371–380 of 382 posts
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Evolution can optimize for longer lifespans if it makes propagation more favorable. It happened in humans — grandparents make us more successful. Except when they run our governments.
Some of our greatest leaders have been very old. Good and old are unrelated concepts
1. Removing senescent cells extends life by 30-40% with huge quality of life improvements in the last 25% of the life (relative to control), in mice. This isn't an elimination of all aging, but quite a valuable thing regardless. Eventually, other causes of aging would kick in and still cause death, without a single senescent cell in your body (e.g. DNA methylation). 2. I believe all governments should create Warpspee…
> Imagine the massive GDP creation from making every 65+ year old feel 40 again. Come on. It's like more than half a century ago some economists predict because of the improvement of technology and the overall production, most people only need to work 4 hours per day. aaand now we have a lot of people working 12 hours a day over the wire already. GDP is the millstone that when it's bigger it grinds more soul - becaus…
Yes, we as a society have historically made poor decisions about what to do with productivity and lifespan increases. Let’s work on making better choices _and_ enhance our lifespans.
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Surely could have been much shorter! An enjoyable parable but clearly written by a philosopher.
I'm actually in awe of how long he was able to stretch such a simple concept, with no payoff at the end.
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You forgot tiny detail that they live in prison for entire life eating equivalent of Mc Donalds or worse.
Unless they're "participants" in an experiment related to McDonald's, it's probably closer to say they spend their life eating the equivalent of Soylent. Though 1/3 of my meals are Soylent, so even that doesn't seem entirely terrible.
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Really? Because they get experimented on and then slaughtered by the thousands
Prior to that inevitable slaughter some of them get to experience things that most humans never get to experience. Mice on MDMA for example could easily be having the best time that any mouse has ever had.
Hmm
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> Imagine the massive GDP creation from making every 65+ year old feel 40 again. Come on. It's like more than half a century ago some economists predict because of the improvement of technology and the overall production, most people only need to work 4 hours per day. aaand now we have a lot of people working 12 hours a day over the wire already. GDP is the millstone that when it's bigger it grinds more soul - becaus…
This strikes me as similar to arguing that we shouldn’t give money to panhandlers because they’ll only go spend it on drugs. Yes, we as a society have historically made poor decisions about what to do with productivity and lifespan increases. Let’s work on making better choices _and_ enhance our lifespans.
It's just the stress on GDP which makes me feel alarmed - historically speaking, things like GDP are always excuses to convince people they're goals worth following before we improve things like inequality or the quality of life. Do people now generally feel happier than half a century ago since GDP has drastically increased? Or the mental health of a large fraction of us was deteriorating all along over the decades?
It almost feels lies like "let us focus on delivering the features first, we'll get back to the technical debt once we have time" in some organizations - there are always new features, and always room for development, other things are always overlooked or keep bare minimum.
Back to the specific topic of increasing lifespan. Inequality is a problem much harder to solve than the technology itself. If we don't solve it carefully, it's very likely to be more harmful than helpful to the world. The right to live and the right to reproduction are the two most sensitive things to creatures - fundamentally it's much more risky than inventing the Internet or plastic surgery.
I can't help but think what I saw in the hospital - people with cancer and with no money giveaway their painkiller to drug dealers in exchange for some dirty motel nearby. Meanwhile, I know there are old, important figures who live in the hospital and spend several years of the average person's income per day, taking up a large fraction of scarce medical resources, equipment, and wards, just because they're old (many of them have no serious problems, just in case) and "important".
Think about the ancient tyrant who spent a lot, searching for immortality elixir died from poisoning. He became a laughing stock because the elixir didn't work, but it wouldn't be so funny if the elixir works. Nowadays, rich people can already fight cancer much better than poor people. Just imagine, how it feels when you know the first 0.1% of powerful figures you know (name the first 3 at least), are going to live for the next 500 years, but not everybody else?
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My parents both reported consistent elevated blood sugar levels after getting the Pfizer vaccine. Not sure if it was related or just coincidence, but there seem numerous reports of the same online. It should be temporary though.
The immune response causes elevated blood sugar, among other things, for around 2 weeks. For most people this is not really harmful but for people with blood glucose problems it can cause severe issues.
Other people have reported similar things online. Again one must take it with a grain of salt.
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Tangentially relevant is the way CRISPR works, and I would recommend the Nobel acceptance speeches by Jennifer Doudna and Charpentier.
I found a speech by Jennifer Doudna here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSrSIErIxMQ Listening now, thanks!
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I should have been more specific: GDP per capita is one of the most important part of a person's happiness. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-vs-happiness Chart above clearly shows that mostly increase in GDP results in higher life satisfaction.
> Chart above clearly shows that mostly increase in GDP results in higher life satisfaction. That chart clearly shows a handful of countries happier than the US with less GDP per capita…