Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Does the human lifespan have a limit?

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 227 posts

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#141

Post by czbond »

swayvil wrote: post #21
acchow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many numbers are in the Bible, and how many of them are wrong (which we conveniently gloss over). The world was made in 6 days?

Maybe that 6 days is a metaphor. Metaphors taken literally. Literality taken metaphorically. Esoterica interpreted conventionally. Guiding the hand of the translator. Mistranslation compounding over the iterations. Any useful knowledge must get lost like dust in the wind.

You hit on the 'specifics' of religion that I've always found funny in humantiy. Why does it matter to most people if it is 6 days or 15 billion years? How does that change anything in actuality?

Most religious texts can just be accepted as "good human practices summed up in 4 pages".... but instead they have to be made into movements, and groups who believe 'my team is right and yours is wrong'.

My view is that - just as there are many tongues, religion of the same Creator is presented differently to resonate with those localities.

Why isn't civilization really moving past the stories to simply focus on the main points that are being relayed?

I believe dogmatic believers miss the forest for the trees; the non-believers use the trees to disregard the forest.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#142

Post by jacquesm »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #140
jacquesm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd still leave the problems to the next generation. The next generation just wouldn't be in charge.

This is something we've basically already witnessed with how society is operating right now. The people inheriting the problems we started making 40 years ago before they were born even, still have very little say.

Yes, and if people are able to live forever I don't think that would be a change for the better. The 'haves' would at some point become aware that the 'have nots' have the potential to threaten them if they manage to live just as long, and I'm pretty sure I know how that would end.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#143

Post by bluechair »

czbond wrote: post #131
ck2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't bother. Sinclair is considered a quack by even some life-extension enthusiasts. He owns part of the company that makes patented NMN which is just another form of NR which is a another form of very cheap Niacin. He also owns part of the company that claims he is rolling back his biological clock. That's not science, that's marketing and profiteering. NAD production slows down with age and illness. All he is doin…

Why disregard someone simply because they own a piece of a company that also supports the goal? I think any rational person would do the same - you believe in something so you start, invest in, or advise a company.

I think the comment also said that this person’s views aren’t taken seriously in the aging research community. So the combination of their ideas and a desire to profit from them raises flags.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#144

Post by extesy »

inglor_cz wrote: post #130
thfuran wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The child ( Life expectancy at birth was around 30-35 for at least the several preceding centuries in Europe.

This is a nice graph from the Modern Age (mid-1500s to late 1900s) in England. https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/data/13030/tf/ft0... Basically, until the 19th century, between 25-35 % of people lived to be 60 or more. In the 20th century, this grew rapidly up to 90 per cent. 80 y.o.-s would be very rare even in the 19th century, while now about half of the population lives to be eighty. Note that this is th…

This is a very fascinating chart! It seems that over the five centuries the healthspan (probability of survival within the lifespan) increased drastically but the lifespan itself is more or less fixed at 90-100 years. The healthy plateau is much longer now but the following drop is much faster.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#145

Post by StevePerkins »

radu_floricica wrote: post #97
kiba wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be people who comes out to say we shouldn't do this because it means dictators will live longer or that old people will remains in power longer, as if old people are a blight on society. I would consider it good news if old people had to live with their decisions and problems they created instead of leaving it to the next generation.

Change of generation is a thing that used to stump me. It's a valid problem, from older people having weird political choices to scientific research counting on fresh blood (yes it does). Until relatively recently when I switched to believing that there's actually a biological cause for this: sub-clinical forms of dementia. We just get old and lose capacity for meaningful change. We keep functioning, but the decision…

No post body was provided.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#146

Post by liquidise »

Flankk wrote: post #106
School-Cotton wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bible is a loose collection of different books written by different authors over a period of thousands of years. We shouldn’t be surprised that some of them say different things.

Quoted post unavailable.

Neither commenter was advocating for having it both ways. I don't even find them at odds with one another. I happen to agree with both assertions.

OP: "millenia old book makes claim about life that is empirically uncontroverted in 2022" – i agree

Parent: "the bible is a collection of stories and contradictions should be expected" – i also agree

The first half of your comment could indeed be relevant in the right discussion, but this thread was not it. The rest then falls terribly flat and comes off needlessly aggressive and snide.

> Christians are easily confused

I would be embarrassed writing such things in a public forum.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#147

Post by inglor_cz »

bluechair wrote: post #143
czbond wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why disregard someone simply because they own a piece of a company that also supports the goal? I think any rational person would do the same - you believe in something so you start, invest in, or advise a company.

I think the comment also said that this person’s views aren’t taken seriously in the aging research community. So the combination of their ideas and a desire to profit from them raises flags.

I don't think Harvard would let Sinclair have a lab with some 35 people and publish articles under their name if he was a total fraud/quack.

My impression of Sinclair is that he likes public attention too much and often reports on work in progress with too much certainty, but results like this [1] seem to be fairly impressive.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#148

Post by ldx1024 »

starwind wrote: post #121
ttcbj wrote: post #105

My grandparents are now 95 and 96 (just shy of their 75th wedding anniversary). They are wonderful people, but it is clear that life is hard for them now. They have chronic pain and nothing can really be done about it. They have very limited opportunities for enjoyment or activity. Watching them, and also my mother struggle with health issues at 73, has really changed my perspective on aging. I am very focused on enj…

That's where my grandparents are right now. They retired in their early 60s, and they have a solid income between ss, pension, and 401k, but their healthcare takes up more-and-more of that money and they still struggle with their health. And just what have they done with their 30-odd years since they retired? They didn’t travel, pick up new hobbies, or finish their educations. Retirement isn’t my goal. I want to work…

"I want to work full-time until my late 70s, and die in my early-to-mid-80s at the latest."

We'll check back in a few decades...

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#150

Post by Flankk »

liquidise wrote: post #146
Flankk wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Neither commenter was advocating for having it both ways. I don't even find them at odds with one another. I happen to agree with both assertions. OP: "millenia old book makes claim about life that is empirically uncontroverted in 2022" – i agree Parent: "the bible is a collection of stories and contradictions should be expected" – i also agree The first half of your comment could indeed be relevant in the right disc…

No post body was provided.
Post reply on HN