5 ms·

Today's medicine is focused to treat the diseases, refusing to admit that people at 70-80 years old die not from disease, but from the old age. Everybody but a

Today's medicine is focused to treat the diseases, refusing to admit that people at 70-80 years old die not from disease, but from the old age. Everybody but a few enthusiasts refuse to treat ageing instead of cancer or heart diseases. People in general refuse to treat ageing as a disease, thinking it is something natural. I would not want a couple more miserable years on earth, I want a few million years of a healthy young life.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
> People in general refuse to treat ageing as a disease, thinking it is something natural. Aging is not natural? I certainly understand why someone would not consider it a disorder. > I want a few million years of a healthy young life. I would avoid literal genies if I were you.
- indecisive_user 5y ago
  Aging is natural the same way heart disease and cancer are natural. Some people get unlucky and develop cancer at a young age, but we don't throw up our hands and say whelp it's just nature. We should treat aging the same way. Some people's bodies fail them at 80, but others live to be 100+. If we develop good treatments there's no reason that everyone can't live to be 100 in relatively good health.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    > Aging is natural the same way heart disease and cancer are natural How are heart disease and cancer not natural? Aging is also slightly different in that it's how our bodies are supposed to work as far as I understand it, which is not very well (Possibly as a cancer prevention mechanism). Telomeres and Aging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Association_with_aging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Association_with_agin... Telomeres and Cancer prevention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Telomerase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Telomerase
    - kelnos 5y ago
      > How are heart disease and cancer not natural? The parent isn't claiming that; they are pointing out that heart disease and cancer are just as natural as aging. We spend a lot of effort to cure heart disease and cancer, so why not do the same with aging?
      - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
        Because aging is not a disorder. No one expects heart disease or cancer. everyone expects to get older… regardless if you’d like this or not.
- pochekailov 5y ago
  Ageing is natural and harmful. Hunger is natural and harmful. Earthquakes, hurricanes, plaque are natural and harmful. We should mercilessly fight all of those, and ensure either of those maladies cause people to die.
CobrastanJorji 5y ago
Just yesterday there was an article on Hacker News attacking Bezos for having the pride and selfishness to attempt to cure aging: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440348 "Be fine with dying of old age or else you're a villain" is this weird, fundamental, Christian part of our common mythos/ethics/stories. The evil villain seeks immortality. The kindly old witch or wizard or Pope dies peacefully because it is right. Aging is bad. We might be able to fix it. There are a thousand downsides and challenges that come with a solution to old age, but that doesn't mean leaving aging in place is better.
- pochekailov 5y ago
  I never understood people who defend death If there is a tiger chasing you, wouldn't you try to escape or fight? Or just give up and let the tiger eat you? It is natural, tiger also want to eat, right?
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    If your mental image of people who support the notion of death is people who are just apathetically suicidal, then you're missing the point.
    - pochekailov 5y ago
      No, my point is that I personally am very afraid of death, and would fight death from the selfish reasons. People who support the notion of death seem not to constantly fear it themselves, but view it as something hypothetical, that they wouldn't have to face themselves in the near future (likely several decades).
      - spywaregorilla 5y ago
        I don't think I particular fear death. Fear of death is a monkey brain thing. I don't want to die because I enjoy living. But if I had the choice between dying immediately or living for a few more minutes while being pushed through a meat grinder, I think I, and everyone alive, would choose to die immediately. It's not too difficult to imagine torture and pain so horrific that even monkey brain prefers death. Human brain can make that judgment wherever it wants. I think the general case that shitty medical routes are just not worth it is often true.
huachimingo 5y ago
You could achieve more life by reactivating more regeneration, but DNA replication is costly when you do it over and over again, damaging telomeres.[1] And uncontrolled regeneration can give you tumors [citation needed], so there is no easy path other than your own genetics or having a good lifestyle. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere Even rivers and stars have an end...
- pochekailov 5y ago
  Telomeres are only one part of the equation, and they likely natural mechanism for controlling the cell differentiation. My understanding they resemble natural breaks that prevent cells to divide uncontrollably where they shouldn't. I doubt they are the primary cause of ageing. I prefer the theory explaining ageing as an epigenome misregulation that David Sinclair describes.
dinkleberg 5y ago
Is it fair to future generations who are yet to be born to write off the possibility of their ever being born because we're selfish and want to live forever? There is some limit to the number of humans we can support on earth, so if everyone is living millions of years (or more realistically let's say hundreds of years) we would have to drastically cut the world's reproduction rates. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I feel like that is the classic hubris of mankind to aspire to become gods. We want to control nature and life, yet our limited knowledge prevents us from understanding the ramifications of our actions until it is too late. (Under a White Sky is an interesting read on the subject)
- pochekailov 5y ago
  So you would rather die, and let everybody who live now die, for the sake of the potential future generation?
- kelnos 5y ago
  > I feel like that is the classic hubris of mankind to aspire to become gods Gods were invented by people who refused to admit their ignorance of things they couldn't understand or explain. Every year the list of unexplainable things gets shorter and shorter. Maybe we'll never be able to explain everything, but I do believe it's within reach to understand the aging process to the point of being able to reverse or even halt it. It may not happen in our lifetimes, and the society that figures it out may not be able to deal with the ramifications properly, but they will learn over time. Just as we've done with scientific and technological advancements in the past. Sometimes you can't figure out how to deal with something until you have to deal with it.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  > I feel like that is the classic hubris of mankind to aspire to become gods. We want to control nature and life, yet our limited knowledge prevents us from understanding the ramifications of our actions until it is too late. But we are becoming gods. The problem isn't with the aspiration, the problem is that we currently suck at being gods and need to get better at it.
H8crilA 5y ago
Dude. Nobody has the slightest idea how to effectively treat "aging". The billionaires that engage in that fantasy might be pushing the state of the art a little bit, sure, but they do it from a starting position of absolute ignorance, and their efforts are mostly in vain. It's like that old joke about a group of PMs that have "invented the general AI". Now all that's left to do is for some researchers and engineers to create it.
- pochekailov 5y ago
  There are some ideas, in fact. They are not very well developed, though, because such research is very expensive, and even the very educated people on this side fiercely fighting the idea that extending people's life is a good thing. Until the general public accepts the necessity of the age-related research, there won't be any effective mechanism for age reversion. NIH yearly budget is 35B dollars. Half of that they spend on cancer research, the other half divides between the other diseases. Age research is a tiny fraction of this budget. Until NIH spends at least 1/3 of their annual budget on fighting aging, there won't be any significant progress.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago

> People in general refuse to treat ageing as a disease, thinking it is something natural. Aging is not natural? I certainly understand why someone would not consider it a disorder. > I want a few million years of a healthy young life. I would avoid literal genies if I were you.

indecisive_user 5y ago
Aging is natural the same way heart disease and cancer are natural. Some people get unlucky and develop cancer at a young age, but we don't throw up our hands and say whelp it's just nature. We should treat aging the same way. Some people's bodies fail them at 80, but others live to be 100+. If we develop good treatments there's no reason that everyone can't live to be 100 in relatively good health.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  > Aging is natural the same way heart disease and cancer are natural How are heart disease and cancer not natural? Aging is also slightly different in that it's how our bodies are supposed to work as far as I understand it, which is not very well (Possibly as a cancer prevention mechanism). Telomeres and Aging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Association_with_aging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Association_with_agin... Telomeres and Cancer prevention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Telomerase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Telomerase
  - kelnos 5y ago
    > How are heart disease and cancer not natural? The parent isn't claiming that; they are pointing out that heart disease and cancer are just as natural as aging. We spend a lot of effort to cure heart disease and cancer, so why not do the same with aging?
    - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
      Because aging is not a disorder. No one expects heart disease or cancer. everyone expects to get older… regardless if you’d like this or not.
pochekailov 5y ago
Ageing is natural and harmful. Hunger is natural and harmful. Earthquakes, hurricanes, plaque are natural and harmful. We should mercilessly fight all of those, and ensure either of those maladies cause people to die.

CobrastanJorji 5y ago

Just yesterday there was an article on Hacker News attacking Bezos for having the pride and selfishness to attempt to cure aging: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440348 "Be fine with dying of old age or else you're a villain" is this weird, fundamental, Christian part of our common mythos/ethics/stories. The evil villain seeks immortality. The kindly old witch or wizard or Pope dies peacefully because it is right. Aging is bad. We might be able to fix it. There are a thousand downsides and challenges that come with a solution to old age, but that doesn't mean leaving aging in place is better.

pochekailov 5y ago
I never understood people who defend death If there is a tiger chasing you, wouldn't you try to escape or fight? Or just give up and let the tiger eat you? It is natural, tiger also want to eat, right?
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  If your mental image of people who support the notion of death is people who are just apathetically suicidal, then you're missing the point.
  - pochekailov 5y ago
    No, my point is that I personally am very afraid of death, and would fight death from the selfish reasons. People who support the notion of death seem not to constantly fear it themselves, but view it as something hypothetical, that they wouldn't have to face themselves in the near future (likely several decades).
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      I don't think I particular fear death. Fear of death is a monkey brain thing. I don't want to die because I enjoy living. But if I had the choice between dying immediately or living for a few more minutes while being pushed through a meat grinder, I think I, and everyone alive, would choose to die immediately. It's not too difficult to imagine torture and pain so horrific that even monkey brain prefers death. Human brain can make that judgment wherever it wants. I think the general case that shitty medical routes are just not worth it is often true.

huachimingo 5y ago

You could achieve more life by reactivating more regeneration, but DNA replication is costly when you do it over and over again, damaging telomeres.[1] And uncontrolled regeneration can give you tumors [citation needed], so there is no easy path other than your own genetics or having a good lifestyle. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere Even rivers and stars have an end...

pochekailov 5y ago
Telomeres are only one part of the equation, and they likely natural mechanism for controlling the cell differentiation. My understanding they resemble natural breaks that prevent cells to divide uncontrollably where they shouldn't. I doubt they are the primary cause of ageing. I prefer the theory explaining ageing as an epigenome misregulation that David Sinclair describes.

dinkleberg 5y ago

Is it fair to future generations who are yet to be born to write off the possibility of their ever being born because we're selfish and want to live forever? There is some limit to the number of humans we can support on earth, so if everyone is living millions of years (or more realistically let's say hundreds of years) we would have to drastically cut the world's reproduction rates. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I feel like that is the classic hubris of mankind to aspire to become gods. We want to control nature and life, yet our limited knowledge prevents us from understanding the ramifications of our actions until it is too late. (Under a White Sky is an interesting read on the subject)

pochekailov 5y ago
So you would rather die, and let everybody who live now die, for the sake of the potential future generation?
kelnos 5y ago
> I feel like that is the classic hubris of mankind to aspire to become gods Gods were invented by people who refused to admit their ignorance of things they couldn't understand or explain. Every year the list of unexplainable things gets shorter and shorter. Maybe we'll never be able to explain everything, but I do believe it's within reach to understand the aging process to the point of being able to reverse or even halt it. It may not happen in our lifetimes, and the society that figures it out may not be able to deal with the ramifications properly, but they will learn over time. Just as we've done with scientific and technological advancements in the past. Sometimes you can't figure out how to deal with something until you have to deal with it.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
> I feel like that is the classic hubris of mankind to aspire to become gods. We want to control nature and life, yet our limited knowledge prevents us from understanding the ramifications of our actions until it is too late. But we are becoming gods. The problem isn't with the aspiration, the problem is that we currently suck at being gods and need to get better at it.

H8crilA 5y ago

Dude. Nobody has the slightest idea how to effectively treat "aging". The billionaires that engage in that fantasy might be pushing the state of the art a little bit, sure, but they do it from a starting position of absolute ignorance, and their efforts are mostly in vain. It's like that old joke about a group of PMs that have "invented the general AI". Now all that's left to do is for some researchers and engineers to create it.

pochekailov 5y ago
There are some ideas, in fact. They are not very well developed, though, because such research is very expensive, and even the very educated people on this side fiercely fighting the idea that extending people's life is a good thing. Until the general public accepts the necessity of the age-related research, there won't be any effective mechanism for age reversion. NIH yearly budget is 35B dollars. Half of that they spend on cancer research, the other half divides between the other diseases. Age research is a tiny fraction of this budget. Until NIH spends at least 1/3 of their annual budget on fighting aging, there won't be any significant progress.