Scientist sees aging cured.
By
Alpha-One,
Posted on: 2011-07-04 14:40 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
the idea of living forever seems horrific to me already. I kinda enjoy there is an end to my life so I can enjoy enjoy the good/fun/great moments more. Knowing me, if I had to live forever, i would say i can do that in ten years or maybe hunderd years. Why would i do anything then?
nah don't like that idea at all.....
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Yeah, but some of those big areas of nothingness serve a purpose - rainforests for example are the planet's lungs, and places like the Great Plains would need to remain empty of people to grow food.|
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.  |
As for talk of people having fewer children in general - while that may be true, think about it like this:
If the average American family today has two kids at age 25, and each of those kids have two kids at age 25, and so on, by the time the original two parents die at age 75, they will be partly responsible for fourteen decendants.
Now, in the future, lets say each family only has one child at age 25. By the time the original two parents die at say, age 1000, they will be partly responsible for 40 decendants.
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
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It has nothing to do with that. America produces 4 times what the world needs in food. The problem has not ever been the ability to create food, but rather that countries that are starving have horrible infrastructure and governments that prevent much of the aid people would provide.|
Originally Posted by Zortel
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.
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. |
Basically think about it like this
Do we have the food to ships to where ever?
Do we have the ship/plane to carry it over?
Does the place that we wish to send it have a way to receive it?
Once that place receives it can it distribute it, ie do they have good roads?
If all of the above is yes is the government that runs these countries corrupt?
Is this country in the middle of a war?
Are there bandits that will take the food before it reaches it's destination?
That's why sending food to Africa is more or less a waste of time. The countries with the problems are the countries that to help you need to go to war with to oust the governments, send convoys of soldiers on the road to protect the food, and have to actually build the roads and distribution centers.
Or in the most simplistic terms. The most important thing in improving the lives of people is infrastructure. If you can't build that infrastructure all the aid in the world isn't going to help.
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Originally Posted by mousedroid
Yeah, but some of those big areas of nothingness serve a purpose - rainforests for example are the planet's lungs, and places like the Great Plains would need to remain empty of people to grow food.
As for talk of people having fewer children in general - while that may be true, think about it like this: If the average American family today has two kids at age 25, and each of those kids have two kids at age 25, and so on, by the time the original two parents die at age 75, they will be partly responsible for fourteen decendants. Now, in the future, lets say each family only has one child at age 25. By the time the original two parents die at say, age 1000, they will be partly responsible for 40 decendants. |
But anyways you are not taking into account a very simple thing. As we as a civilization figure out how to live longer we have other methods of baring children and those methods tend to make it so that our natural instinct to have kids is pushed back.
So if we live via rejuvenation or stopped aging then our bio chemistry more or less ever reaches the point where it tells us "HAVE A KID NOW!!" or it is a long time before it does and because of this this 1 kid by 40 will shift to something like 1 kid by say age 400 or we may even have it so that some people choose to have children postmortem via egg and sperm samples collected ages ago.
That's looking at it from a biological stand point and not taking into consideration various methods of immortality and technologies that will make having a child more along the lines of a civilization decision more than a biological decision. We also don't know how our space faring future will be. We may find we have an infinity of space to populate.
Overpopulation is a simplistic term for the masses. It focuses on the wrong problem and makes you think in the wrong direction. When someone says "overpopulation" they mean that we don't have the resources to sustain a population over x, but that's BS because we do have the resources to sustain x. It's not about resources or population. It is about management of those resources.
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Originally Posted by mousedroid
If the average American family today has two kids at age 25, and each of those kids have two kids at age 25, and so on, by the time the original two parents die at age 75, they will be partly responsible for fourteen decendants.
Now, in the future, lets say each family only has one child at age 25. By the time the original two parents die at say, age 1000, they will be partly responsible for 40 decendants. |
If the average family has 2 children every 25 years, then in 25 years, the population doubles. In 50 years, it will only increase by 50%. In 75 years the population will increase only 33%. After 200 years the population will be 16x more than it started with. And that's assuming NO ONE dies from ANYTHING. After 1000 years, it would well over 40x. Fortunately, the population would plateau off around the time the average life-span is reached. Because with an average of 2 kids per family, you're making only 1 replacement per person.
Considering our warring nature and our capacity for mongering fear for resources, I doubt anyone would make it to 1000.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
Ohhh the eating will be good. Eat all the old people
By the way, this thread reminds me of a short story I read not too long ago.
Something tells me if this article is even half legitimate, then birth control would be part of the treatment.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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Smith. Woodrow Wilson Smith, later Long after he took the name Lazarus.
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Originally Posted by Dark One
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...
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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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
English does not borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar.
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I've actually been reading a good non-fiction book about this called, "Long For This World: The Strange Science of Immortality" by Jonathan Weiner.
It's pretty interesting the things they're doing, and the author does a fairly good job at explaining complicated biology and chemistry so that ********* like me can understand it and still find it interesting. Check it out if anyone is genuinely interested in the topic.
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Feth. Knew I'd forget something. Thanks for the correction. Thought it sounded wrong in my head. *shrug*
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Originally Posted by ZephyrWind
Smith. Woodrow Wilson Smith, later Long after he took the name Lazarus.
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Pffft... I admit, I'd really like to live to see the American Tricentennial, past that I dont know what I would do other than earn my badge for most depraved human being to have ever lived a thousand years. I figure a coupla hundred years in and I would have gotten bored with being a nice guy. |
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. |
It would be a rough ride in any event, just look at what has occured in the past 1000 years or even the past 100 years.
I think one of the things people in the article dont seem to include in thier thinking are natural disasters and the whacky things humans do and how that will effect the quality of life over all those years.
Its quaint to think that as a race well will evolve into some sort of benevolent species of do-gooders over time but I'm more enclined to think dystopian future guys are not far off the mark especially after a few more world wars and huge natural disasters.
------->"Sic Semper Tyrannis"<-------
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A life sentence takes on a whole different meaning when there's really no actual end to your life...
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Originally Posted by ebon3
Pffft... I admit, I'd really like to live to see the American Tricentennial, past that I dont know what I would do other than earn my badge for most depraved human being to have ever lived a thousand years. I figure a coupla hundred years in and I would have gotten bored with being a nice guy.
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What good is living "forever" if the planet is uninhabitable? And while it may take a few trillion or so years this Universe will run out of fuel and go dark.
Aging and death are the great equalizers for us humans remove that you will have an even greater divide between the haves and have nots because we all know this would not be available for everyone.
Interestingly enough I read some time ago about some people that believe we originally were created to have long life times but our ancestors were genetically manipulated to have shorter life spans, fragile bodies and limited brain functionality as a way to keep us "quarantined" here on Earth.
The way I see it is we're supposed to pass on, to what I don't know, but the thought of having to work for 1,000 or so years makes me shutter.
Besides the longer you live the more disgruntled and pissed you'd probably end up being. Could that be why the Annuki are such dicks?
Who do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
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Then again, over the course of 1,000 years people will invent a whole bunch of new stuff for you to do/try/mess with/build new dreams around. |
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 anything, I think the hardest part would be adjusting your "old-timer" thinking to new technologies and ways of living.
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Originally Posted by Lucretia_MacEvil
Then again, over the course of 1,000 years people will invent a whole bunch of new stuff for you to do/try/mess with/build new dreams around.
If anything, I think the hardest part would be adjusting your "old-timer" thinking to new technologies and ways of living. |
Here's the thing though - if people stop procreating to avoid "over-population" would we become intellectually stagnant as a race?
If this had occurred 150 years ago, and as a result Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and all the great minds of the 20th century had never been born, would society be as advanced as were are today or would we still be travelling in steam ships and steam locomotives?
If people had stopped aging and dying 1000 years ago, would we ever have made it out of the Dark Ages?
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
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On the flip side, shorter life spans make advancement more difficult. With less time to pass knowledge along to others, we'd advance slowly as well. Regardless, I don't think you could stop procreation altogether. They only claim to have a cure for aging. Not dying. We'll have to replace the population that finds itself unfortunate enough to have been diagnosed with cancer, been hit by cars, OD'd on drugs, etc.
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Originally Posted by mousedroid
Here's the thing though - if people stop procreating to avoid "over-population" would we become intellectually stagnant as a race?
If this had occurred 150 years ago, and as a result Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and all the great minds of the 20th century had never been born, would society be as advanced as were are today or would we still be travelling in steam ships and steam locomotives? If people had stopped aging and dying 1000 years ago, would we ever have made it out of the Dark Ages? |
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
There are genius men alive now that even as they age, have seen their ideas developed in the '70s progress into wonderous technology they couldn't have imagined. And they have adapted to those changes and even continue to develop new technology.
The ideas of over population, world wide resource management, etc... is getting way ahead of where something like this is headed.
First, all of these umproven theories and techologies will need to be verified as valid. So as the article stated, we still have some time.
Second, such treatments will not be the mainstay of medical treatment. Insurance companies aren't going to begin adding Anti-age Therapy into their policies for a long while after (if it happens) the ability becomes possible. So only those that could shell out the cash for such continual treatments will age slowly.
This isn't a one time stop. You'll need to keep going back. It'll be a new type of business, and probably expensive for quite some time. Sure some people may be able to save up and afford the treatments and increase their life span, but not most.
Most people will still be living and dying as they do now for a long time to come.
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assuming this doesn't extend the reproductive window, what you'd see is people from ages 20-40 being supported by their 100+ year old family members and starting a new family until they're past child rearing years and really ready to get started working|
Originally Posted by Dark One
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...
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... |
ie, having babies would be a REALLY young adult thing
however, since the attitudes that's causing the population drop in many higher-tech societies won't go away over night, it would take some time...and women won't likely be happy if they got told "have kids until your 40" even if men got told the same.
it won't be true immortality of course, injury and some illness would still be an issue, as well as genetic defects
also, they don't note the fact that the longer the lifespan, the greater the chance of developing cancer
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Tru'dat, but by then if I were to have lived for such a long time part of the game would be to amass as much political and financial power as I can while surrounding myself with a web of equally depraved people or maybe by that point I would just decide to let myself expire in prison. |
Originally Posted by Dark One
A life sentence takes on a whole different meaning when there's really no actual end to your life...
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And if I were effectively immortal, I'd just bide my time. At some point some where, the system will fail.
------->"Sic Semper Tyrannis"<-------
life sentence is not your entire life... it is i think 90 years
Also as technology advances and our acceptance of technology speeds up over the next century a decade in prison will make anyone pretty useless in the world
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Tell that to Judge Dredd |
Originally Posted by Durakken
life sentence is not your entire life... it is i think 90 years
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This whole article/discussion reminds me of the Season 1 ep of Babylon 5 where the war criminal Deathwalker arrived on the station, everyone wanted their pound of flesh as it were for her genocidal war crimes until they all learned she had a serum for immortality.
After that, they decide to get the serum developed for all races then execute her for her crimes, she reveals the evil secret of the serum, then as her ship flies to the jump gate a Vorlon ship comes out and blasts her ship to pieces. Ambassador Kosh simply looks at everyone and says "You are not ready for immortality."
Words to remember.
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Conversely, imagine where we might be if Einstein, Tesla, and Marie Curie were still alive and productive?
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Originally Posted by mousedroid
Here's the thing though - if people stop procreating to avoid "over-population" would we become intellectually stagnant as a race?
If this had occurred 150 years ago, and as a result Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and all the great minds of the 20th century had never been born, would society be as advanced as were are today or would we still be travelling in steam ships and steam locomotives? If people had stopped aging and dying 1000 years ago, would we ever have made it out of the Dark Ages? |
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While as long as a male is healthy he could continue produce seeds long after the normal period, but at some point a woman's eggs still go bad even if the rest of her doesn't. At very least she'd run out of them. (suppose woman could just freeze a bunch ahead of time, and have kids steadily of the centuries.)
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assuming this doesn't extend the reproductive window, what you'd see is people from ages 20-40 being supported by their 100+ year old family members and starting a new family until they're past child rearing years and really ready to get started working |
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So when do I get take the Super soldier serum like the Captain America movie..I'd love to be taller hehe.
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Originally Posted by Dawnslayer
And we will push a button to get anything we want and take a pill to be perfect.
The american dream lives on. |
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Humans, as a species, become more successful and efficient the more there are. Population is our greatest natural resource, since a human mind can come up with the solution to any problem.
If each human mind is given more time, each one of them will become more effective and beneficial to society. With aging being a thing of the past, we will approach Utopia.