Science is a methodology of exploration and problem solving. It doesn't say anything.
"Problem solving says we could cure ageing."
Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
31–40 of 99 posts
Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
#32Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
#33I figure life extension is more feasible than Faster-Than-Light space ships. If you could live for, say, 10,000 years you could travel.
Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
#34i do like the idea that it would, at least in theory, allow humans to become as powerful as corporations in the US (because humans, too, would be able to live forever, accumulate wealth and power, etc.).
Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
#35Imagine that the status quo was that everyone lived forever. If someone suggested that we should kill literally everyone to solve overpopulation or rich people or meaning of life or whatever, they would rightly be called batshit insane.
Making people like forever would automatically incentivise people to solve a whole host of problems.
The young care more about the future because they worry how emerging problems may affect them, and death is distant and abstract. Whereas older people feel their mortality more concretely, and wonder how they extract as much in the time they have left.
Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
#36Yes. No question. "Blah blah eternal life oligarchs or whatever" - who cares it's not like we don't have that problem now. Those people are powerful because we let them be, it's not innate. Maybe we might do something about the problem when there's a risk it'll last forever rather then pretending it's not a systemic failure. If it's possible to do, it's going to be done: the question is actually "should we let poor p…
I wonder if FDR would still be in office if he were still alive? It's an interesting thought experiment to consider how long he'd have lasted given his prior record.
If he hadn't died they would have had to kill him. He and Stalin trusted each other enough to make a lasting, nuclear-free peace. The wheels were already in motion when they replaced Wallace with the haberdasher.
Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
#37Obligatory link: https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon
Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you advocating accelerationism for The Purge?
I'm saying that if clinical immortality is possible and you're asking "ethical questions" about doing it, what you're actually providing cover for is "we shouldn't give it to the poor" - which is as morally bankrupt a position as it ever was.
I was maybe being a little facetious.
The moral question isn't important as much as how it will play out in practice. i.e., it will be available to the highest bidders, at first, and from then on, the best life extension will be available to those with the most money. It's only a matter of time before that sways the majority against the wealthy minority, and then pragmatism may dictate some concession to not as wealthy people, lest heads roll. The option B is governance at a global level that mandates equal access, which is hardly realistic in today's political climate.
Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
#39Essays like this are dubious at best. As if anyone, any agency or government, could stop one or more billionaires if they chose to pursue immortality despite public opinion saying it's a bad idea. They will, they are, and if asked any elite wealth or world class power will say whatever is expected, despite what they are really doing.
Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?
#40We can't currently cure aging and there is little convincing evidence that suggests we will be able to anytime soon. This is despite the claims of many attempts at peddling false hopes by folks like David Sinclair and Aubrey de Grey. We can mitigate some downsides of aging at best. Aging is baked into our genes as natural selection never had a reason to favor any other approach.
yes. current medical science is having issues treating simple thing with humans (paralysis or any thing related to it ). solving aging, may be in next 500 years.
"Humans overestimate progress in the short term and over estimate it in the long term."
You're discounting the law of accelerated returns. It might take another 50 years to make a "big discovery/milestone in curing aging" but from that point forward it might become a lot easier to cure aging.