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If there truly were a way to increase lifespan to 200 or 300, I hope the person who comes up with it destroys the research. Can you just imagine if people coul

If there truly were a way to increase lifespan to 200 or 300, I hope the person who comes up with it destroys the research. Can you just imagine if people could live that long? If people started applying it now, it would make our overpopulation situation even worse. We are not prepared to live that long, either, emotionally or physically. The more we use technology and bioscience to alter our basic physiology and life history, the more trouble we will be in. I seriously hope this never works.

ben_w 6y ago
You don’t have to get this treatment, if it ever becomes available. Don’t try to stop me from taking it.
bashwizard 6y ago
There's no "overpopulation situation". It's a matter of over crowding and lack of distrubution of resources.
- redvenom 6y ago
  All these replies to my comment may be true, but all of them are actually forgetting the impact we are doing to wildlife and the natural world. So, while we can easily grow and become even more populous, we are just destroying our world at the same time. It's rather sickening.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    Three only reason I have to fear dismantling Mercury to build a Dyson swarm of O’Neill cylinders to live in, complete with wildlife preserves greater in internal surface area than the Earth, is “can human politics work like that?” rather than anything else. You find it sickening? Don’t worry, you probably won’t even notice the new “stars” twinkling around you, even in the unlikely event of self replacing factories on Mercury being developed in an un-augmented human lifetime and therefore you living long enough to know about it.
pharke 6y ago
> it would make our overpopulation situation even worse More healthy, longer lived people doesn't just equal more mouths to feed. It means there are more productive members of society with vast troves of experience and skill, all of whom no longer have the excuse of "I'll be dead by the time this becomes a problem". The solution to limited resources isn't rationing, it's to get more resources and make more efficient (not limited) use of them. > We are not prepared to live that long, either, emotionally or physically That's, like, your opinion man. Me, I'm incredibly excited to spend as long as it takes to see and learn everything I can in this universe. The idea of a time limit does more emotional harm to me than the idea of infinity. > The more we use technology and bioscience to alter our basic physiology and life history, the more trouble we will be in This is just an appeal to nature. Plainly wrong, you may think you would be a happy hunter gatherer but I'd strongly recommend you try before you buy that one. Nature, for all its temporary beauty, sucks when there is no escape from it. We developed technology to separate ourselves from nature when it gets nasty. Don't believe me? Drive out to the country at 2am, strip naked and try lying in a field for as long as you can. See how much sleep you get. Bonus points if you do it in winter. I seriously hope biotech becomes the next darling of industry and research. We're starting to hit the wall with electronics, there are still gains to be made but the low hanging fruit is gone and it's going to take much longer between breakthrough advancements. Biotech is just getting started, with enough of a push we can grow by leaps and bounds in the next decades. I hope my children will grow up in a world free from the miseries of disease and death.

ben_w 6y ago

You don’t have to get this treatment, if it ever becomes available. Don’t try to stop me from taking it.

bashwizard 6y ago

There's no "overpopulation situation". It's a matter of over crowding and lack of distrubution of resources.

redvenom 6y ago
All these replies to my comment may be true, but all of them are actually forgetting the impact we are doing to wildlife and the natural world. So, while we can easily grow and become even more populous, we are just destroying our world at the same time. It's rather sickening.
- ben_w 6y ago
  Three only reason I have to fear dismantling Mercury to build a Dyson swarm of O’Neill cylinders to live in, complete with wildlife preserves greater in internal surface area than the Earth, is “can human politics work like that?” rather than anything else. You find it sickening? Don’t worry, you probably won’t even notice the new “stars” twinkling around you, even in the unlikely event of self replacing factories on Mercury being developed in an un-augmented human lifetime and therefore you living long enough to know about it.

pharke 6y ago

> it would make our overpopulation situation even worse More healthy, longer lived people doesn't just equal more mouths to feed. It means there are more productive members of society with vast troves of experience and skill, all of whom no longer have the excuse of "I'll be dead by the time this becomes a problem". The solution to limited resources isn't rationing, it's to get more resources and make more efficient (not limited) use of them. > We are not prepared to live that long, either, emotionally or physically That's, like, your opinion man. Me, I'm incredibly excited to spend as long as it takes to see and learn everything I can in this universe. The idea of a time limit does more emotional harm to me than the idea of infinity. > The more we use technology and bioscience to alter our basic physiology and life history, the more trouble we will be in This is just an appeal to nature. Plainly wrong, you may think you would be a happy hunter gatherer but I'd strongly recommend you try before you buy that one. Nature, for all its temporary beauty, sucks when there is no escape from it. We developed technology to separate ourselves from nature when it gets nasty. Don't believe me? Drive out to the country at 2am, strip naked and try lying in a field for as long as you can. See how much sleep you get. Bonus points if you do it in winter. I seriously hope biotech becomes the next darling of industry and research. We're starting to hit the wall with electronics, there are still gains to be made but the low hanging fruit is gone and it's going to take much longer between breakthrough advancements. Biotech is just getting started, with enough of a push we can grow by leaps and bounds in the next decades. I hope my children will grow up in a world free from the miseries of disease and death.