Re: the title. What are inevitable facts of life?
I guess one would be that for life to exist it needs to use energy.
Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
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Re: Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
#42This is wrong. Whales live longer because they are bigger. Larger animals have slower metabolisms and consequently longer lifespans. See this paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15855403
Whales also live longer because it's evolutionarily advantageous for them to live longer (they have a long, fragile reproductive cycle). There's little need for a fruit fly to live 100 years and historically it doesn't seem that there has been a great need for humans to do the same, either.
Re: Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can't fulfill your potential in 75 years? I would argue that no one can, if that is your 'control' group and your experimental group gets 750 years. > We need [...] a better quality of life. Yup. Sure do. I consider life extension a potentially important part of that. > I don't want to live in a world of 20 billion people with little resources on a barely habitable world. Well, neither of us can tell the future…
>Yup. Sure do. I consider life extension a potentially important part of that. Living longer has NOTHING to do with a better quality of life. The person who had a good life in the early 1800's in central Europe would have been really pissed to have stayed around long enough to live during the depression and WWII in the next century. > I do. I've been hopeless in the face of death since I was 19. You may want to sit d…
The person who had a good life in the early 1800's in central Europe would have been really pissed to have stayed around long enough to live during the depression and WWII in the next century.
People often go through negative experiences; they generally don't kill themselves in response. I'd like to be around in 2200 even if there's another war and depression between now and then.
Build a better, self-sustaining world for all first
We have been: http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/global-monitoring-re... . And curing aging would tremendously reduce health care expenses, which benefits everyone.
then we can talk about living longer for individuals
Sorry Mom, no cancer treatments for you until everyone in Africa has an iPhone.
Re: Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
#44Just three days ago The New York Times published a piece about immortality through cryonics: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/us/cancer-immortality-cryo...
Now BBC publishes an anti-aging piece. They feel like "submarines", paid/encouraged pieces to promote a certain point of view.
Yudkowsky, is that you? I'm all for it and I'm glad someone is doing this, but curiosity is killing me.
Re: Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
#45"They live a lot longer than human beings, yet they are living in the wild, without going to the doctor or any of the perks of human society.."
Followed by:
"By studying these whales and other extraordinarily long-lived creatures, de Magalhaes and colleagues hope we can find new medicines that will similarly slow down the human body’s decay and delay death."
Has to be one of the most ironic things I've seen lately and that's saying something. We are studying organisms that live long lives without medical intervention in hopes of creating medical interventions to keep humans alive longer. Take more pills, go to the doctor more, pay more money for "health". At some point, surely we will begin to question what it means to be alive. I'd love to live longer but not at the expense of quality of life and taking pills for the rest of my life is lower quality in my view.
Re: Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can't fulfill your potential in 75 years? I would argue that no one can, if that is your 'control' group and your experimental group gets 750 years. > We need [...] a better quality of life. Yup. Sure do. I consider life extension a potentially important part of that. > I don't want to live in a world of 20 billion people with little resources on a barely habitable world. Well, neither of us can tell the future…
>Yup. Sure do. I consider life extension a potentially important part of that. Living longer has NOTHING to do with a better quality of life. The person who had a good life in the early 1800's in central Europe would have been really pissed to have stayed around long enough to live during the depression and WWII in the next century. > I do. I've been hopeless in the face of death since I was 19. You may want to sit d…
>Living longer has NOTHING to do with a better quality of life.
Really? Then why are we so adamant on building hospitals and stopping wars? Not dying is necessary prerequisite of having a quality life. What you're wanting is a quality death.
Re: Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can't fulfill your potential in 75 years? I would argue that no one can, if that is your 'control' group and your experimental group gets 750 years. > We need [...] a better quality of life. Yup. Sure do. I consider life extension a potentially important part of that. > I don't want to live in a world of 20 billion people with little resources on a barely habitable world. Well, neither of us can tell the future…
>Yup. Sure do. I consider life extension a potentially important part of that. Living longer has NOTHING to do with a better quality of life. The person who had a good life in the early 1800's in central Europe would have been really pissed to have stayed around long enough to live during the depression and WWII in the next century. > I do. I've been hopeless in the face of death since I was 19. You may want to sit d…
> Build a better, self-sustaining world for all first
I agree with this in principle. Still, people are going to work on what their unique histories and interests lead them to, and I think it's far more likely that some of those people will discover life extension procedures than that we'll be able to convince everyone who isn't already working on building a beter, self-sustaining world for all to drop what they're doing and work only on that.
Also, whether or not I'm depressed, there are plenty of people who hate death that aren't (aging scientists who know they won't be able to fully pass along their expertise, for example). Actually, I'm pretty sure this is why religion was invented, and why the majority of people still cling to it with a white-knuckled grip.
Re: Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I completely disagree with you. I would argue that the primary reasons people fail to better fulfill their potential are lack of time, poor health and grief or hopelessness in the face of death. I also strongly believe that the epidemic of disastrous short-term thinking among us (particularly our 'leaders') is directly linked to the fact that each of us knows we're going to die all to…
This could well be said about Hitler for example. He sure aimed high, and could achieve much more if more time was given to him (albeit ageing wasn't what stopped him, luckily). I am slowly starting to believe the biggest threat to mankind are idealists living in their own tiny little mental bubble, far outside of harsh, unjust selfish real world. their well-intended ideas are based on some theoretical human beings t…
Aging also doesn't stop the Kim dynasty from enslaving and murdering millions of North Koreans.
Imagine an alternate world where aging didn't happen naturally, and some people lived several hundred years before dying of accidents or non-age-related diseases. And suppose there really were some instances of long-lived dictators abusing their subjects for centuries. Would your recommended solution be to develop and release a pathogen that slowly crippled everyone's bodies and minds over the course of 80 years?
Re: Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I completely disagree with you. I would argue that the primary reasons people fail to better fulfill their potential are lack of time, poor health and grief or hopelessness in the face of death. I also strongly believe that the epidemic of disastrous short-term thinking among us (particularly our 'leaders') is directly linked to the fact that each of us knows we're going to die all to…
Sorry but no... We have 7 billion people on this planet already and the last thing we need is for them to be living longer. You can't fulfill your potential in 75 years? Why would that change if you had 150 years? Hopelessness in the face of death? I am 46 and that is not even in my thought process yet... We don't need drugs, technology and genetic engineering to live longer. We need less poverty (better/fairer distr…
You're assuming steady resource requirements and birthrate. Both of those things can change. You're also assuming we're eternally bound to this planet.
Re: Ageing is not an inevitable fact of life
#50This is wrong. Whales live longer because they are bigger. Larger animals have slower metabolisms and consequently longer lifespans. See this paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15855403
But the article also mentions the naked mole rat, which is about the size of a mouse but lives ten times longer, and Brandt's bat, which weighs as much as a sugar cube but lives 40 years.
Not sure about the mole rat, but bats cheat by shutting down their metabolism (basically hibernating) most of the time.