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Age Reduction Breakthrough?

joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com

271–280 of 426 posts

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the only movies that remains intriguing throughout despite being basically a single conversation.

I happen to love certain niche movie genres, which happens to include "dinner party movies". Feel free to list some recommendations, if you like "people talk in a room" movies. Some of my favories: Coherence (scifi) Garden Party (sleazy young adult Los Angeles drama) Murder Party (low budget horror comedy) How English sounds to non-English speakers (youtube) Circle 2015 (scifi)

12 Angry Men. My Dinner with Andre. Steve Jobs (a stretch, but much more a play than a movie).

There's some play adaptations which have few characters and mostly dialogue: Carnage, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Glengarry Glen Ross

Linklater's "Before" trilogy is also heavily dialogue-based, but the there are multiple locations.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#272
post #249

I wonder if HN would have a viscerally negative knee jerk reaction if this was about a cancer treatment breakthrough, that could have saved someone they know or love if it was discovered in due time. This whole “fuck the billionaires” attitude on a website that is supposed to uphold some kind of techno-progressiveness is just so tiresome. We get it, you don’t like people with money and you consider them vampires beca…

Maybe if they weren't leeches on society it'd be easier to want technology like this to exist. But as it stands, there's no reason to believe it won't just be used as a way to make the rich even richer by letting them live forever.

What do rich people leech and from who?

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#273
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if they weren't leeches on society it'd be easier to want technology like this to exist. But as it stands, there's no reason to believe it won't just be used as a way to make the rich even richer by letting them live forever.

What do rich people leech and from who?

If you think someone can become worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars without exploiting anyone then boy howdy do I have news for you.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#274
post #25

Was told by my wife years ago that there is a Hong Kong tycoon who has been doing this for years. Supposedly hires young people to do nothing but to stay healthy and then has transfusions of their blood. Just checked and he is still alive at 91. But this echoes vampire. This reminds me of plasma treatment for covid-19 which is actually proven. Perhaps someone will create a market for that.

90 is not that old these days. Both of my parents have reached their 90s without doing anything like this. Let’s take a look at that guy in 20 years and see how he is doing.

> 90 is not that old these days

True but Hong Kong life expectancy for men is 81.3 years so one should still consider this evidence in favor of the man doing something that extends his lifespan. Doesn't need to be smoking-gun level but still: update your priors.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#275
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of reasons this wouldn’t have happened. Lots of this is speculation but: Seems likely this is a gradient, not a binary thing, so perhaps someone with a beneficial mutation would just live a little longer. There’s not a ton of evolutionary pressure at the old age side of the spectrum, you’re not reproducing a lot, so it may not get picked up. Wilder speculation: it could be that indeed this has been hap…

I would be very careful about trusting research on supercentenarians. There is a substantial amount of evidence ( https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/08/06/are-superc... ) that a significant number of "supercentenarians" are simply pension/tax frauds taking up the names of dead people to keep collecting pensions.

Entirely possible! Hadn’t heard that critique but makes sense and something to control for.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#276
post #130
post #70

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At risk of sounding absolutely insane: There's probably no way to prove that this hasn't happened. Anyone who realizes they're not aging normally would likely have taken on a new identity elsewhere for fear of: 1. being burned at the stake 2. being trialed in repeated experiments 3. being deified, and then subsequently being burned at the stake. --- I realize my comment sounds like a joke, but I'm entirely serious. I…

this person exists--- his name is Jared Leto.

haha yup!, I feel like all the people I know who look relatively young for their age don't eat a ton of meat or processed foods, also are extremely active both physically and mentally with work or other endeavors. Sitting around watching TV doing nothing in retirement is a sure way to early death.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#277
post #212
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk of sounding absolutely insane: There's probably no way to prove that this hasn't happened. Anyone who realizes they're not aging normally would likely have taken on a new identity elsewhere for fear of: 1. being burned at the stake 2. being trialed in repeated experiments 3. being deified, and then subsequently being burned at the stake. --- I realize my comment sounds like a joke, but I'm entirely serious. I…

Based on your comment, you will likely enjoy "The Boat of a Million Years", by Poul Anderson [0]. Needless to say, it's science fiction. It's about a very small number of people who are immortal, in the sense they stop ageing at 25 (iirc). They can be killed like anyone else, but smaller damages do heal faster. Also, they never get sick. Some are thousands of years old, some less. Some smart, some not so much. How th…

The Lords of Farmer's World of Tiers also stop ageing at 25 and are immortal unless killed, usually by other Lords. I loved that series when I was young.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any elective treatments that people don't have equal access to?

Many? Dental care, for example, definitely has unequal access. Implant replacement for a tooth is several thousands of dollars out of pocket. Wealthy folks can afford to get a tooth made and an implant added (and can afford the time off work for surgery recovery.) Less wealthy people might not be able to afford to replace a tooth (and need to just have the tooth pulled or live with the pain), or cannot take the time…

Dental work isn't elective, as it can cause major problems if left untreated.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of them, due to cost.

But cost is not access. People save money for elective procedures/treatments all the time, regardless of their income level, indicating that they have the same level of access as anyone else.

Citation needed.

Cost, under any non-pedantic definition, is absolutely part of access. Otherwise you could say, "everyone has access to a Bugatti Chiron." Or, "everyone has access to private jets for travel". Access implies ability to benefit from something, and if you absolutely cannot afford something, then you do not have access to it.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many? Dental care, for example, definitely has unequal access. Implant replacement for a tooth is several thousands of dollars out of pocket. Wealthy folks can afford to get a tooth made and an implant added (and can afford the time off work for surgery recovery.) Less wealthy people might not be able to afford to replace a tooth (and need to just have the tooth pulled or live with the pain), or cannot take the time…

Dental work isn't elective, as it can cause major problems if left untreated.

A dental implant is considered elective. In many cases you can pull the tooth and not replace it.

Joint replacements are considered elective, as is plastic surgery (even reconstructive surgery following a burn or injury), and some cardiovascular surgeries.

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