Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#71

Post by lisper » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 2:59 AM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #44

lisper wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful what you wish for. Aging and death are woven deeply into the fabric of society, indeed, into the fabric of life itself. Old growth needs to be periodically swept away to make room for new growth. The only logically possible outcome of immortality is that sooner or later the entire biomass of the planet is consumed by immortals, at which point all growth must stop. Imagine being the last person born into such…

> The only logically possible outcome of immortality is that sooner or later the entire biomass of the planet is consumed by immortals, at which point all growth must stop. You seem to be using the word "immortal" in some kind of fantasy meaning of "it keeps living forever no matter what". That's very clearly impossible. Revise your definition to state instead: "keeps living indefinitely unless prevented by accident…

> You're just brainwashing yourself because otherwise you'd find the prospect of mortality intolerable.

As someone who has suffered from suicidal depression and recovered from it, I am intimately familiar with the subjective sensations both of feeling like death would suck, and feeling like it would be desirable. Your subjective sensation that death sucks has nothing to do with the objective truth, it's just a reflection of the fact that genes that build brains that think that death sucks tend to reproduce better than genes that build brains that think that death is awesome. This does not change the empirical and theoretical fact that death is in fact an integral part of life.

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#72

Post by feelix » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:01 AM UTC

What I don't understand, is that with ageing billionaires everywhere, why isn't anti-aging the most funded thing in the world? Or is it?

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#73

Post by Splines » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:01 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #60

HaveCourage wrote: post #51

Summary of pro death arguments re: longevity progress Fairness Only rich people will get it. (no tech has ever done this.) Better to give money to the poor than science. (family,city,state,nation, has proven local investment beats foreign.) Bad for society Dead people make more room for new, other people. (consider going first.) Run out of resources (live people discover/extract/renew better than dead or nonexistant)…

What fear is motivating me to ask other people to die, as you put it? Eternal life would be sort of cool but I dispute your proposition that more people automatically make more progress faster. More people increases competition which incentivizes some kinds of progress but arguably retards others - consider our lamentable record of environmental destruction. I don't think your aspirations are morally wrong in any way…

> Would you enjoy a book or a movie that never ended? Obviously there's a market for such things based on the continued existence of daytime TV soap operas, but nobody seems to think those shows have much cultural value.

There are thousands of things I know I have never done, and likely never will. There are millions of things I don't know I have never done. Don't you have even the tiniest bit of regret of where your life has led you, and wondered if you did things differently, where you would be today? Wouldn't you want to find out?

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#74

Post by devereaux » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:13 AM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #44

lisper wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful what you wish for. Aging and death are woven deeply into the fabric of society, indeed, into the fabric of life itself. Old growth needs to be periodically swept away to make room for new growth. The only logically possible outcome of immortality is that sooner or later the entire biomass of the planet is consumed by immortals, at which point all growth must stop. Imagine being the last person born into such…

> The only logically possible outcome of immortality is that sooner or later the entire biomass of the planet is consumed by immortals, at which point all growth must stop. You seem to be using the word "immortal" in some kind of fantasy meaning of "it keeps living forever no matter what". That's very clearly impossible. Revise your definition to state instead: "keeps living indefinitely unless prevented by accident…

straight to the point.

When we say we are interested in immortality, people say that's because of the 'fear of our own death'.

Sorry, but it's wrong.

When something is inevitable (given our current technology, it is) there is no need to be afraid.

However, when it becomes evitable, then it is time to fear. People are are brainwashing themselves because they find the prospect of their own mortality intolerable make me think they know we we will eventually have the technology, so try to feel better for living in the wrong time and place.

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#75

Post by andrewfelix » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:15 AM UTC

HaveCourage wrote: post #65

andrewfelix wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of a straw man technique. You've framed the argument to suit your counterpoint.

A straw man would be more something like "since no one has ever seen how badly immortal societies have gone, no one can say they're bad."

From Wikipedia: "A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent."

I'm probably what you would describe as 'pro-death'. But I would never have made any of the arguments you listed.

I could just as easily frame your positions to suit my argument.

For example; 'More people make more progress faster.' (India has not made as large a contribution to modern technology as the USA)

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#76

Post by sqeaky » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:16 AM UTC

abakker wrote: post #19

sqeaky wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Any other thing we have invented has generally reduced war by increasing resources available to all, at least since industrialization. There are a few exception, but they were generally intended to be weapons, it seems hard to imagine an aging based weapon.

Reducing aging will likely reduce the resources available to all, by reducing the rate of population decline relative to the growth.

By that logic because we have extended life expectancy with hygiene, education, medicine and global transport that we should be producing less resources per person.

Lets look at food for example: https://ourworldindata.org/food-per-person/

Well that clearly isn't the case... Something subtle must be wrong with your clearly intuitive observation. I think the cost of educating and raising the next generation to the point where they are productive and having them to relearn the lessons of those that died early is simply more costly than what it takes to support an aging population.

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#77

Post by HaveCourage » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:23 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #39

striking wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're looking for extended life for some people, without being able to guarantee a regular life for all. What a world.

Old people are expensive. If the people on Medicare were as healthy as the average 50-year-old, it would basically solve Medicare's long-term funding problem. If it cost, say, $100K every 10 years, it'd be worthwhile to give it to everyone for free. Edit: checked numbers. There are about 40 million Americans 65 or older, and Medicare spends about $600 billion/year, for average annual spending of $15K each.

50% of your lifetime medical cost occur in your last year of life. Old people aren't expensive, unhealthy and nearer death people are expensive. Delaying that last year of life by remaining robust is very profitable.

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#78

Post by sqeaky » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:26 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #38

linkregister wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't the world's bloodiest wars conducted after the advent of industrialization? The 20th appears to be the bloodiest century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll

It appears that way, but remember that the 20th century is also the most populous century. As a fraction of the total population killed, the 20th century is (probably) the most peaceful.

It is by a large margin. Those two wars might have fearfully awesome, but the fact that there are so many years of peace makes the 20th century the most peace Century we have completed: http://www.hsrgroup.org/docs/Publications/HSR2013/HSR_2013_P...

Add onto that on many levels both wars were enhanced by scarcity... Germany want more in both, the assassination of the Archduke was encouraged on by a poor economy, Hitler couldn't have rose to power without a major economic crisis, there were so many failings in production and trade that might have prevented or mitigate either war.

Not aging and not dying will certainly be an economic boon. People can work longer, experts can more deeply master their fields and there will be less loss in passing knowledge down to successors. So economic production will rise and almost certainly faster than it does with aging and death.

Then the emotional factors in war and death... If people stop dying and live to see one war, they just might carry those lessons for the rest of lives.

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#79

Post by tn13 » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:28 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #53

daemonk wrote: post #18

tldr for biologists out there. They made a transgenic mouse line of doxycycline inducible Yamanaka factors in progeria (LAKI) background. Too high induction lead to mortality and teratomas, which is known. They cyclicly induced the Yamanaka factors and found it reversed signs of aging (prolong lifespan by ~30%)

Thanks so much. I don't know why news headline writers are so insistent on bullshit, when they could have taken a cue from you and said 'gene therapy increases mouse lifespans by 30%,' which would have been just as short and interesting but vastly more honest.

But very bad clickbait. The problems of media relying to eyeballs and ad clicks :)

Re: Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

#80

Post by lisivka » Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 3:28 AM UTC

dghughes wrote: post #52

pat2man wrote: post #2

> The technique, which requires genetic engineering, cannot be applied directly to people, but the achievement points toward better understanding of human aging and the possibility of rejuvenating human tissues by other means. Still a ways off for human use but definitely interesting research.

Grow a new genetically engineered body from your stem cells then transplant your head. Maybe wait and see if that Russian head transplant experiment is a success.

Head will die anyway. Death sequence is embedded in the cell, to prevent unlimited growth. You can extend your lifespan by 30% by removing aged cells, so stem cells will divide and produce a slightly younger cells, which reverse lot of age related malfunctions.