Some people are so stubborn centuries would make no change but it seems most (myself included in some ways) are only mildly stubborn and time would bring about change. Perhaps another main issue could be overpopulation. I don't think longer life would mean making babies longer (unless it caused women to be able to have children even later in life) but if people live longer the numbers would got up faster. Do we pass laws telling how many babies people can have, require people to get sterilized, just hope that people stop reproducing so quickly, or what?

You would quickly experience a Malthusian catastrophe if we were successfully able to banish old age as a cause of (or contribution to) death. Although, we might be able to count on infectious disease, accidents, acts of violence, etc, to maintain a reasonable death rate.

Of course, you could always tie the right to reproduce to the right to live indefinitely -- those who choose to live indefinitely may not reproduce. However, you then quickly get a stagnation of society as no new minds and new ideas come into existence.

Or you breed like Catholic rabbits then decide to live to 1000.

If I could stay in my prime or close to it for 100 years I'd definitely sign up for that. But I've seen people that reach 90 or 110, that's not a life I want to live. So they had better get this up and running in the next 15-20 years. No rush.

Life sentences would be a doddle too.

pcCoder wrote:Some people are so stubborn centuries would make no change but it seems most (myself included in some ways) are only mildly stubborn and time would bring about change. Perhaps another main issue could be overpopulation. I don't think longer life would mean making babies longer (unless it caused women to be able to have children even later in life) but if people live longer the numbers would got up faster. Do we pass laws telling how many babies people can have, require people to get sterilized, just hope that people stop reproducing so quickly, or what?

I don't think there is much of a moral dilemma there. Under no circumstances, if extreme life extension beyond the current theoretical maximum of 120-130 became a reality, noone in their right mind would say that the right of existing individuals to live is outweighed by someone else's reproductive rights. That would be one of the most morally reprehensible positions one could make, saying that someone else must die so to make way for other people. It simply isn't going to happen, and neither will any government ever be able to make biological immortality illegal.

Overpopulation is caused directly as a result of breeding, and in the future (and this may be true even if extreme longevity does not come into fruition), human beings are going to have to make a decision as to whether uncontrolled breeding and "reproductive rights" are more important than the survival of the human race. If circumstances and living conditions get bad enough, I don't find a 1-child policy to be out of the question, even in western democracies. The preservation of the species is more important than the "right" to continue rearing out countless children at the expense of everyone else, and subsequently adding to the misery and suffering endured as a result of unsustainable resource consumption, climate change, and ecological destruction.

sweitzen wrote:
Of course, you could always tie the right to reproduce to the right to live indefinitely -- those who choose to live indefinitely may not reproduce. However, you then quickly get a stagnation of society as no new minds and new ideas come into existence.

I don't think that is true at all. I believe "old people" are actually society's greatest asset in terms of innovation and ingenuity. Old people generally acquire more skills, knowledge, wisdom and experience as they age. If getting older did not mean getting sicker or decrepit, then rather than shoving the elderly away like cattle into nursing homes, these "old people" would continue to be productive and independent and be able to put their accumulated wisdom and experience in helping humanity solve some of its greatest challenges in addition to being valuable mentors to whatever remaining younger generations there are. Typically, the people at the cutting edge of and the greatest contributors to just about any niche are PhDs with decades of experience in their respective fields. I think it is the greatest tragedy that just when a person nears the stage of self actualization, that their potential is taken away from them by the deterioration and suffering that accompanies old age, and resources have to be spent training yet another generation of delinquents who are expected to relearn everything their elderly peers had already mastered before being useful.

bioeng wrote:Under no circumstances, if extreme life extension beyond the current theoretical maximum of 120-130 became a reality, noone in their right mind would say that the right of existing individuals to live is outweighed by someone else's reproductive rights. That would be one of the most morally reprehensible positions one could make, saying that someone else must die so to make way for other people. It simply isn't going to happen, and neither will any government ever be able to make biological immortality illegal.

Unfortunately, it's a pretty common view that old people are intrinsically less valuable as people than younger people, and less deserving of life. Their only role is to die so that they can allow the 'better' people to take their place (until those 'better' people are rendered subhuman as a result of their chronological age, and thus become deserving of extermination). Of course, such views are tend to be expressed in a form of flowery language to try to camoflague their horror; you don't get many people who are honest enough to go walking into retirement homes and telling the people there how wonderful it is that they're going to die soon, and that the world will be so much better off without them when that happens. No, it's camoflagued with all sorts of double-speak about how it's all wonderful that it's natural, how it's part of the circle of life, and that it's so lovely that the older people 'make way' for the new. Of course, when some people went around decreeing that the Slavic people should die in order to make way for the Germans, that was held as an atrocity. But when it's said that old people need to be eliminated to make way for less old people, well, apparently that sentiment isn't in the least bit reprehensible.

Also, it should be noted that increased longevity wouldn't be the first time that an advance in medical science has made it necessary to have less children. A couple of centuries ago, poor sanitation and infectious disease meant that families typically had to have a large number of children because the vast majority of them would be expected to become sick and die. However, when these children ceased dying from these causes, and were able to be guaranteed longer and healthier lives, it became unsustainable to have children in such large numbers. The same would happen with longevity treatments; there would be a smaller number of children, but those children born would be free from much of the sickness that would have otherwise have plagued them. So it's a simple question, do we doom our children to suffering and death, just so we can satisfy our selfish desire to have as many of them as possible, or do we have a smaller number, but do everything in our power to guarantee the best, healthiest life possible for them? If the fact that people would be required to have less children is an argument against longevity treatments, it is also an argument against sanitation and vaccinations; what it amounts to is the viewpoint that it is better to have a large number of sick children than a small number of healthy children.

I think Richard Dawkins mentioned a fairly straightforward method for achieving a life-expectancy of 150 in one of his books. Done simply by putting an age limit on reproduction and incrementally increasing that age-limit. Thus applying a selection pressure on those myriad diseases which strike after sexual maturity and thereby eradicating them or at least massively reducing their prevalence.

The problem is after around 150 years even a long-lived brain will be turning to mush and that could be a hard problem to overcome. I did come across an interesting thread on this forum (somewhere ) a few days ago about a recent discovery where they had managed to turn ordinary skin cells into neural cells, so who knows, there are possibilities even regarding brain atrophy.

150 years would be pretty damn useful anyway and would make a huge difference to many things. Imagine if Einstein had had another 75 years to work with, already armed with 75 years of knowledge and still with a good working mind.

I'd take 150 no problem, who'd want to live forever anyway, you'd just end up bitter and twisted like Wowbagger the infinitely prolonged.

Interesting posts, bioeng, Arcanyn and hoopy frood!

There are many problems that you have an idea but the technology hasn't caught up to your idea (e.g. if it is computationally intense or requires increased resolution in scanning, higher purity of feedstock, reduced costs, a change of government and so on). Having an extra 50 years or so to investigate this could be useful.

Arcanyn wrote:

bioeng wrote:Under no circumstances, if extreme life extension beyond the current theoretical maximum of 120-130 became a reality, noone in their right mind would say that the right of existing individuals to live is outweighed by someone else's reproductive rights. That would be one of the most morally reprehensible positions one could make, saying that someone else must die so to make way for other people. It simply isn't going to happen, and neither will any government ever be able to make biological immortality illegal.

Unfortunately, it's a pretty common view that old people are intrinsically less valuable as people than younger people, and less deserving of life. Their only role is to die so that they can allow the 'better' people to take their place (until those 'better' people are rendered subhuman as a result of their chronological age, and thus become deserving of extermination). Of course, such views are tend to be expressed in a form of flowery language to try to camoflague their horror; you don't get many people who are honest enough to go walking into retirement homes and telling the people there how wonderful it is that they're going to die soon, and that the world will be so much better off without them when that happens. No, it's camoflagued with all sorts of double-speak about how it's all wonderful that it's natural, how it's part of the circle of life, and that it's so lovely that the older people 'make way' for the new. Of course, when some people went around decreeing that the Slavic people should die in order to make way for the Germans, that was held as an atrocity. But when it's said that old people need to be eliminated to make way for less old people, well, apparently that sentiment isn't in the least bit reprehensible.

Also, it should be noted that increased longevity wouldn't be the first time that an advance in medical science has made it necessary to have less children. A couple of centuries ago, poor sanitation and infectious disease meant that families typically had to have a large number of children because the vast majority of them would be expected to become sick and die. However, when these children ceased dying from these causes, and were able to be guaranteed longer and healthier lives, it became unsustainable to have children in such large numbers. The same would happen with longevity treatments; there would be a smaller number of children, but those children born would be free from much of the sickness that would have otherwise have plagued them. So it's a simple question, do we doom our children to suffering and death, just so we can satisfy our selfish desire to have as many of them as possible, or do we have a smaller number, but do everything in our power to guarantee the best, healthiest life possible for them? If the fact that people would be required to have less children is an argument against longevity treatments, it is also an argument against sanitation and vaccinations; what it amounts to is the viewpoint that it is better to have a large number of sick children than a small number of healthy children.

Very well stated. I couldn't have said it any better. The fact of the matter is, death is an unspeakably terrifying thing to come to terms with for most people, especially considering that for the most part it is preceded by immense suffering and agony for the vast majority of the time (not very many people die "peacefully in their sleep" while having been in top notch health). Humans thirst for the continuity of life and the continuity for new experiences, new knowledge, new forms of entertainment and stimulation. What's even worse is the psychological and emotional toll that people endure from the thought of permanently losing a loved one. Many people claim to not be afraid of death and learn to "accept" it, but it's a lot more difficult to do when it comes to someone else that you know and care for. As a result, fantasies about about the afterlife, the concept of a "soul" and religious beliefs inevitably became an integral part of human cultures, and have persisted with us ever since. These things were invented in order to pacify us about our own mortality.

And in fact, even in secular and irreligious societies, many people have also attempted to rationalize death and aging as a good thing (again, to pacify themselves about the apparent futility of being able to do anything about it). Religious objections to rejuvenation typically come in the form of something about people "turning away from God", "paradise", the "hereafter", "nirvana", and "we shouldn't play god" and "family values" and "family structure" being undermined.


Some "secular" arguments trying to rationalize opposition to the effort to conquer aging come in the form of "its unnatural", or "it would be boring to live a long time", or "social stagnation" or "overpopulation" or "inequality" or even the insane argument that its "seflish" and "narcissist" to want to live. And its not that some these concerns aren't valid, but in my view, these potential problems do not warrant trying to justify or ignore the unnecessarily early deaths of a 100,000 people a day who die as a result of diseases and conditions brought upon by aging. Society is appalled by a major terrorist attack, natural disasters, wars, famines and infectious diseases and goes to such great lengths and expends so much capital to prevent them but the biggest killer of them all is generally ignored, accepted, sometimes even glorified while getting hardly a penny of funding for basic research, as if science and medical research weren't already severely underfunded. Neocons setting back stemcell research by years doesn't help matters either.

I think either now or in the not so distant future, the time will be ripe to end this state of affairs once and for all. I cannot stand the thought of mindless recycling of generation after generation of human beings continuing ad infinitum into the future, fighting over imaginary friends or abstract concepts. I also think it is fundamentally impossible to get rid of fundamentalist religion without getting rid of the inevitability associated with death and oblivion. Rational arguments and the dissemination of scientific knowledge can only go so far in undermining religion's influence. Humanity needs to get rid of the underlying emotional reasons that people continue to cling onto mythology. Of course, tackling other factors that allow religious beliefs to persist (such as income inequality, which was why Marx referred to it as the opium of the masses) will also be part of the solution. It's become abundantly clear that it isn't always enough to simply demonstrate that someone's beliefs are wrong, irrational or contradicted by evidence. In order to to create an irreligious world society, we need to each work individually to the best of our ability to create a state of affairs that would render religion to be redundant and without utility. I strongly believe in the idea that religions are a symptom of a number of a different causes. If we remove the cause, they will disappear, but if we merely remove the symptom, the cause would remain, and the symptom would reappear again and again.

hoopy frood wrote:I think Richard Dawkins mentioned a fairly straightforward method for achieving a life-expectancy of 150 in one of his books. Done simply by putting an age limit on reproduction and incrementally increasing that age-limit. Thus applying a selection pressure on those myriad diseases which strike after sexual maturity and thereby eradicating them or at least massively reducing their prevalence.

True. The lifespan of Drosophila flies has been tripled using this method. The problem of course is that it would take centuries and countless generations of human beings before any significant lifespan extension is achieved.

I'd take 150 no problem, who'd want to live forever anyway, you'd just end up bitter and twisted like Wowbagger the infinitely prolonged.

I don't think anyone really wants to live "forever". However if given the chance, I would gladly love to be able to live indefinitely. In other words, I want to be able to choose at any point in time whether or not I wish to live any longer, rather than having the choice being made for me by the seemingly inexorable decline, deterioration and disease that comes along with aging. That, and of course to maintain good health and vitality for as long as I desire.

Elixir of youth found - almost
2011-11-01

Paris - Scientists said on Tuesday they had transformed age-worn cells in people over 90 - including a centenarian - into rejuvenated stem cells that were "indistinguishable" from those found in embryos.

The technical feat, reported in the peer-reviewed journal Genes & Development, opens a new path toward regenerative medicine, especially for the elderly, the researchers said.

"This is a new paradigm for cell rejuvenation," said Jean-Marc Lemaitre, a researcher at the Institute of Functional Genomics at the University of Montpellier and the main architect of the study.

"The age of cells is definitely not a barrier to reprogramming," he told AFP by phone.

That human embryonic stem cells (ESC) can potentially become any type of cell in the body has long held out the tantalising promise of diseased organs or tissue being repaired or replaced with healthy, lab-grown cells.

But the leap from theory to practice has proven difficult and fraught with ethical and moral concerns because any such procedure requires the destruction of a human embryo.

The discovery in 2007 that it is possible to coax certain adult cells back into their immature, pre-specialised state has fuelled renewed efforts to generate brand new muscle, heart or even brain cells, this time from raw material provided by the patient.

Experiments to date, however, have shown that the usual chemical recipe for generating these so-called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) works less well or not at all with the elderly and very elderly - precisely the cohort with the most to gain from regenerative therapies.

The barrier was cellular senescence, a natural process linked to ageing that can trigger cell death when certain mechanisms within the cell become too degraded to function properly.

Cells reset

Lemaitre and colleagues decided to alter the standard genetic starter kit used to generate adult stem cells by adding two new ingredients - known as transcription factors - called Nanog and Lin28.

Experiments with human subjects ranging in age from 74 to 101 showed that the new cocktail worked.

Several critical markers of ageing in cells were "reset", including the size of telomeres, the tiny protective caps found on the ends of chromosomes that wear down with age, the researchers reported.

CONTINUED
Full article at:
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Elixir-of-youth-found-almost-20111031

Fuck living that long. I love my kids, and my yet-to-be-born grandchildren, and I need to die & fuck off out of their way, so there's some resources for other people to experience this wonder called 'life'. Seven billion people on the planet - and some want to make the buggers live longer too?

chairman bill wrote:Seven billion people on the planet - and some want to make the buggers live longer too?

Not all of them. It's just the One Percent* that'll be able to afford the life extension... and the seat on the Space Ark... etc.

Edit: * or, perhaps more realistically, the 0.001 percent!

chairman bill wrote:Fuck living that long. I love my kids, and my yet-to-be-born grandchildren,

So much that you would choose for them a world in which they are doomed to inevitable decline, sickness and death?

Arcanyn wrote:

chairman bill wrote:Fuck living that long. I love my kids, and my yet-to-be-born grandchildren,

So much that you would choose for them a world in which they are doomed to inevitable decline, sickness and death?

Yes, 'cos they'll have children & grandchildren too. Living forever - the ultimate in selfishness

chairman bill wrote:Fuck living that long. I love my kids, and my yet-to-be-born grandchildren, and I need to die & fuck off out of their way, so there's some resources for other people to experience this wonder called 'life'. Seven billion people on the planet - and some want to make the buggers live longer too?

The thing is that the growth is in the places that have a high turnover. The places that live longer have low growth rates. what does this say to you ?

If everyone can live longer including stabilising infant mortality rates to western nation levels then the global population of the world will level off and reduce.

Personaly I just look to my father, who is pushing 60 but is still running a business and in middle of technology pushing for a better product and is eagera dn constantly learning.

His constant comment "If I had the time to spend my life learning I would."

I thin we would all be more like this in attitude if we could live for long periods of time I don't think we would be stuck and stagnant. It's that worry that you have reached the end and have no time to waste on learning new things that stop people from growing and developing further.

I would love to live a thousand years, I want to learn and experience many things, study and explore. Meet amazing people.
Do worthwhile things.

I wouldn't mind living a lot longer. For one thing to be around to see what we achieve.