161–170 of 191 posts
too bad it can't make my 60 year old body simulate a 20 year old.
The pragmatist in me hopes not, I think it'll be the worst drug we invent, even if it's just a pair of goggles, a glove, and a weird sticker for the temples.
But I expect it. Silver lining?
In an era where reading and compassion is secondary to entertainment and profiteering, one could wear the suit to experience a temporary intermission of not being oneself as the pinnacle of reality.
I do foresee challenges though, particularly with the probable result for many being the opposite of compassion, where one would dismiss the significance or challenges of, eg, being quadriplegic because they spent 20 minutes in the suit and have 'been there, done that'. Controlling for this outcome might require an advanced form of unknown technology. But if that could be wangled, we might have the means of creating additional nodes of compassion within our social machine that could keep the gears a bit more free of wailing meat.
A practical result of this could be laughing less (see conservation of calories for utilitarians) at the guy with Parkinson's that's unloading your shopping cart into your luxury car, shaking in the rain, or something.
There would definitely need to be built-in mitigation to steer the results away from self-righteousness and toward compassion though. Perhaps some time dilation and mushroom supplements could help.
The site is slow so I can't see it. I'm 68, eat well, lost 20 pounds, work out twice a week. Everything is working fine. But I live in a place surrounded by people in walkers, wheelchairs, or using canes. Some of them have had strokes or accidents making improvement hard, but many simply chose to not do anything to avoid the aging. You don't ordinarily wind up with a walker at a single point; it often starts many yea…
Could it be survivorship bias? You'll only ever inhabit your own body. You don't know what it's like to be someone else. Some people are built different.
For the other 99.9% of us, the number of studies showing the difference made by exercise, healthy eating, not smoking or drinking alcohol are too numerous to mention.
Ignore the information about exercise at your peril. You can probably use motivated reasoning to convince yourself you are right to remain in your chair and your growing list of ailments have nothing to do with your lack of exercise, and you may even remain convinced until you die. That will not change the opportunity you miss to enjoy decades of better health and life.
To grossly oversimplify it, our bodies literally evolved over billions of years to exercise and rest, eat so we are alternately storing excess energy as fat and removing energy from fat stores, and only eating sugars, alcohols, and inhaling smoke as extremely occasional events. I it stupid to assume switching the routine to sitting most of the time, only storing energy as fat and rarely if ever depleting those stores, and frequently consuming sugar alcohol and smoke would make no difference.
I could regale you with pages of personal experience (fmr intl-class athlete, trained and sedentary for periods of life and observed results) and data, but those are easy enough to find. All I can do is encourage you to change your POV, and start exercising well
You will find the 'built different' is how you build your own body —— weight lifting isn't called "body building" for nothing —— it (along with running and stretching) really does rebuild your body over the course of months.
Good luck and I wish you well on your journey.
The site is slow so I can't see it. I'm 68, eat well, lost 20 pounds, work out twice a week. Everything is working fine. But I live in a place surrounded by people in walkers, wheelchairs, or using canes. Some of them have had strokes or accidents making improvement hard, but many simply chose to not do anything to avoid the aging. You don't ordinarily wind up with a walker at a single point; it often starts many yea…
I'm glad this is the #1 post. I love hearing this. Thanks for sharing!
And the accompanying multiple of confidence and proven ability to go with it.
Plus a much bigger multiple of both, compared to your younger self at under 30.
You really can do most of the same things after 60, and with maturity it's easy to accept how the big difference is that you wont be doing them as many additional decades into the future.
I'm in the southern US and my grandparents came from Ireland. I've never been a beech-goer, or tried to get a tan (not that it would really work anyway). When I was a kid, on the handful of times our family went to a beach for day, my brothers and I would end up with massive water blisters and we would have competitions to see who could pull the longest continuous strip of skin. I'm 61 now and my arms and back neck look like it -- loss of elasticity, spotted, any cuts on my arms produce scabs that take weeks to heal.
But if you look at the skin on my upper arms, shoulders, or torso, which are nearly always covered by a shirt, you wouldn't be able to tell if I was 20 or 60. That skin is soft, pliable, and heals more quickly.
I've had five basal cell carcinoma spots sliced off the back or nape of my neck so far. Use sunscreen.
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Doing this is probably a net good but also a bit risky. It creates the impression that there's one experience we all go through as we decline, when in reality it's pretty wildly different. It's helpful to build some empathy, but also a limited understanding. For instance, these suits might restrict movement but they don't simulate hip or knee pain. They don't simulate shortness of breath, etc. It certainly doesn't in…
Limited understanding is far better than no understanding.
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My parents have similar issues due to hearing loss, it really makes any kind of social interaction a chore which results in a similar spiral. For years I've wanted to try to make, or hope someone else would make, a set of AR glasses that's purely focused on providing accurate real-time subtitles, no other gimmicks or features that might affect the wearability/usability. I think that's the biggest QOL boost most old f…
Spending R&D in something like this is much more important that building fancier hearing aids. Universal subtitles would be a life changer.
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If you want the world to be run by a 700 year old Xi jinping, if you want your children to suffer under a thousand year rule of monopolistic Bezos, if you want to see Altered Carbon become a reality, then that’s your opinion and you can hold on to it. But don’t you dare force that on anyone else. See how unconvincing these platitudes are? I literally cannot imagine why you would want infinite life. The short timespan…
I kind of agree but on the other hand I think it would also change the calculus a lot, if the dictator was going to live to 700, wouldn't it be more likely for someone to act and try to get him out because now the calculus might be that it's just better to wait it out than try to set anything up? It's a bit hard to visualize that kind of world because so many other things would also be different, and if the politicia…
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I can't argue if it's 'healthy' or not, but anecdotal accounts say that going meat only cures most of these pains in about 30 days. I've tried it. 65 year old dad tried it. Coworkers and friends. It worked for everyone. No one has remained meat only, but it taught us all to watch what we eat like hawks.
Not sure if "meat only" can be a cure-all but anecdotally, I feel better when I reduce my gluten intake. I've never been diagnosed with a wheat sensitivity but my son has been forced to go gluten free because of one. When he is home on school breaks, we eat gluten free and I do notice a difference in how I feel. I'm not giving up beer or the once a month pizza anytime soon but I have made conscious decisions to reduc…