5 ms·

How should we pursue human longevity?

28 points by mwcvitkovic 6y ago

ssivark 6y ago
I think that the consideration of arguments against extending human longevity is very flippant, and deserves some serious pushback. As Max Planck pointed out, ”A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Regardless of that, given the veneer of rationality in discussions of this topic (not just this source, but more generally) are there any strong arguments for extending human lifespans? The four reasons following “Because death is bad” (including footnote 4) seem like a superficial analysis based on a cartoonish model/philosophy of life. Personally, it seems far more useful to think about how we might make human life happier and more meaningful; longevity research seems particularly pointless & banal as it is unlikely to improve well-being in any significant way in and of itself. (I’m not referring to preventing unnatural mortality, but extending median lifespan). (This is somewhat opinionated, and of course, others are welcome to alternative opinions.)
- stephc_int13 6y ago
  I completely disagree, I think life would be much more meaningful if the potential to fully experience was not so time-restricted.
- rantwasp 6y ago
  i am going to guess you are somewhat young (<60). watch how your opinion shifts as you get older
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    Exactly. I’m 63. I have an autoimmune disease, and am a cancer survivor, but I’m reasonably healthy, am enjoying life, and there is no way I would choose to die at this point. If it happens, it happens, but I’d rather stick around.
  - stephc_int13 6y ago
    I am 44, not really juvenile, and while my view of death changed a lot over time I would still choose to live longer if I can. I fully understand the central role of death in the evolution of life. At the same time, this is incredibly wasteful for a species like us. Life is usually preserving knowledge with DNA copies over generations, but individual knowledge is lost and in our case it is not negligible. Most of it is really lost.
    - rantwasp 6y ago
      DNA is overrated. I think we have already transcended out biological roots. Some information we generate as a civilization is already long lived. I am not sure if it’s wasteful. In the current context maybe.
      - stephc_int13 6y ago
        The existence of civilization is the proof that not everything is lost when we die, at least not for everyone. Nonetheless, learning is still a long and painful process, even when it is about knowledge that has been known for centuries. And when a master in a field dies, his unique mix of knowledge and views dies with him, without any ways to transfer it. Human language is a powerful tool but still weak and unreliable to transfer knowledge.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      > I would still choose to live longer if I can. That's the thing. I would choose the same, and I know many others who would. For the people who would prefer to live what they consider to be a "normal" lifespan, they can simply choose to end their life when they want, or not avail themselves of whatever treatments become available to increase lifespan. So many "anti" arguments against so many things boil down to "I wouldn't want that so you shouldn't get to have it either". Those arguments are tedious and annoying.
- mwcvitkovic 6y ago
  First of all, I'm thrilled someone looked at the footnotes - thanks :) I was flippant about the arguments against longevity only because other authors (linked in the appendix) have done such a thorough job of making the case already. The goal of this piece was to help push the longevity discussion past that a bit. Completely agree that the arguments against longevity should be taken seriously. I just happen to think they're wrong.
  - ssivark 6y ago
    Thanks, I skimmed those references and didn’t find anything convincing, but I’ll give it a more careful read later. I think a rigorous (doesn’t necessarily mean quantitative or in terms of utility) argument for longevity research would be very interesting to read — especially something that digs into each of those assumptions seriously. Sometimes your post focuses on one thing and the HN discussion finds another aspect more pressing :-)
DethNinja 6y ago
Here is another bad argument missing from appendix: Organisms are evolved to utilise short life-spans to quickly adapt changing environmental conditions. Let’s assume humanity finds a cure to death and also without dwelling into dystopia that this finding is cheaply available to everyone. What will most likely happen is that bad ideas will haunt the humanity forever as older generations won’t die and remove their bad ideas with them. There might come a point that humanity will completely collapse due to rule by elders where they can be expected to accumulate much of the available wealth. So bad ideas of older generations can lead to total collapse of species. Honestly I don’t see anything other than dystopia occurring with the cure to death, regardless if it is expensive or cheap. I’m also impressed people want to live forever, this is something I cannot possibly understand, don’t people at least want to see what is at the other side? Do they think they will never get bored from material existence?
- stephc_int13 6y ago
  What do you mean by the other side? Biological immortality (negligible senescence) would not prevent suicide, homicide or accidental death. Why should we be bored? The universe is a large and complex space, And there are many mysteries to solve... And when the real world is too boring it is always possible to create/explore virtual worlds.
- CerealFounder 6y ago
  This an interesting original take, bravo. Death is clearly an evolutionary result as species all live in a different range of lifespans. It can neatly argued that we are now seeing consequences of this just by extending lifespans from 60 to mid 80s in both economics and governance. It's always nice when HN truly shifts a perspective. Have one internet on me today.
- rantwasp 6y ago
  you are making a couple of assumptions that will probably not be true for immortal humans: 1) you are assuming people will continue to behave the same way (reproduction, consumption, learning, jobs, etc). 2) you are assuming population increase 3) you are assuming that we will continue staying on Earth (immortality has some advantages when it comes to space travel) 4) you assume science will progress at the same pace as today (i think it will go much much faster) 5) you are assuming that our final form is biological also, how do you know there is another side?
rantwasp 6y ago
i think the answer is yes. there is also an argument to be meant for healthspan vs lifespan (ie you don’t necessarily live much longer but the quality of life is dramatically improved)
stephc_int13 6y ago
When discussing this topic with friends, many used the socio-economic argument against it. And this is valid up to a point. If you think about it, all technologies are first available to a minority and then to a much larger population, and eventually to almost everyone. I think most dystopia are simplistic and wrong on this topic.
robgibbons 6y ago
Morphology, Longevity, Incept Dates...
mwcvitkovic 6y ago
Delighted to see that despite the whole point of the piece being to NOT discuss the arguments for/against longevity, basically all the comments are about that. ;)
- neonate 6y ago
  You opened your post by baiting it. What did you expect?
  - mwcvitkovic 6y ago
    Haha I dunno some kind of HN Vienna Circle to just assemble and make a bunch of great points
- aaron695 6y ago
  > How should we pursue human longevity? >> whole point of the piece being to NOT discuss the arguments for/against longevity, basically all the comments are about that. Step one: Learn to Weaponized Autism better? I'd still be working on a technology that allows longevity to be explored more at different levels. Why do we not have a clearer way forward? Why are Instagramers not pushing what we have more? Why is there not more money in this? Why was it so hard for me to buy metformin illicitly on the internet?
  - jacinabox 6y ago
    You can’t cure yourself of aging with some pills from the dark web.
turing_complete 6y ago
Even on hacker news people try to convince themselves that death is somehow a blessing in disguise?
mwcvitkovic 6y ago
Also shoutout to some great critiques in the comments here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KdXvXszWEHPMzfFNK/how-should-we-pursue-human-longevity https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KdXvXszWEHPMzfFNK/how-should...
stephc_int13 6y ago
Biological immortality seems to be a reality for some not-so-simple organisms, the immortal medusa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii) and even lobsters. Biological organisms already have an impressive capacity to repair themselves. They don't avoid death at the cellular level, they simply replace dying cells with new cells. And this is the case for many if not most of our cells. As long as they don't die all at the same time, a biological organism should be able to maintain this cycle of replacement forever. It might even be something simple, like the telomere repair mechanism.

28 points by mwcvitkovic 6y ago

I think that the consideration of arguments against extending human longevity is very flippant, and deserves some serious pushback. As Max Planck pointed out, ”A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Regardless of that, given the veneer of rationality in discussions of this topic (not just this source, but more generally) are there any strong arguments for extending human lifespans? The four reasons following “Because death is bad” (including footnote 4) seem like a superficial analysis based on a cartoonish model/philosophy of life. Personally, it seems far more useful to think about how we might make human life happier and more meaningful; longevity research seems particularly pointless & banal as it is unlikely to improve well-being in any significant way in and of itself. (I’m not referring to preventing unnatural mortality, but extending median lifespan). (This is somewhat opinionated, and of course, others are welcome to alternative opinions.)

stephc_int13 6y ago
I completely disagree, I think life would be much more meaningful if the potential to fully experience was not so time-restricted.
rantwasp 6y ago
i am going to guess you are somewhat young (<60). watch how your opinion shifts as you get older
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  Exactly. I’m 63. I have an autoimmune disease, and am a cancer survivor, but I’m reasonably healthy, am enjoying life, and there is no way I would choose to die at this point. If it happens, it happens, but I’d rather stick around.
- stephc_int13 6y ago
  I am 44, not really juvenile, and while my view of death changed a lot over time I would still choose to live longer if I can. I fully understand the central role of death in the evolution of life. At the same time, this is incredibly wasteful for a species like us. Life is usually preserving knowledge with DNA copies over generations, but individual knowledge is lost and in our case it is not negligible. Most of it is really lost.
  - rantwasp 6y ago
    DNA is overrated. I think we have already transcended out biological roots. Some information we generate as a civilization is already long lived. I am not sure if it’s wasteful. In the current context maybe.
    - stephc_int13 6y ago
      The existence of civilization is the proof that not everything is lost when we die, at least not for everyone. Nonetheless, learning is still a long and painful process, even when it is about knowledge that has been known for centuries. And when a master in a field dies, his unique mix of knowledge and views dies with him, without any ways to transfer it. Human language is a powerful tool but still weak and unreliable to transfer knowledge.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    > I would still choose to live longer if I can. That's the thing. I would choose the same, and I know many others who would. For the people who would prefer to live what they consider to be a "normal" lifespan, they can simply choose to end their life when they want, or not avail themselves of whatever treatments become available to increase lifespan. So many "anti" arguments against so many things boil down to "I wouldn't want that so you shouldn't get to have it either". Those arguments are tedious and annoying.
mwcvitkovic 6y ago
First of all, I'm thrilled someone looked at the footnotes - thanks :) I was flippant about the arguments against longevity only because other authors (linked in the appendix) have done such a thorough job of making the case already. The goal of this piece was to help push the longevity discussion past that a bit. Completely agree that the arguments against longevity should be taken seriously. I just happen to think they're wrong.
- ssivark 6y ago
  Thanks, I skimmed those references and didn’t find anything convincing, but I’ll give it a more careful read later. I think a rigorous (doesn’t necessarily mean quantitative or in terms of utility) argument for longevity research would be very interesting to read — especially something that digs into each of those assumptions seriously. Sometimes your post focuses on one thing and the HN discussion finds another aspect more pressing :-)

DethNinja 6y ago

Here is another bad argument missing from appendix: Organisms are evolved to utilise short life-spans to quickly adapt changing environmental conditions. Let’s assume humanity finds a cure to death and also without dwelling into dystopia that this finding is cheaply available to everyone. What will most likely happen is that bad ideas will haunt the humanity forever as older generations won’t die and remove their bad ideas with them. There might come a point that humanity will completely collapse due to rule by elders where they can be expected to accumulate much of the available wealth. So bad ideas of older generations can lead to total collapse of species. Honestly I don’t see anything other than dystopia occurring with the cure to death, regardless if it is expensive or cheap. I’m also impressed people want to live forever, this is something I cannot possibly understand, don’t people at least want to see what is at the other side? Do they think they will never get bored from material existence?

stephc_int13 6y ago
What do you mean by the other side? Biological immortality (negligible senescence) would not prevent suicide, homicide or accidental death. Why should we be bored? The universe is a large and complex space, And there are many mysteries to solve... And when the real world is too boring it is always possible to create/explore virtual worlds.
CerealFounder 6y ago
This an interesting original take, bravo. Death is clearly an evolutionary result as species all live in a different range of lifespans. It can neatly argued that we are now seeing consequences of this just by extending lifespans from 60 to mid 80s in both economics and governance. It's always nice when HN truly shifts a perspective. Have one internet on me today.
rantwasp 6y ago
you are making a couple of assumptions that will probably not be true for immortal humans: 1) you are assuming people will continue to behave the same way (reproduction, consumption, learning, jobs, etc). 2) you are assuming population increase 3) you are assuming that we will continue staying on Earth (immortality has some advantages when it comes to space travel) 4) you assume science will progress at the same pace as today (i think it will go much much faster) 5) you are assuming that our final form is biological also, how do you know there is another side?

rantwasp 6y ago

i think the answer is yes. there is also an argument to be meant for healthspan vs lifespan (ie you don’t necessarily live much longer but the quality of life is dramatically improved)

stephc_int13 6y ago

When discussing this topic with friends, many used the socio-economic argument against it. And this is valid up to a point. If you think about it, all technologies are first available to a minority and then to a much larger population, and eventually to almost everyone. I think most dystopia are simplistic and wrong on this topic.

robgibbons 6y ago

Morphology, Longevity, Incept Dates...

mwcvitkovic 6y ago

Delighted to see that despite the whole point of the piece being to NOT discuss the arguments for/against longevity, basically all the comments are about that. ;)

neonate 6y ago
You opened your post by baiting it. What did you expect?
- mwcvitkovic 6y ago
  Haha I dunno some kind of HN Vienna Circle to just assemble and make a bunch of great points
aaron695 6y ago
> How should we pursue human longevity? >> whole point of the piece being to NOT discuss the arguments for/against longevity, basically all the comments are about that. Step one: Learn to Weaponized Autism better? I'd still be working on a technology that allows longevity to be explored more at different levels. Why do we not have a clearer way forward? Why are Instagramers not pushing what we have more? Why is there not more money in this? Why was it so hard for me to buy metformin illicitly on the internet?
- jacinabox 6y ago
  You can’t cure yourself of aging with some pills from the dark web.

turing_complete 6y ago

Even on hacker news people try to convince themselves that death is somehow a blessing in disguise?

mwcvitkovic 6y ago

Also shoutout to some great critiques in the comments here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KdXvXszWEHPMzfFNK/how-should-we-pursue-human-longevity https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KdXvXszWEHPMzfFNK/how-should...

stephc_int13 6y ago

Biological immortality seems to be a reality for some not-so-simple organisms, the immortal medusa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii) and even lobsters. Biological organisms already have an impressive capacity to repair themselves. They don't avoid death at the cellular level, they simply replace dying cells with new cells. And this is the case for many if not most of our cells. As long as they don't die all at the same time, a biological organism should be able to maintain this cycle of replacement forever. It might even be something simple, like the telomere repair mechanism.