Mice And Men

I am thinking about Lazarus Long in Robert Heinlein's Future History, Volume IV, Methuselah's Children, and about Hanno and his fellow immortals in Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years. These guys are un-aging mutants without benefit of any artificial antiagathics, antisenescence, antithanatics etc. If there are any such people in our world, then they wisely conceal their longevity from the rest of us as do the fictional characters. When Hanno reveals his nature to Cardinal Richelieu, the latter prudently/pragmatically judges that public knowledge of the existence of even one un-aging individual would further destabilize an already unstable civilization. When, during the general social liberation after the Second American Revolution, Heinlein's Howard Families go public about their longevity, they are persecuted. Social liberation is temporarily thrown into reverse until a way is found to rejuvenate people by putting artificial blood into their veins. Andrea tells me that there has recently been some research in this direction.

I did not blog this afternoon because I was visiting Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop. However, conversation with Andrea usually discloses information relevant to this blog. He informed me that, with a single injection, scientists have reversed aging in mice and that human beings might be next. This is inherently a good thing but what might be its consequences in the current deteriorating world situation where even good news might be bad?