17 ms·
A $3B bet on finding the fountain of youth
- fairity 5y agoI wish our brightest minds were all working in areas like this instead of social apps and advertising. Is there even any doubt that with a better understanding of biology we could meaningfully prolong the human lifespan? What are we doing working on apps lol.
- grishka 5y agoSo how can I, as a software developer, meaningfully contribute to this area? I would very much prefer to live forever.
- Dig1t 5y agoI guess you could dive into the world of home-brew biohacking? Understanding genetics and lab techniques doesn't seem out of reach for programmer types, but I don't really know.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoI tried it (shoutout to The Odin's biohacking courses!) but I found it requires a lot more manual skills than I was used to from programming. Not out of reach but quite different, the most similar existing skill for me was actually cooking. Though I never made it past beginner stage, so take my experience for what it's worth.
- forgotmyoldacc 5y agoYou could gain computational biology experience from working at biotech until you have enough to work at one of these longevity startups.
- justsocrateasin 5y agoThis is exactly what I'm doing - working at a bioinformatics startup as a SDE, and slowly picking up comp bio projects.
- patall 5y agoBioinformatics is a huge field and a lot of software developers are working there. It's science with multi-year career paths, so you cannot just start working on everything without learning the basics first. But with a bit of training, many former software developers have contributed as lab techs, PhD students or other types of associates.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agomost leading biohackers have a patreon or subscribestar page where you could help fund their research, that might be a start.
- solveit 5y agoCompetitive advantage says that in the vast majority of cases you should do more or less what you're doing now, perhaps adjust your behaviour to optimise for compensation, and spend/donate money to have more biologists work on this. This is very general advice for anyone with a cause that they would like to get done without regard to who does it.
- Kinrany 5y agoIt's only true when money is the bottleneck.
- solveit 5y agoIt's true as long as you personally are not particularly suited to widen the bottleneck. Which is most of the time. In this particular case, it's very unlikely a typical dev would contribute more by taking a few years off to learn biology and maths and statistics, instead of just making money and paying someone who has already spent that time.
- grishka 5y agoNo, money is not the answer and just paying money is just plain boring. Especially when guys like Bezos have already put $3B into this. My donations would be a drop in the ocean. I want to do something meaningful myself.
- smnrchrds 5y agoIn an ideal world, biology salaries would be on par with tech salaries, so more intelligent ambitious young people will pursue education and careers in biology.
- grishka 5y agoI'm personally not driven by money and never was. First and foremost I would like to make the world a better place.
- jjtheblunt 5y agomaybe our brightest minds ARE working on areas like this, but the smart folks working in social apps and advertising provide tools that help the bright minds collaborate?
- arwineap 5y agoI think that for most workers it's about paying the mortgage and raising your kids. Once bio-hacking starts paying the bills you may see more interest in it As a secondary thought, I never would have gotten into code-hacking if I didn't have access to a terminal and some open source. I don't think that model would ever work for something like this
- judge2020 5y agoCalico[0] is funded by Google, so advertising is obviously a necessary evil. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(company)#_sarcasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(company)#_sarcasm
- mdavis6890 5y agoThe problem is that anything related to the human body is super-heavily regulated, which creates a ton of friction and risk to doing anything innovative. I think the folks that would get very excited about working on the problem of aging would not be excited about the amount of regulatory bureaucracy (trying to find a non-judgmental word to use there) that necessarily goes along with it. In fact I think that the reason that so much innovation and wealth creation is concentrated in things which such dubious social benefit is exactly that it isn't regulated, because it doesn't matter. If it matters and is important, it becomes regulated, which slows and discourages innovation and the people who want to innovate.
- avrionov 5y agoI don't think that the main problem is the regulation. The regulations are a side effect of how difficult and harmful these experiments could to humans. In the software business when a project fails we can just used a starting point for the next iteration. In life sciences they don't have that luxury. There is no way to test something quickly (in seconds and minutes). May be one day we'll have a complete model of the human body and medicine and drugs can be tested through a software.
- DoubleDerper 5y ago"...anything related to the human body is super-heavily regulated" In the Western world this is true. Countries with less oversight stand to benefit from regulation arbitrage.
- randcraw 5y agoOf course, China already has refuted your thesis. Due to lack of oversight and regulation (and enforcement), their health care system is mistrusted by everyone. That's why the country's covid inoculation rate has been so low. Because trust is very hard to regain once lost, ensurance of safety and efficacy in healthcare through regulation has clear advantages.
- e_y_ 5y agoThere's tons of basic research that could be done before we ever get to the regulatory question of human trials. If we could get pigs to live for 50 years (currently ~20) it would be a huge step forward in our understanding of aging. On the other hand, pig life extension is not really a product you can sell. Even human life extension, which should theoretically be worth trillions if it works, seems like too much of a pipe dream. The benefits of basic research only become apparent years or decades down the road, and a lot of it is going to be dead ends. Whereas it's pretty firmly established that if you can make a $700 smartphone that's slightly better than last year's, you can sell millions of them. (Although apparently you can find a handful of people who want to inject sheep cells in their butt despite having no proven benefit: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15320660-500-germany-bans-rejuvenating-sheep-cell-injections/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15320660-500-germany-... )
- bagacrap 5y agoI for one would prefer to live to 80 with "apps" than make it to 90 but live in a cave
- foxyv 5y agoTo heck with human longevity research, I want to see dog longevity research. Losing a dog every 10-20 years is too much. Living for 200 years seems kind of pointless. The person I was at 30 is so completely different from the person at 20 that I may as well be a completely different person. I barely even share significant memories with that person. Adding 100 years onto the tail end of my life, I may as well just die and let some new person live that life. Then again, being able to spend the next 40-60 years with my parents would be nice.
- flipchart 5y agohttps://archive.is/KHPVe https://archive.is/KHPVe
- hungryforcodes 5y agoLet's do a moonshot -- make it 3 trillion.
- Kalanos 5y agoNMN
- paxys 5y agoThere's nothing Silicon Valley billionaires will throw money at faster than the ability to live longer/forever. Makes sense in a way, but pretty much everyone in the field will tell you that the science is simply not there yet. Calico is similarly funded and has been at it for a decade now, with nothing to show for it.
- colechristensen 5y agoThat Japanese vaccine that helped your immune system target half dead zombie cells seemed pretty promising.
- Darmody 5y agoScience may not be there yet but throwing money at it will help in the long run.
- dougSF70 5y agoI have snake oil for sale
- b112 5y agoYou do? How much! It seems hard to get the temp right, during rendering, so I often burn the fat and... (Even snake oil has value...)
- LinuxBender 5y agoOn a funny side note, you can actually buy snake oil and it does actually have a metabolic purpose. It is most commonly used to relieve pain and inflammation and is used to treat arthritis and bursitis. The biggest contributing factor is the Omega-3 fatty acids. I prefer Krill oil for this as it sometimes also has Astaxanthin depending on the formulation.
- me_me_me 5y agoI was always for idea of defeating aging, and moving on on your own terms. Until I watch Altered Carbon, I think it premise of rich capturing the technology and using it to divide haves from have-nots is pretty realistic.
- Mandelmus 5y ago“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” – Max Planck[1] Often paraphrased as "Science progresses one funeral at a time." I don't think we really want immortality or unnatural longevity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
- AlwaysRock 5y agoYou might not. Sign me up. Maybe just maybe if people live longer, they will be more likely to change their beliefs over time.
- wyre 5y agoI would agree “we” don’t. Whoever “we” is. The problem is the hypothetical billionaires and politicians expanding their power with elongated lifespans. Imagine the ramifications if Supreme Court justices lived 50+ more years, for one example.
- paulluuk 5y agoOf course, we'd have to change how many things work in the world, this specific example seems like a rather simple one to change.
- dcow 5y agoHow do you propose we do it?
- paulluuk 5y agoI don't really understand the US systems very well, but I'd probably start with putting a maximum term in place, instead of membership for life.
- wyre 5y agoYes, it was a simple example but regardless I have a hard time believing that the needed changes would happen before powerful people achieve and take advantage of supraphysiological lifespans. Also I’m not sure how simple changing it would be to change Supreme Court justice retirement.
- woke_neoliberal 5y agoThere have been several companies formed in the past few years whose premise is researching in industry anti-aging or basic science more generally (Calico, Altos Labs, Arcadia, etc.)... Does anyone understand the underlying economics or motivations? They can't be gambles when they raise $B's, and I'm too cynical to believe these are altruistic endeavors. Certainly there is research that cannot be reasonably expected to get funding from academic sources, but what results could be worth the squeeze?
- Mandelmus 5y agoResearching immortality or unnatural longevity isn't worth the investment for a society because a society of immortals becomes either stagnant or unsustainable. But making individual billionaires immortal is something billionaires might find worth investing in.
- whatshisface 5y ago>a society of immortals becomes either stagnant or unsustainable Which society of immortals are you referring to?
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoTolkein's Elves :)? More seriously, it's a common theory that age-related diseases are an evolved adaptation because over time a species must form an equilibrium with its resource base.
- HWR_14 5y agoYes, but pretty much every other equilibrium based limit is something humans decided we didn't want anymore either.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoWe are better than other species at filling new niches. But being champion is no excuse for getting cocky.
- aresant 5y agoThis all feels like the Ocean's 11 version of biotech The straight laced CEO as foil with an amazing reputation and a ticking biological clock (1) The mad scientist known for mixing human and monkey embryos (2) The beautiful and brilliant husband & wife whiz kid team (3) All funded by the secretive Russian billionaire with questionable fortune originations (4) Grabbing the popcorn (1) https://altoslabs.com/team/executive-leadership/hal-barron/ https://altoslabs.com/team/executive-leadership/hal-barron/ (2) https://altoslabs.com/team/scientific-leadership/juan-carlos-izpisua-belmonte/ https://altoslabs.com/team/scientific-leadership/juan-carlos... (3) https://altoslabs.com/team/principal-investigators-san-diego/morgan-levine/ https://altoslabs.com/team/principal-investigators-san-diego... & https://altoslabs.com/team/principal-investigators-san-diego/zachary-levine/ https://altoslabs.com/team/principal-investigators-san-diego... (4) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-faceboo...
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- whatshisface 5y agoYou are forgetting the iron law of real-life business stories: the better they seem, the worse they are.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- moralestapia 5y ago>the better they seem, the worse they are Is this common knowledge? I've seen it empirically but I don't know how much is that a widespread feeling. (Not being snark or sarcastic).
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- whatshisface 5y ago
- lbriner 5y agoIsn;t one of the problems that not everyone is a net benefit to society so if they already cause 70 years of disturbance, who would want them living another 70? It;s one thing for an Elon Musk type who has loads to do and never wants to die but I can't really see this happening unless, I guess, it is an option. "Dear Mr Smith, you are getting a bit old and to be honest, you haven't made a great stab at life. However for only $299.99, you can have this injection which will give you another 50 years."
- jaystraw 5y agoReminds me of 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut, just the opposite since they had a quota and no one could be born unless someone died: "Thank you, sir," said the hostess. "Your city thanks you; your country thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from all of the future generations."
- marstall 5y agoit's good to see billionaires putting money into health moonshots (vs real moonshots). Helps so many more people.
- itg 5y agoTBH, the research produced from unrelated moonshots help out in many different areas.
- metalliqaz 5y agoIf immortality was somehow cracked, it would cause the end of civilization if it became available to everyone. Imagine the population of Earth ballooning to 12+ billion. Instead, it would be kept for the billionaires. Imagine the staggering inequality of 180-year-old trillionaires and their kin, that never ever relinquish their hordes. It's straight out of a cyberpunk dystopia. (Tessier-Ashpool comes to mind)
- onemoresoop 5y agoThat sounds terrifying. Imagine a 5 century reign by one and the same dictator. Can't think of too many positives for this scenario.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- marstall 5y agowould you rather face that - or death?
- metalliqaz 5y agoI would face death in both scenarios. I prefer the scenario where the ultra elite also face death.
- est31 5y agoOne could imagine a societal model where the number of children is restricted instead of access to life prolonging technology. So to target a stable population, you'd allow people to have only as many children as people have died in the last couple of years. It's doable, we already had societies that deployed such restrictions on a scale similar to the global human population. Whether it should be done is another question, as many people criticize the issue of the state policing procreation.
- karimf 5y agoAnother article covering this with an interesting quote, "Mid-life crisis? It’s been said that young people dream of being rich, and rich people dream of being young." [0] [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/04/1034364/altos-labs-silicon-valleys-jeff-bezos-milner-bet-living-forever/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/04/1034364/altos-la...
- moralestapia 5y ago<removed>
- bricee98 5y agoI'm no demographer, but I would hazard a guess that >1% of folks are young
- moralestapia 5y agoI messed up, I wanted to say that very few people are rich + young, actually.
- bricee98 5y agoUnderstood haha! Just joking around :)
- maradona_yolo 5y agoinstead of dreaming of immortality, get off this dumb ass site and do something meaningful with your waning youth! and who wants to live forever in this hellscape anyways? just more of the same hollow experience.
- yeeetz 5y agoNah, I'm vibing.
- sockaddr 5y agoLikewise
- maradona_yolo 5y agomore dead than alive i would say
- silksowed 5y agovibes eternal? sign me up
- maradona_yolo 5y ago
- VirusNewbie 5y agoPeople have been trying to “cure cancer” for a while, and though there is some success, we have many more cure for mice, no? However, I have not heard of even a 10 year old lab mouse that has the health of a young mouse. Isn’t that a bad sign we can’t even slow aging (beyond fractional amounts) in a mouse?
- odyssey7 5y agoThis reasoning depends on how much effort has gone into the two goals. Cancer therapies are a proven business model, so a lot of R&D funding has been poured into searching for them. I'm not sure how comparably much has gone into slowing mouse aging.
- grishka 5y agoAging is not an irreversible process like most people think it is. It would make much more sense to research rejuvenation than to try to cure various age-related conditions individually. In general: cells see signaling molecules in the bloodstream and "act their age" according to these signals. It's a self-sustaining process too. Google "heterochromic parabiosis" for actual research papers. It's impressive stuff.
- patall 5y agoBoth your arguments share one feature: rapid iterations. It's much easier to iterate over various cancer factors/treatments/conditions when the duration of a single mouse experiment is in the range of maybe 6 months. But when you want a mouse to live for 10 years your iterations take 10 years. And you cannot do the research anymore with PhD students or postdocs because they aren't with you for long enough. A problem that actually arises right now in organoid research as human organs, for some reason, need in the order of 9 months to fully develop. And 9 months plus learning, experimental planning, analysis and thesis writing gets you uncomfortable close to the 3-4 years a PhD typically takes (or at least doesn't allow much back and forth iterating).
- smm11 5y agoIf we'd all just cleaned up diets and got in shape, Covid wouldn't have been such a big deal. You can do lots, such as diet and exercise, to live better and longer, but nobody does. We want a magic pill.
- Filligree 5y agoTo live a few years longer, at most, and you might still get unlucky. There is no magic. Our bodies are machines, and one day we’ll figure out how to repair them. That day might not be today, but I will never object to anyone working to bring it closer.
- dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y agoNot only that but with universal healthcare meaning that I'm subsidizing someone else's poor health habits, I want everyone on a government-prescribed workout + diet plan ASAP. Then again maybe COVID has been a blessing for culling the weak with minimal end-of-life costs, natural selection and all. Not going to be a popular opinion, but that's the emotionless conclusions of a purely scientific worldview.
- hanniabu 5y ago> Not only that but with universal healthcare meaning that I'm subsidizing someone else's poor health habits Fyi you're doing that with your insurance too
- nebula8804 5y agoWith universal healthcare you can start to work on environment as well. There should be no "food deserts" in the richest country in the world but this is the reality we are in. HFCS should be curtailed so that as a regular citizen at any income level, you have access to food with real nutrition and can easily avoid sugar. [1]:https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts It starts with Universal Healthcare (to stop the so called "bleeding") but expands with cooperation with the FDA to eliminate the symptoms that cause people to fall into these addictive habits. The end result should be lower health costs for you and everyone else and an overall more dynamic society (since a healthy society can work better than an unhealthy society).
- marto1 5y agoLooking at it from an engineering perspective it's a pretty dumb problem to go after. Coming mostly from my experience with minification of electronics. E.g. the problems you get at 150nm are almost the same you'd get at 140nm or close but going down to 22nm is a whole different story. The effects that you could skim over before begin to matter in a critical way forming a sort of butterfly effect of ridiculous complexity. So I think they'll be able to push it to let's say 120 years. Then after that something that you did 110 years ago, e.g. jumping too much in the bed will be the thing that leads you to develop a certain condition in your 120s. This is of course cascading so your related conditions contribute too even if you've dealt with them. Also we're not talking electronics here, but the human body so the baseline complexity is much much higher. And we're not even counting in *meaningful life* years. AND with that being said I wouldn't take the economist way too seriously. They have had all sorts of Chicken Little style articles before so who knows what they are actually after.
- mlyle 5y ago> And we're not even counting in meaningful life years. I think it's likely that a lot of these treatment paths end up cumulatively increasing QALY's (quality-adjusted life years) by more than they increase life expectancy. That is, they add more good time than total time, in part because of a lot of the factors you mention. If we pick up 5 years of QALY and 4 years of increased lifespan, that's a pretty huge win, IMO. It means getting to know grandchildren much more meaningfully as the typical age of parents at childbirth has increased.
- d_burfoot 5y agoI love this. People are starting to realize how powerful the logic of life extension is. Think about this: if this startup succeeds only at extending human life expectancy by a single day, it's already worth it. A life is about 3e4 days, and there are 9e9 humans, so giving 1 extra day to every human is the equivalent of saving 3e5 lives.
- onemoresoop 5y agoA single day would be insignificant and very hard to measure.
- whatshisface 5y agoThat's assuming the day doesn't cost $1,000,000 for each person treated.
- elwell 5y ago> startup succeeds only at extending human life expectancy by a single day https://donate.worldvision.org/give/east-africa-hunger-crisis https://donate.worldvision.org/give/east-africa-hunger-crisi...
- blacksmith_tb 5y agoOnly if it's actually available to every living human on Earth, which unfortunately isn't the case for plenty of things we already have, like food, clean water, medical care and so on. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy[1] books explore what longevity treatments for some but not all could mean (along with terraforming Mars, and lots of other great stuff, that is). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoI have a really big problem with this mathematical reductionist view of the value of life and human time. A life is much more that the sum of its days, basically because for any individual the loss of a single day is basically indistinguishable from a loss of 0 days over a lifespan, but obviously the loss of ~300,000 people would be a catastrophe.
- Jack000 5y agoTrying to fix aging for existing humans is like trying to patch a binary that's already running, it would be way easier to build new humans with better source code imo.
- mtsr 5y agoBut that does nothing to save the rich bastards funding it from dying. Death sucks, but I’m not sure indefinite life extension is a great idea for humanity at large.
- onemoresoop 5y agoYeah, indefinite life extension sounds like a fools bet. However, extending the human body's abilities in order to enjoy old age better would be something I wouldn't mind.
- kiba 5y agoThat's essentially life extension. Improving your healthspan is likely linked to longer lifespan.
- hanniabu 5y agoIt will definitely cripple progress. Even with our current lifespans we see past generations blocking progression with their death grips on powerful positions
- mtsr 5y agoShame this is being downvoted. Because of course an upside down population pyramid is going to influence policies. The needs of younger people will simply get dismissed more and more as the population ages.
- javert 5y agoIf you don't even have a compiler, it's easier to patch a binary that's already running than make one from scratch. That's a closer analogy to the situation under discussion.
- Pigalowda 5y agoMaybe I’m interpreting the article wrong but it looks like they’re going to try temporarily activating a handful of transcription factors (Yamanaka) through a crispr mediated gene alteration/insertion. I suppose if you created a viral vector that injected an mRNA with a nuclear localization signal - what would you use to activate it? Include a steroid promoter (or other) and co-inject with cortisone? None of my prediction needs crispr though so i don’t think that’s what they’ll do. They’ll also need to address cellular debris/degradation products as well as gene issues. I’m sure lipofuscin, anthracotic plaque, tau tangles, amyloid plaques, oxidative damage, non-enzymatic glycosylation, etc will all ultimately need to be addressed. I hope they do skin first, I’m tired of looking like a wrinkle.
- alkonaut 5y ago> I hope they do skin first, I’m tired of looking like a wrinkle. Imagine inventing a cream that actually makes skin look younger, and then realizing people have tried to sell that (without delivering) for a century so no one will believe you.
- Pigalowda 5y agoThe inventor can go old school and use it personally until it catches on with friends/family. Or is this a monkeys paw kind of cream? What about cream that works for 10-20 years but ends with rapidly progressive multifocal melanoma? I would probably still do it if i was 65-70 years old.
- sooham 5y agoLook up tretinoin it reverses aging to some degree.
- lnxg33k1 5y agoGuess we're never going to retire
- silksowed 5y agoeven a year of additional lifespan is sure to bankrupt the pension/retirement liabilities that seem to already hang by a thread
- varelse 5y agoThere's 6 years of free beer longevity just figuring out what the United States is doing incorrectly and what Hong Kong is doing right. I wonder what that's actually worth. https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/ https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
- dandare 5y agoWe talk a lot (actually, not enough) about the dangers of AI, but we rarely discuss the perils of longevity. Not that they are similar, but both are somewhat underrated. - Once there will be a scientific breakthrough in longevity, everything will happen very fast. The time between the first and the billionth vaccine against ageing probably won't be much longer than one year. - The breakthrough may be just around the corner (10, 20 30 years...) - many people seem to be putting their money on it. - Sudden increase in the average lifespan by as little as 10 years would throw most pension funds and state budgets into disarray. Mind you, a 70 years old retiree rejuvenated back to his 60 won't be magically as productive as she was before she retired. She will be unemployed and 10 years behind on everything. - Any significant lifespan enhancement will mean we have to renegotiate social contract about having kids. Will the vaccine come with strings attached? We can't even control our population explosion today. - Not just science progresses one funeral at a time.(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30025879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30025879). Imagine having no real possibility progressing in your career, once the "best" will fill the ladder. Would you want your judge or police chief to be the same person for 50 years? PS: That being said, I don't think we can or should hold back and it will be all worth it.
- godelski 5y agoI think several of these are solved. Though pensions is a difficult one but they aren't nearly as common as they used to be. If you live forever you can learn a new skill. There's also an incentive to get to financial independence. Population isn't an issue and I'm confused why this is frequently brought up. But then again people think America is over populated while it's extremely population sparse. The truth is that every first world country has birth rates well below replacement. Most developing countries do too or are on their way. Countries where people live longer and have education have declining populations. It's wouldn't be surprising if people who were immortal didn't have kids until they were able to reach financial independence. Be that in their 90's or 900's. I also don't think people will want to do the same jobs forever. We have infinite time. It's okay if it takes 50 years of schooling and 50 years to become a Sr engineer. Time is different. It's also more incentive for automation so little can just live.
- kvhdude 5y agowhat do HN folks think about efforts of Dr david sinclair of https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/ https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/ ?
- darkstar999 5y agoAny thoughts on how these efforts could conflict with our climate goals? Should we have an age ceiling? (that sounds awful, but so does the idea of everyone living to 150)
- michaelbarton 5y agoThat's a great question. I know almost nothing about climate science. I assume though that it's directly tied to human consumption, and more people years means more consumption.
- savant_penguin 5y ago
- dang 5y agoBreaking the site guidelines like this will get you banned here, so please don't do it again, regardless of how wrong other people are or you feel they are. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- HWR_14 5y agoThere will be a bump as people live longer, but, assuming fertility is extended by similar amounts of time, it will just lead to people delaying having kids until they're pushing 80 or so.
- godelski 5y agoPeople would have a harder time pushing off climate problems because they themselves have to face the consequences, not their children. I think a society that lives hundreds of years will have better future foresight. Similar to how when you get older 5 or 10 years doesn't seem nearly as long and you make many more decisions at these scales regularly.
- randcraw 5y agoEasy. If you don't breed, you get to take The Pill of Eternal Youth. If you do breed, you don't. Any other solution would be unjust or unsustainable.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- smagikern 5y agoBee pollen must be checked as anti aging agent. It not one miracle cure but thing of big puzzle. So i guess flower pollen collected by bee - must prolong 30-40 additional years at once. +Melatonin + NAC+ vitamin C + resveratrol + all bags of vitamin and mineral essentional to human being. Also daily yougurt dose must saving life like not one product before.
- beepbooptheory 5y agoConsidering the general trajectory of the world, its surprising people want to stay in it longer, but I guess I too have a portion of morbid curiosity to see just how much we keep screwing everything up. To actually witness cities becoming submerged. Also, if I didn't have to slave away most of my life to survive, if I could live the life I want, I could probably have a full life by 60, with maybe only a few books still left to read. That would be sufficient and good, very few complaints. But with this stuff.. If I gained another 50 expected years, its just that much more work and sacrifice I gotta do to have a chance of retiring!
- yosito 5y ago> Considering the general trajectory of the world, its surprising people want to stay in it longer It is a popular myth that the world is getting worse. But by almost every measure of human wellbeing, things are getting better. Yes, climate change is a real problem, but it doesn't mean the end of human wellbeing. Even if we don't manage to slow/reverse climate change with innovation (I believe we will), we will manage to adapt. Climate related deaths continue to decline, despite real climate problems. Despair is not the only option.
- beepbooptheory 5y agoI hope you are right! But I am not in despair, I know why these things are happening, what structures and systems cause them (which is in part why I don't personally share your optimism). I think humanity falling from grace and prominence is just as beautiful as us keeping going. It's all just a blip of time in the universe, no need to think about it so selfishly or tragically. Humanity as we know it might just be a moral allegory about energy and language anyway.
- seoulbran 5y agoThe world aint that bad my friend, just a little crazy atm - it'll get better. Hang in there. If you're on this website, you're one of the lucky few that has their needs taken care of and an ability to traverse up Maslow's pyramid. Besides, shit is just getting interesting. Strap in.
- staticassertion 5y agoYou can play "didn't read the article" bingo with these posts every time. 1. This isn't technology that increases lifespan dramatically. No one is going to live to 150 because of this work. Instead, they might live an extra decade at absolute best, but more likely (and the goal) is that they'll have a longer healthy life. That is to say, maybe you'd die at the same age, but you'd be walking around, feeling young and energetic, for more years of your life. 2. This technology is unlikely to extraordinarily expensive. Even current anti-aging pills that are patented are easily affordable by the middle class. But more importantly, imagine if you eliminated cancer, alzheimers, and other age-related illnesses - imagine the economic impact, what that would do to insurance premiums, etc. It would have a significant overall positive impact on the economy. Almost every post will make the mistake of talking about immortality, absurd age extensions (150 year lifespans), etc. None of that is on the table.