15 ms·

Some of these "benefits" of death are just ridiculous. If you don't like a long life you can always end it. It's not like anyone is going to invent mythology-gr

Some of these "benefits" of death are just ridiculous. If you don't like a long life you can always end it. It's not like anyone is going to invent mythology-grade immortality and then chain you to a rock to be tormented by an eagle tearing at your liver. I don't expect that anti-aging research is going to significantly extend my own lifespan or healthspan. Biology is really complicated. But that doesn't justify sugar-coating age related morbidity and mortality. They are really bad. The only thing worse than death is great pain. Old age deals out both: pain and death. It torments and finally kills you. People trying to defeat death may be delusional about their prospects for success, but they are at least trying to do the best thing humans have tried to do in generations.

AQuantized 10y ago
If you are under 40 I don't think the prospect of a fair amount of additional healthy years as a result of this research is a particularly delusional one. Actual immortality seems unlikely to me, however.
- fratlas 10y ago
  I feel anyone born post 1980 has a shot at slowed-aging, maybe even reversed for post 2000's. No data, just a hunch on the pace I've seen from the biotech sector.
  - hueving 10y ago
    As someone disconnected from that industry, I don't know of the major breakthroughs since 2000. Do you have have a "biotech advancements in the last 15 year executive summary"?
    - 6nf 10y ago
      Well for one thing, around 2000 we completed our first human genome sequencing effort of Craig Venter's genome at a cost of $3 billion over 10 years. Today we can sequence an entire human genome for about $1000 in a few days, and we've sequenced thousands of genomes including all kinds of cells and organisms that affect human health. We're generating craploads of very valuable data just waiting to be explored. We can now take data from a computer and synthesise DNA for a cell from basically nothing, load that DNA into a 'blank' cell and start it up, making it grow and replicate - almost like making life! We can use CRISPR/Cas9 to accurately cut and paste active DNA anywhere we want with high precision. All these tools are ready, we just have to work out how to use them
      - wiz21c 10y ago
        Data doesn't equal breakthrough. For example : better climate models doesn't help us to fight climate change; centuries of football scores doesn't help us to win bets :-)
        6nf 10y ago
        Really?
        wiz21c 10y ago
        I meant data doesn't always equal huge breakthrough. For example, theorems, neural networks, quantum physics, etc. existed long before data were available. Data helps, supercharges them, but that doesn't count as "breakthrough" for me (so, I have a very ambitious notion of breakthrough)
        6nf 10y ago
        If we don't learn a crap load from DNA in the next 20 years, I'll be very surprised.
      - legulere 10y ago
        DNA technology is hardly used medically, even though it is becoming cheap and relatively old. CRISPR/Cas9 is more precise than technologies before, but still not perfect: http://www.nature.com/news/enzyme-tweak-boosts-precision-of-crispr-genome-edits-1.19114 http://www.nature.com/news/enzyme-tweak-boosts-precision-of-...
        CodeCube 10y ago
        ... yet ;) These things have a way of being impossible until they are not. It used to be impossible to communicate with someone a great distance away, then we invented the telegraph. It used to be impossible to see someone at a great distance, then our seemingly-unrelated breakthroughs in network technology brought us easy consumer video chat.
    - legulere 10y ago
      Wikipedia has a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_medicine_and_medical_technology#2000_.E2.80.93_present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_medicine_and_medic...
- louthy 10y ago
  Dammit, I'm 41. Oh well, death it is.
  - hwillis 10y ago
    He actually does have a point. It's pretty difficult to actually reverse aging once it has started, as everything kind of feeds back into itself. There are a few exceptions- Alzheimer's may be reversible, but things like heart damage, immune weakness or DNA degradation may not be. The way it looks right now it may be easier to stop aging from starting than to stop the damage from occuring. Once it starts happening, even if aging stops the damage will still accrue.
    - the8472 10y ago
      From a computational POV DNA damage should be trivial to repair. You have so many redundant copies in your body. Of course building a fault-free copy, creating stemcells from that and coaxing those into fixing any defects without causing cancer is still scifi, but not the physics-violating kind.
    - RobertoG 10y ago
      " It's pretty difficult to actually reverse aging once it has started" As far as I know, there are two paradigms about ageing: There is a biological clock inside us or it's only entropy acting (damage accumulation). Both would start in the moment of conception. So, what it means "once it has started"?
    - Chris2048 10y ago
      > things like heart damage Could be reversed with a heart transplant?
  - onion2k 10y ago
    Today is my 40th birthday. sad face.emoji
    - bamboozled 10y ago
- ekianjo 10y ago
  > I don't think the prospect of a fair amount of additional healthy years Based on what data ? Read newspapers back in the 80s, we were going to solve every disease by the year 2010 or so. But for the most part medicine has not evolved by huge leaps. Sure, we have made some important drug discoveries, but by far and large we are notoriously bad at predicting what we can achieve in a set span of time.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
panic 10y ago
There's a difference between you wanting to die personally and death being good for society as a whole. Death keeps old things from taking up the resources that new things need to live. When our cells don't die, that's called cancer. It's great for the cells involved -- until it kills the person they're a part of.
- Razengan 10y ago
  > When our cells don't die, that's called cancer. No. No, when cells multiply uncontrollably, that's called cancer. So, right now, in fact it's unchecked population growth that's much more akin to a cancer, than any hypothetical immortality. As for unnecessary (or less important) things taking up resources; how many people do you know who have had their appendix and gallbladder taken out?
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    the appendix and gallbladder are non-vital organs but they still perform useful functions. unchecked population growth is indeed a problem, what impact do you suppose it will have on the population when people keep living longer and longer, and a few of them are essentially undying? in your comment, are you meaning to speak metaphorically or am I reading into it too much. the symbolic reading of your words suggests that certain people might have the status of a gallbladder. did you mean to imply that?
    - Razengan 10y ago
      The organs remark was bonus snark, but yes: we will have to address unchecked population growth sooner or later, because lifespans will – should – continue to rise as well anyway, thanks to advances in medicine and hygiene, unless something goes terribly wrong in some area.
- hwillis 10y ago
  Luckily this problem has been solved in high brow science fiction: http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Near_Death_Star http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Near_Death_Star In all seriousness I find that to be an unconvincing argument; isn't it better to have that choice rather than let it be made for us? Where would we be if Newton and Einstein were still alive? The only argument for aging I've ever liked is that culture just can't really advance without it- old people (on the whole! many older people are fantastic and very progressive) eventually seem to stop catching up to the rest of society. But still, it seems like insufficient reason to let brilliant people die.
unabridged 10y ago
>It's not like anyone is going to invent mythology-grade immortality and then chain you to a rock to be tormented by an eagle tearing at your liver. You upload a brain into a computer and you might have exactly this.
- pugio 10y ago
  I never got the brain upload style of immortality. I desire myself to live eternally, not a simulacrum or copy. What you're describing is a fancy way of creating, and then torturing, an AI.
  - kasparsklavins 10y ago
    Obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - techdragon 10y ago
    The Ship of Theseus would like to be so certain. At what point are you not you? Bionic organs? limbs? New bones, artificial blood? Neuro-prosthetic interfaces or implants? "Biologically integrated coprocessors"? I'm Genuinely curious where you choose to draw the line since it's not often discussed from a personal standpoint it's usually just the philosophical arguments that get discussed in what I've read.
    - runeks 10y ago
      I am my experience of the world, so to speak. Creating an exact copy of me wouldn't make me experience the world from two different perspectives at the same time. It would just create a new human being that, allegedly, would be a "copy" of me (or so people would say). To me, it would just be another person walking around. There wouldn't be any essential difference between this person and an adult child of mine.
ekianjo 10y ago
> Old age deals out both: pain and death Not all the time. If you die in your sleep, it's either painless or you have no time to realize what's occurring. Not everyone dies from a 2 years fight with cancer.
- rnabel 10y ago
  philipkglass probaby refers to pain inflicted as a side-effect of aging (joint pains etc.) not the immediate precursors to death.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    Aging is not really the cause of joint pains - the simple act of living is what causes a lot of these pains. The repeated use and abuse of joints which have non-regenerating components is what causes joint pain. There are also several diseases which accumulate damage over time. These would need to be addressed independently of prolonging life. That there is no real mention of them when talking about prolonging life makes me shake my head - living at 200 with destroyed joints and a mind which is failing due to Dementia or alzheimers doesn't sound like much fun to me.
    - ekianjo 10y ago
      > That there is no real mention of them when talking about prolonging life makes me shake my head - living at 200 with destroyed joints and a mind which is failing due to Dementia or alzheimers doesn't sound like much fun to me. Indeed, cartilages and joints get damaged because of prolonged usage, and not just aging. If we were to live much longer, we would have to also tackle how to make such factors less a problem to maintain an active lifestyle beyond age 100.

AQuantized 10y ago

If you are under 40 I don't think the prospect of a fair amount of additional healthy years as a result of this research is a particularly delusional one. Actual immortality seems unlikely to me, however.

fratlas 10y ago
I feel anyone born post 1980 has a shot at slowed-aging, maybe even reversed for post 2000's. No data, just a hunch on the pace I've seen from the biotech sector.
- hueving 10y ago
  As someone disconnected from that industry, I don't know of the major breakthroughs since 2000. Do you have have a "biotech advancements in the last 15 year executive summary"?
  - 6nf 10y ago
    Well for one thing, around 2000 we completed our first human genome sequencing effort of Craig Venter's genome at a cost of $3 billion over 10 years. Today we can sequence an entire human genome for about $1000 in a few days, and we've sequenced thousands of genomes including all kinds of cells and organisms that affect human health. We're generating craploads of very valuable data just waiting to be explored. We can now take data from a computer and synthesise DNA for a cell from basically nothing, load that DNA into a 'blank' cell and start it up, making it grow and replicate - almost like making life! We can use CRISPR/Cas9 to accurately cut and paste active DNA anywhere we want with high precision. All these tools are ready, we just have to work out how to use them
    - wiz21c 10y ago
      Data doesn't equal breakthrough. For example : better climate models doesn't help us to fight climate change; centuries of football scores doesn't help us to win bets :-)
      - 6nf 10y ago
        Really?
        wiz21c 10y ago
        I meant data doesn't always equal huge breakthrough. For example, theorems, neural networks, quantum physics, etc. existed long before data were available. Data helps, supercharges them, but that doesn't count as "breakthrough" for me (so, I have a very ambitious notion of breakthrough)
        6nf 10y ago
        If we don't learn a crap load from DNA in the next 20 years, I'll be very surprised.
    - legulere 10y ago
      DNA technology is hardly used medically, even though it is becoming cheap and relatively old. CRISPR/Cas9 is more precise than technologies before, but still not perfect: http://www.nature.com/news/enzyme-tweak-boosts-precision-of-crispr-genome-edits-1.19114 http://www.nature.com/news/enzyme-tweak-boosts-precision-of-...
      - CodeCube 10y ago
        ... yet ;) These things have a way of being impossible until they are not. It used to be impossible to communicate with someone a great distance away, then we invented the telegraph. It used to be impossible to see someone at a great distance, then our seemingly-unrelated breakthroughs in network technology brought us easy consumer video chat.
  - legulere 10y ago
    Wikipedia has a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_medicine_and_medical_technology#2000_.E2.80.93_present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_medicine_and_medic...
louthy 10y ago
Dammit, I'm 41. Oh well, death it is.
- hwillis 10y ago
  He actually does have a point. It's pretty difficult to actually reverse aging once it has started, as everything kind of feeds back into itself. There are a few exceptions- Alzheimer's may be reversible, but things like heart damage, immune weakness or DNA degradation may not be. The way it looks right now it may be easier to stop aging from starting than to stop the damage from occuring. Once it starts happening, even if aging stops the damage will still accrue.
  - the8472 10y ago
    From a computational POV DNA damage should be trivial to repair. You have so many redundant copies in your body. Of course building a fault-free copy, creating stemcells from that and coaxing those into fixing any defects without causing cancer is still scifi, but not the physics-violating kind.
  - RobertoG 10y ago
    " It's pretty difficult to actually reverse aging once it has started" As far as I know, there are two paradigms about ageing: There is a biological clock inside us or it's only entropy acting (damage accumulation). Both would start in the moment of conception. So, what it means "once it has started"?
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    > things like heart damage Could be reversed with a heart transplant?
- onion2k 10y ago
  Today is my 40th birthday. sad face.emoji
  - bamboozled 10y ago
ekianjo 10y ago
> I don't think the prospect of a fair amount of additional healthy years Based on what data ? Read newspapers back in the 80s, we were going to solve every disease by the year 2010 or so. But for the most part medicine has not evolved by huge leaps. Sure, we have made some important drug discoveries, but by far and large we are notoriously bad at predicting what we can achieve in a set span of time.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

panic 10y ago

There's a difference between you wanting to die personally and death being good for society as a whole. Death keeps old things from taking up the resources that new things need to live. When our cells don't die, that's called cancer. It's great for the cells involved -- until it kills the person they're a part of.

Razengan 10y ago
> When our cells don't die, that's called cancer. No. No, when cells multiply uncontrollably, that's called cancer. So, right now, in fact it's unchecked population growth that's much more akin to a cancer, than any hypothetical immortality. As for unnecessary (or less important) things taking up resources; how many people do you know who have had their appendix and gallbladder taken out?
- metaphorm 10y ago
  the appendix and gallbladder are non-vital organs but they still perform useful functions. unchecked population growth is indeed a problem, what impact do you suppose it will have on the population when people keep living longer and longer, and a few of them are essentially undying? in your comment, are you meaning to speak metaphorically or am I reading into it too much. the symbolic reading of your words suggests that certain people might have the status of a gallbladder. did you mean to imply that?
  - Razengan 10y ago
    The organs remark was bonus snark, but yes: we will have to address unchecked population growth sooner or later, because lifespans will – should – continue to rise as well anyway, thanks to advances in medicine and hygiene, unless something goes terribly wrong in some area.
hwillis 10y ago
Luckily this problem has been solved in high brow science fiction: http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Near_Death_Star http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Near_Death_Star In all seriousness I find that to be an unconvincing argument; isn't it better to have that choice rather than let it be made for us? Where would we be if Newton and Einstein were still alive? The only argument for aging I've ever liked is that culture just can't really advance without it- old people (on the whole! many older people are fantastic and very progressive) eventually seem to stop catching up to the rest of society. But still, it seems like insufficient reason to let brilliant people die.

unabridged 10y ago

>It's not like anyone is going to invent mythology-grade immortality and then chain you to a rock to be tormented by an eagle tearing at your liver. You upload a brain into a computer and you might have exactly this.

pugio 10y ago
I never got the brain upload style of immortality. I desire myself to live eternally, not a simulacrum or copy. What you're describing is a fancy way of creating, and then torturing, an AI.
- kasparsklavins 10y ago
  Obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- techdragon 10y ago
  The Ship of Theseus would like to be so certain. At what point are you not you? Bionic organs? limbs? New bones, artificial blood? Neuro-prosthetic interfaces or implants? "Biologically integrated coprocessors"? I'm Genuinely curious where you choose to draw the line since it's not often discussed from a personal standpoint it's usually just the philosophical arguments that get discussed in what I've read.
  - runeks 10y ago
    I am my experience of the world, so to speak. Creating an exact copy of me wouldn't make me experience the world from two different perspectives at the same time. It would just create a new human being that, allegedly, would be a "copy" of me (or so people would say). To me, it would just be another person walking around. There wouldn't be any essential difference between this person and an adult child of mine.

ekianjo 10y ago

> Old age deals out both: pain and death Not all the time. If you die in your sleep, it's either painless or you have no time to realize what's occurring. Not everyone dies from a 2 years fight with cancer.

rnabel 10y ago
philipkglass probaby refers to pain inflicted as a side-effect of aging (joint pains etc.) not the immediate precursors to death.
- falcolas 10y ago
  Aging is not really the cause of joint pains - the simple act of living is what causes a lot of these pains. The repeated use and abuse of joints which have non-regenerating components is what causes joint pain. There are also several diseases which accumulate damage over time. These would need to be addressed independently of prolonging life. That there is no real mention of them when talking about prolonging life makes me shake my head - living at 200 with destroyed joints and a mind which is failing due to Dementia or alzheimers doesn't sound like much fun to me.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    > That there is no real mention of them when talking about prolonging life makes me shake my head - living at 200 with destroyed joints and a mind which is failing due to Dementia or alzheimers doesn't sound like much fun to me. Indeed, cartilages and joints get damaged because of prolonged usage, and not just aging. If we were to live much longer, we would have to also tackle how to make such factors less a problem to maintain an active lifestyle beyond age 100.