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Interesting. Would you do it for animals too? It would suck to live for 400 years but your dog dies in only 10. How would people remember everything? How woul

by nicky0 11y ago

Interesting. Would you do it for animals too? It would suck to live for 400 years but your dog dies in only 10. How would people remember everything? How would you spend all that time? What would everyone do? Is this just for rich people or do poor people get to live for centuries too? Haven't done the math but if 8 billion people lived for say 500 years each, plus new arrivals constantly, wouldn't we accumulate rather? What about fertility? Should there be a window on that?

JoshTriplett 11y ago
> Is this just for rich people or do poor people get to live for centuries too? "centuries" is far too short-term; "forever" is the goal, and "centuries" just buys enough time to get there. And of course that lifespan should be available to everyone. If the solution itself doesn't already imply a post-scarcity world, then it'll help that once you have a cure for aging, it's more economical to supply that to everyone than to treat the myriad complications that arise from aging. It's hard to get people to fund such a cure, but it seems far simpler to get funding for "we have a proven cure, let's get it to everyone". > How would people remember everything? In the short term, curing aging seems likely to help greatly with many degenerative mental disorders. In the long term, I expect people will find increasingly successful ways to augment their own capabilities. I doubt I'll have the same brain structure a hundred thousand years from now that I do today, if only because I expect we'll eventually run out of effective ways to debug biology in-place. > How would you spend all that time? What would everyone do? What wouldn't everyone do? I don't have a finite "bucket list"; my list contains everything positive I can possibly imagine, with a sort order applied, and it will always grow faster than it shrinks. Quite apart from the rest of the universe, other people provide an unbounded source of novelty. Do you think people thousands of years ago would have asked such questions about a 120-year lifespan, and think it sounded too long? If you lived for ten thousand years by default, would you think it too long and decide to die at 120? How about if you lived indefinitely?
- cyphar 11y ago
  > > Is this just for rich people or do poor people get to live for centuries too? > "centuries" is far too short-term; "forever" is the goal, and "centuries" just buys enough time to get there. And of course that lifespan should be available to everyone. If the solution itself doesn't already imply a post-scarcity world, then it'll help that once you have a cure for aging, it's more economical to supply that to everyone than to treat the myriad complications that arise from aging. It's hard to get people to fund such a cure, but it seems far simpler to get funding for "we have a proven cure, let's get it to everyone". You do know that every culture, since the beginning of time, has thought that they would live to be immortal in their lifetime. What makes you think you're different? Sure, you might have a better chance, but it's still a slim chance. Pining for a cure to aging rather than living your life is a sad way to spend something as short and precious as your life. > > How would people remember everything? > In the short term, curing aging seems likely to help greatly with many degenerative mental disorders. In the long term, I expect people will find increasingly successful ways to augment their own capabilities. I doubt I'll have the same brain structure a hundred thousand years from now that I do today, if only because I expect we'll eventually run out of effective ways to debug biology in-place. > > How would you spend all that time? What would everyone do? > What wouldn't everyone do? I don't have a finite "bucket list"; my list contains everything positive I can possibly imagine, with a sort order applied, and it will always grow faster than it shrinks. Quite apart from the rest of the universe, other people provide an unbounded source of novelty. I don't think so. Wanting to live forever is a childish thing, it's a fear of death mixed with a type of greed. Actually living forever would be a greater hell than anything I can imagine. After the first few hundred years, when you realise that it's never going to end, after you've read every book and done all you've wanted to do, what then? > Do you think people thousands of years ago would have asked such questions about a 120-year lifespan, and think it sounded too long? No, because the maximum lifespan of a human hasn't fundamentally changed. The only difference is that more people are living to old age.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    > You do know that every culture, since the beginning of time, has thought that they would live to be immortal in their lifetime. What makes you think you're different? Sure, you might have a better chance, but it's still a slim chance. A slim chance is infinitely better than no chance at all. How many cultures had even the remotest chance of actually doing something about it? And no, I'm not certain it'll happen in my lifetime. I'd say that I'd be sad and disappointed if that didn't happen, but really if that doesn't happen then I won't be anything at all. But I still consider it by far the most important problem that could possibly be solved, and worth putting incredible effort and resources towards. I also consider it worth advocating, to encourage others to push for the same goal, or at the very least discourage others from perpetuating arguments that shut down such efforts. > Actually living forever would be a greater hell than anything I can imagine. Then don't. But I'd suggest trying it first, or significantly expanding your imagination. > After the first few hundred years, when you realise that it's never going to end, after you've read every book and done all you've wanted to do, what then? With all the imagination you can bring to bear, and a universe full of possibilities, you can only think of a few hundred years worth of things to do before you'd not only get bored but get so bored you'd long for death? To give even a minimal lower bound based on your own comment, books and stories are already being written today faster than they can be read. And that's only one of myriad possibilities. A few minutes imagination can easily produce far more interesting ones. Do you currently get bored with life and want it to end? If not, then why do you expect that to change in only a few hundred years?
- ollifi 11y ago
  If we cure aging and live for centuries we will still be subject to accidents while we are trying to work out how to live without a body at all. I would be interested to know how likely it is to get maimed or killed during this extended period and how it would affect the psychology of a person. I assume it would be a pretty frightened bunch not leaving home much.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    One of several rough estimates I've seen suggests that if you eliminated all biological causes of death, and left only accident and similar, that would bring the average lifespan to around a thousand years. Producing such an estimate seems straightforward enough, given statistics about causes of death. As for how that might affect psychology: honestly, I'd love to see how the world might change if people adopted drastically different attitudes towards death, but I don't think it likely that this would produce far more risk aversion than we have today. Not least of which because I see no signs of tobacco companies going out of business. For myself personally, I'm not going to stop leaving the house, but I certainly have no intention of taking up hobbies like hang gliding or motorcycle racing, any more than I plan to start smoking. (Side note: for an interesting measure of risk, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort) I don't think that level of risk aversion qualifies as "a pretty frightened bunch not leaving home much".
- ams6110 11y ago
  I doubt I'll have the same brain structure a hundred thousand years from now that I do today LOL that is for sure. It'll be dirt within 1/1000 of that time.
- askafriend 11y ago
  Living for centuries would be absolutely awful. Death is necessary. It's the world's chnge-agent. Think about how slow the rates of social progress would be without death. Also the fact that life is only a fleeting moment in time is beautiful and again, I believe necessary.
joeyspn 11y ago
> Would you do it for animals too? Why not? Veterinaries would love novel approaches. Plus the pre-research is always carried in animals. > How would people remember everything? You should ask Google's Director of Engineering (Ray Kurzweil) about that. Hint: within 25-30 years your brain could have x1000 capacity via cloud computing (mobile + brain-cloud interfaces). > Is this just for rich people or do poor people get to live for centuries too? Your questions are quite common and have been answered hundreds of times in any of the SENS presentations. Answer: humanity as a whole will benefit from this research. > Haven't done the math but if 8 billion people lived for say 500 years each, plus new arrivals constantly, wouldn't we accumulate rather? The fact that we live twice as long, and we have duplicated the human lifespan in the last 100 years (in the western world), but now we have less natality tells you something? Overpopulation comes from the 3rd world and decreases as a country starts to develop... http://www.forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2012/10/16/warning-bell-for-developed-countries-declining-birth-rates/#7bc204051ea5 http://www.forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2012/10/16/warning... > What about fertility? Should there be a window on that? Ask Apple or Facebook why they are offering female employees to freeze their eggs for $20k... http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/15/apple-facebook-offer-freeze-eggs-female-employees http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/15/apple-face...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
reasonattlm 11y ago
Therapies after the SENS model will be mass-produced infusions (gene therapies, small molecule drugs, etc) coupled with some personalized stuff based on growing cells from a cell sample. It will be the same treatment for everyone, and subject to economies of scale that are the same as for today's drugs. Most will cost a few dollars per treatment after being in circulation for a few decades, the same as mass produced generic drugs today, and 30 years further into autologous stem cell therapies, those also will cost a lot less than the few thousand that they do now. People have done the modeling on what radical life span does to population growth. The answer is a lot less than you think. See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/ "For example, we applied the cohort-component method of population projections to 2005 Swedish population for several scenarios of life extension and a fertility schedule observed in 2005. Even for very long 100-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 60), the total population increases by 22% only (from 9.1 to 11.0 million)." Most of the objections of the type that you voice can be answered by moving you to 1850 and making the same objections to the progress of medicine, and then seeing that they are obviously false concerns given where we are today. You could argue in 1920 that the same objections exist to building treatments that prevent people dying from heart disease: isn't it just for rich people, won't there be too many people if the old don't die on time, what would they do with all those extra years, isn't the present length of life just right, etc, etc.

by nicky0 11y ago

JoshTriplett 11y ago

> Is this just for rich people or do poor people get to live for centuries too? "centuries" is far too short-term; "forever" is the goal, and "centuries" just buys enough time to get there. And of course that lifespan should be available to everyone. If the solution itself doesn't already imply a post-scarcity world, then it'll help that once you have a cure for aging, it's more economical to supply that to everyone than to treat the myriad complications that arise from aging. It's hard to get people to fund such a cure, but it seems far simpler to get funding for "we have a proven cure, let's get it to everyone". > How would people remember everything? In the short term, curing aging seems likely to help greatly with many degenerative mental disorders. In the long term, I expect people will find increasingly successful ways to augment their own capabilities. I doubt I'll have the same brain structure a hundred thousand years from now that I do today, if only because I expect we'll eventually run out of effective ways to debug biology in-place. > How would you spend all that time? What would everyone do? What wouldn't everyone do? I don't have a finite "bucket list"; my list contains everything positive I can possibly imagine, with a sort order applied, and it will always grow faster than it shrinks. Quite apart from the rest of the universe, other people provide an unbounded source of novelty. Do you think people thousands of years ago would have asked such questions about a 120-year lifespan, and think it sounded too long? If you lived for ten thousand years by default, would you think it too long and decide to die at 120? How about if you lived indefinitely?

cyphar 11y ago
> > Is this just for rich people or do poor people get to live for centuries too? > "centuries" is far too short-term; "forever" is the goal, and "centuries" just buys enough time to get there. And of course that lifespan should be available to everyone. If the solution itself doesn't already imply a post-scarcity world, then it'll help that once you have a cure for aging, it's more economical to supply that to everyone than to treat the myriad complications that arise from aging. It's hard to get people to fund such a cure, but it seems far simpler to get funding for "we have a proven cure, let's get it to everyone". You do know that every culture, since the beginning of time, has thought that they would live to be immortal in their lifetime. What makes you think you're different? Sure, you might have a better chance, but it's still a slim chance. Pining for a cure to aging rather than living your life is a sad way to spend something as short and precious as your life. > > How would people remember everything? > In the short term, curing aging seems likely to help greatly with many degenerative mental disorders. In the long term, I expect people will find increasingly successful ways to augment their own capabilities. I doubt I'll have the same brain structure a hundred thousand years from now that I do today, if only because I expect we'll eventually run out of effective ways to debug biology in-place. > > How would you spend all that time? What would everyone do? > What wouldn't everyone do? I don't have a finite "bucket list"; my list contains everything positive I can possibly imagine, with a sort order applied, and it will always grow faster than it shrinks. Quite apart from the rest of the universe, other people provide an unbounded source of novelty. I don't think so. Wanting to live forever is a childish thing, it's a fear of death mixed with a type of greed. Actually living forever would be a greater hell than anything I can imagine. After the first few hundred years, when you realise that it's never going to end, after you've read every book and done all you've wanted to do, what then? > Do you think people thousands of years ago would have asked such questions about a 120-year lifespan, and think it sounded too long? No, because the maximum lifespan of a human hasn't fundamentally changed. The only difference is that more people are living to old age.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > You do know that every culture, since the beginning of time, has thought that they would live to be immortal in their lifetime. What makes you think you're different? Sure, you might have a better chance, but it's still a slim chance. A slim chance is infinitely better than no chance at all. How many cultures had even the remotest chance of actually doing something about it? And no, I'm not certain it'll happen in my lifetime. I'd say that I'd be sad and disappointed if that didn't happen, but really if that doesn't happen then I won't be anything at all. But I still consider it by far the most important problem that could possibly be solved, and worth putting incredible effort and resources towards. I also consider it worth advocating, to encourage others to push for the same goal, or at the very least discourage others from perpetuating arguments that shut down such efforts. > Actually living forever would be a greater hell than anything I can imagine. Then don't. But I'd suggest trying it first, or significantly expanding your imagination. > After the first few hundred years, when you realise that it's never going to end, after you've read every book and done all you've wanted to do, what then? With all the imagination you can bring to bear, and a universe full of possibilities, you can only think of a few hundred years worth of things to do before you'd not only get bored but get so bored you'd long for death? To give even a minimal lower bound based on your own comment, books and stories are already being written today faster than they can be read. And that's only one of myriad possibilities. A few minutes imagination can easily produce far more interesting ones. Do you currently get bored with life and want it to end? If not, then why do you expect that to change in only a few hundred years?
ollifi 11y ago
If we cure aging and live for centuries we will still be subject to accidents while we are trying to work out how to live without a body at all. I would be interested to know how likely it is to get maimed or killed during this extended period and how it would affect the psychology of a person. I assume it would be a pretty frightened bunch not leaving home much.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  One of several rough estimates I've seen suggests that if you eliminated all biological causes of death, and left only accident and similar, that would bring the average lifespan to around a thousand years. Producing such an estimate seems straightforward enough, given statistics about causes of death. As for how that might affect psychology: honestly, I'd love to see how the world might change if people adopted drastically different attitudes towards death, but I don't think it likely that this would produce far more risk aversion than we have today. Not least of which because I see no signs of tobacco companies going out of business. For myself personally, I'm not going to stop leaving the house, but I certainly have no intention of taking up hobbies like hang gliding or motorcycle racing, any more than I plan to start smoking. (Side note: for an interesting measure of risk, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort) I don't think that level of risk aversion qualifies as "a pretty frightened bunch not leaving home much".
ams6110 11y ago
I doubt I'll have the same brain structure a hundred thousand years from now that I do today LOL that is for sure. It'll be dirt within 1/1000 of that time.
askafriend 11y ago
Living for centuries would be absolutely awful. Death is necessary. It's the world's chnge-agent. Think about how slow the rates of social progress would be without death. Also the fact that life is only a fleeting moment in time is beautiful and again, I believe necessary.

joeyspn 11y ago

> Would you do it for animals too? Why not? Veterinaries would love novel approaches. Plus the pre-research is always carried in animals. > How would people remember everything? You should ask Google's Director of Engineering (Ray Kurzweil) about that. Hint: within 25-30 years your brain could have x1000 capacity via cloud computing (mobile + brain-cloud interfaces). > Is this just for rich people or do poor people get to live for centuries too? Your questions are quite common and have been answered hundreds of times in any of the SENS presentations. Answer: humanity as a whole will benefit from this research. > Haven't done the math but if 8 billion people lived for say 500 years each, plus new arrivals constantly, wouldn't we accumulate rather? The fact that we live twice as long, and we have duplicated the human lifespan in the last 100 years (in the western world), but now we have less natality tells you something? Overpopulation comes from the 3rd world and decreases as a country starts to develop... http://www.forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2012/10/16/warning-bell-for-developed-countries-declining-birth-rates/#7bc204051ea5 http://www.forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2012/10/16/warning... > What about fertility? Should there be a window on that? Ask Apple or Facebook why they are offering female employees to freeze their eggs for $20k... http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/15/apple-facebook-offer-freeze-eggs-female-employees http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/15/apple-face...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

reasonattlm 11y ago

Therapies after the SENS model will be mass-produced infusions (gene therapies, small molecule drugs, etc) coupled with some personalized stuff based on growing cells from a cell sample. It will be the same treatment for everyone, and subject to economies of scale that are the same as for today's drugs. Most will cost a few dollars per treatment after being in circulation for a few decades, the same as mass produced generic drugs today, and 30 years further into autologous stem cell therapies, those also will cost a lot less than the few thousand that they do now. People have done the modeling on what radical life span does to population growth. The answer is a lot less than you think. See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192186/ "For example, we applied the cohort-component method of population projections to 2005 Swedish population for several scenarios of life extension and a fertility schedule observed in 2005. Even for very long 100-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 60), the total population increases by 22% only (from 9.1 to 11.0 million)." Most of the objections of the type that you voice can be answered by moving you to 1850 and making the same objections to the progress of medicine, and then seeing that they are obviously false concerns given where we are today. You could argue in 1920 that the same objections exist to building treatments that prevent people dying from heart disease: isn't it just for rich people, won't there be too many people if the old don't die on time, what would they do with all those extra years, isn't the present length of life just right, etc, etc.