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Who wants to live for ever? Ageing can be cured–and, in part, it soon will be
- t_henry 6y agoEternal life is already granted. All you need to do is to accept Jesus: https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-does-it-mean-to-have-eternal-life-thru-jesus-christ/ https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-does-it-mean-to-have-eterna... It's physically impossible to live forever. I would be the saddest person if I lived forever, and people around me kept dying due to age... And don't forget about overpopulation as Earth would have became extremely polluted.
- rwmj 6y agoCome on The Economist, no mention at all of the economic implications of this? Of people getting older and older and richer and richer without end, hoarding all the wealth and power, and young people with flexible minds being very rare indeed.
- emteycz 6y agoI know many people 3 times older than I am with much more flexible minds. I also don't think there is a biological basis for inflexible minds. Actually the smartest person and the most flexible mind I know is also the oldest man (87 y/o) I know. It's infeasible for younger people to have his outlook, that simply comes with his life experience.
- rwmj 6y agoSure, so do I, but that doesn't change the general outlook. Just look at the boomers voting for the most regressive policies to entrench their wealth and privilege. It's not only about flexibility. When eventually Rupert Murdoch dies, his wealth and power will be split up amongst his children and the state. But if he lived on and on we'd be stuck with him forever.
- TheNorthman 6y agoYes, I also ignore the basic science behind neuroplasticity. There is no doubt that the developing brain has a higher plasticity than the fully adult brain.
- beaconstudios 6y agoperhaps flexibility of thinking is not about neuroplasticity, but instead having many pools of thought and experience to draw from.
- badsectoracula 6y agoFrom what i understood by other articles posted here at the past, unless there is some actual brain issue, the practical difference is very small and it is largely a matter of self-imposed limitation (e.g. people stop learning or get set into their ideas because that is the path of least resistance, but if are placed in an environment that encourages or forces them to learn they can do that fine). Regardless, if we figure out how to live more and end up with brain zombies, we'll also have an incentive to figure out how to improve our brains. There is a lot of research into such topics too (see topics on research on Alzheimer's disease which are also posted here often).
- ganeshkrishnan 6y agoMy neighbor is 89 and still works part time as orthodontist for children here in Toronto. When he was 6, his job was to run from one outpost to another delivering messages during World War 2. He volunteers weekends removing trash from the public parks and cleaning up our streets of litter. I am teaching him how to play professional chess and we had plans to go to professional tournaments (but covid hit so maybe next year) and he is picking up really well.
- Malician 6y agoFeels like this is a totally different topic. What if: Neuroplasticity allows you to build new base cognitive tools from sensory information, or dump/change existing tools. If you build sufficiently numerous, broad, and adaptive tools when you are young, you will be able to do many, many things when you are older. Still might have challenges learning new languages, or say to dance if you never learned how to dance at all, at the same rate as a toddler, tho.
- emteycz 6y agoMaybe compared to a toddler, but this person I am talking about became a programmer at 65 after being a physicist and then a biologist. I know more old people like that from the university. I really don't think age is so much of an issue that it should us stop from prolonging life. I really want these brilliant people to have more time on Earth. And I want more time too, even if I can't learn anything new at all past 125. Life is beautiful.
- hh3k0 6y agoMaybe people would start caring about mother nature and the environment if they'd live forever. Perhaps that's what it'd take for the widespread mentality of «après moi, le déluge» to finally come to an end.
- Someone 6y agoTruly curing aging should mean keeping minds flexible, too.
- Koshkin 6y ago... necessarily to the point of being able to wipe some memories/knowledge out to free up space.
- professoretc 6y agoYour mind already does this by itself. Of course, nobody knows what would happen if we left our natural "garbage collector" running for multiple centuries.
- CuriouslyC 6y agoKeeping minds flexible is both a nature and nurture issue. We can increase neuroplasticity and new neuron/dendrite growth with a variety of compounds that trigger BNDF secretion, but people still have to expose themselves to and try to learn new things.
- hedora 6y agoWe’ve worked that bit out. Our generation gets to be methuselahs, and subsequent generations get to serve us. For this to work, we need to continuously outlaw any affordable anti-aging therapies. (Altered Carbon is one of my favorite recent sci-fi dystopias, though it’s somehow more offensive than Repo: The Genetic Opera)
- jghn 6y ago> though it’s somehow more offensive than Repo: The Genetic Opera On the upside, it doesn't have Paris Hilton
- usrusr 6y agoAnother interesting dystopian exploration is the Miracle Day season of Torchwood. They don't even go onto long term outcomes outside of in-world speculation, but it primed me very 0well for the methuselah topic in Altered Carbon.
- squeezingswirls 6y agoRelated: Bruce Sterling's novel 'Holy Fire'. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?4803 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?4803
- Koshkin 6y ago> power You mean, political implications? (I can’t even imagine what the world would look like today if some old ... would still be alive.)
- sfg 6y agoImagine if Trump was the last President to pick a Supreme Court justice.
- hedora 6y agoImagine if he ran + lost for the next century.
- RickJWagner 6y agoOr if Hillary Clinton could decide to run again.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoPolitical power is just one form of power, with economic power being the other great influencer in our capitalistic world. Given that capital can accrue exponentially, I'd say that capital power would outweigh political power in this theoretical world.
- Gunax 6y agoIt's an interesting thought. If we radically extended life (say to 1000 years), how would society change? Would people still want to marry? Would we pursue careers as aggressively? You could spend your first 80 years in school and still have 9 centuries of career left. How would savings change? Criminal justice? I don't know what would happen, but the changes would be radical and have many knock-on effects that we cannot predict.
- gremlinsinc 6y agoDivorce is common a thing, perhaps we'd move to something more like family pacts that last a decade or two... raise some kids then re-evaluate. Maybe have a crypto-contract for that at 20 years you need to each pay a token to remain married else it's automatically disolved. It's kind of cold, but so is living 1000 years I'd imagine. Though, I'd signup first thing just to see tech evolve.
- aaron-santos 6y agoScience risks being ground to a halt according to Planck's Principle[1]. > Science progresses one funeral at a time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
- loveistheanswer 6y agoSociety and human progress could likely stagnate. So much of human progress depends on old, inflexible minds passing away to make room for new, young minds and ideas to take hold and evolve. Can there be evolution without death and rebirth?
- lumost 6y agoPersonally, I wouldn't spend 80 years in school in one go. I would likely have taken a break to reset in the middle of my undergrad - and would certainly be in grad school now. I'd imagine that many individuals will grow bored with their career after some number of decades and will switch. Starting at the bottom doesn't sound so bad if you can get to the top of the skill tree in 10-15 years out of 1000. It would practically be the same as spending a year on a transition today.
- WallWextra 6y agoSounds no worse than people dying, and their children inheriting their assets with a stepped-up cost basis.
- malux85 6y agoInequality is what causes revolution. They are not going to get richer and richer without end.
- knighthack 6y agoThe Methuselahs of Altered Carbon soon come alive. ... Or continue their extended living. (At least until they get a chance to swap sleeves.)
- bluefirebrand 6y agoIt would be nice to have more time to get stuff done, for sure But I also have an uncomfortable feeling that no matter how long I live I probably wont ever do the things I want, for various reasons. Something to think about I guess.
- Causality1 6y agoGiven our current rate of advancement I fully expect aging to be curable, in a few hundred years. Our current knowledge of cellular mechanics is so limited it's like we're trying to understand a car having just recently figured out why ball bearings are round.
- MildlySerious 6y agoDoes this estimate take into account the continued acceleration of science and medicine? Just one interesting metric that comes to mind is the cost of genome sequencing, which has dropped 6 orders of magnitude over 20 years[1] [1] https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/DNA-Sequencing-Costs-Data https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/DNA-Sequen...
- Causality1 6y agoYep, and we're finding out just how limited raw genomic data is for understanding biology. Epigenetics plays a vastly larger role than anyone expected and the newly-discovered field of bioelectric computation could turn out to be nearly as important as genetics itself. We're still at the stage where what we don't know keeps getting bigger and bigger.
- CryptoGhost 6y agoArticle is pay walled, does it add anything on top of: https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html ?
- tetris11 6y agoThis story alwahs bothers me, because much of the story seems to be a parallel me on the dangers of capitalism - and that even the top must fight it if they truly care about those they rule over (ha!) - but then it just bends off into an ageing is a disease moral. Ita a good story, it just feels off.
- timbit42 6y agoI see no paywall. Probably due to NoScript, or possibly uBlock Origin.
- JPLeRouzic 6y agoWhat worked for me: Reload the page and hit the "Stop" button. It's written by the author of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Ageless-Science-Getting-Older-Without/dp/0385544928 https://www.amazon.com/Ageless-Science-Getting-Older-Without...
- HenryKissinger 6y agoYour lives are measured in years, and decades. You wither, and die. We ... are eternal. The pinnacle of evolution and existence.
- _hao 6y agoDestroy (which should be canon) says otherwise :)
- mensetmanusman 6y agoAging will soon be cured. Would love to be able to time travel and see how this headline ages. Second law of thermodynamics would like a word with you. Also, if the world fills up with people that stops aging, they will still get murdered by those who can’t afford the operations (according to sci fi)
- tonmoy 6y agoI am not sure how second law of thermodynamics comes into play here. We refresh almost all aspects of ourselves not having the same atoms in our body after a decade or two. The whole system of the world would still gain entropy even if every living creature on earth was immortal.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoEvery ordered system is a local entropy reduction that is compensated by a larger entropy gain somewhere else (usually in the form of heat) to satisfy the 2nd law (which is an arrow of time). We can calculate the minimum entropy right after the big bang, and can estimate the maximum entropy after the heat death of the visible universe. We are about half way there.
- Gunax 6y agoI suppose that's literally true, but living for a million years would be effectively immortal but is still no where close to heat-death-of-the-universe long.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoI wonder what the practical upper limit is. Like, 100 million miles accident fatalities would contribute to said limit.
- gfodor 6y agoLiving approximately until the heat death of the universe (which is the only real consequence of the second law) is a bit different than living for a few more decades, I'd say.
- IceWreck 6y agoI doubt it'll be possible in our lifetime but if it is, I'd gladly take it.
- Koshkin 6y agoThe only drawback is that you’d have to kill yourself, eventually.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- m3kw9 6y agoSomehow I feel living forever may not be what it cracked up to be unless you have a great working brain and lack of mental issues
- bufferoverflow 6y agoIf I put a gun to your head, and give you a choice, with great probability you would choose life. Most people would. Your choice will likely be the same the day after, the day after that, next month, next year. The only reason to choose death is if you're suffering so much, you don't want to live anymore. Most people are doing fine. Most people will happily accept 100 or 1000 more years of life, given a choice. I, personally, will happily accept millions of years. There's so much to learn, so many great books to read, so much of universe to explore.
- gfodor 6y agoIt seems rational to want to exist to day N+1 if you presume there's any chance that any present-day problems you have will be resolvable. Suffering may be intolerable, of course, but hope that it may one day end while still remaining alive would be a strong force in a world where life can be indefinitely extended.
- playingchanges 6y agoI wonder how much time you’ve spent with the very old? My 97 year old grandmother passed last year, in the last conversation I had with her she expressed to me just how ready she was to go. I told her that I thought I understood and hoped that when my time came I too would be ready. She assured me I would be.
- beefield 6y agoI am quite confident that whoever wants to live forever, has not spent too much time thinking how long time forever actually is. I mean, it is damn long time.
- ausjke 6y ago200 years is good enough for me, how can I do that? How much do I need to get that? Do I need replace my blood every 3 months like Peter Thiel is doing? Read somewhere saying our DNA is coded at 120 years 16 days or something like that, everything expires after that point, unless you can replace them ahead of time, if we know how that is.
- tarruda 6y agoSome questions about living forever: If we can live forever, can we also be productive citizens forever? If not, is it ethical to want this? Assuming "living forever" becomes everyone's right, we would be forever increasing the burden on the young/productive citizens. For how long can it go on? If we can be productive forever, would we be taking opportunities away from younger members of society? Would we continue reproducing, or would civilization become static? If we have all eternity, would we have the drive to keep improving ourselves and our society?
- lumost 6y agoThe focus of anti-aging research is to maintain good health for a prolonged period of time. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't be productive for far longer in such a world. While doing the same grind could get old after a while, there would be far less restriction on taking prolonged "time out periods" Imagine being able to take a year off for the Appalachian trail or get a PhD in your 50s without concern for ROI or the short-term career impact of losing 4-5 years. Not be viewed as having hit peak potential in your late 20s/30s.
- yesbabyyes 6y ago> Imagine being able to take a year off for the Appalachian trail or get a PhD in your 50s without concern for ROI or the short-term career impact of losing 4-5 years. How do I not interpret this as wanting everybody, at a time when our society is facing huge challenges, to spend time and resources on prolonging your life, so you can walk around the poorest parts of the US, without it costing you? I mean, it's natural in way, I suppose, to want everything for oneself without investing anything, but it also seems laughably childish, selfish and short-sighted. Will the people of Appalachia also have access to immortality, in your vision? If so, how?
- joshspankit 6y agoYou’re assuming that we continue the current version of capitalism. Your interpretation doesn’t fit if you assume something like automation-funded UBI. I feel like if we live forever, we’ll have to drastically re-think money anyway or if parents put in money with compound interest at the birth of their child it might provide that child financial security forever.
- Koshkin 6y agoForever? The mean time to dying in an accident is around 200 years.
- timbit42 6y agoWe haven't cured all diseases yet either, such as cancer.
- cameronh90 6y agoMost diseases disproportionately affect the old. It stands to reason that if you cure ageing, most diseases will become less common also.
- rantwasp 6y agowould you still drive a car if you could live forever?
- Koshkin 6y agoNo, I would buy a cabin in the woods where I could die from CO poisoning.
- im3w1l 6y agoOur current risk/reward tradeoffs are made knowing how we stand to lose at most a handful of decades. If aging is cured, risk tolerance will go down.
- sethc2 6y agoI think most people when they truly think of what it would mean to live forever, it is more scary than comforting.
- m0llusk 6y agoFortunately this technology does nothing of the kind. Crashes, choking, and shower falls just to name a few enduring killers will continue to cull our numbers. Even with aging itself there are many factors involved so making major progress does not mean eliminating aging, just greatly reducing the impacts.
- meekrohprocess 6y agoWe're also very good at not thinking about certain things, though. And I doubt anybody would make a system of immortality that didn't have an escape hatch. Alpha Centauri is prescient as ever on this subject: >I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice. - CEO Nwabudike Morgan, Morganlink 3D-Vision Interview Of course, we would surely need to expand to other planets before we got anywhere near a 500-year lifespan. We can't manage this planet's resources properly even with a 70-year one.
- rantwasp 6y agoit depends. who gets to live forever and what is the cost of living forever? i can totally see this being unrealistic/unpractical for the majority of people which bring in another can of worms
- ralusek 6y agoResolving problems related to ageing by addressing the telomere problem is a double edged sword, because no diminishing telomeres means much more cancer. In order to defeat ageing we also have to defeat cancer.
- rantwasp 6y agohah. telomeres and cancer are a drop in the bucket. google “the hallmarks of aging” to see roughly what are the problems that we are confronted with
- brokenkebab 6y agoToo bad we don't get these headlines in printed form anymore! Saving enough of them as papers throughout an average lifespan probably would made it possible to recycle promising texts into a nice tombstone.
- barhum 6y agoFor myself I would prefer a solution were I would still die but can retain all my functions until that day (mental performance, muscle mass, strong bones, bodily functions, etc).
- admissionsguy 6y agoLiving - literally - forever would render life meaningless. Every choice would become inconsequential since every possible outcome and situation would be relived an infinite number of times. Curing biological aging that this article is about is something else entirely and obviously very desirable. Should people think it is not very desirable - after the lengths we have collectively taken over the past year to prolong the lives of a few by a little bit - it would be... strange.
- A12-B 6y agoIt's obviously desirable, but it's going to be a really funny joke when they realise you can still die incredibly easily by a fatal accident, robbing you of your promised 800 years of life. It doesn't help that these types of accidents are exacerbated by climate change, political instability, crime, etc. Problems we still haven't solved, yet somehow we will be able to solve ageing. Right.
- kazinator 6y ago> Every choice would become inconsequential Except the choice of finally stepping in front of a train you've taken daily for the past 300 years.
- petercooper 6y agoEvery choice would become inconsequential since every possible outcome and situation would be relived an infinite number of times. Depends on the society in place. If there are still criminal records, social memories, credit scores, etc. then if you commit various types of financial or bodily crime then you could become a pariah for, well, ever. I think such a thing would ultimately push more people to either being particularly virtuous, to completely change their identity, or terminate their lives.
- A12-B 6y agoAh, the hopeless pursuit of eternal life. Old people's desperation shows itself every single time this headline pops up. You only get one life and you will still only have one life if we cure ageing. Don't let it get to your head.
- bionhoward 6y agoProve it!
- kazinator 6y agoThere is a huge leap from curing aging and living forever, because you cannot cure being killed by a fatal, acute disease; poisoning; disaster or accident.
- ur-whale 6y ago>Who wants to live for ever For a possible answer to that question, I recommend reading Transmetropolitan [1] TL;DR: It ain't necessarily going to be a bed of roses. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan
- waynecrescent 6y agoEven as a person with occasional death anxiety episodes I must say, living forever (or being forced to) is the only thing scarier than death. for example: How will people deal with the fact that rebelling against oppressors will carry the possibility of becoming a Prometheus like figure, doomed to eternal suffering? Also, I have a feeling that awareness of one's mortality is not an insignificant motivating factor in life. Like, how would anything in life have any weight when you know you will live forever anyways? A bit like how bringing back a character in a movie feels cheap and removes and weight knowing they will be fine in the end regardless of what happens.
- coldtea 6y agoA, the same story that appears once a year for 50+ years... Like the Cold Fusion stories, it never not fails to dissapoint...
- ralphc 6y agoIf someone lives to 200, 500, 1000, does their brain "fill up", run out of room for new memories? Do you forget entire decades from earlier, do you stop being able to form new long-term memories? Do you pick up a book and wonder if you've read it before? How many times?