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SOCOM To Test Anti-Aging Pill Next Year:
WASHINGTON: Special Operations Command expects to move into clinical trials next year of a pill that may inhibit or reduce some of the degenerative affects of aging and injury — part of a broader Pentagon push for "improved human performance."
The pill "has the potential, if it is successful, to truly delay aging, truly prevent onset of injury — which is just amazingly game changing," Lisa Sanders, director of science and technology for Special Operations Forces, acquisition, technology & logistics (SOF AT&L), said Friday.
"We have completed pre-clinical safety and dosing studies in anticipation of follow-on performance testing in fiscal year 2022," Navy Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a SOCOM spokesperson, said.
SOCOM is using Other Transaction Authority (OTA) funds to partner with private biotech laboratory Metro International Biotech, LLC (MetroBiotech) in the pill's development, which is based on what is called a "human performance small molecule," he explained.
"These efforts are not about creating physical traits that don't already exist naturally. This is about enhancing the mission readiness of our forces by improving performance characteristics that typically decline with age," Hawkins said. "Essentially, we are working with leading industry partners and clinical research institutions to develop a nutraceutical, in the form of a pill that is suitable for a variety of uses by both civilians and military members, whose resulting benefits may include improved human performance – like increased endurance and faster recovery from injury."
(...) SOCOM has "stayed out of long-term genetic engineering — that makes people very very uncomfortable," Sanders said, "but there's a huge commercial marketplace for things that can avoid injury, that can slow down aging, that can improve sleep."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pdfernhout on Monday July 05 2021, @01:47PM (1 child)
Your point assumes it is easy to define a "group", especially at the level of national power, and that groups are cohesive. But groups often have hazy boundaries and internal divisions.
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Some forces in society may try to define sharp boundaries for their own purposes or power, but in practice group boundaries are hazy. For example, "race" is a fuzzy thing when you start to look at, and fully of arbitrary standards. Was Barack Obama "black" if he had a white mother? Or what does it mean for someone to be a "Jew" -- genetics, ethnicity, religion, family, community, location? What does it mean for someone to be "American" or "Russian"? A biomathematics professor in college in the USA grew up in Russia learning math helping his father design missile guidance systems (to destroy the USA); what "group" does that professor belong to (American or Russian)? Do scientists belong to a common global culture or do they belong to national or regional ones -- or all of them?
And related to that, any "group" also often has conflicting interests within itself. For example, do all people in China all have the same interests including some who have relatives in the USA or who sell products to US markets? In the USA, do "Americans" have divides across class or politics? Does a Green voter in the USA typically have more in common with a US Republican or a European Green?
Do those hoping for and working towards solutions to world issues wherever they are in the world have more in common with each other than those who may live in the same country but who have narrow interests and are willing to sacrifice long term prosperity for all by socializing costs and risks for their actions while privatizing short term gains?
Consider also:
https://twitter.com/ERamosSD/status/724713081083813888 [twitter.com]
"Because I love the multi-national, multi-lingual tweets celebrating
#DNADay16. We're more alike than different..."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cg6ytL8UoAApLwu?format=jpg&name=900x900 [twimg.com]
"We are 99.9% the same [genetically]"
Related by Eleanor Roosevelt: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/65731/65731-h/65731-h.htm [gutenberg.org]
"When we once control ourselves and submit personal differences to constituted authorities for settlement, we can say that we have a will to peace between individuals. Before we come to the question of what may be the technique between nations, however, we must go a step farther and set our national house in order. On every hand we see today miniature wars going on between conflicting interests. As the example most constantly before us, take capital and labor. If their difficulties are settled by arbitration and no blood is shed, we can feel we have made real strides towards approaching our international problems. We are not prepared to do this, however, when two factions in a group having the same basic interests cannot come to an agreement between themselves. Their ability to obtain what they desire is greatly weakened until they can reach an understanding and work as a unit. The basis of this understanding should not be hard to reach if the different personalities involved could forget themselves as individuals and think only of the objectives in view, and of the best way to obtain them."
And also: "We can establish no real trust between nations until we acknowledge the power of love above all other power. We cannot cast out fear and therefore we cannot build up trust. Perfectly obvious and perfectly true, but we are back again to our fundamental difficulty—the education of the individual human being, and that takes time. We cannot sit around a table and discuss our difficulties until we are able to state them frankly. We must feel that those who listen wish to get at the truth and desire to do what is best for all. We must reach a point where we can recognize the rights and needs of others, as well as our own rights and needs."
So much of modern civilization and its benefits are built on cooperation. Life without a high degree of trust is very expensive (e.g. how much would it cost to guard every mile of telephone wire and power transmission line in the USA). The history you're reading, and probably the ancestry from which you descend, is from communities where there was a high degree of cooperation and trust. And the question then is how much are we willing to extend that cooperation and trust beyond our immediate surroundings? And what can be done to make that more likely?
A deeper question is how do you get people to decide or learn to be part of a civilization given costs and benefits?
A related point by Ray Dalio on cycles of competition and cooperation:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/archetypical-cycle-internal-order-disorder-ray-dalio/?trackingId=W0t5Mj1%2BS6OoPlWAHctgMQ%3D%3D [linkedin.com]
"I saw that when these struggles took the form of healthy competition that encouraged human energy to be put into productive activities, they produced productive internal orders and prosperous times and when those energies took the form of destructive internal fighting, they produced internal disorder and painfully difficult times. I saw why the swings between productive order and destructive disorder typically evolved in cycles driven by logical cause/effect relationships and how they happen in all countries for mostly the same reasons. I saw that those who rose to achieve greatness did so because of a confluence of key forces coming together to produce that greatness and those who declined did so because these forces dissipated. ... Yet, I saw how most people thought, and still think, that it is implausible that they will experience a period that is more opposite than similar to that which they have experienced. That is because the really big boom periods and really big depression/revolution periods come along about once in a lifetime, and once-in-a-lifetime experiences are naturally surprising…and because the swings between great and terrible times tend to be far apart, the futures we encounter are more likely to be more opposite than similar to those that we had and expect."
So, this is all a complex topic. And it is made even more complex by the point in my sig, which others have made in various ways, that, said in another way, "The only thing we have to fear is scarcity-fearing fools misusing plenty-providing tools". And that is because, as in you original point, the "other" tends only to be a significant threat these days if they have access to advanced technology -- the same sorts of technology (advanced materials, chemistry, computing, robotics, energy, information, etc.) that in general could easily produce abundance for all, and it is ironic if people create artificial scarcity by using such advanced technologies of abundance from a perspective of scarcity fears.
The ability for a small percentage of the human population to wipe out everyone through bioengineered plagues or through nuclear weapons or through other means may mean the end of the cycles Ray Dalio mentions for good or bad. As Buckminster Fuller said:
https://davidhoule.com/fork-in-the-road/2020/10/12/utopia-or-oblivion [davidhoule.com]
"Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment… Humanity is in a final exam as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in the Universe."
Amory Lovins argues essentially that solar energy and other renewables and energy efficiency were cheaper than fossil fuels since the 1970s, but government policy to not account for externalities like pollution or defense costs made fossil fuels up front costs seem cheaper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power [wikipedia.org]
"According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, and is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy. In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current."
Who were the "groups" involved in that political decision making? And where were they located? And how were their social boundaries?
As another example, how did the world-wide effort to make less-expensive solar panels fit into an "our group vs. their group" model?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_panel#Price [wikipedia.org]
"The price of solar electrical power has continued to fall so that in many countries it has become cheaper than ordinary fossil fuel electricity from the electricity grid since 2012, a phenomenon known as grid parity."
See also Alfie Kohn's "The Case Against Competiton":
https://www.alfiekohn.org/contest/ [alfiekohn.org]
"No Contest, which has been stirring up controversy since its publication in 1986, stands as the definitive critique of competition. Drawing from hundreds of studies, Alfie Kohn eloquently argues that our struggle to defeat each other — at work, at school, at play, and at home — turns all of us into losers. Contrary to the myths with which we have been raised, Kohn shows that competition is not an inevitable part of “human nature.” It does not motivate us to do our best (in fact, the reason our workplaces and schools are in trouble is that they value competitiveness instead of excellence.) Rather than building character, competition sabotages self-esteem and ruins relationships. It even warps recreation by turning the playing field into a battlefield. No Contest makes a powerful case that “healthy competition” is a contradiction in terms. Because any win/lose arrangement is undesirable, we will have to restructure our institutions for the benefit of ourselves, our children, and our society."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by Socrastotle on Monday July 05 2021, @03:49PM
One of my favorite quotes comes from Mark Twain. And it's one still frequently fall afoul of, but is always one to keep in mind: "I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have time to write a short one." I believe I understand what you're trying to convey, but it's all over the place and I feel any given point is subject to debate on its own.
But I might respond with something much more succinct. The difficulty in defining porn does not mean it does not exist.