In mimetic theory, romantic lies are the beliefs we have about the origins of our desires, resting on the assumption that our choices are entirely autonomous, independent, and self-directed. The lie, as Luke Burgis puts it, is that we choose our wants from some secret chamber in our hearts. Someone under the power of the romantic lie never thinks of their behavior as mimetic, yet most of us make choices according to the desires of others — we want what other people want.
When it comes to old age and death, we embrace the romantic lie that the best response is acceptance or even appreciation. There would be no urgency to life without death and no value to health without decrepitude, the argument goes. We even claim that wanting to stay healthy indefinitely is futile and that aging is part of the natural course of life; all confabulations to explain our romantic lie.
Sadly, regardless of how much we pretend not to care, we care. Our desire for health and youth as well as our fear of old age drive trillions of dollars of spending annually, and define a vast swath of our daily actions behind the scenes. We buy skincare care products so our skin looks indefinitely youthful and spend millions for mere months of low-quality life when given a terminal prognosis. We even do surgery to hide our age; nobody goes under the knife to look older.
And we care for good reason. When we fall in love and say ‘Until Death Do Us Part,’ we picture ourselves in love and perfect health; we do not picture the old man who can’t move nor recognize his wife. We see our grandparents age, our parents age, and the dark side of it all, the suffering inflicted on individuals and their loved ones because somebody managed to live longer than 80 years old.
It’s the heart of the Big Lie; we romanticize old age publicly yet privately engage in a silent all-out war against it. In fact, graceful aging is an oxymoron that sugarcoats the frailty, loneliness, pain and decrepitude that awaits 99% of us. Sadly, by refusing to publicly identify aging and death for what they are, we make it impossible to galvanize the resources needed to make faster progress in stopping them. Instead, the silent all-out war funnels trillions to a sick-care system which doesn’t address aging as the root cause of disease, and to snake oil companies or purely cosmetic interventions. This leaves real research into the root causes of aging woefully underfunded.
Challenging the Big Lie
“But he has nothing on at all!”
-Hans Christian Andersen (The Emperor’s New Clothes)
In the past, regardless of how wealthy you were, you still didn’t have access to electricity, vaccines, antibiotics and many things we now take for granted. The same is true of aging today. Future generations will look back at us and say regardless of how wealthy and healthy you were; your body broke down with old age.
But challenging a deeply held meme is very risky. The subject triggers strong feelings and even aggression from some, eager to protect the meme they attached their identity to. Such people may say “they want to age gracefully” but don’t define what that means. They certainly don’t mean suffering dementia, muscle loss and aging-caused conditions. Some even write off the entire field as fake science without researching the actual science.
It’s thus no surprise that calling out the Big Lie carries serious social and professional costs. Those who say that instead of cosmetics and sick-care we should dedicate trillions to the root causes of aging are often ostracized and derided, trivialized as exaggerators or worse.
Despite these challenges, science has shown major advances since the 90s. In ’93, Cynthia Kenyon first doubled the lifespan of c.elegans by modifying a single gene, and today we can extend healthy lifespans of mammals by 40% or more, an unthinkable feat only 20 years ago. Yet only few are aware of the real progress in aging biology and the number of those working in the field is even smaller, at ~5,000. It’s hard to blame most people; aging is the last thing on their mind as they struggle with daily life. And once they integrate the Big Lie into their identity they defend it reflexively.
Today, a small but determined aging biology field is working hard to challenge the Big Lie. They have already found potential methods to slow down aging, but could be moving a lot more faster. The field needs more scientists, more founders, more writers, more podcasts, more engineers, more investments, more lobbyists, more of everything. If you’re reading this but don’t dedicate any time or net worth to the matter of aging, please remember it’s you the field needs.
The more we call out the Big Lie, the more people will realize it’s time to stop pretending aging and death are good or inevitable and instead do something. Managing to live past 80 years shouldn’t be a death sentence or a burden. Mimetic theory posits that mimetic desire leads to natural rivalry and eventually to scapegoating- the moment when societies unify their imitative desires around the destruction of an agreed-upon scapegoat. Mother nature was the scapegoat when it came to aging; we’ve blamed her for centuries. Now that we know we can do something about it, aging can become the scapegoat. It’ll take all of us to get rid of it.
How can you help?
Things you can do with time and almost no money:
- Read about Aging(read Lifespan, Ending Aging & Age Later to start)
- Become a researcher
- Join a community (e.g On Deck Longevity Biotech, VitaDAO)
- Consume and share longevity related content (e.g The Sheekey Science Show, Live Longer World, Lifespan Podcast)
- Join a company
- Volunteer to support efforts
Things you can do with money and almost no time:
- Invest in startups
- Buy VITA
- Support other doers on Patreon (e.g Longhack)
- Invest in specific research initiatives (e.g Impetus grants, Dog Aging Project)
- Invest in longevity focused funds (e.g Longevity Fund, Healthspan Capital)
Like Steve Jobs said, we’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else even be here? This is an opportunity for all of us to change the course of history, join the battle.
Co-authored with Adam Gries.
