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

Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 167 posts

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#41

Post by mLuby »

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #15
Aperocky wrote: post #2

That's why the fundamental solution to both the ageing problem and space exploration is not biological. Humans are fundamentally adapted to live/reproduce on the oxidizing and wet environment on Earth. Rather than bring out a mini Earth environ each time we go to space, we should start thinking about how we can just bring out our mind. It would be much more sustainable in the long run, maybe even on Earth itself.

Why do we even need to colonize space anyways? It's not like overpopulation is going to be a problem anymore, and someday in the future, we'll be able to solve problems like environmental degredation and climate change. There's just not any benefit to exploring space. Besides asteroid mining (which can be done with robots), there's not much up there worth our time, except scientific research.

What about innate human curiosity, and our drive to explore?

What about all the technology that, while developed for spaceflight, provides huge benefits to the earthbound masses?

What about meeting other civilizations if they exist, or else learning why they don't?

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#42

Post by jniedrauer »

codegeek wrote: post #4

I always think about the scenario that I have outlived everyone I ever knew. Not sure if that is a good thing necessarily. I wonder how many new people you can meet or make friends after say 80 especially if you are not very healthy.

If you could hop in a time machine at age 80 and go another 80 years into the future, would you? I absolutely would. Even if you do nothing with those 80 years, you're traveling forward in time, seeing technological advances, and watching the future unfold. And this is not even considering the chance that we discover a cure for senescence.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#43

Post by Vrondi »

Aperocky wrote: post #2

That's why the fundamental solution to both the ageing problem and space exploration is not biological. Humans are fundamentally adapted to live/reproduce on the oxidizing and wet environment on Earth. Rather than bring out a mini Earth environ each time we go to space, we should start thinking about how we can just bring out our mind. It would be much more sustainable in the long run, maybe even on Earth itself.

Simply conquering the challenge of going to and/or colonizing Mars will result in many inventions and technique developments in science and tech that trickle back into everyday life on Earth. So it was with Apollo, so it shall likely be in future space exploration.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#44

Post by koolba »

optimalsolver wrote: post #40
melling wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

120 years would be a great start. Imagine the world 120 years ago in 1900. The airplane hadn’t been invented. Cars were still a novelty. Special Relativity hadn’t been discovered.

I seriously feel pissed about all the wonders of the future I'll never get to witness. All the things the human race is going to do. All the places it will go. Of course, that's assuming our species doesn't suffer a biotech apocalypse before then.

If you reverse that and think about all the wonders and scientific progress that’s been made up till now, it’s easy to say that’s it never been a better time to be alive.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#45

Post by GiorgioG »

If I could live to 150 and have a reasonably good quality of life (i.e. I still have my mental faculties, move around, see & hear well enough) - that would be ideal. But not if I can't see, hear, think or move around without assistance.

I don't just want to exist longer - I want to live longer.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#46

Post by everdrive »

zug_zug wrote: post #36

Seems cool, not sure if I want a bunch of 150 year olds voting (relatively, that would be like people born in 1870 voting today, 5 years after slavery ended).

Along those lines: given how quickly things change these days, I can imagine that living to 120 would be quite bewildering, even if you you could be healthy and mentally coherent at 100.

I don't think it would be uniquely bad for old people to vote though, plenty of brand new ideas are terrible too.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#47

Post by willis936 »

That seems like a good length. I don't know what my worldviews will be in 10 years, let alone 100. I do know that the things I am most invested in now will take 100-200 years to bear out. I want to see where climate change is going. I want to see what solutions will be implemented and how extreme they will. What will the unintended consequences be? Similarly, how will social and political issues evolve? Will we continue on this trend of humanism? Will violence continue to decline? How will we mitigate our existential threats?

A lot of these questions might not be resolved in another 100 years, but certainly the state of the world will be flipped from my developmental years in that time. I have a feeling that will result in a satisfied conclusion to the story of the world as I see it.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#48

Post by booleandilemma »

optimalsolver wrote: post #40
melling wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

120 years would be a great start. Imagine the world 120 years ago in 1900. The airplane hadn’t been invented. Cars were still a novelty. Special Relativity hadn’t been discovered.

I seriously feel pissed about all the wonders of the future I'll never get to witness. All the things the human race is going to do. All the places it will go. Of course, that's assuming our species doesn't suffer a biotech apocalypse before then.

But also think about how jealous future generations are going to be of us, born in space, never being able to walk on a beach, always having to worry about their space station’s life support systems failing.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#49

Post by Buttons840 »

zug_zug wrote: post #36

Seems cool, not sure if I want a bunch of 150 year olds voting (relatively, that would be like people born in 1870 voting today, 5 years after slavery ended).

I have two thoughts on this:

- old people should have less voting power bacause they wont live to see the results of their votes

- old people should have more voting power because they are older and have seen more of history

I guess they balance out and everyone gets an equal vote.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#50

Post by mLuby »

lostinroutine wrote: post #22
HDMI_Cable wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we even need to colonize space anyways? It's not like overpopulation is going to be a problem anymore, and someday in the future, we'll be able to solve problems like environmental degredation and climate change. There's just not any benefit to exploring space. Besides asteroid mining (which can be done with robots), there's not much up there worth our time, except scientific research.

Could you explain why overpopulation will not be a problem?

The oceans are big. Think how many floating (or submerged) apartment could exist, each a pressure vessel with links to air, power and heat, fresh water, and a personal shuttle to visit other modules.

Of course, that's all the same tech that space habitats would use too, so why not do both?

Post reply on HN