9 ms·
Sorry for the meta-commentary but… HN’s anti-aging obsession is wild. I get zero anti-aging content from any other news source, user submitted or otherwise, a
by schmichael 3y ago
Sorry for the meta-commentary but…
HN’s anti-aging obsession is wild.
I get zero anti-aging content from any other news source, user submitted or otherwise, and yet without fail it seems like there’s at least one anti-aging article a week on HN. Any other topic I find on HN I run into elsewhere: space, JavaScript, crypto, lisp, etc etc. Only on HN do I regularly see anti-aging “news” promoted.
The discussions are all about the same: it’s a scam! It’s worth a shot! More research is needed! Anti-aging is unnatural! Anti-aging is a biological imperative!
idk it must have fans to get so consistently upvoted, but I do not get the appeal.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- db48x 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCB9yE9Hcc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCB9yE9Hcc
- xarope 3y agoThere's a mindset amongst hackers that you can hack yourself, hence the popularity of life hacks, discussions of all sorts of drugs. I think it's up to each individual to decide whether they want to go that route and experiment with themselves or not...!
- cornholio 3y agoIt's a valid topic of discussion around here because people are educated enough to consider medical anti-aging as a plausible thing, whereas in other demographics you would be ridiculed as an idiot with a God delusion. But anti-aging in general is a topic permeating our entire society, from non-stop commercials to "rejuvenating" cosmetics and dead-sea-mineral-spas, to the boom of plastic surgery, to the fad diets promising a long healthy life, if we look around everybody talks about it one way or another because nobody wants to get old.
- decremental 3y agoSuch an educated audience. And brilliant too. Other demographics can't hold a candle to how smart and also cool HNers are.
- analognoise 3y agoYou forgot attractive; nothing but raw sexual energy from this bunch.
- sanxiyn 3y agoI do not get why you do not get the appeal. Do you want to die?
- jones6ofMont 3y ago[dead]
- nhinck2 3y agoYes, immortality sounds horrible.
- thr-nrg 3y ago[dead]
- thriftwy 3y agoDo you want to die earlier rather than later, and/or in worse health condition than possible? That's what anti-aging is.
- jack_pp 3y ago> Do you want to live forever, Harry?" > "Yes, and so do you," said Harry. "I want to live one more day. Tomorrow I will still want to live one more day. Therefore I want to live forever, proof by induction on the positive integers. If you don't want to die, it means you want to live forever. If you don't want to live forever, it means you want to die. You've got to do one or the other... I'm not getting through here, am I." It would be interesting to see how society will change when we can make ourselves permanently healthy. Maybe people who want to die will start taking extreme risks like sky-diving or Russian roulette but the above quote stands imo. If you don't want to live any more sounds to me like you have a psychological problem. I don't mean that 80 year olds, that have a dozen physical problems and struggle to do anything and therefore want to die because life is unbearable, have a psychological problem but if you're young, healthy and still find no pleasure in living then maybe you should see a therapist. Maybe the psychological part of living forever needs to be solved too
- 3y ago
- pupppet 3y agoI mean, HN has more than a few Peter Thiel fans..
- jimbob45 3y agoTo be fair, the other most likely source you’d receive anti-aging news from, r/science, is hands down the worst moderated community on the internet and I wouldn’t put it past them to bury such news by their own whims.
- George83728 3y agoI regularly see anti-aging discussion/news here and on 4chan's /sci/ board (aka the flat earth and electric universe debate forum.) Make of that what you will.
- thr-nrg 3y ago[dead]
- djmips 3y agoWe all want to live long enough to witness the singularity. <wink>
- thriftwy 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_with_Lichen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_with_Lichen
- jazzyjackson 3y agoThanks for that, never heard of it before - there is a 90 min radio adaptation archived here: https://archive.org/details/john-wyndham-trouble-with-lichen https://archive.org/details/john-wyndham-trouble-with-lichen
- dsco 3y agoYou think anti aging obsession is wild here? Wait until you see the anti crypto obsession
- Gigachad 3y agoGo out on the street and ask the average person what they think about crypto and NFTs.
- cowmoo728 3y agoThere are a lot of men in tech with lots of money, engineering expertise that they believe will carry over to biology, and a fear of becoming old and irrelevant.
- ShamelessC 3y agoDing ding ding.
- bawolff 3y agoHN has always had some science content not just tech. Articles about fusion and batteries get promoted here often. If all your other sources are pure software focused it would make sense you dont see aging there. As for the actual topic. Lots of people talk about fear of death, and i am sure that plays a part. For me though, i think its interesting because people have been trying to increase longevity since forever and haven't succeded yet. There is something fascinating about a problem everyone has tried to solve but still isn't solved.
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoThe median lifespan is ~77 years but some people live to ~115. That's quite a difference. Some of that may be genetics but not all of it. The median person who dies at 95 is doing something different than the median person who dies at 60. The least we can do is find out what. And maybe if we do, someone could live to be 130, or still be in good health at 95.
- henearkr 3y agoHow are you going to learn all the essential Javascript frameworks in time if you die before you reach your first few centuries of age?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zo1 3y agoIt's simple. We want trusted individuals and knowledgeable debate on the topic, especially for one so controversial. And yet, this entire thread is now revolving on your meta commentary on the topic. Very disappointing. It doesn't pop up nearly as us fans would like, and I barely see it once a month on here.
- ycombinete 3y agoThere are many avid sci-fi fans here. So it's likely as much to do with piqued interest (scientific or philisophical), as it is to do with not wanting to die. Someone who loved reading Time Enough for Love, or Permutation City, is probably going to be interested in the subject.
- Dylan16807 3y agoDo you see more discussion of anti-aging on HN than you see discussion of major diseases? I don't see more of it. And I think it's fair to talk about aging as much as cancer, for example. They're both very difficult fights to claw back months or years, but we can figure out how to slow the progress and cure specific instances. If we could extend life expectancy by two years that might beat covid in impact. Isn't that worth significant research and discussion? It's not just people idly wanting to live a million years.
- snvzz 3y ago>And I think it's fair to talk about aging as much as cancer, for example. I agree with the underlying argument, but I must note: Cancer gets more likely with age, and the mechanisms that enable it are considered one of the (few) groups by which aging is characterized. All these groups are co-morbid, so any progress in un-doing the damage of aging will also help with cancer.
- timwaagh 3y agoI don't know man my parents just spent the first few years of their early retirement caring for my grandma who is now in the final phase. It's not like you just won't be there one day. It also costs others a lot of time and effort, money et cetera.
- bowsamic 3y agoTo me it just signals a lack of emotional maturity
- rsynnott 3y agoThe odd thing is, HN is also obsessed with early retirement. You’d think people would’ve learned the lesson of One Foot in the Grave.