Slashdot Mirror

Sure, there are a lot of possibilities. But many transhumanists (including Kurzweil) are very propertarian libertarian and push patents and copyrights and expanding mainstream economics as the way to reach a singularity, without considering there are, as you say, many alternatives. Example:
    "Kurzweil patents A.I. poetry"
    http://www.imminst.org/forum/topic/15032-kurzweil-patents-ai-poetry/

If the future is so abundant, why focus on creating artificial scarcity right now?

So, I guess our AIs aren't going to be able to be poets for a long time... And there will be follow-on patents and then endless copyrights on top of that.

This is sad as poetry may be central to intelligence and knowledge management, as I suggested over a decade ago here:
    "[unrev-II] Poetry and Knowledge Management (was Jack's Use Case)"
    http://dougengelbart.org/colloquium/forum/discussion/1881.html

You'll catch a lot of flack for wanting to live a very very long time. Ignore it. There are others out there too.

You might be interested in the immortality institute and the Methuselah project. Links gratuitously provided...
http://www.imminst.org/
http://www.mprize.org/

Finally, if the current pace of scientific development isn't quite fast enough:
http://www.cryonics.org/

In my humble opinion, dying is severely overrated and should be put off for a rainy day in the far far future.

The simulation argument paper proposes a philosophical argument about this sort of thing. The consequences that they come up with are pretty interesting. Of course, there are arguments against such a configuration of the universe as well...

You could test the effects of certain substances on lifespan of C. Elegans, fruitflies, mice, etc. There's way too little interest from the big guys testing whether substances extend lifespan.

http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=21310

http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=what_you_can_do

All this brain interface stuff is a dead end direction for amputees. Put the focus on stem cell limb regeneration. The US Army is behind it because it will be cheaper than wheelchairs and veteran's hospitals. http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=26506

Sure, with the growth of computer tech and early dna sequencing nanotech, we are getting to the point where it will cost a couple of hundred bucks and take a day or so to sequence youor own geneome and find ou all the nasty things hiding there. But wait!!, the same advances will give us the ability to develop nanobots that can get inside our cells and manipulate the dna/rna and protien structures, essentially giving us the eventual ability to fix anything wrong in the cell, clean up the "gunk" that aging generates, replace old worn out dna, mitochondria etc, basiclly reverse and eliminate aging. (check out www.mprize.org www.sens.org www.longevitymeme.org http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=1 http://www.imminst.org/ also: MIT biobricks http://parts.mit.edu/registry/index.php/Main_Page

What we need is the ability to stop waging usless wars and reduce the worldwide spending of 1000 billion on war materials and take 100 million to 1 billion dollars and put it into the mprize to reverse aging in mice models and then human models (we need to finance what scientists are calling for is an mahatten sized project to cure aging and eliminate cancers, diseases by getting down to the dna level and letting loose the engineers to revers engineer the human animal and fix this thing called aging. We are now getting the tools to manipulate matter at the atomic lelvel (cpu chips are a good example), we now need to open up the dna universe to hacking (see also: MIT biobricks, its like making CAD logic designs (ttl/cmos) functions at atomic dna levels!)

Well, it's actually cool that you say you don't want Nirvana. Religion is like psychotherapy, and Buddhism in particular I think, in that it's a temporary medicine for people who feel like they need something more or something's missing. And I find it interesting that nanotechnology attracts the same kind of audience (example).

I was attracted to Buddhism also, but I sensed that it was full of a lot of crap about "eightfold path" and "realms of existence" and stuff. But it eventually led me to meditation and I got a surprising little epiphany out of that. I just remembered what it felt like to have no name and less desire to influence people, and just be a guy sitting in a room. It's not like I totally lost my name and my identity... I just felt the way I always used to feel as a kid. It was cool and I got a lot out of it. But then again, I was quite desperate to get something out of it, at the time.

Someone(s) were circumventing the "censorship" (how is filtering boobies, at school, censorship?) software and the school wanted it stopped.

http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f =9&t=5102&hl=

Not exactly an authority, but the first reference I found... I first heard it said by one of the cast members on some retrospective show.

The thing everyone seems to forget, is the climate of the time this show came out. 3 channels... not 600 or so. All those cheesy "western world" and "nazi world" and "mobster world" subplots kept the folks watching that would have been completely turned off by "hard" sci-fi.

Well that sucks - second accepted submission on this topic and I get my name redacted. Grumble.

If this topic interests you, you may want to check out the following:

• The last discussion of Aubrey de Grey on Slashdot
• The Longevity Meme
• Fight Aging
• The Methuselah Foundation
• The Immortality Institute

Lots of good information and links to further resources at those sites.

First, your lifetime may end up longer than you expect right now (read up on physical immortality). Second, we've made quite a lot of progress and are starting to get along with each other. And when we can finally cure stupidity, expect this to made much much simplier.

Cochlear Implant
My mother has one of these. She is by defenition a cyborg.

There will no doubt be some interesting developments in mind-altering chemicals for altering perception. But you might want to consider the increased development of Nootropics, commonly known as 'smart drugs'. These substances are usually naturally occuring although some are chemically based. They all have extremely low to unmeasurable toxicity and they all are known to increase the cognitive function of the mind. Many are being used to prevent the further deterioration that comes with Alzheimers. Their method of action varies and some have unknown modes but their effects have been proven.

I think these will be the drugs that will be most popular with seniors... they are fast becoming that already.

Check out the forum Nootropics and Mental Enhancers for a LOT of interesting information concerning this class of substances.

caerus

It usually comes as shock to most people to find out that the overpopulation argument is totally unfounded and untrue. It goes against our intuition, after so many years of having it hammered into our heads, that the opposite is actually occuring. Birth rates are declining!

The latest statistics released on global population growth indicate that the birth rate is, far from increasing exponentially, declining world wide. Especially in developed countries we find birth rates BELOW replacement (about 2.1 children) and those countries need to actually IMPORT people to keep the numbers steady. Canada has the lowest replacement rate of 1.2. It is predicted that the population of the US will level off by the year 2050. Even Mexico has adjusted it's birth rate to around 2.5 down from 7 in recent times.

Something that people don't quite yet realize is the widespread decline in the fertility of humans. Possibly due to environmental chemicals, Europe has seen a drop in male fertility by 50% and areas in Canada are reporting similar figures. It may be that the challenge will be to keep our species ALIVE through future technolgies and children will treasured above all other treasures.

See a thread about at this and many other topics regarding the effects of extreme life-extension at

debunking the overpopulation myth

for further proof and information regarding this dangerously untrue assertion.

caerus

The first red flag went up when you have this guy saying that inside of a century you'll have people able to live 5,000 years. This article already has the faint odor of that cult that supposedly cloned a human.

A lot can happen in 50 years.. microwaves ovens, computers, space travel, eradication of world wide diseases like polio and small pox, solar power and let's not forget.. communication with the internet. I would say that given the increasing rate of discovery we are seeing it is rather short sighted to say something "won't" happen. It is more reasonable to discuss the possibilties with facts and it doesnt' take much looking around.. try..

Eurekalert.Org

for an excellent overview on discoveries in nanotech, biotech and pretty much all the sciences. Amazing stuff really...

Second red flag: Assuming that if you can extend the life of roundworms by six times you can do the same for humans. Bzzzzt

My background is in biochemistry and I have recently been studying the metabolism of C. elegans roundworms. It is a fact that the mechanisms which generate energy in ALL multi-cellular organisms use glucose as a fuel. The machinery that directs energy production in all studied organisms from yeast to WORMS to apes have VERY CLOSE parallels with humans. The parallels with mouse machinery is even closer. Perhaps drugs that interact with the energy producing proteins or these organisms may not work with humans... but do you really think it would be that long before they found one that did if they could use their discoveries with these organisms to work from. I guarantee that as soon a people are given a whiff of a healthy option to death, there won't be much that will prevent things moving forward in human applications.

Third red flag: Sure, our organs may give out. But scientists are now breeding special kinds of pigs that may be able to grow replacement hearts and lungs What, are we cars now? When an organ starts acting flaky we go down to the corner store, buy a new one, open the hood and drop it in?

Do I assume by the above comment that you disagree with heart, kidney, bone marrow and other transplants? Or is it just the idea that an animal that most people eat for breakfast that makes you squeamish? If people can eat them for food, why do they have a problem in using their 'parts' for survival. Be that as it may, current research in adult stem cells is showing that all of our body tissues likely are able to regenerate and that tweaking the appropriate swtiches will allow the repair of aging tissues.

A good recent example of this ability to use your own cells to repair the heart is:

Stem Cells and Heart Repair

In regards to your last comment... to paraphrase something I read a while ago:

"Man didn't stay within the limits of the cave...
He didn't stay within the limits on the ground..
He didn't stay within the limits of his planet...
And I doubt very much whether he will stay within the limits of his biology"

We ARE designed to evolve... we are fulfilling our 'natural' purpose in the pursuit of self-evolution as we have done since we gained the capacity of abstract thought and choice of direction. Qualities that make us uniquely 'human'. To deny the path we are on is to negate everything that we have accomplished to get us thus far.

caerus

When an article from CNN and the New York Times feature FRONT AND CENTRE stories on potentially extreme life extension,

you know there's gotta be something to it.

When the US Government's, Presidents Council on Bioethics, decides to target life-extension as 'undesirable',

you just gotta know there's something to it.

Regardless about how you feel about living forever.. and that really is a long time... there is no doubt that we are heading for longer HEALTHSPAN's. Of course, how much life is too much? Could that possibly even be a question? Should people tell you how long you should live? You can bet there'll be a lot of people putting out their opinions in what is certain to be a very interesting dialogue!

If you're interested in serious life extension...

check out these links

ImmInst.Org

LongevityMeme.Org