12 ms·

How Long Can We Live?

58 points by khartig 5y ago

unimpossible 5y ago
Longer does not always equal better. The quality of the extended lifespan is key. But, if you could guarantee quality of life, there is still a bimodal distribution I find among my peers - "Why would you want to live forever?" and "Why wouldn't you want to live forever?" FWIW, I'm in the "Why wouldn't you want to live forever?". Think of all the things to do and learn and experience and relearn. Ask me again in 10,000 years though.
- vmception 5y ago
  For representative democracy though I think we can experiment with assigning voting weights to age ranges, in a way that allows fresh ideas to exist from people that have a different level of collaborative society in their formative years Several parliamentary democracies have weighted voting, but thats usually in favor of corporations ie. City of London and Hong Kong
  - xienze 5y ago
    > For representative democracy though I think we can experiment with assigning voting weights to age ranges, in a way that allows fresh ideas to exist The problem here is that you would be brushing off the concerns of an older group by simply asserting that "they're old and holding us back" without considering that perhaps someone who had been around for 500 years might have far more insight and quite literally had already lived through whatever political experiment some twenty-somethings want to vote for. Not criticizing you specifically but I've seen this mentality before w.r.t. old people and voting.
    - vmception 5y ago
      They still get a vote and if there wind up being many more 500 year olds it'll still let them keep society comfortable and familiar for themselves
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Us older folks have also seen a lot of "new" ideas from the younger ones that have been repeatedly tried and failed. No need to try them again. A healthy democracy needs the young for new ideas, and the old to warn them about the experience with those "new" ideas. It's like software. The new guy just gets 'er done. The old guy says "your quadratic algorithm won't scale. did you encrypt the password database? did you make a backup? did you set aside money for the tax bill?"
- gaoshan 5y ago
  Bingo. Quantity is worthless without sufficient quality. I would rather be healthy and strong and die at 80 than sickly and bedridden for the remaining decades and die at 120.
  - JoshTriplett 5y ago
    Any improvement to lifespan will necessarily improve healthy lifespan. (And for my part, I'll always take those extra 40 years, no matter the condition, because that's 40 more years for medical science to advance and solve more of those problems.)
    - fooperdupes 5y ago
      In my experience this reflexive "more is better" attitude only leads to unhappiness. the more I've abandoned this kind of thinking, the better my quality of life has become.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      > Any improvement to lifespan will necessarily improve healthy lifespan. Will it? I don't see why it necessarily will do so. And even if it does... if it gives you 10 more healthy years, and then 20 more bedridden years, for a net gain of 30 years, is that really a gain? Or do the 20 bedridden years make the 10 healthy years not worth it?
      - JoshTriplett 5y ago
        Many of the same things affecting lifespan are the same things that cause age-related degeneration. Any medical improvement to lifespan will almost certainly be an improvement to health. (There are non-medical things that could improve average lifespan without substantially improving average health, such as reducing causes of fatal accidents, but those wouldn't improve maximum lifespan, only average lifespan.) And yes, of course it's a gain. You could always choose not to take those extra years, if you really don't want them. It's good to have that possibility available.
- toss1 5y ago
  I wish I could remember the book or author, but I remember reading a scifi story some years ago in which a main part of the world was indefinitely extended lifespans and health-spans. A couple of items that shifted the readers' perspective were the 28 year old character who misstated her age as 104 to make herself seem more interesting, and that many people in the 400-500 year-old range picked up high risk sports as out of growing boredom with multiple careers and pursuits... (if anyone recognizes and remembers the story, it'd be great to know what it is!)
  - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
    Futu.re by Dmitry Glukhovsky?
  - fidesomnes 5y ago
    It is not Altered Carbon but it has the extended lifetime plot device.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  I read an article a few weeks ago, a guy said that past 75 he wouldn't seek treatment for cancer. I thought that was a nice medium between getting enough time to see the grandkids and not letting it drag on in pain and suffering for everyone. So basically as many healthy years past 75 as you're lucky enough to get, and no more.
  - andi999 5y ago
    I think you shd differentiate on the cancer. I know somebody got a light skin cancer at ard 75, did minor surgery and lived until 96.
    - mod 5y ago
      I expect in the guy's mind he was thinking more like "after 75 I won't do chemotherapy"
    - lordnacho 5y ago
      Yeah I think the point was not to do any of the drastic treatments that you might if you were younger. Some of them end up prolonging agony, and that's not worth it unless you are younger.
- sleepydog 5y ago
  I’m also in the “why wouldn’t you want to live forever” camp, but for selfish reasons. I’m of the opinion that for our species and society, a limited lifespan is a net benefit, as a motivator and as a way for popular opinion to change. Generally I do not think people are good at changing their stances, especially as they age.
  - didgeoridoo 5y ago
    Or, people are not good at changing their stances as they approach death. In game-theoretic “explore vs exploit” terms, the closer you get to the end of the game, the less value there is in exploration. If people lived to 200, would we see 150 years of “young and reckless” or 150 years of “old and stodgy”? I tend to lean toward the former, but of course nobody knows for sure.
    - godelski 5y ago
      I fall under this belief too. I think people also over estimate the lack of exploration done in older years. Culture changes too fast for a lack of exploration strategy to exist in older populations. In developed nations it is far more acceptable to be gay, an ethnic minority, etc than it was 50 years ago. While this still takes longer than we'd like it is faster than what you'd expect if we required people to die off for culture to change (we've all but forgotten discrimination of Caucasian minorities, like the Irish and Polish, that was so prevalent even in the 60's and 70's). Things have drastically changed since the 90's even. I'd also argue that another factor in the "explore vs exploit" strategy is fear (which encompasses fear of death). If you view your world as dangerous then it makes sense that you should focus on an exploitation strategy over an exploration strategy. The world is becoming far safer (despite American perception) and I think this is helping accelerate this cultural change too. I'd expect that if we lived to 200 we'd treat people in their 50's/60's like we do people in their 20's now, and I'd expect them to act similarly too (under the premise that health degrades in this new age system as our current age system). Though honestly we'll never know until we do it. I do think fear of trying it is dangerous though. One of our advantages as humans is the fact that we tend to use an exploration strategy more than many other species. We've also gotten pretty good at mitigating risk while exploring dangerous territories. But that's how we push forward technological advancements.
- bobmaxup 5y ago
  Only if you assume that you can (re)learn things and remember those experiences during that whole span of time. https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/76/suppl_5/v2 https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/76/suppl_5/v2
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    There are still jobs for COBOL devs.
    - BitwiseFool 5y ago
      Sounds like a Twilight Zone / Black Mirror writing prompt.
- roguesupport 5y ago
  "Ask me again in 10,000 years though" - PERFECT response. I figure it'd take 10,000 years to gain enough knowledge to know what all your options are! If the DO ask in 10,000 years, you should ask them what they are doing there and tell them not to bother you for a few hundred thousand years while you try a few things out.
- gilbetron 5y ago
  I was of the "live forever" ilk for a long time, but now I don't think I would. If you think about it when people say they would want to live forever, there are some disclaimers there. Such as: assuming society remains generally decent. Imagine being stuck in some horror show of a society where you are a heavily abused slave for centuries. Or maybe someone decides to imprison you in isolation for a really long time. Then there's the fact of seeing everyone you care about die, which would seem to get really old after a while. Plus, I'm kinda developing an intense curiosity about what's after death. Maybe just the void. Maybe wakeup in a simulation to some dreary existence. Maybe float around on clouds with a harp. I have no idea and it drives me crazy sometimes! (not to curious, because what if the afterlife is awful!)
  - Baeocystin 5y ago
    Genuine belief: I think we already have an excellent example of what the afterlife is like- try remembering what your experiences were like in the 14-odd billion years the universe existed before you were born.
    - gilbetron 5y ago
      Definitely have thought about exactly that numerous times! I find it kind of comforting when I get freaked out about the "no longer exist" path.
      - Matumio 5y ago
        And this person that was you, a decade ago. Does it still fully exist? Should it?
        gilbetron 5y ago
        Lots of fascinating thoughts and philosophy and experimentation and readings on all this stuff. I was deep into it during college and a lot of my 20s. I got back into it a bit during the pandemic year (I'm 50 now), mostly spurred by reading "Consciousness and the Brain" by Stanislas Dehaene (a fantastic, science-based look into what we have figured out about consciousness). Plus turning 50 makes you realize the 20 year old version of yourself really is a whole different person. Not to mention parenting, and how your 12 year old is absolutely a different human than when he was 5, and seeing them realize it. Life is weird.
- true_religion 5y ago
  I want humanity to love forever simply because I don’t want anyone to have to experience their parents dying, and everyone older than them slowly fading and passing away in pain. It’s a shame that so many people think about death in a personal way, forgetting that before you die, you will have to watch the last generation whom you know and love go to the grave.
- MathematicalArt 5y ago
  Interesting take. However, consider that if one could learn multiple lifetimes of knowledge in one, it might achieve the same result. I’ve been developing a mindset called omnidisciplinary thinking (or “Thinking OMNI”) which encourages us to Engage with the Root of ideas and thought patterns in order to recognize and leverage their interconnectedness. The Root assumptions we make influence heavily how we can express and explore ideas. One can only express in a given language what that language allows. Right now, we have a boundary- and disciplinary-driven engagement with both knowledge and organizational structures which while a valid way to see the world isn’t the only way. The Thinking OMNI thought pattern is being made rigorous as we speak, yet even an intuitive understanding of it can help you today to manage complexity and reduce uncertainty. Check us out on YouTube—“Omni Artisans”. If one could reduce the amount of effort it takes to accrue knowledge and drive powerful experiences, would one need to live forever per se?
idoh 5y ago
As a side thread, regarding Jeanne Calment, here's a more in depth article about whether she was actually the oldest person in the world: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/17/was-jeanne-calment-the-oldest-person-who-ever-lived-or-a-fraud https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/17/was-jeanne-cal... I find it compelling, or at least plausible, that she wasn't actually the oldest person ever. Mainly just on the math of if, that if expected years remaining reduces exponentially as a function of current age, there would have to be many more people closer to the oldest age than there are.
- techietim 5y ago
  I do not believe her age is correct; the Bible states that man's maximum lifespan is now 120: > Genesis 6:3 > And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
  - __john 5y ago
    I know you're getting down voted for not providing evidence / not being scientific, but I've always wondered how that number made its way into the Bible. Were people really living to 120 back when Genesis was written 3500 years ago?
    - JI00912 5y ago
      Probably not, but they also weren't good at keeping time.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      Well, no. People often lived much longer, 500 or even 800 years… But seriously it’s quite interesting that Moses number is so close to the current limit!
      - ben_w 5y ago
        At best that says they could count to the rough age of their own eldest. At worst, it’s just the Texas sharpshooter fallacy — you don’t get brownie points for that when the same book also gave a size for Noah’s Ark roughly on par with Berlin Zoo’s rhino exhibit.
hokumguru 5y ago
Talk about an article to spark your existential dread.
neaden 5y ago
I'm on the side of the pessimists here. Medicine for elderly people increasingly seems to become plugging holes on a sinking ship. Sure as more and more people get old and medicine increases the current record might be broken by a year or two, I'm very skeptical people will ever routinely live older than 120, and the average person will probably not make it past 100. I'm also very suspicious of people who advocate turning to wonder drugs or treatment to stop aging. For the most part these are just untested treatments that do not have any clear criteria for what they should be doing.
- Animats 5y ago
  Not until the human genome gets some redesign work. That's going to be a really long debug cycle. There's no fundamental reason that some of the timeout aspects of aging can't be eliminated from the genome. But that is for new babies, not a retrofit for existing humans.
  - pyryt 5y ago
    Yep, retrofitting can be hard. But if you figure it out for babies, Im not sure why you couldnt ultimately use the same ideas to also start changing genome of existing bodies. Obviously, there are more cells to change. But at least you dont have to wait as long to see the effect.
  - atonalfreerider 5y ago
    The interesting thing about the timeout genes, is that they are there for a "reason". It's a species' built-in population control mechanism to ensure that resources are spared for the younger generations. Evolution has put these genes in almost every living thing, to ensure that they eventually die. So there is a "meaning" to death, when understood from nature.
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      Can you be more specific? I've heard the argument, for example, that cell death is a defense against tumor growth, but we do not observe that across all living things - we have Peto's paradox where large animals have almost no incidence of cancer. I'd be really hesitant to try to attribute any one specific reason as to why we age, or why that has benefited some life.
Animats 5y ago
The older Japan data is questionable.[1] A few years ago, the city of Tokyo sent people out to check on everyone over 100. Many turned out to be pension fraud; the person had died years ago but someone was still cashing the checks. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15japan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15japan.html
- ketanmaheshwari 5y ago
  That's interesting. In India, all pensioners have to go to treasury once a year in person to prove they are still alive!
  - 4gotunameagain 5y ago
    Is that a side effect of "gaming the system" being part of the culture?
    - DennisP 5y ago
      Since they gamed the system in Japan too, maybe in India they're not that much more likely to game things, and the cultural difference is just knowing and admitting that people do it and taking countermeasures.
      - ketanmaheshwari 5y ago
        It is likely because of the 'culture of gaming'. The system has been in place ever since I remember which is at least 25+ years. The treasury sends a letter to verify "hayati" which translates roughly to "alive and well". Treasury also asks pensioners to update their picture periodically (every 3 years or so) so that when the pensioner shows up, they can match them with their picture on file. I know this because my mom has been a pensioner after my dad's demise ever since I remember.
Digit-Al 5y ago
Imagine a dictator getting to power who was unlikely to die from natural causes for another 150-200 years.
- generalizations 5y ago
  That's a plot point of the Expanse.
- vagab0nd 5y ago
  Right, while we are at it, let's also stop curing for diseases so that, well, dictators can die from them?
- elihu 5y ago
  Or even not a dictator, just any person of authority holding their post for centuries. This was observed in scientific contexts by Max Planck: > A new 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. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle This is generally paraphrased as "science advances one funeral at a time". Long lifespans would probably correspond to society changing more slowly and making more conservative choices. On the plus side, maybe those in power would have more incentive to take the long view, and optimize for results that won't happen for a long time. Climate change might perhaps be taken more seriously if our elderly leaders had a plausible chance of living long enough to see coastal cities underwater.
  - Digit-Al 5y ago
    Some good points, that have crossed my mind as well. I think I tend to a more pessimistic view of those who strive to become our leaders. Experience seems to show that a more likely outcome is for them to strive desperately to save themselves from the coming disaster at the expense of everyone else rather than looking for ways to avert the disaster. After all, building a floating palace sounds a lot easier than transforming society :-/
lordnacho 5y ago
I get this feeling that we've already discovered the highs (or we're close) of the population average. Individuals may get older more than they used to, but as a group there's also a lot of people exposing themselves to risks that didn't exist in our hunter-gatherer past. Too much food and too little exercise kills a lot of people. Of course not everyone will eat themselves to death, and there have been advances in both other areas of medicine as well as public information. But it seems like the top causes of death are basically linked to eating wrong and not using the body the way it was meant, both of which are not so simple to fix, even if you solve the difficult problem of the telomeres and all that.
m3kw9 5y ago
There isn’t much you can do after 90 I’m not sure what is the hype in living past it unless they also solve physical/mental issues. Who wants to live like a husk?
- patorjk 5y ago
  I've read stories of 90 year olds riding bikes and enjoying the small things in life. I'd certainly prefer that over being dead.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Potentially, family dinners with grand kids can be lovely
- k__ 5y ago
  If I look how much time I spent in front of a PC or smartphone, I wouldn't worry about being 90 and having nothing to do.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rekwah 5y ago
I always think about The Forever War[0] whenever the topic of extending life spans comes up. While we don't have the jumps due to time dilation, I contemplate how the human mind would adapt to the changes of society over an even longer period of time. The societal and technological advances of the 20th century were immense. I'm assuming even more changes for the 21st (if we don't blow ourselves up). How much longer can we go before our brains revert to the "mean" and stagnate somewhere in the middle? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War
Digit-Al 5y ago
Here's a question: If medical procedures were available to extend your life to 200+ years but to get the procedure you had to have never had children and would have to allow yourself to be permanently and irreversibly sterilised, would you take the option? Would you trade the chance to pass on your genes for the chance to live personally for an extended period?
- chaorace 5y ago
  This is a thought provoking question, certainly, but it also makes the basic assumption that the person you're asking already plans to have kids (and is not already a parent) I'm set on not having children for moral reasons, so your question becomes a no-brainer for me. On that note... I wonder what people who already have children would think of this "deal"? On the one hand, they've already made their babies, but... on the other hand, they may be disinclined to outlive their children.
  - Digit-Al 5y ago
    Well obviously for those who don't want children the question is not difficult to answer. I'd like to hear from those who have children or who want children whether they think it's fair that you can only extend your life by a couple of hundred years at the expense of passing on your genes or being a parent. I guess adoption could still be an option. I just think that if one wants to continue using the worlds resources for a very extended period of time then one should not be allowed to produce children. I think there are many good reasons for this. One example: many youngsters today are already struggling to afford anywhere to live with wealthier grandparents and parents owning more and more property. They are often stuck living with their parents well into their 30's or older. Imagine being stuck living with your parents for 200 years lol.
haspoken 5y ago
http://archive.is/23lHw http://archive.is/23lHw

58 points by khartig 5y ago

Longer does not always equal better. The quality of the extended lifespan is key. But, if you could guarantee quality of life, there is still a bimodal distribution I find among my peers - "Why would you want to live forever?" and "Why wouldn't you want to live forever?" FWIW, I'm in the "Why wouldn't you want to live forever?". Think of all the things to do and learn and experience and relearn. Ask me again in 10,000 years though.

vmception 5y ago
For representative democracy though I think we can experiment with assigning voting weights to age ranges, in a way that allows fresh ideas to exist from people that have a different level of collaborative society in their formative years Several parliamentary democracies have weighted voting, but thats usually in favor of corporations ie. City of London and Hong Kong
- xienze 5y ago
  > For representative democracy though I think we can experiment with assigning voting weights to age ranges, in a way that allows fresh ideas to exist The problem here is that you would be brushing off the concerns of an older group by simply asserting that "they're old and holding us back" without considering that perhaps someone who had been around for 500 years might have far more insight and quite literally had already lived through whatever political experiment some twenty-somethings want to vote for. Not criticizing you specifically but I've seen this mentality before w.r.t. old people and voting.
  - vmception 5y ago
    They still get a vote and if there wind up being many more 500 year olds it'll still let them keep society comfortable and familiar for themselves
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Us older folks have also seen a lot of "new" ideas from the younger ones that have been repeatedly tried and failed. No need to try them again. A healthy democracy needs the young for new ideas, and the old to warn them about the experience with those "new" ideas. It's like software. The new guy just gets 'er done. The old guy says "your quadratic algorithm won't scale. did you encrypt the password database? did you make a backup? did you set aside money for the tax bill?"
gaoshan 5y ago
Bingo. Quantity is worthless without sufficient quality. I would rather be healthy and strong and die at 80 than sickly and bedridden for the remaining decades and die at 120.
- JoshTriplett 5y ago
  Any improvement to lifespan will necessarily improve healthy lifespan. (And for my part, I'll always take those extra 40 years, no matter the condition, because that's 40 more years for medical science to advance and solve more of those problems.)
  - fooperdupes 5y ago
    In my experience this reflexive "more is better" attitude only leads to unhappiness. the more I've abandoned this kind of thinking, the better my quality of life has become.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    > Any improvement to lifespan will necessarily improve healthy lifespan. Will it? I don't see why it necessarily will do so. And even if it does... if it gives you 10 more healthy years, and then 20 more bedridden years, for a net gain of 30 years, is that really a gain? Or do the 20 bedridden years make the 10 healthy years not worth it?
    - JoshTriplett 5y ago
      Many of the same things affecting lifespan are the same things that cause age-related degeneration. Any medical improvement to lifespan will almost certainly be an improvement to health. (There are non-medical things that could improve average lifespan without substantially improving average health, such as reducing causes of fatal accidents, but those wouldn't improve maximum lifespan, only average lifespan.) And yes, of course it's a gain. You could always choose not to take those extra years, if you really don't want them. It's good to have that possibility available.
toss1 5y ago
I wish I could remember the book or author, but I remember reading a scifi story some years ago in which a main part of the world was indefinitely extended lifespans and health-spans. A couple of items that shifted the readers' perspective were the 28 year old character who misstated her age as 104 to make herself seem more interesting, and that many people in the 400-500 year-old range picked up high risk sports as out of growing boredom with multiple careers and pursuits... (if anyone recognizes and remembers the story, it'd be great to know what it is!)
- sam_lowry_ 5y ago
  Futu.re by Dmitry Glukhovsky?
- fidesomnes 5y ago
  It is not Altered Carbon but it has the extended lifetime plot device.
lordnacho 5y ago
I read an article a few weeks ago, a guy said that past 75 he wouldn't seek treatment for cancer. I thought that was a nice medium between getting enough time to see the grandkids and not letting it drag on in pain and suffering for everyone. So basically as many healthy years past 75 as you're lucky enough to get, and no more.
- andi999 5y ago
  I think you shd differentiate on the cancer. I know somebody got a light skin cancer at ard 75, did minor surgery and lived until 96.
  - mod 5y ago
    I expect in the guy's mind he was thinking more like "after 75 I won't do chemotherapy"
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    Yeah I think the point was not to do any of the drastic treatments that you might if you were younger. Some of them end up prolonging agony, and that's not worth it unless you are younger.
sleepydog 5y ago
I’m also in the “why wouldn’t you want to live forever” camp, but for selfish reasons. I’m of the opinion that for our species and society, a limited lifespan is a net benefit, as a motivator and as a way for popular opinion to change. Generally I do not think people are good at changing their stances, especially as they age.
- didgeoridoo 5y ago
  Or, people are not good at changing their stances as they approach death. In game-theoretic “explore vs exploit” terms, the closer you get to the end of the game, the less value there is in exploration. If people lived to 200, would we see 150 years of “young and reckless” or 150 years of “old and stodgy”? I tend to lean toward the former, but of course nobody knows for sure.
  - godelski 5y ago
    I fall under this belief too. I think people also over estimate the lack of exploration done in older years. Culture changes too fast for a lack of exploration strategy to exist in older populations. In developed nations it is far more acceptable to be gay, an ethnic minority, etc than it was 50 years ago. While this still takes longer than we'd like it is faster than what you'd expect if we required people to die off for culture to change (we've all but forgotten discrimination of Caucasian minorities, like the Irish and Polish, that was so prevalent even in the 60's and 70's). Things have drastically changed since the 90's even. I'd also argue that another factor in the "explore vs exploit" strategy is fear (which encompasses fear of death). If you view your world as dangerous then it makes sense that you should focus on an exploitation strategy over an exploration strategy. The world is becoming far safer (despite American perception) and I think this is helping accelerate this cultural change too. I'd expect that if we lived to 200 we'd treat people in their 50's/60's like we do people in their 20's now, and I'd expect them to act similarly too (under the premise that health degrades in this new age system as our current age system). Though honestly we'll never know until we do it. I do think fear of trying it is dangerous though. One of our advantages as humans is the fact that we tend to use an exploration strategy more than many other species. We've also gotten pretty good at mitigating risk while exploring dangerous territories. But that's how we push forward technological advancements.
bobmaxup 5y ago
Only if you assume that you can (re)learn things and remember those experiences during that whole span of time. https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/76/suppl_5/v2 https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/76/suppl_5/v2
- lordnacho 5y ago
  There are still jobs for COBOL devs.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    Sounds like a Twilight Zone / Black Mirror writing prompt.
roguesupport 5y ago
"Ask me again in 10,000 years though" - PERFECT response. I figure it'd take 10,000 years to gain enough knowledge to know what all your options are! If the DO ask in 10,000 years, you should ask them what they are doing there and tell them not to bother you for a few hundred thousand years while you try a few things out.
gilbetron 5y ago
I was of the "live forever" ilk for a long time, but now I don't think I would. If you think about it when people say they would want to live forever, there are some disclaimers there. Such as: assuming society remains generally decent. Imagine being stuck in some horror show of a society where you are a heavily abused slave for centuries. Or maybe someone decides to imprison you in isolation for a really long time. Then there's the fact of seeing everyone you care about die, which would seem to get really old after a while. Plus, I'm kinda developing an intense curiosity about what's after death. Maybe just the void. Maybe wakeup in a simulation to some dreary existence. Maybe float around on clouds with a harp. I have no idea and it drives me crazy sometimes! (not to curious, because what if the afterlife is awful!)
- Baeocystin 5y ago
  Genuine belief: I think we already have an excellent example of what the afterlife is like- try remembering what your experiences were like in the 14-odd billion years the universe existed before you were born.
  - gilbetron 5y ago
    Definitely have thought about exactly that numerous times! I find it kind of comforting when I get freaked out about the "no longer exist" path.
    - Matumio 5y ago
      And this person that was you, a decade ago. Does it still fully exist? Should it?
      - gilbetron 5y ago
        Lots of fascinating thoughts and philosophy and experimentation and readings on all this stuff. I was deep into it during college and a lot of my 20s. I got back into it a bit during the pandemic year (I'm 50 now), mostly spurred by reading "Consciousness and the Brain" by Stanislas Dehaene (a fantastic, science-based look into what we have figured out about consciousness). Plus turning 50 makes you realize the 20 year old version of yourself really is a whole different person. Not to mention parenting, and how your 12 year old is absolutely a different human than when he was 5, and seeing them realize it. Life is weird.
true_religion 5y ago
I want humanity to love forever simply because I don’t want anyone to have to experience their parents dying, and everyone older than them slowly fading and passing away in pain. It’s a shame that so many people think about death in a personal way, forgetting that before you die, you will have to watch the last generation whom you know and love go to the grave.
MathematicalArt 5y ago
Interesting take. However, consider that if one could learn multiple lifetimes of knowledge in one, it might achieve the same result. I’ve been developing a mindset called omnidisciplinary thinking (or “Thinking OMNI”) which encourages us to Engage with the Root of ideas and thought patterns in order to recognize and leverage their interconnectedness. The Root assumptions we make influence heavily how we can express and explore ideas. One can only express in a given language what that language allows. Right now, we have a boundary- and disciplinary-driven engagement with both knowledge and organizational structures which while a valid way to see the world isn’t the only way. The Thinking OMNI thought pattern is being made rigorous as we speak, yet even an intuitive understanding of it can help you today to manage complexity and reduce uncertainty. Check us out on YouTube—“Omni Artisans”. If one could reduce the amount of effort it takes to accrue knowledge and drive powerful experiences, would one need to live forever per se?

idoh 5y ago

As a side thread, regarding Jeanne Calment, here's a more in depth article about whether she was actually the oldest person in the world: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/17/was-jeanne-calment-the-oldest-person-who-ever-lived-or-a-fraud https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/17/was-jeanne-cal... I find it compelling, or at least plausible, that she wasn't actually the oldest person ever. Mainly just on the math of if, that if expected years remaining reduces exponentially as a function of current age, there would have to be many more people closer to the oldest age than there are.

techietim 5y ago
I do not believe her age is correct; the Bible states that man's maximum lifespan is now 120: > Genesis 6:3 > And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
- __john 5y ago
  I know you're getting down voted for not providing evidence / not being scientific, but I've always wondered how that number made its way into the Bible. Were people really living to 120 back when Genesis was written 3500 years ago?
  - JI00912 5y ago
    Probably not, but they also weren't good at keeping time.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    Well, no. People often lived much longer, 500 or even 800 years… But seriously it’s quite interesting that Moses number is so close to the current limit!
    - ben_w 5y ago
      At best that says they could count to the rough age of their own eldest. At worst, it’s just the Texas sharpshooter fallacy — you don’t get brownie points for that when the same book also gave a size for Noah’s Ark roughly on par with Berlin Zoo’s rhino exhibit.

hokumguru 5y ago

Talk about an article to spark your existential dread.

neaden 5y ago

I'm on the side of the pessimists here. Medicine for elderly people increasingly seems to become plugging holes on a sinking ship. Sure as more and more people get old and medicine increases the current record might be broken by a year or two, I'm very skeptical people will ever routinely live older than 120, and the average person will probably not make it past 100. I'm also very suspicious of people who advocate turning to wonder drugs or treatment to stop aging. For the most part these are just untested treatments that do not have any clear criteria for what they should be doing.

Animats 5y ago
Not until the human genome gets some redesign work. That's going to be a really long debug cycle. There's no fundamental reason that some of the timeout aspects of aging can't be eliminated from the genome. But that is for new babies, not a retrofit for existing humans.
- pyryt 5y ago
  Yep, retrofitting can be hard. But if you figure it out for babies, Im not sure why you couldnt ultimately use the same ideas to also start changing genome of existing bodies. Obviously, there are more cells to change. But at least you dont have to wait as long to see the effect.
- atonalfreerider 5y ago
  The interesting thing about the timeout genes, is that they are there for a "reason". It's a species' built-in population control mechanism to ensure that resources are spared for the younger generations. Evolution has put these genes in almost every living thing, to ensure that they eventually die. So there is a "meaning" to death, when understood from nature.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    Can you be more specific? I've heard the argument, for example, that cell death is a defense against tumor growth, but we do not observe that across all living things - we have Peto's paradox where large animals have almost no incidence of cancer. I'd be really hesitant to try to attribute any one specific reason as to why we age, or why that has benefited some life.

Animats 5y ago

The older Japan data is questionable.[1] A few years ago, the city of Tokyo sent people out to check on everyone over 100. Many turned out to be pension fraud; the person had died years ago but someone was still cashing the checks. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15japan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15japan.html

ketanmaheshwari 5y ago
That's interesting. In India, all pensioners have to go to treasury once a year in person to prove they are still alive!
- 4gotunameagain 5y ago
  Is that a side effect of "gaming the system" being part of the culture?
  - DennisP 5y ago
    Since they gamed the system in Japan too, maybe in India they're not that much more likely to game things, and the cultural difference is just knowing and admitting that people do it and taking countermeasures.
    - ketanmaheshwari 5y ago
      It is likely because of the 'culture of gaming'. The system has been in place ever since I remember which is at least 25+ years. The treasury sends a letter to verify "hayati" which translates roughly to "alive and well". Treasury also asks pensioners to update their picture periodically (every 3 years or so) so that when the pensioner shows up, they can match them with their picture on file. I know this because my mom has been a pensioner after my dad's demise ever since I remember.

Digit-Al 5y ago

Imagine a dictator getting to power who was unlikely to die from natural causes for another 150-200 years.

generalizations 5y ago
That's a plot point of the Expanse.
vagab0nd 5y ago
Right, while we are at it, let's also stop curing for diseases so that, well, dictators can die from them?
elihu 5y ago
Or even not a dictator, just any person of authority holding their post for centuries. This was observed in scientific contexts by Max Planck: > A new 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. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle This is generally paraphrased as "science advances one funeral at a time". Long lifespans would probably correspond to society changing more slowly and making more conservative choices. On the plus side, maybe those in power would have more incentive to take the long view, and optimize for results that won't happen for a long time. Climate change might perhaps be taken more seriously if our elderly leaders had a plausible chance of living long enough to see coastal cities underwater.
- Digit-Al 5y ago
  Some good points, that have crossed my mind as well. I think I tend to a more pessimistic view of those who strive to become our leaders. Experience seems to show that a more likely outcome is for them to strive desperately to save themselves from the coming disaster at the expense of everyone else rather than looking for ways to avert the disaster. After all, building a floating palace sounds a lot easier than transforming society :-/

lordnacho 5y ago

I get this feeling that we've already discovered the highs (or we're close) of the population average. Individuals may get older more than they used to, but as a group there's also a lot of people exposing themselves to risks that didn't exist in our hunter-gatherer past. Too much food and too little exercise kills a lot of people. Of course not everyone will eat themselves to death, and there have been advances in both other areas of medicine as well as public information. But it seems like the top causes of death are basically linked to eating wrong and not using the body the way it was meant, both of which are not so simple to fix, even if you solve the difficult problem of the telomeres and all that.

m3kw9 5y ago

There isn’t much you can do after 90 I’m not sure what is the hype in living past it unless they also solve physical/mental issues. Who wants to live like a husk?

patorjk 5y ago
I've read stories of 90 year olds riding bikes and enjoying the small things in life. I'd certainly prefer that over being dead.
agumonkey 5y ago
Potentially, family dinners with grand kids can be lovely
k__ 5y ago
If I look how much time I spent in front of a PC or smartphone, I wouldn't worry about being 90 and having nothing to do.

deleted 5y ago

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rekwah 5y ago

I always think about The Forever War[0] whenever the topic of extending life spans comes up. While we don't have the jumps due to time dilation, I contemplate how the human mind would adapt to the changes of society over an even longer period of time. The societal and technological advances of the 20th century were immense. I'm assuming even more changes for the 21st (if we don't blow ourselves up). How much longer can we go before our brains revert to the "mean" and stagnate somewhere in the middle? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War

Digit-Al 5y ago

Here's a question: If medical procedures were available to extend your life to 200+ years but to get the procedure you had to have never had children and would have to allow yourself to be permanently and irreversibly sterilised, would you take the option? Would you trade the chance to pass on your genes for the chance to live personally for an extended period?

chaorace 5y ago
This is a thought provoking question, certainly, but it also makes the basic assumption that the person you're asking already plans to have kids (and is not already a parent) I'm set on not having children for moral reasons, so your question becomes a no-brainer for me. On that note... I wonder what people who already have children would think of this "deal"? On the one hand, they've already made their babies, but... on the other hand, they may be disinclined to outlive their children.
- Digit-Al 5y ago
  Well obviously for those who don't want children the question is not difficult to answer. I'd like to hear from those who have children or who want children whether they think it's fair that you can only extend your life by a couple of hundred years at the expense of passing on your genes or being a parent. I guess adoption could still be an option. I just think that if one wants to continue using the worlds resources for a very extended period of time then one should not be allowed to produce children. I think there are many good reasons for this. One example: many youngsters today are already struggling to afford anywhere to live with wealthier grandparents and parents owning more and more property. They are often stuck living with their parents well into their 30's or older. Imagine being stuck living with your parents for 200 years lol.

haspoken 5y ago

http://archive.is/23lHw http://archive.is/23lHw