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NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

blog.newlimit.com

91–100 of 141 posts

Re: NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

#91
post #3

There is something dystopian, childish, naive, desperate, arrogant, sad and tragic about billionaires founding and funding longevity companies and projects. They think that they've got it all, but deep down there's still this gaping hole of meaninglessness. They can control evertything. Everything but death. If only they can find a way to live longer, maybe even a way to never die of natural causes, everything will b…

Increase in human lifespan (and longevity of "youth") is the most obvious sign of the success of modern civilization. We have doubled the average life expectancy in just about a century, so by your reasoning, past humans would likely call us "arrogant" when on average we live better, more fuller lives than they ever did. There will be unintended consequences of humans living longer, of course but those are problems w…

>We have doubled the average life expectancy

The only reason the average value shifted so much is drastically reduced infant mortality rate. If you managed to live to the age of twenty two centuries ago, chances were you'd die as an old man

Re: NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

#92
post #3

There is something dystopian, childish, naive, desperate, arrogant, sad and tragic about billionaires founding and funding longevity companies and projects. They think that they've got it all, but deep down there's still this gaping hole of meaninglessness. They can control evertything. Everything but death. If only they can find a way to live longer, maybe even a way to never die of natural causes, everything will b…

The extradordinary negativity of this comment actually got to me, I wish I hadn't read that; it's really just a string of adjectives and name-calling that finished with "fucking annoys me".

Please reconsider sharing this type of thinking, it's too arrogant for anyone.

Re: NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

#93

I raised $27M for longevity research (SENS.org). Summary of pro death arguments: Fairness Only rich people will get it. (No tech has ever done this.) Better to give money to the poor than science. (family, city, state, nation, has proven local investment beats foreign.) Bad for society Dead people make more room for new, other people. (consider going first.) Run out of resources (live people discover/extract/renew be…

To me, longevity is just a bridge to get us to live long enough to transfer our consciousness to small robots. I'd rather live 1000 years as an solar-powered ion rocket roaming around the nearby stars than as a fragile protein meatpack

I personally think it would just be fun to re-program myself. What would life be like if I could make myself less argumentative? If I could turn myself Christian? If I could make myself enjoy OOP?

Also, imagine all the various hardware updates I could get - how cool would it be to see UV/IR?

Re: NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

#94
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I wouldn't even mind if somebody spent billions on finding an 'Upload' like solution where you can just put your consciousness in a computer and live forever like that instead. People generally have a knee jerk hate for such things but I welcome that with open arms too.

I wouldn't push the upload button unless it is a last resort. It's a philosophy problem about consciousness and continuity more than anything else. Call it the star trek teleporter problem.

Permutation City is a great exploration of this idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City

Re: NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

#95
post #5
post #3

There is something dystopian, childish, naive, desperate, arrogant, sad and tragic about billionaires founding and funding longevity companies and projects. They think that they've got it all, but deep down there's still this gaping hole of meaninglessness. They can control evertything. Everything but death. If only they can find a way to live longer, maybe even a way to never die of natural causes, everything will b…

Longevity is a worthwhile goal for striving for. It is horrific that beings with hopes, dreams, and loves are forced to die and lose everything they have ever had, doomed to an eternity of the black void of nonexistence. That should be a choice. I for one am thrilled that society is starting to view death as something we might be able to one day defeat, rather than the resigned acceptance that has reigned throughout…

The problem IMO is that average person would want to live longer as long as they can still eat pizza, drink beer, sit all day and not work out much.

I mean there is decent research on calorie restriction. Of course the huge problem with calorie restriction is the eating less part.

Re: NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

#96

This makes perfect sense to me. If I were a billionaire, I'd very quickly drop down to millionaire because I'd be putting 99% of my funds into solving the "our bodies and brains are ridiculously failure-prone" problem. And I'd be begging every other billionaire to do the same.

Most billionaires I know would rather leave behind a legacy in the form of charitable foundations, their work, and their families. Squandering their fortune in a vain attempt to extend their own lives is not a widely accepted choice.

Most rich folks would rather preserve their fortune for their offspring or try to make the world a better place. Eventually many people, rich or not, notice that the younger generations are better equipped to run the world.

Not to mention we'd be better off extending human life by preventing and curing diseases and ailments like cancer and heart disease.

Re: NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

#97
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People would still take the deal because it gives them the hope that they can somehow avoid the biggest, most unavoidable, irreversible unknown: death. And for a billionaire the second choice is a no-brainer. They lose all the material possessions but still have all the knowledge, experiences and relationships that would allow them to easily get back in the saddle. On the other hand for a person living day-to-day try…

You've said it all man. The value of life seems to only be worth if you've got enough material possessions - else, it's a prison. How messed up is that? How fucked up are we that this is even a discussion without the prior discussion about the value of life to begin with. So, this would only make sense if after you take the pill, your memory is wiped and you're given a random geographical location on earth. Would be…

> Would be fun to see a billionaire having to make it somewhere in the horn of Africa.

"Naked and Afraid 2: Bezos in Somalia."

People would love that. It'd be like Black Mirror S02E05, White Bear.

Cable news outlets would have to air live human sacrifice just to keep up.

Anderson Cooper reluctantly lifts the obsidian blade. He looks distraught. "Do we really have to do this, guys?" From Erin Burnett, he hears a bene gesserit voice of outrage and command. Down plunges the knife. Mixed with the blood, tears stream down Anderson's face.

(On Fox, Tucker Carlson has a pro wrestler do it for him, and they just Photoshop his face on.)

You flip the channel.

Jeff Bezos has somehow acquired a bandolier, and is wearing the pelt of a human being.

"Damn."

Re: NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

#98
post #3

There is something dystopian, childish, naive, desperate, arrogant, sad and tragic about billionaires founding and funding longevity companies and projects. They think that they've got it all, but deep down there's still this gaping hole of meaninglessness. They can control evertything. Everything but death. If only they can find a way to live longer, maybe even a way to never die of natural causes, everything will b…

On the other hand, I think that aging is an extremely destructive process to the individual (while possibly still a net good for the species) and billionaires who spend their money on longevity research are doing a good thing, regardless of their motivation.

It is not just death, it is the long period of chronic illness that currently tends to precede it. Understanding aging will let us combat a thousand diseases at once.

I thin the reason why this wasn't attempted before wasn't humility. Rather, people (including many people today) did not think of aging as something modifiable. Aging has been until today understood as an unstoppable force beyond human possibilities, something like gravity or a hurricane.

Now that the viewpoints are slowly changing, we may be up to picking some low hanging fruit, and if a billionaire or ten decides to fund the necessary research, I won't be complaining. Unless they somehow manage to hoard the necessary knowledge only to themselves, which is rather unlikely in the modern world, where technological and scientific capabilities are spread more than ever before.

To be a little less than polite: fuck cancer, fuck cardiovascular disease, fuck Alzheimers, fuck severe covid etc. And whoever contributes to this great fucking of age-related disease is a friend of the whole humanity.

Re: NewLimit: a company built to extend human healthspan

#100

This makes perfect sense to me. If I were a billionaire, I'd very quickly drop down to millionaire because I'd be putting 99% of my funds into solving the "our bodies and brains are ridiculously failure-prone" problem. And I'd be begging every other billionaire to do the same.

Most billionaires I know would rather leave behind a legacy in the form of charitable foundations, their work, and their families. Squandering their fortune in a vain attempt to extend their own lives is not a widely accepted choice. Most rich folks would rather preserve their fortune for their offspring or try to make the world a better place. Eventually many people, rich or not, notice that the younger generations…

There’s no better legacy than “stopped death and disease from tearing down your grandchildren’s generation and every generation after it.”
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