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The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

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Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#21

Post by zozbot234 »

jacquesm wrote: post #13

His 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.

> His 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.

Really? SENS research is pretty niche in the broad field of regenerative medicine - that's kind of their schtick after all - but it appears to follow the well-known pattern from medical research where it's amazingly useful for mice, with results on humans being either inconclusive or many years away from practical usefulness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SENS_Foundation#Research

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#22

Post by masklinn »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
rememberdeath wrote: post #10

He 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.

Being good at mathematics also does not preclude crankery. Quite the opposite really, if you can see the theoretical underpinnings of reality it’s a short step to believing you know everything.

Gödel was famously on the far side, suffering from an obsessive fear of being poisoned and starving to death when his wife was hospitalised because he refused to eat anyone else's food.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#23

Post by jacquesm »

nynx wrote: post #20
jacquesm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, feel free to get all those. But the moment that your life-extension becomes the shortening of someone else's is where the problems really begin. Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point. At some point we will need some limits to avoid losing it all. Quite possibly we are already past the point of no return in that sense.

I think the first time when humanity will really be ready for a major boost in longevity is when we go interstellar, until then it would just complicate matters.

And whether or not I'm allowed to make those value judgments of others does not bother me, I am happy to apply the same judgments to myself.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#25

Post by jacquesm »

masklinn wrote: post #22
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Being good at mathematics also does not preclude crankery. Quite the opposite really, if you can see the theoretical underpinnings of reality it’s a short step to believing you know everything. Gödel was famously on the far side, suffering from an obsessive fear of being poisoned and starving to death when his wife was hospitalised because he refused to eat anyone else's food.

That's when you assume that the person involved is ethical, but ethics and intelligence are not necessarily aligned.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#26

Post by Trasmatta »

masklinn wrote: post #22
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Being good at mathematics also does not preclude crankery. Quite the opposite really, if you can see the theoretical underpinnings of reality it’s a short step to believing you know everything. Gödel was famously on the far side, suffering from an obsessive fear of being poisoned and starving to death when his wife was hospitalised because he refused to eat anyone else's food.

Gödel was very mentally unwell (what seems like severe hypochondria and probably other things as well) but he definitely was not a crank.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#27

Post by jacquesm »

zozbot234 wrote: post #21
jacquesm wrote: post #13

His 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.

> His 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. Really? SENS research is pretty niche in the broad field of regenerative medicine - that's kind of their schtick after all - but it appears to follow the well-known pattern from medical research where it's amazingly useful for mice, with results on humans bein…

I think you confirmed my point.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#28

Post by corndoge »

jacquesm wrote: post #16
nynx wrote: post #11

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.

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 -…

Are you grandstanding opposition to life extension just to make a statement about capitalism? You really would ditch immortality right off the bat rather than try to solve the wealth inequality in some other way?

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#29

Post by jacquesm »

corndoge wrote: post #28
jacquesm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -…

Are you grandstanding opposition to life extension just to make a statement about capitalism? You really would ditch immortality right off the bat rather than try to solve the wealth inequality in some other way?

No, I've been around long enough to be cynical. Immortality with humanity's present state of ethical development, inequality and resource exhaustion would introduce problems, it would not solve anything.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#30

Post by mahogany »

nynx wrote: post #20
jacquesm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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?

Pessimistic/dystopian take: what about in a future with much more automation and robotics to take care of the older wealthy-elite class? Do they really need that many young people, aside from their own offspring? In this possible future, perhaps they merely need enough to service the machines, which can each do the work of hundreds or thousands of humans each.

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