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We will be able to live to 1,000

news.bbc.co.uk

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

#21

Post by gte910h »

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.

He's not talking about a magic treatment, he's talking about raising the life expectancy gain per decade by more than 10.

All that said: Then if that happens, war will happen. I predict population will stabilize still (remember, accidents and unsolved diseases and violence and suicide will still kill). If it doesn't happen then we condemn the whole world to die.

I for one am for giving the chance for us or our children the chance to make it work, and find it overwhelmingly arrogant to think we know well enough to judge they won't handle it.

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

#22

Post by ugh »

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 wasteful and it’s monstrous. Those problems you mentioned seem like small obstacles compared to the much bigger problem of death.

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

#23

Post by crystalis »

awt wrote: post #5

Just going based on the title here. But if we let people live to 1000, that will deny many people the right to have children. The long term consequences of such a change could be a drastic slow down in technological innovation as the super-elderly are able to accumulate vast sums of wealth. Just think of the advantage you'd have as a 500 y/o over a 25 y/o.

Why is childbirth a right? Would you accept a trade of a parent's life for a child's life, perhaps with a time delay?

There's also several financial methods that could be used to prevent undesirable wealth accumulation.

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

#24

Post by rleisti »

I wonder if this would change the popular morality of suicide? What if you're 800 years old, and you truly feel that you've had enough? Should you be forced to keep on going, potentially indefinitely?

Or even just knowing when to step aside and let the next (evolved) generation take over? (or will that still naturally just happen, via accidental death or death by lack of resources to live)

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

#25

Post by DrSprout »

elidourado wrote: post #9
tyree731 wrote: post #7

Life expectancy has increased a good amount in the past 50 years, raising by ~8.5. That is to say, for the exponentially increasing abilities of modern medicine, we have increased linearly in life expectancy. Maybe there is some breaking point, such as a universal cure for cancers and/or the end of heart disease, but regardless it seems like a huge leap to go from ~78 to ~1000 in life expectancy.

Let's say that life expectancy is now increasing at a rate of 2 years per decade. If you want to live to 1000, you just need to increase that to 10 years per decade. You don't have to go from 78 to 1000 all at once.

Maintaining two per year for 500 years is more than sufficient.

Personally, I expect false starts in the next couple centuries. The beta testers will be healthy and fit into their hundreds, but those that follow may get to 200-400, then possibly further. There are just too many engineering issues to work out in a single iteration.

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

#26

Post by helwr »

jpablo wrote: post #10

There's a book by Asimov, Please Explain, that has a list of science questions. I remember the very last question is about "what point does getting old has?". He argues that without aging and dying, populations will stop getting better and will stagnate. It seemed very appropriate to link here, but I couldn't get a link. Other than a Spanish translation :-(.

Also check out "The Immortal" by Borges

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortal

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

#28

Post by javanix »

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 doubt that we'll ever find a "reason" for aging. It's the result of an imperfectly optimized biological system - after all, humans are the result of one great big evolutionary algorithm.

We've proven time and again that those run exponentially and are not perfectly accurate, especially in the presence of a dynamic environment.

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

#29

Post by jwegan »

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 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 there is less evolutionary pressure once humans pass the age when they normally procreate.

Of course I don't have any qualifications and this is just my hypothesis so take it as you will.

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

#30

Post by gte910h »

pixelbath wrote: post #15
gte910h wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Childbearing age may also be increased though. SO if you can have a kid at 200 who's perfectly healthy, why would you necessarily spurt one out at 20?

I don't think the parent post was talking about childbearing age; I interpreted it as being more of a society-imposed restriction based on the practicality of having a population that can be up to 1000 years old.

I'd say that's not really going to be an issue. Children, as is, are already encouraged by tax subsidies. You'd at worse have to take those away; people the world over are already limiting the birth rate (even places where birth control and a nice standard of living are unavailable). Additionally, the SENS plan isn't about a magical 1000yr life expectancy treatment, it's about increasing the rate of life expectancy gain up to an excess of 10 years per decade (for non-violent/non-accident deaths).

If you can live to 1k, and give birth for most if not all of your life, I think many people would think "being a parent" is something that could be put off a couple decades/centuries. Birth is not a pleasant process, and women aren't usually eager to have 10 kids.

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