81–90 of 170 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN is the only place where I’ve seen people purpose immortality as a legit goal. I think it’s because of lack of religion. If you are existentially scared of death and you are a techie, it makes sense
Immortality is literally the carrot that religion holds in front of its followers.
It was a great validation, that reversing epigenetics is possible in the human body, but using Yamanaka factors to do the same thing has much more investment dollars behind it (billions vs millions), so I believe it will be ready on the market faster.
If money was what it took to be correct in medicine, Theranos would be a huge success.
Of course it's more than just about money, it looks like it's the more efficient path, but there's a huge need in research to stop cells from losing their identity during partial reprogramming (and cause cancer).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If money was what it took to be correct in medicine, Theranos would be a huge success.
Are you really comparing Theranos to the Nobel prize winning Dr Yamanaka, and the amazing group of scientists who have put their lives to work on cellular reprogramming? Of course it's more than just about money, it looks like it's the more efficient path, but there's a huge need in research to stop cells from losing their identity during partial reprogramming (and cause cancer).
I was responding directly to what you said, this is a strawman.
> Of course it's more than just about money [...]
This is not the impression I got from your post, because all you talked about was money.
I’m no fan of death, but death (by natural causes - age, sickness , accident) has been how different generations have gotten rid some of the worst despots.
Sounds like a self solving problem. I reckon people will start caring about their despots if they expect to live a millennium under the despots' boot
If you were expecting to live a much longer life, people might grow more fearful about the consequences of speaking up against a dictator.
Am I the only one who thinks immortality is a nightmare? I don't understand people who want to live forever.
One thing I rarely see mentioned in regards to living forever is that during a life you will accumulate mental scars. My wife has lost a sister, and she's witnessed a murder. Neither she nor I are the same after those experiences. I don't think we will ever be. If we lived forever I think we would all become more and more anxious and excentric as time progressed and our souls inevitably became more "scarred". Maybe i…
Getting to know your grandchildren and embrace their changing world is probably a good defence in this regard.
To the extent I agree with the parent commenter about it being "a nightmare", the danger lies in exacerbating inequality. As with all medicines, those with access to life-improving medicines will be first world, wealthier people.
But of course that's no good argument against progress, just an unfortunate short-term side effect of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a good question: > Horvath used four different epigenetic clocks to assess each patient’s biological age, and he found significant reversal for each trial participant in all of the tests. Presumably the "epigenetic clocks" are correlated with age, but it's not clear if changes to the epigenetic clocks causes aging, or aging causes changes to the epigenetic clocks. (Maybe it's both?) Is this like overhauling t…
Exactly. And this is why the FDA won't approve drugs based on changes to biomarker (which is what these "epigenetic clocks" are) unless a direct link between that biomarker and a beneficial outcomes has been proven.
'The FDA’s eventual decision to ignore the advice of its advisory committee and approve the drug, it says, was based on aducanumab’s ability to lower levels of amyloid plaques in the brain — protein clumps that some scientists think cause Alzheimer’s.'
...
With aducanumab, the agency has shown that it is willing to push the paradigm to a broader set of people. One reason that decision has attracted criticism is that decreased levels of amyloid plaques are an unvalidated and contentious marker of a drug’s activity.
In large trials of other Alzheimer’s drug candidates, amyloid lowering has not led to cognitive benefits, and this has made it a sticking point for researchers.' [0]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Altered Carbon, and to a lesser extend Upload! touch on this dystopian part - the great leveller is that every billionaire will one day die - imagine if that wasn't the case, and they could keep hoarding wealth and having undue political influence.
Would you really want your parents to die, your loved ones, your family, your children, and yourself, all so you could have the satisfaction that at least rich people, and their loved ones, would suffer and die too?
Elite capture under the parameter of current human lifespans is extant and difficult to counteract. It stands to reason those negative consequences associated with elite capture would only be exacerbated under longer lifespans.
It’s simply an acknowledgment of a likely negative consequence.