Longevity: 150 years and beyond?

Mike_L · #1 by **Mike_L** » Jul 06, 2011 9:34 am

Who wants to live forever?

If Aubrey de Grey's predictions are right, the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born. And the first person to live for 1,000 years could be less than 20 years younger. A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research, de Grey reckons that within his own lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to "cure" ageing - banishing diseases that come with it and extending life indefinitely.
"I'd say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing ageing under what I'd call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so," de Grey said in an interview, before delivering a lecture at Britain's Royal Institution academy of science. "And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today."

Maintenance doctor's visits
De Grey sees a time when people will go to their doctors for regular "maintenance", which by then will include gene therapies, stem cell therapies, immune stimulation and a range of other advanced medical techniques to keep them in good shape. De Grey lives near Cambridge University where he received his doctorate in 2000 and is chief scientific officer of the non-profit California-based SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Foundation, which he co-founded in 2009. He describes ageing as the lifelong accumulation of various types of molecular and cellular damage throughout the body.
"The idea is to engage in what you might call preventative geriatrics, where you go in to periodically repair that molecular and cellular damage before it gets to the level of abundance that is pathogenic," he explained.

The challenge of living past 100
Exactly how far and how fast life expectancy will increase in the future is a subject of some debate, but the trend is clear. An average of three months is being added to life expectancy every year at the moment and experts estimate there could be a million centenarians across the world by 2030.

CONTINUED
Full article at:
http://www.health24.com/news/General_health/1-915,63886.asp

cavarka9 · #2 by **cavarka9** » Jul 06, 2011 9:56 am

You must listen to his videos, Good man.

JoeB · #3 by **JoeB** » Jul 06, 2011 1:45 pm

It'd be great if people could live to be a thousand years old, but I'm rather worried about the social implications: who gets to live 1000 years? Probably only those who can afford it, the wealthy and powerful. Would this create a caste-system?

laklak · #4 by **laklak** » Jul 06, 2011 1:56 pm

I'd sign up for a healthy 150, but I'd have to think about 1000 years. Imagine "Welcome to American Idol Season 877!" I think I'd rather take a nice dirt nap.

Arcanyn · #5 by **Arcanyn** » Jul 06, 2011 4:43 pm

JoeB wrote:It'd be great if people could live to be a thousand years old, but I'm rather worried about the social implications: who gets to live 1000 years? Probably only those who can afford it, the wealthy and powerful. Would this create a caste-system?

It'd probably be like all new technologies; initially very expensive, but eventually dirt cheap. Back when it was first discovered aluminium was used as jewellery by the super rich as a sign of extravagant wealth; now it's used to make drink cans. The first computers cost millions, whereas now everyone can get a computer many orders of magnitude more powerful than the first ones for a fraction of the cost. It'll be like that with methods to reverse aging; the first techniques will be comparatively crude and inefficient, and as such will be very expensive. However, as the technology matures and better, more efficient ways of doing things are discovered, the price will come down.

Scar · #6 by **Scar** » Jul 06, 2011 5:04 pm

I don't care about social implications. If they can make me live for a thousand years, then get it fucking done!

Contemplative · #7 by **Contemplative** » Jul 06, 2011 5:15 pm

Mike_L wrote:
Who wants to live forever?

If Aubrey de Grey's predictions are right, the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born. And the first person to live for 1,000 years could be less than 20 years younger. A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research, de Grey reckons that within his own lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to "cure" ageing - banishing diseases that come with it and extending life indefinitely.
"I'd say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing ageing under what I'd call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so," de Grey said in an interview, before delivering a lecture at Britain's Royal Institution academy of science. "And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today."

Maintenance doctor's visits
De Grey sees a time when people will go to their doctors for regular "maintenance", which by then will include gene therapies, stem cell therapies, immune stimulation and a range of other advanced medical techniques to keep them in good shape. De Grey lives near Cambridge University where he received his doctorate in 2000 and is chief scientific officer of the non-profit California-based SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Foundation, which he co-founded in 2009. He describes ageing as the lifelong accumulation of various types of molecular and cellular damage throughout the body.
"The idea is to engage in what you might call preventative geriatrics, where you go in to periodically repair that molecular and cellular damage before it gets to the level of abundance that is pathogenic," he explained.

The challenge of living past 100
Exactly how far and how fast life expectancy will increase in the future is a subject of some debate, but the trend is clear. An average of three months is being added to life expectancy every year at the moment and experts estimate there could be a million centenarians across the world by 2030.
CONTINUED
Full article at:
http://www.health24.com/news/General_health/1-915,63886.asp

He is hedging his bets, i.e. he will be dead if wrong and alive if right

Contemplative · #8 by **Contemplative** » Jul 06, 2011 5:39 pm

Contemplative wrote:
He is hedging his bets, i.e. he will be dead if wrong and alive if right

I wonder if there is a structure behind this phenomenon That is assuming that the theory, 'mathematicians do their best work before the age of 30, physicists before they are 40 and biologists before they are 50' is correct then one good strategy for a scientist/mathematician to have, is to publish many ideas when they are past their prime (hoping that one good idea sticks). This strategy will not necessarily work all the time and as a result the scientist/mathematician could have their reputation tarnished in their lifetime, but suppose instead the scientists/mathematicians made predictions of what can be achieved in their field after they assume they will be dead. Therefore, if they are wrong their reputation will not suffer (at least in their lifetime), but if correct they will be looked as the Nostradamus of their field. I predict this theory will be proven correct within the next thirty years.

MattHunX · #9 by **MattHunX** » Jul 10, 2011 9:18 am

The judges on that panel were prompted into action by an angry put-down of de Grey from a group of nine leading scientists who dismissed his work as "pseudo science".

They concluded that this label was not fair, arguing instead that SENS "exists in a middle ground of yet-to-be-tested ideas that some people may find intriguing, but which others are free to doubt".

It would be great if they could at least add a few decades (2-3), to the life-span, by the time I'll be middle-aged.

I figure that by that time, in my mid-thirties, I'll reach my physical prime, and it would be great to keep it at that level for a few decades, so e.g.: by the age of 60, I'll still be 30something, inside and outside. It would be a blast to live a century, without having to struggle with the effects of aging.

And more importantly, it would be interesting to see how far the species can advance.

2070 or 2080...nice mark. 8-)

Enough for me.

Who would want to live a 1000yrs? Nobody can even imagine what living a century is like, and how long that is, let alone a millenia. Just what do they expect life would be about, under that time? Work. More work. A lot of it. Not centuries of holidays, just more opportunity for them, from work.

On the other hand, it would also be interesting to see the effect it would have on the scientific community. Young, aspiring, intelligent people, as well as middle-aged and older, could solve more puzzles and could contribute for decades more.

byofrcs · **#10** by **byofrcs** » Jul 10, 2011 9:28 am

Visiting the doctor for a maintenance checkup ? Well that's the first flaw in that thinking. It'll be like Star Trek whereby, though they do have some free time, they are on duty all the time and spend half of that doing fricking office work like reports and reviews and those that are in engineering are cleaning out plasma conduits and tuning this and that.

Screw that; we need this to be fully automated with expert systems so that when there is new science then it is propagated to all the medical monitoring systems in the world at no cost. With autonomous machine fabrication and production new products are replicated at very low unit cost in human time and effort.

Skyforger · **#11** by **Skyforger** » Jul 11, 2011 5:40 pm

Personally I'm banking on not being human in 100 years... ;D

Ever since I saw the X-Files episode where the guy uploads himself to the internet that has been my goal.

MattHunX · **#12** by **MattHunX** » Jul 11, 2011 5:46 pm

Skyforger wrote:Personally I'm banking on not being human in 100 years... ;D

Ever since I saw the X-Files episode where the guy uploads himself to the internet that has been my goal.

Do be so kind as to build an army of machines and slaughter all politicians, please!

bioeng · **#13** by **bioeng** » Jul 14, 2011 11:55 pm

I have been an enthusiastic follower of Aubrey De Grey and his SENS Foundation for almost 2 years + some other less known life extension proposals. If he turns out to be correct, and we are able to rejuvenate the human body and stave off the aging process indefinitely, I believe religion as we know it will go into terminal decline, because its primary utility and appeal(the promise of everlasting life in the "hereafter") will likely deteriorate.

There has already been some backlash by the Vatican who have become aware of the possible prospect of extreme longevity.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20100403_veglia-pasquale_en.html

And here we have a video of a Muslim from Turkey going into an longwinded rant about the dangers of "immortality" and "playing god".

The description under the video is some of the most incoherent drivel I've read in ages.

part of video description wrote:I believe that the date of the inevitable Doomsday will be the day when people have realised immortality cheaper and more widespread for the usage of Humanity when they will say arrogantly.that They do not need God and they can live the way they want and there is no need for Hell and Heaven.
My purpose is to try to prevent people from this arrogance and escape to Noah's Arc/or salvation which is actually submission to God or Islam.Human beings can really do very big things/inventions/developments etc. but they must always be modest like Edison who said I did not invent anything but I just put together what The God already had created.

I hope science continue to plow right ahead in the hopes of finding the "fountain of youth". Who knows, maybe I'll even live long enough to reap the benefits.

Mike_L · **#14** by **Mike_L** » Jul 15, 2011 7:13 am

Excellent post, bioeng. The notion of science in ascendancy is even more appealing when one considers that it will inevitably continue to loosen the stranglehold of primitive superstition.
:thumbup:

pcCoder · **#15** by **pcCoder** » Jul 15, 2011 7:27 am

Wouldn't long life simple extend a problem to where old people are controlling the show for hundreds of years longer, subjecting newer society to their outdated ways?

Mike_L · **#16** by **Mike_L** » Jul 15, 2011 7:45 am

We will maintain order in the galaxy!

bioeng · **#17** by **bioeng** » Jul 15, 2011 8:04 am

pcCoder wrote:Wouldn't long life simple extend a problem to where old people are controlling the show for hundreds of years longer, subjecting newer society to their outdated ways?

Well, it depends on how you look at it. I think it is a mistake to always assume that "Newer society" or "newer generations" are always more progressive and enlightened. In fact, whenever a religious revival occurs, as it did starting in the 70s with Islam, its often the younger generations that hold the most archaic beliefs. I also think its a mistake to think that society will become rigid for long periods of time if the same people are alive. With the exception of religious fanatics, people are not stubbornly immune to change or the adoption of novel ideas.

And even then, if you were right, that would still not be a justification to allow more than 100,000 people every day to die an unnecessary early death. I think it is awfully barbaric and immoral to suggest that others must drop dead so someone else has the opportunity to rear out children.

byofrcs · **#18** by **byofrcs** » Jul 15, 2011 9:07 am

I suspect that if technology existed to prolong the Pope's life by long time then he would seize this like a rope thrown to a drowning man.

Arcanyn · **#19** by **Arcanyn** » Jul 15, 2011 3:25 pm

pcCoder wrote:Wouldn't long life simple extend a problem to where old people are controlling the show for hundreds of years longer, subjecting newer society to their outdated ways?

Do you really think people can't change their minds about things when they're given centuries to think them over?

MattHunX · **#20** by **MattHunX** » Jul 15, 2011 7:42 pm

Arcanyn wrote:
pcCoder wrote:Wouldn't long life simple extend a problem to where old people are controlling the show for hundreds of years longer, subjecting newer society to their outdated ways?

Do you really think people can't change their minds about things when they're given centuries to think them over?

Hermits?

Kidding.