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>This is one of those rare times that powerful people make bold choices that catalyze a shift in the world's thought paradigm. Let's just go ahead and pump the

>This is one of those rare times that powerful people make bold choices that catalyze a shift in the world's thought paradigm. Let's just go ahead and pump the brakes here before we start clapping each other on the back and talking about shifted paradigms. I'll gladly join in the happy-clappy fest once some actual results come through. But saying we've catalyzed a shift in the world's thought paradigm (that is a really pretentious way of saying "this might make people think differently", by the way) at the announcement of a new product might be just a wee bit premature.

sp332 13y ago
Changing the way people around the world think about death is pretty significant, though. It's going to rewrite important aspects of many cultures. Edit: I mean "make people think differently" is underselling it.
- melling 13y ago
  Landing on the moon in 1969 rewrote a lot too. I bet if you asked people back then what the future would be like, the space program would look a little different. All we're doing today is announcing a moon shot.
  - Florin_Andrei 13y ago
    A great problem is the current mindset. Many, many people think of life extension as undesirable. It's mind-boggling at first sight, but then you understand it for what it is: the Stockholm Syndrome, with Death as the hostage-taker, and all the life-extension-deniers as the hostages. We need to get out of that hole first. Google is doing the right thing.
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      http://lesswrong.com/lw/6vq/on_the_unpopularity_of_cryonics_life_sucks_but_at/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/6vq/on_the_unpopularity_of_cryonics_...
    - palimpsests 13y ago
      Thinking that death is a problem or 'a bad thing that happens' is incredibly short-sighted. Improving the well-being of humanity in general is a great goal; life extension can be a different topic entirely.
      - mcv 13y ago
        While I'd love to live a thousand years (as long as it's in decent health), the big danger to society is obviously that it'll be the very rich that will live that long, and they'll hold on to their power that much longer. It creates an even bigger division between rich and poor. Imagine what the world would look like if the medieval elite were still alive today. It's good that the people in power die every once in a while.
        corporalagumbo 13y ago
        Awesome novel idea.
      - Malician 13y ago
        The problem that I see with this statement, from my perspective: If everyone died at 30, everyone would say the same thing about life extension past 30. If everyone died at 200, everyone would say the same thing about life extension past 200. Why does death have to be where it is now? Natural death from aging comes a little longer than a few other causes of death tend to hit, but it's still very, very soon. People's twitch thinking skills start to decline so early (even in the 20s), and while they can more than make up for it through increasing knowledge, we have so little time to build that knowledge before we have to go.
PeterisP 13y ago
An interesting point from one of Calico's announcements is a statement that curing all cancer would only add ~3 years to the expected lifespan. This is thought provoking - if even a perfect solution to such a problem won't give us what we want, then we do need to "make people think differently" and try to focus on a different, bigger problem than the current approach of trying to strike out separate illnesses. By the way, allowing medicine to think about not only "how to bring a broken-person to average" but "how to bring an average person to above-average" would also require a major change in the way of thinking for the whole area. Some homo sapiens are extremely resistant for diseases, some are smarter than average, some have much lower aging damage. Instead of thinking how to fix a genetic disease by replacing a broken gene with the "average" one; we should think about what is the best that we, as a species, could be.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  To me the (potential) benefit is not life extension but healthier lives.
  - jclos 13y ago
    I agree. The goal should be to achieve the best compromise between quality and length. Pushing from 80 to 130 is good and all, but I would prefer the research to be focused on preserving youthfulness rather than life in and for itself, i.e. I would rather die a young 80 year old than a decrepit 130 year old walking corpse. Of course, even better would be to die a young 130 y.o., or not die at all.
    - PeterisP 13y ago
      Well, but that's exactly what anti-aging research is about. If you learn how to fix heart disease or cure cancer or cure Alzheimers, then anyway afterwards you are a frail, decrepit person with a couple more years to live; but if you delay or fix the actual aging issues, then it prolongs the time that you are healthy and well-functioning. Take a look at, for example, http://youtu.be/qMAwnA5WvLc http://youtu.be/qMAwnA5WvLc (TEDx, Aubrey de Grey) linked in another thread.

sp332 13y ago

Changing the way people around the world think about death is pretty significant, though. It's going to rewrite important aspects of many cultures. Edit: I mean "make people think differently" is underselling it.

melling 13y ago
Landing on the moon in 1969 rewrote a lot too. I bet if you asked people back then what the future would be like, the space program would look a little different. All we're doing today is announcing a moon shot.
- Florin_Andrei 13y ago
  A great problem is the current mindset. Many, many people think of life extension as undesirable. It's mind-boggling at first sight, but then you understand it for what it is: the Stockholm Syndrome, with Death as the hostage-taker, and all the life-extension-deniers as the hostages. We need to get out of that hole first. Google is doing the right thing.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    http://lesswrong.com/lw/6vq/on_the_unpopularity_of_cryonics_life_sucks_but_at/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/6vq/on_the_unpopularity_of_cryonics_...
  - palimpsests 13y ago
    Thinking that death is a problem or 'a bad thing that happens' is incredibly short-sighted. Improving the well-being of humanity in general is a great goal; life extension can be a different topic entirely.
    - mcv 13y ago
      While I'd love to live a thousand years (as long as it's in decent health), the big danger to society is obviously that it'll be the very rich that will live that long, and they'll hold on to their power that much longer. It creates an even bigger division between rich and poor. Imagine what the world would look like if the medieval elite were still alive today. It's good that the people in power die every once in a while.
      - corporalagumbo 13y ago
        Awesome novel idea.
    - Malician 13y ago
      The problem that I see with this statement, from my perspective: If everyone died at 30, everyone would say the same thing about life extension past 30. If everyone died at 200, everyone would say the same thing about life extension past 200. Why does death have to be where it is now? Natural death from aging comes a little longer than a few other causes of death tend to hit, but it's still very, very soon. People's twitch thinking skills start to decline so early (even in the 20s), and while they can more than make up for it through increasing knowledge, we have so little time to build that knowledge before we have to go.

PeterisP 13y ago

An interesting point from one of Calico's announcements is a statement that curing all cancer would only add ~3 years to the expected lifespan. This is thought provoking - if even a perfect solution to such a problem won't give us what we want, then we do need to "make people think differently" and try to focus on a different, bigger problem than the current approach of trying to strike out separate illnesses. By the way, allowing medicine to think about not only "how to bring a broken-person to average" but "how to bring an average person to above-average" would also require a major change in the way of thinking for the whole area. Some homo sapiens are extremely resistant for diseases, some are smarter than average, some have much lower aging damage. Instead of thinking how to fix a genetic disease by replacing a broken gene with the "average" one; we should think about what is the best that we, as a species, could be.

anigbrowl 13y ago
To me the (potential) benefit is not life extension but healthier lives.
- jclos 13y ago
  I agree. The goal should be to achieve the best compromise between quality and length. Pushing from 80 to 130 is good and all, but I would prefer the research to be focused on preserving youthfulness rather than life in and for itself, i.e. I would rather die a young 80 year old than a decrepit 130 year old walking corpse. Of course, even better would be to die a young 130 y.o., or not die at all.
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    Well, but that's exactly what anti-aging research is about. If you learn how to fix heart disease or cure cancer or cure Alzheimers, then anyway afterwards you are a frail, decrepit person with a couple more years to live; but if you delay or fix the actual aging issues, then it prolongs the time that you are healthy and well-functioning. Take a look at, for example, http://youtu.be/qMAwnA5WvLc http://youtu.be/qMAwnA5WvLc (TEDx, Aubrey de Grey) linked in another thread.