Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

ldeming.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 146 posts

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#11

Post by flyinglizard »

vimy wrote: post #4
flyinglizard wrote: post #3

Actual substantial longevity - beyond quality of life enhancements - is something I greatly fear. It would change everything. Imagine life with no kids and the joy they bring, a stagnation in all societal structures, no turnover of ideas (loosely quoting "agendas don't die; people die"). I'm sure such a civilization would be very stable, but won't have any extreme sports.

Why do you assume there would be no kids? How else will we populate our solar system.

I remember the times where colonizing the solar system was a means for our collective survival, not an endgame for which we irreversibly change our society.

That aside, we could populate the solar system just as well with people who live a healthy century.

It only takes a few months to get to Mars with the current technology.

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#12

Post by d_burfoot »

flyinglizard wrote: post #3

Actual substantial longevity - beyond quality of life enhancements - is something I greatly fear. It would change everything. Imagine life with no kids and the joy they bring, a stagnation in all societal structures, no turnover of ideas (loosely quoting "agendas don't die; people die"). I'm sure such a civilization would be very stable, but won't have any extreme sports.

> Imagine life with no kids

People will still be able to have kids. In fact in many cases people will be able to have as many kids as they normally would. As long as the fertility rate is less than 2 children/woman, the total population will still converge even if no one dies. Places like South Korean have a fertility rate of 1 c/w, which would produce a mere doubling of the total population.

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#13

Post by echelon »

flyinglizard wrote: post #9
lachlan-sneff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not want to live longer?

I also don’t want to pay taxes but here I am, grudgingly paying them for the benefit of our societal structure. Would I want to live in a world where people don’t have kids, where people can take as much time as they want because time is infinite, a world where you wouldn’t even go out on the street for the chance something would happen to you and deprive you of eternal existence? I’m not sure, and in any case, it wi…

You do you.

I want to live 900 years and explore every discipline under the sun. I want to travel the world twenty times, read every book, see a hundred thousand sunsets.

Don't tell me I or anyone else doesn't deserve that. Evolution left us with bodies that don't permit it, but we'll escape that limit someday.

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#14

Post by kgin »

flyinglizard wrote: post #3

Actual substantial longevity - beyond quality of life enhancements - is something I greatly fear. It would change everything. Imagine life with no kids and the joy they bring, a stagnation in all societal structures, no turnover of ideas (loosely quoting "agendas don't die; people die"). I'm sure such a civilization would be very stable, but won't have any extreme sports.

I would ask why 80 just happens to be the best lifespan for humans. If we’re optimizing for things you listed, imagine how much more child-inspired joy and new idea throughput we could get if we had kids at 18 and died at 40?

I’m still unclear on the point of life, but I’m not convinced it’s that kind of optimization exercise.

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#15

Post by melling »

lachlan-sneff wrote: post #8
fizixer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shhh. Don't wake them up from their pro-aging trance.

Never understood why so many people are so vehemently against anti-aging sentiments. Are they in denial about their own, current mortality?

It’s the same story repeated. I got so tired of listening to people complain I wrote a blog about it 3 years ago so I could hopefully quell the noise.

“Death gives life meaning”

“It’ll only be for rich people”

https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-...

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#16

Post by realbarack »

lachlan-sneff wrote: post #8
fizixer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shhh. Don't wake them up from their pro-aging trance.

Never understood why so many people are so vehemently against anti-aging sentiments. Are they in denial about their own, current mortality?

I attribute it to mortality denial as well as general anti-technology sentiment across the board.

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#17

Post by nynx »

xwdv wrote: post #5
flyinglizard wrote: post #3

Actual substantial longevity - beyond quality of life enhancements - is something I greatly fear. It would change everything. Imagine life with no kids and the joy they bring, a stagnation in all societal structures, no turnover of ideas (loosely quoting "agendas don't die; people die"). I'm sure such a civilization would be very stable, but won't have any extreme sports.

The best time to be alive is when longevity break throughs first appear. You have the advantages of experiencing the old ways of living and get to live unexpectedly longer and see the world adapt to the new normal. Fortunately that is what we are positioned for.

You're getting some downvotes, but I actually agree with this. The next ten or twenty years are going to be the most exciting so far, and then it only goes up from there.

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#18

Post by teej »

lachlan-sneff wrote: post #6
flyinglizard wrote: post #3

Actual substantial longevity - beyond quality of life enhancements - is something I greatly fear. It would change everything. Imagine life with no kids and the joy they bring, a stagnation in all societal structures, no turnover of ideas (loosely quoting "agendas don't die; people die"). I'm sure such a civilization would be very stable, but won't have any extreme sports.

Do you not want to live longer?

No.

If I could add 10 years on to my 30s I would. But adding 10 years into my 80s doesn’t seem worthwhile.

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#19

Post by millstone »

lachlan-sneff wrote: post #6
flyinglizard wrote: post #3

Actual substantial longevity - beyond quality of life enhancements - is something I greatly fear. It would change everything. Imagine life with no kids and the joy they bring, a stagnation in all societal structures, no turnover of ideas (loosely quoting "agendas don't die; people die"). I'm sure such a civilization would be very stable, but won't have any extreme sports.

Do you not want to live longer?

"Science advances one funeral at a time." - Max Planck

"Death is very likely the best single invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new." - Steve Jobs

I know my life is accreting old biases and obstacles. Today and for years to come (I hope) I have more to do, but some day I will become an agent of stagnation instead of advancement.

Nobody wants to die. But in the big picture, the alternative is worse.

Re: Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

#20

Post by lachlan-sneff »

teej wrote: post #18
lachlan-sneff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not want to live longer?

No. If I could add 10 years on to my 30s I would. But adding 10 years into my 80s doesn’t seem worthwhile.

The whole point of this is to be able to extend your healthspan, not just your lifespan. This includes age "reversal" and maintenance. A complete solution does not leave you in your 80s, it leaves you in your 20s indefinitely.
Post reply on HN