We will be able to live to 1,000 • Hacker News Board

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#131

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 21, 2010, 11:07 PM UTC

v3rt wrote: post #67

jwegan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of it might be that evolution only cares about how successful you are in passing on your genes. Why do salmon die after mating (its due to exhaustion)? There isn't really any reason they have too, but they successfully passed on there genes so there is little evolutionary pressure on what happens afterward. I think it is the same for aging. There isn't really a reason for aging, it just happens because t…

I believe the predominant evolutionary theory actually does have an explanation - sexual reproduction serves to produce offspring that are different from their parents and have a better shot of being adapted to a constantly changing environment on average (particularly relevant to parasites/diseases). These children still carry their parents' genes, though, so it is in the parents' best genetic interests to die once…

[deleted]

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#132

Post by jerf » Fri, May 21, 2010, 11:09 PM UTC

smallblacksun wrote: post #126

sgk284 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh... humanity will always find a way. We've done pretty good so far. If nothing else, spending a few years flying to mars seems a lot more reasonable when you've got 1,000 to spare. Space colonization is one solution to overpopulation.

The problem is that we have no evidence that any planet/moon/etc. that we have discovered can support the level of ecosystem required for humans on that planet to be self-sufficient.

You don't have to be a strong Singulatarian to recognize that projecting out, say, 100 years into the future with the hidden assumption that technology won't advance is a waste of time. You don't know what will be necessary for human life then, with a much stronger nanotech base and who knows what else.

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#133

Post by Tichy » Fri, May 21, 2010, 11:12 PM UTC

rauljara wrote: post #18

When my intro to genetics teacher in college explained to us how aging in cells worked, he told us that one of his professors had explained to him that a "cure" for aging was about 10 years away. But that had been more than ten years earlier. My professor said that he had recently talked to that same professor again. The new ETA: about 10 years. This is one of those problems that seems easy to solve in principle, but…

I think it likely that aging has evolved, that is, nature wants us to die (or some organisms at least). It certainly doesn't care how long we live.

That doesn't mean that we can't come up with out own motivations and schemes.

There is also (afaik) at least one organism that can live forever, a jellyfish.

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#134

Post by asdflkj » Fri, May 21, 2010, 11:21 PM UTC

v3rt wrote: post #67

jwegan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of it might be that evolution only cares about how successful you are in passing on your genes. Why do salmon die after mating (its due to exhaustion)? There isn't really any reason they have too, but they successfully passed on there genes so there is little evolutionary pressure on what happens afterward. I think it is the same for aging. There isn't really a reason for aging, it just happens because t…

I believe the predominant evolutionary theory actually does have an explanation - sexual reproduction serves to produce offspring that are different from their parents and have a better shot of being adapted to a constantly changing environment on average (particularly relevant to parasites/diseases). These children still carry their parents' genes, though, so it is in the parents' best genetic interests to die once…

W.R.T. humans, the predominant evolutionary theory does have an explanation, and it's exactly what jwegan said. Your scenario is only relevant to organisms who live in niches very far from our own. Humans have always lived in ecosystems large enough that our kids' share of the burden of our claims on resources is infinitesimal, and certainly no comparison to benefit that kids derive from their alive parents.

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#135

Post by philwelch » Fri, May 21, 2010, 11:24 PM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #54

jules wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before donating you should ask yourself whether Aubrey de Grey is a crackpot or not. I'm not sure myself. Can somebody shed some light on this?

He sounds like a crackpot when his theories are misrepresented. He's not saying "here's how I'll make you live to 1000". He's saying "If we solve this list of things, medical science will be able to give you on maybe another 30 healthy years of lifespan - and by doing this I can convince the world that ageing is so important, we will use those 30 years figuring out how to give you the next 30, and so on". Edit: for w…

As it is, your expected lifespan is based largely on a finite clock, so any fatal risk factors are of limited value--if your odds of dying in a car crash are 1/1000/yr that barely affects your life expectancy, and if your odds of birth control failing are 1/100 you can go your entire fertile lifespan (30-40 years) without expecting to conceive.

If you get rid of aging (and other time-clock issues like menopause, though it would be stupid to get rid of menopause if people are going to be essentially immortal), life expectancy will be dictated almost entirely on these remote risks. Being more risk-averse might change your expected lifespan from 100 to 1000 to 10,000. And the less risk-averse people will die sooner, while the less risk-averse people (who are still unaging) will have free reign to change social norms in the long run.

This doesn't only apply to fatal risks. If you can work for 100 years at a day job and save up enough salary to live off the interest perpetually (and quite well), people are going to think it's crazy to do a startup. There's no sense of urgency when you don't age.

I think a world of immortal people would be very boring. And I haven't even gotten into the "slow-to-change" part (if someone living in the Middle Ages was still alive today, they'd probably be some kind of violent religious fanatic or something).

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#136

Post by philwelch » Fri, May 21, 2010, 11:38 PM UTC

ugh wrote: post #22

rmorrison wrote: post #4

I don't see how humanity could handle something like mass distribution of a magic treatment that allowed people to live to 1,000. The world would quickly get over crowded, resources would dry up, world wars would follow, and who knows what else.

But people die! Wouldn’t you want to stop that if you could? I don’t know how you could consider death some sort of necessary evil. That seems like a pretty cynical and cruel view to me. Think of all the intelligent, experienced and capable people who die every day (or are slowly losing their intelligence due to aging). Wouldn’t it be great if Shakespeare were still alive? Newton? Darwin? Einstein? Crick? Death is wa…

Newton wasted the bulk of his life on theology. I don't think giving him a few more hundred years would have given the world anything else that was useful. I suspect the others would have been disappointments to keep around as well--except for Shakespeare, all of them did a finite number of interesting things early in their lives and already seemed to have retired. You can't conflate indefinite lifespan with indefinite creative steam.

But even if you could? Shakespeare as a Hollywood screenwriter makes for an intriguing idea, I admit. But I think we would get sick of even him.

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#137

Post by MikeCapone » Fri, May 21, 2010, 11:52 PM UTC

jules wrote: post #107

FlorinAndrei wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How much money does he think he'll need to meet his goal?" That question doesn't make a lot of sense. This is not a Web 2.0 startup. It's a lot more fundamental than that, and a lot of the required tools and technologies have not been invented yet - that's what they are trying to do.

Of course, but he should be able to give a ballpark figure. Are we talking about millions, billions or trillions?

afaik, in the millions. Mostly, once enough progress has been made, the money should pour in because people will now know it's possible and demand it.

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#138

Post by ugh » Sat, May 22, 2010, 12:35 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #136

ugh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people die! Wouldn’t you want to stop that if you could? I don’t know how you could consider death some sort of necessary evil. That seems like a pretty cynical and cruel view to me. Think of all the intelligent, experienced and capable people who die every day (or are slowly losing their intelligence due to aging). Wouldn’t it be great if Shakespeare were still alive? Newton? Darwin? Einstein? Crick? Death is wa…

Newton wasted the bulk of his life on theology. I don't think giving him a few more hundred years would have given the world anything else that was useful. I suspect the others would have been disappointments to keep around as well--except for Shakespeare, all of them did a finite number of interesting things early in their lives and already seemed to have retired. You can't conflate indefinite lifespan with indefini…

So they should die because they probably wouldn‘t be geniuses all their life? Wow, that’s cruel :)

I don’t know how productive Newton with hundreds of years to live would be, nobody really knows. It’s just that losing perfectly good brains to death (or disease) seems like such a waste to me.

We developed pretty good methods of storing some brain content for posterity (writing still seems like the dominant one) and just look at what kind of leverage that gave us. We truly stand on the shoulders of giants but it sure would be damn cool if the giants could still be among us.

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#139

Post by philwelch » Sat, May 22, 2010, 2:32 AM UTC

ugh wrote: post #138

philwelch wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newton wasted the bulk of his life on theology. I don't think giving him a few more hundred years would have given the world anything else that was useful. I suspect the others would have been disappointments to keep around as well--except for Shakespeare, all of them did a finite number of interesting things early in their lives and already seemed to have retired. You can't conflate indefinite lifespan with indefini…

So they should die because they probably wouldn‘t be geniuses all their life? Wow, that’s cruel :) I don’t know how productive Newton with hundreds of years to live would be, nobody really knows. It’s just that losing perfectly good brains to death (or disease) seems like such a waste to me. We developed pretty good methods of storing some brain content for posterity (writing still seems like the dominant one) and ju…

I'm just addressing the point of "society would be better off with great geniuses living for centuries". I don't think we'd be so much better off with 300 years of Newton than we were with 84 years of Newton. Scientists in particular can and should be replaced every few decades. Look at the history of geology: the acceptance of plate tectonics pretty closely tracked the history of young geologists replacing old ones due to retirement and death.

We gain a lot by standing on the shoulders of giants, but we also gain a lot by having fresh eyes look at their work. Slow the rate of population churn and you slow the rate of fresh eyes. Newton was the man, but wasn't it awesome to have Lagrange come along with a fresh eye and make things a little easier and simpler? I think we get a lot more work done in 200 years of science if we have more generations of scientists, not fewer.

Re: We will be able to live to 1,000

#140

Post by sliverstorm » Sat, May 22, 2010, 2:40 AM UTC

MikeCapone wrote: post #70

s3graham wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "reason" for aging seems almost self-evident to me. The goal is to pass on [mutated] genetic information. Post-reproduction, you're simply a drag on local resources. Hypothetical populations that didn't age and die would have killed themselves off due to lack of food.

Anything that happens after reproduction is in an evolutionary blind spot. Aging is the result of evolutionary neglect , not design.

Maybe not blind spot... maybe just peripheral vision?

A non- or post-reproducing individual can still improve the fitness of their genome by supporting closely related individuals, or even simply their species by supporting any other member.