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Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

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Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#111

Post by nullc »

pointytrees wrote: post #65
a13n wrote: post #56

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?

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…

I've found it helpful to share this with people: http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#112

Post by aaron-lebo »

scandox wrote: post #97
dcposch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have you seen people needlessly suffer in old age? Stooped backs, sore joints, limited abilities, dementia.

On the contrary, talking to my 82-year old professor who is sharper than most college kids but has constant health problems and I wish we could beat aging.

You're right, we shouldn't be afraid of different experiences, but that doesn't also mean that fighting aging is bad. We could apply your arguments to all medical care, but we don't because there's no point in needlessly suffering.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#113

Post by forthefuture »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #108
forthefuture wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I tend to see human-lifespan rationalizations as simple fatalism. But you are very mortal and you are at most a few decades old. Your perspective would probably change drastically in your third century or millenia. It makes conjecture like this as good as worthless because as mortals we do not have the ability to see it from another perspective.

> Your perspective would probably change drastically in your third century or millenia.

I'd rather have that opportunity than not.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#114

Post by aaron-lebo »

nostrademons wrote: post #109
aaron-lebo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 outlo…

That seems even more meaningless though, to make the moment of your death random rather than mostly-predictable. I mean, it'd suck to live my life like I had a million years and then get hit by a bus tomorrow.

A teenager got hit and killed by a car today. Probably seemed pretty random to them. What's the difference?

Hell, if age couldn't kill you, then you could chose your death, which is less random than a heart attack or stroke.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#115

Post by kilroy123 »

scandox wrote: post #97
dcposch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree, but I think everyone wants to have that much later in life. For example after your 100. Instead of 60 or whenever.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#116

Post by trhway »

misiti3780 wrote: post #46

I just finished a book by Nick Lane where he discussed how he believes aging is cause by mitochondrial free-radical leakage. His hypothesis (and he is a smart guy) is that science will allow people to live longer, but probably not much longer than 125. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20021368

>but probably not much longer than 125.

enter new organs growth. Any organ, except for the brain, could be replaced by a new one, and thus there is no limit. Brain probably too can be updated in some ways, we just don't know how yet.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#117

Post by kilroy123 »

rezashirazian wrote: post #49
M_Grey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaires are not immune to the terrifying realities of life and death, they're just more likely to delude themselves into thinking that like so many rules, they can beat that too. The result is, on the bright side, that sometimes they do some real good by funding research. The downside is that often they blow that money on extremely expensive snake oil.

And that when you're a billionaire you have much more to lose when you die.

Can't take that money with you!

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#118

Post by Disruptive_Dave »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #110
Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, im…

So you plan to end it all tonight? No? I think, like everyone else, you expect a reasonable lifespan and would fight to achieve that. From there, its just a matter of how much is enough.

I actually don't expect anything. I get what I get, that's all. Expectation is a problem, generally speaking. Actively killing myself is quite different from un-attaching myself to the concept of an expected X number of years on this earth.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#119

Post by notgood »

deegles wrote: post #96
a13n wrote: post #56

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?

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.

Some vegans die at their 60s of "natural causes", Winston Churchill died at 90 after having smoked all his life and being very fat. Yeah, statistically there is relevance to eat correctly, but its not as dramatic as some like to believe.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#120

Post by eli_gottlieb »

a13n wrote: post #56

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?

>Of all the pain points humans experience, you'd think death lies pretty high on the list. Why are people fighting this?

Because nobody ever seems to go around funding peer-reviewed medical science done in well-controlled labs with large sample sizes to study how to fight aging.

This is not a problem that a startup company can solve. This is a problem for steady, difficult progress over decades. But people go for the sexy headline rather than the eventual working solution.

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