New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely • Hacker News Board

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#201

Post by risyachka » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:12 AM UTC

picafrost wrote: post #136

I admire the human belief that the improvement of technology and our living standards will be infinite. It will be a bitter moment if we finally realize the plateau we've been stuck on is not temporary and all future gains will be marginal.

Natural one maybe.

Humans are biological machines. We know how to replace hearts with artificial ones that can last years. Soon they may start lasting decades.

We can replace many hormones with artificial ones.

I do not see any reason we can’t learn how to replace other organs and systems.

And in this case you may as well live 200+ years

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#202

Post by ACCount37 » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:14 AM UTC

sigmoid10 wrote: post #192

ACCount37 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just compare the effort and the investment that goes into fighting aging with what goes into fighting cancer. You can't rely on billionaires to fix everything for you. The kind of research effort that would be required to make meaningful progress against aging would likely demand hundreds of billions, spent across decades. Few billionaires have the pockets deep enough to bankroll something like this, or the long term…

Global investment in cancer research (not treatment) between 2016 and 2020 came in just under $25 billion [1]. That means someone like Elon could have financed basically all cancer research around the globe for a decade. Instead he bought twitter. And remember that the Forbes billionaires are not the most wealthy people in the world. They are just the ones living in countries with public company accounting. There is…

That's consistent with what I said, yes.

Two decades of this kind of research spending add up to $100 billion. And most billionaires are closer to $5 billion rich than to $500 billion rich.

It would sure be nice to have an infinite money glitch billionaire who cares a lot about funding anti-aging research and lobbying for anti-aging efforts, the way Musk cares about space exploration and trolling people online. We're lucky that at least some neglected fields get billionaire attention like this. But we can't rely on that happening.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#203

Post by simianparrot » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:14 AM UTC

ACCount37 wrote: post #172

simianparrot wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a naive take on what senescence is. Look it up. You can stop it, but be prepared to then have to figure out how to deal with all the side effects it prevents. And then you can fix those but be prepared to deal with those side effects. And so on. My point isn’t to stop researching and understanding and even treating, but it’s that life is a balance of tradeoffs. Looking at it as if energy is a universal currenc…

There is no physical or biological constraint that says "senescence absolutely has to happen". In some species, it doesn't seem to happen at all. In others, it happens extremely slowly. Clearly, there are massive longevity gains left on the table - ones we'll never pick up if we keep whining about "life" being "a balance of tradeoffs".

And in those species there's other constraints that weigh up for it. I'm not sure which ones you're thinking of, but in every single one I know of there's other tradeoffs. And if there's some without them, I'm pretty sure we just haven't discovered them yet.

I find it peculiar that you interpret my statements as "whining". I specifically wrote:

> My point isn’t to stop researching and understanding and even treating, but it’s that life is a balance of tradeoffs

What's whiny about that? Modern medicine has for a while been in a position of treating symptoms of symptoms of symptoms, often of its own making. That doesn't mean we should stop treating symptoms! But it means we have to look at the bigger picture and stop thinking everything is a "problem" to be "fixed", and work harder to understand why things work the way they do, and what the costs of altering them truly are. Sometimes fixing one thing isn't worth the tradeoffs in other areas.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#204

Post by simianparrot » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:22 AM UTC

djrj477dhsnv wrote: post #183

simianparrot wrote: post #148

The assumption that everything can be “fixed” is one I will never understand. It’s so obvious when studying organisms in all their shapes and forms how everything is a tradeoff, and nothing can be stable. The fundamental truth of the universe is change. Senescence is a tradeoff to ward against cancer earlier in life. Eventually it will lead to cancer as a side effect, but optimally something else has failed before th…

Aren't there already large long-living animals like elephants that basically don't get cancer?

Their average life expectancy is around 70 years, and yes, cancer is rarer in elephants, potentially due to the species having extra copies of the TP53 gene.

Cancer is also a result of many other factors of which humans are more exposed to than elephants typically are, environmental and pollution being a major one, and food ingredients being another. A life expectancy of 70 years for a human isn't that great; in 2024 in Europe it was 79 years for males and 84 years for women, and that's with all the contributing cancer risk factors in society as mentioned earlier.

A more interesting species might be immortal jellyfish, but the simplicity of the organism might be a contributing factor in why it works the way it does.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#205

Post by AlecSchueler » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:24 AM UTC

4gotunameagain wrote: post #132

dsign wrote: post #118

I was walking on the street the other day. It was fine summer, and I saw so many elderly walking outside. All of them were using one type of aid or another; some even had a social worker at their side. As I saw them, I was thinking that my 63% marginal tax was paying for it, while I part with 25% of my income after taxes to pay my mom’s pension. That monetary cost is nothing, I would gladly pay it for the rest of my…

> But immigration is the only thing that can replenish their workforce. You cannot discount the destabilising potential of immigration, and the lowering of societal trust it comes with. As we saw multiple times, integration is the edge case and not the rule. It will be especially harder to integrate people the way the demographic pyramid is looking right now in "developed" countries. I would also question the desire…

> As we saw multiple times, integration is the edge case and not the rule.

Is that true? Are you sure the edge cases where people didn't integrate aren't just bigger stories than the many many people who arrive and live normal boring lives?

> question the desire of immigrants to pay for the welfare of the senile of their respective state, given the fact that they are more than likely to feel mistreated and wronged

Maybe we could stop wronging and mistreating them? Or is that an important part of our European heritage?

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#206

Post by pembrook » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:24 AM UTC

simianparrot wrote: post #145

dsign wrote: post #118

I was walking on the street the other day. It was fine summer, and I saw so many elderly walking outside. All of them were using one type of aid or another; some even had a social worker at their side. As I saw them, I was thinking that my 63% marginal tax was paying for it, while I part with 25% of my income after taxes to pay my mom’s pension. That monetary cost is nothing, I would gladly pay it for the rest of my…

> But immigration is the only thing that can replenish their workforce. Unchecked immigration of people who do not share the majority of the destination’s cultural values leads to a monoculture that is terrible for everyone. Multiculturalism doesn’t work when everyone’s culture is equal everywhere. And unless it wasn’t obvious, I firmly believe in multiculturalism, but I believe we (here in Europe in particular) have…

Huh?

The problem in Europe is not immigration, the problem is there being no European country with a vision of the future for immigrants to buy into.

Aesthetic Traditions ≠ Culture. Traditions are just one aspect, but as Nietzsche wrote about the death of God, traditions are not a substitute for values.

America for hundreds of years has offered a shared vision of the future and values to immigrants of every background, and within When European identities are all built around stories from the past, and the only vision of the future being offered is one of impending doom and urbanist intellectual memes (climate apocalypse, population decline, social welfare breakdown, economic malaise, technophobia), it's no wonder that immigrants wouldn't want to buy into your culture. I'll enjoy your aesthetic traditions and take your free social welfare, but I'll keep my own culture and values, thank you very much.

When your sales pitch is: "we don't like new things here so there's nothing to create, but life here is easy, you don't have to do much because the state will take care of you!" I don't think you're attracting the best citizens.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#207

Post by 4gotunameagain » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:24 AM UTC

simianparrot wrote: post #160

4gotunameagain wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But immigration is the only thing that can replenish their workforce. You cannot discount the destabilising potential of immigration, and the lowering of societal trust it comes with. As we saw multiple times, integration is the edge case and not the rule. It will be especially harder to integrate people the way the demographic pyramid is looking right now in "developed" countries. I would also question the desire…

I appreciate you being honest, but I also don't want people like you to immigrate to my country. How are you so sure of the role our old people played in your reasons for emigrating? Even if you're in the US and from a country the US has actively destabilized, how many of the people on welfare -- old and/or infirm -- were instrumental in the actions that led to the destabilization of your country? How many of these p…

Apart from the complex topic of political complicity, I am talking about events and actions that the majority of the local population supported. I would of course have to reveal quite a bit about me in order to be more specific.

But even if I were an immigrant to the US from Venezuela or any of the tens if not hundreds countries that the US destabilised, I would indeed think of the majority of US's population as complicit. The people that are against such acts seem to always be the minority.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#208

Post by simianparrot » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:26 AM UTC

makingstuffs wrote: post #187

orwin wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure US cultural slop destroyed more of my culture in the last 20 years than immigration ever did, and while immigrants are part of the movement for sure (especially English retirees, but also a lot of 2nd/3rd gen migrants from eastern Europe/North Africa), they're not the main driver.

100% I often say to people that the reason for the UK’s loss of culture is not immigration but the fact that we, as British people, stopped being British in pursuit of the ‘American dream’. Somewhere along the line we stopped looking to our own previous generations (which include European nations as, you know, we’re Europeans) for cultural identity and started following Hollywood as our cultural oracle. Generations o…

Not a single British person I know has ever pursued the "American dream". In fact all of them have historically been far more negative towards America than I have, myself being Norwegian.

The UK is large, so maybe either of us are just looking into a small bubble not representative of the whole, but the times I've visited the UK in the past, I didn't see much of what you seem to describe. Perhaps in the very center of London and its shopping malls, but those are not representative of the UK whatsoever.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#209

Post by ACCount37 » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:30 AM UTC

simianparrot wrote: post #203

ACCount37 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no physical or biological constraint that says "senescence absolutely has to happen". In some species, it doesn't seem to happen at all. In others, it happens extremely slowly. Clearly, there are massive longevity gains left on the table - ones we'll never pick up if we keep whining about "life" being "a balance of tradeoffs".

And in those species there's other constraints that weigh up for it. I'm not sure which ones you're thinking of, but in every single one I know of there's other tradeoffs. And if there's some without them, I'm pretty sure we just haven't discovered them yet. I find it peculiar that you interpret my statements as "whining". I specifically wrote: > My point isn’t to stop researching and understanding and even treating,…

There is no "fairness enforcement" in life, and biology is no exception. The closest we get is conservation laws, and those do not forbid living healthily well into your 500s.

You're out looking for "tradeoffs" that may not be there, or may not be worth caring about. There is no "balance of tradeoffs" in everything. There isn't an Authority on Biology that says "if you get good X then you must take bad Y to keep things fair for everyone". There are just shitty local minima you get stuck in unless you manage to climb your way out.

Do you want to get 50% less cancer, or to live to 120? The answer is "yes". You can have both. Nothing forbids you from having both. Is it easy to get both? No. It's not easy to get even one of those. But nature barely even tried. Humans can do better than that.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#210

Post by simianparrot » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 8:32 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #206

simianparrot wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But immigration is the only thing that can replenish their workforce. Unchecked immigration of people who do not share the majority of the destination’s cultural values leads to a monoculture that is terrible for everyone. Multiculturalism doesn’t work when everyone’s culture is equal everywhere. And unless it wasn’t obvious, I firmly believe in multiculturalism, but I believe we (here in Europe in particular) have…

Huh? The problem in Europe is not immigration, the problem is there being no European country with a vision of the future for immigrants to buy into. Aesthetic Traditions ≠ Culture. Traditions are just one aspect, but as Nietzsche wrote about the death of God, traditions are not a substitute for values. America for hundreds of years has offered a shared vision of the future and values to immigrants of every backgroun…

> the only vision of the future being offered is one of impending doom and urbanist intellectual memes

I agree with this. Far too many European countries have no optimistic or even productive outlooks on the future, instead seeming to trade in a form of pessimistic reductionism. Eat less, do less, be less.

However:

> it's no wonder that immigrants wouldn't want to buy into your culture

Then why do they stay as long as they can drain resources? I would never move to a country I don't respect, let alone stay to drain resources and give nothing back. That mentality is alien to me. That isn't to say every immigrant is a drain on resources, but the ones that do not buy into the culture, do not buy into the vision (or lack thereof), and do not contribute -- why are they here? Simply because despite all of that it's better than where they came from? If so, we're doing both ourselves and them a disservice by not denying them entry, because both parties end up miserable.