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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

#191

Post by RangerScience »

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…

Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change.

You could also pull out "make an omelet", but I'm partial to "more steps forward than steps back".

Also, the consequences of longer lifespan are not only imaginable, they're imagined (frequently) _and can be studied_, because it's _happened_. Even the (other) canonical problem situation - rich people live longer than poor people, by a lot - has occurred.

On the other hand, you are also correct that there an unimagined and unimaginable consequences. If people end up waiting until to have kids until they're older, will that be better for the kids (more stable / wise parents) or worse (further from similar experiences)?

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

#192

Post by fapjacks »

naasking wrote: post #176
fapjacks wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, interesting. Like a whole new kind of financial indentured servitude that you can't even die your way out of.

Of course you can die your way out of it. What an absurd thing to say.

Whoosh!

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

#194

Post by ilaksh »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #145
zizzles wrote: post #137

Every life extension discussion derails into debates about foreverness; and therein lies the problem: humans of all backgrounds (even today) are dropping dead of health problems at 60 years of age. Thus, foreverness is science-fiction with our current understanding. Baby-steps first perhaps? Regardless, many agree foreverness is not possible - and if it was - I would not want it.

It's a red herring anyway. The valid question is, would you prefer to remain alive today? You're free to answer in the negative at any time, but it would be nice not to have the decision taken from you by mere biochemistry.

The valid question is actually would you prefer to be healthier today. Aging affects everyone's health (perhaps after a certain age) whether they currently realize they have some acute condition (such as cancer or imminent death) or not.

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

#195

Post by anigbrowl »

HaveCourage wrote: post #110
anigbrowl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellence comes only from competition. I reject that premise as overbroad and dismissive of historical examples of artificially limited supply (eg craft guilds) or other arbitrary constraints which nevertheless resulted in high output quality, and I could point to examples of that in nature too. You're inborn desire to find equality is beaten by natures desire for fitness This sounds like a very individualist approa…

Grouping effectively is a competition. Dogs have tails they wag, humans have eye whites and emotional attachment to eye movements, even language. Competition requires 3 things. 1. A win condition 2. A contest 3. Participants. Pretending that equality amongst creatures exists anywhere that an individual can be discerned from the masses is futile. Equality of outcome moves indirectly proportional to freedom or individu…

You keep projecting positions about equality onto me which I don't hold. Please stop it.

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

#196

Post by wallace_f »

HaveCourage wrote: post #186
wallace_f wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would expect a great cultural and scientific renaissance because you could devote a lot more time to creative pursuits. Even if many people are too lazy, the few geniuses with much longer lifespans would turn the world over. Genius appears to decline with age. Prolonging life would not necessarily preserve genius, even if it preserves life.

Unfortunately, you are correct in that brain deterioration progresses faster than other forms of deterioration, which is why it's smart to focus on it over some other age dependent diseases. Your brain is a part of your body like your heart. Any cure for aging would obviously include the cure for mental deterioration.

> Any cure for aging would obviously include the cure for mental deterioration.

I respectfully disagree. Also, the article in question, and my comment, are really pointing to prolonging life, not a cure for ageing--that may be very far off. In either case, it is not at all obvious why prolonging or curing the ageing process in life would necessarily maintain optimal neurological function.

There's also problem's outside the scientific challenge itself. One being that genius is almost always only genius after the fact, raising interesting hypothetical questions about who exactly is preserved in their genius state - a promising 20-something, or a proven 40-something?

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

#197

Post by wallace_f »

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…

> What fear is motivating me to ask other people to die, as you put it?

I interpreted that as meaning that because, especially over a long period of time, preserving your life would decrease opportunity for other's to have a life.

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

#198

Post by Jaruzel »

hueving wrote: post #189
Jaruzel wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I echo this. We're already over-populated on this planet as it is. Yes there's still a lot of available land, but there are reasons we're not using it either to live on, or to farm - too hostile, too wet, too hot/cold, and the cost of terrafirming those areas is prohibitive. Unless we manage to escape this rock, and find a nice Earth 2.0 out there, extending lifespans is pointless. It's driven by pure selfishness, an…

That's ridiculous. There are vast chunks of land in the US that are perfectly fine to live on, it's just that nobody wants to because the good jobs aren't there (i.e. nearly everything between the coasts).

I was talking about the world view, not just the US.

But you've actually backed up my point, despite there actually being large chunks of land, no one actually wants to live there, so we continue to squeeze ourselves into small urban areas.

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

#199

Post by kpil »

naasking wrote: post #81
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)…

> 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 .

Let's hope so.

I'm a bit reluctant to write this, but it made me worried, so here we go :

I had a chat with a taxi driver in Stockholm the other day, and we talked about the situation in Somalia and that he planned to move back there as it's getting better there.

He had 8 kids, but wanted another wife and 10 more kids when he became my age - 40.

I mentioned that I have been married before so I have 3 kids with 2 mothers and was quite happy with that number...

He actually laughed and looked at me and said - "man, you Swedish guys will disappear."

I don't know how representative this was but looking at some societies in Sweden, I'm guessing it's not unique. It would be nice with some research.

Anyway.I'm hoping that the Somalian women will get some say in the matter, because if they don't, looking at the demography and the socio-economic mechanisms, both Sweden and eastern Africa might end up in a spot of bother.

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