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Age Reduction Breakthrough?

joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com

401–410 of 426 posts

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the bible does talk about people who lived for thousands of years I don't remember anyone mentioned living for _thousands_ of years. There are plenty of characters that live for hundreds, though. It is believed that Abraham lived to the age of 175, while I believe there was one character that lived into the 300's, but I do not recall their name. It has been a while since I delved into the old testament.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah > Said to have died at the age of 969, he lived the longest of all figures mentioned in the Bible.

I believe in Islam Noah is believed to have lived 950 years. It took him a long time to build the arch.

The other story mentioned in the Quran is about a group of people and their dog who slept in a cave for 309 years and woke up afterwards. I believe they died shortly after. There is an actual chapter in the quran about this called the cave[1].

[1] https://www.clearquran.com/018.html

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#402

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)

Exam (2009) is another good single-room film.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#403
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds more like vampire-fiction like historical realities. People were "burned at the stake" for heretical ideas and challenging church dogma, not for looking suspiciously young. And the examples we have of living persons being defied was generally because they acquired enormous power (roman emperors, pharaohs and so on) not because of looking particularly young for their age. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of…

The actual charge was "maleficium", using magic to harm people. Things like poisoning also counted, although we wouldn't consider that magic today. The important point was the intention to cause harm. Of course that was hard to prove or disprove, but we have examples of alleged witches accepting payment for harming/killing other people using whichcraft - like a contract killer. So at least the intention to cause harm…

> There are numerous accounts of people having (alleged) supernatural abilities who was not persecuted, e.g ascetics surviving without eating for years and such. These were generally held in high regard, and could end up as saints.

> Of course people could be accused for maleficium on really flimsy evidence so it could also hypothetically happen to the hypothetical slow-aging person just like it could happen to anybody else.

Yep, hence points 1 and 3.

Thanks!

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This meat bag is made from star dust, self-assembling from a single microscopic machine, into a form so complex that it's complexity, adaptability and computing power dwarves by several orders of magnitude all the machines and computers we have built or will build in the foreseeable future, combined. And billions of them exist, doing things like inventing imaginary worlds, loving each others, gardening and playing so…

This is not a logical comment. Everything is made of stardust - including the androids we'd construct. ...and while "complexity" is one word for our DNA - another more accurate term would be "complete fucking mess of code". It breaks frequently , is nearly impossible to model and predict, and can only be modified with agonizing inaccurate testing. Your only reasonable argument here is that computing power isn't up to…

Maybe it seems like a "complete fucking mess of code" because it's not code at all!

See https://phys.org/news/2020-04-dna-life-bookjust-jumbled-ingr...

Also relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/1605/

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a logical comment. Everything is made of stardust - including the androids we'd construct. ...and while "complexity" is one word for our DNA - another more accurate term would be "complete fucking mess of code". It breaks frequently , is nearly impossible to model and predict, and can only be modified with agonizing inaccurate testing. Your only reasonable argument here is that computing power isn't up to…

Maybe it seems like a "complete fucking mess of code" because it's not code at all! See https://phys.org/news/2020-04-dna-life-bookjust-jumbled-ingr... Also relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/1605/

The first link is essentially a description of epigenetics - which I'm not arguing against. It's "part of the mess".

The second link is funny, but not an accurate comparison because when decompiled/deobfuscated, the google.com page resolves to well structured code. The human genome does not - there are interdependencies that have no logical purpose - pure happenstance.

...but that's not really my point anyway. My point is simply that it would be easier to build a better system from scratch. It might not be able to self-replicate from a single unit in the wild, but that no longer needs to be a requirement for us as a species.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#406

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)

I love those kinds of movies. It's a Disaster (2012) is a good watch.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#407
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You do know that it is possible to create value? For example, let's say I invent a pill that increases the average life span of a human by 5 years. It costs 1$ to make and I sell it to every person on earth for 4$ each. Who is exploited in this example?

Inventing the pill is not the only labor that goes into making it. Was every worker who manufactured that drug also fairly compensated for their labor? Or were they exploited in the name of keeping labor costs down?

Inventing something doesn't magically sprout it into existence.

The person who invented the pill does not deserve thousands upon thousands of times more reward than those whose labor goes into producing it.

If you legitimately believe that billionares have worked thousands or hundreds-of-thousands times harder, or are that much smarter, than you or me, then that's just some ultimate self-hatred right there.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#408
You may be able to slow aging, but you are still going to deal with wear and tear. Until they actually find a way to promote well regulated regrowth of tissue, that is going to be a problem. I am young for my age, having been born into a family the generally lives to be old. My parents both lived to be 90, my maternal grandfather lived to be 95, and my maternal grandmother was one of three in here family that lived to 100+. On my father's side, his mother died at 88. For someone born in 1890 that was a feat. His father committed suicide during the great depression, but two of his father's sisters lived to 98 and 101. You get the drift. Dinosaurs. But wear and tear still took their toll. My father's hearing was week, and he was losing his eyesight before he died. My grandmother was completely blind before she died. My mom succumbed to a cancer that had recurred.

Wear and tear.

I worked outdoor physical labor through high school, and I have the moles and other skin issues related to excessive sun exposure. I also have several joints that were injured then that have caused problems my whole life. I lost much of my hearing to childhood illness before I was twelve (an misdiagnosed issue that would have been malpractice in today's environment) that I followed up with too much live music, operating heavy machinery, and shooting trap.

Wear and tear.

So maybe we can extend the healthy life of our organs, but that isn't going to magically make injuries go away.

And I am not suggesting that young people should ever listen to people in their sixties, I certainly never did, but if you can avoid damaging your skin, hearing, and joints while you are young, you will live to appreciate that.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#409
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual charge was "maleficium", using magic to harm people. Things like poisoning also counted, although we wouldn't consider that magic today. The important point was the intention to cause harm. Of course that was hard to prove or disprove, but we have examples of alleged witches accepting payment for harming/killing other people using whichcraft - like a contract killer. So at least the intention to cause harm…

> There are numerous accounts of people having (alleged) supernatural abilities who was not persecuted, e.g ascetics surviving without eating for years and such. These were generally held in high regard, and could end up as saints. > Of course people could be accused for maleficium on really flimsy evidence so it could also hypothetically happen to the hypothetical slow-aging person just like it could happen to anybo…

Well you only become a saint after you are dead and if miracles at your grave. So the risk of being saintified and then burned at the stake is not high.

My point was just that unusual aging patterns would not put you at any particular risk of being burned at the stake.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#410
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't mean to sound obtuse. I've heard this claim many times and I can imagine it being true, but I have no way of knowing whether it is or not. So I wanted to see what the reasoning is.

The fact that there are millions of workers who are being exploited constantly in order to produce things or provide labor in ways for which they're not being fairly compensated? I mean the most obvious example of this is how minimum wage is well under the poverty line and there are folks out there still being paid it and expected to live off of it.
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