Scientist sees aging cured.
By
Alpha-One,
Posted on: 2011-07-04 14:40 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
Goodbye retirement. It's about time those lazy old codgers got off their keisters and started contributing.
Now, you can work FOREVER! You no longer have to die to go to hell, because the local Wal-mart is hiring!
They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
Hurray over population!
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Fixed that for you.
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Originally Posted by Xzero45
Hurray MOAR over population!
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And this is why we have nuclear weapons!
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Originally Posted by Xzero45
Hurray over population!
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*invests in Long Pig*
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Originally Posted by Xzero45
Hurray over population!
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Branching Paragon Police Department Epic Archetype, please!
population estimate predictions place total world pop will even out at 9bil so no "over population"
also this is old news.
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Originally Posted by Durakken
population estimate predictions place total world pop will even out at 9bil so no "over population"
also this is old news. |
Was new to be..Get it new news..Ha ha..
Nevermind
The longer people live, the more likely they will commit suicide. People are just not made to live forever. After 1000 years, you have pretty much completed all your dreams and have to come up with more complex dreams to keep you from being bored. The term bored to death applies to people who live for too long.
The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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"Nuke the whales!?"|
Originally Posted by Alpha-One
And this is why we have nuclear weapons!
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"Gotta nuke something."
"Touché."
They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
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In other words, they'll be able to sell you a pill every day, but won't actually "cure" old-age! After all, much more profit-effective to not actually "cure" it, but rather to keep it at bay...| "And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today." |
I'm not worried about a population overage. As a being's life span approaches immortal, their reproduction rate approaches zero.
But I wonder if Woodrow Wilson Howard is somehow involved in this...
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I'm guessing in such a long-lived scenario, the chance of dying by other means (accident, criminal violence, war, rabbits with a vicious streak a mile wide, etc.) probably goes up.|
Originally Posted by starphoenix
The longer people live, the more likely they will commit suicide. People are just not made to live forever. After 1000 years, you have pretty much completed all your dreams and have to come up with more complex dreams to keep you from being bored. The term bored to death applies to people who live for too long.
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Also, much of our world is sadly not nice to each other. I fully expect this medicine initially to be a point of contention, possibly due to initial scarcity, as one group demands medicine and life before another group. Essentially, extended life is power. "He who controls the spice, controls the universe."
Well if you think unemployment is bad today...
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I watched my wife's grandmother in her last years (she lived past 90). People who live a long time don't get "tired of living" or get "bored to death." They are tired of life because it is so painful -- they can't see or hear because their eyesight and hearing are gone, they can't walk because the cartilage in their knees is gone and it's bone grinding on bone. They lose control of their bladder and bowels. They can't remember because plaques in their brains build up and they come down with Alzheimer's. All their friends and family die, they're all alone and see no reason to stay alive.|
Originally Posted by starphoenix
The longer people live, the more likely they will commit suicide. People are just not made to live forever. After 1000 years, you have pretty much completed all your dreams and have to come up with more complex dreams to keep you from being bored. The term bored to death applies to people who live for too long.
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If the advances in geriatric medicine work as this guy predicts, all those problems will be resolved. People won't be tired of life because they'll feel young, they'll feel great, more friends and family will live as long as they do, and they'll be very rich -- if they invest their money wisely. There will always be something new to do, and after 50 years you'll have forgotten what the things you used to do were like, and you'll find them interesting again.
Few people commit suicide out of boredom. They do it because of physical illness, the depredations of aging, or problems like depression, despair, anguish, fear, shame, loneliness, a sense of loss for loved ones, or mental disease or defect.
Sure, there will be some some number of people who do get bored or fed up and commit suicide. But that number will be very small if the aging population still feels 30 years old.
But mass immortality is unsustainable -- in short order we'll have to do something about overpopulation: everyone who wants to reproduce or live forever will have to do so on another planet or in space colonies. Cause we're running out of room and raw materials rather quickly, especially if we all live 150+ years.
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Presuming, in fact, that as people get longer-lived that they'll want to have kids. If you can have the knowledge that you'll effectively live forever, then there is no real impetus to breed and produce a new generation. Barring wanting the "experience" of having a kid. Just because someone can live to 1000, does not mean they'll be having kids that long. Heck, just look at our society now. People in their 30's and 40's just starting to have children vs how it was even a hundred years ago.| But mass immortality is unsustainable -- in short order we'll have to do something about overpopulation: everyone who wants to reproduce or live forever will have to do so on another planet or in space colonies. Cause we're running out of room and raw materials rather quickly, especially if we all live 150+ years. |
Such life extensions will probably be hideously expensive. Probably 95% of the population will be unable to afford them outright. Others will have to take out "life-mortgages" to pay for the procedures. The people who are poor or bad credit-risks will not get 'em; they'll live, breed, and die as usual.
The article in and of itself sounds A LOT like the Future History storyline by Robert Heinlein. Or possibly Niven's Ringworld setup (been a while since I read that stuff).
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Not necessarily, as trends have been showing that the developed world shows negative population growth (because the infant mortality rate is practically nil and thus there's less reason to have oodles and oodles of babies). It's really only the countries like India and China where population growth remains a constant positive. As stated earlier, its believed that our population will reach a plateau at 9 billion people, and considering people will be living longer and feel even less need to have children than they do now, we'll watch that drop after a few decades or centuries, depending how effective and widespread the longevity treatments become.
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Originally Posted by Xzero45
Hurray over population!
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Old people don't usually complete everything they want to do before age catches up with them. Imagine a point where you have done everything that you can think of and want to do. What is the point of living when you have accomplished everything you have set out to do? 100 years is not enough to accomplish that, but what about 500 years or 1,000 years. |
Originally Posted by Rodion
I watched my wife's grandmother in her last years (she lived past 90). People who live a long time don't get "tired of living" or get "bored to death." They are tired of life because it is so painful -- they can't see or hear because their eyesight and hearing are gone, they can't walk because the cartilage in their knees is gone and it's bone grinding on bone. They lose control of their bladder and bowels. They can't remember because plaques in their brains build up and they come down with Alzheimer's. All their friends and family die, they're all alone and see no reason to stay alive.
If the advances in geriatric medicine work as this guy predicts, all those problems will be resolved. People won't be tired of life because they'll feel young, they'll feel great, more friends and family will live as long as they do, and they'll be very rich -- if they invest their money wisely. There will always be something new to do, and after 50 years you'll have forgotten what the things you used to do were like, and you'll find them interesting again. Few people commit suicide out of boredom. They do it because of physical illness, the depredations of aging, or problems like depression, despair, anguish, fear, shame, loneliness, a sense of loss for loved ones, or mental disease or defect. Sure, there will be some some number of people who do get bored or fed up and commit suicide. But that number will be very small if the aging population still feels 30 years old. But mass immortality is unsustainable -- in short order we'll have to do something about overpopulation: everyone who wants to reproduce or live forever will have to do so on another planet or in space colonies. Cause we're running out of room and raw materials rather quickly, especially if we all live 150+ years. |
Try living for 100,000 years or even 1,000 years and see if you aren't contemplating to end your life. The people that lead productive lives after 100,000 years are the ones that learn to adjust their thinking for the long term instead of the short term. Thinking about plans that take 1,000 years instead of just 20 years.
The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
i think a lot of people will eventually get bored and commit suicide...
I think those people are limited and will miss out on a lot
And while some of them may be able to appreciate infinity they are unworthy for having gotten bored of life.
There have been scientists claiming that we are "close" to curing old age for decades now and I still have no doubt that given another 50 or 100 years that will actually be the case.
But people tend to forget that along with biological immortality we are still also only 50 or 100 years from the technological singularity as well. Basically that means the definitions of life and how much of it is either biological, machine-based and/or artificial is quickly going to become blurred. When you throw non-biological technology into the mix the idea of anything "living" forever or getting bored with that is going to take on meanings we can hardly imagine at this point.
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All of my time role-playing as immortals will pay off!! Take that, oh mockers of me!!! |
Originally Posted by starphoenix
Old people don't usually complete everything they want to do before age catches up with them. Imagine a point where you have done everything that you can think of and want to do. What is the point of living when you have accomplished everything you have set out to do? 100 years is not enough to accomplish that, but what about 500 years or 1,000 years.
Try living for 100,000 years or even 1,000 years and see if you aren't contemplating to end your life. The people that lead productive lives after 100,000 years are the ones that learn to adjust their thinking for the long term instead of the short term. Thinking about plans that take 1,000 years instead of just 20 years. |
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Well that was an interesting read... I honestly don't know what to make of it though... -_-;
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When we have states with vast open areas of nothingness. Or just big countries, where there's miles and miles and miles of nothiness.|
Originally Posted by Xzero45
Hurray over population!
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We're not close to over population.
Unless you're counting the areas were people bunch up and try to pack so many into a 2 mile radius.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
I remember hearing a while back that someone figured out that, given todays living conditions, even if people did not die of old age the average age at death would be around 300 years. People would still die from accidents, diseases, wars, crime etc.
Granted, society would likely change if old age disappears so some of these factors may not be as relevant as they are today.
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It's more of a case of not having the current resources to feed the excess population/provide water/provide work than not having a place to put them.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
When we have states with vast open areas of nothingness. Or just big countries, where there's miles and miles and miles of nothiness.
We're not close to over population. Unless you're counting the areas were people bunch up and try to pack so many into a 2 mile radius. |
There'll have to be some big, big changes in the ways of farming, power production and water/waste processing soon. And you need stable conditions to do so as well. A certain breadbasket isn't one any more due to soil mismanagement, and in America you can look at the Dust Bowl for what kind of damage can be done. On a global scale.
Given a resource-based economy, that is, an economy where all resources are fairly shared by everyone, there is theoretically no limit to the human population. This is because if we live more efficiently and stop using so mmany resources blowing each other up the planet could support upwards of 10 billion people.
Also, if 10% of the resources currently used in warfare were devoted to research instead the amount of resources increases as mining and living in space become viable.
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Hmmm.
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