Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. I am asking why I wouldn't want to live forever.
Because you miss out on death, which is arguably the most important event in our lives.
Not to me
Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
211–220 of 247 posts
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
This strikes me as an odd argument. Basically you are saying that it's better we die so that a new generation can come and then die for others come around just to die to make way for others. Whats the purpose of that for the individual? Why is that by any metrics desirable for humans to die for other humans to come along to just die for yet others? But what is the purpose of that?
Well, I can understand how from your perspective it makes sense for you to want to live forever, but from an evolutionary perspective your species is more successful if you die after a while. If if immortality didn't have negative consequences as severe as stunting an entire species, we'd probably see more species that were capable of immortal individuals. Such species do exist, but not in the Mammal kingdom as far a…
You are missing the point. Op claimed that the continuation of adding new life and letting other life die out was important. I am questioning that argument not evolution. Why should i care about the continuation of life for anyone but me.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#213I 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.
As a layman it seems far easier to repair existing damage using nanomachine than to replace organs.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#214I'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…
The guy on the farm next door is happy killing leopards which threaten his sheep. Leopards are endangered. He doesn't care, in his world view there have always been many Leopards.
He has his reasons for wanting to kill leopards, but eventually humans are going to kill them all and that can't be right.
Like you, I'm excited by the idea of living longer, but it's selfish. For the world it would be better if we lived even shorter. You'd have a faster churn of ideas. Think of ignorant people consuming ivory or rhino horn out of ignorance. This ignorant generation is going to wipe out these animals outside zoos and tiny protected reserves. Their children would likely be more educated and likely not follow the ignorant behaviour of their parents. But the parents(we) live too long.
I'm sure there is an analogue in my appetite for beef and the destruction of the Amazon or my desire to own and drive a fossil fuel driven vehicle.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> real good by funding research Like the planet need humans to live longer???
The planet has no needs at all, and human longevity is unlikely to be a major issue when most of our human ventures center around efficient ways of killing each other.
That's blatantly incorrect. The radical majority of human ventures center around improving the quality of life for humans on the planet. An extremely small percentage of human ventures are focused on finding new ways to kill (less than 1%). US defense spending for example - most of which goes to human soldier expenses for pay / benefits / veterans etc - is merely 3% of US GDP. The actual amount of that 3% that goes into figuring out new ways to kill, is less than Google's revenue. In other words, you missed by greater than a factor of 100x (I'd guess greater than 1000x) in your estimation regarding how much effort/money/time humans as a whole are putting into killing each other.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
The planet doesn't need billionaires, but there they are. Cue George Carlin.
All we know is that the planet needs plastic... etc. All due respect to Mr Carlin, the guy was insightful and funny, but a solution he did not provide. He made a lot of money out of pointing out what was wrong with the setup, a solution to the shithole we're in was not part of his schtick. I love the man and will point people at his skit on 'save the whales' but nothing he's done or said changes shit. He would be the…
You say we're royally fucked, meanwhile the condition of human existence, or the standard of living at the median, has done nothing but drastically improve over the last 5,000 / 500 / 100 / 50 years.
We're the exact opposite of royally fucked. We've been dealt the greatest hand imaginable. Improvements in the human condition are accelerating by the decade.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#217Human life extension will be great for the individual and bad for society. There will be lots of shitty ideas that will stick around for way too long.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, he's just afraid of dying.
“We don’t expect people to be living to 150 years, even in the wildest version of success,” he said. “But we do expect people to live free of a variety of chronic diseases.”" You didn't read the article, just posting the typical "anti-aging" comment, right? The idea is to be relatively healthy in your old age, not necessarily extend your life by much beyond what the human body can currently live, if it remains free o…
If you are healthy in old age, you're going to live longer until you die of something else(hopefully not painful).
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#219Earlier 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…
Surely you can respect though that other people feel differently though? Everybody has their own way of life.
Of course, 100%. Just giving my personal take here.
Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
#220Earlier 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…
Let's talk again after you had the "great" experience of waiting in an ER for your end thanks to cancer, if you really do not fear death (or rather do not miss all the things you'd still want to do with your life).
Ok, should I text you or something when that happens? You're taking a very black-and-white approach to what I said. I never stated that I wouldn't have the very natural and human urge to continue life or the feeling of missing out on what could have happened, should I find myself at death's door any time soon. What I said is that I try not to attach myself to those feelings. I see absolutely no value in letting a 100% factual eventuality concern my living, breathing moments in any way whatsoever. That doesn't mean I don't eat healthy or avoid obvious paths to an "early" death. It just means I do not think about it (fear, worry, regret, whatever), as this thinking wouldn't be fruitful for me. Is that not understandable, even if you don't agree with this way?