Live data from Hacker News

So you wanna build an aging company

librariesforthefuture.bio

21–30 of 88 posts

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this be an anti-aging company? Aging is bad and not aging is good.

Is aging bad though? Seems like natures way of helping humanity evolve. As individuals it may seem bad. As a species, keeping old ideas in the form of ossified biology around seems like a bad idea. For example: see 70-80 year old politicians ageist assault on future generations. Physics is ageist and its march towards entropy unstoppable. Anti-aging is just more first worlders who can ignore externalities thanks to f…

I think those 70–80 year old politicians would be much less short-sighted if they expected to be around to reap what they're sowing.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#22

Unpopular opinion: Any medical intervention that delays or defeats the aging process will disproportionately benefit the wealthy, and is therefore unethical. The last thing a healthy democracy needs is millennium-old acolytes of Peter Thiel pulling the strings from the shadows.

Also: The Future is not really looking very bright for anyone besides the already-wealthy. I don't know why you'd want to live in the future. If you're an average middle-class American, the peak best time to live ever (stretching out into the past and predicting into the future) is probably the 1990s or so. My standard of living is slightly worse than my (Boomer) parents', and my kid's standard of living is very likely going to be worse than my own, and I would bet that her future kid's standard of living will be further worse.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this be an anti-aging company? Aging is bad and not aging is good.

Is aging bad though? Seems like natures way of helping humanity evolve. As individuals it may seem bad. As a species, keeping old ideas in the form of ossified biology around seems like a bad idea. For example: see 70-80 year old politicians ageist assault on future generations. Physics is ageist and its march towards entropy unstoppable. Anti-aging is just more first worlders who can ignore externalities thanks to f…

> For example: see 70-80 year old politicians ageist assault on future generations.

Sure but that's because the US voting demographic is old. It's the tyranny of the majority [1]; as the largest generation the baby boomers can vote and do vote for things that advance their interest. I'm not sure this phenomenon works if people live out to 150 years as the generational bubbles would be relatively smaller.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#24
I wonder how much the prohibition of stem cell research set back anti-aging.

I just don't see how you can get humans to live super-long without replacement of parts. It's how every complex thing in the world lasts a long time. Stem cells are literally how we built the parts in the first place so it seems to me to be the first place to look on how to build them a second time.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#25

Unpopular opinion: Any medical intervention that delays or defeats the aging process will disproportionately benefit the wealthy, and is therefore unethical. The last thing a healthy democracy needs is millennium-old acolytes of Peter Thiel pulling the strings from the shadows.

Aside from being an unpopular opinion, it's also a rather stupid one. I can think of no better way to say it. Virtually every technology currently used by the majority of human beings in the world to make their lives better in some way started as a privilege of the wealthy, but the tendency of a timespan between it going from that to something widely and affordably affordable has historically not only held ground but shortened.

To deny the possibility of breakthrough medical therapies that possibly save millions of families from the tragedy of prematurely losing loved ones just out of some half baked spite against the rich is grossly short-sighted at best. If anything is unethical, it's such a worldview itself.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#27
post #7

Diabetic medication can be a significant factor for increased healthy longevity.

But is it the medication, or reduction in oxidative stress and glycation? Medications almost always come with some form of negative side effects for a portion of those prescribed to. I think part of it needs to come from awareness of what we're putting into our bodies in the first place. I think a large part of it all comes from what we're taking in that wouldn't be considered food by most reasonable people knowing w…

Neither. It is the prevention of high sugar to prevent steady organ damage. For those with diabetes, there is no way to reverse it. They just have to reduce their intake. And all organs will continue to be steadily damaged over time.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#29

Unpopular opinion: Any medical intervention that delays or defeats the aging process will disproportionately benefit the wealthy, and is therefore unethical. The last thing a healthy democracy needs is millennium-old acolytes of Peter Thiel pulling the strings from the shadows.

You’re not wrong, but still most people would want to live healthily longer regardless, and it’s kind of unavoidable that the progress that can be made will be made.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#30

I wonder how much the prohibition of stem cell research set back anti-aging. I just don't see how you can get humans to live super-long without replacement of parts. It's how every complex thing in the world lasts a long time. Stem cells are literally how we built the parts in the first place so it seems to me to be the first place to look on how to build them a second time.

Creating stem cells from blood samples is a well-established industry practice now. I don’t think limiting embryonic stem cells research is significantly hindering stem cells research, is it?
Post reply on HN