Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#31

Post by patcon » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #26

patcon wrote: post #22

Surprise, a counter-argument on hacker news! :) Why does it seem no one worries about what we might break in humanity by disrupting the evolved pattern of death. It's a network characteristic selected for in living system, and very few creatures have survived into our epoch without developing the capacity to die. It's literally an evolved feature of our lifecycle and our existence within this web, and it terrifies me…

You’re kidding, right? These conversations frequently tend to devolve into a long discussion about the negative on hacker news. In fact, 3 years ago I wrote that this story should be banned from HN: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-... “Death gives life meaning” “It’ll only be for rich people” “The money should be spent on something better.” If we spent as much time trying to solve the prob…

Thanks. Sorry, realizing I avoid clicking into these most times, so just finally did now and saw nothing but boosting (and I unfairly generalized).

If i understand, you feel that death is a curable condition, and not an evolved adaptation of a population within living networks?

I guess i just find it difficult to conclude that death, an evolved trait for 99.999% of lifeforms, esp ones like us (with its uncountable trillions of iterations of validation) is something we should allow our members to cavalierly just brush aside. My "survival of species" lens says we should just "cap" lifespan -- so that no set of individuals can bend the structure of biology and society to create such an existential asymmetry in the our shared systems. But that has obvious clashes with the belief systems we've established.

There's a rad allegory in city planning. A student wants to remove a fence across a narrow laneway. She says to her wise mentor "hey this fence is here and it's not doing anything. can i remove it and improve the flow". The mentor replies, "sure, but before you remove the fence, you should first uncover why it was there."

I feel like our wise mentor is the process of evolution. She's been around the block. She wasn't born yesterday. I truly don't feel we're wise on this topic. And conveniently, there are essentially no death-defeating maverick species to teach us their learned wisdom. It feels like hubris to presume that we know better than this mentor...

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#32

Post by throwawayhhakdl » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #26

patcon wrote: post #22

Surprise, a counter-argument on hacker news! :) Why does it seem no one worries about what we might break in humanity by disrupting the evolved pattern of death. It's a network characteristic selected for in living system, and very few creatures have survived into our epoch without developing the capacity to die. It's literally an evolved feature of our lifecycle and our existence within this web, and it terrifies me…

You’re kidding, right? These conversations frequently tend to devolve into a long discussion about the negative on hacker news. In fact, 3 years ago I wrote that this story should be banned from HN: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-... “Death gives life meaning” “It’ll only be for rich people” “The money should be spent on something better.” If we spent as much time trying to solve the prob…

I would also be concerned about people living longer but with the mental sharpness of an (average) 80 year old.

Pre emptive; yes I know there are sharp old people but it’s fair to say that on average old people have significant mental decline hence targeting for scams and what not.

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#33

Post by melling » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

patcon wrote: post #31

melling wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re kidding, right? These conversations frequently tend to devolve into a long discussion about the negative on hacker news. In fact, 3 years ago I wrote that this story should be banned from HN: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-... “Death gives life meaning” “It’ll only be for rich people” “The money should be spent on something better.” If we spent as much time trying to solve the prob…

Thanks. Sorry, realizing I avoid clicking into these most times, so just finally did now and saw nothing but boosting (and I unfairly generalized). If i understand, you feel that death is a curable condition, and not an evolved adaptation of a population within living networks? I guess i just find it difficult to conclude that death, an evolved trait for 99.999% of lifeforms, esp ones like us (with its uncountable tr…

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#34

Post by at_a_remove » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

patcon wrote: post #31

melling wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re kidding, right? These conversations frequently tend to devolve into a long discussion about the negative on hacker news. In fact, 3 years ago I wrote that this story should be banned from HN: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-... “Death gives life meaning” “It’ll only be for rich people” “The money should be spent on something better.” If we spent as much time trying to solve the prob…

Thanks. Sorry, realizing I avoid clicking into these most times, so just finally did now and saw nothing but boosting (and I unfairly generalized). If i understand, you feel that death is a curable condition, and not an evolved adaptation of a population within living networks? I guess i just find it difficult to conclude that death, an evolved trait for 99.999% of lifeforms, esp ones like us (with its uncountable tr…

If you have a way to brush aside death, do share with us.

So far as I can tell, nothing about the attempts have been cavalier. Fortunes have been squandered, tears wept over the fresh graves of the beloved, lives were focused in an all-consuming passion, and so forth. The subject has already been rendered not cavalier by the agonies of our past.

We haven't a "skip death" button to press.

Chesterson's fence, which you referenced, is only applicable to the conscious acts of thinking beings. Evolution is not wise, evolution is not careful, evolution did not plan or reason for that fence. Evolution also gave us susceptibility to diseases, revolting parasites, defects of birth, and an often tragic fragility. Shall we preserve those as well? After all, they must be there for a reason.

Under that aegis, nothing which applies to death does not equally and as thoroughly apply to quite literally every other medical intervention humanity has invented starting with the humble bandage.

Evolution gave us allergies which cause people to asphixiate and clotting disorders which have children bleeding out from a casual scrape. Blindness, gangrene, arthritis: this is the wisdom of evolution.

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#35

Post by nickthemagicman » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

patcon wrote: post #22

Surprise, a counter-argument on hacker news! :) Why does it seem no one worries about what we might break in humanity by disrupting the evolved pattern of death. It's a network characteristic selected for in living system, and very few creatures have survived into our epoch without developing the capacity to die. It's literally an evolved feature of our lifecycle and our existence within this web, and it terrifies me…

Evolution is not always correct.

Evolution is correct only for a certain set of circumstances at a certain point in time.

Appendixes are an example of legacy evolutionary artifacts.

Evolution keeps...evolving.

So one could argue that mortality is a legacy evolutionary process and by overcoming it humans are evolving as a species.

Think of all one could accomplish if dedicated 1000 years of learning and research to developing fusion for example or space travel.

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#36

Post by buboard » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

Lucky nematodes and mice, they live the future

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#37

Post by saiya-jin » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #26

patcon wrote: post #22

Surprise, a counter-argument on hacker news! :) Why does it seem no one worries about what we might break in humanity by disrupting the evolved pattern of death. It's a network characteristic selected for in living system, and very few creatures have survived into our epoch without developing the capacity to die. It's literally an evolved feature of our lifecycle and our existence within this web, and it terrifies me…

You’re kidding, right? These conversations frequently tend to devolve into a long discussion about the negative on hacker news. In fact, 3 years ago I wrote that this story should be banned from HN: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-... “Death gives life meaning” “It’ll only be for rich people” “The money should be spent on something better.” If we spent as much time trying to solve the prob…

So you wrote your opinion on some blog... doesn't make it any more relevant than any other opinion, here, there, anywhere. This is a public forum.

Death is an interesting topic, plenty of people are scared shitless of it, regardless of their beliefs. Many wish that they would be that special spark that will live almost forever, ideally young, but god forbids that everybody else with them gets the same chance (simple math indicates that would be a bit of catastrophe for whole ecosystem and ultimately mankind too these days).

Research should be definitely done, results might help in places like space travel and probably some diseases, but I don't see it as something super important currently. Maybe because I am at peace with my inevitable death, so other things are considered as higher priority (say pollution, global climate change, inequality, f@cking wars).

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#38

Post by excursionist » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

patcon wrote: post #22

Surprise, a counter-argument on hacker news! :) Why does it seem no one worries about what we might break in humanity by disrupting the evolved pattern of death. It's a network characteristic selected for in living system, and very few creatures have survived into our epoch without developing the capacity to die. It's literally an evolved feature of our lifecycle and our existence within this web, and it terrifies me…

> it terrifies me (esp everything going wrong already in our world) that we're not being more critical and cautionary toward life-extension....

Don't worry bro, you'll die and all your fears will go away :). From a personal point of view biological immortality would be great, but I think you're right that there are risks - I can imagine a world where a tiny fraction of wealthy/powerful people make themselves into immortal super-tyrants.

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#39

Post by excursionist » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

nickthemagicman wrote: post #35

patcon wrote: post #22

Surprise, a counter-argument on hacker news! :) Why does it seem no one worries about what we might break in humanity by disrupting the evolved pattern of death. It's a network characteristic selected for in living system, and very few creatures have survived into our epoch without developing the capacity to die. It's literally an evolved feature of our lifecycle and our existence within this web, and it terrifies me…

Evolution is not always correct. Evolution is correct only for a certain set of circumstances at a certain point in time. Appendixes are an example of legacy evolutionary artifacts. Evolution keeps...evolving. So one could argue that mortality is a legacy evolutionary process and by overcoming it humans are evolving as a species. Think of all one could accomplish if dedicated 1000 years of learning and research to de…

I'm not sure our brains are capable of continuously learning for 1000 years without becoming useless. Also, there is a dystopian version of immortality - a tiny fraction of elites becoming immortal super-tyrants.

Re: Scientists identify pathways that extend nematode worm lifespan fivefold

#40

Post by saiya-jin » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

at_a_remove wrote: post #34

patcon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Sorry, realizing I avoid clicking into these most times, so just finally did now and saw nothing but boosting (and I unfairly generalized). If i understand, you feel that death is a curable condition, and not an evolved adaptation of a population within living networks? I guess i just find it difficult to conclude that death, an evolved trait for 99.999% of lifeforms, esp ones like us (with its uncountable tr…

If you have a way to brush aside death, do share with us. So far as I can tell, nothing about the attempts have been cavalier. Fortunes have been squandered, tears wept over the fresh graves of the beloved, lives were focused in an all-consuming passion, and so forth. The subject has already been rendered not cavalier by the agonies of our past. We haven't a "skip death" button to press. Chesterson's fence, which you…

> Evolution gave us allergies which cause people to asphixiate and clotting disorders which have children bleeding out from a casual scrape. Blindness, gangrene, arthritis: this is the wisdom of evolution.

It is indeed a wisdom, albeit a primitive one which simply works good enough long term - survival of the fittest, best adapted, strongest, with better immunity etc. Collateral damage for the unfortunate is not important when we talk about billions of organisms over countless generations, and survival of the species as a whole. We also evolved over weaker species, because we were better and luckier. And we will evolve more either naturally or by our hands, if we keep on surviving.