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

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

#91

Post by lm28469 »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #71
lm28469 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's two sides of the same coin, individualism. Even if we lived 120 years in average, do you think the game would change a lot, I don't. I don't see drastic changes in young people today, yet they'll most likely be alive in 60-70 years. And for argument's sake, even if it does we still end up with much more people living on the same resource limited planet at the same time. You can already bump your life expec…

> because it's too much effort This is exactly the reason these scientists are focusing on genetic and other medical ways to increase lifespan, which are going to be packaged in products that can be used without effort. One might say what they want about people not wanting to expend unnecessary effort, one might call it lazy or just smart, or a drive of progress, it doesn't matter. The fact is if you give people a me…

But again, what's the goal ?

Giving lazy people the opportunity to continue living lazily longer while ravaging the planet ? Welcome to transhumanists paradise I guess.

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

#92

Post by emteycz »

antt wrote: post #78
TomMarius wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the same.

Oh good. I'm glad you agree we will see the largest genocide in history in our life time. People are usually a lot more optimistic than me about the future.

I don't see it as the largest genocide (not that I consider it positive). The Borg didn't kill, it assimilated. Considering that the absolute majority of people in the future will be cloned, the assimilation of old timers (that's us) is going to be seen as a minor event and probably not even a genocide as we will continue to live, I personally think it's going to be seen as our salvation.

--

IMO there is one thing that seems to be truly unique and irreplaceable - consciousness and its continuity, and control over it. That is probably going to be prized.

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

#93

Post by buboard »

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.

imagine a world in which none of this happens and we all live in ignorance

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

#94

Post by neekburm »

adrianN wrote: post #41
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.

Imagine a world where Newton could still contribute, peak scientific output wouldn't be before the age of 35, and politicians would tackle long term problems because they will be affected by them too. That is also what amortality looks like.

I'd be worried that Newton would be spending an even higher percentage of his time on alchemy research than he already did, and using his reputation to push promising scientists to do the same.

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

#95

Post by xiphias2 »

kristofferR wrote: post #7

This recent interview with Aubrey de Grey (main popularizer of anti-aging science) is really worth listening to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMFST20xHwk (1.5x speed is fine) He seems to think that anti-aging science has speeded up drastically recently, both in terms of the science itself, the funding and the popularity. I really love what the SENS Foundation is doing in terms of spinning research avenues into sta…

I'm still not sure if SENS should stay non-profit. It produced great results, it would get much more money if it would convert to a for profit company. At the same time it's important to keep the control near Aubrey de Grey, as he has a great track record of staying focused.

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

#96

Post by antepodius »

raugustinus wrote: post #10

What makes people think we want to have them around any longer? To extend life is to decrease it's value. Simple economics tells us it's inflation. edit: I think Neil deGrasse Tyson says it a lot better than me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3G9LOJZTmM

Why don't you kill yourself tomorrow, thus increasing the value of your life?

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

#97

Post by PavlikPaja »

lawlessone wrote: post #85
PavlikPaja wrote: post #72

What you actually see if you study aging carefully is that it isn't anything like accumulation of damage the body cannot repair, it's the accumulation of damage the body can repair. In fact, among the most consistent things you can see is the accumulation of iron, and to a lesser extent other minerals, such as calcium. The body seems to have a really big trouble regulating those minerals, it doesn't even have its own…

Gonnna need citations for all of that..

Iron is known to accumulate with age: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23237353 It has even been proposed as the mechanism of caloric restriction: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2481398/ Here is some literature review that I just found: https://res.mdpi.com/metals/metals-05-02070/article_deploy/m... The absence of iron excretion mechanism shouldn't be controversial, here is the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_iron_metabolism#Iron_rec...

Both iron and manganese are transported by the same molecules and the nutrients inhibit each other, e.g.:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2058577

The need of Mn for MnSOD also shouldn't be controverisal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOD2

lanthanum changing the concentration of iron in the brain: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037842740...

Review of lanthanide effects, cites the higher affinity of certain lanthanides to proteins: http://www.actabp.pl/pdf/4_2000/1107.pdf

Lanthanum increaseing the capacity of neural transmission, (together with https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)31646-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00198-7?utm_sourc...: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Acute-functional-neuro...

The longevity myths are well known, there are local myths of 100+ year old mountain men, (caucasus + some other range in south asia) and the myths of ancient "golden age" when people didn't age are almost universal, and many of the earliest written sources insist on "implausible" ages of certain people. Surprisingly many religions (virtually all, in fact) agree that people started aging when they previously were not and longevity was the normal state until aging was inflicted on people, only the reasoning why it happened varies. - all the abrahamic religions, a very important part of hinduism mentioned in many texts, the greek religion, sumerian, etc.

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

#98

Post by est31 »

saiya-jin wrote: post #87
lm28469 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also the only thing that keeps our population in check. Let's see how we handle the incoming retirement issues, that'll give us a good indication (less workers, more retired people pretty much everywhere in the west, peaking in the next few decades). Living long won't help much if it just means more people consuming our limited natural resources and weighting on our social infrastructure. At any rate most coun…

Not only that, longevity might be proper route to hell for mankind - take the worst dictators, what would they achieve with much longer time on earth. Psychopaths in power don't get better with age, do they. Generally as with any powerful new tech, inventors/scientists fail to anticipate worst possible usage for it, which is how it will be (also) used. There would be no way to anyhow regulate it, people would go to g…

With that kind of argument, you could also say that our current situation is proper route to hell because psychopath babies are being born constantly, or idk joung people becoming psychopaths or however that works. Sure often, once a psychopath is in power, waiting for them to die of a natural cause is the easiest way of removing them. And surely, if you take the most cruel ruler each country ever had, put them into power right now, and made them never die, it would be proper hell. But that scenario is entirely artificial. Currently, and throughout history, most people in power aren't cruel psychopaths of the likes of Stalin and Hitler. We just remember the cruel ones more than we remember the boring non-cruel ones.

Unless in an aging-free world, for some reason non-psychopaths are more likely to give their power to psychopaths than the other way round, I think we don't need to worry.

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

#99

Post by MildlySerious »

raugustinus wrote: post #10

What makes people think we want to have them around any longer? To extend life is to decrease it's value. Simple economics tells us it's inflation. edit: I think Neil deGrasse Tyson says it a lot better than me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3G9LOJZTmM

Saying the only motivation to create is urgency through the fleeting nature of life is hardly different from a religious person claiming someone non-religious can't have morals because they don't believe in God.

It is entirely subjective and for all I care wrong until proven otherwise.

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

#100

Post by adrianN »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #74
adrianN wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Overpopulation right now is not caused by people getting too old, it's caused by people having too many babies. Exactly, so if we don't sterilise people who get anti-aging treatments, what's to stop them from having a litter of children every century or so ?

I propose we worry about that when it's actually a problem. We don't know how people behave when they can keep youthful bodies for decades longer than now. Maybe we're lucky and they just don't want more children.
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