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Biotech Science

The Ethics of Life Extension 160

Posted by michael from the head-in-a-jar dept.
buggieboy writes "The President's Council on Bioethics met this month to discuss Age-Retardation: Scientific Possibilities and moral challenges. The consensus was that "aging is a natural part of the life cycle, not a disease." Think Social Security was discussed?" Bruce Sterling's book Holy Fire is a good look at this issue if you find it interesting.
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The Ethics of Life Extension More

The Ethics of Life Extension

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  • Nice. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Neck_of_the_Woods ( 305788 )

    You will have an average lifespan until proven rich...

  • This is insane (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @11:39AM (#5503200) Journal
    Good God, what dumbasses. Overpopulation isn't a problem in any western developed country. They're the ones who would use this.

    Besides, if it ever got to that point, child limitation would be a better option than life limitation.

    Lots of things are natural. Doesn't mean they're any good. Anybody who wants to live natural can ditch agriculture and go back to hunting and scavenging.

    • I beg to differ (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @01:03PM (#5504030) Journal

      Good God, what dumbasses. Overpopulation isn't a problem in any western developed country. They're the ones who would use this.

      Most environmentalists (the real ones, not the ones that put a "Save the Planet" bumper sticker on their SUVs) and population control advocates are VERY MUCH worried about overpopulation in "western developed countries". The amount of natural resources that a single person in a developed country consumers over their lifetime is significantly greater than the resources that a single person in an undeveloped country uses. Overpopulation in developed countries is an even bigger threat to the environment than overpopulation in undeveloped countries.

      Regarding your comment about child limitation, you should probably clarify what you mean. Very few people are going to be in favor of manditory government-imposed child restrictions. However, changing the tax code so that any children over the first two doesn't give you a full dependent deduction might be a way of subtly encouraging people to keep their numbers down.

      GMD

      • >Very few people are going to be in favor of manditory government-imposed child restrictions.

        I don't know whether I'm in that camp or not. But if I think of it as a parenting restriction, and keep in mind that society requires us to have licenses in order to drive, sell apples, and go fishing, and then I look around at a few of the other parents, well, I start to give myself Orwelian chills.

      • Re:I beg to differ (Score:4, Informative)

        by Iainuki ( 537456 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @04:53PM (#5506277)
        Overpopulation in developed countries would be a problem if the populations were increasing, which they aren't. The birthrates in most developed countries have fallen below the replacement rate; the US population continues to grow only because of immigration.

    • Re:This is insane (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PhilHibbs ( 4537 )

      Overpopulation isn't a problem in any western developed country.

      Literally, that's true. However, overpopulation in western developed countries is a problem in underdeveloped countries. The amount of crap that we produce that gets dumped on them is terrifying. You think you recycle your waste at those collection points? You'd be shocked (assuming you have a conscience) at how much of it ends up in 'landfill' (i.e. in the open air, on fire, with children picking through it) in India, or poisoning Chinese po

      • You'd be shocked (assuming you have a conscience) at how much of it ends up in 'landfill' (i.e. in the open air, on fire, with children picking through it) in India, or poisoning Chinese poor people as they dip the PCBs in toxic chemicals.

        Shock me. How much?

        (My bullshit detector is going off, you see, so I thought I'd call the bluff.)

        • Re:This is insane (Score:2, Informative)

          by superflex ( 318432 )
          Sorry, don't have time to do alot of research, but here [washingtonpost.com] is an interesting piece on this sort of problem.

          Notable quote from this article: "At the same time that we're preventing pollution in the United States, we're shifting the problem to somebody else," said Ted Smith of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an environmental advocacy group. "It's being exported and doing harm."

        • It'll take some time to do the numbers, but superflex's post is a good start.

        • Shock me. How much?

          I can't give you a grand total, but here's a quote from an article [mindfully.org] with some numbers.

          Greenpeace researchers discovered records listing Pepsi as the exporter of about 4,500 tons of plastic scrap in 23 shipments during 1993... Much of the waste was dumped at the site of a factory owned by Futura Industries in Tiruvallur, outside of Madras... The senior manager of the Futura plant, Dr. L.R. Subbaraman, ... reports that Futura has imported a total of 10,000 metric tons of plastic waste from

    • Re:This is insane (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Radical Rad ( 138892 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @04:42PM (#5506186) Homepage
      Whoever wrote the paper seemed more worried about a _decrease_ in fertility than overpopulation. Many people can't wait until their kids move out of the house so they can have some of their life back before they get too old to enjoy it. Who would foster endless generations of children? Probably some but not many I think. They also seemed quite worried that the "cycle of life" that they already understand would change in ways they can not predict. I guess uncertainty scared them worse than mortality.

      They didn't discuss in detail the benefits besides the obvious that it is what people want. Imagine a workforce that never ages. Everyone is in the prime of their life. Imagine the skills that employees could accumulate, the shorter learning curves because of previous experience. Imagine the increase in efficiency and productivity. Longer working life means people could save for retirement longer. Pension payouts would decrease. Workers could save enough to retire when they want and go back to working if they get bored which many do.

      They also did not consider the possibility of rejuvenation for those who are already old. They talked of stretching the lifespan as if old age would also last longer, but with gene therapy maybe life can be maintained in its prime permanently or at least until you step in front of a bus.
      • Imagine a workforce that never ages.
        Well, unfortunately, medicine seems more geared towards keeping people who can't work anyway alive longer. So that just means more young people working harder, to pay the medical costs of the "magical medicine" that keeps geezers living forever... sounds great...
    • You said, "Overpopulation isn't a problem in any western developed country"

      But obviously it would become one if we all lived far longer than we do today. Thus the ethis issue.

  • hmm... (Score:1)

    by C21 ( 643569 )
    I would think that a mandantory pyschological analysis would be demanded when someone expresses interest in wanting to elude death. I think anyone who would want to do this without legitimate cause has major issues to work out with an experienced individual.
    • I agree. Anything to stop that dastardly Alex Chiu! [alexchiu.com]
    • Yes, I want to elude death, for as long as possible, and as long as I can enjoy life. I WILL take antibiotics when I have a disease, I WILL have surgery when my appendix bursts, and I WILL watch my diet to keep myself healthy.

      Now, go find me an experienced individual. I'd be HAPPY to speak with one. We'll see if he can convince me that a short, brutish life is better for me.
    • I wanna live as long as possible just so I see how badly humans screw everything up :-p

  • LOL (Score:2)

    by FroMan ( 111520 )
    Don't ever use the word "ethics" on slashdot unless ofcourse it is prefixed with "lack of".

    • Re:LOL (Score:1, Troll)

      by fredrikj ( 629833 )
      Don't ever use the word "ethics" on slashdot unless ofcourse it is prefixed with "lack of".

      Geez. Not all stories are about Microsoft ;)
  • I saw a good lecture on this once with multiple sides of the argument being presented. The best question a critic presented, IHMO, was how long is long enough? Twice the current life span? Three times? At what point would you be willing to say you've lived long enough? If you look at the elderly how many seem overwelmed by the speed the world makes changes? I've got a grandmother who uses a little e-mail but no matter how many times I explain it to her and show it to her she never really understands it, sh
    • True. How many people who are hitting upper middle age consider extending their lives because they think they still have something to contribute or create. My guess is that they're simply afraid of death.

      Of course, they should be afraid...

    • Re:How long is long enough? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @12:43PM (#5503789) Homepage Journal
      I've got a grandmother who uses a little e-mail but no matter how many times I explain it to her and show it to her she never really understands it, she just memorizes the mechanics.
      In my observation, there are (at least) two classes of people: those who learn strictly by memorizing steps and those who see patterns, figure things out, and then "get it." The latter class are the "intelligent" people. That being the case, it's got nothing to do with age.

      That aside, living in the modern world (despite what many here on /. might think) does not require the use of e-mail, the 'net, computers, fax machines, cell phones, or lots of other techie things.

      If I were your grandmother, I wouldn't want to stop living just because I couldn't understand how e-mail works. There's so much more to life. If she could live another 100 years, she could see the world, enjoy more good meals, and see the birth of her great-great-great grandchildren.

      How myopic of you to think that just because she can't "get" e-mail she'd want to stop living.

      • E-mail was just the example of technology outpacing her ability to keep up with it. Obviously I'm not saying that she should roll over and die just because she can't use e-mail.

        On the other hand she is 80+ years old and has given a DNR (do not recussitate) order to her doctor and local hospitals in the case of sudden illness like heart failure or stroke. She says herself that she has lived long enough. It's not that she doesn't enjoy life, not is it that she is so diminished that she can no long contribut

        • There are two kinds of "life extension": appending years to one's life in which case you'd feel and look really old, i.e., at 160, you'd feel 160; or uniformly extending life so that if you lived to be 160 (roughly double), at 80 you'd have the physical body of a current 40 year old, i.e., aging as a whole would be uniformly slowed down. I'd want the latter only.

          On the other hand she is 80+ years old and has given a DNR (do not recussitate) order

          Yes, but if her life were doubled, then she'd physicall

          • Perhaps that's her rationalization and/or what she tells you because, deep down, she might feel like a "burden" to unappreciative and impatient grandchildren.

            You know, your points are good enough to stand in a debate without constantly personally attacking the other guy. Stop exaggerating the other guy's point and reading into what he's saying, and start reading what's actually there; no more, no less. You're coming off like a jackass.
          • This is along this same lines of what I was thinking of. IMHO, extending the period of human life is going to do more harm than good unless we also improve the quality of life into these extended years.
      • How myopic of you to think that just because she can't "get" e-mail she'd want to stop living.

        In other news:

        An e-mail server outage cause numerous cases of suicide.

    • In my opinion this is the most serious problem with life extension.

      In physics it is generally termed "to stop working hard". When an old physicist stops being productive, reading up on all the current research, and starts talking about history, what should be done, what should be more funded, etc. If you've hung out at physics departments for any length of time you will find such people. They never retire, never leave, are always going to the talks, sharing knowledge of ancient unsolved problems (no pro
      • All the great pleasures we have in life: college, dating and being single, having children, starting from scratch in business and building a career - are what people talk about when they get old. But, no one wants to go back and do it all over again. Most people do not have another set of children at, say 40 or 50, or go back to college and live in a dorm room, or become single.

        Is the temptation there? Certainly, but we are comfortable where we are. We stagnate.

        In my field (physics) very very few peop

    • At what point would you be willing to say you've lived long enough?

      Never, of course.

      If human learning and the capacity to retain new concepts has a finite limit how could you reasonably expect to have any quality of life once the world has left you decades or centuries behind?

      Human learning and the capacity to retain new concepts doesn't have a finite limit (at least not any more than concepts themselves do).

      Yes, at some point the research into quality of life has to catch up with length of life. B

  • Practical Life extension (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tiamat ( 25392 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @11:57AM (#5503375)
    They speak in the report about the most studied, and most promising, practical means of life extension: calorie restriction with optimal nutrition. As they suggest in the report, the evidence is clear that it extends not just average lifespan, but maximum lifespan, by as much as 50%, in every species that has been tested, including mice, dogs, and now other primates.

    Most people will wait for pharm companies to develop mimetics, or ways of producing the same results without actually having to eat less, but for those who have an interest in reading up on human CR visit the CR Society [crsociety.org] web pages, or pick up one of Roy Walford's books on Amazon. (He's a professor of pathology at UCLA school of medicine, and is a leading researcher of CR. Beyond the 120 year diet is a good layman's introduction to CR.)

    • Predictably, the article spent some time covering calorie restriction as one of the few ways thought to significantly extend lifespan.

      Calorie restriction has one BIG drawback: You are hungry all the damned time. You can ignore hunger for a while, but it never lets up. Without the imposition of some external discipline, you will eventually cave.

      There is a possible alternative: Carbohydrate restriction. Carb restriction has nearly all of the effects of calorie restriction, without the gnawing hunger. From my own readings, and my own experience with low-carb diet, I have come to the following conclusion: One of the most important keys to living a long, healthy life is reducing the amount of insulin required by the body. (Of course, you need to avoid other causes of premature death, such as failure to wear seat belts, or being in certain areas of town after dark.)

      It is not really clear whether insulin itself is the culprit, or blood sugar, or both, or some interaction of those things with other factors. But the evidence is quite clear, and growing. I have yet to see a nutritional study in which either the amount of carbohydrate or the glycemic load of the diet has been reduced without causing some improvement in health (although such improvements are usually attributed to some other factor, because of an almost universal bias on the part of nutritional researchers).

      There may be some other things you can do to reduce insulin requirements, but the 3 most important seem to be:

      1) Carbohydrate (easy) or calorie (hard) restriction.
      2) Adequate and regular sleep.
      3) Load-bearing exercise.

      As near as I can tell, these three items are roughly equally important, as least according to the measurements I have available for my own responses to these factors. Of course, that's not all there is to it; in addition to restricting carbs, you need to limit or eliminate things like trans-fats. In addition to weight training, you should probably do some aerobics. As for sleep, well, that may be the hardest part for the caffeine-addicted geek.

  • Multiple life sentances (Score:5, Funny)

    by LudditeMind ( 587926 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @12:02PM (#5503413)
    Hey, then we could make criminals actually experience their 7 consecutive life terms. I'd bet the death penalty would become more popular among the public and the inmates.

  • Problem Is Already Here (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 )

    It's good to think ahead to the consequences of breakthroughs that may enable human lifespans to be extended far beyond their current limits. Will the quality of life be good enough, how much will it cost, how should society be restructured, etc.?

    However, I'm thinking there's already evidence of what to expect. The number of senior citizens is increasing dramatically and throwing a wrench into pension schemes drawn up decades ago when life spans weren't so great as they are now.

    Furthermore, as more and m

  • My opinion, .02 thrown into the mix
    1. First Priority, Bring the lower ends of the scale on the global lifespan spectrum up to par. That means dealing with AIDS, Starvation, Poverty, Pollution, and other major population decimators haunting the young and old in impoverished (and even in supposedly wealthy) countries.
    2. Second Priority. Get their health care up to par, too. They're living longer, now let's get them something for that crippling illness.
    3. Step three: Let's see some sustainability. That's right,

  • Idiots. All Idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @12:26PM (#5503644)

    Sure, life extension is unnatural. So is insulin, open heart surgery, cooked food, anti-stroke drugs, central heating/cooling, canned foods, automobiles, plumbing, farming, herding, manufacturing...

    In short, look around you. Its all unnatural. Unless you are a pre-fire hunter gatherer that does not wear clothing or use tools, your life in altered by technology.

    As for overpopulation, yep, technology already caused that. Guess how many pre-fire non-tool using hunter gatherers the world can support? Nowhere near six billion.

    In short, these are idiots, nothing more.

    • The ethical question isn't based on natural vs. unnatural, it's based on what is reasonable vs. what is unreasonable.

      Don't be so quick to call people idiots just because you fail to grasp the fundimentals of the arguement.

    • Re:Idiots. All Idiots. (Score:2, Informative)

      by juushin ( 632556 )
      To point out a correction, insulin is naturally produced by the body. You must be referring to modern synthetic forms of insulin (Lyspro, Glargine) in your comment that insulin is unnatural.
    • Every comment posted by you finger-pointing name-callers is powered by the thought "Wouldn't it be great to extend MY life?" But what about OTHER people? You dorks would never want to have eight bajillion morons and idiots (who you so obviously hate) living forever and sucking up all the food, water, air, and inexpensive housing. Stop thinking about just yourselves for 5 seconds.
  • ...but I recall in college reading an essay about how if immortality would be realizable, there would be two kinds of people: those who are impulsive and determined, basically using eternity to run through their to-do list, and those who are perpetually procrastinating, figuring that since they are immortal they'll get to it someday. I was just wondering if anyone is familiar with this essay and knew the title/author/where to find it on the internet because i can't seem to locate it through googling...
    • I think that was pretty much on topic..

      There's two things I'd like to bring up to expand on that idea, in a way. First, a quote:

      "Millions long for immortality who don't know
      what to do on a rainy afternoon." -Susan Ertz

      Which I think pretty much sums up the situation for most of the people who would buy into the treatment. (Just look at how many hollywood burn-outs keep hacking their bodies up trying to stay young!)

      The second is an obligatory reference to the HHGTTG:

      "Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged wa

  • Life Span is a genetic hack anyway (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @12:35PM (#5503713) Homepage
    The generally accepted scientific theory about why we get old and die eventually is as follows.

    Every animal in the animal kingdom generally gets killed occasionally. Take a mouse. A mouse is small and crunchy to cats. Cats predate mice, so the chances of a mouse surviving say, a year and half is low.

    Therefore from the mouse genes point of view is it better to spend most of the energy of a nut it just ate on repair or reproduction?

    Clearly if chances are the mouse is dead anyway after a year and half anyway, and so won't reproduce after that time, then it is better to use most of the nut on reproduction. So mice reproduce fairly rapidly and die young.

    In contrast, tortoises which are very well protected live for centuries. Birds, for their size, are also very long lived- this appears to be because they can escape most danger by flying away. Incidentally, flying squirrels live much longer than normal squirrels, elephants live a long while, cats live much longer than dogs etc. etc.

    Now humans have sort of outgrown all this stuff- we are really, really good at protecting ourselves- even risks as low as 1 in million upset lots of people- "my kid just ate an Alar infested apple- he could die!"; and currently if it weren't for old age we would all live to be about 400 years old; until we had a car accident or died of flu or something.

    Our genes just simply haven't had a chance to adapt yet. So we die 'early'.

    If nothing is done then the longer lived members of our society- those that look better ('younger') for longer will have more children, because they have more time to do it; and their genes will eventually spread through the human population; and life expectency will go up. But this will take hundreds or thousands of generations.

    I say we should help nature along; the current situation sucks.

    • If nothing is done then the longer lived members of our society- those that look better ('younger') for longer will have more children,

      Not unless there are some radical changes in female reproductive organs, like being born with more eggs, or being able to produce an unlimited number of eggs as men do sperm.

      • Not unless there are some radical changes in female reproductive organs, like being born with more eggs, or being able to produce an unlimited number of eggs as men do sperm.

        Well, clearly it would work with men; and since men and women share a lot of genes, it's likely that women would inherit the longevity genes from their father, they'd just cease to be fertile after 50 years in the normal way.

        It's not currently known why women go through the menopause; it's possible that their eggs are ageing too, or

    • Hey I was under the impression that there was no generally accepted scientific theory of ageing. How stupid could I be.
      Why don't you just reference a few scientific papers in peer-reviewed publications so that I can enlighten myself.

      Or maybe this post is full of shit, which is what I think, since it doesn't even contain a sensical model in it.

      • Re: I call BS (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        the theory of senescence deals with the information mentioned above.

        the general idea is this;
        reproduction takes alot of energy. maintaining the body also take alot of energy. not too long ago, geologically speaking, it was hard for organisms to obtain lots of energy. they could not get enough to both maintain their bodies and become reproductively active. thus, they could maintain their bodies until the wanted to reproduce. now, the must decide how long to maintain there bodies. does is make sense to
      • Hey I was under the impression that there was no generally accepted scientific theory of ageing.

        There's no accepted scientific theory of the mechanisms of aging, but the genetic influences of evolution are somewhat understood, and are believed to be more or less as I described. And the theory has experimental support. Some worms had their lifespan doubled by only breeding from the oldest members.

        Why don't you just reference a few scientific papers in peer-reviewed publications so that I can enlighten mys

    • if it weren't for old age we would all live to be about 400 years old; until we had a car accident or died of flu or something.

      Hmm, looking up some statistics [about.com] if we stayed as healthy as 25-44yos in 1995 (190 deaths/100,000), we'd have a median lifespan of about 360 odd years.
      n = log(.5)/log(1-p)
      Keen.
  • aging is a natural part of the life cycle, not a disease.

    Odd statement, really. Disease is also a natural part of the life cycle. There's no reason not to think of aging as a disease. Antibiotics weren't invented to ease the suffering of patients as they died, they were invented to save lives, i.e. increase life expectancy.

    Can't help but think that this discussion would be entirely different in a Buddhist or Hindu culture. Christians seem particularly afraid of death. I suspect heaven and hell are suc

    • Now watch my karma go down in flames.

      Sounds like your karma just ran over some Christian's dogma ;-p
    • are secretly afraid they don't exist.

      ahem.. personally I'm a little afraid that they do exist.
    • You sure those are really Christians though?

      I'm a Christian and most Christians I know aren't particularly afraid of death.

      Most of us agree that what's scary is dying in a very unpleasant and/or painful way.

      And what's scarier is that there's a good chance that we might be made to - Crusader Bush seems to be helping to set up the world for a Christianity vs Islam event. In many countries there's a tendency for people to burn churches, kill/torture/maim christians for something that's totally unrelated - e
      • I tend to categorize Christians into several categories, and I wasn't trying to implicate all of them. There are the actual Christians, regardless of sect, who actually pay attention to the teachings of one Jesus of Nazareth. To these people, phrases like "love thy neighbor" and "turn the other cheek" actually mean something. Teachings like this even some Buddhists accept. And then there are the "Christians" who will only give up their guns from their cold dead fingers, who can't accept paying taxes for
        • Yah one of the big troubles with religions is with all the fakes. There are lots of "XXXXX" who hardly follow the core tenets of YYYYY, and yet are willing commit acts of violence just because someone allegedly slighted YYYYY or violated a minor tenet of YYYYY.

          Joke for you:
          One Sunday morning during church service, a 2,000 member congregation was surprised to see two men enter, both covered from head to toe in black and carrying submachine guns.

          One of the men shouted, "Anyone willing to take a bullet for C

  • Scientific American articles (Score:4, Informative)

    by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @01:09PM (#5504088) Journal

    For those of you with an interest in the subject of aging, you may wish to check out some of Scientific American's articles on the subject from the last year:

    The Truth About Human Aging [sciam.com]

    The Serious Search for an Anti-Aging Pill [sciam.com]

    GMD

  • They also seem to reduce the animal's ability to compete for mates, so that in experiments in which the single-gene mutation animals are placed together with normal members of their species and allowed to reproduce freely, the single-gene difference is fairly quickly selected out of the population.

    We hardly ever get laid anyway!

  • extend lifespan, but don't force it on people. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MarvinMouse ( 323641 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @02:36PM (#5504937) Homepage Journal
    I think the most ethical way of handling this is to allow research into expanding lifespans of people, but to also not force that "extra life" onto people if they do not desire to have it.

    I believe that if a person honestly believes that they don't want to continue this temporal existance, then it is their decision. (Of course, this excludes people who do it on a whim or have serious psychological problems.)
    • Of course, this excludes people who do it on a whim or have serious psychological problems

      "What do you mean you don't want to live to see 150? You think it's unnatural? You must have serious psychological problems if you don't want to live at least as long as 150!"

      Unfortunately, it's a very slippery slope. I'm extremely happy to see experts taking a serious look at the implications of new life-extending technology.

      Brandon

    • No. Either everybody gets it or nobody gets it. People like my Uncle who have had tortured lives sorting out everybody else's problems will be forced to extend their lives. And because they're nice people they'll feel forced by their friends and relatives (and employer!) into extending their life.

      Much like in the Olympics to get in front some people take drugs. First is first so the honest people suffer. The honest people always suffer after these descriminative decisions.

  • Morality of the long term... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gnovos ( 447128 ) <gnovos@ c h i p p e d . net> on Thursday March 13, 2003 @02:49PM (#5505063) Homepage Journal
    If people live longer, approaching forever, they will be MORE worried about the various things that can snuff out life. Crime rates will drop dramatically due to longer lived criminals (imagine spending "life" in jail when that means 500+ years!) and a stronger stance by the governments on stopping violent crime. Overcrowding, if it is really possible to overcrowd the Earth, will just give people a REASON to go and explore space. Signifigantly longer life is a very very good thing for humanity in the long run.
    • If people live longer, approaching forever, they will be MORE worried about the various things that can snuff out life.

      That might be true of some, but I know some people who would get bored living forever. Those people would seek out risk.

      Of course there are all those religious fanatics who should take some risks otherwise they might never meet their maker.

  • Drive dangerously. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @04:02PM (#5505802) Journal
    Do you realise the consequences of driving safely?
    1. You contribute to overpopulation. Maybe you don't realise that the human death rate is extremely and unnaturally low. By driving carefully you effectively cheat death and upset the cycle of nature.
    2. You underappreciate life if you don't take risks. Part of the sweetness of life derives from the knowledge that we could lose what we have at any moment. Did you know that driving safely makes the biggest dent in the risk-taking we take and hence is the biggest reducer of our appreciation of life?
    3. By choosing to drive carefully you increase your chances of suffering from diseases like cancer. The choice is up to the individual but many would prefer not to suffer a painful lingering death.
    So drive dangerously folks!

  • Jumping to conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)

    by phriedom ( 561200 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @04:34PM (#5506124)
    Wow, they really jump to some strange conclusions. For example the report states that longer lives will delay new generations rising to leadership, and therefore delay new ideas and will slow innovation. As if old people can't have new ideas...
    • I don't know how many old people you talk to every day, but people over 40 are pretty stiff in the head, let alone over 60! Now, this anti-agathic they're talking about might break up the lipofuscin clogging up the dendrites and that may cure the problem, but _currently_ the problem with most people is they're upset that life isn't like it was when they were young.

      • Re:They CAN'T (Score:2, Interesting)

        by phriedom ( 561200 )
        This is such an ugly generalization that I really debated whether to answer or not. Perhaps you do work with old people, but it might be a poor sample of them, like the sick ones or something. Or are you in a "conservative" industry/community? I work in a smallish company, about 100 people, on the "bleeding edge" of technology, where the test equipment can't reliably evaluate our products. There are a bunch of smart guys, the CEO in particular, but the one guy that I think is irreplacable is The Chief E
  • Human aging is almost certainly such a problem.

    An adult human is composed of roughly ten trillion cells. A self repairing organism (one in which cells replace themselves) running around in an environment full of mutagenic agents, is in constant danger that one of those cells will be damaged in such a way that it just keeps dividing. In principle, nearly all of those ten trillion cells can initiate a deadly tumor at any moment.

    The most probable reason that cancer is so terribly rare in the young is tha
    • You said, "You can cure cancer, if you are willing to age at a high rate. You can cure aging, and degenerate into a mass of tumors."

      But what is going on *right now* is in violation of this. We are trying to cure cancer by killing tumors, and thus living longer. Sure, cancer treatment is a nasty business and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. However, when it becomes clear the alternative is death, people choose it and live longer.

      It seems you are only considering one facet of the approach: genetic manipulat
      • Yeah, sorry. I wasn't clear.

        I don't mean "cure cancer" in the sense of eliminating existing cancers, I mean eliminate the phenomenon. I'm arguing that cancer comes with the territory once you have extensive self repair.

        I like your phone booth argument. In fact, I made roughly that argument in the paper that I pointed to above. Here is how I put it:

        "Finally, given our increasing ability to detect and surgically or chemically eliminate tumors, we might one day be willing to accept an increase in our
  • In fifty years, nanotech will obsolete aging, infirmity, and oh, by the way, human bodies, human brains, and human nature...

    Which, hopefully, will include morons like the authors of this study...

    Environmental issues will be moot...

    This kind of stupidity can't even be commented on...I'm wasting the bandwidth even responding to this crap...

    • We already have nanotech, infinitely more advanced than humans could conceivably devise in the next fifty years. We are made of it. And the machinery in question was created by a force that opposes aging, yet natural selection has not managed to solve the problem of aging, or cancer, or pathogenic disease. What mechanism do you think we will have access to that could possibly counter these major costs of our design? And you are willing to trust the utterly irreplaceable environment to the same, unspecified,
      • If aging somehow helps the species survive, then natural selection will select for it.

        Tim

      • Ever see a hummingbird in space?

        So much for that argument...

  • Just because something's a natural part of life doesn't make it good. Gangre, HIV, disease, cancer, suffering, walking around without a wiped ass after defication -- all of these are "natural parts of life". That doesn't mean any of them are good.

    Aging isn't a disease? Really? Tell that to people being slowly killed by Alzheimers and other conditions that effect the elderly. Or what about those who just live on and on and die "of old age"? Hardly a joyous thing either, being so limited from one's nor
  • "Let me put it to you another way..."

    You don't want life extension?

    Fine, I don't want life extension FOR YOU either...

    You're going to die. I won't.

    Have a nice day.

  • So many people seem to assume that people must be able to "contribute productively" in order for their lives to be justified or have meaning.

    Why don't you all go enjoy life a bit more.

    Have fun, make other people happy. Enjoy the sunsets, etc.

    Watch animals and children play (who aren't particular bothered about "contributing productively"). Play with them.

    Life sounds like such a drag the way some of you _quantify_ it. No wonder extending it seems like a bad idea in that dreary light.

    Even old people have
  • I missed this one the first time around, but luckily comments are still enabled.
    I got this one all figured out.
    If there was a workable method of life extension then people who wanted to use it would have to agree to leave the earth and live off-world after a certain period of time.
    The reason I think this is such a great idea is because politically I believe you could win over a large part of the religious community which would be where you'd see resistance. Using this solution, everybody woul

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