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Age Reduction Breakthrough?

joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com

371–380 of 426 posts

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#371
post #12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's make everything about "billionaires" and completely ignore any good news.

To be clear: I do not see this as good news. The only way new life and new ideas arise is in the wake of the deceased. Death is neccessary for life. If those at the top can further cement and accumulate their wealth and power due to living longer lives, this is bad for everyone else.

Why even invest in the health system at all then?

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#372
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say a feature of evolution. Perhaps it is an adaptation of sexually reproducing multicellular life but it certainly doesn't apply to all life.

Just like organisms evolve things such as vision, frontal lobes, etc, we have evolved aging because it ultimately positively impacts the survival of species. This makes it an evolved feature, wouldn't you say?

Are there any good articles or books that make this case in a form that's not a just so story? You're just kind of stipulating that it's beneficial.

I think it's more likely that, as many others in this thread have observed, longevity is ignored while evolution optimizes for other things, which I would distinguish from something that specifically evolved like vision. Things can die perfectly well on their own without dying needing to be optimized. It would also be more plausible to me that death was evolved if it had some clear, functional, deliberate mechanism by which it was enacted, the way that eyes or lungs are clearly purposeful and functional. Death happens as an interference with function rather than as someone handled by an organ or internal system.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#373
post #33
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication of the article is that the treatment may not be extremely costly. Idk why you immediately start talking about billionaires. The divide would likely be between the poor and the middle class.

The World is seemingly already approaching the upper limit on the number of humans it can support.

It's ok, only the middle class+ in developed countries will have the cure for ageing, and their birth rates are quite low.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#374
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hatred of the successful is likely poisoning your life and making you miserable.

Luck is not success.

Indeed it is not, but it can be a cause for success however.

As the grandparent said, your hatred of the successful is likely poisoning your life and making you miserable. Why not try to achieve what they did instead?

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#375
post #114

Since it seems like the upshot of all of this is that Katcher is claiming to have discovered a set of signalling molecules which, when injected, rejuvenate tissue and presumably lengthen life, it runs into one of the most fundamental objections that can be leveled at theory of aging (or cure thereof): of the billions of humans that have existed, how is it that none of them have possessed a mutation which (in this cas…

Maybe because people tend to reproduce fairly early in life (usually half of lifespan) so living an extra X years doesn't really allow you to have more children, and therefore the mutation of longer life doesn't get a huge enough advantage in natural selection?

Right. And I suppose that the other side of the same coin is that we might want to deliberately delay having children as long as possible if we were actually trying to steer evolution toward optimising for longevity.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#376

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)

The Big Kahuna (1999) ("the majority of the film takes place in a single hotel room, and nearly every single line of dialogue is spoken by one of the three actors.")

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#377
post #70

Since it seems like the upshot of all of this is that Katcher is claiming to have discovered a set of signalling molecules which, when injected, rejuvenate tissue and presumably lengthen life, it runs into one of the most fundamental objections that can be leveled at theory of aging (or cure thereof): of the billions of humans that have existed, how is it that none of them have possessed a mutation which (in this cas…

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…

Or maybe they just died of other things. Pretty sure most people didn't die of old age historically.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#378

Since it seems like the upshot of all of this is that Katcher is claiming to have discovered a set of signalling molecules which, when injected, rejuvenate tissue and presumably lengthen life, it runs into one of the most fundamental objections that can be leveled at theory of aging (or cure thereof): of the billions of humans that have existed, how is it that none of them have possessed a mutation which (in this cas…

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140520-the-girls-who-ne... > A handful of girls seem to defy one of the biggest certainties in life: ageing. He has identified four girls with this condition, marked by what seems to be a permanent state of infancy, a dramatic developmental arrest. He suspects that the disease is caused by a glitch somewhere in the girls’ DNA. His quest for immortality depends on finding it.

Important caveat for one of the patients mentioned in the article: “Her telomeres were considerably shorter than those of healthy teenagers, suggesting that her cells were ageing at an accelerated rate.“

Aging is weird. Maybe there’s something to be learned from these cases, but it’s very unlikely to be straightforward. Unless you’re a roundworm. We can make those live hundreds of human-relative years. But in those cases it’s a tiny number of genes involved, we have near zero evidence that the same is the case for higher organisms.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution may not select for long life? https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/17077/why-does-e...

this is the right answer. once you reach reproduction age and you are able to reproduce, from an evolutionary point of view you're done.

Not only that, but you are competing for resources with those in reproductive age. There are some advantages to having older members of he species around (at least in social animals), but only to an extent.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution may not select for long life? https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/17077/why-does-e...

this is the right answer. once you reach reproduction age and you are able to reproduce, from an evolutionary point of view you're done.

That also means gay people are constantly selected against, yet we have them present for eons.
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