Judgement of Aubrey de Grey aside, I constantly find it weird that so many people, even on HN, don’t understand why some would want to live an especially long time.
The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
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Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
#12I've been hearing a lot about this guy lately, and he does sound like a crank. But if you want to write an article saying that's definitely the case, you should not say, "I wonder what new flaky idea he’s telling audiences of rich old people, but unfortunately I don’t care enough to try and find out..."
The light, flakey tone of this article is inappropriate to an attempt to destroy someone's career, no matter how justifiably. That's a matter to take seriously.
Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
#13His success is mostly limited to milking gullible people, as far as I know not a single usable item is the result of this fraudsters activity over the years.
That whole field - and the associated cryo preservation proponents / entities - are simply religion warmed over, sell the eternal life in return for your money today. No proof required and never any complaints.
Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
#14He might be a crank but certainly not the usual sort, he solved a longstanding open problem in mathematics: https://www.quantamagazine.org/decades-old-graph-problem-yie...
I see him as a fraudster rather than a crank and there is no reason why people that are good at mathematics would not be able to commit fraud. In fact, they're probably better at it.
Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
#15The more I read about this guy the more it reads like a cult leader rather than a scientist.
The most amazing thing about him is that he seems to get a majority of his calories from beer, like some kind of Ancient Egyptian diet.
Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
#16Judgement of Aubrey de Grey aside, I constantly find it weird that so many people, even on HN, don’t understand why some would want to live an especially long time.
You might want to live for a very long time, but I don't want you to live for a very long time (beyond your normal life-span, that is). After all, we already have the problem of those that have been around for a bit longer owning pretty much everything that's worth owning and renting it out at a premium to those that are born later.
Besides of course the resource consumption problem, the fact that these treatments - assuming they ever really materialize - will further increase the gap between rich and poor and so on. I honestly believe that the world as we know it would not be able to deal with a bunch of billionaire immortals. We'd be slaves in all but name.
And I don't believe that such a medical advance would be made available to all.
Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
#17Judgement of Aubrey de Grey aside, I constantly find it weird that so many people, even on HN, don’t understand why some would want to live an especially long time.
You might want to live for a very long time, but I don't want you to live for a very long time (beyond your normal life-span, that is). After all, we already have the problem of those that have been around for a bit longer owning pretty much everything that's worth owning and renting it out at a premium to those that are born later. Besides of course the resource consumption problem, the fact that these treatments -…
That's not a problem with longevity. Mortality isn't even a solution; it barely qualifies as a workaround, what with dynasties.
Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
#18The author sounds just as cranky, ironically.
Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
#19The more I read about this guy the more it reads like a cult leader rather than a scientist.
Sounds like a grifter, though uncharacteristically grifting very rich people around the one thing their money can not really buy them.
Though it’s a similar grift to many religions, promising eternal life based on random technobabble instead of magic man.
Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me
#20Judgement of Aubrey de Grey aside, I constantly find it weird that so many people, even on HN, don’t understand why some would want to live an especially long time.
You might want to live for a very long time, but I don't want you to live for a very long time (beyond your normal life-span, that is). After all, we already have the problem of those that have been around for a bit longer owning pretty much everything that's worth owning and renting it out at a premium to those that are born later. Besides of course the resource consumption problem, the fact that these treatments -…
Now that’s an interesting take. Aside from the likelihood that aging treatments are likely to be free or subsidized by governments to avoid having increasingly old populations, what do you define as my normal lifespan? Should I avoid cancer treatments if I get it later in life? What about heart disease? Or Alzheimer’s?
For better or worse, you cannot make those value judgements on others.