues with all of his might, humanity may well be the better for it. de Grey is Graph: From De Grey’s 2007 Transvision approaching presentation “The Mythical Merits of Mealy Mouthed Messaging”, held in Chicago. these issues with all of his might, humanity may well be the better for it. 11 DANGEROUS AND WRONG Biogerontology: Biogerontology is the scientific investigation into how and why we age on the molecular level, the organismic level, evolutionary level, and all those in between. The discipline seeks to understand things like why underfed animals live longer, and why having offspring later in life increases lifespan over many generations. Biogerontology is the field which seeks to develop a biological understanding of the processes of ageing, and is the field in which we will apply these findings to increase the length and vitality of our lives.1 1 Vitae Institute Website. 13 DANGEROUS AND WRONG THE FUNERAL SERVICE BY CALEB SMITH HEY say that when you get back from Her parents had been offered a slight reprieve overseas nothing will have changed. It’s in the fact that the body had been identified and some kind of unifying statement. People returned promptly. Hardly a balancing grace, try to render an experience generic to but the scale was all shot out of place. Even Tconnect with one another. I’m back. The city is a her death was dwarfed by a list of others, the ruined map and she’s dead. families suffering only one of many. The city I grew up in, my childhood, where In times when my life has fallen over and I’ve I met her, the streets and buildings we spent weeks just lying in bed in a grey echo, lived among, they’ve been memory wiped I’ve reached out to any source of meaning that and replaced with dust and mud. So some could break the loop of the same thoughts over homogenous do nothing phrase of about what and over. When I feel weak of a world full of it’s like to return from overseas doesn’t cut it. empty actions I fall back on paternal authority My past has been derendered to 2D photographs. as an absolute. So it was half a year before I There is no material left to the past anymore. No packed it up and came back. I spent that long sense of a place where my past dwelt. wishing I’d chosen otherwise before actually doing something about it. They told me I shouldn’t come back for the funeral. Her parents and mine formed this When I got back what I felt was that there was conspiracy of knowing what’s best for me over no place to come back to. No home over there or the phone. Parents never take into account what here, like I’d made the folly of stepping off the their child is feeling when they claim to know loom of fate and now I was doomed to wander what’s best for them. They operate from this listless through infinity until I found a way back point of a certainty of outcomes, prescribed to that fine thread. When I left and she stayed, from a list of homely axioms. It doesn’t matter was that when I fell off? We thought we were if they fit. Such thoughts are never tested for being adult, we’d met young and we decided fitness of purpose. that spending some time apart would be a good thing. We could see if we could pick it up later They offered me the rational factors. on in life. Looking back, we were just acting out the maxims we thought were expected of us. “There isn’t any city left to return to, there’s no power, water, there’s no streets just mud. I was never quite as successful in London as There’s a curfew and most of the city is closed I’d hoped. I shouldn’t complain. I’d found to the public. We don’t know if we are going work in my field as a photographer, but it to be evacuated.” And “You’re doing well in was only for magazine pieces, the interior of London, she would want you to be happy, we people’s apartments. I’d go out and say I was a know you care, you don’t have to come back to photographer for a newspaper but I would never this to show it.” FREERANGE VOL.5 14 say what bit. I’d had a few girlfriends in London of policemen. There had already been two but it always felt like they were just filling a role. instances where I’d nearly been caught and had I mean, I liked them but in the back of my mind to hide two stories up a partiality demolished I thought I’d come back one day and be with her. building while they searched for me below. I’d So that was my OE, not quite the big thing I’d nearly had buildings come down on me as I been promised and it ended this way with this to navigated between them. I hadn’t been fruitful come home to. and I considered leaving the red zone for the suburbs and sleep. I didn’t really gel with my old friends when I got back. I didn’t make too much of an I had paused down the remains of an alleyway effort to, either. It was almost as if they didn’t for the remainder of my hip flask, when I saw acknowledge that I’d returned. They were the the light. You wouldn’t have been able to see sort that had stayed, so I guess we were different it from the street.