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With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

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Re: With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

#221

Post by swat535 »

malvosenior wrote: post #41
bad_user wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need a gym membership. For cardio you can go to any park for running or biking. It’s way more fun. For strength training you can do bodyweight strength training at home with no equipment required (calisthenics). Most people fall into the trap of paying for a gym membership, but then they never use it, because let’s face it, going to the gym wastes time and is uncomfortable. If you train at home by using the…

Can you suggest some good pointers on how to get started with that type of routine? Edit: thanks for the responses, awesome.

Late to the party here.. I've posted this a couple of times but I found the muscle guide by Julian to be incredibly helpful:

https://www.julian.com/guide/muscle/intro

Re: With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

#222

Post by rsync »

saltcured wrote: post #216
rsync wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why the assumption that Past = Right/Conservative and Future = Left/Progressive?" No, that's not really what I am saying ... and you are correct, that would be a very blunt oversimplification (or just plain wrong). What I am saying is that in an unbroken thread of society (that is, absent disaster or revolution or other "resets") views and mores become viewed as more and more conservative by each successive generati…

I understood your original point. Implicitly, you are assuming that people develop their values and beliefs and lose plasticity over time, so they will not adapt to the societal changes happening around them. I think the underlying thought experiment "would I want to be immortal" is plagued by these and other unspoken assumptions. We simply don't know what it would mean to have a lifespan decoupled from our evolution…

"I understood your original point. Implicitly, you are assuming that people develop their values and beliefs and lose plasticity over time, so they will not adapt to the societal changes happening around them."

With respect, we're talking past one another.

I am not talking about the persons whose lives are extended.

I am talking about their new contemporaries - their "younger peers" who, in the past, would have never found themselves cohabitating with people who had lived 1xx or 2xx years ago.

It is those future young people who I think will have a very hard time accepting any views of any kind coming from any "great old ones" - no matter how plastic or malleable or open-minded those old people might be.

Their sin is simply being old and youth defines itself by breaking with the old. Right now there's a throttle on that struggle because people die. Without that throttle, the young will, I fear, kill the "vampires".

Re: With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

#223

Post by AstralStorm »

deytempo wrote: post #39
novaRom wrote: post #7

Yes we can. Calorie restriction is well known slowing biological aging process. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

This has to do with mitochondrial metabolic processes being the most efficient to break down smaller quantities of sugar. There are mitochondrial mechanisms to break down a lot at once that are turned on in the presence of more sugar but they just aren’t as finely tuned and thus generate free radicals which can cause cellular problems. There really wasn’t a point throughout evolutionary history where there was a prol…

Unfortunately free radical aging theories are not enough. It's a tiny piece of a picture, because effectively immortal organisms still use the same mechanisms. And it's not for some magic scavenging either.

Even telomere bound is not enough.

It's likely a set of advanced repair and local homeostasis so that feels still execute the complex maturing program correctly.

Too many senescent or damaged cells might just break the conditions... And mitochondria and cells have excellent mechanisms of dealing with reactive species they make, but sometimes chemicals leak in.

I'd be more concerned with infections and resulting damage at this point, plus toxic damage. Including endogenous like glycation.

Re: With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

#224

Post by saltcured »

rsync wrote: post #222
saltcured wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood your original point. Implicitly, you are assuming that people develop their values and beliefs and lose plasticity over time, so they will not adapt to the societal changes happening around them. I think the underlying thought experiment "would I want to be immortal" is plagued by these and other unspoken assumptions. We simply don't know what it would mean to have a lifespan decoupled from our evolution…

"I understood your original point. Implicitly, you are assuming that people develop their values and beliefs and lose plasticity over time, so they will not adapt to the societal changes happening around them." With respect, we're talking past one another. I am not talking about the persons whose lives are extended. I am talking about their new contemporaries - their "younger peers" who, in the past, would have never…

To me, you still seem to be implicitly assuming that the old person would be reflecting "old" perspectives. I don't necessarily disagree with this assumption, but I think you may be overlooking how much your argument depends on this. And, I am not sure that the dreamers of life extension share this assumption.

Playing devil's advocate: If one had the permanent physical and cognitive characteristics of someone in their 20s-30s, might they not continue to pass as a young person? Unless you look up their identity in some registry, you wouldn't necessarily be able to identify a cohort. Here is urban Southern California, I see plenty of "old" people in their 50s-60s who are trying to pass as young people all the time. What if they don't have to mask fading hair and eyes, sagging or blotchy skin, aching joints, gravely voices, or personality changes?

You describe a person from 200 years ago existing today, as if they step out of a time machine. But, if they have had 200 years to absorb pop culture, mannerisms, dialect, etc. then how would you know? They won't be repelled by garlic nor invisible in mirrors. They won't even be afraid of sunlight (no skin aging!) and their blood-sucking may not be distinguishable from any young go-getter's.

Re: With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

#225

Post by AstralStorm »

mcv wrote: post #208
stronglikedan wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never enjoyed running until I started focusing on my form. Now it's almost meditative. I always thought the only way I'd run is if I were being chased by a predator (or a fucking wasp), but now I run everyday and am totally addicted.

One problem is that when I run, I feel a stab in my guts due to all the bouncing up and down. I'm now trying to develop a running technique that keeps my torso on the same level, but it feels very unnatural. The only way I can really run is when there's something with one of my kids who's a couple of hundred meters away.

Wear a tight thing that holds the gut up? Like whatever power lifters wear. Maybe a belt too.

Re: With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

#227

Post by mcv »

AstralStorm wrote: post #225
mcv wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that when I run, I feel a stab in my guts due to all the bouncing up and down. I'm now trying to develop a running technique that keeps my torso on the same level, but it feels very unnatural. The only way I can really run is when there's something with one of my kids who's a couple of hundred meters away.

Wear a tight thing that holds the gut up? Like whatever power lifters wear. Maybe a belt too.

I'd have to wear it on the inside. It's not that my gut is so large that it bounces, it's that I bounce while running. It seems to me everybody else does too, but it doesn't seem to be causing the same problems in other people.

Re: With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

#228

Post by ionised »

md2be wrote: post #142
sundvor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could find room for a squat rack+ bench at home I'd agree with you. :) Nothing beats proper squatting, deadlifting, bench and shoulder presses. I cycle a lot but the benefits for this desk jockey are marginal compared to doing stronglifts twice or thrice a week.

Depends on the body type and age and history. these movements are super hard on the spine. Try planks and step ups

These exercises will actually strengthen your back and help your spine stay healthy if you practice proper form.

Re: With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

#229

Post by magduf »

rsync wrote: post #214
magduf wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, I ask you to consider the most liberal and progressive figures of the 18th century People change over time. My mother is over 80 now, and happily buys all kinds of stuff on Amazon with her laptop or smartphone, even though she said decades ago she didn't see the need for a computer. Her politics are also quite liberal, a lot more so than a lot of 20-somethings I talk to these days who seem to be a bunch of…

"progressive people, and their opinions, turn into reactionary conservatives with nothing but the passage of time." I'm sorry - that line makes it sound like I am saying those people who were progressive become, themselves, reactionary conservatives. What I am trying to say is that viewed by successive, future generations those people become reactionary conservatives. That is, simply the passage of time changes the v…

You're falling victim to the classic fallacy that societies get more liberal with time. That simply isn't true at all, and you can see it many times in history. Here's a couple of examples: 1) Roman society vs. Medieval feudal society vs western society in the 15-1800s. The Romans had slaves, but the slaves could own money, buy their own freedom, etc., so they were really more like "indentured servants", so this already makes them more liberal and respecting of human rights than America in the early 1800s. Romans had freedom of religion: no one was burned at the stake for believing the wrong kind of religion there. You can't say the same for Medieval times. 2) Ancient Greece vs. everything until about 40 years ago: in ancient Greece and nearby areas, homosexuality was not only tolerated, but encouraged among military members to improve unit cohesion. We're only now tolerating homosexuality again, and even then, not that well. 3) America in the 1920s vs. America in the 1940s-60s. Remember "flappers", speakeasies, etc.? Society was more liberal in the 20s than later.

I can easily find examples of people in my own social circles (mainly through family contacts) where there's young people who are die-hard conservatives, MAGA fans, Christian zealots, etc., and older and elderly people who are staunch defenders of Roe v. Wade.

The things you identify as "liberal" vs. "conservative" simply do not correlate very well with age or generation at all.

Re: With greater longevity, the quest to avoid infirmities of aging is more urgent

#230

Post by skybrian »

Retra wrote: post #163
skybrian wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's very useful to prolong the amount of time spent in earlier, healthier stages of life. The treatments described in the New Yorker article sound quite promising. However, you aren't taking the elderly seriously. It's not "wildly pessimistic" to spend time thinking about what happens after people get beyond that point. This is something that happens to everyone who doesn't die first. It's a normal part…

Look, you're the one saying that elderly people are so miserable that we should not prolong their lives. >It's not "wildly pessimistic" to spend time thinking about what happens after people get beyond that point. Your thoughts are pessimistic, not the fact that you are thinking. The main purpose of a nursing home is to extend the length of people's lives. If you think this is inhumane, then perhaps you would prefer…

You're engaging in one-bit thinking, where things are either one extreme or the other. I didn't say that everyone in a nursing home wants to die! That's something you made up. However, you can find people with very poor health there. Let me quote from the article I linked to:

"In medical jargon, healthy people are “alert and oriented x 3”, which means oriented to person (you know your name), oriented to time (you know what day/month/year it is), and oriented to place (you know you’re in a hospital). My patients who have the sorts of issues I mentioned in the last paragraph are generally alert and oriented x0. They don’t remember their own names, they don’t know where they are or what they’re doing there, and they think it’s the 1930s or the 1950s or don’t even have a concept of years at all. When you’re alert and oriented x0, the world becomes this terrifying place where you are stuck in some kind of bed and can’t move and people are sticking you with very large needles and forcing tubes down your throat and you have no idea why or what’s going on."

It doesn't happen to everyone, but it does happen enough that people who work in health care, or have had to help elderly relatives, or anyone closer to the end of their life needs to think about what to do about it, and set up things like advance directives and medical power of attorney.

There is also the POLST, which is a pink sheet with doctor's orders that terminally ill people put on their refrigerator that tell paramedics not to do CPR (for example). https://polst.org/polst-and-advance-directives/

Although the health care system is usually about extending people's lives, this is not always appropriate. Acknowledging that is just being real about what goes on as people get close to death.

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