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Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

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Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#71

Post by sixtofour »

iwwr wrote: post #28
Udo wrote: post #21

It's important to make a distinction medically between pushing as many as people as possible towards the high-age end of that curve on one hand and scaling the entire X axis on the other. The first one is what we're currently doing with modern medicine, and it boils down to debugging the most common causes of premature death. The second one is completely separate from this and way harder to tackle because it involves…

On the other hand, the subject of life extension meets with so much hostility it's actually easy to argue that we as a culture are not ready for this yet. Only from the Malthusians.

What do we do with people who live to extreme age, but do not operate at the speed of the current economy? How do we keep them occupied? How do they make a living? How do we use what they can contribute? Are we as a culture, today or on the next two generations, ready to deal with those issues?

Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#72

Post by sixtofour »

shawndumas wrote: post #67
scythe wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, nicotine is an anorectic (reduces appetite), and calorie restriction is the most proven life-extension technique known (in rats), so there is the idea that nicotine --> unintentional calorie restriction --> potentially longer lifespan. Nicotine is a lot easier on the body than other anorectics, which sounds like a weird claim but "other anorectics" means nasty things like methamphetamine and fenfluramine; nicot…

Anorectic; yeah, no kidding... I smoked for 13 years and am 6"1' and weighed in at 160 lbs. I stopped at 28 and shot to 205 in less than a year.

Anecdote of one.

Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#73

Post by sixtofour »

jacques_chester wrote: post #20
glimcat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually rather fond of certain portions of Leviticus which describe diagnostic rituals.

I like how detailed the builder's specs for the tabernacle are. Paaaaages and paaaaages of expensive building materials. "The curtain tassels should totally be gold-plated platinum. PS my brother gets all the juicy cuts of lamb, God only likes the organs to be burnt". Meanwhile, explicating the meaning and purpose of the Ten Commandments in all the thousands of odd corner cases -- including big ones like war -- are l…

In so far as this sub thread has been polite and respectful (70% of it), it's an enjoyable digression.

I see nothing wrong with the occasional gold thread in a red tapestry.

Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#74

Post by scotty79 »

simonsarris wrote: post #49
scotty79 wrote: post #18

I have a riddle for you that I came up with few years ago: Given as little as you need to make this problem solvable and nontrivial calculate how often (on average) oldest human in the world dies.

Well, taking it as a riddle, once. The very first human is the oldest human and they died once.

Where's the calculation? Also this is this would be trivial.

Besides, when human dies he's no longer old. He's dead. His corps might be oldest corpse but he's no longer oldest human.

Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#75

Post by scotty79 »

glimcat wrote: post #19
scotty79 wrote: post #18

I have a riddle for you that I came up with few years ago: Given as little as you need to make this problem solvable and nontrivial calculate how often (on average) oldest human in the world dies.

Either once or about six times a year (guestimating from Google) depending on how you want to interpret that. It depends on whether you want the oldest person as an individual or as a class. Good riddles shouldn't be forked.

Maybe I was too lax in my description.

This is a math task. Given whatever you need (size of human population, probability of death at any age and similar statistical data) and assuming whatever you need (population distribution is such that it does not change over time or sth. like that) calculate average time between deaths of oldest individual in the world.

In other words instead of:

therefore oldest man dies every 6 years.

I want:

-> -> oldest man dies every 6 years.

Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#76

Post by chc »

ern wrote: post #30
chc wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeanne Calment, mentioned in the OP, lived to be 122. But yes, I think most people in the field agree that 120 is roughly our shelf life.

Could there be some deeply ingrained idea, possibly derived from Genesis, that leads to dimished care for people as they approach 120, and hence increases mortality? I doubt it, but I wonder if this possibility has been explored.

It seems quite unlikely to me. Without any affirmative evidence, I would assume not. It certainly wouldn't come from Genesis, as that book not particularly relevant to the vast majority of the world's population. (Even among Christians, few have the kind of familiarity needed to even know about that passage, and most people don't actually know that 120 is the age that both Genesis and modern medicine agree on.)

Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#77

Post by Udo »

ez77 wrote: post #31
Udo wrote: post #21

It's important to make a distinction medically between pushing as many as people as possible towards the high-age end of that curve on one hand and scaling the entire X axis on the other. The first one is what we're currently doing with modern medicine, and it boils down to debugging the most common causes of premature death. The second one is completely separate from this and way harder to tackle because it involves…

if we ever want to move on from this weird intermediary half-state between nature and intellect I don't know if I follow correctly. Do you feel that solving the life extension puzzle is tantamount to intellectual nirvana? I'd say there is still plenty more to talk about (say [1] and [2], for example), and arguably deeper from a strictly intellectual viewpoint. In fact, I'd say that the fact that I happen to be mortal…

> Do you feel that solving the life extension puzzle is tantamount to intellectual nirvana?

Not at all. I'm talking about biological reality. Right now we're not really a part of nature anymore but we're not yet independently functioning entities either. By developing intellect and the deeper consciousness that goes with it, we stopped being a mere collection of genes. In fact, in quite a few respects our genes and our minds have opposing interests now. In order to grow and embrace the aspect that we have minds, we need to totally master the biological substrate that gave birth to us or maybe we even move completely beyond it. In practice, it's probably going to be a combination of the two.

When I say we're hanging in a weird half-state between nature and intellect I'm referring to this kind of existential identity crisis. A lot of people do believe we're first and foremost genomes walking around. A lot of people do believe that this discourse is irrelevant because they have religious views that already have a monopoly on the meaning of life. But at the same time, there are some people who would like to keep moving forward towards a far horizon that we can already glimpse. In fact, for some of us it is an ethical imperative.

In the end, it simply boils down to the value that we assign to a mind, to a consciousness, soul, whatever you want to call the complete essence of a human being. Tell me how valuable a human mind is to you and I can predict your stance on the future development of mankind.

Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#78

Post by iwwr »

sixtofour wrote: post #71
iwwr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, the subject of life extension meets with so much hostility it's actually easy to argue that we as a culture are not ready for this yet. Only from the Malthusians.

What do we do with people who live to extreme age, but do not operate at the speed of the current economy? How do we keep them occupied? How do they make a living? How do we use what they can contribute? Are we as a culture, today or on the next two generations, ready to deal with those issues?

How do we

There is no 'we', people act individually. If people will have enough savings, they will retire earlier, if they don't they keep working. The increase in life expectancy would be doubled with an increase in health and fitness at these older ages. So people can and would keep working.

The alternative interpretation is more insidious: "we should not allow people to live longer because it will bankrupt the pension system". Well, if the pension system is one casualty of longer, healthier and more productive lives then so be it.

Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#79

Post by Apocryphon »

jacques_chester wrote: post #11
glimcat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the beginning, there was light. On second thought, do we have to count "the beginning" as the moment of the singularity or as the time when the universe became transparent to photons? Gonna end up with a holy war over that one. Wait, it's all good. You start out with a dark and formless void, then you get your "fiat lux" afterwards. The Bible was right again!

1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Oops, there's water before there's light. Better retcon that sucker.

Apropos of nothing, here's water where there isn't light!

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2085298,00.ht...

Re: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?

#80

Post by sixtofour »

iwwr wrote: post #78
sixtofour wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do we do with people who live to extreme age, but do not operate at the speed of the current economy? How do we keep them occupied? How do they make a living? How do we use what they can contribute? Are we as a culture, today or on the next two generations, ready to deal with those issues?

How do we There is no 'we', people act individually. If people will have enough savings, they will retire earlier, if they don't they keep working. The increase in life expectancy would be doubled with an increase in health and fitness at these older ages. So people can and would keep working. The alternative interpretation is more insidious: "we should not allow people to live longer because it will bankrupt the pen…

"There is no 'we', people act individually."

There are many 'we's," people act together and individually. Some of the ways we act together are strictly voluntary, others are coerced (tax supported activity) and we either agree and go along or disagree and go along. Some people don't go along at all in rare cases.

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