8 ms·

Regarding the immortality talk around the topic. I am not an expert and this is not an informed argument, but intuitively feels this whole ”anti-ageing by chemi

Regarding the immortality talk around the topic. I am not an expert and this is not an informed argument, but intuitively feels this whole ”anti-ageing by chemical cocktails” cannot be sustainable forever. There must be a price for injecting increasing quantities of proteins to the body to turn back the clock. Imagine a headline from 1893 about discovery of meth: ”Japanese scientists invent an injection that cures humans from the need to sleep”. It turns out there is a price for messing with the system. So I do not believe any immortality of the human body by these synthetic interventions is possible. Kicking the can down the road certainly and would be nice to live healthy longer.

yowzadave 3y ago
Once a person is past child-rearing age, there is little evolutionary advantage for a longer lifespan—so perhaps it's just a trait that hasn't been prioritized by evolution?
- boringg 3y ago
  Interesting thought.
- TimPC 3y ago
  I think this is clearly false for humans. I think it is unquestionable that kids do better when parents have actively involved grandparents in their lives. Raising a kid without a support network is overwhelming, and even more so in modern culture where so many kids are raised in single-parent homes. If you measure success of a lineage over time, having the grandparents die off before they get grandkids would have significant adverse effects.
  - delecti 3y ago
    Grandparents sure, but great grandparents? Great great grandparents? I think at a certain point additional surviving generations would be either a neutral or even net disadvantageous change for the greater population. Assuming 20 years per generation, there wouldn't be a huge pressure to live longer than 60-70. We clearly didn't evolve to naturally live forever.
  - heresie-dabord 3y ago
    The village/community would be the most successful support model.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  No, not at all. In more advanced social species, there is an evolutionary advantage to older individuals helping their young.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Yeah, I mean life expectancy has made great strides in the past 100 odd years worldwide; what we see is a higher occurrence on things like cancer and heart disease or other diseases that become more and more likely with age. There's the pressure on the health care / social systems as well, which is partially compensated now by having people work longer - either by raising the retirement age, or having no state pension so that the elderly are forced to keep working for longer. But your point also stands, treatments like this, IF they become commonplace, may have far-reaching effects that we can't oversee yet.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  Hello to Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett sitting on the SCOTUS bench in 2060 or 2070 or possibly even 2100. Many of our political systems are based on the expectation that people grow frail and retire earlier than they actually already do today. The US Senate is becoming a geriatric institution that would put Brezhnev's politburo of 1980 to youthful shame.
  - Teever 3y ago
    So what are you saying, that we shouldn't have technological innovation because our governments have stagnated? Or are you saying that we need to have governmental innovation concurrent with technological innovation?
    - inglor_cz 3y ago
      The latter. The institutions need to adapt, much like they did adapt to instant communication and the printing press before.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ddgflorida 3y ago
    We can hope.
zug_zug 3y ago
No idea why you're downvoted. The idea that the human body has the formula for immortality 99% right and it just "forgot" to make enough of protein X which has no downsides seems hopelessly naive to me. Just look at existing health interventions, like HGH, and see all the side-effects and risks associated with it.
- newZWhoDis 3y ago
  Alternative/fun sci-fi plot: The aliens who sped up our evolution by artificially limiting our lifespans did so via relatively sloppy means and there is in fact an “off” switch waiting on some grad student to stumble upon
  - gumby 3y ago
    Some alien crashed on this planet about 4.5 Gy ago so made some proteins and nucleic and released them on the planet. Once it started recombining the alien went to sleep or maybe to play some video games while waiting for this process to develop space flight and send some probes that the alien's buddies might encounter and read the message encoded in the DNA: "Hey, could you please swing by and pick me up? My ship got a flat and I don't have a spare"
- Teever 3y ago
  Now make the same argument about proteins and other nutrients in general. Like, 'The idea that the human body has the formula for living 99% right and it just 'forgot' to make enough of protein X...' and if we just eat enough, often enough... Our bodies weren't designed to work in this environment. They just came to work well enough in an environment like this. That means that there are issues with them, and that they eventually fail. That doesn't mean that we can't overcome these issues like we have overcome others with the use of technology. Anti-aging is like any other technology that we use. It modifies us or our environment for a desired purpose. Is any technology flawless? No. Have they revolutionized our lives and made how the average human lives almost inconceivable to humans from 100kya? Totally. Are we on the cusp of technological developments that will make how we live further unrecognizable. Totally. IVG, artificial wombs, anti-aging/age-reversal, lab grown organs, automatic limb generation (like a salemander). Are all coming and will irrevocably change the human condition. And some of these things are coming in the next decade. Maybe you're right, and we can't have an infinite life span, but I bet we could double life/healthspan, and I think that is coming very soon.
BurningFrog 3y ago
I think aging exists because it enables/speeds up evolution. There are a few organisms that don't seem to age at all. They're very marginal, but prove it's possible.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
chessgecko 3y ago
Is immortality a genetic advantage? I'd imagine it could create a lot of infighting.
- TimPC 3y ago
  I bet societies without immortality progress faster than societies with immortality socially. A large portion of opinion change occurs intergenerationally with old views dying off, some people change their opinions on major values over time but far fewer people do than we like to think. I think for example it would be far harder to get things like gay marriage passed if people born in 1000 AD were still around today.
  - boringg 3y ago
    I think the definition of progress is a key consideration here.
  - rowanG077 3y ago
    I don't buy that argument. Just look at the frankly staggering culteral change in the last 20 years. The majority of people alive 20 years ago are alive now. And it still was possible to transform the entire cultural landscape.
    - TimPC 3y ago
      An entirely new generation of people became voting age and that generation is quite progressive on average. A second generation of fairly progressive people aged from unlikely voters to likely voters. And we had 20 years of people worth of deaths with many of those deaths concentrated in an elderly conservative generation. That has huge impacts on issues like gay marriage. Yes, some people did change their minds but not nearly as many as we like to think.
      - rowanG077 3y ago
        You don't go into my main point. The majority of people existing then exist now. The cultural shift is very thorough. Even if all new people are super progressive and all old people are super conservative it does not explain the shift. There must be a significant group of the majority which has internalized these cultural changes.
echelon 3y ago
> There must be a price for injecting increasing quantities of proteins to the body to turn back the clock. Cancer. So many cell death pathways are to guard against cancer.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  Nevertheless, humans aren't that much optimized against cancer. The really big mammals such as elephants and whales seem to be very cancer-resistant. So many more cells to go haywire and still they only suffer cancer at a low rate compared to, say, mice. Or even us.
inglor_cz 3y ago
It is unlikely that anti-aging will rely on chemical cocktails forever. The entire field is still fairly new, somewhere where aviation was in 1908 or so. I would guess that the really efficient anti-aging interventions will rejuvenate cells, including stem cells. Interestingly, Dr. Gregory Fahy has some positive results with rejuvenation of the thymus in humans (not in mice). It seems that a well-functioning immune system is a must for longer life.
gumby 3y ago
Though I would very much like to live a lot longer, the society I would live in would be somewhat suckier because of it. The consequences have been extensively explored in the literature for the last 3,500 years at least. Failing that, making QoL a square wave would be a massive win.
- etothepii 3y ago
  Would they duck for those of us alive today? We (those of us alive today) would like be the absolute masters of the universe.
  - gumby 3y ago
    Well, from literature there’s always the Tithonus problem (hence my point about the square wave), plus boredom or, if few have immortality, loneliness. But what I was really thinking was widespread longevity, at least among the wealthy (basically this exists today in all societies): without death things don’t change. Imagine if bezos or musk or Charles Koch, or Murdoch or Xi could live to 150. Imagine if Reagan had lived for six presidential terms…shudder. There would be less “creative destruction” as the old power structures would drag on, and less progress happening. A stagnant, static society seems pretty sucky to me.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
someplaceguy 3y ago
While I agree in principle and I am also not an expert by any means, I think it should be possible to inject a finite amount of substances that eventually cause a change to the composition of the human body to make it functionally immortal, in theory. I think this can be reasoned from three observations: 1. That it is possible to change the DNA of the cells of a living organism by injecting substances in said organism (as evidenced by genetic advances in recent decades?). 2. That the DNA of an organism has an extreme amount of control over the composition of said organism (as evidenced by the amount of diversity in all DNA-based organisms and species and also by the known fact that changes in the DNA of an organism also change how it evolves). 3. That biologically immortal species already exist (e.g. hydras?). That said, I'm pretty sure we're extremely far away from achieving this (unless we can create superintelligent AIs soon).

yowzadave 3y ago

Once a person is past child-rearing age, there is little evolutionary advantage for a longer lifespan—so perhaps it's just a trait that hasn't been prioritized by evolution?

boringg 3y ago
Interesting thought.
TimPC 3y ago
I think this is clearly false for humans. I think it is unquestionable that kids do better when parents have actively involved grandparents in their lives. Raising a kid without a support network is overwhelming, and even more so in modern culture where so many kids are raised in single-parent homes. If you measure success of a lineage over time, having the grandparents die off before they get grandkids would have significant adverse effects.
- delecti 3y ago
  Grandparents sure, but great grandparents? Great great grandparents? I think at a certain point additional surviving generations would be either a neutral or even net disadvantageous change for the greater population. Assuming 20 years per generation, there wouldn't be a huge pressure to live longer than 60-70. We clearly didn't evolve to naturally live forever.
- heresie-dabord 3y ago
  The village/community would be the most successful support model.
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
No, not at all. In more advanced social species, there is an evolutionary advantage to older individuals helping their young.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

Yeah, I mean life expectancy has made great strides in the past 100 odd years worldwide; what we see is a higher occurrence on things like cancer and heart disease or other diseases that become more and more likely with age. There's the pressure on the health care / social systems as well, which is partially compensated now by having people work longer - either by raising the retirement age, or having no state pension so that the elderly are forced to keep working for longer. But your point also stands, treatments like this, IF they become commonplace, may have far-reaching effects that we can't oversee yet.

inglor_cz 3y ago
Hello to Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett sitting on the SCOTUS bench in 2060 or 2070 or possibly even 2100. Many of our political systems are based on the expectation that people grow frail and retire earlier than they actually already do today. The US Senate is becoming a geriatric institution that would put Brezhnev's politburo of 1980 to youthful shame.
- Teever 3y ago
  So what are you saying, that we shouldn't have technological innovation because our governments have stagnated? Or are you saying that we need to have governmental innovation concurrent with technological innovation?
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    The latter. The institutions need to adapt, much like they did adapt to instant communication and the printing press before.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ddgflorida 3y ago
  We can hope.

zug_zug 3y ago

No idea why you're downvoted. The idea that the human body has the formula for immortality 99% right and it just "forgot" to make enough of protein X which has no downsides seems hopelessly naive to me. Just look at existing health interventions, like HGH, and see all the side-effects and risks associated with it.

newZWhoDis 3y ago
Alternative/fun sci-fi plot: The aliens who sped up our evolution by artificially limiting our lifespans did so via relatively sloppy means and there is in fact an “off” switch waiting on some grad student to stumble upon
- gumby 3y ago
  Some alien crashed on this planet about 4.5 Gy ago so made some proteins and nucleic and released them on the planet. Once it started recombining the alien went to sleep or maybe to play some video games while waiting for this process to develop space flight and send some probes that the alien's buddies might encounter and read the message encoded in the DNA: "Hey, could you please swing by and pick me up? My ship got a flat and I don't have a spare"
Teever 3y ago
Now make the same argument about proteins and other nutrients in general. Like, 'The idea that the human body has the formula for living 99% right and it just 'forgot' to make enough of protein X...' and if we just eat enough, often enough... Our bodies weren't designed to work in this environment. They just came to work well enough in an environment like this. That means that there are issues with them, and that they eventually fail. That doesn't mean that we can't overcome these issues like we have overcome others with the use of technology. Anti-aging is like any other technology that we use. It modifies us or our environment for a desired purpose. Is any technology flawless? No. Have they revolutionized our lives and made how the average human lives almost inconceivable to humans from 100kya? Totally. Are we on the cusp of technological developments that will make how we live further unrecognizable. Totally. IVG, artificial wombs, anti-aging/age-reversal, lab grown organs, automatic limb generation (like a salemander). Are all coming and will irrevocably change the human condition. And some of these things are coming in the next decade. Maybe you're right, and we can't have an infinite life span, but I bet we could double life/healthspan, and I think that is coming very soon.

BurningFrog 3y ago

I think aging exists because it enables/speeds up evolution. There are a few organisms that don't seem to age at all. They're very marginal, but prove it's possible.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

chessgecko 3y ago

Is immortality a genetic advantage? I'd imagine it could create a lot of infighting.

TimPC 3y ago
I bet societies without immortality progress faster than societies with immortality socially. A large portion of opinion change occurs intergenerationally with old views dying off, some people change their opinions on major values over time but far fewer people do than we like to think. I think for example it would be far harder to get things like gay marriage passed if people born in 1000 AD were still around today.
- boringg 3y ago
  I think the definition of progress is a key consideration here.
- rowanG077 3y ago
  I don't buy that argument. Just look at the frankly staggering culteral change in the last 20 years. The majority of people alive 20 years ago are alive now. And it still was possible to transform the entire cultural landscape.
  - TimPC 3y ago
    An entirely new generation of people became voting age and that generation is quite progressive on average. A second generation of fairly progressive people aged from unlikely voters to likely voters. And we had 20 years of people worth of deaths with many of those deaths concentrated in an elderly conservative generation. That has huge impacts on issues like gay marriage. Yes, some people did change their minds but not nearly as many as we like to think.
    - rowanG077 3y ago
      You don't go into my main point. The majority of people existing then exist now. The cultural shift is very thorough. Even if all new people are super progressive and all old people are super conservative it does not explain the shift. There must be a significant group of the majority which has internalized these cultural changes.

echelon 3y ago

> There must be a price for injecting increasing quantities of proteins to the body to turn back the clock. Cancer. So many cell death pathways are to guard against cancer.

inglor_cz 3y ago
Nevertheless, humans aren't that much optimized against cancer. The really big mammals such as elephants and whales seem to be very cancer-resistant. So many more cells to go haywire and still they only suffer cancer at a low rate compared to, say, mice. Or even us.

inglor_cz 3y ago

It is unlikely that anti-aging will rely on chemical cocktails forever. The entire field is still fairly new, somewhere where aviation was in 1908 or so. I would guess that the really efficient anti-aging interventions will rejuvenate cells, including stem cells. Interestingly, Dr. Gregory Fahy has some positive results with rejuvenation of the thymus in humans (not in mice). It seems that a well-functioning immune system is a must for longer life.

gumby 3y ago

Though I would very much like to live a lot longer, the society I would live in would be somewhat suckier because of it. The consequences have been extensively explored in the literature for the last 3,500 years at least. Failing that, making QoL a square wave would be a massive win.

etothepii 3y ago
Would they duck for those of us alive today? We (those of us alive today) would like be the absolute masters of the universe.
- gumby 3y ago
  Well, from literature there’s always the Tithonus problem (hence my point about the square wave), plus boredom or, if few have immortality, loneliness. But what I was really thinking was widespread longevity, at least among the wealthy (basically this exists today in all societies): without death things don’t change. Imagine if bezos or musk or Charles Koch, or Murdoch or Xi could live to 150. Imagine if Reagan had lived for six presidential terms…shudder. There would be less “creative destruction” as the old power structures would drag on, and less progress happening. A stagnant, static society seems pretty sucky to me.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

someplaceguy 3y ago

While I agree in principle and I am also not an expert by any means, I think it should be possible to inject a finite amount of substances that eventually cause a change to the composition of the human body to make it functionally immortal, in theory. I think this can be reasoned from three observations: 1. That it is possible to change the DNA of the cells of a living organism by injecting substances in said organism (as evidenced by genetic advances in recent decades?). 2. That the DNA of an organism has an extreme amount of control over the composition of said organism (as evidenced by the amount of diversity in all DNA-based organisms and species and also by the known fact that changes in the DNA of an organism also change how it evolves). 3. That biologically immortal species already exist (e.g. hydras?). That said, I'm pretty sure we're extremely far away from achieving this (unless we can create superintelligent AIs soon).