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Want to live forever? You probably will have that option!

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SaganIsGOAT

Junior Member
Yes, those things aren't natural and look where they've gotten us. The world is literally rotting and telling us that what we're doing is wrong. Denying natural processes by attempting to exert control over them is a losing battle that just leads to needing to exert more and more control to correct for the consequences of the initial attempt at control.

And what did astronauts do when they got to the moon? They looked back at the Earth and were in awe of its beauty. We don't exist without it.

"Nature" isn't battling us. Life isn't a race for "progress." There is no life without death. You cannot live without also dying.

Besides, if everyone stopped dying, the world would descend into total chaos. No organism, planet, star, etc. exists eternally.

Furthermore, to what end? If everyone lived forever or even just for 200 years, we would quickly need multiple other Earths to live on. If life is a race for "progress," as you seem to think it is, then what is at the finish line?

Preach.
 
Yes, those things aren't natural and look where they've gotten us. The world is literally rotting and telling us that what we're doing is wrong. Denying natural processes by attempting to exert control over them is a losing battle that just leads to needing to exert more and more control to correct for the consequences of the initial attempt at control.

And what did astronauts do when they got to the moon? They looked back at the Earth and were in awe of its beauty. We don't exist without it.

"Nature" isn't battling us. Life isn't a race for "progress." There is no life without death. You cannot live without also dying.

Besides, if everyone stopped dying, the world would descend into total chaos. No organism, planet, star, etc. exists eternally.

Furthermore, to what end? If everyone lived forever or even just for 200 years, we would quickly need multiple other Earths to live on. If life is a race for "progress," as you seem to think it is, then what is at the finish line?
It'll probably be a select few. The 1% aren't going to just let immortality slip by. They know how to control luxuries. Put a price tag on it.
 

Onemic

Member
All of you better not change your minds the day these treatments become a reality. From the comments in this thread I'm expecting not to have to wait too long in line.

But I understand the cynicism. It's a simple case of it sounding too good to be true. But if you bothered to read up on the subject you would more easily see through the cognitive bias and realise it's more plausible than you think.

Of course it's plausible. The question though, is if it's plausible within our lifetime, which I dont think it is.
 

Neo C.

Member
I'm ready for this future. And even if you aren't ready, it will come either way.
Ironically, higher life expectancy only means the chance for me to die "stupidly" (in an accident, by murder or terror attack) are going to be higher and higher.

Another huge issue is that even if we take aging and disease out of the equation, there's still the issue of food and resources, which are finite. Even with the current population this is an issue and plenty of people starve while wealthier people eat like kings. But part of the problem is that I have to imagine any theoretical nanobot solution to death and aging would require energy, which would probably have to come from the host. In other words, not only are you increasing the number of mouths to feed, but also the necessary number of calories to continue functioning. Furthermore, since these hypothetical nanobots would probably have solutions to weight gain and overeating, it might lead to the wealthy eating more and more without fear of health implications, leading to further supply issues and possibly even a drastic increase in the price of food, which would have major implications for the less wealthy
Making food is, in the end, a question of energy. We have lots of possibilities to make the growth of our plants and animals more efficient, to lower energy prices and thus making food production even cheaper and so on.

Resources are finite for now, because we can't conquer the space cost effective. Once we go over the breaking point, the amount of resources is basically our solar system (and we only need a very very very small part of it).
 

kavanf1

Member
People will keep dying until science works out how to stop the degradation of telomeres. Aging happens at a genetic level.
 

BitStyle

Unconfirmed Member
I don't know about living forever, but living an extra 50 years would be pretty cool to me.

Though I would probably think differently if I even reach 90
 

Nocebo

Member
"Nature" isn't battling us. Life isn't a race for "progress." There is no life without death. You cannot live without also dying.
I would love to read your scientific research paper on this.
Besides, if everyone stopped dying, the world would descend into total chaos. No organism, planet, star, etc. exists eternally.
Huh? Why? Why would the world descend into total chaos?

Furthermore, to what end? If everyone lived forever or even just for 200 years, we would quickly need multiple other Earths to live on. If life is a race for "progress," as you seem to think it is, then what is at the finish line?
What's the fundamental difference between living 80 years and 200 years that would make the latter a disastrous thing? And why is it so much more different from going from an average life expectancy of 30 to 80?
 

DarkKyo

Member
"Nature" isn't battling us. Life isn't a race for "progress." There is no life without death. You cannot live without also dying.
There can be life without death. If the organism is born into this universe and then is modified/augmented to not die, then that is an example of life without death.

Besides, if everyone stopped dying, the world would descend into total chaos. No organism, planet, star, etc. exists eternally.
Planets and stars aren't biological entities that can be extended in the same way. I mean... technically with the right tech and enough energy you could make a star go on forever, but that's besides the point. Sustaining the life of a biological entity would take far less energy and probably less far-fetched technology. Planets and stars are also not conscious agents interested in their own self preservation. You are all over the place with your comparisons. Either way you may not live forever but it is possible to extend your life long enough to the point where you aren't interested in living anymore.

Furthermore, to what end? If everyone lived forever or even just for 200 years, we would quickly need multiple other Earths to live on. If life is a race for "progress," as you seem to think it is, then what is at the finish line?
Meaning is something you create for yourself. Many don't even think of life in terms of "finish lines". Perhaps you are supposed to thrive in the moment. To create, to love, to experience, to move, to feel, to understand.. it's different for everyone. 200 more years of life would allow you to thrive and grow your mind and further stamp your existence into spacetime. To me it sounds like you don't even want 5 more years, so it must be hard for you to understand those who want 200 more.
 

Neo C.

Member
And by the way, I already "cheated" death once, when I got heavy pneumonia and took anti-biotica. In that sense, I sure won't fight against taking gen therapy or nano machines. If I can get it, I'll get it.
 

DarkKyo

Member
I'd rather be able to get cybernetic implants or transfer my brain into a robot body first.

That tech won't be available until long after life extension therapies. The idea is that if you can survive by jumping from extension therapy to more fruitful extension therapy then you might be able to make it to the brain case stage.
 

rjinaz

Member
I'm sorry but most of this is just seems like nonsense to me.

Yes, those things aren't natural and look where they've gotten us. The world is literally rotting and telling us that what we're doing is wrong. Denying natural processes by attempting to exert control over them is a losing battle that just leads to needing to exert more and more control to correct for the consequences of the initial attempt at control.

There are animals that currently live centuries long like some sharks and turtles. Some trees live for thousands of years. All things from nature.


And what did astronauts do when they got to the moon? They looked back at the Earth and were in awe of its beauty. We don't exist without it.

"Nature" isn't battling us. Life isn't a race for "progress." There is no life without death. You cannot live without also dying.

Says who? Life is life. Why does there have to be a philosophical meaning behind it. You were created by life, your life wasn't predestined. I live just fine without constantly reminding myself of my impending death. If people want to die, if their inevitable death gives them some kind of meaning, then leave that option open to them.

I don't even think people will ever live forever anyway. But extending life hundreds or thousands of years


Besides, if everyone stopped dying, the world would descend into total chaos. No organism, planet, star, etc. exists eternally.

The universe is huge. Human beings could live for a million years and not even explore 1 10th of it. This view point seems a little dramatic. Us living forever would have no grand cosmic effect.

Furthermore, to what end? If everyone lived forever or even just for 200 years, we would quickly need multiple other Earths to live on. If life is a race for "progress," as you seem to think it is, then what is at the finish line?

Who knows. Let's find out. What do people live for now? My day to day doesn't need to have meaning. I just live my life, finding joy out of it where I can. I love the people in my life. For me that's enough. So we explore other worlds. So we live on other planets. We evolve into something else. Who knows.

If people want to die, give them that option. But don't try and make me feel guilty because I don't want it.
People are good at surviving. We'll find a way to find balance. And if we don't, well, the people that die won't be around to care anyway if it all goes to hell.
 

Herne

Member
Maybe now society will start to seriously look at euthanasia. I don't understand why being able to end your own life on your terms if you have say, a long, painful and debilitating disease to look forward to that will only end in your death anyway is something society is averse to.
 
Ha, you kidding?

I'm glad I was born around the right time to die before the global warming/climate change crisis hits peak disaster levels towards the end of the century.
 

ibyea

Banned
I don't see how anything about those research has to do with immortality. Solving the problem of death is a problem far greater than just killing germs. You are just projecting some advancement in medicine into a wild prediction of living forever whether it makes sense or not.
 

Nocebo

Member
I've just come to conclusion that people who say, "I want to live forever" haven't REALLY thought it through all the way. When you really contemplate existing forever you start to see underlying reasons for why you aren't satisfied right here right now.
Funny you should say that because I've come to the conclusion that most people who think longer life spans would cause a number of countless catastrophic problems haven't thought about this possible future for longer than it takes to read the title of the thread.

It seems like most naysayers imagine a life changing technology, not just life extension technology, as how it would be in a vacuum. They imagine this one thing changing and everything else staying the same. However, life changing technologies change people's lives and thus societies. And if there was ever anything that would be life changing it would be literally changing people's lives by extending them.

Over population?
Why do people have/want to have children in the first place? A number of reasons of course but one of the, I think, major reasons is, because it is a matter of now or never. Certainly for women this is true.The window for a woman to have a child will close one day (this day has already been pushed further out, by the way, thanks to medical technology that's not available to just the rich). Which makes it a pressing choice that needs to be made at some point.
Also societal expectations, soft peer pressure of a kind (peers are all having children), etc.
I think the baby making landscape would certainly change somewhat, if not significantly, if the window of being able to have a baby stays open indefinitely.

Let's not forget there are already a number of countries with negative population growth.

Not enough food?
Vertical farms, factory grown meat (not animals but just the meat), genetically modified plants, etc. Technology to produce more better food is being worked on all the time. I'm not sure why people would stop innovating and inventing increasingly efficient ways to produce food. As we've done for as long as our species has been around. In fact resource gathering is basically one of the main things we excel at.

I don't see how anything about those research has to do with immortality. Solving the problem of death is a problem far greater than just killing germs. You are just projecting some advancement in medicine into a wild prediction of living forever whether it makes sense or not.
I'm not saying you're wrong but, what does it entail then, according to you?
 
Ha, you kidding?

I'm glad I was born around the right time to die before the global warming/climate change crisis hits peak disaster levels towards the end of the century.

Pretty much this. There will be a lot of misery on the second half of this century... I don't know if I would want to be here to witness it.

On the other hand, "born too soon to explore the galaxy" :(
 

Kimawolf

Member
You have to solve the problem of our cells dying at a greater rate than they reproduce.
In one of the articles linked they are developing nanomachines to be able to remove individual chromosomes and edit genes. Even turning cancerous cells healthy again. Its not a stretch to think we can edit genes to fix the telomere issue or simply have these machines repair cells quicker than they break down which is something else they say these same machines will be able to do.
 

Onemic

Member
In one of the articles linked they are developing nanomachines to be able to remove individual chromosomes and edit genes. Even turning cancerous cells healthy again. Its not a stretch to think we can edit genes to fix the telomere issue or simply have these machines repair cells quicker than they break down which is something else they say these same machines will be able to do.

In our lifetime tho? I just dont see it
 

Redders

Member
Back in June I went to a talk at the Cheltenham Science Festival abouth this called Who Wants To Live Forever and it was pretty interesting.

Had Aubrey de Grey and Sarah Harper discussing possibilties of longer life. Sarah was a goverment advisor who was stating although official life expentancy in UK is around 82 currently, for babies born now average expactancy is 100 and above just from our diet and healthcare improvements. Said the issue would be about mental and mobility problems.

Aubrey worked in investigating "cleaning" the damage from our bodies to give you another 25 years which then gives more time for research further to continuously doing this so you will not have to be concerned with developing age related illnesses.

If people do start living 150, 200+ years what would this do to the mind?
 

Nocebo

Member
You have to solve the problem of our cells dying at a greater rate than they reproduce.
SENS research foundation has recently had a paper accepted in a scientific journal. "The headline result in this paper is that we are the first team ever to get two of the proteins encoded by genes in the mitochondrial DNA simultaneously functioning in the same cell line..."
The aim is to have back up copies of the mitochondrial DNA in the genome itself.

I'm sure that has significant meaning to you since you seem to be an expert on the subject.
In our lifetime tho? I just dont see it
How much do you read about the subject and developments in the field on a weekly basis would you say?
 

A Fish Aficionado

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
In one of the articles linked they are developing nanomachines to be able to remove individual chromosomes and edit genes. Even turning cancerous cells healthy again. Its not a stretch to think we can edit genes to fix the telomere issue or simply have these machines repair cells quicker than they break down which is something else they say these same machines will be able to do.
Apoptosis, and cell division/growth are linked and complex. Some cancers are definitely due to apaptosis not happening, leading to uncomfortable growth.

We're barely scratching the surface of genetics.
 
I think people underestimate the value that corporations and the government see in people living healthy, working lives forever.

Your government is not happy that you will retire, start sponging resources, stop paying taxes, and eventually die. Your government is not happy with your children, who are going to be huge taxpayer cash sinks for eighteen years (or more) before they become productive. Your corporation is not happy to pay your retirement or maternity leave, nor to provide health coverage for your kids who don't even work for them.

There will be few people more interested in radical life extension being universal than the oligarchs. They may be assholes, but they're self-interested assholes; they aren't going to wish you dead when it's money out of their pocket.

Besides, when you're in control of the world, the possibility to have the same people in that world forever looks pretty enticing, don't you think? Beyond a certain point they're known quantities that are no threat to your control. Why let them be replaced with potentially dangerous unknowns?
 

SDCowboy

Member
Nobody says death is necessary except for you. Humans will find a way around overpopulation. There are tons of solutions for it, both short term and long term.

It is completely necessary with society in it's current form. If people lived forever overpopulation and mass unemployment would run wild within just a hand full of years. I'm not saying there aren't way around it to make it work. But there would have to be radical societal changes. One, by extremely limiting child birth (maybe some kind of lottery system as space opens up) and there would have to be some system in place to assure that living forever wouldn't mean having to work forever or they'd be no jobs for the mass majority of the population.

And no, I couldn't be further from being the only saying death is a necessary part of nature. Life and death is very cycle of how nature functions and survives.
 

Nocebo

Member
It is completely necessary with society in it's current form. If people lived forever overpopulation and mass unemployment would run wild within just a hand full of years. I'm not saying there aren't way around it to make it work. But there would have to be radical societal changes. One, by extremely limiting child birth (maybe some kind of lottery system as space opens up) and there would have to be some system in place to assure that living forever wouldn't mean having to work forever or they'd be no jobs for the mass majority of the population.
You know you're not forced to work right now right? It is just a function of your personal desires and ambitions. Why would that change?
 

SDCowboy

Member
You know you're not forced to work right now right? It is just a function of your personal desires and ambitions. Why would that change?

This has little to do with my point or what I said. I think you missed my point on people needing to not work forever.
 
Just what we need! The same rotten ideas for the rest of this world lifespan.
Immortality is something humans should stay the fuck away from.
 

Fou-Lu

Member
There are so many people in this thread that act like people living longer would stop society from evolving or something. Our society is completely different than what it was even 100 years ago and it often new developments and tech that change it.
 

Nocebo

Member
Ok, if the general masses are no longer working, how are they being supported?
Depends on how society changes. But if nothing changes then with money they have amassed from working and saving. If that money runs out they'd have to start working again.

I suppose you're wondering where all the jobs would come from? Good question. This is an issues we have to deal with anyway on account of the new automation revolution that will likely happen in our life times.

Just what we need! The same rotten ideas for the rest of this world lifespan.
Immortality is something humans should stay the fuck away from.
This could certainly be an issue. But perhaps this is a symptom of our relatively short lives right now. Maybe people will be more concerned about the near to distant future if they know they will be alive in that future.
 
There are so many people in this thread that act like people living longer would stop society from evolving or something. Our society is completely different than what it was even 100 years ago and it often new developments and tech that change it.
Yes, and you know why does that happen? Because of new people.
 

Fou-Lu

Member
Yes, and you know why does that happen? Because of new people.

Yes I do know lots of older people who haven't changed with the times at all, but I also know lots of older people who do.

Humans have a great capacity for change even within one generation.
 

SDCowboy

Member
Depends on how society changes. But if nothing changes then with money they have amassed from working and saving. If that money runs out they'd have to start working again.

I suppose you're wondering where all the jobs would come from? Good question. This is an issues we have to deal with anyway on account of the new automation revolution that will likely happen in our life times.

Exactly my point. Jobs are an issue today. Think of the issue it will be if people are living forever and there is no slowing of reproduction. Unless there was a massive societal change that was in the works for decades leading up to this, the issues of extreme and ever increasing overpopulation would compile at such a rate, I can't even fathom how quickly the world would crumble.

On top of that, do we even know how the human brain would handle living for 200 or 300+ years? How do we know if, even with a healthy brain, we'd emotionally be able to bear it? There are so many factors to this, there is no way anything like this goes into effect in the next several life times.
 

Nocebo

Member
To all the people who think longer life is a bad idea because of over population, food shortage, etc.

Should we shut down all the hospitals of the world?
Should we stop finding ways to fight/cure cancers, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease and other chronic diseases?

If not, you realize the result of finding cures for diseases like this is almost certainly a longer life span for most people.
Exactly my point. Jobs are an issue today. Think of the issue it will be if people are living forever and there is no slowing of reproduction. Unless there was a massive societal change that was in the works for decades leading up to this, the issues of extreme and ever increasing overpopulation would compile at such a rate, I can't even fathom how quickly the world would crumble.

On top of that, do we even know how the human brain would handle living for 200 or 300+ years? How do we know if, even with a healthy brain, we'd emotionally be able to bear it? There are so many factors to this, there is no way anything like this goes into effect in the next several life times.
Good news! there is a massive societal change that has been in the works since forever. Society is always changing to accommodate society disrupting technologies. Remember when we reduced the world maternal death rate by 45%?
since 1990
. Boy how the world was thrown into chaos then, but hey we manage to pull through.
 
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