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Nice post, Jacques. Luckily, I'm only 47.5. I've got a long time before I have your concerns of being 50. I've found that the hardest part of getting older i

by crusso 11y ago

Nice post, Jacques. Luckily, I'm only 47.5. I've got a long time before I have your concerns of being 50. I've found that the hardest part of getting older is the work you have to put into your mind and body just to slow the decline of age. You go from being in your 20's and eating all the donuts and burgers you wanted to.... to being in your 30's where you start having to watch what you eat and limit some portions... to being in your 40's where now I'm pretty strict with what I eat and how much. I hardly ever eat sugar or bread, much less the holy combination of the two in a donut. One of the most disappointing aspects of getting older is my disillusionment with medical developments related to aging. When I was in my 20's, I thought that a lot of problems with aging would be solved within my lifetime. Surely, I figured, by the time I was 50, they'd have eradicated cancer, cured baldness, and developed other general techniques for rejuvenating the mind and body. No such luck, I guess. The older I get and view medicine through the lense of how it can help me with various aging problems, the more I realize that medicine is really still in its infancy. Medicine is fumbling around like the blind men feeling the elephant who don't know what they're touching. At the rate things have been progressing, fundamental medical miracles aren't years or decades away - they're perhaps centuries away... but I hope to be proven wrong. That said, there are things I enjoy about getting older, like watching my kids turn into young adults. I hear that having grand-kids is fulfilling, although I hope to avoid that pleasure for at least another 10 years.

ijreilly 11y ago
I completely agree about medical developments. However, as someone getting on in years (even older than Jacques), I'd just like to point out that ED medications are a godsend. I am being completely serious. You youngsters don't understand, but you will eventually. Before Viagra and the like (or the somewhat older injectable fixes), your sex life was almost certainly over by 50 or 55. While I may be unusually horny for an old guy, that is a big fucking deal. I can't imagine facing another 20-30 years not getting laid. And because of advances in public health and medicine, that would have been an increasingly likely outcome, previous generations just being dead not too long after the plumbing stopped working. While the medical fixes are less than ideal, they do work, and I am very happy about it.
- crusso 11y ago
  I'd just like to point out that ED medications are a godsend Hah, you got me there. Good point.
joeyspn 11y ago
> At the rate things have been progressing, fundamental medical miracles aren't years or decades away - they're perhaps centuries away... but I hope to be proven wrong. This is a natural reaction, specially when you see how fast things have advanced in tech. But in medicine, in order to really get the big breakthroughs we dreamed about years ago, some tools were required, and technology has only recently given us these tools: genome sequencing, stem cell manipulation, CRISPR/Cas9, open standards for eHealth, etc etc So, I'd say there's hope, as many predict that the slope could be exponential...
- crusso 11y ago
  People talk about exponential technology progress as though we fully understood the problems we're trying to solve, so advances toward those problems' solutions will increase at an ever increasing and noticeable rate. Unfortunately, as we advance toward the solution horizon for many of these hard problems (AI, cancer, aging, etc.) we continue to find that the horizon is at best remaining at a fixed distance. In some cases, like with cancer, the more we learn, the further away it seems a real cure will ever be. It's like trying to find your way through a maze that is actually a constantly evolving fractal. So while CRISPR/Cas9 is a magnificent discovery, it could be as though the discovery of the wheel 5,500 years ago meant that the Tesla would soon be available.

by crusso 11y ago

ijreilly 11y ago

I completely agree about medical developments. However, as someone getting on in years (even older than Jacques), I'd just like to point out that ED medications are a godsend. I am being completely serious. You youngsters don't understand, but you will eventually. Before Viagra and the like (or the somewhat older injectable fixes), your sex life was almost certainly over by 50 or 55. While I may be unusually horny for an old guy, that is a big fucking deal. I can't imagine facing another 20-30 years not getting laid. And because of advances in public health and medicine, that would have been an increasingly likely outcome, previous generations just being dead not too long after the plumbing stopped working. While the medical fixes are less than ideal, they do work, and I am very happy about it.

crusso 11y ago
I'd just like to point out that ED medications are a godsend Hah, you got me there. Good point.

joeyspn 11y ago

> At the rate things have been progressing, fundamental medical miracles aren't years or decades away - they're perhaps centuries away... but I hope to be proven wrong. This is a natural reaction, specially when you see how fast things have advanced in tech. But in medicine, in order to really get the big breakthroughs we dreamed about years ago, some tools were required, and technology has only recently given us these tools: genome sequencing, stem cell manipulation, CRISPR/Cas9, open standards for eHealth, etc etc So, I'd say there's hope, as many predict that the slope could be exponential...

crusso 11y ago
People talk about exponential technology progress as though we fully understood the problems we're trying to solve, so advances toward those problems' solutions will increase at an ever increasing and noticeable rate. Unfortunately, as we advance toward the solution horizon for many of these hard problems (AI, cancer, aging, etc.) we continue to find that the horizon is at best remaining at a fixed distance. In some cases, like with cancer, the more we learn, the further away it seems a real cure will ever be. It's like trying to find your way through a maze that is actually a constantly evolving fractal. So while CRISPR/Cas9 is a magnificent discovery, it could be as though the discovery of the wheel 5,500 years ago meant that the Tesla would soon be available.