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Geneticists Discover a Way to Extend Lifespans to 800 Years
- Thread starter alebar14
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can you imagine the technology through an 800 year lifespan?
I mean now, you listen to your parents and grandparents talk about cars, and radios, black and white TVs and think, man that **** was old... but all of that happened within the last 100-150 years....
Now expand that out 5-8 times that long....
That would mean people could have been a couple hundred years old when Columbus landed...
I wonder, though, would technology really advance more quickly, or would it move at the same or slower pace? If you have 1 week to write an essay, you'll do it in a week. If you have 2 months, you probably won't do it in the first week.
Plus, much technology is driven by new people building on old ideas. If there are fewer new people, as there'd almost have to be to control population, would there be fewer new ideas?
I had a black and white TV when I was a kid.
True but who's to say that just because you live longer you get to extend your deadlines. We'd still need to eat every day, and we'd go through clothes and other items just as fast. It's not like because I'm living 10x longer all of my possessions will magically last that much longer as well.
But would the lack of new people be offset by the true geniuses who are now going to be able to innovate 10x longer? Currently most people spend 25%-30% of their (their first 18-30 years) life just learning stuff that came from those before it. What if people who made those big innovations got to stick around and expand upon it rather than having to find other people to learn and understand it before they can improve it?
I had a black and white TV when I was a kid.
So did we, but it had very little to do with a lack of color TV availability and more to do with their price at the time.
Nowhere in the real article did the authors state that humans will be able to live to 800 years--all they said was that they were able to extend baker's yeast life spans 10x from 1 week to 10 weeks. This is garbage science sensationalism at its worst.
Concluding that humans can live to 800 with some genetic modifications from yeast experiments is like saying that since ants can carry 100x their body weight, humans will also be able to lift 15,000lbs. They're basically taking results obtained from a single celled organism and extrapolating them to us, organisms composed of trillions of cells, most specialized to do only a few functions. There's too much other factors involved to make any conclusions, as themadchemist has already mentioned
Concluding that humans can live to 800 with some genetic modifications from yeast experiments is like saying that since ants can carry 100x their body weight, humans will also be able to lift 15,000lbs. They're basically taking results obtained from a single celled organism and extrapolating them to us, organisms composed of trillions of cells, most specialized to do only a few functions. There's too much other factors involved to make any conclusions, as themadchemist has already mentioned
We've seen these rapid improvements in health because we've taken care of the "easy" problems. Reducing childhood mortality, particularly by effectively treating once-fatal infections, has allowed us to make really rapid increases in life expectancy over the last 100 years or so. This is evident in part by the closing of the gap in changes of life expectancy over a life time. If you take American data, you see that while 100 years ago, your total life expectancy increased significantly if you could just make it through those first 10 years (and actually, kept increasing later into life, too), these days, life expectancy remains pretty stable across ages. That is, a 10 year old is expected to have about 10 years less than a newborn left to go, whereas a long time ago, a 10 year old might be expected to live even longer than a newborn, because the 10 year old had beaten the worst of it. We still see distortions in the very old, probably because once you've made it to 80 or 90, you've already beaten life expectancy and you may very well have just been predisposed by good genes or good environment to live a long time.
My point is that those rapid advancements we saw in raw age change seem to be slowing down. Some even argue that we will start seeing reduced life expectancies as the excesses of our lifestyles catch up with us.
Effective ex vivo organ development is fraught with technical complications--it may work out, but imagining that we can go in for organ replacement therapy like taking the car to Jiffy Lube seems a little far-fetched to me.
There is a limit on the plasticity, longevity, and mitotic potential of the cells in our body. We might very well be able to enhance some longevity, but what I think we are more likely to see is therapy that will enhance quality of life or that that will restore full longevity to those facing considerable health problems.
And you really don't think there's a reason for us to age? 1) There are physical limitations on biology. 2) Death is a good way to keep populations stable, so it's evolutionarily favorable. 3) On a cellular level, arrest of cell division and even highly-regulated cell death (apoptosis) are crucial to preventing the development of cancer. Cells not dying when they should is the basic pathway for carcinogenesis. If our cells didn't die, we wouldn't live. If we didn't die, our species wouldn't live--we would be ridden with countless epidemics, resource shortages, hygiene failures, and conflict.
Me too, or i would snuff it at the first sign of on-set. Hopefully this wont happen. Who would want to live for 100 years, much less 800.
800 years is pretty crazy. i don't think i'd take these drugs though, if they are ever released for humans
Despite my deep skepticism about this approach, I do have to say I find puzzling all of this reluctance to extend life. OK, so 800 years raises some other complicated existential questions, but 100 years? Why wouldn't you want to live 100 years, under the condition that you're relatively healthy and self-supporting at that age? I mean, all we've got that we can possibly comprehend for now is life. I'm not saying there isn't anything beyond--who knows, I sure don't--but we can't even begin to understand that. What we're holding now is all we've got. It's not like you could say, "Eh, who wants to live? I've got better things to do!"
Perhaps, but if we lived 800 years I think we wouldn't be so rushed to get things done.
Valid point, and I considered that as well. But I think the percentage of "true geniuses" is probably pretty low. Just imagine, we could be watching Rocky 27 right now.
Pong FTW!
Valid point, and I considered that as well. But I think the percentage of "true geniuses" is probably pretty low. Just imagine, we could be watching Rocky 27 right now.
But with "true geniuses" living longer there's a better chance that the geniui of old will get to hook up with the new generations of them and teach them rather than have just the lowly "merely intelligent" people trying to teach the geniui.
And with enough time even the "moderately intelligent" will have more time to build on their own work once they manage to grasp the work of the geniui.
Pong FTW!
Don't recall ever playing Pong on it but the B&W did get hooked to the Atari 2600 fairly often.
You would need to work damn hard in your first 50 years because once you reach retirement age of 65 your pension is going to have to stretch a long fecking way!
Be able to watch major advances in technology and possibly have the opportunity to populate another planet would be pretty cool though.
Be able to watch major advances in technology and possibly have the opportunity to populate another planet would be pretty cool though.
I would love to live for hundreds of years. I do see the potential problems, but I'm all for it.
As for overpopulation, I think that China has the right idea with their 'one child policy', and similar rules (but maybe 2 children maximum) should be implemented across the western world. Also, I think euthanasia should be made legal. Maybe prices of this new theoretical life length enhancing technique will be kept artificially high in order to limit the numbers of people using it (assuming it is possible to begin with).
I truly believe that the first person who will see their 500th birthday is alive today.
As for overpopulation, I think that China has the right idea with their 'one child policy', and similar rules (but maybe 2 children maximum) should be implemented across the western world. Also, I think euthanasia should be made legal. Maybe prices of this new theoretical life length enhancing technique will be kept artificially high in order to limit the numbers of people using it (assuming it is possible to begin with).
I truly believe that the first person who will see their 500th birthday is alive today.
Didn't China's one child policy involve collective distribution of food so that the community would ostracize families with more than one child because they reduced rations for the entire community?
What's the price we'll pay for "progress," I wonder.
I believe in just under 75 years, society as a whole is going to collapse. big time. I don't want to be around to live through that. (Although at least for me, that raises the question of whether or not I should have kids, considering they'd have to deal with it)
And I'll be damned if I live to be 90. Somethings gonna take me away before that.(At least I hope)
And I'll be damned if I live to be 90. Somethings gonna take me away before that.(At least I hope)
On what basis? We've weathered a fair bit. The grimness of history is the province of optimists.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who considered the potential of space travel, and eventual impregnation of aliens on foreign planets.
I dig accents.
woo! 700++ more macworld keynotes for me and a higher chance to finally see an alien!
friendly ones of course.
friendly ones of course.
No kidding. I for one certainly don't want the poor living longer than they already do.
Well there would most likely be a whole new list of capital crimes to help cut down on stuff like that. Maybe it becomes a capital offense to exceed retirement age. Work until quitting time and then off with your head, sort of like it is out there in the back pasture right now for the rabbits and foxes.
Sheesh, I'm scarin' myself! I'm off for a cup of tea heavy on the milk and a half hour with the works of some presumably dead composers from a mere 400 years ago..