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British biologist Aubrey De Grey believes that fundamentally, the human body is a machine that can be repaired like a car or anything else, and hence, there's no reason to think medicine can make natural aging a thing of the past. In fact, he thinks there is a 50 percent chance that the first age reversal technologies will be available within the next 25-30 years or so.
So if you can make it to the year 2035-2040 or something like that, and still be in fairly decent shape, and he is right, not only will you not need to expect to die around 80 or 90, but medicine will actually be able to make you young again! I will only be in my 40s or at most early 50s by this time, I think anyone born after 1970, certainly after 1980 has a pretty good shot at living basically forever, hundreds of years, if he's right.
Of course people will still die occasionally, from accidents and murder and stuff like that. The other step of course too is defeat all diseases - aging is essentially the ultimate disease so once we have that cured I don't think the other illnesses will be that difficult to defeat.
The main critics to his plans aren't religious people, though I'm sure a lot of them are unhappy about it too, but rather the Malthusians who think the world is overpopulated as it is and people need to die to 'make room' for other people/the Earth.
Aubrey makes a very good rebuttal of that, saying that his technology would also slow down menopause and thus people wouldn't have to have children in a narrow window (ie theirs teens to early 40s) but could wait 100 years or more if they wanted to. The population would actually continue to grow, but at a much slower pace than it is now, and we would buy ourselves a lot more time to think of solutions as to other places humans could live, for example colonizing Mars and then other planets and even star systems.
It might all sound ridiculously naive and optimistic, but when you think about it - why COULDN'T we cheat death? I mean of course eventually the Universe itself will die, but there's no reason we couldn't have indefinite lifespans, the human body is just a very very complex machine and there's no godly force stopping a body and brain from existing thousands even millions of years.
If I were ruler of the world, i would stop all wars and armaments now and put that money towards the Methuselah Foundation. Maybe I would get sick of living after 300 or 400 years. Maybe i wouldn't, but I think everyone who desires to should not be denied the choice just because some people are cynical.
It might all sound ridiculously naive and optimistic, but when you think about it - why COULDN'T we cheat death?
What a man does in life echoes in eternity. (I think that quote is from the movie Gladiator).
So in terms of the mark, impact and lives of the living that still remain on Earth, it is possible to cheat death already. It is not the amount of total years that make a person's life great but the amount of living they do within the years they have.
As for the socio-economic impact, countries with programs like Social Security would go bankrupt if they did not alter the age of 'retirenment' and ability to secure the money from such programs, but they would have to factor in that some people still might not be able to work and would need old age benefits younger - still in their 60s or 70s because during their life they could not afford to have the advanced treatments that would have enabled them to live longer and stay younger.
The world is already incredibly over populated and there are limited resources available to sustain the people that already exist - so competition for those much needed resources to sustain an older and ever increasing population would lead to more wars on a global scale and that in itself would aid in limiting any increases in the population. At least amongst the social classes of people that were forced by their governments to fight in those wars. Assuming it is not the elite that could afford the medical and bio-engineering care that would lead them to live longer and healthier lives.
What a man does in life echoes in eternity. (I think that quote is from the movie Gladiator).
See, I've never found that definition of immortality satisfying at all. If I'm not here to see my influence on the world, who cares even?
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Originally Posted by Skydive Outlaw
As for the socio-economic impact, countries with programs like Social Security would go bankrupt if they did not alter the age of 'retirenment' and ability to secure the money from such programs, but they would have to factor in that some people still might not be able to work and would need old age benefits younger - still in their 60s or 70s because during their life they could not afford to have the advanced treatments that would have enabled them to live longer and stay younger.
Social Security is sort of screwed as it is though. I think if we succeed in curing aging, we'll definitely have to re-think work. Maybe um, people could alternate between careers and long breaks of at least a couple decades, or we could just get machines to do all the hard work and life could be about leisure and art and we'd only work when it was fun or interesting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skydive Outlaw
The world is already incredibly over populated and there are limited resources available to sustain the people that already exist - so competition for those much needed resources to sustain an older and ever increasing population would lead to more wars on a global scale and that in itself would aid in limiting any increases in the population. At least amongst the social classes of people that were forced by their governments to fight in those wars. Assuming it is not the elite that could afford the medical and bio-engineering care that would lead them to live longer and healthier lives.
Incredibly over-populated? Says who? Yes of course, resources by definition are limited, and certain kinds of resources, such as oil and seafood, are indeed in dire decline. At the same time though, there are more overweight people than there are starving people. Those who think we should 'thin the herd' always point to Africa and Asia, when really it's us who are using up the lion's share of the Earth's resources. And life extension technology will actually cause the birth rate to slow, though it will prevent the baby boom, my parents' generation, from dying off in the middle of this century.
The whole issue of whether only the elite would get the technology, is a totally separate issue. Whether humans live 80 years or 8,000 years, the entire setup of inequality is unjust as it is.
If they do release the cure to aging and people don't wanna take it, and would rather die a long, painful death by old age, be my guest, but don't force me to do it with you! =D
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It would totally turn society and the world upside down. Virtual immortality is extremely rare in nature - I think there's a species of jellyfish which is 'immortal' in a way - but I don't think that's QUITE the same.
I think it's great in theory, and I do wish Aubrey and others like him the best of luck in their research, and hope governments at least receive it positively give it some/funding. Of course if they actually DID discover this Elixir of the youth the implications would be mind-blowing...
Would it be at first only available to the rich? If so, what of super-jealous poor people killing these Elven super-people? lol
I think a sizable percentage wouldnt' take the option even if they could, which might take care of the population thing for awhile. If my life wasn't too bad I wouldn't mind living a few extra centuries, as long as the world isn't too effed up lol.
I'll pass on this technology. Resources are running out as is especially water which is always my biggest concern when relocating. The earth's resources are extremely polluted, the soil is producing inferior products and the animals eaten are becoming more frail all the time. I am not sure who this technology would actually appeal to either but I bet a lot fewer people than you would think would be interested. I used to want to live to be 102 until I got into my 50's, now I believe I will be finished with all I need and want to accomplish before that time and I'll step aside to make room for others, no problem.
Who can afford to live forever? There aren't enough jobs, in the US at least, to go around for the people who are working age now. How does one continue to support themselves? And Social Security won't be able to handle the aging baby boomer population as it is, much less adding immortal people to it. Not to mention the drain on natural resources.
It would be good if this technology could somehow be used to cure illness to the point where people could live a lengthy but normal lifespan, as opposed to dying young at 10, 30 or even 50.
I'll admit that I would like to see how the story "plays out". With the accelerated speed of the technical advances made in the last half century - I cannot imagine the world 100, 500, 1000 years from now.
05-29-2012, 03:34 AM
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I am skeptical for life extension with humans on this planet that reaches immortality/permanent levels and even skeptical for many humans being able to live to 110 years to 150 years old.
At the best, that biologist could maybe significantly increase the average lifespan for about 10 years, but this is it, such as up to around 90 years old life expectancy.
That biologist shows some substantial thought provoking ideas to this, but some of it is still quite overly idealistic and not realistic.
The world currently is already dealing with some overpopulation and depleting resources. It takes a lot of effort for those resources to be more permanent.
Having people that reach immortality levels and very rapidly growing lifespan on this planet does not help with overpopulation and world resources, and can cause extra problems related to that.
The biologist’s science/technology ambitions and projects should be supported/given some government funds only for just slightly increasing people’s life expectancy up to 5 to 10 more years and not for much more.
Most people in the world already believe in an afterlife, and have spiritual/religious beliefs for where they go next after their lives on this planet, so they rely on that instead for their perceived views of how immortality can happen.
The ancient Taoists were very into longevity, and had a number of health treatments (acupuncture being one of them) designed to extend life. In the early 20th Century, China announced that one of these Taoists monks had just died at the age of 230, approximately (I don't remember the exact number, it was well over 200). The US Congress sent a congratulatory letter. This is one thing that lead to the creation of the film, "Lost Horizon" and the myth of Shangri-La, a place where people age much more slowly.
I don't know how Taoist monks are doing today. It could make an interesting study.
The thing I fear most about this technology is that it would likely only be available to the very wealthy, especially in the early going. This would give the wealthy elite even more time to accumulate wealth, thereby concentrating their power and influence. Also, with people working in careers that they'd never retire from, how will the young people ever get a foothold in life? They wouldn't, forever shut out of the "good life" by those who were able to get the "treatment" early on.
I think this whole line of research is just bad news all around, and it would behoove us to encourage our government to severely limit the use of this technology going forward, instead, we should focus our efforts on improving the quality of the lives we have currently.
I'm pretty impressed at how unpopular the idea is!
Yes, life gets tiring, but is that because life is inherently tiring, or simply because the civilization we live in makes us slaves and physical aging, which would be reversed with this technology, is so painful and exhausting?
Why should we limit extension of life to only 5/10 years? I do not think economic inequality is a good reason. Most technologies in a capitalist system go to the rich first, should we halt all innovation period then?
As for the afterlife thing, I think it's a possibility, but not one that's proven. Until I am convinced an afterlife does exist, and that it is pleasurable, or I grow to hate life so much I'd prefer non-existence, I'm gonna support life extension.
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