Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon, apparently believes that there is no problem in the world that cannot be solved — as long as a suitably copious amount of dollars is poured into it, of course.
We’ve seen this in his decision to spare no expense in getting into space, but another of his passions is the idea of using scientific means to slow or stop aging.
In January 2022, he was among the investors who helped Altos Labs, a biotechnology company created for this purpose, raise US$ 3 billion in funding, and this is not the first time he has bet on such ventures.
I can’t understand how the guy still claims to be a fan of “The Lord of the Rings”.
OK, maybe the reader is not understanding the logical connection between one thing and another. It so happens that Bezos is also spending the tubes – a trifle of around US$ 1 billion – to finance the production of the series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”, which premieres in September this year on the Amazon streaming service.
The show’s coordinators say that the billionaire has a personal passion for the work of JRR Tolkien. The intriguing thing here is that the plot will take place in a period of this fictional world in which a catastrophe of cosmic proportions is unleashed… by rich and powerful people in search of immortality.
The irony behind all this is immense, as pointed out by colleague Diego Klautau, PhD in religious sciences from PUC-SP, in one of his texts. (Before we go any further, here’s a SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t read Tolkien’s classics yet.)
The backdrop of the Amazon series is the tragedy of the island of Númenor. In this narrative, humans who took part in the war against the satanic tyrant Morgoth are rewarded with a wonderful new abode in this island realm, as well as receiving longevity, health, and wisdom far superior to those of other mortals.
However, they remain subject to death. Over the millennia, increasingly dissatisfied with their fate, they embark on a project of colonial domination and enslavement of other peoples and, at the same time, seek “scientific” methods to avoid death. (The best they can do with this is to better preserve the flesh of their dead.)
Ultimately, the king of Númenor decides to make war on the “gods” themselves (actually, angelic powers that rule the world; Tolkien is complicated, folks). His plan is to obtain immortality by force. Obviously the ending is not happy.
Bezos and other billionaires who believe it is possible to achieve eternal life by lining test tubes with dollar bills are very likely to be fooled. Multicellular organisms like us have a genomic architecture that simply wasn’t built for immortality.
The same genes that are crucial for growth and fertility during youth are the ones that, as age advances, can lead to the accumulation of molecular defects that culminate in old age and death. There are excellent biological reasons to doubt that it is possible to have one without having the other.
The why of this is the very basics of evolutionary theory: living things were forged to seek reproductive success, not perpetual survival (which, in a dangerous world full of disease, predators and catastrophes, was never a real possibility). . It’s best not to find out the hard way and avoid the Billionaires Númenor cosplay.
