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

lafollette.wisc.edu

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

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if I would really like to pour billions of taxpayer money into aging when we are not even able to live a basic healthy lifestyle. Sleeping well, eating well and exercising does work. Science about this is well-established. So why arent we? It would not raise the life expectancy to 100 years but it would considerably reduce the health burden on the economy.

>Sleeping well, eating well and exercising does work. Science about this is well-established. So why arent we? Those will give you at best another marginal decade. By all means worth doing but its not radical life extension. At the same time a young body can take lack of sleep and can physically perform even if not exercising much better than an old one. So there's more to it than just lifestyle.

> Those will give you at best another marginal decade.

Those will give you an entire life. Living while being healthy is an entirely different life than surviving while being unhealthy.

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

#302
post #245
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radical life extension within our lifetimes has become secular religion substitute. It’s driven more by hope and faith than by scientific fact. While a lifespan has no limits in theory if technology is advanced enough, the belief that it can be achieved by a living person is based on hope rather than evidence. - Possible in our lifetime. - Affordable to the faithful. You remove these two, and the faithful lose their…

> Radical life extension within our lifetimes has become secular religion substitute. It’s driven more by hope and faith than by scientific fact. Did someone prove mice have souls that go to heaven or hell while I wasn't looking? For all the limits of research that only works in mice and doesn't generalise to humans (I'm *not* going to plan with the assumption of radical longevity) it's not quite as bad as taking eve…

The secular religion spoken of by nabla has nothing to do with afterlives. It's for people who don't believe in any afterlife trying to placate their fear of death by having faith that technology will somehow grant them an indefinite life, not an afterlife.

(Context: I am firmly an atheist, but I also disapprove of the people who want to live forever. I think that's selfish and childish. People should get to grips with the reality of their mortality and make peace with that.)

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do we really have to read again and again the same fantasies the far right spew out continuously here in France on Hacker News? It’s so easy to factually disprove, it’s kind of boring. I will keep it short because I value my time but here some things you might want to ponder: - America integration doesn’t exist. The American strategy has always been leave people alone to keep living in their own culture. There is no…

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

#304
post #107

New research reveals horse-drawn wagon engineering gains slowing, travel at speeds beyond 12mph unlikely.

There are no new modes to switch to. We can’t fly supersonic passenger airlines anymore and haven’t been to the moon since 1972. The new Accela trains run slower than the old ones.

true now

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

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have to be hostile to be somewhat skeptical about mechanical extensions of current trends into distant future. An analyst living in 1825 could analyze the traffic stats to conclude that the era of increasing land travel speeds is coming to a close because the horses can't run any faster, and an analyst living in 1975 could analyze the telecom stats to conclude that international calls are always going to cost…

And in 1968 an analyst may conclude that space travel could never become routine and still be perfectly on the money even after the moon landings. So what? We can't see into the future. The future is never like the past, not least because a lot of present tends to intervene.

And that is precisely why I don't find that much value in articles such as "New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely".

Declaration such as:

“We forecast that those born in 1980 will not live to be 100 on average, and none of the cohorts in our study will reach this milestone."

is too self-confident. Their youngest cohort is born in 2000. It is impossible to predict how longevity technology will look in 2070 or 2080, and yet the authors make such bold statements.

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

#306
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Radical life extension within our lifetimes has become secular religion substitute. It’s driven more by hope and faith than by scientific fact. Did someone prove mice have souls that go to heaven or hell while I wasn't looking? For all the limits of research that only works in mice and doesn't generalise to humans (I'm *not* going to plan with the assumption of radical longevity) it's not quite as bad as taking eve…

The secular religion spoken of by nabla has nothing to do with afterlives. It's for people who don't believe in any afterlife trying to placate their fear of death by having faith that technology will somehow grant them an indefinite life, not an afterlife. (Context: I am firmly an atheist, but I also disapprove of the people who want to live forever. I think that's selfish and childish. People should get to grips wi…

I agree. For one, most people don't change. In the sense that their ideas don't change. For the ideas to change in the society, sometimes people themselves have to be replaced, i.e. generations have to change.

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

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do we really have to read again and again the same fantasies the far right spew out continuously here in France on Hacker News? It’s so easy to factually disprove, it’s kind of boring. I will keep it short because I value my time but here some things you might want to ponder: - America integration doesn’t exist. The American strategy has always been leave people alone to keep living in their own culture. There is no…

> - America integration doesn’t exist. The American strategy has always been leave people alone to keep living in their own culture. There is no actual American identity. The only things American have in common in the shared trauma of slavery and the civil war, and the founding myth which is why they remain so prevalent in the US modern discourse. Meanwhile, people will happily talk about "race" culture, half the country would be happy to slaughter the other half and culturally linked riots are a thing.

As an immigrant to USA, living here for 20 years, you're unequivocally wrong about this point. There is an American culture, and cult of "American dream". There are English as a Second Language programs, job integration programs, classes at every language of educations, rules and traditions for immigrant flow. The police, governments, and citizens of USA all know this is a country of immigrants and all have respect for immigrants, even if there is an "illegal" immigrant backlash right now. The threat of violence coming from political extremes absolutely does not represent the majority of people every day interactions.

In sum, American integration does exist, and I have first hand and second hand data to prove it. I'm not an expert on your other points, and I think you're trying to prove the sky is not blue, but genuinely, good luck.

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

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't scale. If you could put "sleeping well, eating well and exercising" into a $0.25 once a week pill and make that available to everyone, it would work. As is, it doesn't. We want solutions that can be scaled and rolled out broadly, and "basic healthy lifestyle" ain't it.

Why not? What is not scalable about it, specifically ? I mean, sure, it doesn't scale as well as a magic pill as a business . But is certainly is O(n) with the number of people involved.

The scaling challenge here comes from scaling across the various types of life situations and personality types out there. Some people work too much to be able to live a balance lifestyle. Other people just can’t summon the motivation.

Either way, a pill would scale better across all these people.

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

#309
post #191

Remarkable hostility and strange circular logic from some people posting here. Clearly belief outstrips evidence. If research suggests there's an observable asymptotic trend, public health dollars at the very least might be better spent on quality of life as much as quantity. The posts saying an atom of oxygen is potentially infinitely long lived (ignoring radioactive decay?) As a "proof" that life extension has no l…

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

#310
Most longevity supplements and drugs work by pulling biological processes to baseline

That's all they do

So for someone sitting around 24/7 maybe vaguely helpful

For someone active, they defeat stress adaptations, so your "gains" disappear or never happen in the first place

They also do nothing for disease, they may help avoid some disease but once the disease is in progress, they can't cure anything

There's going to have to be a "next gen" of such drugs, years if not decades away

The next-gen will probably deal with mitochondria function, enhancing and restoring/rebooting dysfunction, which actually might cure some disease

So hopefully investment will continue towards "next gen", it's a very long road

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