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Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifespans by 30 percent

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

#151

Post by pandler »

visarga wrote: post #142
dandare wrote: post #126

The consequences of longer lifespan to social order are unimaginable. Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos, especially if the treatment will not be available to everyone. From where I stand it seems that relatively little resources are spent on the research of consequences of longer lifespan compared with the discussions we have about friendly/enemy AI, machines replacing jobs, universal incom…

Don't worry, the treatment won't be available to all, unless it's a cheap pill with no IP constraints on it. Imagine the profits for the producers of a life extending miracle drug. It would be more like spice on Dune. Hmm... if I recall correctly, the fremens (who had unlimited access to it) were a bloody waring bunch.

> if I recall correctly, the fremens (who had unlimited access to it) were a bloody waring bunch

They were, but not because they had spice. They had spice long before they became a bloody warring bunch. The interplanetary jihad was at the behest of Paul Muad'dib. The Spartan and militant culture that existed before Muad'dib was mostly out of self preservation in the face of a brutal Arrakis environment and colonial oppression.

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

#152

Post by somanychoices »

bassislife wrote: post #150
jjoe wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of a few pertinent cases. With every new generation you get fresh perspectives. Old practices die because generations die with them. Can you imagine slavery practices getting a "lifespan increase." I bet the "cold war" mind set works the same way. You rarely see cold war brought up by much younger folks. It's always an old gen rehash. What about a ruthless dictator like Kim Jong Un getting 12 extra years…

All these dictators in Africa ruling for (eternal) life ?!! What a nightmare !

The nightmare would be, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, the perfection of the concentration camps: the ability to torture someone forever while keeping them alive.

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

#153

Post by caio1982 »

sho wrote: post #140
dandare wrote: post #126

The consequences of longer lifespan to social order are unimaginable. Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos, especially if the treatment will not be available to everyone. From where I stand it seems that relatively little resources are spent on the research of consequences of longer lifespan compared with the discussions we have about friendly/enemy AI, machines replacing jobs, universal incom…

> Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos Care to explain? I don't see why humans living on average a dozen years longer would inevitably lead to "wars and chaos" and a breakdown of social order. Indeed, we saw lifespans increase by two dozen in the last 80 or so years and nothing happened at all. The usual arguments about overpopulation don't seem to apply to developed countries; if anything it'…

> Indeed, we saw lifespans increase by two dozen in the last > 80 or so years and nothing happened at all.

Please define "nothing" in your sentence. Lots of countries have been dealing with welfare spending recently due to general aging in their population. If we live two dozen more years that means someone will have to pay for those retirements. I don't know where you live but most developed or developing nations have some sort of government-sponsored retirement/age pension system or welfare program they have to maintain (and is usually paid by the working force alive today).

> The usual arguments about overpopulation don't seem to > apply to developed countries; if anything it's the > opposite.

You gotta be kidding. Haven't you ever considered what would happen if a good chunk of the world population magically started to live by the wasteful and consumption driven standards most developed countries have, like the US or Japan (or even Russia)? We still have margin for more people in the planet but certainly not with the so called "developed countries" way of life (energy-wise, amount of garbage produced, pollution emissions etc).

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

dandare wrote: post #126

The consequences of longer lifespan to social order are unimaginable. Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos, especially if the treatment will not be available to everyone. From where I stand it seems that relatively little resources are spent on the research of consequences of longer lifespan compared with the discussions we have about friendly/enemy AI, machines replacing jobs, universal incom…

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by smcguinness »

There shouldn't even be a debate between people who approve of reversing aging and those who do not. Whoever doesn't approve... when the treatment will finally be available... just don't use it! I'll use my freedom of decision and my money to extend my life, thank you! If you want to die, go ahead.

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

#157

Post by chimprich »

caio1982 wrote: post #153
sho wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos Care to explain? I don't see why humans living on average a dozen years longer would inevitably lead to "wars and chaos" and a breakdown of social order. Indeed, we saw lifespans increase by two dozen in the last 80 or so years and nothing happened at all. The usual arguments about overpopulation don't seem to apply to developed countries; if anything it'…

> Indeed, we saw lifespans increase by two dozen in the last > 80 or so years and nothing happened at all. Please define "nothing" in your sentence. Lots of countries have been dealing with welfare spending recently due to general aging in their population. If we live two dozen more years that means someone will have to pay for those retirements. I don't know where you live but most developed or developing nations ha…

> If we live two dozen more years that means someone will have to pay for those retirements.

You're assuming that we'd just extend life rather than slow or partially reverse ageing as the article describes. You would assume that people would work for longer if this was the case. You may even get a "better" (from an economics point of view) ratio of working life to retirement time.

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

#158

Post by Qwertious »

kiba wrote: post #99
naasking wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Overpopulation (colonize the seas, solar system, or have a war.) [...] Stop having kids This already happens. The more affluent a country becomes, with its better healthcare, better education, and greater career opportunity, the lower its birthrate. The big crisis in 50 years will be population decline .

Ending aging will reverse this trend. The crisis then won't be population decline but the side effect of population growth.

There's a really simple solution to this: Have a cultural policy that what's normal/acceptable is to delay having children for quite a while, and then to have only one child per couple.

One child per couple means that the total population caps out at double the current population (a population of 32 would have 16 children, who'd have 8, who'd have 4, who'd 2, then 1 person who's SOL - 32+16+8+4+2+1=63). A single order of magnitude is an acceptable loss, and everyone gets a child of their own.

Note: Not as in "literally force people to have only one child", just make it frowned upon like smoking generally is - most people won't care enough to defy it, and in the long term it should be enough. Although IMO families like the Duggars[1] shouldn't be provided immortality unless they start using birth control.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_Kids_and_Counting

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

#159

Post by [deleted] »

smcguinness wrote: post #155

There shouldn't even be a debate between people who approve of reversing aging and those who do not. Whoever doesn't approve... when the treatment will finally be available... just don't use it! I'll use my freedom of decision and my money to extend my life, thank you! If you want to die, go ahead.

[deleted]

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

#160

Post by dandare »

sho wrote: post #140
dandare wrote: post #126

The consequences of longer lifespan to social order are unimaginable. Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos, especially if the treatment will not be available to everyone. From where I stand it seems that relatively little resources are spent on the research of consequences of longer lifespan compared with the discussions we have about friendly/enemy AI, machines replacing jobs, universal incom…

> Even increase by dozen of years may result in wars and chaos Care to explain? I don't see why humans living on average a dozen years longer would inevitably lead to "wars and chaos" and a breakdown of social order. Indeed, we saw lifespans increase by two dozen in the last 80 or so years and nothing happened at all. The usual arguments about overpopulation don't seem to apply to developed countries; if anything it'…

My mistake, I meant couple dozen of years, like 24 - 99. Also, the change will be sudden, not gradual.
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