[HN Gopher] A $3B bet on finding the fountain of youth
___________________________________________________________________
A $3B bet on finding the fountain of youth
Author : axiomdata316
Score : 127 points
Date : 2022-01-21 15:32 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| fairity wrote:
| I wish our brightest minds were all working in areas like this
| instead of social apps and advertising. Is there even any doubt
| that with a better understanding of biology we could meaningfully
| prolong the human lifespan? What are we doing working on apps
| lol.
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| The problem is that anything related to the human body is
| super-heavily regulated, which creates a ton of friction and
| risk to doing anything innovative.
|
| I think the folks that would get very excited about working on
| the problem of aging would not be excited about the amount of
| regulatory bureaucracy (trying to find a non-judgmental word to
| use there) that necessarily goes along with it.
|
| In fact I think that the reason that so much innovation and
| wealth creation is concentrated in things which such dubious
| social benefit is exactly that it isn't regulated, because it
| doesn't matter. If it matters and is important, it becomes
| regulated, which slows and discourages innovation and the
| people who want to innovate.
| DoubleDerper wrote:
| "...anything related to the human body is super-heavily
| regulated"
|
| In the Western world this is true. Countries with less
| oversight stand to benefit from regulation arbitrage.
| randcraw wrote:
| Of course, China already has refuted your thesis. Due to
| lack of oversight and regulation (and enforcement), their
| health care system is mistrusted by everyone. That's why
| the country's covid inoculation rate has been so low.
| Because trust is very hard to regain once lost, ensurance
| of safety and efficacy in healthcare through regulation has
| clear advantages.
| e_y_ wrote:
| There's tons of basic research that could be done before we
| ever get to the regulatory question of human trials. If we
| could get pigs to live for 50 years (currently ~20) it would
| be a huge step forward in our understanding of aging.
|
| On the other hand, pig life extension is not really a product
| you can sell. Even human life extension, which should
| theoretically be worth trillions, seems like too much of a
| pipe dream. The benefits of basic research only become
| apparent years or decades down the road, and a lot of it is
| going to be dead ends.
|
| Whereas it's pretty firmly established that if you can make a
| $700 smartphone that's slightly better than last year's, you
| can sell millions of them.
| avrionov wrote:
| I don't think that the main problem is the regulation. The
| regulations are a side effect of how difficult and harmful
| these experiments could to humans. In the software business
| when a project fails we can just used a starting point for
| the next iteration. In life sciences they don't have that
| luxury. There is no way to test something quickly (in seconds
| and minutes).
|
| May be one day we'll have a complete model of the human body
| and medicine and drugs can be tested through a software.
| arwineap wrote:
| I think that for most workers it's about paying the mortgage
| and raising your kids. Once bio-hacking starts paying the bills
| you may see more interest in it
|
| As a secondary thought, I never would have gotten into code-
| hacking if I didn't have access to a terminal and some open
| source. I don't think that model would ever work for something
| like this
| grishka wrote:
| So how can I, as a software developer, meaningfully contribute
| to this area? I would very much prefer to live forever.
| forgotmyoldacc wrote:
| You could gain computational biology experience from working
| at biotech until you have enough to work at one of these
| longevity startups.
| justsocrateasin wrote:
| This is exactly what I'm doing - working at a
| bioinformatics startup as a SDE, and slowly picking up comp
| bio projects.
| patall wrote:
| Bioinformatics is a huge field and a lot of software
| developers are working there. It's science with multi-year
| career paths, so you cannot just start working on everything
| without learning the basics first. But with a bit of
| training, many former software developers have contributed as
| lab techs, PhD students or other types of associates.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| most leading biohackers have a patreon or subscribestar page
| where you could help fund their research, that might be a
| start.
| Dig1t wrote:
| I guess you could dive into the world of home-brew
| biohacking? Understanding genetics and lab techniques doesn't
| seem out of reach for programmer types, but I don't really
| know.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| I tried it (shoutout to The Odin's biohacking courses!) but
| I found it requires a lot more manual skills than I was
| used to from programming. Not out of reach but quite
| different, the most similar existing skill for me was
| actually cooking. Though I never made it past beginner
| stage, so take my experience for what it's worth.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| In an ideal world, biology salaries would be on par with tech
| salaries, so more intelligent ambitious young people will
| pursue education and careers in biology.
| grishka wrote:
| I'm personally not driven by money and never was. First and
| foremost I would like to make the world a better place.
| solveit wrote:
| Competitive advantage says that in the vast majority of cases
| you should do more or less what you're doing now, perhaps
| adjust your behaviour to optimise for compensation, and
| spend/donate money to have more biologists work on this. This
| is very general advice for anyone with a cause that they
| would like to get done without regard to who does it.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Calico[0] is funded by Google, so advertising is obviously a
| necessary evil.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(company)#_sarcasm
| kvhdude wrote:
| what do HN folks think about efforts of Dr david sinclair of
| https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/ ?
| Kalanos wrote:
| NMN
| marto1 wrote:
| Looking at it from an engineering perspective it's a pretty dumb
| problem to go after. Coming mostly from my experience with
| minification of electronics.
|
| E.g. the problems you get at 150nm are almost the same you'd get
| at 140nm or close but going down to 22nm is a whole different
| story. The effects that you could skim over before begin to
| matter in a critical way forming a sort of butterfly effect of
| ridiculous complexity.
|
| So I think they'll be able to push it to let's say 120 years.
| Then after that something that you did 110 years ago, e.g.
| jumping too much in the bed will be the thing that leads you to
| develop a certain condition in your 120s. This is of course
| cascading so your related conditions contribute too even if
| you've dealt with them. Also we're not talking electronics here,
| but the human body so the baseline complexity is much much
| higher. And we're not even counting in *meaningful life* years.
|
| AND with that being said I wouldn't take the economist way too
| seriously. They have had all sorts of Chicken Little style
| articles before so who knows what they are actually after.
| mlyle wrote:
| > And we're not even counting in _meaningful life_ years.
|
| I think it's likely that a lot of these treatment paths end up
| cumulatively increasing QALY's (quality-adjusted life years) by
| more than they increase life expectancy. That is, they add more
| good time than total time, in part because of a lot of the
| factors you mention. If we pick up 5 years of QALY and 4 years
| of increased lifespan, that's a pretty huge win, IMO. It means
| getting to know grandchildren much more meaningfully as the
| typical age of parents at childbirth has increased.
| [deleted]
| staticassertion wrote:
| You can play "didn't read the article" bingo with these posts
| every time.
|
| 1. This isn't technology that increases lifespan dramatically. No
| one is going to live to 150 because of this work. Instead, they
| might live an extra decade at absolute best, but more likely (and
| the goal) is that they'll have a longer _healthy_ life. That is
| to say, maybe you 'd die at the same age, but you'd be walking
| around, feeling young and energetic, for more years of your life.
|
| 2. This technology is unlikely to extraordinarily expensive. Even
| current anti-aging pills that are patented are easily affordable
| by the middle class. But more importantly, imagine if you
| eliminated cancer, alzheimers, and other age-related illnesses -
| imagine the _economic impact_ , what that would do to insurance
| premiums, etc. It would have a significant overall positive
| impact on the economy.
|
| Almost every post will make the mistake of talking about
| immortality, absurd age extensions (150 year lifespans), etc.
| None of that is on the table.
| dandare wrote:
| We talk a lot (actually, not enough) about the dangers of AI, but
| we rarely discuss the perils of longevity. Not that they are
| similar, but both are somewhat underrated.
|
| - Once there will be a scientific breakthrough in longevity,
| everything will happen very fast. The time between the first and
| the billionth vaccine against ageing probably won't be much
| longer than one year.
|
| - The breakthrough may be just around the corner (10, 20 30
| years...) - many people seem to be putting their money on it.
|
| - Sudden increase in the average lifespan by as little as 10
| years would throw most pension funds and state budgets into
| disarray. Mind you, a 70 years old retiree rejuvenated back to
| his 60 won't be magically as productive as she was before she
| retired. She will be unemployed and 10 years behind on
| everything.
|
| - Any significant lifespan enhancement will mean we have to
| renegotiate social contract about having kids. Will the vaccine
| come with strings attached? We can't even control our population
| explosion today.
|
| - Not just science progresses one funeral at a
| time.(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30025879). Imagine
| having no real possibility progressing in your career, once the
| "best" will fill the ladder. Would you want your judge or police
| chief to be the same person for 50 years?
|
| PS: That being said, I don't think we can or should hold back and
| it will be all worth it.
| godelski wrote:
| I think several of these are solved. Though pensions is a
| difficult one but they aren't nearly as common as they used to
| be.
|
| If you live forever you can learn a new skill. There's also an
| incentive to get to financial independence.
|
| Population isn't an issue and I'm confused why this is
| frequently brought up. But then again people think America is
| over populated while it's extremely population sparse. The
| truth is that every first world country has birth rates well
| below replacement. Most developing countries do too or are on
| their way. Countries where people live longer and have
| education have declining populations. It's wouldn't be
| surprising if people who were immortal didn't have kids until
| they were able to reach financial independence. Be that in
| their 90's or 900's.
|
| I also don't think people will want to do the same jobs
| forever. We have infinite time. It's okay if it takes 50 years
| of schooling and 50 years to become a Sr engineer. Time is
| different. It's also more incentive for automation so little
| can just live.
| marstall wrote:
| it's good to see billionaires putting money into health moonshots
| (vs real moonshots). Helps so many more people.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| If immortality was somehow cracked, it would cause the end of
| civilization if it became available to everyone. Imagine the
| population of Earth ballooning to 12+ billion. Instead, it
| would be kept for the billionaires. Imagine the staggering
| inequality of 180-year-old trillionaires and their kin, that
| never ever relinquish their hordes. It's straight out of a
| cyberpunk dystopia. (Tessier-Ashpool comes to mind)
| [deleted]
| est31 wrote:
| One could imagine a societal model where the number of
| children is restricted instead of access to life prolonging
| technology. So to target a stable population, you'd allow
| people to have only as many children as people have died in
| the last couple of years.
|
| It's doable, we already had societies that deployed such
| restrictions on a scale similar to the global human
| population. Whether it _should_ be done is another question,
| as many people criticize the issue of the state policing
| procreation.
| marstall wrote:
| would you rather face that - or death?
| metalliqaz wrote:
| I would face death in both scenarios. I prefer the scenario
| where the ultra elite also face death.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| That sounds terrifying. Imagine a 5 century reign by one and
| the same dictator. Can't think of too many positives for this
| scenario.
| sfink wrote:
| We're accustomed to thinking about the population boom, but
| the derivative looks like it peaked just before 1970 and
| there doesn't seem to be much in the way of it continuing to
| fall below 0%. While I personally feel that that's probably a
| good thing in the short term, in the longer term we will
| probably _want_ to decrease the negative side of the
| population equation more than we want to increase the
| positive side.
|
| That may be particularly true for billionaires, who profit
| off of a growth engine that is going to be under serious
| pressure once the population starts dropping for real.
| Increasing life span (in particular increasing the span of
| life not dominated by illness) could balance out quite a bit
| of declining fertility rate. And I for one think that if
| fertility became more dominated the people who _want_ to be
| fertile, it would be a Good Thing.
|
| I'm not going to worry about immortality, because I think
| it's still very very far out. Which means your trillionaires
| are about generational wealth. Generational wealth is lost by
| the first generation 70% of the time, by the second 90% of
| the time. It's not that big of a thing.
|
| I'm just not too worried that 110 years of healthy life is
| going to tip the balance too far. It'll slow down progress
| some ("X advances one funeral at a time"), and we'll
| massively screw things up for a while, but long term it seems
| good to me.
| itg wrote:
| TBH, the research produced from unrelated moonshots help out in
| many different areas.
| d_burfoot wrote:
| I love this. People are starting to realize how powerful the
| logic of life extension is. Think about this: if this startup
| succeeds only at extending human life expectancy by a _single
| day_ , it's already worth it. A life is about 3e4 days, and there
| are 9e9 humans, so giving 1 extra day to every human is the
| equivalent of saving 3e5 lives.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Only if it's actually available to every living human on Earth,
| which unfortunately isn't the case for plenty of things we
| already have, like food, clean water, medical care and so on.
| Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy[1] books explore what
| longevity treatments for some but not all could mean (along
| with terraforming Mars, and lots of other great stuff, that
| is).
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I have a really big problem with this mathematical reductionist
| view of the value of life and human time. A life is much more
| that the sum of its days, basically because for any individual
| the loss of a single day is basically indistinguishable from a
| loss of 0 days over a lifespan, but obviously the loss of
| ~300,000 people would be a catastrophe.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| A single day would be insignificant and very hard to measure.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That's assuming the day doesn't cost $1,000,000 for each person
| treated.
| michaelbarton wrote:
| I can't help thinking that people dying of old age is our last
| defense against consolidation of power. No matter how much
| power someone accrues they're eventually going to die. That
| power always dissipates, dynasties never last forever.
|
| This might be an extremely cynical take, but it feels like if
| we did discover a scientific fountain of youth we would end up
| with immortal billionaires rather than the likes of you and I
| becoming immortal. There's literally thousands of people dying
| prematurely in the US from lack of access to healthcare
| technology that we already have right now.
| staticassertion wrote:
| Power is already consolidated. It just passes generationally.
| Living longer won't change that, especially when we're
| talking optimistically about 10-20% longer lifetimes and,
| more likely, not much longer lifetimes but more healthy years
| with the same end date.
| elwell wrote:
| > startup succeeds only at extending human life expectancy by a
| single day
|
| https://donate.worldvision.org/give/east-africa-hunger-crisi...
| paxys wrote:
| There's nothing Silicon Valley billionaires will throw money at
| faster than the ability to live longer/forever. Makes sense in a
| way, but pretty much everyone in the field will tell you that the
| science is simply not there yet. Calico is similarly funded and
| has been at it for a decade now, with nothing to show for it.
| me_me_me wrote:
| I was always for idea of defeating aging, and moving on on your
| own terms.
|
| Until I watch Altered Carbon, I think it premise of rich
| capturing the technology and using it to divide haves from
| have-nots is pretty realistic.
| ufo wrote:
| The good old Larry Ellison gambit
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=37m36s
| iandanforth wrote:
| This is such a confusing attitude along a number of axes.
|
| 1. Science isn't there so we shouldn't spend billions yet.
|
| Maybe spending billions can advance the science sufficiently?
|
| 2. There is a "there" to get to.
|
| People regularly spend millions in healthcare costs to live a
| few extra years. What is the "there" that we're imagining?
| Would someone with >$100B not spend $1B to live 10 more years?
| You don't need a fountain of youth, just more time in a not-
| terrible state of health to be worth all this investment and
| more.
|
| 3. There is _a_ there to get to.
|
| This isn't like the discovery of fission. It might take a dozen
| different interventions to provide another decade of life to an
| individual, or a disjoint set of a dozen interventions to
| provide another decade of life to people in general. One
| discovery probably won't cut it, and that's ok.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| The science is there, but there has actually been a stigma
| against generalized life extension research because that
| particular project has been the purview of cranks for literally
| thousands of years.
| judge2020 wrote:
| We've been finding ways to live longer since the advent of
| modern medicine[0]; these moonshot projects funded by the likes
| of Google via Calico aren't literally trying to find a way to
| live forever, just mitigate or cure the things that cause
| death.
|
| Now, perhaps some day in the future we'll have learned enough
| about how the brain works to keep it alive simply by continuing
| to supply blood and emulating/simulating the nervous system to
| allow the person to continue to exist within a virtual
| environment (or simply via an ipad on some motorized wheels).
| Some work has been done on the 'staying alive' front[1] but
| it's very unlikely this sort of biotech matures to work on
| Humans within the next 50-100 years.
|
| 0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-
| expectancy-...
|
| 1: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01216-4
| mc32 wrote:
| What with their lifestyles (along with other wealthy) climate
| change and an overpopulated planet, I don't think life
| extensions over the normal range make much sense.
|
| Better invest in healthier living within the normal window. (in
| other words a robust body and mind till the time comes).
| dqpb wrote:
| > the science is simply not there yet
|
| How do you suppose it gets there?
| isk517 wrote:
| The real question is whether you believe the science is not
| there yet, or not there at all? If it is possible then it is
| perfectly understandable that people would be willing to throw
| money at the issue even if it is decades away, mostly because a
| lot of things remain decades away because those decades need to
| be full of research that nobody wants to spend money on. On the
| other hand if it is impossible (or at least impossible without
| some sort of impossible to predict advancement in biological
| science) then this is just another attempt to funnel money from
| people by playing on fear of death.
| colechristensen wrote:
| That Japanese vaccine that helped your immune system target
| half dead zombie cells seemed pretty promising.
| Darmody wrote:
| Science may not be there yet but throwing money at it will help
| in the long run.
| dougSF70 wrote:
| I have snake oil for sale
| LinuxBender wrote:
| On a funny side note, you can actually buy snake oil and it
| does actually have a metabolic purpose. It is most commonly
| used to relieve pain and inflammation and is used to treat
| arthritis and bursitis. The biggest contributing factor is
| the Omega-3 fatty acids. I prefer Krill oil for this as it
| sometimes also has Astaxanthin depending on the formulation.
| bbarnett wrote:
| You do? How much! It seems hard to get the temp right, during
| rendering, so I often burn the fat and...
|
| (Even snake oil has value...)
| echelon wrote:
| Pretty simple. Fixing all of our diseases is actually low
| hanging fruit.
|
| Head transplants onto monoclonal human bodies grown in a lab.
| Gestated in chimeric pigs, genetically or surgically
| decephalized before birth, electronically innervated and
| artificially sustained until use in science or medicine.
|
| Bodies are O-, HLA neutral, and do not require
| immunosuppressants.
|
| Transplant beneficiaries receive a new and healthy thymus and
| immune system, unaged cardiovascular and pulmonary system.
|
| Not only a fix for aging, this would solve heart disease, organ
| failure, AIDS (flush existing cells), and most non-brain/non-
| blood cancers. It's the fabled cure all.
|
| Brain age would still be an issue, but with a renewed
| cardiovascular and immune system it may be prolonged or even
| rejuvenated to a degree.
|
| The technologies are here today. We just have to assemble them.
|
| After delivering on the health promises, there's all sorts of
| optimizations. You could give people the body they wanted.
| Male, female, short, tall, strong, athletic, skinny, tan,
| whatever. Even transgenic with all sorts of modifications. No
| body odor, big muscles, fur, new skin and hair colors...
| there's practically unlimited potential.
|
| If I ever have a billion dollar exit, I'm doing it.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| the neural reattachment seems really hard. Where are we on
| spinal cord recovery after a complete sever? If you are an
| oligarch and don't mind murdering a healthy young type o-
| isn't that really the only barrier?
| echelon wrote:
| > Where are we on spinal cord recovery after a complete
| sever?
|
| It's been performed in animals, though it resulted in
| paralyzation and subsequent euthanization. Human attempts
| have been prepped for on several occasions, but never
| carried out.
|
| Past human candidates have been paraplegics, but I think
| you'd find even more willing patents amongst those with
| terminal cancers.
|
| It would probably take trial and error before we can
| reattach a spinal cord successfully. Early patients will
| likely be paralyzed.
|
| > If you are an oligarch and don't mind murdering a healthy
| young type o- isn't that really the only barrier?
|
| This isn't scalable and also doesn't confer the advantages
| of a neutral immune system.
|
| Monoclonal bodies can be used for all other sorts of uses.
| Wide-scale and repeatable studies, basic research, smaller
| scale blood and organ transplants, etc.
|
| Since attempts would be limited, the difficult kinks would
| not be worked out of the protocol. By building a scalable
| methodology, it begins to work for everyone and becomes
| safer and more practical over time.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Lets make sure we solve the monoclonal bodies thing
| before the reattachment thing. I'm pretty sure there will
| be some dying oligarchs that aren't worried about
| scalability or immunosuppressants.
| awillen wrote:
| Your post seems to imply that because the science isn't there
| yet, it doesn't make sense to throw money at it.
|
| But isn't the whole point that you're using the money to bring
| on the scientists and give them the resources in order to
| develop the science?
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Considering the general trajectory of the world, its surprising
| people want to stay in it longer, but I guess I too have a
| portion of morbid curiosity to see just how much we keep screwing
| everything up. To actually witness cities becoming submerged.
|
| Also, if I didn't have to slave away most of my life to survive,
| if I could live the life I want, I could probably have a full
| life by 60, with maybe only a few books still left to read. That
| would be sufficient and good, very few complaints. But with this
| stuff.. If I gained another 50 expected years, its just that much
| more work and sacrifice I gotta do to have a chance of retiring!
| seoulbran wrote:
| The world aint that bad my friend, just a little crazy atm -
| it'll get better. Hang in there. If you're on this website,
| you're one of the lucky few that has their needs taken care of
| and an ability to traverse up Maslow's pyramid.
|
| Besides, shit is just getting interesting. Strap in.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Thank you, I am personally fine, living the life I want
| within my circumstances, I am not sad. I think it's a little
| interesting that feeling pessimistic about the course of
| civilization necessarily means I am in despair. Humans are
| just one creature on the earth, our fate as a species need
| not be the determination of an individual's happiness.
|
| Also, I might need to check to see if I have the required
| income to be eligible for being this site, I might not make
| the cut...
| yosito wrote:
| > Considering the general trajectory of the world, its
| surprising people want to stay in it longer
|
| It is a popular myth that the world is getting worse. But by
| almost every measure of human wellbeing, things are getting
| better. Yes, climate change is a real problem, but it doesn't
| mean the end of human wellbeing. Even if we don't manage to
| slow/reverse climate change with innovation (I believe we
| will), we will manage to adapt. Climate related deaths continue
| to decline, despite real climate problems. Despair is not the
| only option.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| I hope you are right! But I am not in despair, I know why
| these things are happening, what structures and systems cause
| them (which is in part why I don't personally share your
| optimism). I think humanity falling from grace and prominence
| is just as beautiful as us keeping going. It's all just a
| blip of time in the universe, no need to think about it so
| selfishly or tragically. Humanity as we know it might just be
| a moral allegory about energy and language anyway.
| Mandelmus wrote:
| "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its
| opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its
| opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar
| with it."
|
| - Max Planck[1]
|
| Often paraphrased as "Science progresses one funeral at a time."
|
| I don't think we really want immortality or unnatural longevity.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
| paulluuk wrote:
| I'd definitely want immortality in the sense of stopping
| physical (and mental) deterioration. You can always just commit
| suicide if you're done.
|
| I discuss this with friends and family occasionally, and they
| all seem to have these ideas that we're "only supposed to live
| 100 years or so". But that seems like a logical fallacy (appeal
| to nature) to me, it's not an actual argument.
|
| And sure, there are plenty of dystopian movies about how all of
| your friends die while you live on. But you know, you can make
| new friends. As someone who has moved often and had to make new
| friends often: it's not that bad. Friendships come and go.
|
| Just imagine the things you could get done if you weren't
| pressured by time. You could witness the colonization of other
| planets, the unification of humanity. And if everyone were
| immortal, we wouldn't have to worry about things like pensions
| anymore, and I bet that we'd see an extreme lowering of crime
| and violence.
|
| The only read problem I see would be overpopulation, and
| possibly draconion measures to regulate it.
| dcow wrote:
| If we were to immediately acquire immortality then society
| would need to evolve a structure that deliberately kills
| ideas and pushes itself past ideologic ruts, etc. Do you
| really want boomers running government and owning land for
| _longer_? Society would be down right miserable. Think about
| it in terms other than "yourself transcending all your peers"
| for a moment.
|
| It may sound cool to you to live to see the day we colonize
| planets, but your entire comment reeks of narcissism and
| maybe regret. I'll give you that there are perhaps a few
| scenarios where extended longevity would be convenient, like
| allowing a research group a little extra time to achieve a
| likely breakthrough, but beyond that I really can't imagine
| society where everyone lives forever looking remotely like it
| does today. If the only problem you can imagine is
| overpopulation then you aren't really thinking critically at
| all. Why do Tolkien elves always fade away?
|
| We're supposed to invest our resources as a human race into
| raising the next generation to achieve the things we
| collectively dream of but couldn't in out generation. Sure if
| we can extend lifetimes gradually over time and reduce
| deterioration and suffering that's one thing and I believe
| we'd adapt naturally. But arguing for immortality by default
| right now? That is perverse and not remotely biologically
| appropriate. You've got one shot on this earth to make a
| difference. Don't squander it. Don't steal from future
| generations. Listen to the wisdom of others around you. And
| learn to embrace your mortality, because you will die.
| kiba wrote:
| _We're supposed to invest our resources as a human race
| into raising the next generation to achieve the things we
| collectively dream of but couldn 't in out generation. Sure
| if we can extend lifetimes gradually over time and reduce
| deterioration and suffering that's one thing and I believe
| we'd adapt naturally. But arguing for immortality by
| default right now? That is perverse and not remotely
| biologically appropriate. You've got one shot on this earth
| to make a difference. Don't squander it. Don't steal from
| future generations. Listen to the wisdom of others around
| you. And learn to embrace your mortality, because you will
| die. _
|
| If you're immortal, then you're stuck with whatever
| problems we have right now and forever.
|
| Honestly, it sounds better than leaving it to future
| generations, because we are the future generations.
| dcow wrote:
| Interesting spin. I guess I wouldn't mind a society where
| everyone was accountable for the long term consequences
| of their actions, policy decisions, research, etc...
| however we achieve it. The problem lately is we don't
| seem to want to hold people accountable almost because we
| consider a right to life and success to be overly
| precious. CEO ran a company into the ground, meh they
| were just doing their fiduciary duty. Politician
| demonstrably implemented a policy that increases crime,
| meh they were just a conduit for the will of their
| constituents. Perhaps these attitudes would be fixed by
| longer lifespans.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| This a dumb argument. Steve Jobs was a boomer and created
| the reality we live in today. He definitely wasn't lacking
| for any innovation or ideas.
| dcow wrote:
| I like the Apple Pencil.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| It's pretty great -- I agree! :)
| ypcx wrote:
| > The only read problem I see would be overpopulation, and
| possibly draconian measures to regulate it.
|
| Like, for example, releasing a weaponized virus from a lab.
| Oh wait...
| wefarrell wrote:
| There's the problem of the elderly continuing to accumulate
| wealth and power without ceding any to the younger
| generations.
|
| It's already happening. Look no further than the geriatric US
| lawmakers and how out of touch they are with the future.
| drran wrote:
| Create a startup and disrupt them with a new technology.
| wefarrell wrote:
| Disrupt the US government or wealth inequality?
| bodhi_mind wrote:
| What makes us human, aka the "human condition" would
| definitely change. Motivation, knowledge, relationships,
| resources. It would be an evolutionary change in a non
| evolutionary timeline. Pretty crazy.
| aerovistae wrote:
| I, too, would rather not die. But "the only real problem" you
| see being overpopulation speaks to a limited effort in
| thinking out the consequences.
|
| Let's imagine such a solution was available. Let's remember
| that insulin today is barely affordable to most people, a
| mere "stay alive and subsist" drug. So it's probably safe to
| assume that a literal immortality treatment would be only
| available to the most wealthy and powerful.
|
| So, what we'd get is Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Biden,
| Trump, Putin, Kim Jong-Il, Clarence Thomas, and many others
| still alive by the year 2250, with no signs of slowing down.
|
| Just imagine how much the world would cease to change if the
| people running it never experienced turnover. "The
| unification of humanity" - yeah right! We can't even get a
| minimum wage increase, and Russia is actively planning an
| invasion. The only hope for these things is that these people
| will die, and be replaced by younger generations who grew up
| with different ideals.
|
| I hope to be cryogenically frozen and one day awake into a
| world like that of the Culture in the books of Iain Banks,
| but I know on some level that this isn't just decades or
| centuries away: it's millennia.
| robocat wrote:
| > Let's remember that insulin today is barely affordable to
| most people
|
| If you are talking about the US, then it is a structural
| problem of your healthcare system:
| https://pharmanewsintel.com/news/insulin-prices-8x-higher-
| in...
|
| If you are talking about many countries with socialised
| healthcare systems (both rich and poor), then it is free or
| minimal cost to the user. In New Zealand I have diabetic
| friends that get virtually free checkups and prescriptions
| (although they do have other out of pocket expenses like
| time off work, or replacing expensive electronic monitors).
|
| If you are talking worldwide, then many poor people in some
| countries can't afford insulin but neither can they afford
| other critical goods.
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-
| of-i...
| aksss wrote:
| Just as likely you'd awaken to planet of the apes or
| morlocks.
| [deleted]
| godelski wrote:
| I think it's because people think they stop growing. I was
| listening to Levitt's People I (Mostly) Admire and on a
| recent show he was talking about progress. How everyone will
| say in the last 10 years they've changed but if you ask them
| what they'll be in the next 10 years they think they'll be
| the same. But there's a lot of insight we often ignore.
|
| I think similarly people ignore political and cultural
| progress. It's easy to blame the lack of progress on the old
| guard. But if we look at history we go much faster than that.
| One great example of this is the legalization of gay
| marriage. Pee [0] tracks support of it and it's clear that
| attitude is changing faster than the old people dying.
|
| Also I think part of the problem is we've all gotten used to
| the Dragon Tyrant[1] that we accept our fate.
|
| [0] https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-
| on-ga...
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/cZYNADOHhVY
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| You might not. Sign me up. Maybe just maybe if people live
| longer, they will be more likely to change their beliefs over
| time.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| Most people won't have access. Just the ultra elites.
| Animats wrote:
| _I don 't think we really want immortality or unnatural
| longevity._
|
| Imagine Putin, Trump, and Xi still running the world in 2100.
| wyre wrote:
| I would agree "we" don't. Whoever "we" is. The problem is the
| hypothetical billionaires and politicians expanding their power
| with elongated lifespans. Imagine the ramifications if Supreme
| Court justices lived 50+ more years, for one example.
| paulluuk wrote:
| Of course, we'd have to change how many things work in the
| world, this specific example seems like a rather simple one
| to change.
| dcow wrote:
| How do you propose we do it?
| wyre wrote:
| Yes, it was a simple example but regardless I have a hard
| time believing that the needed changes would happen before
| powerful people achieve and take advantage of
| supraphysiological lifespans.
|
| Also I'm not sure how simple changing it would be to change
| Supreme Court justice retirement.
| beambot wrote:
| Should watch "Altered Carbon" if you haven't already...
| kiba wrote:
| Fiction is not an argument for against immortality.
| beambot wrote:
| Wasn't meant to be an argument for or against -- merely a
| relevant & entertaining piece of science fiction.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Indeed, I can agree that there are all kinds of practical
| disadvantages if other people would start living forever.
|
| On the other hand, if we're talking about me or you then
| suddenly it's different, isn't it? I think I'd choose to take
| unnatural longevity for myself even if it imposes some problems
| for the social fabric.
| bschne wrote:
| That's the crux of it -- visions aside, day-to-day, nobody is
| going to suddenly "solve aging" for everyone. Progress comes
| gradually, in the form of everyone's loved ones dying and
| suffering less often and less early -- and very few people
| are opposed to that.
|
| You hear about older people fall ill and think things like
| "I've lived long enough, I don't want to go through the
| ordeal of treatment X for a .05 probability of living for one
| more year in bad health" -- but would they see it that way if
| the treatment were to become much better and safer?
| bsenftner wrote:
| I say the same goes for business models. About 15 years ago I
| spent 5 years in the early SaaS space, and it was extremely
| difficult to convince IT Mgrs and CTOs that software as a
| service was not some evil plan. Today, it is hard to sell
| software that is not sold as a service. Why? The old guard
| management is gone, and tech is managed by people who grew up
| with SaaS and/or are afraid of managing their own hardware
| infrastructures.
| foobiekr wrote:
| I would rather be alive and trying to work that out than dead.
| woke_neoliberal wrote:
| There have been several companies formed in the past few years
| whose premise is researching in industry anti-aging or basic
| science more generally (Calico, Altos Labs, Arcadia, etc.)...
| Does anyone understand the underlying economics or motivations?
| They can't be gambles when they raise $B's, and I'm too cynical
| to believe these are altruistic endeavors. Certainly there is
| research that cannot be reasonably expected to get funding from
| academic sources, but what results could be worth the squeeze?
| KentGeek wrote:
| If this research can reduce the enormous cost of old age
| frailty, even if not extending life by much, the payoffs are
| there.
| [deleted]
| dannykwells wrote:
| They can be gambles when they raise billions. Welcome to
| biotech investing, where even 20 year old public companies with
| 5B+ market caps can have very little to show for it!
| awillen wrote:
| The straightforward and cynical answer is that the people
| funding these things have basically unlimited money, at least
| for practical purposes, but as with everyone alive, they have
| limited time. Therefore it's a perfectly rational trade to give
| up even a substantial percent of their money in exchange for
| even the possibility of more time (especially because if you
| have a lot of money, more time means you can turn it into even
| more money).
|
| But also, while a lot of the headlines are about living longer,
| the research is largely about treating aging as a disease, or
| at least a cause of diseases like Alzheimer's, etc. Even if you
| don't actually extend human lifespan, you keep people healthier
| much longer, which among other things has enormous economic
| value (people don't required as much expensive medical
| treatment and can continue to be productive for longer).
| orangecat wrote:
| _Does anyone understand the underlying economics or
| motivations?_
|
| How much would you pay for a treatment to prevent or repair the
| negative effects of aging? For me the answer is "well over 100%
| of my net worth".
| JoeJonathan wrote:
| I'm looking forward to when all the people who can't pay
| either start murdering wealthy immortals or are galvanized by
| a strongman who convinces them that this is actually good for
| them because one day maybe they too could become immortal,
| and that who they should really hate are immigrants.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| Youth extension therapies will be cheaper for insurance
| companies than current hospice care. As such it will not
| cost more than the price of your current insurance
| premiums. However, while the intellectual property is still
| protected, there may be some hiccups but they seem
| unlikely.
|
| Specifically manufacturing of medicine is cheap. The R&D is
| expensive. As such even if the company owning the IP kept
| prices artificially high. Facilities in Africa, China,
| India, etc would reverse engineer them and medical tourism
| would become even more common. This is a constant threat
| for COVID vaccine manufacturers today. It's very likely the
| prices of youth extension are not much greater than the
| COVID vaccine (I.e. about $20 per dose)
|
| Meanwhile, the population of countries with single payer
| health care (e.g. Canada, New Zealand, etc), will also
| reject intellectual property protections for a company
| halfway around the world. Life extension for the population
| is more valuable than a few potential tariffs.
| godelski wrote:
| Definitely this. What people don't get is that an optimal
| solution in insurance is to have everyone healthy. If
| everyone is healthy then there's no one drawing money
| from the pool and the insurance company is only
| collecting money.
|
| Of course the other optimization is forcing everyone to
| have insurance when healthy and kicking them off when
| they get sick.
| simplestats wrote:
| They have actuaries to make sure they get their profit
| margin either way. Healthy insurance customers just make
| sick insurance customers happier since the price goes
| down.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| I could imagine living as a subscription model...
| manmal wrote:
| Maybe with an implanted chip that kills you if you didn't
| manage to acquire the necessary time currency to live
| another minute.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Time
| ncmncm wrote:
| We have that, except you need to acquire calories.
| simplestats wrote:
| Yeah but I'm guessing you wouldn't be willing to pay them
| that now.
|
| Their point was the high risk versus the high reward. Even if
| investors gave such money to thousands of longevity startups,
| would they produce something that makes all the investing pay
| off better than what they sunk into them? (without pivoting
| to something other than longevity).
| elwell wrote:
| "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.
| When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy
| went and sold all he had and bought that field."
| laszlojamf wrote:
| Nice
| buscoquadnary wrote:
| I think aultruism is part of it, if you've seen a relative
| succumb to advancing age especially dementia it can be quite
| moving.
|
| But another less popular view I have is that many of these
| people have spent all their life focusing on the things of the
| world and the money and the grind and the etc, etc. Their focus
| is on the work the money the grind and so they simply want to
| continue getting a return on their investment without having it
| get interrupted by something as pesky as death.
|
| After all no matter who you are Stalin or a poor Russian
| peasant death is the great equalizer and comes for us all
| eventually, at which point all the grind, all the work, all the
| money, doesn't make much different when you are lying in the
| hospital bed taking your last breaths. The only thing you have
| at that point is to reflect on your life and what you've done.
| It is a sobering thought.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| Im of the opinion that treating diseases caused by a
| weakening body is a net good.
|
| But you are right ofcourse. All thats left for us is to decay
| beneath the soil or burn to ashes.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The wealth of the world is controlled by Baby Boomers, and all
| of them are too old to die young at this point. You can't take
| it with you.
| Mandelmus wrote:
| Researching immortality or unnatural longevity isn't worth the
| investment for a society because a society of immortals becomes
| either stagnant or unsustainable. But making individual
| billionaires immortal is something billionaires might find
| worth investing in.
| Koshkin wrote:
| An immortal fascist dictator may be expected to get
| assassinated early on, versus people waiting for him to die
| from natural causes.
| kamarg wrote:
| > Researching immortality or unnatural longevity isn't worth
| the investment for a society because a society of immortals
| becomes either stagnant or unsustainable.
|
| This is said with an awful lot of certainty for something
| that's never been accomplished before. Do people and systems
| get stuck in their ways? Absolutely. But they also change for
| better and for worse. There's no guarantee/proof that living
| forever ends in stagnation or an unsustainable culture.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _a society of immortals becomes either stagnant or
| unsustainable_
|
| Which society of immortals are you referring to?
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Tolkein's Elves :)?
|
| More seriously, it's a common theory that age-related
| diseases are an evolved adaptation because over time a
| species must form an equilibrium with its resource base.
| staticassertion wrote:
| The problem with this conversation is that it's about
| immortality, which no one is going for right now. The best
| research is looking at addressing specific age related issues
| in order to increase your healthy years and, potentially,
| increase your lifespan by _maybe_ a decade.
|
| But the conversation is always "immortal billionaires".
|
| It's a totally fake problem to talk about that.
| yeeetz wrote:
| Age-related diseases and degeneration are a massive burden on
| modern healthcare systems, are difficult to treat because we
| don't understand many of the underlying pathways, are extremely
| debilitating for patients, and are difficult for their family
| and loved ones. Properly understanding these cellular
| mechanisms and pathways can open up new avenues for treatment
| for cancer, Alzheimers, and other diseases, all of which would
| result in lucrative new drugs. The market for age-related
| diseases is extremely large, and it only grows every year.
| [deleted]
| Jack000 wrote:
| Trying to fix aging for existing humans is like trying to patch a
| binary that's already running, it would be way easier to build
| new humans with better source code imo.
| mtsr wrote:
| But that does nothing to save the rich bastards funding it from
| dying.
|
| Death sucks, but I'm not sure indefinite life extension is a
| great idea for humanity at large.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Yeah, indefinite life extension sounds like a fools bet.
| However, extending the human body's abilities in order to
| enjoy old age better would be something I wouldn't mind.
| kiba wrote:
| That's essentially life extension. Improving your
| healthspan is likely linked to longer lifespan.
| hanniabu wrote:
| It will definitely cripple progress. Even with our current
| lifespans we see past generations blocking progression with
| their death grips on powerful positions
| snek_case wrote:
| I agree. There is no secret magic cure to aging. There's never
| going to be a pill that makes you younger. The reason the human
| body ages is that it's a lot easier to build a new human from
| scratch than it is to repair damaged cells, damaged tissue,
| etc. Nature doesn't know how to do that effectively, at least
| not for complex life forms as large as human beings.
|
| Ultimately, I think that if we want to extend life
| indefinitely, we'll need a strategy that involves replacing
| organs, replacing brain tissue, and maybe replacing most of the
| human body. You might be able to boost someone's life span by a
| few years with stem cells and such, but that's just patching
| the binary like you said. It's like repairing a home. You can
| patch drywall, but eventually, to fix a very old house, you
| might have to rip everything open and replace most of the
| materials. At some point it's easier to rebuild parts of the
| house than to keep patching.
|
| IMO, we should be harnessing the fact that nature is very good
| at growing new healthy tissue. There has to be a way to coax
| stem cells into growing a new heart, a new liver, or a new arm.
| We ought to figure out how to do that. Then we could
| potentially grow you a new liver in a vat based on your own
| stem cells in a matter of months. We might even be able to
| automate surgeries such as liver replacement. That kind of
| technology seems like it should be feasible within 20-30 years
| with targeted research.
| javert wrote:
| If you don't even have a compiler, it's easier to patch a
| binary that's already running than make one from scratch.
| That's a closer analogy to the situation under discussion.
| sombremesa wrote:
| Your mom's a compiler.
| Jack000 wrote:
| There are other ways of doing this even without germline
| editing - you could for example train a linear transformer
| model that does DNA phenotype prediction, then just do
| regular IVF and choose the embryo with lowest predicted risk
| of (cancer, heart disease, etc)
|
| The only roadblock to doing this right now is access to
| training data.
| randcraw wrote:
| But much disease is acquired environmentally, and many repairs
| are due to normal wear and tear, building anew would be useless
| to serve both of those ends.
|
| And unless you can figure out why cells age, you can't build
| new humans who are immune to senescence either.
|
| Defeating the aging process is critical to solving both
| problems.
| aresant wrote:
| This all feels like the Ocean's 11 version of biotech
|
| The straight laced CEO as foil with an amazing reputation and a
| ticking biological clock (1)
|
| The mad scientist known for mixing human and monkey embryos (2)
|
| The beautiful and brilliant husband & wife whiz kid team (3)
|
| All funded by the secretive Russian billionaire with questionable
| fortune originations (4)
|
| Grabbing the popcorn
|
| (1) https://altoslabs.com/team/executive-leadership/hal-barron/
|
| (2) https://altoslabs.com/team/scientific-leadership/juan-
| carlos...
|
| (3) https://altoslabs.com/team/principal-investigators-san-
| diego... & https://altoslabs.com/team/principal-investigators-
| san-diego...
|
| (4) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-
| faceboo...
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Seems legit, they just need to add the Pharma bro and Rachel
| Dolezal and it'll be a true shit show.
| whatshisface wrote:
| You are forgetting the iron law of real-life business stories:
| the better they seem, the worse they are.
| [deleted]
| varelse wrote:
| From what I have heard the CEO is not only worse than you
| imagine, he is worse than you can imagine. But it's all
| scuttlebutt and hearsay for now. Rich aging VC got to reach
| for those stars...
|
| http://www.cafepharma.com/boards/threads/hal-barron-racks-
| up...
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/banks-ready-34-billion-
| financ...
| 0xBABAD00C wrote:
| People just want shiny stories and plausible deniability.
| It's pretty much subconscious risk management. Then you have
| people who play the next-level game of exploring this risk
| management heuristic, hence -- pretty young people with
| pedigree scamming the old money.
| [deleted]
| moralestapia wrote:
| >the better they seem, the worse they are
|
| Is this common knowledge? I've seen it empirically but I
| don't know how much is that a widespread feeling. (Not being
| snark or sarcastic).
| [deleted]
| whatshisface wrote:
| I think it's a principle everyone knows but nobody can
| bring themselves to put in to practice.
| openknot wrote:
| I suspect the recent Elizabeth Holmes conviction of
| investor fraud at Theranos might contribute to the idea of
| flashy names propping up an unsustainable idea (e.g. with
| so many high-ranking names in the US military establishment
| previously supporting the company).
|
| I'm not aware of other recent high-profile examples, though
| I would be interested in learning about them.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Adam Neumann/WeWork, Doug Evans/Juicero; there's plenty
| of 'em.
|
| A few more for real scam connoisseur's:
|
| Stacy Spikes/MoviePass (70M+ for selling dollars at a
| penny; outstanding growth and metrics though, if only the
| "lose on every sale but make it up in volume" stance ever
| worked -\\_(tsu)_/-)
|
| Steve Newcomb/famo.us (30M+ seed funding for what was
| essentially a shitty JS library)
|
| Bill Nguyen/Color (40m+ seed funding for a photo app with
| no extra features; you know, like the one that comes for
| free in your phone ..., but with ads, ... also a social
| network? no one really knew, not even them)
| whatshisface wrote:
| Every high-profile failure of the last century fits the
| bill, because bad business teams cannot get invested in,
| by definition, without looking good.
|
| Good business teams tend to be good in the details, which
| leads to them struggling to find willing audiences.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| To be fair: there are some areas of research [0][1] which
| cannot but help sound like fantasy.
|
| Even were they to be pursued with the utmost rigor. Which by
| definition they can't be, because the very people and
| institutions required to do so would shy away because it's too
| fantastic of an endeavor.
|
| So here's to the dreamers! It's your (Russian oligarch) money,
| break a leg!
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/magazine/dead-pig-
| brains-...
| whatshisface wrote:
| Biosphere 2 didn't turn out very well if I'm remembering the
| story right.
| silksowed wrote:
| simulation esque
| [deleted]
| oliv__ wrote:
| The mad scientist really looks the part
| smagikern wrote:
| Bee pollen must be checked as anti aging agent. It not one
| miracle cure but thing of big puzzle. So i guess flower pollen
| collected by bee - must prolong 30-40 additional years at once.
| +Melatonin + NAC+ vitamin C + resveratrol + all bags of vitamin
| and mineral essentional to human being.
|
| Also daily yougurt dose must saving life like not one product
| before.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| Maybe I'm interpreting the article wrong but it looks like
| they're going to try temporarily activating a handful of
| transcription factors (Yamanaka) through a crispr mediated gene
| alteration/insertion.
|
| I suppose if you created a viral vector that injected an mRNA
| with a nuclear localization signal - what would you use to
| activate it? Include a steroid promoter (or other) and co-inject
| with cortisone? None of my prediction needs crispr though so i
| don't think that's what they'll do.
|
| They'll also need to address cellular debris/degradation products
| as well as gene issues. I'm sure lipofuscin, anthracotic plaque,
| tau tangles, amyloid plaques, oxidative damage, non-enzymatic
| glycosylation, etc will all ultimately need to be addressed.
|
| I hope they do skin first, I'm tired of looking like a wrinkle.
| alkonaut wrote:
| > I hope they do skin first, I'm tired of looking like a
| wrinkle.
|
| Imagine inventing a cream that _actually_ makes skin look
| younger, and then realizing people have tried to sell that
| (without delivering) for a century so no one will believe you.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| The inventor can go old school and use it personally until it
| catches on with friends/family. Or is this a monkeys paw kind
| of cream?
|
| What about cream that works for 10-20 years but ends with
| rapidly progressive multifocal melanoma? I would probably
| still do it if i was 65-70 years old.
| karimf wrote:
| Another article covering this with an interesting quote, "Mid-
| life crisis? It's been said that young people dream of being
| rich, and rich people dream of being young." [0]
|
| [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/04/1034364/altos-
| la...
| moralestapia wrote:
| <removed>
| bricee98 wrote:
| I'm no demographer, but I would hazard a guess that >1% of
| folks are young
| moralestapia wrote:
| I messed up, I wanted to say that very few people are rich
| + young, actually.
| bricee98 wrote:
| Understood haha! Just joking around :)
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Guess we're never going to retire
| silksowed wrote:
| even a year of additional lifespan is sure to bankrupt the
| pension/retirement liabilities that seem to already hang by a
| thread
| maradona_yolo wrote:
| instead of dreaming of immortality, get off this dumb ass site
| and do something meaningful with your waning youth! and who wants
| to live forever in this hellscape anyways? just more of the same
| hollow experience.
| yeeetz wrote:
| Nah, I'm vibing.
| silksowed wrote:
| vibes eternal? sign me up
| maradona_yolo wrote:
| sockaddr wrote:
| Likewise
| maradona_yolo wrote:
| more dead than alive i would say
| darkstar999 wrote:
| Any thoughts on how these efforts could conflict with our climate
| goals? Should we have an age ceiling? (that sounds awful, but so
| does the idea of everyone living to 150)
| savant_penguin wrote:
| HWR_14 wrote:
| There will be a bump as people live longer, but, assuming
| fertility is extended by similar amounts of time, it will just
| lead to people delaying having kids until they're pushing 80 or
| so.
| godelski wrote:
| People would have a harder time pushing off climate problems
| because they themselves have to face the consequences, not
| their children.
|
| I think a society that lives hundreds of years will have better
| future foresight. Similar to how when you get older 5 or 10
| years doesn't seem nearly as long and you make many more
| decisions at these scales regularly.
| michaelbarton wrote:
| That's a great question. I know almost nothing about climate
| science. I assume though that it's directly tied to human
| consumption, and more people years means more consumption.
| varelse wrote:
| There's 6 years of free beer longevity just figuring out what the
| United States is doing incorrectly and what Hong Kong is doing
| right. I wonder what that's actually worth.
|
| https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
| flipchart wrote:
| https://archive.is/KHPVe
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| People have been trying to "cure cancer" for a while, and though
| there is some success, we have many more cure for mice, no?
|
| However, I have not heard of even a 10 year old lab mouse that
| has the health of a young mouse. Isn't that a bad sign we can't
| even slow aging (beyond fractional amounts) in a mouse?
| patall wrote:
| Both your arguments share one feature: rapid iterations. It's
| much easier to iterate over various cancer
| factors/treatments/conditions when the duration of a single
| mouse experiment is in the range of maybe 6 months. But when
| you want a mouse to live for 10 years your iterations take 10
| years. And you cannot do the research anymore with PhD students
| or postdocs because they aren't with you for long enough. A
| problem that actually arises right now in organoid research as
| human organs, for some reason, need in the order of 9 months to
| fully develop. And 9 months plus learning, experimental
| planning, analysis and thesis writing gets you uncomfortable
| close to the 3-4 years a PhD typically takes (or at least
| doesn't allow much back and forth iterating).
| odyssey7 wrote:
| This reasoning depends on how much effort has gone into the two
| goals.
|
| Cancer therapies are a proven business model, so a lot of R&D
| funding has been poured into searching for them.
|
| I'm not sure how comparably much has gone into slowing mouse
| aging.
| grishka wrote:
| Aging is not an irreversible process like most people think it
| is. It would make much more sense to research rejuvenation than
| to try to cure various age-related conditions individually.
|
| In general: cells see signaling molecules in the bloodstream
| and "act their age" according to these signals. It's a self-
| sustaining process too. Google "heterochromic parabiosis" for
| actual research papers. It's impressive stuff.
| lbriner wrote:
| Isn;t one of the problems that not everyone is a net benefit to
| society so if they already cause 70 years of disturbance, who
| would want them living another 70? It;s one thing for an Elon
| Musk type who has loads to do and never wants to die but I can't
| really see this happening unless, I guess, it is an option.
|
| "Dear Mr Smith, you are getting a bit old and to be honest, you
| haven't made a great stab at life. However for only $299.99, you
| can have this injection which will give you another 50 years."
| jaystraw wrote:
| Reminds me of 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut, just the opposite
| since they had a quota and no one could be born unless someone
| died:
|
| "Thank you, sir," said the hostess. "Your city thanks you; your
| country thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest
| thanks of all is from all of the future generations."
| smm11 wrote:
| If we'd all just cleaned up diets and got in shape, Covid
| wouldn't have been such a big deal.
|
| You can do lots, such as diet and exercise, to live better and
| longer, but nobody does. We want a magic pill.
| Filligree wrote:
| To live a few years longer, at most, and you might still get
| unlucky.
|
| There is no magic. Our bodies are machines, and one day we'll
| figure out how to repair them. That day might not be today, but
| I will never object to anyone working to bring it closer.
| hooande wrote:
| This view is both boorish and ignorant. There are many types of
| coronaviruses, including MERS and SARS. They can't be mitigated
| through "diet and exercise". These diseases often occur in
| parts of the world with much lower obesity rates than the West
|
| Further, the idea that you won't get a serious respiratory
| virus if you just exercise and diet is offensive. You're just
| trying to reduce something that is incredibly complex into a
| bumper sticker slogan that you can wrap your mind around with
| the least amount of effort.
| smm11 wrote:
| My comment addressed Covid-19 and the United States, sorry I
| was unclear.
|
| Seems to me that if you follow an anti-inflammatory routine,
| smoke weed, and are physically fit, you stand a better chance
| than others of handling Covid.
| orangecat wrote:
| _If we 'd all just cleaned up diets and got in shape, Covid
| wouldn't have been such a big deal._
|
| It might have been somewhat better, but Covid is vastly more
| dangerous to the elderly than the young, and you're not getting
| around that with diet and exercise.
|
| _You can do lots, such as diet and exercise, to live better
| and longer_
|
| None of which is going to give an 80 year old the strength,
| mobility, and cognitive capacity they had when they were 30.
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| Not only that but with universal healthcare meaning that I'm
| subsidizing someone else's poor health habits, I want everyone
| on a government-prescribed workout + diet plan ASAP. Then again
| maybe COVID has been a blessing for culling the weak with
| minimal end-of-life costs, natural selection and all. Not going
| to be a popular opinion, but that's the emotionless conclusions
| of a purely scientific worldview.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| With universal healthcare you can start to work on
| environment as well. There should be no "food deserts" in the
| richest country in the world but this is the reality we are
| in. HFCS should be curtailed so that as a regular citizen at
| any income level, you have access to food with real nutrition
| and can easily avoid sugar.
|
| [1]:https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts
|
| It starts with Universal Healthcare (to stop the so called
| "bleeding") but expands with cooperation with the FDA to
| eliminate the symptoms that cause people to fall into these
| addictive habits. The end result should be lower health costs
| for you and everyone else and an overall more dynamic society
| (since a healthy society can work better than an unhealthy
| society).
| hanniabu wrote:
| > Not only that but with universal healthcare meaning that
| I'm subsidizing someone else's poor health habits
|
| Fyi you're doing that with your insurance too
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Let's do a moonshot -- make it 3 trillion.
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