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Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?

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Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?

#51

Post by jordanozang »

01100011 wrote: post #19

We 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.

How do you suppose that is? If a species were completely able to avoid the effects of aging (including age-related diseases and degeneration) what evolutionary reason would there be for death at such an early age. Especially in the case of mammals, the process of rearing the young is a large investment of resources which takes a long time to produce a return. Surely it would be better to minimize that expenditure and have members of your species who've had time to learn from their experiences. If population were to become a problem, there are already plenty of instances of species killing their own for various reasons so some form of population control doesn't seem to be an entirely unexpected adaption. Sure there may have been other things that were more prescient at the time such as disease, lack of food, etc. But I don't see why not aging would be evolutionarilly unfavourable?

I'd split things into 3 cases: (1) aging is something for which there is a strong evolutionary pressure, (2) aging was dominated by other factors and is more or less indpendent of evolution, and (3) aging is something that is strongly unfavourable in evolution. In case (1), it may be that there are strong genetic mechanisms for evolution which we cannot reverse without changing genetic data. In case (3), we have to ask the question of why we age, given evolution has worked against it. If there were some compound that could prevent aging significantly, why don't more of us naturally produce it. Case (2) is where I'd expect the problem to be the most attainable. The existence of certain compounds that seem to alleviate aging significantly might be interpreted as evidence against the third case. If such (often naturally ocurring) compounds exist, then why don't we produce them? Of course, more evidence would be necessary to say anything conclusive.

Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?

#52

Post by Hermitian909 »

underwater wrote: post #35
solveit wrote: post #5

Imagine 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.

Also as you grow older the number of viable paths the keep life looking worthwhile really shrinks because there's so much less opportunity. If you're 50 and your retirement is entirely reliant on housing being wildly unaffordable most people will fight to keep housing unaffordable because the personal cost is too high (e.g. dying poor).

In your 20s or early 30s financial shocks are generally a lot less scary because you can still pivot, life will just be a little tougher for a while. At 60, it's usually utterly terrifying.

Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?

#53

Post by grishka »

exolymph wrote: post #44

We can extend healthspan, how about that?

So people would still die because of the passage of time, but would stay healthy? But if they stay healthy without any age-related conditions, what would they die of?

This whole idea that forced death is necessary is stupid. We need to let go of it.

Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?

#55

Post by grishka »

01100011 wrote: post #19

We 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.

What makes you think that the aging process is somehow fundamentally irreversible?

Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?

#56

Post by jen729w »

googlryas wrote: post #18
jen729w wrote: post #10

Lionel Shriver’s ‘Should We Stay or Should We Go’ (book, 2021) is a fun look at this idea. No-spoiler TL;DR: a couple decide to end it when she hits 80, because they know that life only gets worse. The book plays through various scenarios: some positive, some negative.

My grandmother lived almost two decades longer than that and was enjoying life immensely until about 5 days before she died.

This is the whole point of the book. It explores the various possibilities. Of which this is but one.

Living a miserable dementia-ridden existence is another. Who could know which you’re going to get?

Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?

#57

Post by [deleted] »

theGnuMe wrote: post #9
solveit wrote: post #5

Imagine 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.

Would enough people die in accidents? Also heart attacks and cancer. And how would it work? Some drug you take after a certain age?

[deleted]

Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?

#58

Post by nradov »

kajaktum wrote: post #11
jackblemming wrote: post #3

Interestingly the people who say others should die to “fix” overpopulation change their minds when they’re up. We can solve overpopulation in other ways than letting people die.

It's obviously bad to want other people to die but there is a case to be made that no life (that can suffer) should be created. It also depend on what we mean by immortal, are they technically just alive? Or actively flourishing?

There is no such case. That's just silly. Suffering isn't even something that should necessarily be avoided.

Re: Science says we could “cure” ageing. But should we?

#59

Post by karaterobot »

jackblemming wrote: post #3

Interestingly the people who say others should die to “fix” overpopulation change their minds when they’re up. We can solve overpopulation in other ways than letting people die.

By this logic, death bed conversions are a strong argument for the existence of god.

In any case, I can't recall there being an epidemic of people doing the thing you're saying they do all the time: are you thinking of any specific examples?

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