Longevity and anti-aging research: ‘Prime time for an impact on the globe’

Post by adrianN » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 10:13 AM UTC

antt wrote: post #30

dtujmer wrote: post #24

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Well, maybe not the last one, but still an important one. Nick Bostrom has a great story describing the underlying philosophy in the fight against aging: https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html And here it is in video form as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY

Imagine a world in which Stalin was still in power. That is what amortality looks like. I can't help but think that this would also completely retard scientific progress. Imagine tenure that lasts a milenium or more. We would still be discussing scholastism.

Post by adrianN » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 10:17 AM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #21

_iyig wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t it be easier to send an artificial womb and the necessary freeze-dried ingredients on a thousand-year journey to the stars, instead of grown humans who you’d need to keep fed, watered, and happy? The real trick then becomes raising babies entirely through automation. Of course, any automatic system up to the task may be smart enough to just colonize the planet itself.

There will be no thousand year journies. You’d be overtaken by the generation after which left in faster ships and arrived in half the time. Make the trip in a few decades or don’t bother making it at all.

Post by antt » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 10:19 AM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #44

antt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a world in which Stalin was still in power. That is what amortality looks like. I can't help but think that this would also completely retard scientific progress. Imagine tenure that lasts a milenium or more. We would still be discussing scholastism.

You're imagining Stalin but we live in the 21. century. This century telepathy is going to become reality and that still seems to be the less interesting thing compared to AI, that is also inevitably coming. Do you think these facts won't change anything?

Post by c1sc0 » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 10:23 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #36

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #35

If we can cure aging, then overpopulation will become an even larger problem than it already is. I would propose to only make anti-aging treatments available to people who haven't procreated yet and on condition they get sterilised at the same time.

Overpopulation right now is not caused by people getting too old, it's caused by people having too many babies. It is also not a problem in countries where anti-aging treatments are likely to be available first and even less of a problem in the rich population that will be able to afford them at first. On the other hand, the promise of remaining able bodied until you die from an accident might reduce the number of ch…

Post by buboard » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 10:25 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #43

garmaine wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be no thousand year journies. You’d be overtaken by the generation after which left in faster ships and arrived in half the time. Make the trip in a few decades or don’t bother making it at all.

Going faster means expending more energy. At some point it won't make economic sense to go faster, even if technically you could. Freeze dried wombs don't care whether the journey takes a thousand years or five hundred, but the costs are very different.