Engineering An End to Aging 986
Reason writes "Biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey has put forward a biological engineering plan to end human aging and co-founded the Methuselah Mouse Prize in recent years. Now he is finally getting some of the public recognition he deserves in an excellent David Stipp article at Fortune Magazine. If you ever wondered exactly how to go about engineering away the 50 million deaths due to aging that occur each and every year - and how to bring about a sea change in the scientific establishment - then this is the place to start. As an added bonus, I don't think you'll find a more succinct (and utterly British) answer to overpopulation objections to life extension than the one at the end of this article!"
some one has to say (do) it. (Score:5, Funny)
http://hhgproject.org/entries/wowbagger.html
Re:some one has to say (do) it. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:some one has to say (do) it. (Score:5, Funny)
C'mon, if you gonna do it, do it right: but wood you learn to spell if you were board?
Re:some one has to say (do) it. (Score:5, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, YOU are the Knothead!
I am just afraid... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I am just afraid... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I am just afraid... (Score:4, Funny)
"Whatever, you do your thing, I'll do mine. Y'know. Whatever. You're the stupid one. Think you're gonna live forever? Nope. Someone'll kill ya. Someone'll kill ya with a knife. Sorry, that's just the way it is."
-Carl, ATHF
Re:I am just afraid... (Score:5, Funny)
Roy: Death.
Tyrell: Death. Well, I'm afraid that's a little out of my jurisdiction, you--
Roy: I want more life, fucker.
Tyrell: The facts of life. To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established.
Roy: Why not?
Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutations give rise to revertant colonies like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then the ship sinks.
Roy: What about EMS recombination.
Tyrell: We've already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent and potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.
Roy: Then a repressive protein that blocks the operating cells.
Tyrell: Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication so that the newly formed DNA strand carries the mutation and you've got a virus again. But, uh, this-- all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.
Roy: But not to last.
Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very very brightly, Roy. Look at you. You're the prodigal son. You're quite a prize!
Off with their balls! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Off with their balls! (Score:5, Funny)
That's the roaches and rats, dude. Time to get a maid I thinks.
This is cute, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice to think science will hold all the answers to everything, as (at least the USA) is obsessed with looking/staying young, but does anyone else see this as not realistic? Anyone else think that just staying as healthy and active as you can is the best way to go, rather than literally hoping for a miracle?
Re:This is cute, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is cute, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is cute, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I may get flamed for this, but I'll say it anyway...This is why obesety is a problem in the U.S. People look for that miracle drug or easy-out diet that they can just "do" and see results that will last them a lifetime. The results from such things may last their lifetime, albeit perhaps shorter that it may have been if they made a lifestyle change. Keeping healthy and fit is not something meant to be done for short spurts throughout your life where you lose weight, gain it back, lose it again, etc. like a yo-yo. The key to successfully keeping your weight under control is to make a change that you'll keep for life and not tire of in a few months/years.
Want to follow the Atkins Diet? Fine, but can you see yourself doing it for the rest of your life? If so, and it works for you, great! Stick with it! The key is sticking with something. Personally I may see people chomping on a T-Bone steak for breakfast and it makes me want to hurl, and I have a really hard time believing they'll stick with that for more than a couple years. Then again, some people with overeating issues may find the thought of never drinking sugary sodas ever again in their lives be impossible to imagine.
The thing is, if they find some miracle drug that staves off aging, it'll just make it much easier for something else to kill people off, as it'll just be another excuse for people not to want/have to keep fit and healthy. And can you imagine the costs of healthcare and food with an overpopulated world of unhealthy, overweight people?
Re:This is cute, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is a rebuttle from one (myself) who ardently supports what Aubrey de Grey is trying to accomplish, in reference to the likes of you "(insert label here) is waiting for a miricle drug" people:
I will simply quote George Carlin (one of his Self-Help book ideas)- "Eat right, stay fit, die anyway"
Re:This is cute, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Staying on Atkins for any length of time longer than months is a Very Bad Idea. IANA nutritional scientist, but I know that when you get most of your energy form metabolizing protien, ketones build up in your bloodstream. These are very bad chemicals that do damage to organs. You want to get the bulk of your energy from complex carbohydrates. Here's the Mr. Neutron Plan for Pysical Fitness:
1. Get rid of refined simple sugars and starches. Eat reasonable amounts of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables instead. /.), meaning you'll burn fat faster.
2. Get rid of saturated fats - especially artificially hydrogenated oils, which are mucho bad for you.
3. Eat three reasonable meals a day. Find out what is reasonable for you. Eat meat, fish, and eggs (or soy if you're vegan) in decent amounts. You need these to keep muscle tissue.
4. Quit snacks. Period. Learn to live on your three meals a day, with the *occasional* treat.
5. Exercise. At least 30 minutes of strenuous exercise, three times a week. By strenuous, I mean you should have enough breath to carry on a conversation, but not enough to sing. If you know how, strength train three times a week. This is especially helpful for guys, as we tend to put on muscle mass easily. More muscle mass means a higher metobolic rate (even when sitting at a desk reading
Try this for several months to a year, and see if you can reach your desired shape. If you do this for a year, and can't get where you want to be, resign yourself to the shape you have. Remember that you have done some great things for your health, and that is more important than a number on a scale. At this point, you can add the snacks back in - even the occasional sugary or fatty treat - but keep this routine going as a lifestyle. It would be very hard not to be healthy if you are eating right and exercising.
Re:This is cute, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Ok, so it's the fat metabolism that does it... (like I said, I'm not a nutritional scientist), but the point is, your body is thrown into a state of ketosis (http://atkins.com/helpatkins/newfaq/answers/Since StartingTheAtkinsProgramIHaveBadBreath.html) Ketosis is GREAT for weight-loss. You con your body into feeding off its own fat. But like I said, you don't want to be on this for the *long term*. A "low carb lifestyle" is NOT healthy.
Would you mind providing a reference for the "Ketoines cause organ damage"-claim, or would that spoil the fun?
http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId= 342&fArticleId=255925
"Ketosis happens when the body needs glucose to fuel its processes, and can't get it from its usual source - carbohydrates. The body has a back-up mechanism that turns to stored fat or protein to produce the glucose, by going into a state called ketosis.
The problem with ketosis is that its by-products are toxic to the body in excess.
Ketogenic diets have been implicated in causing not only halitosis (bad breath), but also cancer, heart disease, kidney ailments and brittle bones.
no (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:no (Score:5, Informative)
IANAG, but I am a MD.
Those things are called telomeres, they shorten in most cells with each copying of the DNA. Except that in germ (reproductive) cells there are telomerases, which re-lenghten the telomeres.
Problem solved right, just turn on your telomerases? wrong, cancer does that....
Read more at Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Re:no (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, "turning on the telomerases" is closer to a possible solution than you claim. I wish I could find the article again (if anyone else can, please post), but I can't, so here's the summary: A group of scientists took a worm and messed with its genes so that it constantly made telomerase. The worm was supposed to have a life span of 2 weeks (this was not a garden worm, but some kind of funny roundworm or something). After 1 year, it still appeared normal and healthy. It is quite possible that telomerase will do this sort of thing to other organisms too, but there are ethical questions that need to be resolved before we do testing on humans.
In response to your quip about cancer, yes, cancer cells constantly produce telomerase. This is why cancer can continue to grow and not die off (indeed, you can even get certain decades-old cancer strains in biological catalogues). However, this only keeps cancer cells from growing frail and losing important genes. The part that makes them grow and divide at a malicious rate is unrelated. This has to do with a protein called p53. p53 usually just sits around, but when a cell exhibits certain cancerous behaviors, p53 lyses (kills) it. In cancer cells, the gene that makes p53 no longer works (either it has been disabled, or it has a mutation in it that causes it to no longer make p53). This is why cancer cells are harmful - they do not stop replicating. This has almost nothing to do with telomerase. The telomerase just keeps the genes in the cancer cells (and in regular cells too) healthy. Indeed, all cells have a little telomerase in them, but not enough to completely repair the telomeres after the DNA has been copied.
Re:no (Score:3, Informative)
I believe theyre called telomeres(sp?)
Re:no (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is cute, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy's theory is that regular biological processes in our bodies leave behind various contaminants or whatever, and need to be cleaned out occassionally. This seems perfectly reasonable to me, but it doesn't mean you can neglect taking regular care of your body (eating right, etc.), just like replacing an engine's piston rings isn't going to help much when you tried running it without oil.
Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
The mouse winner played the Free Radical game. This is _NOT_ Healthy living. If you did this, you wouldn't be strong enough to walk, and barely enough to bring air into your lungs.
There are people out there that count their calories so closely they can perdict a 5yr added life bonus by decreasing the amount of waste products metabolism produces. Many are now suffering from delbitating illness like Osteoporosis.
So yes, Science does hold the answers to everything. It's not a miracle, it's _science_. We're a machine, we can be maintained like one.
Re:This is cute, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why, exactly, is death a problem? Just pause a moment and really think about why death is a problem, for you.
Life doesn't work without death. In the end, that fact should be very life-affirming and comforting to you. Look around outside and realize that even horrible deaths contribute inifnitely to the natural world.
People weren't meant to live in fear of death.
Re:This is cute, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe to you. Death is a problem for me because I enjoy life so very much. Death will put a very definite and wholly unwelcomed end to the fun. So far, my life is working just great without death, and I'd like to keep it that way. Do I fear death? NO. I resent it.
I know full well that immortality is impossible, given entropy. That pisses me off. But if longevity is the best the universe has to offer, give me the maximum. I take first rate care of the equipment (at 51, I can still run a mile under 6 minutes, bench my body weight for reps, and cycle all day at 18 mph avg in rolling country), so I think it's perfectly reasonable for me to hold biomedical scientists responsible for doing their part to keep me alive and healthy at least long enough to get tired of it. "Accepting death" is a defeatist attitude that I just cannot abide.
(uh-oh...I seem to have gotten a little worked up)
In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bingo. It seems like there are always people who whine every time the subject of immortality comes up -- overpopulation, interfering with the divine plan, or just, "I wouldn't want to live forever. I'd get bored." To which the proper answer is: you can always die. If you feel that you're selfishly using up too much of the planet's resources, or that God doesn't want you to live past a certain age, or the ennui of your endless existence is too much to bear (oh, the angst!), fine -- please kill yourself now.
But of course people don't do this, because it is inherent in the nature of life to want to live. People who think a 200- or 1000- or 50000-year lifespan is nightmarish will still struggle, at the end of their lives, to hold on to whatever years or months or even days of life they have left. We rage against the dying of the light because the urge to live is part of our every cell.
So, for those of you who think this kind of research is a terrible thing, an affront to God and man -- please go off somewhere to die quietly. And those of us who choose to live will drink a toast on your graves.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Engineering a new planet? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Engineering a new planet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh. But the threat of immortality might not make it all that crowded.
Some years back, I read of an interesting study. The question was phrased as: Assuming that people's bodies could be kept at the 20-year-old state indefinitely. All diseases, accidents, violence, etc would happen to you with the probability of a 20-year-old. Consulting medical and actuarial databases, how many years would this add to the mean lifespan?
The answer turned out to be about 15 years.
The primary observation was that, while older people are on the average more susceptible to such things than younger people, the difference isn't all that great. Making your body "immortal" wouldn't make you immune to death from the things that kill you now. It would just increase somewhat your chances of surviving. An auto accident, gunshot, or HIV virus would still end a life, but maybe just a bit later than now.
To get a real change and a population problem from immortality, we'd also need many social changes that blocked all the things that are now quite effective at killing young people.
15 years? More like 800 years. (Score:4, Informative)
I don't believe that "15 year" answer, so I looked at a mortality table and did the math myself. I came up with an estimate of 800 years.
The acturial tables that you want are called mortality tables. Here is a collection of them from the American National Center for Health Statistics.
NCHS Data Warehouse [cdc.gov]
Going to the first table, death rates by age, the death rate for 15-24 year olds is 80.7 per 100,000 (all states, 2001).
This means that in the year 2001, in this population group, for each 100,000 people, 99,919.3 of people of these ages lived, and 80.7 of them died.
Or, to scale it down: start with 1000 people. In a year, 1 person dies, and 999 live. What's the average life span of that population? It's a hell of a lot longer than "15 more than normal 60 or so"!
A quick calculation, log(0.5)/log(0.999193)), shows that the median life expectancy of a "perpetual 20 year old", would be 858 more years. That is, if you had 100,000 of these perpetual 20 year olds, after 858 years, 50,000 of them would still be alive.
Calculating average is a bit trickier and I'll leave it alone.
The primary observation was that, while older people are on the average more susceptible to such things than younger people, the difference isn't all that great.
Oh yes it is.
ALL AGES: 848.5
0-1 year: 683.4
1-4 years: 33.3
5-14 years: 17.3
15-24 years: 80.7
25-34 years: 105.2
35-44 years: 203.6
45-54 years: 428.9
55-64 years: 964.6
65-74 years: 2,353.3
75-84 years: 5,582.4
85+ years: 15,112.8
A 50 year old has 5 times the chance of dying as a 20 year old. A 60 year old has 12 times the chance of dying as a 20 year old.
NCHS has lots of interesting tables like these; or you can google for "mortality table" and get tables from other sources, too.
wouldn't that make baby Jesus cry? (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, but I don't think theists see it that way. Catholics and many other mainstream religions would probably consider refusing this type of medical care as suicide. The theory seems to be that God gave you this life and it would be ungrateful of you to throw away that gift. When God wants you to die, he will see to it.
I think many would feel that they had an
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:3, Funny)
Talk about a generation gap!
If I was telling my children "when I was your age, a hundred years ago ...", I'd expect them to end my aging process with a weapon.
Re:Eggs? (Score:4, Informative)
Very recently, this was shown to be false [newscientist.com], at least for mice. But everyone now confidently expects to find similar results in humans.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever the subject of interfering with nature / the divine plan comes up, I refer to this response which I heard one day in an interview: the single development in recorded history which has most vastly extended lifespans was the invention of the toilet... yet you don't hear people going around debating the morality of having toilets.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:5, Funny)
you don't hear people going around debating the morality of having toilets.
Speke for ye selfe. I tosse me shite out the windoe as olde tymes. This I wolde beseche thee hertely, rid ye selves of the infernal toilets! To be carnally mynded is to be emnyte agaynst God! Look ye and fynde how bleste to lyve. [ebay.com]
-
That's great if you only care about yourself... (Score:4, Insightful)
The real reason is because this totally turns the natural order of things upside-fucking-down which will likely be to our detriment. If you only care about yourself as is human nature (and particularly reinforced by individualistic American values) then fine, try to live forever. But as far as our species is concerned, living forever is not necessarily the most advantageous. Of course no one can see all ends, but consider:
People living forever means less need for kids, which slows down evolution. Do we want to be strictly responsible for our own genetics? How do we identify practical genetic defects if we never die? Our existence as a species will then be dependent on the survival of a highly technological civilization which is far from guaranteed.
Take away the motivation of a limited lifespan and suddenly everything seems a lot less urgent. Motivation to learn, motivation to find the meaning of life, motivation to accomplish something. After all, you can always do it later.
How does the human brain develop at such extreme ages? We all know that people are shaped by childhood experience, and that many old people are set in their ways. With a huge population who 'have it all figured out' how will we continue to make progress? Periodic lobotomies?
I'm all for extending life through healthier living, but the quest for the fountain of youth is an egotistical obsession stemming from the fear of death. Personally I refuse to let the fear of death drive me to radical genetic techniques to extend the inevitable. I don't want to be some kind of artifically-preserved shell of a human, and I don't think anybody should want to (though I wouldn't stop them). What people need nowadays (in America anyway) is acceptance of the fact that we can't control everything. The best you can do is live your life well, make good decisions, and hopefully fate will be kind.
Re:That's great if you only care about yourself... (Score:4, Insightful)
Evolution holds little relevance to humans today. Those with genetic disorders are fixed through medicine. Those with "undesireable" traits are given enough beneficial environment to counter them (eyeglasses, dyslexia, autism; yes I know these may/may not have genetic components). There is little to no natural selection any more. I won't even get into the whole "stupid people breed more" argument, but it's been said on /. before.
Take away the motivation of a limited lifespan and suddenly everything seems a lot less urgent.
You may have a point there. It's been argued before, and it may or may not have merit. Is Niven's vision correct, or is Asimov's? Will octagenarians become more flexible when they realize that 80 is not really old? That 800 is not even all that old? How much of that inflexibility is the result of the knowledge that death is near? How much is from biological/biochemical processes associated with aging? How much is associated with the accumulation of years on the mind? We really don't know, and can't know until it is tried and observed.
What people need nowadays (in America anyway) is acceptance of the fact that we can't control everything.
Says who? God? Fate? The Universe? Sure, there are things we can't comtrol right now, and there *may* be some things we can *never* control. However, there is no way of knowing that until you try to control them. Otherwise, it's just an assumption with no basis.
I have no fear of death, but I will be dead for billions of years. I'm in no hurry. Life is short. Even a thousand years is short compared to eternity. Fear of becoming an "artifically-preserved shell of a human" is based on assumption as well. We have absolutely no idea what the mental makeup of a 200 year old person would be, much less an 800 year old.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:5, Funny)
Heh. You've got a point. Oh well, if aging turns out to be curable, maybe stupidity will too.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh well, if aging turns out to be curable, maybe stupidity will too. ;)
That one's easy - give them power tools.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:3, Insightful)
IQ is a very limited measure of a person's value to society. In fact, in my experience, the most socially valuable individuals tend to be found closer to the mean. I say this as a (lapsed) Triple-9 member.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:5, Funny)
Cull the bottom 75% by physical beauty and then just rule over them.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:3, Interesting)
FWIW, I don't think anyone is expecting a magic pill that turns off the aging proc
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Job applications of the future (Score:5, Funny)
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Job applications of the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Or a person could spend 50 years in a career, then take 5-10 off and learn something entirely new, then start a career there. Think about all the benefits that could come from that sort of inter-disciplinary work? What might someone who's been a chef, a writer, a materials engineer, and a chemist bring to a new job?
Re:Job applications of the future (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Job applications of the future (Score:3, Interesting)
As with anything else, solving one issue (aging) raises even more (health care?!?!, memory, b
Memory limitations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Memory limitations (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Job applications of the future (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Job applications of the future (Score:5, Funny)
1964 Slashdot: "If we're still using COBOL 40 years from now, then you can keep your age-extension drugs!"
for one thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:for one thing (Score:5, Informative)
Live longer now (Score:5, Interesting)
Happy Trails!
Erick
Um, not quite (Score:3, Informative)
More than a few of those centennarians in Russia.. are not centennarians. Quite a few lied about their ages to avoid military conscription during Stalin's day.
As for the Chinese, well, there may be a similar argument there, not sure.
The Guinness Book is loathe to accept records for longevity for the larger reason. Lack of reliable evidence makes claims to longevity ripe for fraud. Think of how unreliable record-keeping must have been in various parts of the world over 100 years ago. Or how many record
murder rate will sky rocket (Score:5, Funny)
1) Wives will just get tired of thier husbands if they have to live together that long and vice versa.
2)If people won't just die on their own then someone will end up killing them. Right now, we at least have the feeling that some peopel will just die someday.
3)If you have my neighbors for that long of a time you might kill them too.
CMX-1152 / ependymin / ROHLEN (Score:3, Informative)
Re:CMX-1152 / ependymin / ROHLEN (Score:3, Informative)
As a starting point for something better tolerated, however, I agree it looks very promising.
Ray Kurzweil... (Score:5, Interesting)
Low Caloric Diets (Score:4, Interesting)
spam (Score:3, Funny)
Entropy will win (Score:5, Interesting)
The only total solution I see is some kind of nanoprobes that cleans up DNA/RNA errors in potentially each and every cell. Only then we can turn up the metabolism to 20-year-old levels. But, that is a long way off.
Re:Entropy will win (Score:5, Interesting)
Heinlein... (Score:3, Funny)
Basically, you look for people who have all four original grandparents still living, and encourage them to breed with each other. Money was the incentive used.
But then, his concept required that you start the project in the 1800s. Today, I imagine you'd probably look for people with all eight great-grandparents surviving.
I'm currently 58 years old and I'm not bored.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people would look forward to a longer life because they find some meaning in their lives and others, I am sure, don't and probably would not partake of these treatments. I suggest that you folks who are not familiar with Robert A. Heinlein's novels several of which concern, among other things, longevity issues. Take a look at "Time Enough for Love"(1973).
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Re:I'm currently 58 years old and I'm not bored.. (Score:3, Funny)
a.) 58
and
b.) not bored
that begs the question.. what are you doing here?
If there is evera formula to end the aging process (Score:3, Insightful)
The last thing we need are for the idiots to live forever.
Overpopulation isn't the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem is that our society would collapse from corruption. It's a pretty simple formula. Powerful people maintain their power by maintaining the status quo. The more powerful a person is, the stronger their grip on the status quo. These people purposely manipulate the opinions of the less powerful people (via control of the media and other less well-publicised means) in order to do this, and we generally fall for it pretty readily.
The only serious mechanism for social change is the death of the powerful. If death stopped being inevitable, then the rich and powerful would be the first ones to get that technology.
At that point, the only means for social change would become bloody revolution. Finding and killing the methuselas would become an obscession for anyone who wanted to change things for the better (or even at all).
I think that that world is inevitable, but I don't look forward to it.
Re:Overpopulation isn't the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, what you mention also smacks of class warfare, which isn't nearly as prevalent as Marx thought so.
Regarding non-charismatic dictatorships (Score:4, Interesting)
1. The kid doesn't know how to weild the power and loses respect.
2. The kid disagrees with the parent about how power should be weilded.
3. Power is divided among several siblings (this is especially true about money), and some of it is lost due to lack of appreciation for it.
Of course, none of that stopped the Plantagenets from ruling England for over two hundred and fifty years, but I suspect that immortality would have extended this reign, probably to the current day.
(Shamelessly ripped off from The Onion) (Score:5, Funny)
World Death Rate Remains Steady at 100%
World Death Rate, Annual
------------------------
2004 (est) 100.00%
2003 100.00%
2002 100.00%
2001 100.00%
2000 100.00%
Source: USA Today
Death certificate never says "due to aging" (Score:3, Interesting)
Reference to a previous /. story (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a link... [slashdot.org]
And a link to the current site of bioethics.gov's views on aging retardation. [bioethics.gov]
Longer Lives = A Better World (Score:4, Interesting)
By the time we realize it, life is over, and we need to hunker down to prepare for uncertain health in old age.
I wonder what the world would be like if my grandparents were still around and healthy and vibrant as say.. 40 year olds? I wonder what the world would be like if the wisdom and compassion that accumulates with age was allowed to be expressed by vibrant and energetic elderly instead of being locked up in the shadows we become?
Really what we are talking about here a child understands and we fatalistically complicate things with our hopelessness that anything can be done about aging..
Life is good.
Death is bad
and anyone who suggests that the suffering and death of millions is desirable and that the "negative" changes to our world that would come about by extending life couldn't be dealt with should take a real hard look at what they are saying...From what I've been able to see so far.. our world could do with a few changes.
br
Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally have no problem with people from Japan.
My grandfather disliked them, he lost a borther in WW2
My grandfather is dead.
If he lived to be 2,000 years would he ever get over this?
Would the Japanense who dislike Americas for the atmoic bomb ever get over it?
Death solves many problem including this one.
Re:Bias (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps if human life was eternal, we would be less inclined to drop atomic bombs. In a strange sort of way, I think the value of life becomes more important when people live forever. Kill someone now and you take away 60 years, kill someone in the future and you have stolen an eternity.
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
Wow, that is hilarious! (Score:5, Funny)
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Those crazy Brits!
5000 years? I think not (Score:5, Insightful)
Immortality requires a certain mindset (Score:5, Insightful)
For an immortal, the consequences of any short-sighted decision WILL come to roost. Live your life exploiting other people? You WILL have to deal with those people, or their offspring later in life. (Or you WILL sooner or later make someone made enough to kill you.) Have a propensity for collecting junk? After a few hundred years, you are going to have a mountian of trash to clean up.
To an immortal, what you are paying at the pump right now doesn't mean squat. It's will the CO2 your Taho is shooting in the air flood his beach house in 100 years. Taxes today don't matter as much as the economic chaos that decades of deficit spending will cause.
To be an immortal requires a set of ethics that Jesus and Lao Tsu would be proud of. And it's not out of "goodness", it's out of self-preservation.
Re:Don't (Score:4, Interesting)
Just being old doesn't kill relatively that many people -- accidents, cancer, suicide, abuse of your body (smoking, drinking, etc) and other mortality factors knock off most people before they manage to linger into their triple digits in some retirement home.
Re:Don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, how's that for not reading the article? The blurb even says it has his comments on the "overpopulation" argument. My view is: how in the FUCK will cloning or anti-aging have any MEASURABLE effect on population? I'ts the babies, man, and it's the babies of the pre-developing and developing countries in particular, which drive the population growth. Cloning and anti-ag
Re:Don't (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Don't (Score:3, Interesting)
India, China and a Muslim super-state if they ever create one. Mostly it's European and Euro-American birthrates that are declining. China's population would explode aga
Re:Don't (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, maybe some of us have read it and find the arguments unconvincing? Don't just uncritically accept everything you read.
He doesn't even address the overpopulation argument, he just points out what we lose from natural death. And he doesn't say where he gets his figures. When most people die we don't lose any valuable information. And he seems to assume that the person's assets ar
Re:Don't (Score:4, Funny)
Simple solution: Annual Free Motorcycle day!
That'll take care of that overpopulation problem in a jiffy!
Re:Don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? You are worried about your grandkids having problems with overpopulation? Are you "white" or of some european decent? You shouldn't be worried about overpopulation then, because people of european decent are dying out. Russians, Europeans, and Americans of European decent are all having less and less children.
While health care is better than it was 50 years ago, that doesn't make up for only having 1 or 2 children instead of 5 or 6. Reasons for less children are many, and they aren't going away. Things such as greater access to birth control, and social security (and such programs) to care for the elderly, etc. As populations move twards a western lifestyle, they reproduce less. There will be a breaking point in many countries when the old people who can no longer work need to be supported by a generation of young people half their size. This will in fact break socialism, social security, or whatever program the governments are using to take care of the elderly. The only solutions are mass immigration or a plague. Look at how the US is opening up it's borders despite it's terrorism problem.
If there is a scientific way to keep people from the effects of aging, it should be pursued so elderly people can still support themselves.
Re:Don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Porn is going to encourage people to have children? Now there is a backwards through if I ever saw one. The problem isn't a lack of sexual desire.
And you also forgot another one - late interest in children.
I didn't want to make a 5 page post out of it. There are several reasons for a population implosion. Late interest in children due to working mothers is one, another is lack of religon, lack of agriculture (no need for 10 kids to work the farm), de-valuation of the family unit, female liberation, increased acceptance of homosexuality, etc. That isn't even getting into increases in impotence, or people just choosing not to have children. I'm not saying these are all bad things, what I am saying is that western culture could bring about it's own death which would be sad.
Here's a thought experiment for you - what if it's not that people don't want children, but that people want children later in life?
that is only one small piece of the problem.
Fertility drops off significantly in the 40s,
Only for women.
so convolving the dropping fertility with a shift in the age at which people want children will naturally lead to a lower birth rate. The total number of average *desired* children might not be changing at all.
Ok, so say women can have babies until they are 50. I still don't think that will make a large difference in the grand scheme of things. It wont change 1.5 million abortions a year in the US alone, or how many children aren't born because of birth control. Again, I'm not saying these are bad things socially, but the are leading the US to a shrinking population.
But then what happens when science is able to significantly improve the fertility of those in their 40s? A boom happens all over again.
Unlikely. How many children are they going to have at 40? 1? Not only do you have to improve a women's chance to become pregnant, you have to do something about the greater miscarrage rate women have over 35.
Like I said, it's a little naive to say that the birth rate trend won't change. They thought this back in the 80s, as well. I'm sure they had just as impressive reasons
No, they didn't. Their reasoning was "People are fucking, people are going to continue to fuck". Sorry to put it so bluntly, but that was about the extent of it. I don't think in the 70's when "the population bomb" (or whatever the book was named) came out that they put much thought into what role abortion or womens rights might play with the population.
as we have for believing that the birth rate will continue along its (relatively recent) trend. But despite our arrogance, we really haven't figured out human societal trends yet.
Agreed it might not continue along it's trend, but I don't see any factors to stop it. Do you? Improved fertility will help, but that alone wont do it. Men and Women have to have the desire to have large families. They may have the desire to "do the deed" but they certainly don't want to deal with trying to raise a large family, at least here in the US. The best solution might be incentives from the government. As much as I like the idea of Free Porn (god bless the Scandinavian countries) I don't think that alone will do it. Perhaps the affected countries could make some kind of large finacial incentive for the middle class to have children. In the end, I think the US will solve it's problem VIA mass immigration.
Re:Don't (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Don't (Score:5, Interesting)
Check it in the poulation stats
Low birth rates, on the other hand, make for low to negative population growth almost every time.
It's counterintuitive and supprised the heck out of me the first time I noticed that.
Re:Nano medicine != we can play god... (Score:4, Insightful)
-Jesse
Re:No, thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you also refuse medical care if you get ill? Natural processes and all that.
What happens to 100+ year old memories (Score:5, Interesting)
With diseases like Alzheimers we at least have an idea of what causes it, and we know what changes happen to the brain as it progresses.... I think it's only a matter of time before it can be prevented. However, I daresay that theories about where and how exactly memories are formed and stored in the brain are mostly wild speculation. We know the roles that certain regions of the brain play in memory, and there are some good abstract models (such as the Phonological loop and the Visuospatial sketchpad) but we are a very long way away from knowing how these are done at the hardware level of the brain.
Re:With age comes wisdom (Score:3, Insightful)
Ha... most people will be just as clueless after 5000 years as they are after 100. Really, 4900 years isn't going to make their brains any bigger, make them store more information, nor, most importantly, process and correlate that data any better. Unless of course we develop some "smart drugs" that do precisely that, there will be plenty of stupid and ignorant people around.
Re:Obligatory Heinlein quote (Score:3, Informative)
"May you love as long as you live, and live as long as you wish." (Minerva, Time Enough for Love)
Should be: "May you love as long as you live, and live as long as you love."
Re:aging is natural (Score:3, Insightful)
The poor get everything last because new technology costs a lot of money - it takes time for the price to come down as techniques are perfected and businesses go after the lower income demographics. They got TVs last. They got cheaper heart surgery last. They got dialysis last. They'll get regenerative medicine last. But you know what? They will get it. They only way the poor don't get something is if people prevent new technology from bein
Re:We should not tamper with natural selection (Score:5, Insightful)
We've been messing with natural selection ever since the beginning of medicine; it's a bit late to object now.
Furthermore, this will probably only benefit the richest, not the fittest...
Maybe at first, but there was a time when only the rich, or only governments, could afford computers. In the US today, poor people have TVs that the wealthy could only dream of in the 50s. Anti-aging technology will start out expensive, but it won't stay that way--and besides, doesn't the idea of the wealthy being the beta testers appeal to your little class-warfare soul?