I'm not a billionaire and I'm not old, but I am so excited about anti-aging. I know Hacker News is super negative, but who doesn't want to live longer?! Of all the pain points humans experience, you'd think death lies pretty high on the list. Why are people fighting this?
Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
91–100 of 247 posts
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> real good by funding research Like the planet need humans to live longer???
Yes, because a huge part of the reason people disregard climate science today is because many of the people with the decision making authority to invest in actually correcting for it also judge they won't be alive to suffer from the consequences. Make humans live forever and suddenly everything matters. Interplanetary colonization for the preservation of the species alone is not enough, but to preserve themselves it…
Oh, if it only were that simple.
Create a class of longer living humans and you double down on the problem we have today.
Half the number of the species on top of the food chain, then I'll take you seriously.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sometimes talk about wanting to live forever and get weird stares. Are you joking me?? I want to hike every trail in the world. I want to climb every mountain. I want to play every video game. I want to beat the hardest raids in every expansion of WoW. I want to learn multiple langauges. I want to spend several years living in every biome. I want to learn all of the programming languages. I want to go back to schoo…
Not enough time? Perhaps, but forever is a long time. Quite possibly it's exactly our limited time that has us achieve great things. If you have all the time in the world why bother starting that business or learning that new skill today? Might as well start tomorrow ... I also find it at least a bit disturbing that WoW is so high on that list. Then again, if you have all the time in the world ...
Also, no one is trying for immortality. You will still die, just not from standard health decline. Hack, why not at least try and see what happens, going back to normal dying will be easy (depending on the cure, but most likely).
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#94I'm not a billionaire and I'm not old, but I am so excited about anti-aging. I know Hacker News is super negative, but who doesn't want to live longer?! Of all the pain points humans experience, you'd think death lies pretty high on the list. Why are people fighting this?
"Only mortals have told me that it would suck to live forever." - /r/Showerthoughts
Aubrey De Grey calls it the "pro aging trance"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey#Pro-aging_tranc...
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#95I'm not a billionaire and I'm not old, but I am so excited about anti-aging. I know Hacker News is super negative, but who doesn't want to live longer?! Of all the pain points humans experience, you'd think death lies pretty high on the list. Why are people fighting this?
I'm not sure how controversial the opinion is, but it's pretty clear to me that immortality is harmful to a species in the vast majority of cases.
Evolution is a constant processes of competition. When members of a species start living longer, the upgrading of their gene pool slows down. The older members maintain their old ideas and ways of life, and they soak up resources that crowd out the younger members.
The environment is constantly changing. Thanks to all the other organisms that are evolving, it's not enough to become the apex predator and then stagnate. Organisms are always finding a new way to take advantage of their environment, which includes the other organisms.
For this reason, I do not think that any single individual will ever be immortal, and probably not even a collective. That would require gaining control of the universe's resources in a way that guarantees they never lose it.
Decentralization is inherent to the functioning of the universe. The speed of light ensures that multiple decisions be made in parallel. Those that make the most self interested decisions will be competitive, and while that often means participating as a group, no biological group that I know of is entirely devoid of selfish behavior among its members.
Immortality is largely incompatible with evolution and competition.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#96I'm not a billionaire and I'm not old, but I am so excited about anti-aging. I know Hacker News is super negative, but who doesn't want to live longer?! Of all the pain points humans experience, you'd think death lies pretty high on the list. Why are people fighting this?
I'm excited for ant-aging, not so much for an endless deluge of VC backed treatments/supplements that aren't grounded in science and/or ineffective.
Besides, lifestyle needs to be addressed first. Reduce/eliminate risky behaviors, eat correctly (whatever that may be), and exercise regularly. Then perhaps look into supplements and treatments.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#97I'm not a billionaire and I'm not old, but I am so excited about anti-aging. I know Hacker News is super negative, but who doesn't want to live longer?! Of all the pain points humans experience, you'd think death lies pretty high on the list. Why are people fighting this?
Not just death, but the gradual loss of physical and mental capabilities you used to have. That feels scarier to me. Imagine you could chose to die on your 75th birthday, but in return keep your full 20-something health until then. I'd do it right away.
Why are we so afraid of change of different experiences? Aging is not hell. It may teach us humility. It may give us the opportunity to question our priorities.
Ultimately all the human race will die. Over a short or a long span only learning will matter.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#98I'm not a billionaire and I'm not old, but I am so excited about anti-aging. I know Hacker News is super negative, but who doesn't want to live longer?! Of all the pain points humans experience, you'd think death lies pretty high on the list. Why are people fighting this?
I dunno. Constraints give us meaning. They're what force us to make choices, and it's choices and opportunity costs that let us define who we are at people. If we lived forever, we wouldn't have to make any hard choices - we'd just do it all. And paradoxically, being able to do it all means that none of it means anything. It's like playing a game with all the cheats on. Sure, they let you "win" super easily, but beca…
Anti-aging doesn't prevent death.
You could still just as easily get hit by a car when you are 90 and look 20. Or 1000 and look 20, assuming that's even possible. What's really interesting is if people could actually prolong their lifespan indefinitely but we have the same limited bodies. Then you'll see people trying really hard to say alive to comical effect.
I think Aronofsky's The Fountain is a really great outlook on death. It is a disease and like any disease we may as well try hard to defeat it. Doesn't mean it isn't very natural.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#99I'm not a billionaire and I'm not old, but I am so excited about anti-aging. I know Hacker News is super negative, but who doesn't want to live longer?! Of all the pain points humans experience, you'd think death lies pretty high on the list. Why are people fighting this?
I dunno. Constraints give us meaning. They're what force us to make choices, and it's choices and opportunity costs that let us define who we are at people. If we lived forever, we wouldn't have to make any hard choices - we'd just do it all. And paradoxically, being able to do it all means that none of it means anything. It's like playing a game with all the cheats on. Sure, they let you "win" super easily, but beca…
It might be unthinkable to someone in the future that we could experience the universe meaningfully in 100 years.
I tend to see human-lifespan rationalizations as simple fatalism. It's okay to think you'd get bored after a million years, but dooming every living human to die because you'd be bored is kind of insane if you think about it.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#100I'm not a billionaire and I'm not old, but I am so excited about anti-aging. I know Hacker News is super negative, but who doesn't want to live longer?! Of all the pain points humans experience, you'd think death lies pretty high on the list. Why are people fighting this?
I absolutely, 100% do not want to extend my life. And for the record, I am quite pleased with my life. I do not fear death, I do not worry about it, it does not concern me. Therefore I do not feel the need to combat it in any way. The good truly does not exist without the bad, life without death, and so on. Walking the path of "controlling" your life and/or death like this seems needy, egotistical, and pretty sad, imo.