Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research

I would look at this as something where the interests of the society or species as a whole diverge from the interests of individuals.

It may be quite reasonable for someone to prefer a more dynamic society and social structures caused by an average life span of 50 years, while at the same time preferring themselves and their loved ones to live for 100+ years on average. The question of "do you want to live much longer" is not the same as "do you want everyone to live much longer"; accepting that death and "forced turnover" has some positive role in how societies function (e.g. that you can't have eternal dictators because, in the worst case, eventually they die of old age) is compatible with still wanting death to be something that happens only to someone else whom you don't know or don't like. It's hypocritical but realistic - there's no reason to assume that longevity advances will be distributed to be evenly available.

This is a situation where it's important to believe what is actually true.

If aging can't be stopped, then it's appropriate to accept your mortality and not be in denial.

But if aging can be stopped, then it's appropriate to fight against your mortality and not accept it.

Accepting your mortality has always been the correct answer because (and only because) we always have been inevitably mortal, and denial about mortality has been bad because (and only because) it's detached from reality. However, once the reality changes and it becomes plausible for the people living at that time (perhaps this time has already come for people who are still young? who knows) to become effectively immortal, then refusing to accept mortality stops being denial and becomes a healthy attitude.

> apart from the idea that diet & exercise will extend your life by quite a lot

But there's quite a lot of research on this?

> and the idea that you’ll have to gamble with interventions now if you’re in your 40s

You don't have to. Feel free not to. But if your goal is life extension based on research, you only have what's available today, and around your 40s is, again from my layman reading, when your body starts to really age hard.

> There’s simply no behaviour or treatment today that will significantly extend the maximum human lifespan

If you're saying "living past 125" isn't possible even if you start now, sure, but longevity is more about feeling 40 when you're 60, avoiding potential issues like heart attacks and alzheimers, etc. It is not about living forever as you seem to be saying, and maybe that's a larger misconception. Living longer, sure, but mostly it's about living better.

I haven't seen a single person, anywhere, in everything I've read, saying "I'm trying to live forever". They're all saying "I don't want dimentia, I don't want a heart attack, I want to walk around and travel and live life well at 70 and 80".

And as for life extension, there's actually plenty of research on things you can do to extend your life. Again, not past 125, but past 70 - diet, exercise, niacin, etc are all pretty well established.

> but when we try to judge those interventions objectively, they’re just not that effective (including diet & exercise).

This doesn't seem to actually be the case. I'm surprised anyone would say that intervention treatments for something like avoiding heart disease aren't effective.

I think novelty of a moment relative to your recorded memories affects how you perceive the duration of that moment. More novel moments are perceived as lasting longer.

As life goes on novelty of new moments goes down.

You could say this explains or underlies the Janet model.

But one can seek out novelty to slow down time. In the extreme you could “reset”, move away from everything you know, and start from scratch.

I have no evidence for any of this other than my own perception. Does anyone know where to find more discussion on this topic?

I doubt the extra years lost will affect people's decisions. I've seen a lot of 20 somethings weaving in traffic or not wearing protective hear while motorcycling. It's human nature to enjoy life by taking risks, reasonable or not (subjective as that is).