The Ethics of Life Extension 160
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.
Nice. (Score:2, Insightful)
You will have an average lifespan until proven rich...
This is insane (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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
Re:I beg to differ (Score:2)
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)
Re:I beg to differ (Score:2)
Re:I beg to differ (Score:2)
As a u
Re:I beg to differ (Score:2)
When every 17 year old knows who Descartes is (Just as a random example) maybe I'll change my mind...
Kintanon
Re:I beg to differ (Score:2)
Re:This is insane (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:This is insane (Score:2)
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)
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."
Re:This is insane (Score:2)
Re:This is insane (Score:2)
Re:This is insane (Score:2)
I can't give you a grand total, but here's a quote from an article [mindfully.org] with some numbers.
Re:This is insane (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:This is insane (Score:2)
Re:This is insane (Score:2)
But obviously it would become one if we all lived far longer than we do today. Thus the ethis issue.
Re:This is insane (Score:2)
It tells me that the population is growing. But that's not sufficient to conclude that we have a population problem. Our population-- the population of the world, I mean-- is not growing at a rate that outstrips our ability to exploit natural resources.
hmm... (Score:1)
Re:hmm... (Score:1)
Me! Me! (Score:2)
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.
Re:hmm... (Score:1)
LOL (Score:2)
Re:LOL (Score:1, Troll)
Geez. Not all stories are about Microsoft
How long is long enough? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How long is long enough? (Score:2)
Of course, they should be afraid...
Re:How long is long enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:How long is long enough? (Score:1)
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
Re:How long is long enough? (Score:2)
Yes, but if her life were doubled, then she'd physicall
Re:How long is long enough? (Score:2)
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.
Re:How long is long enough? (Score:1)
for some reason (Score:2)
Re:for some reason (Score:1)
It would be like my saying to him "Well you're gay, what the hell do gay people know?"
Re:for some reason (Score:2)
Re:How long is long enough? (Score:1)
In other news:
An e-mail server outage cause numerous cases of suicide.
Re:How long is long enough? Cause learning is hard (Score:3, Insightful)
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
The short version (Score:2)
Is the temptation there? Certainly, but we are comfortable where we are. We stagnate.
In my field (physics) very very few peop
Re:How long is long enough? (Score:1)
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)
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.)
Re:Practical Life extension (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Problem Is Already Here (Score:2, Interesting)
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
The rich live longer and the poor die out? (Score:2, Interesting)
Idiots. All Idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Idiots. All Idiots. (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't be so quick to call people idiots just because you fail to grasp the fundimentals of the arguement.
Re:Would you refuse a blood transfusion, too? (Score:2)
Re:Would you refuse a blood transfusion, too? (Score:2)
I suppose that one may sometimes extrapolate from a question the beliefs of the questioner, but I tend to think that this may often
Re:Would you refuse a blood transfusion, too? (Score:2)
Re:Idiots. All Idiots. (Score:2, Informative)
Selfish idiots more like. (Score:2, Interesting)
sorry if slightly OT... (Score:1)
Re:sorry if slightly OT... (Score:3, Funny)
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)
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.
Re:Life Span is a genetic hack anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Life Span is a genetic hack anyway (Score:2)
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
Re: I call BS (Score:1)
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)
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
Re: I call BS (Score:2)
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
Re:Life Span is a genetic hack anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Natural (Score:2)
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
Re:Natural (Score:2)
Sounds like your karma just ran over some Christian's dogma
Heaven and Hell.. (Score:1)
ahem.. personally I'm a little afraid that they do exist.
Re:Natural (Score:2)
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
Thanks for a thoughtful reply (Score:2)
Re:Thanks for a thoughtful reply (Score:2)
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)
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
Geeks are immune to this (Score:2)
We hardly ever get laid anyway!
Re:Geeks are immune to this (Score:1)
extend lifespan, but don't force it on people. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.)
Re:extend lifespan, but don't force it on people. (Score:1)
"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
Re:extend lifespan, but don't force it on people. (Score:2)
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)
Re:Morality of the long term... (Score:2)
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)
Re:Drive dangerously. (Score:2)
Jumping to conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
They CAN'T (Score:1)
Re:They CAN'T (Score:2, Interesting)
Some problems have no solution. (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Some problems have no solution. (Score:2)
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
Oops. (Score:1)
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
Telomeres (Score:1)
Tumors are cell lines that have escaped the telomere failsafe because a second mutation has activated telomerase (an enzyme that lengthens telomeres), thus "unhooking" the failsafe that protected us in the first place.
Apoptosis is a second line of defense, but not nearly so effective because it requires that tumor cells are distinct enough from normal cells that the suicide program can be initiated. If the criteria used by cells to determine if they are
Morons... (Score:2)
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...
Are you kidding? (Score:1)
Natural selection does not oppose aging. (Score:2)
Tim
Re:Are you kidding? (Score:2)
Ever see a hummingbird in space?
So much for that argument...
Re:That's clever. (Score:2)
But anyone who does not see that since Nature has done it, it is therefore doable, IS a moron...
Your attempt to reverse the argument that Drexler made years ago that nature has already established what can be done, the rest is merely engineering, is not very convincing.
The argument boils down to whether selection is more powerful than conceptual thinking. I think in the end it is irrelevant which is true. There is no a priori reason for believing that we can not duplicate whatever nature does. We might
Re:Yes and no (Score:2)
The second problem is, you ignore the fact that advances in nanotech will provide us with an accelerating - note that, accelerating - amount of data on such things as how we are constructed. This is the part that everybody misses. Everybody focuses on what nanotech will do eventually (including me) and few remember that the incremental advances will accelerate knowledge in all other fields of science, thus providing us with the
Idiots (Score:2)
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
As Don Rickles says... (Score:2)
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.
Re:As Don Rickles says... (Score:2)
If eventually is a billion or so years, I'll have time to worry about it...meanwhile I'll take care of business...
Have a nice day.
Life must suck for many of you. (Score:2)
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 have the answer! (Score:2)
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
Re:Overpopulation (Score:1, Funny)
I thought this referred to a disease that PHBs get.
Alright then... (Score:1)
Re:Overpopulation (Score:3, Interesting)
What over-population problem? The world has the natural resources, and we have the technology to exploit them, to support a much larger population than the present one. The only real challenge facing us is one of transportation: getting the stuff from where it grows, lives, or is made to where the people are.
Re:Overpopulation (Score:1)
In 2000, U.S.A: 637,000 births around 247,000 deaths. the birth rate rises about 20% per year while the coinciding death rate rises about 2%.
That overpopulation problem.
In ten years or so the birth rate will be well over a million people, while the death rate wont even break 450K. If that doesn't present overpopulation concerns for you then you are ignoring the evidence.
HA! (Score:2)
You are circumventing the "natural" way of communication by using teh internet, you know. Unless you plan to go bakc into the forest and start eating grubs, you are not qualified to speak
Re:HA! / Population idiocy (Score:2)