3 ms·

It's a powerful story, but it's simply not relevant to my argument, and I suspect the reason you think it is relevant is because you've deeply internalized the

by feoren 2y ago

It's a powerful story, but it's simply not relevant to my argument, and I suspect the reason you think it is relevant is because you've deeply internalized the inevitability of death. Of course you, and we all, have: it's been inevitable for the entirety of human existence. But humans were never able to fly across the ocean for the vast majority of our existence either, nor were we able to orbit the Earth or communicate at near light speed with the other side of the Earth. People who say death is inevitable are putting it in a special category: it's the one thing humanity will never be able to solve with technology? We can colonize other planets, split the atom, develop computers and AI, but keeping oxygen flowing to the cells is just forever beyond our reach? No. Your story is about a man's denial that his father, currently in critical condition, would die. Yes, the probability that humanity would solve death in the hour of life his father had remaining was low. I'm talking about humanity's denial that death is just a giant bag of problems that we can, eventually, solve one by one. The probability that humanity will solve death in the next thousand years is nearly 100%; the probability that it will be solved in our lifetimes may be low, but it's not 0. (Keep in mind, 1000 years is ten times the lifespan of an exponentially accelerating medical field, not simply 1% of the whole human history in which basically no progress was made.) If we had a simple, maintainable, cheap machine that could keep people alive for 100 years without a working heart or lungs, there is no ethical dilemma, and the line between "killing them" and "letting them die" becomes pretty blurry. The reason this matters is that once we actually start to realize that death is a problem that we can actually solve, then we can get the fuck to work on it! We could be investing so much more than we are in treatments like ECMO. There should be a national moon-landing-level initiative to make these machines available to everyone. But the longer we mope around with our learned helplessness, calling people like me naive and in denial, the more people will die needlessly.

FireBeyond 2y ago
Then going to your point, there are many discussions around theoretical upper bounds for human life, even factoring in technology. Studies look at blood cells and footsteps and establishing hard limits. One of the more recent ones suggests around 150 (today it's around 120). > with things that usually kill us omitted, our body's capacity to restore equilibrium to its myriad structural and metabolic systems after disruptions still fades with time. And even if we make it through life with few stressors, this incremental decline sets the maximum life span for humans at somewhere between 120 and 150 years. In the end, if the obvious hazards do not take our lives, this fundamental loss of resilience will do so. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-could-live-up-to-150-years-new-research-suggests/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-could-live...
- feoren 2y ago
  Ctrl+F > "telomere" -- 0 results Weird to not mention telomeres in that article. It sounds like basically what they're talking about. We already know about Telomerase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase We are rapidly developing gene editing, e.g. with CRISPR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR Not to mention that we already know about "immortal" organisms that beat this "limit". There's no reason to think that "fundamental limit" is anything more than yet one more problem to solve.
strgcmc 2y ago
Leonardo da Vinci imagined flying machines. When most people may have believed it to be a priori impossible during his time, instead da Vinci probably believed it to be simply another (solvable) engineering problem. That being said, even if da Vinci had absolute certainty that his viewpoint was correct, that heavier-than-air flying machines were a factual inevitability... what could da Vinci have done to capitalize on this knowledge? Other than draw some diagrams and hope future generations pick it up, but in his own contemporary timeframe, this knowledge of the inevitable future would still be generally useless to him. It would not affect his daily life, it likely would not change a single decision that he would make otherwise. Likewise, let's say you're right, that conquering death is an inevitably solvable engineering problem. So what would you do with that knowledge, right now? Of the cases called out in the article, of people who could not live off of ECMO, how does having this knowledge of inevitable immortality that's coming 100s of years later, how would that change the decision-making rubric today for those patients or whether those ECMO machines are better used on someone else? I venture to say that, even if you knew with absolute certainty that engineered-immortality would be achieved by a known future date, say 200 years from now (though it took ~400 years between da Vinci and heavier-than-air flight)... IMHO it shouldn't make any difference at all to the present-day decisions of how those ECMO patients should be treated today. Only if you knew the date of pending immortality was let's say, <10 years away, would you make some kind of drastic push to try and keep everyone alive barely long enough to benefit from that breakthrough. ... In fact, I vaguely remember reading a short story about this very conceit, of generations of humans in a fictional setting, working towards immortality, and how at a certain point, they reached a stage of awareness that, achieving immortality was likely going to happen soon in the next generation, so what would they do with that "last generation" of humans to ever need to face death? How would people feel, how would they react, if they knew that they were just a little bit too early to benefit from the breakthrough that might come 20 years from now? Sadly can't recall what that story was called or any more details that would make it easier to search for.
- feoren 2y ago
  For your analogy to hold, let's assume that everyone on Earth in 1500 A.D. had a strongly vested interested in heavier-than-air flight (as they do with not dying today), and Leonardo da Vinci was completely convinced it was possible. You assert it wouldn't have made a difference. I assert it could have changed the course of human history. Leonardo would have done what everyone like him did around that time: convinced a wealthy patron to fund his experiments. If he had gotten many very rich nobles convinced as well, he may have gotten tons of money to hire lots of people to build and test various designs. We might have had heavier-than-air flight 400 years earlier. Of course, without powered engines, they wouldn't have had nearly the success they have today, but one can imagine some pretty elaborate gliders, or possibly hot air balloons, showing up hundreds of years earlier than they actually did. So I absolutely reject your notion of "it would never have made any difference." The fallacy that history must always have gone exactly as it did is a common one, but it is a fallacy nonetheless. > Likewise, let's say you're right, that conquering death is an inevitably solvable engineering problem. So what would you do with that knowledge, right now? I already told you: organize a nation-wide (or international) Moon-landing level effort to make ECMO machines 100x cheaper, more portable, and more widely available by the end of the decade. Spend 4% of GDP on it. Keep spending 4% of GDP on similar research. > Only if you knew the date of pending immortality was let's say, <10 years away, would you make some kind of drastic push to try and keep everyone alive barely long enough to benefit from that breakthrough. It's not one date. It's a long path with many problems to solve along the way. It may indeed take hundreds of years to achieve complete agelessness. But every year that we wait to start (and we are waiting, because of our belief that it's not possible), is another year that people are needlessly dying. Every problem solved along the way is a few more years for many more people. > I vaguely remember reading a short story about this very conceit, Yes, bad sci-fi has used the inevitability of death as a plot element for a long time, along with the silly argument "do we really want to live forever!? BUT EVIL!!" It's never really held up to scrutiny.
krisoft 2y ago
> There should be a national moon-landing-level initiative to make these machines available to everyone You are doing a logical jump here. You argue, quite convincingly that “solving death” is a problem worth pursuing, and we should prioritise it higher than we are already do. We are on the same page about that. Then you posit that we should pour huge amount of money into development of ECMO. But you don’t say why? Why do you think pouring all those resources in particular to ECMO research is the best way towards “solving death”? ECMO even in the best possible dream circumstances will always remain a shitty, painfull and risky procedure which can only help a few. On the other hand senescence will affect every one of us who is lucky enough to live long enough. For some reason, most likely for a bunch of reasons, our bodies start to fall apart as we age. Understanding how exactly that happens and what can be done about it should be a higher priority. The national moon-landing-level initiative monies you plan to pour into ECMO research and development should be spent on senescence research and anti-senescence development. Which future do you want to live in? One where masses are kept kinda-sorta alive by machines, always on the knife edge of dying from a bleed, or a blood clot, or an infection? Or one where 150 year olds go rock climbing and windsurfing because through medical and technological advancements we figured out how to keep their bodies younger longer?
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  I want to live in the real world where most people live a hopefully fulfilling natural life of 75-100 years and then "make room" for the next generation. I want a world where geezers like Joe Biden and Donald Trump are not our choices for who will be running things. Imagine if they were 40 years older than they are. People get old, and die. It's OK.
- feoren 2y ago
  ECMO is short term, and you're talking long term. We're not going to cure aging in 10 years. We probably could have an ECMO in every home in 10 years. Of course senescence research must be a part of it. And that research will benefit tremendously if cheap ECMO keeps a few veteran senescence researchers alive who otherwise would have died of heart attacks.
  - deleted 2y ago

by feoren 2y ago

FireBeyond 2y ago

Then going to your point, there are many discussions around theoretical upper bounds for human life, even factoring in technology. Studies look at blood cells and footsteps and establishing hard limits. One of the more recent ones suggests around 150 (today it's around 120). > with things that usually kill us omitted, our body's capacity to restore equilibrium to its myriad structural and metabolic systems after disruptions still fades with time. And even if we make it through life with few stressors, this incremental decline sets the maximum life span for humans at somewhere between 120 and 150 years. In the end, if the obvious hazards do not take our lives, this fundamental loss of resilience will do so. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-could-live-up-to-150-years-new-research-suggests/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-could-live...

feoren 2y ago
Ctrl+F > "telomere" -- 0 results Weird to not mention telomeres in that article. It sounds like basically what they're talking about. We already know about Telomerase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase We are rapidly developing gene editing, e.g. with CRISPR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR Not to mention that we already know about "immortal" organisms that beat this "limit". There's no reason to think that "fundamental limit" is anything more than yet one more problem to solve.

strgcmc 2y ago

Leonardo da Vinci imagined flying machines. When most people may have believed it to be a priori impossible during his time, instead da Vinci probably believed it to be simply another (solvable) engineering problem. That being said, even if da Vinci had absolute certainty that his viewpoint was correct, that heavier-than-air flying machines were a factual inevitability... what could da Vinci have done to capitalize on this knowledge? Other than draw some diagrams and hope future generations pick it up, but in his own contemporary timeframe, this knowledge of the inevitable future would still be generally useless to him. It would not affect his daily life, it likely would not change a single decision that he would make otherwise. Likewise, let's say you're right, that conquering death is an inevitably solvable engineering problem. So what would you do with that knowledge, right now? Of the cases called out in the article, of people who could not live off of ECMO, how does having this knowledge of inevitable immortality that's coming 100s of years later, how would that change the decision-making rubric today for those patients or whether those ECMO machines are better used on someone else? I venture to say that, even if you knew with absolute certainty that engineered-immortality would be achieved by a known future date, say 200 years from now (though it took ~400 years between da Vinci and heavier-than-air flight)... IMHO it shouldn't make any difference at all to the present-day decisions of how those ECMO patients should be treated today. Only if you knew the date of pending immortality was let's say, <10 years away, would you make some kind of drastic push to try and keep everyone alive barely long enough to benefit from that breakthrough. ... In fact, I vaguely remember reading a short story about this very conceit, of generations of humans in a fictional setting, working towards immortality, and how at a certain point, they reached a stage of awareness that, achieving immortality was likely going to happen soon in the next generation, so what would they do with that "last generation" of humans to ever need to face death? How would people feel, how would they react, if they knew that they were just a little bit too early to benefit from the breakthrough that might come 20 years from now? Sadly can't recall what that story was called or any more details that would make it easier to search for.

feoren 2y ago
For your analogy to hold, let's assume that everyone on Earth in 1500 A.D. had a strongly vested interested in heavier-than-air flight (as they do with not dying today), and Leonardo da Vinci was completely convinced it was possible. You assert it wouldn't have made a difference. I assert it could have changed the course of human history. Leonardo would have done what everyone like him did around that time: convinced a wealthy patron to fund his experiments. If he had gotten many very rich nobles convinced as well, he may have gotten tons of money to hire lots of people to build and test various designs. We might have had heavier-than-air flight 400 years earlier. Of course, without powered engines, they wouldn't have had nearly the success they have today, but one can imagine some pretty elaborate gliders, or possibly hot air balloons, showing up hundreds of years earlier than they actually did. So I absolutely reject your notion of "it would never have made any difference." The fallacy that history must always have gone exactly as it did is a common one, but it is a fallacy nonetheless. > Likewise, let's say you're right, that conquering death is an inevitably solvable engineering problem. So what would you do with that knowledge, right now? I already told you: organize a nation-wide (or international) Moon-landing level effort to make ECMO machines 100x cheaper, more portable, and more widely available by the end of the decade. Spend 4% of GDP on it. Keep spending 4% of GDP on similar research. > Only if you knew the date of pending immortality was let's say, <10 years away, would you make some kind of drastic push to try and keep everyone alive barely long enough to benefit from that breakthrough. It's not one date. It's a long path with many problems to solve along the way. It may indeed take hundreds of years to achieve complete agelessness. But every year that we wait to start (and we are waiting, because of our belief that it's not possible), is another year that people are needlessly dying. Every problem solved along the way is a few more years for many more people. > I vaguely remember reading a short story about this very conceit, Yes, bad sci-fi has used the inevitability of death as a plot element for a long time, along with the silly argument "do we really want to live forever!? BUT EVIL!!" It's never really held up to scrutiny.

krisoft 2y ago

> There should be a national moon-landing-level initiative to make these machines available to everyone You are doing a logical jump here. You argue, quite convincingly that “solving death” is a problem worth pursuing, and we should prioritise it higher than we are already do. We are on the same page about that. Then you posit that we should pour huge amount of money into development of ECMO. But you don’t say why? Why do you think pouring all those resources in particular to ECMO research is the best way towards “solving death”? ECMO even in the best possible dream circumstances will always remain a shitty, painfull and risky procedure which can only help a few. On the other hand senescence will affect every one of us who is lucky enough to live long enough. For some reason, most likely for a bunch of reasons, our bodies start to fall apart as we age. Understanding how exactly that happens and what can be done about it should be a higher priority. The national moon-landing-level initiative monies you plan to pour into ECMO research and development should be spent on senescence research and anti-senescence development. Which future do you want to live in? One where masses are kept kinda-sorta alive by machines, always on the knife edge of dying from a bleed, or a blood clot, or an infection? Or one where 150 year olds go rock climbing and windsurfing because through medical and technological advancements we figured out how to keep their bodies younger longer?

SoftTalker 2y ago
I want to live in the real world where most people live a hopefully fulfilling natural life of 75-100 years and then "make room" for the next generation. I want a world where geezers like Joe Biden and Donald Trump are not our choices for who will be running things. Imagine if they were 40 years older than they are. People get old, and die. It's OK.
feoren 2y ago
ECMO is short term, and you're talking long term. We're not going to cure aging in 10 years. We probably could have an ECMO in every home in 10 years. Of course senescence research must be a part of it. And that research will benefit tremendously if cheap ECMO keeps a few veteran senescence researchers alive who otherwise would have died of heart attacks.
- deleted 2y ago